Today according to The Hollywood Reporter, the parents of Anton Yelchin have reached a settlement with Fiat Chrysler, maker of the Jeep Grand Cherokee. Trek fans will recall, that Anton was killed in June 2016 at age 27, when his 2015 Cherokee rolled backward down a driveway outside his house, pinning him between a mailbox and a security fence. The model was under a recall for gear shift issues that could lead to the car rolling away. According to documents filed with the lawsuit, Fiat Chrysler had mailed a recall letter to Yelchin, but it was only received seven days after his death.
Fiat Chrysler issued a statement today saying it is:
“pleased that we’ve reached an amicable resolution in this matter. … We continue to extend our deepest sympathies to the Yelchin family for their tragic loss.”
UPDATE: A spokesperson for Anton Yelchin’s family provided TrekMovie with the following statement on the settlement:
The wrongful death lawsuit filed against Fiat Chrysler and all other defendants, as the result of Anton Yelchin’s untimely death, has been settled.
The terms of the settlement are confidential.
The settlement will go to the Anton Yelchin Foundation and to the filming of a documentary on Anton’s life. The mission of the Foundation is to empower and support young people engaged in creative arts who face career challenges due to debilitating disease or disability.
Yelchin remembered
Anton Yelchin at one of his final public appearances, in April 2016, for the premiere of his film Green Room
Naturally, Star Trek Beyond was dedicated to Anton (as well as Leonard Nimoy who had passed on in 2015 while pre-production was under way for Beyond), with a title card at the end of the credits that said “For Anton”.
The Academy Awards gave tribute to Anton during the ‘In Memoriam’ segment of the 2017 ceremony (see image below). Yelchin showed up again with Star Trek during the 2018 ceremony, in a montage celebrating 90 years of film.
The Academy remembers Anton Yelchin
In October 2017 a statue of Anton was unveiled in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, among others Simon Pegg, Zoe Saldana, and JJ Abrams were in attendance.
Yelchin’s family also set up a foundation in his name with the mission of “Helping young artists shine like diamonds.” You can learn more at antonyelchinfoundation.org.
And in December 2017 the De Buck Gallery in New York, NY hosted the “Anton Yelchin: Provocative Beauty” exhibit, featuring the late actor’s photography.
Photograph by Anton Yelchin from gallery show
Yelchin’s final film out now
Yelchin’s final role was in the indie film Thoroughbreds, which was released earlier this month. The trailer is below:
Anton Yelchin would be the same age as my younger sister if he was still alive. He was a good actor. May his soul rest in peace. Who is going to play Pavel Chekov now in the like of Abramsverse and Discovery?
I would never buy a Chrysler/Jeep?
I’ll stick to GM/Ford/Volkswagen
If you think other manufacturer’s don’t have issues then you are obviously crazy!!
As a current owner of a ‘14 Cherokee and former owner of a ‘15 SRT; FCA workmanship is far below that of GM and Ford so the dude is not obviously crazy? You own one? If you did you would agree and I have had Jeeps in the driveway since ‘92
I have a 2014 Jeep. Its great.
I just did yesterday. It’s my 6th. I’m very happy with it. It wasn’t the car, it was the driver.
Then why was it recalled; 14 Jeep Cherokee is 9 recalls pending.. sorry but you bought an inferior car
They have said they will not recast Chekov.
http://www.ign.com/articles/2016/07/19/jj-abrams-star-trek-wont-recast-anton-yelchins-chekov
As Matt said, they have stated that they won’t replace him.
And we all know what it means when Chekov leaves the cast, we’re now in TAS and Lt Arex takes over.
I hope that they don’t kill off the character. Meaning, I don’t want a line of dialog saying that Chekov died. I want him to live on in universe. Possibly to be used by comic and novel writers.
I would hope for a line referencing him getting a transfer and promotion, that would feel a lot better than killing him off.
I can’t see them being so tactless as to kill off the character in-universe.
Arex would be cool, modern prosthetics mixed with CGI could totally make an Arex. However he’s pretty niche, and is likely to be expensive to create. The good news is they’ve already created a character that looks a lot like Arex, so they certainly could do it.
http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Alnschloss_K%27Bentayr
Here are some other possible characters that could take Chekov’s place:
Kelvin-universe original characters:
Jayla (fresh out of Starfleet Academy)
Darwin (she took the navigator’s station in STID when Chekov was sent down to fill in as Chief Engineer)
For fun TOS name dropping:
Kevin Riley
Dave Bailey
Jayla or Riley!!
I find it grimly humorous that the recall came 7 days too late… I Hope that settlement causes much financial unrest for the CEO’s of Chrysler/Jeep… but we all know it’ll only hurt the workers, not the people actually at fault. James McFadden: That is a very good question. It’s not unprecedented that multiple actors play the same roll (for various reasons) but it is rather rare in Star Trek or Star Wars (in fact, to my knowledge, only Obiwan Kennobi had two actors for that roll, at least before this year’s ‘Solo’)… there’s been more actor swaps in the various ST fandom films, however…
~Pensive’s Wetness
ThePW,
Rare? STAR WARS? So you mean you actually believe that James Earl Jones, David Prowse, Hayden Christensen, Gene Bryant, Spencer Wilding, Sebastian Shaw, etc. are all the same guy? Disney’s Chewbacca? Old and young Ben? Even the Yoda hand muppet’s been played by a different CGI puppet.
ThePW,
Re: Obiwan Kennobi
Well, I suppose I have to give you that one as Ben was just another Kennobi persona. But hey, even a SW’s character, himself, played multiple roles rather than be confined to just one.
I believe my ‘Out’ is the words “…to my knowledge…” Thanks for pointing out the flaws in my comment, i suppose… Then again, this is why i don’t post much on TM…
Wasn’t the recall actually a couple months before his death? Not uncommon for people to take their time in having those things fixed.
Why would you hope it causes financial unrest for the CEOs? That doesn’t make sense. They had nothing to do with his death.
My thinking was military. Usually when a JO runs the ship into a reef (or something), the CO gets canned. The CEO’s run the ship named Chrysler/Jeep, even though the fault was someone(s) in the design & engineering of their product. One could hope, somebody higher up would get the axe (instead of numerous worker-bees in production)… anyway, it was mindless speculation. I just ‘bothered’ at the whole affair, sir…
When the driver shifts the vehicle into park, the only indication to the driver is a light on the console: “unless due care is taken, drivers may draw erroneous conclusions about the status of their vehicles.” A design flaw, to be sure, but Yelchin’s failure to put his vehicle in park is what killed him, as far as I know. Something to remember for those wishing endless misery and doom upon Jeep.
Sally Jeepster,
I’d say a bigger factor was that Chrysler replaced an actual gearshift with a non-mechanically locking electronic joystick made to look like one such that experienced drivers could easily be led to believe from previous driving experience that it was in park when it wasn’t was a bigger factor and why Chrysler settled which is why Chrysler is enduring endless misery about it- no wishing necessary.
No, what killed him is the jeep backing up and crushing him. So we should blame the drive way.
Not figuring out how the car you purchased works is not a design flaw.
Without getting sidetracked into a discussion of tort law, it certainly can be (for example, if the user I interface isn’t intuitive).
Jack D,
How was Yeltsin supposed to do that in regards to this obscure change in design? Do you have info that he bought it from one of those Rodeo Drive dealers with concierges that offer new owner classes?
Or are you one of those faulty reasoners that actually swallows that characters such as Glenn Garth Gregory and Computer AIs such as Johnny 5 could become expert vehicle handlers by simply reading a printed glove box owner’s manual which these days tell you to refer to their corporate website for the most accurate edition — heaven forbid there be vehicle purchasers with no internet?
Why did Chrysler foolishly decide against using your expert testimony? And yet, they threw in the towel on, according to you, their sure win on his total responsibility for his own death.
Sounds like a really awful way to go. Very sad. He was a very talented young actor.
As for Star Trek, its not like they are going to make a bunch more JJ films so its not a huge deal. If they make one more, I’d be all for referencing him as being off ship (since they dont need to main real canon, they could have him re-assigned or promoted to the Reliant). They could also use archival footage and/or CGI to have him appear in a cameo, perhaps solving some major problem and contacting the Enterprise to let them know. Would be a nice way to honor him.
TUP,
Re: a really awful way to go
It really was. First the vehicle pins you, and then you remain conscious while it slowly robs you of life via asphyxiation from the blunt trauma.
Indeed, a very sad end to a talented actor.
I do wonder, though, if the isolation that comes with celebrity contributed to it somewhat? It just seems to me that perhaps in a normal neighborhood a neighbor would have spotted his predicament before it crossed the point of no return? Another factor I consider in his isolation is if he thought he had parked it wouldn’t the car alarm have been active? He must have been really isolated if the alarm that would have gone off when it hit him wasn’t investigated by any of his neighbors?
If he had it in neutral and running while he ran back to close the gate the alarm wouldn’t activate.
TUP,
I believe the initial report said he was retrieving his mail which was how he got pinned against the stone structure his mailbox was embedded in, but I suppose he could have done that after closing the gate. My impression tho was that the gate was automatic.
Most people with non-automatic security gates don’t go too far down the driveway after they park outside the gate to manually unlock and open them. They just pull in enough to get the vehicle just past the gates then go back and secure them closed, i.e. lock it as soon as they can. Leaving the gate open while you park at the end of the driveway and meander back on foot to close it is too much opportunity for some miscreants.
Anton, along with Karl Urban were, in my opinion the best of the Kelvin universe cast. How sad to have lost him.
“The model was under a recall for gear shift issues that could lead to the car rolling away.” That is not entirely accurate.
It really sucks what happened to him.