July 2007

Globe Trekking

This week had an American theme with "The Omega Glory" and our 4th of July Tribute, but we cannot forget that Star Trek knows no borders. Almost a third of the readers of this site live outside the USA (about half of those are from non English speaking countries). In fact lately we have been getting more tips and help from friends in the UK, Iceland, Japan, Germany and elsewhere. I see links coming in and news sites from all over the world reporting on TrekMovie.com stories: from Croatia to Brazil to Isreal. So for our Friday Night at the movies I have put together some random Trek clips from around the world in a small way to say ‘Hola’ ‘Guten Tag’ ‘Bonjour’ ‘Konichiwa’ (etc) to all those non-American Trekkies out there.


All ‘Star Trek’ Producers To Appear At Comic Con – Somthing Will Be Revealed

Comic-Con has released their ‘sneak peak’ for this year and it includes some details of Paramount’s panel on Thursday July 26. 1:30-3:30 Paramount Pictures—Paramount Pictures, DreamWorks Pictures and Nickelodeon Movies present a bold new vision for the future of adventure. Join us for a one-of-a-kind presentation put together just for the fans at Comic-Con as we look at such highly-anticipated films as Beowulf, The Spiderwick Chronicles, Stardust, Hot Rod, Iron Man, and the next installments of Indiana Jones and Star Trek, plus a few surprises. Appearing in person: JJ Abrams, Robert Downey Jr., Jon Favreau, Neil Gaiman, Roger Avary and SNL’s Andy Samberg.


‘Cloverfield’ Viral Campaign Video + More Details On The Movie

It is now confirmed that the ethanhaaswasright.com game site (and blog) is definately part of the Paramount marketing campaign for the new J.J. Abrams horror/monster movie (code named ‘Cloverfield’). Community member Markus has been playing the game and has collected some of the payoff videos (unfortunately Paramount have taken some down but there are still two up).[UPDDATE: OK we were wrong….the EthanHaas site is not part of the movie, but we still cannot figure why Paramount were removing videos from it off YouTube]


Wil Wheaton’s Shatner and Stewart Impersonations

Things are progressing over at the Kirk v Picard Script Writing Contest. They are about half way through and just picked the round two scene. finalists. In a new video Wil Wheaton actually acts out some of the moments from the round one finalists, including part of a scene written by TrekMovie.com contributor James Heaney (wowbagger). Wheaton hams it up, but also pokes some good fun at Wesley.   Is Wil trying out to be the new Kirk? Keep track of the goings on at the Official Blog (run by yours truly)





Image From Charlie X Remastered

StarTrek.com have put up a new image from next weekend’s "Charlie X." It shows a new design for the freighter USS Antares which was never shown in the original. CBS-D based the design on the USS Woden (although it looks a lot like a TAS cargo drone) This is another example of what is great about the Remastered project – putting a ship into the establishing shot that should have been there in the first place but wasn’t due to time and/or budget issues.


Review – “The Omega Glory” Remastered

Once again it befalls me to offer the defense of a not-very-well-thought-of episode of original Trek. When most people bring up “The Omega Glory,” it’s to do their impression of William Shatner’s inimitable (well, actually, VERY imitatable) delivery of the preamble to the U.S. Constitution at the episode’s infamous climax: “WE…THE PEOPLE…of the unitedstates…do ORDAIN and ESTABLISH this Constitution–!!” It’s a groaner of an ending that quantifies Gene Roddenberry’s somewhat flat-footed idea of a rampant biological war between parties on an alien planet that effectively throws them into the Stone Age. That in itself isn’t bad (if having already been done in a sense in episodes like “Miri”), but Roddenberry (who was supposedly inspired to write this episode after viewing the actual Constitution on a trip to Washington D.C.) turns “The Omega Glory” into a Cold War parable that’s strangely racist, with warring “Yankees” and “Commies” descended from yet another culture apparently identical to ours right down to language both spoken and written.



ILM To Provide Effects For ‘Star Trek’ – Enterprise To Appear In Film

TrekMovie.com has confirmed two things that should not come as a surprise with regards to the new ‘Star Trek’ film in pre-production. Firstly we have learned from a number of sources that George Lucas’ Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) has been selected to provide the special visual effects for Star Trek (2008). In keeping with the usual Star Trek secrecy neither Paramount nor ILM will officially confirm it, however sources say that some planning work on the effects has already started. Abrams has worked with ILM before and the choice is another example of Abrams sticking with his trusted Mission: Impossible III team. On the M:I:III DVD Abrams effuses about how excited he was to work with ILM and how happy he was with their work on the film. ILM also worked with the Star Trek writers/executive producers Orci & Kurtzman on Paramount/Dreamwork’s summer blockbuster Transformers. Although he wouldn’t confirm it, at the recent Transformers junket Orci told TrekMovie.com that he ‘certainly hoped’ that ILM would work on Star Trek. The choice of ILM shows that Paramount is giving Abrams and his team the budget and resources to achieve their goal to re-energizing the Trek franchise.



Orci: ‘Star Trek’ is two movies in one

In yet another interview (this time with Latino Review) screenwriter Roberto Orci talks about how the new Trek is being made to appeal to fans of the franchise as well as those unfamiliar with it. He also draws a distinction with Tranformers which had a smaller fanbase, saying:  ‘Transformers’ is gonna get us nice and ready for the fans on ‘Star Trek.’ We’ve learned a lot, actually, from that.  Again we, we’re diligent about, with J.J. Abrams, and with Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk, agreeing what we all wanted to see first.  And then this one, on ‘Star Trek,’ for example we don’t have the advantage or the luxury of the fact no one has ever seen it.  People know what ‘Star Trek’ is. We don’t have the advantage of the fact (that Transformers has) the giant robots or something.


TOS-R Is Turning Japanese

The digitally remastered Star Trek The Original Series is about to take its first trip overseas. Starting July 21st TOS-R will be airing on the satellite channel BS2 (part of Japanese Broadcasting Corp. – NHK). The show will be using the same airing order used for USA syndication.   The announcement (translated from the Japanese) on the NHK site describes the show: