A Brief Guide to Star Trek (42 page)

The most prominent candidate to inherit William Shatner’s role as the captain of the
Enterprise
was Matt Damon, who met with J. J. Abrams to discuss the role. Deciding that Damon was too old for the role of Kirk as written, the pair discussed having him play Kirk’s father in the opening section of the film, a part that Damon turned down and went to
Thor
’s Chris Hemsworth instead. The new Captain Kirk was to be played by Chris Pine, then best known for romantic comedies like
The Princess Diaries 2
(2004) and
Just My Luck
(2006). Abrams had not seen Pine’s initial audition for the part (a performance Pine had described as being awful), so re-auditioned him alongside Quinto (by now already cast as Spock). Quinto and Pine already knew each other as they frequented the same Los Angeles gym. Having
won the role, Pine sought (and obtained) the approval of Shatner, and then immersed himself in studying
Star Trek
history. He finally gave up researching and watching old episodes, as he feared his performance would become an imitation of Shatner’s when what he wanted to do was explore Kirk’s ‘humour, arrogance and decisiveness’, while bringing a touch of Tom Cruise and Harrison Ford to the character.

One of the last parts to be filled for the movie was the final piece in the puzzle of the central
Star Trek
trio, Dr McCoy. Among those considered for the role were Oscar-nominated Gary Sinise, who, like Damon, was eventually deemed too old for the role. Abrams chose
The Lord of the Rings
star Karl Urban, who’d previously worked with writers Orci and Kurtzman on the TV series
Xena: Warrior Princess
. Urban had been a fan of
Star Trek
all his life, setting out not to provide a ‘carbon copy’ of DeForest Kelley’s McCoy but instead to honour Kelley while ‘bringing something new to the table’. For Abrams, Urban was a man of previously hidden talents: ‘Karl Urban surprised the hell out of me by coming in and being crazy good and funny in a way I never thought or knew he could do and blew my mind. He is far more versatile than anyone knows.’

The second tier of characters was filled by a range of actors, including Zoe Saldana as Uhura (she’d never seen
The Original Series
, although her mother was a fan, and the actress had played a
Trek
fan in
The Terminal
(2004)); English writer–actor Simon Pegg as Scotty (who based his Scottish accent on that of his Glaswegian wife); Asian-American John Cho as Japanese Sulu (his casting was approved of by George Takei as he said Sulu represented all of Asia on the
Enterprise
); and Anton Yelchin as Russian Pavel Chekov (whose character hadn’t appeared on the
Enterprise
until the second year of
The Original Series
). The villain of the piece was Romulan Nero, played by Eric Bana heavily disguised under a series of facial tattoos.

Star Trek
opens with the Federation starship USS
Kelvin
investigating a ‘lightning storm’ in space. The vessel comes under attack by the Romulan mining ship Narada, which
emerges from the spacial disturbance. During the battle, first officer George Kirk replaces the dead captain, evacuates the ship and loses his life taking the ship on a collision course with the Narada, just as his son – James Kirk – is born aboard an escaping shuttle.

Years later, troubled Jim Kirk joins Starfleet at the urging of Captain Pike, who challenges him to live up to the example set by his father. Kirk falls in with half-human, half-Vulcan Spock, cantankerous medical man McCoy and languages specialist Uhura. A distress signal sees an under-prepared
Enterprise
, led by Pike, embark on a mission to investigate a new space ‘lightning storm’. Recognising the phenomena from the time of his birth, Kirk finds his way onto the ship. The
Enterprise
discovers the Romulan ship attacking Vulcan. The planet is destroyed, killing most of the population, including Spock’s mother. An argument sees Kirk marooned on Delta Vega, where he encounters Spock Prime. Both he and the Narada have travelled from the future, where Nero’s planet Romulus was destroyed before Spock could prevent a supernova. Blaming Spock and the Federation, Nero is out to change the future and save his planet. Picking up Scotty, Kirk returns to the
Enterprise
, takes command and with Spock’s help attacks the Narada and defeats Nero. Kirk is unexpectedly promoted to captain of the
Enterprise
, and he, Spock, McCoy and the rest of the crew are ready for new adventures . . .

Shooting on the movie – under the dummy title
Corporate Headquarters
– took place between November 2007 and March 2008, with J. J. Abrams taking up the option to direct as well as produce (
Spider-Man
’s Sam Raimi had been considered by Paramount as a possible alternative director). Designing a new
Enterprise
for the twenty-first century proved a challenge. Abrams appointed Scott Chambliss, his production designer on
Alias
and
Mission: Impossible III
, to envision the new starship. Given that so much modern technology had apparently either been inspired or influenced by that depicted on
The Original Series
– such as mobile phones, computers and iPads – it was
going to be difficult to come up with a new idea for the future of the twenty-third century while still staying true to 1960s
Star Trek
. New communicators were designed with the help of mobile phone manufacturer Nokia, while medical tricorders were made smaller and more portable and the phasers were designed with revolving barrels that could switch from ‘stun’ to ‘kill’ settings.

The biggest challenge was the bridge of the
Enterprise
. While the original layout was retained, the whole space had a brighter, whiter feel, drawing inspiration from the 1968 Stanley Kubrick film
2001: A Space Odyssey
and modern high-tech retail environments, like the Apple stores. This new
Enterprise
bridge was built on gimbals, meaning that when the ship was attacked the actors would not have to try so hard to fake being thrown from side to side, as had often been the case on the
Star Trek
TV shows. The ship’s engine room had a very different feel, being filmed in a real Budweiser factory in Van Nuys rather than built from scratch in a studio. The film was shot on a variety of locations in and around Los Angeles, but one of the main ones was the infamous Vasquez Rocks formation featured in several episodes of
The Original Series
(‘Shore Leave’, ‘Arena’, ‘The Alternative Factor’, ‘Friday’s Child’) as well as episodes of
The Next Generation
,
Voyager
and
Enterprise
, and also
Star Trek VI: The Voyage Home
. The jutting rock formation has become known as ‘Kirk’s Rock’, thanks to this frequent use, and was featured in the movie as Spock’s home planet of Vulcan.

Wrapping on the film, Abrams told
Empire
, ‘I’ve come to know these characters through working on this movie, and I’ve come to understand what the world of
Star Trek
is. It’s not so much that I feel that I’ve bought into a pre-existing world as much as I’ve come to know and appreciate personalities and history I didn’t even remember. The [TV] series just assumed you cared, but I never felt that until now.’

Although originally intended for release on Christmas Day 2008, J. J. Abrams’
Star Trek
was delayed until 8 May 2009 as Paramount believed the film would find a larger audience during
the summer blockbuster season than the Christmas holiday period. It was a reflection of the wider appeal the studio executives believed Abrams and his team had brought to the reinvented
Star Trek
.

The first public screening was a surprise sneak peek at the Alamo Drafthouse theatre in Austin, Texas on 6 April 2009. Billed as a screening of
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
with a ten-minute preview of the new
Star Trek
movie, the print of the earlier film appeared to melt after a few minutes, followed by an appearance by Leonard Nimoy, who asked the audience if they wouldn’t rather see the new
Star Trek
movie. The official premiere of the film took place at the Sydney Opera House on 7 April. Following a request from astronaut Michael R. Barrett, the movie was uploaded to the International Space Station for a screening on 14 May.

Star Trek
took $4 million at the US box office on its opening day, clocking up a total opening weekend figure of $79.2 million in the US and another $35.5 million internationally. The film topped
First Contact
as the biggest opening
Star Trek
movie and would go on to become the highest grossing
Star Trek
film to that date, with an overall US box office take of $257.7 million (making it the seventh highest grossing film of 2009 and beating
The Voyage Home
’s $109.7 million). International takings of $127.7 million brought the overall worldwide total to $385.5 million.

The reviews for the new
Star Trek
movie were hugely positive, with the film having largely succeeded in the tricky task of bringing a new audience to the classic
Star Trek
characters of Kirk, Spock and McCoy, while also pleasing the majority of the franchise’s long-term fans.
Entertainment Weekly
called J. J. Abrams’
Star Trek
‘clever and infectious’, while the
Boston Globe
dubbed the movie ‘ridiculously satisfying’. While most critics accepted the new film in the style of a Hollywood summer blockbuster, the
Chicago Sun-Times
’ Roger Ebert worried that Gene Roddenberry’s more thoughtful
Star Trek
had ‘been replaced by stories reduced to loud and colourful action’. Some
reviewers came to the conclusion that this reintroduction to
Star Trek
lacked some of the ideas-driven narratives that had frequently been featured in the best TV episodes and films in
Star Trek
’s past. Many held out the hope that free of the need to relaunch the concept, any sequel films would be better able to introduce an element of the cerebral
Star Trek
so central to Gene Roddenberry’s original conception of the show.

Among the strong points of J. J. Abrams’
Star Trek
was the emotional core in the relationship between Kirk and Spock. Kirk has a strong personal reason for tackling Nero and his Romulan band: they were responsible for the death of his father on the USS
Kelvin
. Having been born into conflict, Kirk has grown up with a huge challenge hanging over him – could he ever live up to the example set by his father? It’s what Pike uses to lure Kirk into signing up with Starfleet. Of course, Nero’s presence in this universe is due to the activities of Spock Prime in the original
Star Trek
universe.

Spock faces a similar series of emotional challenges. His home world is attacked by Nero in revenge for Spock Prime’s failure. Attempting to rescue several Vulcan leaders, Spock witnesses the death of his mother as the planet is vaporised. As seen in the young Spock scenes, the Vulcan has long struggled with his human emotions, so the loss of his human mother further complicates his struggle between logic and emotion.

Kirk and Spock are connected by more than just being in Starfleet, and finding themselves aboard the
Enterprise
at a moment of crisis. They’ve both lost parents in violent incidents, and both parental deaths were caused by the same antagonist: Nero. Spock’s role is to counterbalance Kirk’s rash nature and over-emotional involvement in events, while Kirk’s passion serves to temper the Vulcan’s cold logic and allows him to see the value of human feelings. It is only through pushing Spock to display his anger that Kirk gains the captaincy of the
Enterprise
at the crucial moment. It all faithfully harks back to the positioning of the original characters in
The Original Series
along an emotional continuum.

Both characters have older mentors who guide them in their actions: Pike for Kirk and Spock Prime for both Kirk and Spock – they are both essentially surrogate parental figures. The third wheel – Dr McCoy – is an enabler for both characters. It is McCoy who brings Kirk aboard the
Enterprise
, a ship he is not supposed to be on, but it is also McCoy who challenges some of Kirk’s planned actions.

These characters and the emotional connections between them were wrapped up in a cracking plot that was simple for audiences to understand and engage with, with a series of action set-pieces (the opening battle, an assault on a drilling platform, an attack on Nero’s ship) that impressed more casual viewers. While the movie set out to appeal to non-
Star Trek
fans, it was equally loaded with touchstones that reached out to fans of all of
Star Trek
’s previous incarnations. The use of Vasquez Rocks was a prominent visual shout-out to
The Original Series
, but there were many more, covering much of the
Star Trek
canon. During the opening bar fight, Kirk uses a bottle of Saurian Brandy as a weapon. The Kobayashi Maru test sequence (lifted from
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
) sees Kirk eating an apple, something Shatner’s Kirk is seen doing in
The Wrath of Khan
when he confesses how he beat the same test – although this apparently came about as Pine simply happened to be eating the apple during a break in filming. There are other
Khan
references, such as Spock quoting Sherlock Holmes and Spock Prime telling Kirk he ‘has been and always shall be’ his friend. Sulu was able to put his fencing training into practice during the assault on the mining rig – he was also seen displaying his fencing skills in the early
Star Trek
episode ‘The Naked Time’. The same sequence sees the unfortunate Chief Engineer Olsen wear a red-tinged space suit, dooming him to die during the fight (a necessary event, so Scotty can take over). A tribble even turns up, purring contentedly in Scotty’s workshop. And there’s some love for Porthos, Captain Archer’s dog in
Enterprise
, when Scotty references ‘Admiral Archer’s beagle’ as an unfortunate victim of a transporter prank. By the film’s finale, Pike is
confined to a wheelchair; however, it is not as high-tech (nor is he as disfigured) as his counterpart in the two-part
The Original Series
episode ‘The Menagerie’. Most of these references would have been unnoticed by the majority of casual viewers – many of whom were content with the big character moments reinforcing the idea that this Kirk, Spock and McCoy were the same as those they recalled. That audience was happy just to hear the well-worn catchphrases and character comments, such as Scotty’s ‘I’m giving it all she’s got’, McCoy’s ‘I’m a doctor, not a physicist’ and his ‘Are you out of your Vulcan mind?’ However, for fans of the series, these little in-jokes and throwaway moments showed a reverence (and knowledge) of the long-running
Star Trek
franchise on the part of those who’d made the 2009 movie.