USS Enterprise To Soar Over Paramount Rose Parade Float

The Pasadena Rose Parade is one of the biggest New Year’s tradition, and this year Star Trek will be making an appearance. Paramount Pictures is sponsoring its own float for next week’s parade and it will prominently feature a USS Enterprise soaring over the famous Paramount arch. Details and preview below.

 

Star Trek Part of Paramount’s Rose Parade Float

Paramount Pictures is celebrating its centennial with a special float titled "100 Years of Movie Magic" for the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, California next week. And as Star Trek has been a major part of Paramount’s history for the last century, a USS Enterprise will feature prominently on their float. This will be Paramount’s first time in the Rose Parade.

In a press release, Paramount describes their float.

We’ve selected a few of our most recognizable films and franchises to celebrate this great milestone. Our goal is to evoke a sense of nostalgia for the magic we’ve created throughout our history, wile inspiring our employees and audiences worldwide.

Films possess the unique ability to transport us to a different place and time. They are a shared emotional experience with a common audience, which can make us laugh, scream, shout or cry. Movies are a series of images, some of which become ingrained in our memories, quoted, relived and shared throughout generations. Whether it be a World War I dogfight, the tragic sinking of the Titanic, a boy sprinting free from his leg braces, an alien race of robots battling for the safety of Earth or a spaceship Enterprise boldly going where no one has gone before, Paramount, throughout its 100 years, has been dedicated to creating images that we could only previously “Just Imagine”.

Here is an artists sketch of the Paramount float design

The release goes on regarding the Enterprise on the float:

Star Trek’s USS Enterprise represents Paramount’s continued journey to explore strange new world and boldly go where no studio has gone before. This globally beloved franchise from creator Gene Roddenberry is a cornerstone of Paramount’s history, and in 2009, director J.J. Abrams unveiled his successful reboot to the world, creating a whole new generation of fans.

The float will be 55 feet long and 26 feet tall and of course will be decorated with flowers and other natural materials. Specifically the Enterprise will be decorated with white coconut chips and accents of silverleaf protea petals and black seaweed. TrekMovie confirmed with Paramount that the Enterprise will be based on the original design from classic Star Trek series. The Paramount float is 46th in the parade order, in between the Calizona Appaloosa Horse Club and the Salvation Army Tournament of Roses Band.

The 123rd Rose Parade will be held Monday January 2nd. 2012 starting at 8:00 AM (Pacific). The parade will be broadcast on ABC, Hallmark Channel, HGTV, KTLA (Tribune), NBC, RFD-TV and Univision. More information can be found at tournamentofroses.com.

Not first Trek at Rose Parade

While the 2012 Rose Parade will be the first time Paramount has had its own float, it is not the first time that a USS Enterprise from Star Trek has made an appearance. On January 1st 1992 the USS Enterprise D (from Star Trek: The Next Generation) was part of Nestle’s "Voyages of Discovery" float.


USS Enterprise as part of Nestle’s 1992 Rose Parade Float
(Screencap from "Rose Parade: A Pageant For the Ages" – 2004 DVD hosted by Shatner)

The float did not have any Star Trek stars, but William Shatner, the original Capt. Kirk, was the Grand Marshal for the 1994 Rose Parade. Shatner also appeared on a non-Star Trek float in the 1969 Rose parade. This was just a few month’s after Shatner appeared in Star Trek costume for the 1968 Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade. 


Shatner at Macy’s 1968 Thanksgiving Parade (AP)

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Maybe the Enterprise could unload its entire complement of photon torpedoes onto the Transformer underneath it.

Glad to see Trek is getting some love =)

What an uninspired concept.

Pretty obvious that the conceptual artist for the float has no concept of Paramount’s history. I would’ve replaced the transformer (which has only financially influenced the studio for, what, 6 years) with Cecil B. DeMille. That man helped form the studio from the Famous Players-Laskey years.

Either that, or Chuck Heston as Moses parting the Red Sea with the Enterprise riding the waves, & flying through the Paramount archway.

Good thing the Enterprise is flying well above all the s**t they’ll be getting into from following the Calizona Appaloosa Horse Club! Someone should give the Transformer a bucket & shovel.

I wonder how Ryan Church feels about his reboot Enterprise getting stiffed in favor of the old lady.

It looks great. Perhaps this might be where all of the new cast of the movie can be seen together?

Anthony, Trekmovie staff – lotsa pics, please. Thank you.

Why is there a friggin’ Transformer on the float? And in front of the Enterprise? WTF?? “Transformers” movies are just a big cash grab!

5. How rude! “Old Lady”? LOL. She’s still way hotter than the new kid on the block!

5 “I wonder how Ryan Church feels about his reboot Enterprise getting stiffed in favor of the old lady.”

He shouldnt feel “stiffed” at all. His version simply wasn’t around for a good part of the last century. The original was. Church’s version rocks, but it just hasn’t been around long enough.

Hey Danya – do you drink Tranya?

I concur with your thoughts – photon the f#ck out of that transformer abomination…its ruins the view of the Big E!

Love longer and prosper!

:)

Simple. The TOS version rocks, and is iconic. Ryan Church’s design, while wonderful, will never, ever come close to being remembered as fondly as the original simply because the TOS ship was groundbreaking, and was a true character. The new version, while sleek and all, is merely a vessel.

One question. Will the Enterprise Float come with lens Flares. Lol.
This is great. Can’t wait to see the Enterprise in one of the Biggest Parades. Long Live Star Trek and the Enterprise.

1: Danya:

My 1st thought as well!

Where’s Indiana Jones?

Hey MJ.
Bob Orci has my Agoniser. He asked to borrow it for something. Not sure what. But I think he has plans for it.

Yeah, its kind of ridiculous how Indiana Jones isn’t there. Although technically Paramount doesn’t own the character. It’s a Lucasfilm property. Paramount was the distributor. So I guess they’d need permission from George Lucas, but I have to think he’d be happy to see his character on a float.

I think this is a sign that paramount is dedicated to the production of star trek in the future!

Where’s Popeye?

@17
Good point.

I love that picture of vintage Shatner there. And I love the original Enterprise being used.

Hey Vultan. Better yet. Where’s Olive Oil.

@19. Commodore Mike of the Terran Empire

“Hey Vultan. Better yet. Where’s Olive Oil”

Probably in a bottle in Rachel Ray’s kitchen. Olive Oyl, on the other hand…?

[g,d&r]

#1, #13 What happened to IDIC or simply “live and let live”?

Nice catch on the ’68 Shatner photo. I had heard of this, but never saw any photos. What a find!

Maybe Chris Pine will pay homage to The Shat and don the uniform for the parade!

Nope, the cast won’t be riding the float. Sorry…..

@15: First, Paramount’s not going to get free permission to use a non-Paramount property on their float.

Second, why would they do that? They want this float to be about Paramount properties.

Yay, they’re using the REAL Enterprise!

Now get Shatner and Pine on that float!

This is awesome news!! Can’t wait! :)

Where’s Axel Foley and his truckload of cigarettes from Buffalo?

Cool!

Go BADGERS!

Amazes me that Star Trek now is something for Paramount to parade (no pun intended)…after its shaky start on NBC back in the day.

Cool. This means that there will be a second float in the parade that I’ll be interested in seeing!

(my alma mater, the Cal Poly Universities – Go Mustangs! – has been entering floats each year since at least the 1960s)

Feh! A Transformer? Chuck Heston on a floral perch, about to throw the 10 Commandments onto the crowds along Colorado Blvd. would work.

#21.

The “Transformers” movies are absolute crap! Why would Paramount want to include it on a float that is supposed to feature iconic images from classic shows and movies? Its just stupid!

That would be like getting Snooki to host the Oscars!

Here is a link to Trek Movies very first threds from August 2006. For those of you who would like to take a trip down Trekmovie memory lane. Some threds still to this day do not have a single post.

https://trekmovie.com/page/330/

Thank god they went with the TOS Enterprise!!!

That disco nightmare facelift from ST’09 would likely scare any children present. It’s the Joan Rivers of starships!

#32 – Paramount might want to include Transformers because they are beloved characters from an almost 30 year old franchise which raked them in hundreds of millions of dollars. Crap sells! You know taht you referenced Jersey Shore.

Great in the 100 Anviersary of Paramount the Enterprise NCC1701 is a big STAR.

==as Star Trek has been a major part of Paramount’s history for the last century==

Only on trekmovie.com, where Chris Pine is playing the same character as William Shatner and it takes four years to write a quality screenplay, does a century consist of forty-five years.

And since when is it the “spaceship” Enterprise, and since when did the original Big E go where no “one” has gone before?

Oh, sorry, forgot, still at trekmovie.com, where revisonism is “kewl” as long as it’s popular.

@38 – that quote is from the Paramount press release, not Trekmovie. Although I agree with you – it’s either ignorant or revisionist.

The “Where no one…” phrasing has always been clumsy and ridiculous. Clearly other species and individual creatures are someONE. The quote “where no MAN…” is a reference to our species. “No ONE” would only apply if the Starfleet was deliberate exploring remote never-inhabited planets.

#35.

“Transformers” is technically a Hasbro property. Paramount doesn’t own it. They have the rights to make movies though. But it was Hasbro that made the characters classic, and not the movies, no matter how many billions they made.

But yeah, crap does sell, and sell big, so I guess I should just let this go.

Just like I should let go of the fact that Rolling Stone put an autotuned Britney Spears song into the number 3 slot of the best songs of the year….GRRRR!

Sorry for the rant, but what is considered classic today just boggles the mind!

Okay, fun science question:

Would it be possible to make fireworks work in space? Of course, it wouldn’t work with normal fireworks (the vacuum would probably nix that), but could some form of it be adapted to space? Some type of sparkly, reflective things bursting out in big beautiful angles. Perhaps a few spare nukes towed into orbit and detonated. But then, the whole fallout thing would make for an unhappy New Year… hmm….

#41.

Antimatter, perhaps?

#42

Ah-ha!

I remembered the antimatter spread the Enterprise D saucer fired at the Borg cube during “Best Of Both Worlds, Pt. 2” which looked sort of like fireworks as they hit the surface of the Borg ship.

#44

Good point.

I also remember seeing ST: Generations in the theater and thinking: “Gee, it’s really sad to see the drive section finally explode… but it was very pretty.”

There was a similar series of explosions to the antimatter spread on the Borg ship when it was blowing up at the end of BoB Pt.2.

The Grissom blew up in a similar fashion to the Enterprise D stardrive section.

It should read, “Where no human has gone before”.

Vults, the Top Gear Special in India will likely be heading your way very soon. It had its moments but it was disappointing in the main. Too contrived and too much messing around. A missed opportunity i thought.

At first glance, appears to be TOS E. But in looking more closely, looks like hybrid of TOS and junky ’09…

Yes, but looks more like the REAL Enterprise :-)