While folks over in the J.J. Abrams camp are revving up for the final season of LOST, there’s still something to look forward to on the horizon. News has just hit that a release date for the sequel to last May’s Star Trek has been announced…and that date is June 29th, 2012.

So before we start joining in the debate on whether the next villain should be Kahn, Klingons, The Borg, or Tribbles, realize that we still have over two years before we’ll get to “boldly go…” once more in theaters.

No word has been stated on what the plot will be, but last we heard from the cast and crew, just about everyone will be returning for the sequel (with the exception of Nimoy as Spock Prime). The film will at least be getting a prime box office slot, as it’s the weekend before Independence Day, which is primarily a hot ticket weekend for theaters.

Just think, between now and the time the film hits theaters, we’ll have already seen two Iron Man films, a Thor movie, and another six films starring Miley Cyrus. Isn’t the anticipation overwhelming??

Oh, how time flies. It feels like J.J. Abrams’  Star Trek was still hovering out in the distance, a big question mark of a concept. Now the DVD is in the hot little hands of fans, and no one can stop talking about the sequel. Oh heck, they were talking about the sequel two minutes after it premiered. Over at Sci Fi Wire, they pinned down Abrams, Damon Lindelof, and Roberto Orci to talk about Star Trek 2. While it’s being touted as being very spoiler filled, it’s really just the creators thinking out loud and seeing what’ll stick.

Abrams confirms that he will direct the sequel, despite all rumors to the contrary, and that we shouldn’t look for it to hit theaters before 2012. While they’re predictably tight-lipped, Lindelof dropped one intriguing hint as to the new film’s place in the timeline. Citing the timeline of the Bourne films as an inspiration, Lindelof suggested that a squishy LOST continuum might come into play.

“One of the things we like to do as storytellers is drop you in the middle of something. And the question that you’re asking yourself is: Where am I in relation to the last time I left these guys? Could this be something that predated even, perhaps, some of the adventures that they had in the first movie? Does it happen five years later? Is it happening two seconds later? Who knows? So we’re not going to tell you.”

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Zoe Saldana, who played Uhura in J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek, announced at Comic-Con that she believes the script for the sequel is already halfway done. Although screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and director Abrams, have been evasive about details of the sequel, SciFiWire reports that Saldana is providing fans with a much needed progress report.

“I do know that they are germinating a script,” Saldana said during a group interview to promote Avatar. “That’s what they told us a month and a half ago, which actually means—in that kind of talk it means that they’re probably halfway done with a script. They just can’t present it to anybody. But they’re very excited, and there is a lot of pressure, because now it’s like, ‘Oh, do you do The Wrath of Khan or do you do this or whatever?’”

When Star Trek reset the canon with a time-travel story device, the opportunity to revisit classic Trek missions from a fresh perspective. However, Saldana encouraged the filmmakers to avoid succumbing to any outside influence.

“I honestly told Robert, Alex and J.J. to just do what they did first, which is just to trust themselves,” Saldana continued. “By not listening to anyone, not putting any pressures on themselves, they were able to create something very beautiful and free that we still grew attached to. If that formula worked for Star Trek, then it can certainly work for this next one.”

Saldana is also confident that the romance that was beginning to develop between Uhura and Spock (Zachary Quinto) in the first movie will continue in the sequel. “I am excited to see what they’re going to do with their relationship in relation to what happened to Vulcan and what kind of responsibilities Spock is going to have in this next journey,” she said. “Not only in his personal side but in terms of he’s a race in extinction now.”

Saldana believes work will begin on Star Trek 2 next year.