Quinto Talks About The Sets, Pegg, Spock, Research and More

quinto scream.jpgZachary Quinto was a popular person to nab for questions at the recent Spike Scream awards. For the most part, the new Spock repeated his usual comments about being “excited” and “humbled” about the project and working with Nimoy. But MTV did get him to open up a bit more. Here is Quinto on younger Spock

I think there’s a distinction you need to make as an actor that you’re clear when and where you drop into that character. [Spock] evolved over a long period of time, so to pick that up and establish it at a time before you knew those characters is exciting. It allows me to discover some of the origins of these things.


Quinto also weighed on how some have questioned the comic actor Simon Pegg being cast as Scotty:

Simon Pegg in the movie — that’s unreal! Scotty is a lighter character anyway, in terms of his perspective on things. Come on, [Pegg’s] a comic genius. I feel like I couldn’t be in better company.

Quinto on Eric Bana who is playing the villain

[Bana is] more of an accomplished actor than us. He’s been around longer, he’s done a lot of big movies. He’s the Hulk!” Quinto said. “So, you know, maybe you’ll see a little Spock/Hulk showdown!

Quinto said he had not yet been to the bridge of the Enterprise, but did have this to say about it:

I’ve seen drawings of [the rebuilt bridge], and the drawings alone gave me chills. I think it’s going to be a pretty remarkable experience.

MTV also talked to Quinto about his ears…

Quinto talks about an image floating around….could he be referring to this one?

Lastly, Reelz Channel caught Quinto to talk about his research for the role of Spock:

MORE: Full MTV Interview

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I cant wait to see the sneak peeks of the sets..

Seems like a really nice guy.

“I Got Chills [when I saw the plans for the bridge set]”

I take that as a good sign.

To quote someone with whom we’re al familiar.. “Fascinating.”

Will it be a TOS bridge rebuld, like theyve done inthe past? Im really looking forward to seeing the updates!

This is gonna be a fun movie.

God, what I wouldn’t give to see those plans. I cannot wait to see what the re-visioned bridge looks like. WOnder how long we’re gonna have to wait…

Quinto is great!

I’m also looking forward for the new sets! Especially the bridge! Maybe it’s going to be something between the ‘Final Frontier’-A-Bridge and the great Classic Bridge! :D:D

Sets would be cool, but I’d rather see the Enterprise herself.

Just to point out… if this is before the series and Pike is in command of the Enterprise, it may look “more” like the pilot bridge than the series bridge with its “revisions”- and not to sound like a purist, but I’d rather they not screw around too much with this stuff, part of the challenge for the production staff should be making the style of the early sixties blend with contemporary thought (something we only got a glimpse of on Enterprise in its 4th season– sigh… missed opportunities…) on space travel.

Anyone else think Keri Russel should play Dr. Marcus? Or am I crazy?

#9

Up to a point, it is a little bit like finding celebrity impersonators to portray the Shat (right down to colored contact lenses), Nimoy, et al, versus something the evokes the image — without a slavish recreation that would (in the context of 2008) look pretty silly after all that has occured in genre movies/TV since then.

Maybe it’ll be mainly like the classic bridge but much more dynamic, like the way New Voyages have flash animations playing on the blinkie screens, what used to be static dislpays or picures can now be disguised flatscreens doing more interesting things.

its great to see an actor so excited about a role. he is clearly up for this and is giving the respect due to his predecessor. im impressed by his enthusiasm. that picture of him (a made up image) is quite remarakble. good that he nimoy appear to be good buddies.

i hope the new kirk chris pine gets to have a good long chat with king shatner. it would only be for the good of the film.

cant wait to se those pics/drawings quinto mentions.
cheers
greg UK

I expect it’ll be a more modern, high-tech version of the TOS bridge, with lots of silver and an overall more metallic feel in general (like we saw in the ENT bridge).

If they’re all together now and ready to start filming, it can’t be long before someone takes a cast shot of the new original crew.

When do you suppose they’ll release it?

My predicton:

The Enterprise bridge will be three times the size of the original. The most attractive feature will be the Bridge dome. Which will feature a panoramic view of the cosmos with plenty of digital overlays.

It never made sense to me that an astrometrics lab would be on a different part of the ship. Look for plenty of composite effects to make the new Enterprise bridge impressive. C’mon, with this movies huge budget should’nt we expect to see such a grand visual experience? Thoughts?
I for one would not mind seeing a real upgrade to the now commonplace interior ship designs. Lost in Space the movie did this right.

Oh yea! PLEASE USE ROBOTS!!!
At least use some of them in Engineering!!! Those Sony walking robots look cool. Maybey a Producer would be able to keep one as a momento?

I hope they use the same bridge sound effects as the original.

great interviews…Quinto is perect…

The bridge will probably be modeled after the one we saw in ‘The Cage.’ No red doors… they were grey…there were no primary colors on Captain Pike’s bridge…thsecolors din’t show till Kirks reign…

It would be stupid to make it look EXACTLY like the original. At this point, a low-budget TV series set just doesn’t look futuristic.

Anyone ever read Making of Star Trek by Stephen E. Whitfield? In it the author discussed the design-principles that went into the the original bridge. Those principles are still good ideas, and that’s the stuff they should incorporate.

It’s been a long time since I read the book, but I remember a couple reasons the TOS bridge looked like it did:

The whole point of the circular layout was so the captain could swivel around and see any of the displays or consoles at any time to “help facilitate the decision-making process”. That’s a good, solid, practical and realistic idea. They should keep it. (Unlike the newer shows where, even if the bridge is vaguely circular, half the displays aren’t readily visible from the captain’s chair, or are concealed behind support-structures)

The stations were intended to be ergonomic; the consoles were set at an angle (not flat like a table) and the buttons were arranged in semi-circular patterns principly similar to the curved ergonomic keyboards we have today.

Ultimately, I think it’d be cool if the bridge had the same layout, with a thoroughly updated “skin”; better looking consoles, controls, graphics, displays, etc.

Oh yeah – NO POINTLESS BLINKING LIGHTS. Even as a little kid, that bugged me. (Though it is amusing that when TNG came out, they replaced Poinless Blinking Lights with Poinless Rows & Columns Of Numbers, which apparently looked way more sensible than mere blinking lights(

Wow this is freaky

I imagine whatever is done will be criticized, how can they have a duplicate bridge from the 60’s show that is so far dated from the prequel bridge of “enterprise” ? It’s a conundrum of galactic proportions. I say keep the original basic design but update technology. Flat screen, wireless networking. I mean cmon folks, we are talking 200 years from now.

^ I think one of those pointless blinking lights is the one telling the Reelz reporter that her mic is not on.

It looked as if the blinking panels were mainly supposed to be annunciators of some kind. Really way too many of them, though.

the original pilot bridge was quite metallic and not so colorful as the one that was used later on. I think they can do something with that design. It’s almost perfect, if they add detail. Maybe make it a little bigger,too.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v222/JuanBolio/pike-enterprise-bridge.jpg

I want paparazzi pictures of the new cast leaving the Ivy Restaurant.

Please?

Me wants pictures!

me want pictures of new cast!

me want pictures of new cast with sprinkles on it!

……and no …..there are no paparazzi pictures of the new cast leaving the Ivy restaurant.

I do want pictures of the new cast.

:)

They can easily use the TOS bridge design and with a few tweaks make it look modern.

#19, sorry, I love the blinky lights. They look good racked out of focus when the camera is on Kirk in the center chair. Too many people want “realism” to a point that the visuals and frame composition sufffers.

It’s not about being realistic…this is 200 years away. We don’t have a clue what this technology is all about so it will be really hard to call anything we see “pointless”. It’s about imagination. I don’t want boring touch screens or plasma flat panels inserted throughout. Invent a new kind of display. Give us bllinking lights that we don’t have a clue as to what they do, because it’s like nothing I can find in Best Buy.

TOS did this by using those blinky lights and colored ice cubes. The result is a bridge that holds up incredibly well today, is visually appealing, amazingly functional, and isn’t dated because the controls are not “store bought” and the displays are not video screens…they are totally unique, creatively designed and built for that show only. Nothing else like it.

Give me a sleek new bridge that doesn’t use car seats, “touch screen controls” and leaves the Plasma displays at Best Buy…with lots and LOTS of pointless blinky lights. :)

I’m pretty much with jonboc on most of that, but I’m not going to be terribly disappointed if plasma screens and some modern switches show up – even with a huge budget some choices have to be made for the sake of texture and practicality.

A plasma screen is, after all, at base just a flat surface with moving images on it – not nearly as different from TOS, or as dated, as the curved glass CRTs so evident in ST 2, 3, and 4.

Blinking lights,circular bridge,turbo lift. Pointed ears and sideburns. These are are a few of my favorite 23 century things. God how much longer do we have to wait for a revel? This is agonizing beyond belief!

I can’t help but wonder what that’s going to be like for Zach on the first day he walks onto the bridge set. Whoa. That’s really, really going to be something….

#32 you mean CRTs on Trek 3,4, SPECIALLY 5 & 6 no? the first 2 seem to me proyected from behind

Guys, take a look at all the leaked photos.

HERE…

What the link’s broken?

My point is that since we have not seen anything (photos) means most of the bridge shots are going to be FX shots, relying heavily on digital
compositing. I am sticking by my prediction that this Enterprise is
going to look VERY different. Once again, think LOST IN SPACE THE MOVIE as oposed to the series.

The Star Trek shapes will be there, but I predict everything will have a BIG MOVIE EPIC look to it. The Bridge will be at least three times the size we are used too. Better yet. Think Enterpise D (Next Gen) with the sets that truely match the ships’ size.

Oh yeah, ROBOTS TOO!

Thoughts?

I don’t think it’ll look as different as all that. Roberto has already noted that many of the designs are very faithful to the originals, and I expect that the bridge would be high on that list.

What I do expect to see is much more visual activity. The main viewer will be a holotank. The displays at each station will all be dynamic; no more static screens showing only the same graphic the whole time. I think the upper screens will look much more like “The Cage”, to wit, image windows popping up on an otherwise black field. I think we’ll see more metallics, and a generally shinier and cleaner look than we might remember from TOS itself.

I don’t think there’s much to be read into a lack of leaked photos yet, except that the production team must be working *very* hard to keep this under wraps. Since they’re being coy on some of the most basic questions about the film, and we know that so much of what they’re developing is being built in as part of the surprise, I think they may feel it’s much too early to be spiling the beans. Now, give it a few more weeks, and we might see some stuff as filming starts, but I still have a feeling that they’re going to save “money shots” like views of the Enterprise for later on.

I could be wrong, of course, but that’s what I’m thinking.

Best,
Alex

A ‘TOS’ Movie with say, a huge, gleaming white Bridge, reclining, fastened-in seating positions, and overlayed with cutting-edge 3D ‘holographic’ displays and ‘touch-screen’ or ‘voice-activated’ displays would all look very pretty, but it would not be a ‘TOS’ Bridge if the designers go down that route, and would be better suited to a different generation of ‘Star Trek’…

I don’t necessarily need ‘red railings’ ( heresy, I know ), but I hope we get some sort of reasonably compact, round Bridge similar in size to the original series classic design, with it’s outer swivelling seating positions, and it’s double helm/navigation position which is just ahead of the swivelling, ‘forward leaning’ centrally-located Captain’s Chair…just not done in the lack-lustre colors of ST-TMP…

Like many here, I await the final design with great interest.

It would be nice, as well, to imagine what they would be able to do with

(a) Engineering (hoping, hoping, hoping….)

(b) Sickbay

Whatever they do they’ll never be able to top the Enterprise E Bridge

#35:”#32 you mean CRTs on Trek 3,4, SPECIALLY 5 & 6 no? the first 2 seem to me proyected from behind…”

No, back projection was only used on TMP – that was replaced with 24-fps video playback for TWOK.

The CRTs were used in 5 and 6 but I find them a little less obvious there since they’re mounted behind flat plexiglass rather than exposed – noticable, but less so than 2, 3 and 4.

#40: I didn’t think much of the Enterprise E Bridge, and it shouldn’t be difficult at all for them to come up with a more dynamic, attractive and functional-looking design.

#31 jonboc…. wow i would hate to see that.

I’m a big Trek fan, but a bigger sci-fi fan. I love cool sci fi with good action, sometimes horror or suspense, and “cool” visuals.

For me what you describe would make me walk out of the theater. I don’t want to see a remake of the 60’s with a fresh coat of paint. I want to see a believable 23rd century space ship in a believable sci fi movie set in the 23rd century.

My point is this: This is a very large budget film, especially for Star Trek, and if JJ expects to do sequals with even more money, he has to prove that he can capture a bigger more general sci fi audience than just Trekies. To do that, he’s going to have to give this thing a realistic, epic type feel as described in post #36. I expect something along those lines more than the TOS sets.

Just because they say the designs are “faithful” to the original doesn’t mean a whole lot. That is very general and vague and could just mean they have the same general locations within the ship, and shapes as the original, but they could still be vastly differently looking in texture and appearance.

If they are sticking to canon, as they say, with Nimoy as Spock, that doesn’t leave a lot of room to change things like the bridge and ship exterior. I hope to see a better-looking version, one not rooted in 60’s practical technology, but one that looks like a really functional version.

You know, displays are displays as long as they look somewhat unconventional and look good on screen. I don’t care if the information is a colored gel with a flashlight behind it or a big $ plasma display as long as the display doesn’t look like a common monitor screen with a video game playing. it’s all how you frame them and what you do with them.

For example, you could have the screens side by side, as seen in TOS, ding their blinky thing…but when a certain scene calls for it, 5 individual screens can become one, giving a panoramic display of important informationand graphics. Or there can be individual holographic projectors that give 3 dimensional maps, information, etc, that can be manipulated in mid air by touching floating control handles. These could come from our traditional bridge stations with the touch of a button. The original bridge design is fine, just needs some metal and formed plastic and achored chairs to make it more solid and real.

With the right touches it can be just as gorgeous and more futuristic than the old one, which STILL looks like nothing out there in the real world, and still remain faithful to the “look” of TOS. Just takes a little imagination.

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Me want swan neck viewscreens

I liked the Ent. B bridge a lot. I liked the Enterprise B a lot. I wish they’d scrapped Generations and had the original cast do a few movies on that ship.

I think we should expect the designs for the film to essentially be TMP version 2. Everything will be roughly the same size/shape/layout, but past that completely different.

The Ent-E bridge was awful BTW. Just plain awful. I’m getting sick just thinking about it. Come to think of it their Engineering sucked too. All that green in the warp core. Enginerring wasn’t as bad as that sucky bridge though.

My best guess is that the bridge, and the entire enterprise for that matter, will be like if they had the exact same design ideas, but were doing it for the first time in the year 2007. I would just croke if the sets were copies of the originals. They were great for there time, and the design doesn’t need to be changed, just updated to what 2007 can do with them.

…and come one people who wants to see low budget set construction on the big screen (and I emphasize construction, because the designs were top tear film quality. I mean the freaking military asked to have one of there command centers designed like the bridge of the TOS enterprise.)