Zoe Saldana's Avatar is Uhura!

By Matt Holmes / June 25, 2011

pesky sources close to production on movies turn out to be right on the money. At the back end of last month, we posted a rumor that Zoe Saldana one of the stars of James Cameron's upcoming sci-fi epic Avatar was close to signing on for the role of the ship's feisty communicator Uhura in Star Trek. Now it's been confirmed through Variety that she has indeed nabbed the role made famous by Nichelle Nichols thirty five years. Saldana is proving to be one of the biggest upcoming and coming actresses' in the business and with Avatar and now Trek, she's got two huge sci-fi movies, both of which she has signed up for potential sequels. She also has a role in the thriller Vantage Point and geeks all over the world will remember her as the Trekkie receptionist in The Terminal, a nice bridge to her actually being cast in franchise. Good choice then, although I will admit she is very innocent looking but I guess this is the early days of their Enterprise missions. She should look pretty good with that headset and short skirts on and she has a really warm presence on screen. So this is the first casting we have heard for a few weeks now as the November start date vastly approaches. We have two Spock's (Zachary Quinto & Leonard Nimoy), a Chekov (Anton Yelchin) and now an Uhura (Zoe Saldana). I really hope they put another female in the main crew, just to balance the male/female dichotomy. I always said Chekov's role should have gone to a women in this one but there's always a chance Abrams will just write a new character into the mix.