LOS ANGELES – J.J. Abrams is the perfect audience for my anecdote about getting a couple of Storm Troopers to do Vulcan salutes at a Star Wars promotion – a gag that drew immediate ire from studio reps.

“That’s hysterical!” says Abrams, whose fingerprints are all over both the Disney-owned Star Wars and Paramount-owned Star Trek franchises these days, and who gave a Canadian print exclusive to Postmedia Network about Star Trek Beyond.

“It’s a funny story. But the stakes are so high on these things, you can also kind of understand when things get extreme.”

I point out to Abrams that his press kit bio for Star Trek Beyond includes only two brief mentions of last year’s Star Wars: The Force Awakens — the fastest film to earn $1 billion in film history — one of which is tucked into a c.v. list between his TV series Lost and Fringe.

“That’s funny too,” he says.

So how can we expect peace between countries when the companies that own the Coke and Pepsi of science fiction can barely acknowledge each other’s existence?

“I don’t quite agree with that (Coke and Pepsi) analogy, but I know what you mean,” says Abrams, who continues to produce the Star Trek reboot series and is executive producer of the upcoming Star Wars: Episode VIII.

“I actually did for a minute a couple of years ago feel like, ‘Will it be hard to keep them straight? Will I slip? Will I say one when I mean the other?’”

President Obama did as much, once referring to his inability to apply a “Jedi mind meld” on Congress.

“Yes, Obama did it. I think it’s because in a Venn diagram of people who like Star Trek and Star Wars, there is some overlap.

“But they feel incredibly different to me – and not just because the stories are so different and the worlds are different, or because they’re two separate studios and I work with different people.”

Star Trek Beyond is enjoying positive buzz from the people who’ve seen it early. Lin (Fast and Furious) is a Trekker from childhood, as is Simon Pegg (Scotty) who did double duty as a co-writer.

The plot — in which an alien attack forces the crew of the Enterprise to abandon ship and pair up in various combinations — is awash in insight into the chemistry between characters like Spock (Zachary Quinto) and McCoy (Karl Urban), and Kirk (Chris Pine) and Chekov (the late Anton Yelchin).

Of course, Abrams would never admit to having a favoured child between the Federation and Empire. “I would say Justin was more of a Star Trek fan growing up. Having worked on the movies, I’ve fallen in love with the characters in a way I never engaged as a kid. He did.”

More effusively, he says that when he was working on The Force Awakens and watching the dailies from Star Trek Beyond, “ I felt a sort of odd fatherly pride that these people I adore got to push the envelope in ways that I wouldn’t and couldn’t. The fact that Justin cared so long and so deeply about Trek, you could just see him putting that passion into the scenes.”

More insights from our conversation with Abrams:

-You are probably never going to see William Shatner show up in Abrams’ Trek movies, a la Leonard Nimoy. “Obviously it’s Star Trek, nearly anything is possible. There’s the fairly simple notion that on the day Kirk was born another timeline began. But in the other timeline, Kirk died onscreen (in Generations). I don’t know how he would come back unless we went into this other reality and we did a timeline and reality jump.

“In all the years we’ve been working on this, I've yet to hear a pitch that didn’t sound too contorted and contrived for an audience to swallow. And I’ve talked to him (Shatner) about it. If Kirk had lived there’d be an answer. But there’s something about his having died that makes it impossible.”

-With X-Files and Twin Peaks being rebooted, Abrams is getting pressure from the networks to revive earlier work. “I know that in the halls of ABC, the idea is to look at Alias again. Whether it happens remains to be seen.” There’s been some mention of Lost, he says, “but Lost feels to me like such a one-off experience, I don’t think you reboot that show.” But he adds, “I actually don’t know if I have the hammer,” on whether it gets revived.

-Don’t expect Abrams to return to the director’s chair for either a Star Trek or Star Wars film anytime soon. “The truth is I feel I’ve inadvertently made three movies that are sequels to things. I’m long overdue for something original.”

Star Trek Beyond opens in theatres this Friday.

Twitter: @jimslotek

JSlotek@postmedia.com