I thought we had reached the full extent of Star Trek casting news yesterday, when a pretty unknown actress was announced as a transporter chief. Apparently that wasn’t the end though, as today an eleven-year-old actor has been added to the Star Trek film. At least he’s playing a part you’ve heard of, though. No, he’s not a new version of the aliens from “The Corbomite Maneuver” (frankly, Clint Howard just can’t be replaced). Instead young Jimmy Bennett has been cast as a young version of James T. Kirk, according to Coming Soon.

I knew that we were going to see old Spock and a much younger version of the character in the same movie, courtesy of some time travel plot device that hasn’t been fully disclosed, but a pre-teen Kirk is a lot younger than any of us really need to see the Star Trek character. Think about it – seeing a similarly aged Darth Vader in the prequels didn’t exactly do wonders for the Sith lord’s image. Unless young Kirk is also adept at picking up space babes, why would we possibly need to see the character at this stage of development?

At least Bennett is somewhat of a known commodity. The young actor has already appeared in quite a few films, including Hostage, Evan Almighty, and The Amityville Horror. Still, I can’t help but hope this is the last big piece of casting news to come from the Trek movie, short of possibly tacking on the real Kirk, William Shatner, to give us the full spectrum of the character’s life.