Abrams, Quinto and Pine Talk Star Trek In Empire Cover Story

A couple of days ago Empire magazine released new exclusive photos from the Star Trek movie that accompanied the cover story for their new issue. Now the issue is out and it includes a lot of interesting quotes from Star Trek director JJ Abrams along with some thoughts from the new Kirk and Spock (Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto).

 

Abrams Trek is back to basics…with surprises
In the Empire article, Star Trek director JJ Abrams talks about how when he was a kid he can remember visiting the Paramount lot with his father (producer Gerald W. Abrams) and what he ‘remembers most’ was Star Trek (as Abrams was born in 1966 he most likely referring to the era when the TOS movies were in production). Abrams feels that since that time, and with the many spin-offs, the franchise has lost some of what it started with, noting:

At a certain point, Star Trek became something totally different, with just the Star Trek name slapped on it. I do appreciate some of the series that came after the original, especially The Next Generation, but The Original Series is to me what Star Trek was all about

Abrams went on in more detail about the spin-offs, saying:

When you say ‘Star Trek’, to some people it means Deep Space Nine, to others it’s Next Generation or Enterprise, or The Original Series, or the films. It’s become this kind of diffused, slightly confused title, and I don’t think people really know what Star Trek is anymore. What this movie is doing, I hope, is focusing the concept, not rethinking it. At the same time, though, anyone who thinks they have seen it all before, who thinks they know what Trek is, they’re in for a surprise when thy see this movie.

One thing Abrams specifically rejects in the current trend in ‘going dark’ like with the reboot of the Batman franchise. Instead the director notes that "If you’re going to do a Star Trek movie then you have to embrace it." One thing he specifically is embracing is Trek’s optimism, Abrams notes:

What Roddenberry was doing in The Original Series, and one of the aspects that appealed to me the most, was positing that humanity would survive, that they would thrive. We would one day not only be able to travel beyond our solar system, but people of all races and species would work together. What this movie is doing is embracing that optimism; it’s focusing on the core characters — most notably Kirk and Spock — and is telling a story of how this group, this family, comes together. We’re not simply showing the scenes that took place before the series began, though. It’s much more in-depth than that.


New Star Trek crew gets back to basics

Lessons from Star Wars
It has been widely reported that even though Abrams is a Trek fan, he considers himself more of Star Wars fan. In the Empire interview, the director makes it clear that he does not plan to do Trek what has been done to Star Wars in the last decade:

Star Wars was everything to me when I was a kid. It was this mind-expanding, visually stunning emotional ride. Like with Star Trek, though, I think the original films are what Star Wars really is. With the prequels, the video-games, the endless books and now the TV series, it’s diluted what Star Wars means in much the same way as what’s happened to Trek

However, there is one area of Star Wars that he does want to bring into Trek…more action:

Star Wars was always full of action. If I had one criticism of the original Star Trek, it’s that the show was often a lot of discussion about things that were happening and not a lot of action depicting it. That needed to change. So we looked at the ships, the feeling of battle and action and fights and all the stuff that makes a movie like this so exciting. It all needed to be done in a way that people had never seen before, and certainly never in a Star Trek movie.


Abrams to Lucas: You diluted my childhood

Pine and Quinto on Kirk and Spock
The Empire cover story also includes sidebars featuring comments from Zachary Quinto (Spock) and Chris Pine (Kirk). Here are some quotes and highlights

Quinto on what attracts him to Spock

I really relate to the duality of his perspective. I think all the things that Spock is known for — the logic versus the emotion, the human versus the alien — are at the core of his journey in this film. I think he’s less refined in his capacity to deal with them.

Pine on Kirk in the film

Kirk is the bombastic, emotional, charged, angry, vulnerable guy — he gets to show all sides at 100 per cent full throttle. He’s all over the place. To steal a line from this election, he’s a maverick.


Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto)
(click to see full-size at Empire)

Empire on newsstands
There is much more in the latest issue of Empire, which is a good thing to pick up for all Trek fans, especially collectors. The issue is out now in the UK and should be available at some newsstands in the US, Canada and elsewhere soon.

 
Click to see inside the magazine

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I’m liking everything I hear so far. Bring it on!

I’m so ready for this movie!
Once again I’ll say JJ&Co seem to “get it” and THAT is far more important to me than the eye color of an actor.

STAR TREK LIVES!

…only 189 days to go…

This movie will rock.

Quinito?

Keep it coming! This is helping with the Trek withdrawls!

This is the best stuff I’ve heard from JJ so far, and makes me anticipate the film even more.

Lol, who’s Quinito? Is that the lass that gets the heart of James T?

Every time I read what these guys have to say, I get excited. This is going to be an experience not to be forgotten. May cannot get here soon enough!!

Embracing optimism in a new Trek movie is a step in the right direction. Hopefully there won’t be too much action to where the story suffers, though. Story first, action second.

so very sad… star wars is not even sci-fi (as lucas said).
things that were certainly never seen in a star trek movie?
so it will be untypical… or rule-breaking or something like that.
triple “sad!” for that :(

Im a TOS purist but i have to say JJ has me believing that this is something well worth waiting for. crikey this is exciting.

those pictures are awesome.

Greg
UK

I don’t know. The pics look cool and all, but I really wish the uniforms would have been more TNG like.

#10 – Amen to that. IMHO that was one of the weaknesses of MI3. Yes it was the best of the franchise, but having said that it was way too much biff, bam, boom and too little plot and character.

#7–“Quinito” is the Spanish diminutive of “Quinto” I’m guessing, but then you’d have to pronounce it as “key-NEE-to.”

What worries me about this take on Kirk is that the Kirk of TOS really *wasn’t* a maverick at all. Sure, he was often flexible in his interpretation of the Prime Directive, but it wasn’t really that strictly defined back then anyway. But the only time in the show that he actually violated a direct order was in “Amok Time.” Most of the time, he was portrayed as a serious, dedicated military man with an intensely strong sense of duty. His reputation as a maverick is a creation of the movies.

What I’m hoping is that this movie shows how a young maverick Kirk learned that discipline and dedication that he manifested in TOS.

I realise the rush to be the first to print what was in the magazine, but could you check all of the spelling and put the words in that have been missed out please? :) makes it awkward to read in places.

thanks for publishing though.

you may want to take a look at

http://a728.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/126/l_6ebfc20ccfd61f4cfb761f9a976c0147.jpg

there are many more new pics of quinto and pine there!

Its great that we’re getting these new images and stuff, all in all to still keep us excited over the new movie, but I just have to ask though: when are we going to see the new Enterprise? I hope its very soon.

Found in Star Trek Movie Forum, user “Miguelito” (not me)

Yep I have a copy of Empire magazine in my hands and I’m drooling all over it…Bring on the trailer!!

Abrams talks a lot of sense, he seems to know what Star Trek is at the core – he spoke very honestly about what it is that Star Trek lacks and what Star Trek needs to get back to.

I agree that although TNG and the other spin-offs are pretty decent, the further away from the source you go, the more diluted it becomes. this is what has happened to Trek – it’s so confusing and so convoluted now that no one, not even the fans i feel, know what Star Trek really is.

as for the comments about Star Wars – i think JJ talks a lot of sense – Star Trek has always had a good solid message to it but the action has been lacking – it hasn’t really got anything to do with it being Sci-Fi or fantasy – it’s to do with how you tell a story – of any type – and the way Abrams believes his Trek story should be told is with the added action sequences, i mean this is a big budget movie now – Trek has never seen this kind of investment in it, if it wants to be something bigger it has to be bigger.

This isn’t going to be Star Wars because the action is bigger, it will be a Star Trek movie because the story will be one buried in reality and Science-Fiction, this will be a Star Trek movie, a Star Trek that people will turn around and say “now that’s how it should have been done”.

i don’t see how fans can confuse action and story.

i feel 100% with abrams, this is what i’ve been waiting for, that trip back to the root and core of trek is. it’s not about the uniforms, it’s not about how the ship looks, it’s about those essential three people, that have changed tv storytelling forever i think. i agree completely that tng lost some of what the original trek was, and evrything after tng, kind of followed in tng’s footsteps, with everything basically looking the same, with the same atmosphere, i’m certainly glad that TOS is no longer ignored as being the real trek.

17

when u say there are more pics “there”, where is “there”? u just posted a link to only 1 image…

I like the Messages we ar getting. it seems like Abrams gets it and I hope thats the case. What pine has said about Kirk in that you see everything is realy encourging and Quinto as spock with Lenorad Nimoy there to guide him will be fantastic. It’s time for may to already be here. Long Live The Empire.

“At a certain point, Star Trek became something totally different, with just the Star Trek name slapped on it.”

Kind of like what this will probably be.

“Kirk is the bombastic, emotional, charged, angry, vulnerable guy — he gets to show all sides at 100 per cent full throttle. He’s all over the place. To steal a line from this election, he’s a maverick.”

I can’t really go along with that description.

Mr Abrams,
ANY TREK IS GOOD TREK.
“diffused” MY ASS

27. ASDF

not so… I hated the first few seasons of TNG. But that is just MY opinion. Everyone has their own… including Abrams.

Lucas to direct Star Trek sequel. Fans commit mass suicides.

EMPIRE describe the spins offs quite well in the article – “TNG (the one with Patrick Stewart), DS9 (the one on the space station), Voyager (the one with the busty borg) and Enterprise (the one no one watched)”

They did similar articles for all the TNG films…and everytime they did usually devoted a page to the weirdness of Trekkies…they also used the original Kirk/Spock looking up picture as a full page in the Generations article so maybe that’s where they got the idea for the new update pic with Quinto & Pine

Their film review ratings are out of 5 stars – so far it goes like this – I ***, II ****, III ***, IV ****, V ***, VI ***, VII **, VIII ***, IX, ****, X ***

TOTAL FILM is the UKs other big magazine (not as big as EMPIRE though) and they tend to mirror what EMP does every month so maybe expect another big Trek exclusive with new pics from them in the next month or so… (if not then maybe later)

Well. I loved all the Trek Series. The best was Tos and then Tng and then Voyager and then Ds9 and then Enterprise. Though the 4th season of Enterprise was the best season and ranks up there with Tng. Ds9 was good but they did do that 1 great Episode Trials and Tribleations. That was by far the Best Episode of the newer Treks. But Tos is where it needs to be and Im glad Abrams is bringing us back to the time of Kirk and Spock.

TOS definitely embodied the spirit of Trek more than any other incarnation to me.

Exploration of space with characters living highly ethical lives, comraderie among friends and the human condition.

People still read EMPIRE magazine? Half of it is reviews of DVDs released months ago.

@25

But that is who Kirk is. He is that arrogant fellow that is just arrogant enough to save the day. Kirk is most definitely angry, hence the fistfights, emotional, yes, but not the same way bones is. kirk is the embodiment of spock and mccoy shoved into one. he carries that logic that spock has, but also carries that major human subjectiveness that mccoy has

35. Darkwing

very well put. i agree.

Heres the link to their Trek film reviews if anyones curious (made a couple of mistakes on some of the ratings in my last post)http://www.empireonline.com/search/default.asp?search=star+trek&searchtype=0 I say they are way off on some of them…

Id put them like this:
I ***, II*****, III ****, IV ****, V **, VI ****, GEN ***, FC ****, INS **, NEM **

#27:

Whaaaa?

“ANY” Trek?

No way dude. Star Trek was good some of the time. TNG was barely tolerable what with the hatefully clean-cut, fuzzy-wuzzy 2D characters and the technobabble gibberish that passed for plot. DS9 was ok. Voyager was TERRIBLE in every way a TV show can be terrible. Enterprise was ok…if only because it had the hottest chick in any of the Star Trek shows.

It sounds like Abrams recognizes that Star Trek has both awesome and retarded elements, and is attempting to keep the cool stuff while ignoring the stupidity – and that is good.

When is te trailer coming out ? cus bond is out in the uk already and heard a rumour it may be attatched or is that for the us

38 – Whereas I am not so negative in my review of the Star Trek spinoff series, I agree that Star Trek could do with some polish.

37-

Hoshi was hot, wasn’t she? ;-)

Ok, was 37, now 36 nephron

I love all the Trek series, DS9 and ENT are my big favourites. And although I would love to see some more 24th Century adventures I am starting to feel that going back to the 23rd Century may be the best thing for the franchise, and the phrase “more in depth” has made me very very very HAPPY!

Is there a reason why they are making Spock look like a hermaphrodite in all thes publicity photos?

To the mainstream public there was really only TOS and Next Generation. Only Trekkers and Trekkies ever watched DS9, Voyager or Enterprise. To ignore them is the best step Abrams can take…

Wow, so I was censored for riffing on the ‘Maverick’ line.

Hopefully Anthony can stop censoring political speech when this election is over, because [a] censorship is not in keeping with IDIC and [b] Star Trek is, was and always will be political.

Strange that Chris Pine can be quoted likening Kirk to McCain’s Maverick image, but we can’t comment on that.

re:33. Darkwing – October 30, 2008

He may have become angry at times, like anyone, but I would hardly describe him as “angry”.

Of course I’m sure Abrams is talking about the “new” Kirk anyway, which doesn’t really count.

ONE THING ABRAMS HAS TO REMEMBER, THOUGH…

…the TOS episodes, at least, were less action-oriented due to 1960’s TV budget constraints (at least in terms of space battles and special effects), so I’d like to think that actually helped the writers focus more on the stories, dialogue and character, much like how Spielberg had to focus on the three main leads in JAWS because the shark wouldn’t work.

The TOS movies had more than enough action, IMHO. They struck a nice balance between character and ILM bells-and-whistles. Hope they don’t go overboard TOO much action in TREK XI, much like that TRANSFORMERS monstrosity…

44. Jeffries Tuber – October 30, 2008
Wow, so I was censored for riffing on the ‘Maverick’ line

No, I think you were censored for what you called the language you used.

Where’s Nimoy?

“but The Original Series is to me what Star Trek was all about”

YES!!!!

:-)

Vic

One thing I’d like to comment on. The original series and the first 6 movies were about the Trio- meaning Kirk, Spock, and Doctor McCoy. Since when did it become a duo only? It was always about the three, not two.