Then again, "lasers in scifi" is a retro thing, and retro is cool. Else why bother remake TOS on the big screen in the first place?
Of course, to be sure, Pike's starship probably had phasers, too, not lasers. His sidearm was the only thing ever called "laser", and I really wouldn't mind them giving the STXI heroes a sidearm type we have never seen before. It can be a phaser, it can be a laser, it can be a taser or a plasma slilng or a slugthrower for all I care. But the odds are, or at least I'm hoping so, it won't be any closer a match to the TOS phasers visually than the shuttle and uniforms so far glimpsed are.
Visual variation on sidearms, uniforms and shuttles would certainly be consistent with other Trek... And one would expect the sidearms to be the obvious merchandise item, so making them as unique-looking as possible would be a marketing goal. And in theory, it might be a good idea to attract attention to this merchandise by making the sidearms "controversial", conceptually different from what William Shatner pretended to fight with. So perhaps calling them lasers wouldn't be that bad a choice...
Timo Saloniemi
