Star Trek is headed into is third weekend and yet it still makes news. First off we have a new image from Ryan Church of Spock’s ship. Also JJ is talking about how he thinks they made the film a success and Bob and Alex are talking (a little) about the sequel. Plus Star Trek is back in space, on the Jimmy Fallon show and even inspiring parenting advice and more.
Church’s Jellyfish
Star Trek designer Ryan Church has updated his website with a big image of Spock’s Jellyfish, which includes what could be an early design of the Narda or possibly a Romulan missile.
Check out Spock’s ride
JJ Talks Star Trek Success
In a new interview with AICN, Star Trek director JJ Abrams talks about the success of the film and more. You should read the whole thing, but here is an excerpt:
Quint: Well, you seem to inject a lot of the adventure of a STAR WARS into the STAR TREK universe and you are also able to figure out the one way to reboot it where you kind of take away any arguments you have about bastardizing or going off canon. You were able to find a way to give yourself freedom to have fun with the movie and not be so tied.
JJ Abrams: I think that the convention of breaking away from the timeline, which just obviously gave us the freedom to tell a story that wasn’t constrained by canon, but at the same time… and the weird part is that we also had to embrace it, because that’s what we were inspired by and we had to honor it and make sure that we weren’t insulting, as much as we could, the fans of TREK.
And we knew no matter what we did, that there would be some percentage of STAR TREK fans that would hate it. We just knew that there was no way to make everyone happy and yet it was important that we try and so that was the approach. The other weird balancing act is that it was simultaneously its own thing, but it was also adhering to what has come before. It was a vision of the future that needs to work in a way that was relevant for today, but also was a vision of the future from fifty years ago, so there was a lot of bouncing back and forth. There was a brand new cast and yet it also had a character played by one of the original actors, so it was a strange backwards/forwards original piece that was also trying to adhere to what came before, so there was always this bizarre dance going on between trying to make something that was just purely its own piece and also something that was honoring and… what’s another word for it? Just being true to what had come before and that was, I guess, the biggest challenge of the movie.
More from Bob and Alex – including sequel debate
Can you get enough from Star Trek writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman? Well Newsorama has a new interview with the pair. Much of it is stuff covered before, but it is a good read. They also give an update on the sequel development:
NRAMA: At this point, with the success of Star Trek, it’s inevitable that there is going to be a sequel. What kind of discussions have you had about that and where do you see the franchise going?
Orci: We’ve had a few discussions. We are superstitious and think it’s bad luck to talk about your next project before you fully introduce the first one to the world. We’ve had a few little preliminary discussions, dinner, and stuff.
Kurtzman: The nice thing about the reaction has been that people are embracing the idea of it being an unwritten future and therefore the next movie isn’t entirely predictable, yet there are expectations of seeing familiar elements like in the first one. We’re just debating whether that’s the right paradigm to continue or try something different.
Atlantis crew’s Star Trek wake up call
On Wednesday NASA’s Mission Control woke up the crew of the Shuttle Atlantis with the theme music from the Star Trek: The Original Series, composed by the late Alexander Courage. One of the astronauts replied back to Houston: T
That was a great wake-up call for the whole crew. I’d just like to say to every one on the great planet Earth, ‘Live long and prosper.’
You can listen to the wake-up call and reaction at NASA.gov.
ST09 Bits
Even more Great Links:
- BabyCenter’s Dadler column thinks Vulcan mind melds would be great for parenting
- CBSNews.com’s Editor-in-chief has yet another column comparing President Obama to Spock
- ReelzChannel thinks it has found 5 Ways the Star Trek movie crips from other films
Finally, Tu-Spock
Here is a skit from Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, with his notion of ‘Tu-Spock’, half Vulcan, half gangsta rapper.
nice! Number 1 for once :-)
Jellyfish is a cool ship.
Can’t wait for the sequel!
I dig that texture on the Jellyfish. Did it have that in the movie? (I honestly don’t remember if it slowed down enough to notice, and by that I mean both the film _and_ the ship …)
I dig it, though.
I hope we get Chris Pine doing the ST monologue at the start of the next one!
Chris Pine was great, he’s really a talented actor. His performance was amazing.
by the way, I was first but I got deleted?
Whatever you may think of Ryan Church’s design for the Enterprise, you can’t deny that the man know how to PAINT. :)
Hope Pine gets to do the Monologue and hope there is more Klingions and Mention of the Prime Directive!
Just got back from my second viewing. With a little time for perspective…. Chris Pine steels the show… and the rest of the cast is excellent… especially Urban as McCoy…. just splendid. I needed time to digest it all after waiting so long…. being a long time trekmovie.com viewer… especially after the news of the delay from Christmas ’08… that was a practical prison sentence.
anyway… second review is just as good as first impressions. the altered time line stands … and puts ALL cannon issues to rest for the sticklers that haunted these forums over the last two years.
I can’t tell you what a relief it is to see there monikers absent from these threads.
can’t wait for the sequel….
and … just a little thing… loved how Pine crossed his legs when he got in the chair at the end of the movie… for me… that was a nod to both Kirk..and Shatner … calm, cool, collected.
Lodown
#8-If you keep an eye on Pine, he does do Shatner more than once in the movie. There are some pauses in his sentences in certain spots, some looks, posture, etc. he just “feel like Kirk” for me! I’m really looking forward to seeing him in action as the captain from the beginning to end of a movie.
Wow, unlike the Enterprise, the Jellyfish pretty much stayed the same from concept to reality.
Bring on the Doomsday Machine for the sequel. Seriously. Make it epic and show entire solar systems being consumed by the thing. No human or alien as the bad guy, just this ruthless, planet-devouring machine built by some ancient civilization. A cold, mindless threat that must be defeated.
I laughed exactly one time during Tu-Spock…at “Dilithium Cristal.” Everything else was stupid but that was genius.
Doomsday Machine would be awesome, but they won’t do it because we already saw planet destruction in the first one.
My theory is, they’re going to do Klingons. Perhaps with good amount of Federation ships destroyed and Vulcan gone. The Klingons will use this opportunity to invade the federation. Especially since they wouldn’t be able to accept having 50 of their ships to destroyed.
I have to admit that I’ve grown fond of the new Enterprise design. It’s different, with changes in proportion and color to set it apart from the original. It’s wise to do so, and I think the talented people involved in this movie knew exactly what they needed to do. Thank God they didn’t let fans put the movie together.
10
No rehashes! New stories!
Haha, that “Tu-Spock” video had just enough lens flares to look authentic! :D
Wait, wait, wait…JJ’s going to adapt THE DARK TOWER??? Stephen King’s Dark Tower??! SWEET!!!
The yellyfish also shows the basic warp-drive design of vulcan ships – you still see some design similarities with the ships shown in Star Trek: Enterprise.
In my opinion: Vulcan ships are far more cool than Federation….(-;
Two sequel preferences, in terms of the old and the new:
1) I think Harry Mudd would make a great sequel supporting character. If they do an exploration-based plot, I have a feeling it may tend towards the Indiana Jones-style adventure/romp motif and the morally ambiguous conman is a staple of that type of story.
The risk is doing him as camp but I could see a more subdued and dangerous Harry Mudd (with all the necessary comedic elements) played by someone like Paul Giamotti.
The nice thing is that it would give them something familiar to play with which would give them more license to create a totally new villain and new worlds for the movie to take place in.
2) This is going to sound odd but I think everyone is sick of the Borg, I think it’s better to hint at or bait people with Klingons for a few films so they have a trump card left to play later and the last two films have been Romulan centric.
So if they did have a familiar villain, I think it should be a top notch Trek villain but one who is NOT typically familiar to Kirk: Gul Dukat.
He frequently polls as a favorite Star Trek villain, if not THE favorite. But he is not really that usable in the Prime universe after the DS9 finale.
Cardassians are in contact with the Federation at this time. The length of their lifespans are unknown but Dukat’s career in the “prime” universe includes some rather insane promotions and demotions (he had risen and fallen and risen and fallen again through the Cardassian ranks by the time DS9 started and wasn’t visibly any younger when Kira was a child). So he could be a contemporary of Kirk’s.
What works for me here is:
– He has built in appeal as a top Trek villain.
– Cardassians have never been given the full cinematic treatment.
– Dukat vs. Kirk seems like a new idea, a new conflict.
– Dukat is the anti-Kirk. He frequently alternates between obeying and disobeying orders. But whereas Kirk violates orders for principle and compassion and friendship, Dukat will generally follow very, well, sinister orders and when he violates orders, it’s for totally different reasons. Dukat, like Kirk, is a bit of a womanizer and a charismatic leader. And going with the new film Kirk’s origins, they have something new in common, having both lost their fathers.
But I think a danger in any classic crew Trek story is how you portray Kirk both as a soldier and as a rulebreaker, how you balance the leader and the rebel. Dukat makes a nice mirror for Kirk in this regard since he could kill thousands and rationalize it as “just following orders” and yet he’s also not above violating orders himself or employing creative gambits either.
Dukat could make a great foil and a classic cinematic villain and do it without being a retread since Kirk has never encountered Dukat, making for something old and something new. And the beauty is that anything confusing or inaccessible about Dukat is not present in this era or this timeline, making him the kind of character new audience members can “get” in five minutes and yet still find themselves discovering new levels and layers 90 minutes in.
I think they should just do a tv show and release a new movie every 2-4 years like the olympics. This way we get to see the 5 year mission unfold in this new time line and the movies can deal with popular episodes of the new tv show. JJ is a kick ass tv and movie director he can be our new Rick Berman *gasp* and Bob Orci and Alex Khurtzman can be our Brannon Braga and Ronald D Moore. Since Heroes is losing popularity and Lost and Fringe maybe gone soon, give us this new rebooted version of Star Trek every Monday, prime time, dare I say NBC?
We will just forget about everything that came after TNG and pretend this is the series that came after, “All Good Things…”
Releasing a new Star Trek movie will not appease everyone you have gotten hooked to your space drug, we need more dammit.
I want to see new Star Trek in the sequel, no rehashes from TOS. The Doomsday Machine is a fabulous episode for instance, but it’s been done. Don’t make this like a comic book franchise where all the speculation is about which known baddy will be in the next movie. And don’t do something about Klingons. They’ve been done to death.
Something new, please. Though an appearance by the Gorn would be nice, haha.
I agree with Ian – something new, the Klingons have been over exposed. Unless they turn the tables and the Klingons have the upper hand, technology wise etc making them much more of a threat. I have to admit the Gorn idea would be fun.
And more of spock and uhura would be great. we need to bring more females into the trek movie experience. Bigger box office. Let uhura sit in the captains chair and orbit a planet a couple of times or something.
To Mr. Bob Orci,
As a Star Trek fan who was literally born the same year TNG went on the air and went on to grow up on it I have to say you have my immense gratitude for creating this amazing movie. Thank you along with the rest of the ‘supreme court’ for making Trek relevant again… especially towards people in their twenties or younger who never had the opportunity to get into it when they were kids while watching Ninja Turtles or Power Rangers like I did. It was an amazing experience watching Trek with good friends of mine who didn’t know Trek, be introduced to it, and see them love it.
QUESTION:
Khan has been a rumored potential future storyline. Back when the TOS ‘Space Seed’ episode aired Ricardo Montalban did an amazing job portraying the East Indian character of Khan Noonien Singh. Of course, back then there was a short supply of talented Indian actors in the U.S. If you guys chose to go the Khan route, would you consider casting an Indian actor for the part? One neat thing I hope you guys would kick around is a major bollywood star. Amitabh Bachchan is a name well known throughout most of Asia and would increase viewers of Trek immensely throughout the entire region. His presence in advertisements alone in India is profound itself. The man is simply a legend in Asia.
Check out this video with him in it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9POtcSGa6gQ
Doesn’t that just scream Khan to you? Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amitabh_Bacchan
It could be Trek’s Heath Ledger to the Joker.
Back to the simple question though, Are you guys open to consider Indian actors? I think it would work out better than attempting to recast Ricardo Montalban.
Also the theme to Enterprise was played to wake up STS 125 today. :-D
It looks like that Gungan Sub From SW Episode 1, not surprising though both movies were on par with each other.
Oh and It wasn’t Built By Geordi.
Khan was already done. Let’s not turn the next Star Trek into the Superman series of mistakes.
this whole trying to top a Villain from one movie to the Next is wrong. That’s what they did with the next gen films. TMP was Epic and grand scale. It could have been more Exciting in places, and no Bald Chicks.
ST: IV that was a great movie as well. they need to come up with a bigger Idea of a Villain, or crisis altogether.
32 –
It’s not usually the villain aspect of the story that ruined some of the later Trek movies, it was the execution and premise (or lack there of) itself. i.e. Nemesis wasn’t a great movie… though it happened to have a main villain in it. It’s not like if you took that villain out your left with a better movie.
Dear Mr Orci
Thankyou for the new movie.
For the sequel – please please read Desolation Island by Patrick O’Brian.
You could easily wangle klingons into that *type* of story.
No Khan. Please god. Go with your new universe and do something original.
Thankyou
No Khan, no Klingons, no TNG/DS9 alien species. The TOS universe is plenty big enough without dragging in crossover characters. Let TOS have it’s day in the sun for Pete’s sake- stop trying to inject characters from inferior 80’s and 90’s series into it.
Klingons have been done to death and their value as proxy Russians is past it’s expiration date. Ditto for Romulans, the proxy mysterious Chinese in the cosmic Cold War.
I vote once again for the Mirror Universe, especially as a tool for re-explaining the multiverse concept that the general audience is having a hard time understanding. Don’t retell “Mirror, Mirror”, have an entire ship cross over and fight it’s double. It would be especially wonderful if the origin of the brutal Mirror Universe was explained as the result of Edith Keeler living in that alternate future Spock got a glimpse of.
If boborci doesn’t want to go that way, then I suggest using the goto guy in the public conscience – Harry Mudd.
24.
lol
That was a really good ep
I like the idea of an Indian actor for Khan. Here are two additional suggestions here:
1. Lou Diamond Phillips. He is now in his late 40’s and is more grisled in appearance — he would make a great Khan.
2. Rodney A. Grant (played Wind In His Hair in Dances with Wolves). Now in his late 40’s as well — he stole the show as the forceful brave of the Lakota tribe in Dances.
Please, respectfully, no Khan, no Shatner, no Nimoy
NEW stuff please.
Given the large scope the sequel will have, wouldn’t it be great if two villians could team up to take on the Enterprise Crew. Wouldn’t it be cool if V’ger was headed to destroy Earth, and as the Enterprise Crew trys to forestall V’ger, Gorgan (from And the Children Shall Lead) appears and gets the younger crew persons like Chekov to rebel and align with V’ger.
Church’s glamor shot of the Jellyfish makes it look more like a Vulcan ship that I previously noticed…
For the sequel, I’d really like to go back to a less villain-oriented plot and more of a mystery/weird-lifeforms based story like Operation — Annihilate!
One more time-travel story and we might as well rename the franchise Time Trek.
Or the Devil in the Dark — CG can really do non-humanoid looking life well these days.
I just hope the next one adds more moral dilemmas than action. It’s been far too long.
Bring on Commodore Decker and the Doomsday Machine please! Or some Klingons!
Either would do nicely!
34-
Gorgan (from And the Children Shall Lead) appears and gets the younger crew persons like Chekov to rebel and align with V’ger.
The concept of a CGI’ed Melvin Belli on the big screen fills me with… an emotion. I cannot put a name to this emotion, but it is definitely there, and it is not a pleasant feeling.
Anyone who say “War of the Worlds” (2005) will recognize the lineage of the Jellyfish….
Lets NOT remake the classics for future movies
Thats do new stuff.
some Andorian vistitors would be cool!
generally I am not in favour of reharshing old characters and stories, unless they are drastically different – gender, powerwise.
keep it simple with not too many new races, have some Klingons and Romulans involved
Man, I wish that ending monologue had featured Shatner’s voice.
Or, better yet, have it be like that final episode of Enterprise, where it was a bunch of voices- Bakula, Shatner, Stewart.
Heck, if they ever do the original timeline again it’d be cool to do all the various captains of the Enterprise doing the monologue- Pine Kirk, Shatner Kirk, Harriman, Garrett, Picard, and finally Data.
Another thing I noticed/ wished was different: the music during the final scenes, when he shows up as Capt, I wish some notes of the original theme had played, but slightly off key or incomplete, then when Spock shows up and offers to be first officer, the theme becomes complete as if to say everything is right once again. Just something I was musing about during my latest viewing.
You know what…there were a couple of good ideas on this board and I wanted to throw in my support. And then a comment or three.
1. Gul Dukat as a main character in a sequel (not necessarily the next one)…
This is actually rather inspired. That would be a really twisted son of a bitch to let loose in a movie. No one would know what hit them. One of the best parts about it is that he is the one main villain in Trek that would be just as effective with the crew not knowing who he is as he would have been if his exploits were well known to them. Khan, for example relies heavily on his revenge factor. He has to encounter Kirk and then be out of the picture for years before he becomes the true force and one of cinema’s greatest villains.
Dukat actually has great potential as a one off OR as a reappearing character. It would have to be Marc Alaimo though because no one could possibly portray that character as well. He is a smart villain, a very layered personality…and this is what Star Trek movies need in villains now (if they are going to continue to have villains). Comparatively, Dukat would break the cliche to what has come before. Some Trek movie villains have been very good and some less so, but let’s face it, they have become somewhat predictable as a whole.
One other thing: I’ve introduced several people of varied tastes to the Trek universe through dvds and Dukat is the villain the majority of the newcomers seem to respond to most. That has to mean something. Weyoun was another one that many found to be cool, but if he were to appear, that would mean the Dominion has to invade the Beta Timeline and that may be too much to handle.
2. I am intrigued by the possibility of Amitabh as Khan. It isn’t the choice that immediately comes to mind, but the more I think about that, the more it makes some sense. Certainly on the global marketing side of things it is genius considering he is one of the most famous actors in the world.
The only problem is that he is in his 60s and we’d likely need someone younger for the role. How about his son?
I can see Khan being in two movies…one to set up the character and then the 2nd to be the epic revenge flick that everyone has been trying to make. The actor portraying Khan will need to be capable of convincing dramatic and physical scenes in at least one if not both of those movies.
A negative towards using Khan is the fact that Trek film writers have been trying to use the Khan archetype for years. There have been several Trek villains recently that have gone on that revenge angle with varying degrees of success. So, yes this may be feeding cliche to use him again even if he would be awesome. Unfair but true.
With all that being said, I also need to mention that I understand those who would prefer to have new stories and new characters, I agree. But…not yet.
This is an alternate timeline which, by its very nature, brings all that has come before back to being fresh as a newborn baby. Or, at the very least, a favorite childhood toy you rediscover on ebay.
What some of you seem to be missing is that one of the real strengths of this movie was the treatment of the previously KNOWN characters. Nero was really the major new element and he was not among Trek’s strongest villains….and to be fair, he didn’t need to be. He was catalyst in this film and nothing more.
Most of the movie villains in the past have been NEW characters and many of you complained about them.
Let’s keep with what worked in this movie. The production crew definitely has made it work with known characters, so why not continue to build upon that? all the while throwing in a few new elements here and there so the universe can continue to expand based on those new tangents… something Star Trek has been doing for a long time.
.
My personal hope for a sequel? A blending of “Errand of Mercy” and “A Private Little War.”
There’s plenty of room for Prime Directive quandaries, fights with the Klingons (both on ground and in space), and maybe even a hot villager for Kirk to romance. Make the lead Klingon either Kor or Kang, and I’m pumped. Omnipotent lightbulbs who resolve the conflict are optional, … and I’d rather not use them at all.
No more villains hellbent on revenge, please. At all. Every Star Trek film post-STV:TFF has had some variation on that theme and to varying degrees.
That’s part of what makes “Errand of Mercy” attractive to me. Kor (or Kang) can be the lead “bad guy,” but he’s not motivated by revenge — he’s just doing his job.
Tu-Spock’s Dilithium Krystal. I love it!
Robert Orci — PLEASE keep it original. I implore and BEG of you — please no main plot with Klingons, Romulans, Doomsday Machines…
The Klingons have been over-used in Trek as the main plot element.
Let’s see what kind of alien threats and menaces YOU and Kurtzman can come up with!
I challenge you BOTH to come up with the next alien race or menace to the Enterprise — one that will create your OWN legacy and mark in Star Trek history!
I would, however, like to see Carol Marcus and Gary Mitchell in the film though.
I can not stand Jimmy Fallon. I’ve never laughed at him once. Just saying…
Cant find the website this was on, but this is a cool TREK 2 poster from a few days ago!
http://img38.imageshack.us/my.php?image=st2.jpg