EXCLUSIVE: Report From Berlin Star Trek Gala w/ Pictures April 16, 2009
by Thorsten Wulff , Filed under: Marketing/Promotion,Star Trek (2009 film) , trackback
Today the Star Trek Roadshow arrived in Berlin, Germany. The gala premiere with a blue carpet was held at the Sony Center at the Potsdamer Platz. TrekMovie was there and has a report and pictures from the event. Plus a ‘mini-review’ of the German dub of Star Trek.
Star Trek comes to Germany
Earlier today Paramount held a press conference (a full report on that tomorrow). J.J. Abrams brought John Cho, Zoe Zaldana. Zach Quinto, Bryan Burke, Chris Pine, Eric Bana, Karl Urban and this time even Simon Pegg along. The crew was relaxed and in a very good mood, and there was no trace of fatigue nine days after Sydney, and with trips in open Apache helicopters over the desert in Kuwait.
After the press conference it was off to the premiere. This image gives you a panorama of the Berlin Star Trek gala premiere.
Panorama of Berlin Gala Star Trek Premiere (click to enlarge)
‘Blue Carpet’ Photos
Once they hit the premiere with the giant Star Trek logo and blue carpet, the crew signed posters and magazine spreads for the fans and talked to assorted media teams. Karl Urban has German roots and speaks pretty well (enough to make fun of John Cho). A group of German fans appeared in Uniform, two of the in TWOK style and one in TNG era outfit. J.J. signed that one.
Click images to enlarge
Chris Pine
Chris Pine
John Cho
JJ Abrams signs a fan’s TNG shirt
JJ Abrams talks to the press
JJ signs for Nacelles Monthly!
I had a very nice moment on the ‘blue carpet’ with JJ Abrams. As the German media handlers were whisking him by I yelled out "hey JJ it is Thorsten from Nacelles Monthly"…that stopped him in his tracks and he came right over laughing. I gave him a Playmates Phaser toy, which was handed out during the press conference, and he signed it. What more could I ask for!
Abrams signed Phaser
Mini-review of German version of Star Trek [no spoilers]
Also JJ Abrams presented the movie itself, already in it’s German dubbed version. I loved it. Pure Trek, living up to it’s promise. Great character moments, awesome action sequences, funny and tragic moments in the right mix. Two Thumbs up! By the way, Bones is still called "Pill" in Germany, just like in TOS 1972.
More to come from Germany
Tomorrow TrekMovie will have a full report on the Berlin press conference. Until then, there is a brief summary and some video at 3news.co.nz.
All images by Thorsten Wulff
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Comments
First? Nah, that AICN crap.
Looking forward to reading another perspective on this movie.
Wow, awsome stuff.
AWESOME!
Still kicking myself that this is Star Trek being given the red (and blue) carpet treatment!
I studied as a student in Berlin. In all my days there, I never thought I’d see Potsdamer Platz go Trek!
Spraken De Star Trek!
thank you so much thorsten and look forward to your second report. City by City, Trekmovie is following JJ Abrams and his team around the globe.
Look forward to reports from Spain, London and of course Los Angeles! (why am I last?)
^How many of us are there ?
Wish I could have been there.
J.J. stopped when he heard “Nacelles Monthly.” I love it!
AWESOME!
JJ is a big fan of Nacelles Monthly…he was quite impressed with Thorstens work on that (and Tobias’)…those Germans are very talented
Ich habe ‘Raumschiff Enterprise’ gern!
Look at the size of the deltas… I want one :p
Just wanted to say thanks to Thorsten for the coverage of this stop of the tour, and WOW, those are awesome, artistic photos from the event. :)
“By the way, Bones is still called “Pill” in Germany, just like in TOS 1972.”
That was a good decision. Pille sounds much better than Knochen.
Phasers for free?! Did someone take two and can send me one? :D
Great report Thorsten and both your and TrekMovie’s review of the new film have reassured me that this will be a great STAR TREK film as well as a great action film, so thanks for that. I’m really, really excited to see this film and I’ll be dragging my whole family along to see it too. May 8th can’t get here soon enough.
#15 (Mel): Right. It does sound better. But I’ve read that the film contains a specific explanation why McCoy is called “Bones”. So the translators have to invent an alternative for “Pille”. Wonder what that will be. ?)
PS: Why didn’t they call him “Rippe”? ;D Or “Elle”… ;)
@ 18
They will come up with something. I mean they managed to explain the fight in Amok Time away as a fever hallucination caused by a normal space illness and changed thanksgiving to Easter in Charlie X. To explain why McCoy’s nickname is Pille, will be a piece of cake. ;-)
And I guess they chose Pille instead of a body part because it sounds less “barbaric” and everyone associate pills with doctors. :-)
Auf Deutsch, Star Trek ist bekannt als Raumschiff Enterprise, ja? Wann ich in Deutschland war, habe ich es in die “TV guide” gesucht, aber ich konnte es nie sehen. Schade.
LOL, man, my German has gotten rusty.
Danke Thorsten! Great report.
Great report! Thanks Thorsten!
And Latin America????????????????????
And Latin America????????????????????
And Latin America????????????????????
dang it, I speak german! Required learning in a totally Mennonite community. Not german, though. Not that I know, anyway.
Fantastic report. The reach of TrekMovie.com knows no bounds. Thanks, Thorsten.
Nacelles Monthly strikes again!
That is awesome, Thorsten. Great article, and congratulations on the autograph!
Thanks for the report Thorsten, love that you stopped JJ in his tracks with mention of ‘Nacelles Monthly’ haha.
Thorsten:
Please come over and spill the beans to us in CHAT. I’ll bring the beer.
Lucky You!
@20
Dein Deutsch ist aber sehr gut!
#18, 19
Yes, the Germans are great at messing up dubbing and subtitles. Grew up watching TOS in German – it still amazes me that I became a fan at all…;-)
I´d like to know more about the dubbing, please. How good are the voice actors they chose? What´s the computer voice like? Does it sound similar to the one we´re used to from TOS/TNG/VOY (I think the DS9 one was different somehow).
I also wonder about the translation…I hope its not in any way near the quality of the TOS translation (apparently back then the translators thought TOS was a show for kids and wrote dialogs in a flippant style that´s just NOT there in that extreme in the english version)
Danke Thorsten!
The German dubbing of Star Trek isn’t the only dubbing that turns the original product into a bit of a joke. English dubbed Japanese shows are also crappy. Thank god for subs. They are the only way to go.
Solid pics!!
Voice casting was excellent on classic Trek in german. Translation was not. But I grew up with the german voices and I was very disapointed when they changed Shatner’s voice in Star Trek II. With Trek IV it was changed back thanks to intervention by german fans (Legend has it that they wrote a letter to Leonard Nimoy after getting a very unkind reply from Paramount Germany for complaining about the bad quality of the translation of Trek III). .
#30
Well that was in the 60s. They wanted to make TOS to some kind of comedy/children’s serie so that they could show it for kids as well.
The dubbing from the movies forward is quite good, sometimes maybe a little too word by word,.
@34: Yeah…the voice casting was excellent for TOS….but I´m worried about the movie. And the translation…I hope they at least get the terminology right. I´ve once read a Star Trek novel where the warp core was called the “Wandlerkern” (transformation core). And please NO “Faehnrich” for Ensign…
OT:
Picard´s dub voice repeatedly changes in the dub version of Encounter at Farpoint on the DVD…apperantly some scenes where left out in the TV-dub and had to be dubbed for the DVD. The voice actor used in those scenes sounds totally different….it´s almost unwatchable that way.
Good morning from Berlin, everybody, thank you for the nice words.
I will write up a story about the press conference today and will talk about dubbing details later on.
Damn, I have only 300 kms from Berlin (I’m from Poznan, Poland), too bad they were showing the movie in German dub, otherwise I would really go.
Hey Guys,
I was there yesterday and I got my “Star Trek: Countdown” Comic signed by Eric Bana, John Cho, Zach Quinto and Simon Pegg. The others had no time anymore ’cause they had to go to the screening. I took some pictures but they are not so great due to my camera. In the end it was a nice evening. They all were very nice and polite.
I thought there would have been more hardcore fans with uniforms. I saw only three and in my opinion execpt of the press and media there were not so much people.
I am glad that the new Trek is getting Star Trek the attention it deserves.
It has always deserved this and glad it has finally gotten it.
Despite my disagreements over many changes from the Trek I love, this is what Star Trek needs and I hope new fans watch the original Star Trek and it;s spin offs to see what we get from show.
Although this is a new canon, at least it sounds like it has honoured Trek. I will never ever fully accept all the changes but it is still Trek.
Russel T Davies does things in Doctor Who which do not agree with how I see Doctor Who, but I still watch the show. Obviously JJ Abrams has done a few things I disagree with but I am sure this will still be a great film.
Sacrifices always seem to be made for the mainstream audience.
I use to have 400+ ST-Enterprise images from Germany (West Deuchland was the un updated location it site claimed. The PAL images looked better than the American NSTC ones. It seemed they were into image quality. I can understand some but high school classes were 35 years ago.
But they do love their Trek. Many were into Sci-Fi fantasy stuff but but Gene was able to add good enough realizm to make you believe it will come true one day. And they loved that aspect best.
I’m going to the Denver StarFeast (Star trek Convention) this week end, I wonder how good the German one was. I’m taking as gifts 10 CD’s with 404 Star Trek the Movie Images. All Rescaled to 5443x1316x24bit. Most images from here and rescaled with a Fractal Scaling Program. Then I’ll create a web site to display them on-line hopefully before the movie starts. When I get it going I’ll post the web-dress here.
Wohoo! Giant Deltas in Berlin next to a Kabel1 orange collumn :D
And it’s always funny watching my TOS DVDs and switching constantly between german and english, I so hope there will be an extra DVD sometimes, made by the original synchro crew ;)
#41: The original german “synchro crew” from the 70th is dead, with the exception of Elmar Wepper (Chekov), who turned 65 yesterday.
Sorry, I meant # 42, not #41.
Those B&W photos are eerily dramatic. They look as if they could have been taken back in the 60s. Beautiful.
Maaan, I can’t wait to see the movie xD
Unfortunately I don’t live near Berlin :(
Hey, cool, dass Bones in der deutschen Synchro wieder “Pille” genannt wird. “Knochen” klingt dann doch etwas komisch :-P
Irgendwie hab ich mir davor keine Gedanken darüber gemacht, aber jetzt wo du das in deinem Artikel erwähnst….^^
Ich kanns’ kaum erwarten in den Film zu gehen…noch ca. 1 Monat….. :O
Naja, morgen wird erstmal wieder ne Folge TOS reingezogen, d.h. es wird früh aufgestanden xD xD xD
@43 Ah crap… where’s Starfleet Medical when you need them?
Please don’t misunderstood me. In general I like the dubbed German version. I don’t think the “flippant style” of some dialogs were bad. It add to the humor in the series and was a good thing.
That they change thanksgiving to Easter in Charlie X make also perfectly sense because a lot of German viewers, especially in the 70s, wouldn’t have understand the turkeys remark, because thanksgiving isn’t celebrated in Germany.
The translation from Amok Time is an exception. This was really bad but it wasn’t the fault of those who dubbed it. Then the German television considered Star Trek primary as a series for children and they thought the theme of Amok Time inappropriate for them. In general people were more prude in Germany at that time. Today that is luckily not the case anymore. I mean no one understood for example the Janet Jackson nipple “scandal” in the USA.
So all in all I am sure the dubbed version will be good. It would have been nice if the original dubbed voices could have been used but sadly most of them are dead or at least already retired.
@ 36
I surely hope that Chekov is still a Fähnrich. How would the general German viewer know if Ensign is a high rank or not. It is just not common in Germany. At least people will know that Fähnrich is a low rank, it even sounds like it couldn’t be a high rank for all non military experts AND even more important it is the original way to translate Chekov’s rank. Everyone who has watched the classic series in Germany is used to it and expect it. It is really the same thing with Pille instead of Bones.
@49
well, but in Enterprise travis and hoshi were called Ensign and not Fähnrich. In TOS,TNG,DS9 and VOY it was always Fähnrich… I never understood why they changed it.
anyway, as soon as the movie is out on DVD, I will watch it in it´s original version. In the cinema (in Germany), unfortunately, I will have no choice but to see it in the dubbed version. I hope they come up with something good for the explanation of “Pille”.
Great photos, Thorsten!
@49 They made Chekov a lieutenant in the classic episodes. That made some sense, because the US naval rank “ensign” equals a german navy “Leutnant”. On the other hand, a US navy “lieutenant” is qite a high rank and would equala german navy “Kapitänleutnant” (for example: That was the rank of the Captain in “Das Boot”). I may be wrong, because I did not serve, being a conscientious objector and prefered to care for children with disabilities.
[...] alle die ein paar Impressionen vom gestrigen Event erhalten möchten: Trekmovie.com hat hierzu einen kleinen Bericht [...]
hi,
I’m used to “pille” and that’s fine for me :).
and i didn’t recognize that they switcht from fähnrich to ensign for ENT.
but I realy hate it when they switch the dubbing voices. so quinto has, as far as Iknow, not his heroes dubbing voice. :(
Love the photography Thorsten! A little x-processing? Gives this occasion a unique look from all the others.
I am going to Bonn to Fedcon. I hope to see it there too!
So what does everyone think of Ad Age’s article based on leaked info from Marketcast that has Trek opening at 50 million domestically?
http://adage.com/madisonandvine/arti…icle_id=136024
Not great numbers by any stretch, if it turns out this way.
@55…
good eye, IDJ, they are crossed!
And I have to admit that while we learn Chekovs age,
I can’t remember if he is called Fähnrich…
Anyone catch the French voice of Worf in the last two Next Gen films? He has a raspy little old (sounded very old) man’s voice. Real bad casting. The original cast films in French are pretty good with Spock’s voice being the best. I still love Scotty talking with a Scottish accent in French :) Cute. The only bummer is that English is pretty concise compared to French. It simply takes more words to say something in French and as a result bits of what was being said was just skipped over so they could still match up the mouth movements with the words. A universal translator would take care of all of this…
“By the way, Bones is still called “Pill” in Germany, just like in TOS 1972.”
I so hoped, that the translator would get it, that we don’t live in 1972 anymore and translation MISTAKES like that should finally be CORRECTED! Call him BONES! We’ll understand it in ‘Bones’ so we can understand it in ‘Star Trek’!
“We’ll” = “We” (sorry, hit the reply button too fast.)
NACELLE MONTHLY !!!!!
This should be the name for a new Star Trek magazine!!
Danke schön, Thorsten!
@60…
The introduction of Pilles nickname is actually quite funny and makes sense… but I don’t want to spoil you guys.
You can watch here a video about the Star Trek premiere in Berlin in German.
http://www.spiegel.de/video/video-61181.html
Tony, put this guy on regular staff if he isn’t already. That was a good piece!
@64: Thx. :D
I can understand why they kept the name… I just hoped they’d change it.
i was there, and i was so lucky to get a ticket and see the movie!!!!!!!
i am still shocked about the experience, that i can´t say anything more ….
@55 yeah dennis. but as it has been proven again and again, those numbers mean nothing. this movie will live or die on word of the mouth. and thats way paramount is doing all these premieres so early and that why they moved early shows to may 7th.
of interest may be these two links. i doubt arclight would add so many shows for star trek if there wasnt strong early interest already. and let us not forget that star trek trailer broke few records on its own.
https://www.arclightcinemas.com/ArcLight/faces/MovieDetails.jsp?movieName=STAR+TREK&movieType=ComingSoon&pageInfo=Home-Page
https://www.arclightcinemas.com/ArcLight/faces/MovieDetails.jsp?movieName=X-MEN+ORIGINS:+WOLVERINE&movieType=ComingSoon&pageInfo=Home-Page
in the end, there can be no question that its star trek here has has a major uphill climb. this movie will have to earn in us alone on opening weekend what nemesis earn in its entire worldwide run. and paramount seems to be pulling all the stops
http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/hr/content_display/news/e3iea8e9b63ae2a4f8a93f7b0a907da35d5
#69:”@55 yeah dennis. but as it has been proven again and again, those numbers mean nothing. ”
Has it? Can you link to an article that describes the track record and reliability of Marketcast (I’m not finding a lot, so far)? Because that’s really all that matters in evaluating a report like this: how close do these folks actually come? How good have their past predictions been?
the two most recent, most obvious, examples would be watchmen and fast and furious. former being grossly overestimated and latter underestimated by the entire industry.
Here you can find a few more videos of the Star Trek premiere in Berlin:
http://www.tikonline.de/top-stories/detail.php?nr=50415&rubric=Top-Stories
yay!
was there yesterday on the red capret and all i can say is that is was really really great !
zoe was smokin hot in her red dress :D
to the film: i think its a good movie, in the first our i was a bit disappointet by some weird dialogues and the very fast cut of the movie but especially when old spock comes in, the film gets better by every minute.
but for me the unexpected thing was that really everybody loved the movie. from children to celebs everybody was very exited.
so in the end i think that many hard core fans of tng trek may not like the movie so much cause the lack of slow intelligent szenes in the movie but i’m really convinced now that these movie goes huge with the normal people.
@thorsten falls du noch ein paar fotos brauchst, ich hab mich mit meiner digicam in den kreischenden reporterbulk reingequetscht und nen paar echt gute fotos bekommen.
sag einfach bescheid wenn du noch welche posten willst :)
what a day…
#71: “the two most recent, most obvious, examples would be watchmen and fast and furious. former being grossly overestimated and latter underestimated by the entire industry.”
What was Marketcast’s predictions for those two movies?
“…trips in open Apache helicopters over the desert in Kuwait.” No way.
Good report. I love the Germans. I’m part German….way back.
And…Bones is called “Pill” ? Didn’t know that. I knew they called Gary Seven Felix Seiben instead.
Not a lot of love at BoxOfficeProphets either:
http://www.boxofficeprophets.com/column/index.cfm?columnID=11526&cmin=10&columnpage=2
#74 Clearly Marketcast has poor interviewers. Asking about Star Trek in general on their surveys, rather than talking about a new movie with Chris Pine, Zach Quinto, Simon Pegg and John Cho.
I’ve got a market sample of 4 teenagers and a 20 y.o. daughter. All of them are wanting to see the film, not because they’re Trek fans, but because they like Cho (because of H&K), Pegg because of everything he’s done, Quinto (because of Heroes), and Pine because they liked him in Princess Diaries II.
That’s where their market errors lie. They’re not getting a good cross section of the potential viewing audience. They’re making the same general mistakes made the summer Star Wars came out. People knew it would do okay, but not to the degree it ended up doing! It’s classically studied in case studies in Marketing classes.
Marketcast’s predictions for Watchmen were rosy. For Fast & Furious, it was forecast to do poorly. Both predictions were wrong.
I think they’ve got it Exactly Backwards yet again.
#77 Check out Page 3 that follows the link you mentioned:
http://www.boxofficeprophets.com/column/index.cfm?columnID=11526&cmin=10&columnpage=3
Suspiciously, this reviewer Max Braden states he isn’t going to see the movie? Sounds a lot like some of the commenters here. I can’t take someone in the business seriously who claims to make predictions about a film’s success and won’t see it to inform their opinion. But note others on the same page predict a good opening, and $200 mil domestic. That would beat all the other Trek films.
#79:”Suspiciously, this reviewer Max Braden states he isn’t going to see the movie? Sounds a lot like some of the commenters here. I can’t take someone in the business seriously who claims to make predictions about a film’s success and won’t see it to inform their opinion”
Why suspicious? His job seems to be forecasting, and if his own level of interest in a project is low that’s reasonably going to affect his expectations. He’s not being paid, far as I can tell, to render a verdict on the finished film itself – say, like a reviewer – so his disinclination to see it shouldn’t make his predictions less worthy of being taken seriously.
#78:”Marketcast’s predictions for Watchmen were rosy. For Fast & Furious, it was forecast to do poorly. Both predictions were wrong.”
*That* is the kind of info I was looking for. Thanks.
Boxofficeprophets seems to lean conservative on opening weekend numbers – they called “Iron Man’s” opening at 88 million, “Fast And Furious III” at only 41.4 million and “Monsters Vs. Aliens” at 48.6 million. And they’re predicting 12 million or so less for “Wolverine” than Marketcast is.
Anybody know what NRG’s expectations are?
#79—-I would be shocked if the opening weekend didn’t surpass what the other Trek movies did, but I also think there is some validity to the notion that a sequel might do substantially more after ST09 opens the doors for more mainstream moviegoers being willing to embrace Trek.
I think that something similar took place with “Batman Begins”. Audiences had been disappointed with the more recent Batman films, and it took a little bit of “warming up” with Nolan’s first go at it…and we all know what happened with the follow-up film.
I wouldn’t expect *those* kinds of numbers, but I think the progression in box-office might be similar from the first film to the sequel.
I think ST09 is #1 on opening weekend, and then holds steady in the ‘top 3′ for about 2-3 more weeks.
I *do* think that the overwhelmingly positive reviews will come down to Earth a bit when it opens, but I admit being surprised that I have yet to hear anyone (even those who went into it ready to hate it) who has seen it give it a poor grade.
That doesn’t mean it will do great box-office—but it doesn’t hurt the chances either.
I wonder if the sequel they’ve already started planning will be given, if the movie ends up underperforming.
#83—-I suppose that would depend upon what the “actual” expectations are for it… behind closed doors.
I think Paramount will most likely be looking at Batman Begins boxoffice figures. Between 300-350 million should be enough to ensure a sequel. 150 million domestic and 150 million overseas should be well within reach.
Particularly as Paramount didn’t shell out 150 million here to begin with – they have partners on this, and who knows how those deals are structured:
http://www.edwardjayepstein.com/XrayingLaracroft.htm
#85—I don’t know if $300 million is realistic in just box-office for something subject to so many preconceived notions in the minds of mainstream moviegoers, but a respectable showing and some indication that less traditional audiences might be willing to embrace it further should be enough to guarantee a sequel, if not two.
Trek has had crossover value before, but since that time (post 1986)—what has come out of viacom has been (let’s face it) a product tailored neatly for a “geeks only” club. It’s been more than 20 years since a Star Trek movie did $109 million. That’s not an easy box to climb out of.
There’s a whole generation of moviegoers who associate Trek with “Technobabble Inc.”, and have no idea that it can be fun for more than just geeks.
The first installment can introduce these people to more accessible heroes like Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, etc. Paramount has to be looking at what they can do with 3 films—not just the one.
#29: Danke schoen! It’s been a while.
Man, I can’t wait until tickets go on sale in my area.
@ 88 Bitte sehr! Ich wohne in Portland und kann auch nicht fur 8 Mai erwarten!
The reason Abrams was hired was to take Trek and expand its audience. That’s the ONLY reason he was hired. His job is to put asses in seats. You do that by telling a compelling story with boffo effects as a secondary, assisting aspect of the film. The story and characters come first.
Marketwatch missed the point of Abrams’ intent entirely by focusing on a supposed focus on the Trek Base. That isn’t what he’s done. He’s gone past the base to the general audience, and it shows in the buzz and in the strategic planting of rumor and geek screenings to start the all-important WOMA among the teens.
Without the teens, there’s no Trek. Period. That’s why the film didn’t come out in Christmas.
[...] EXCLUSIVE: Report From Berlin Star Trek Gala w/ Pictures … [...]
[...] EXCLUSIVE: Report From Berlin Star Trek Gala w/ Pictures … [...]
[...] EXCLUSIVE: Report From Berlin Star Trek Gala w/ Pictures … [...]
[...] EXCLUSIVE: Report From Berlin Star Trek Gala w/ Pictures … [...]
[...] EXCLUSIVE: Report From Berlin Star Trek Gala w/ Pictures … [...]
[...] EXCLUSIVE: Report From Berlin Star Trek Gala w/ Pictures … [...]
[...] EXCLUSIVE: Report From Berlin Star Trek Gala w/ Pictures … [...]
[...] EXCLUSIVE: Report From Berlin Star Trek Gala w/ Pictures … [...]
[...] EXCLUSIVE: Report From Berlin Star Trek Gala w/ Pictures … [...]
[...] EXCLUSIVE: Report From Berlin Star Trek Gala w/ Pictures … [...]
[...] EXCLUSIVE: Report From Berlin Star Trek Gala w/ Pictures … [...]
[...] EXCLUSIVE: Report From Berlin Star Trek Gala w/ Pictures … [...]
[...] alle die ein paar Impressionen vom gestrigen Event erhalten möchten: Trekmovie.com hat hierzu einen kleinen Bericht [...]