Earlier this month TrekMovie.com reported that the first teaser trailer for the Star Trek movie was in the works and it could possibly end up in front of the J.J. Abrams-produced monster movie Cloverfield in January. Earlier today Screenrant cited a source saying that the trailer will indeed be seen with Cloverfield and TrekMovie.com has just confirmed this report.
Today seems to be Sulu Day. George Takei may not be appearing in the new Star Trek movie, but the man who originated Sulu still has some thoughts on his past life and the future of the franchise. Regarding why The Original Series seems to be ‘hot’ again (with Trek Remastered and the new Star Trek movie), Takei cites Gene Roddenberry’s vision. He tells Dreamwatch…
Once again TrekMovie.com has a Star Trek rumor to debunk. Today many Internet reports are popping up citing an article in the latest Starburst Magazine in the UK (issue 356) which states George Takei will appear in the new Star Trek movie, reprising his role as Hikaru Sulu. This ‘breaking news’ actually appears as just a sentence in the third paragraph of an article about the confirmed cast members for the film (such as Zachary Quinto, John Cho, Chris Pine, Simon Pegg, and Leonard Nimoy). From the article:
The latest Entertainment Weekly counts down the 50 Smartest People in Hollywood and Star Trek producer-director J.J. Abrams comes in at number 29. EW cites Abrams nabbing of the Trek franchise as evidence of his smarts. The list includes various agents, executives, and creative professionals with Abrams beating out the likes of Hellboy director Guillermo Del Toro, Sascha Baron Cohen (aka Borat) and Amy Powell (a Paramount marketing executive). Topping the list were three other directors Judd Apatow, Steven Spielberg, and James Cameron.
The LA Times has an interesting new interview with the new Spock, Zachary Quinto. The actor reveals his thoughts about the writer’s strike, describing first the disappearance of the writing staff from the set of Heroes as an “unexpected, unwanted vacation for everybody.” Then his transition to Star Trek also seems to have been difficult: Compounding it is I ended on “Heroes” on Friday and started on “Star Trek” on Monday. To be working through this and to be required to work is also really strange. It’s a combination of feeling really fortunate and oddly awkward and guilty and weird.
In his latest Shatnervision, the Shat critiques the promotion for his latest Trek book “Collision Course” and discusses why there isn’t an audio version.
[Possible minor spoilers] Last weekend TrekMovie.com revealed that the production for the new Star Trek movie would be shooting at the famous Vasquez Rocks location (scene of many Trek shots including the Gorn fight in “Arena”). Now according to a source of IESB, the shooting at Vasquez this week will be for “a birth.” The source, who was picketing the location with the WGA, also stated there were “plenty of Vulcans” around. Vasquez Rocks could easily stand in for planet Vulcan, as it did in Star Trek IV. Of course Spock’s birth was already featured in Star Trek V, so that part is a bit harder to decipher.
Carnegie Mellon University has a new article about their famous alum Zachary Quinto. The new Spock gives advice to students and talks about his roles on Heroes and Star Trek. Regarding Trek, Quinto said that Nimoy warned him about taking on the role: I met Leonard Nimoy in the elevator the day they announced the movie. He turned to me and said, ‘You have no idea what you’re in store for’ and then walked away
The connections to NBC’s Heroes and Star Trek (past and present) are numerous, but now it looks like there is also a link to JJ Abrams monster movie Cloverfield. One of the ‘viral’ sites for Cloverfield is Slusho.jp, a fictional Japanese frozen drink company. Slusho drinks have shown up in the last two episodes of Heroes. Here is a clip from last night:
Captain Picard to the podium! Today Patrick Stewart was named the Best Actor of 2007 at the Evening Standard Theater Awards. Stewart has been playing the title role in Mac Beth to sell out crowds at the Gielgud Theatre in London. At the awards Stewart stated “it’s wonderful, we’re all aglow. All of us who believe the best possible theatre should be in London are thrilled.” Stewart told the Telegraph “”I’ve never won an award like this, so it’s brilliant. It is like a fantasy to be in such a wonderful production with an outstanding company and then to find that we are such a box office hit as well as a critical hit.” More info at ThisIsLondon.co.uk
Last month Perpetual Entertainment, the company producing the “Star Trek Online” MMORPG announced they were scrapping their launch title (Gods and Heroes) to focus on the Trek game. In the last couple of days some new reports indicate there are more changes in store for Perpetual and the Trek game. Shack News reports that Perpetual has been acquired by a new company and that this new owner wants to make changes in the plans for STO. Specifically changing the game to make it more appealing to ‘casual players’ by changing the payment model from a monthly fee to a free game where you pay for optional in-game items with real money (a new model being adopted by some MMORPGs, mostly in Korea). Shack News also reports that some Perpetual employees are not happy with changes and have left the project. But other reports cast some doubt on Shack News article
The Writers Guild of America strike has entered its fourth week, but the parties actually sat down to talk to each other Monday for the first time since the strike began. Although both director JJ Abrams and co-writer Roberto Orci have stated that the script for Star Trek (currently in production) was solid and that they had planned ahead to ensure it was strike-ready, Abrams was also recently quoted as saying he wasn’t happy he couldn’t add a new line to the script. But new reports give hope that Abrams may get a chance to add that line sooner rather than later. According to today’s Daily Variety “optimists took solace in speculation that the outlines of a deal have already been hammered out.”
The remastered “The Alternative Factor” airs this weekend,
Two weeks ago TNG and DS9 writer (and Battlestar Galactica co creator) Ronald D. Moore set up his own blog mostly focusing on issues related to the WGA strike. However, yesterday Moore delved into his time as a cub writer for TNG in a post titled “The Trek Journals — One in an Occasional Series.” Moore recalls a particularly amusing anecdote about how the writers would spy on meetings between executive producer Rick Berman and show runner Michael Piller:
The Star Trek New Voyages episode “World Enough and Time” (featuring George Takei) has won TV Guide’s Best Sci-Fi Webisode Award. It beat out entries from The 4400, Battlestar Galactica and Afterworld. More info at TVGuide. Congrats to STNV producer James Cawley and his team.
The third and final ‘pre-pilot’ viral video for the zombie show “Alive “co-created by Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens has been added to the Falcon Rock website. The vid features Star Trek Enterprise’s John Billingsley playing the creepy ‘Pastor.’
The UK’s EnvironmentalGraffiti.com, one of the top 3 environmental sites worldwide, has nominated Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home as one of the Greatest Environmental Movies of All Time. Other nominees include the dystopian Soylent Green and the Al Gore global warming documentary An Inconvenient Truth. The site states that the literal ‘save the whales’ plotline was “the most believable of the Star Trek films.”
A year ago the independent fan production Star Trek New Voyages released their second episode “To Serve All My Days” featuring Walter Koenig reprising his role of Pavel Chekov. The episode was well received by the fan film community, but was also critiqued for not fully meeting the STNV goal of truly seeming like it was from the ‘4th season’ of Star Trek The Original Series. The STNV are now hard at work creating a new version of the episode to be released this Christmas which they call the ‘Night in 1969’ Edition. “We are making it feel like it came right from NBC in 1969,” executive producer James Cawley tells TrekMovie.com.
It has been reported before that Star Trek director JJ Abrams is doing as much location shooting as possible, and that Trek geek co-writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci have laced the script with multiple Trek references. TrekMovie.com has learned that those two things will come together in fun homage to Trek’s past. MINOR SPOILERS below.
It’s a slow news day, so here are a few classic game show clips from the 70s Roddenberry on “To Tell The Truth!”
Star Trek always reminded us of the importance of family and friends, and so today we wish you all happy gatherings. Let us all give thanks to all that is really important in life. And give thanks that Star Trek is the gift that keeps on giving too.
In the latest ShatnerVision Bill plays nice, but makes it clear he is not in the new movie. UPDATED: But he still seems to be critical of the decision (see below)
The New Spock, Zachary Quinto will be gracing a cover of FHM in what they are calling “most limited edition FHM of all time!” It will not be on news stands, but the special January Quinto issue can be ordered at FHM.com. An excerpt from his interview is at Empire, where Quinto notes that he “never imagined science fiction would be a catalyst” for his career. But he seems to have embraced it, adding: There’s a core faith in the human condition that exists in a lot of science fiction, but in particular Star Trek and Heroes, and I don’t think there’s any mistake I’m aligned with that.
While you relax and eat your Turkey Day leftovers on Friday you can tune into the Sci-Fi channel and watch Star Trek Enterprise all day long. As you would imagine they have picked the best episodes and arcs like “Twilight” and “In a Mirror, Darkly.” Details below
The new Star Trek Season One Box Set contains seven TOS Remastered episodes that have yet to air in syndication. TrekMovie.com thought you might like to get a sneak peek at what you can look forward to. Check em out below
Before you can say “oh my” there are more frank opinions from George Takei (see previous article). In the second part of iF Magazine’s interview with the original Sulu, the actor lets loose on his opinion of post Roddenberry Trek. Regarding why the ‘Star Trek Excelsior’ Series never happened, Takei claims that Paramount ignored what the fans wanted, saying: There was a flood of letters from every corner of the world advocating for this Excelsior series and then Paramount suddenly decided they didn’t want fan advice or participation and went ahead and did what they wanted to anyway with ENTERPRISE; which was a disastrous failure.
Anton Yelchin, Chekov in the new Star Trek, is really on a roll. In addition to Trek he will appear in 3 other 2008 films. And now it looks like he might move from his Starfleet uniform to some red tights. Superhero Hype is reporting that the 18 year-old actor is one of the up-and-comers attached to the Warner Brothers’ Justice League movie currently slated for 2009, playing the Flash (aka Wally West). For now it is just a rumor and a competing rumor puts Adam Brody in the role. Plus it is likely the WGA strike will cause a delay in the film. Regardless the future seems bright for the new Chekov.
As of Today the new TOS Remastered Season One HD DVD Set, The latest Titan Book “Sword of Damocles” and the new Trek Game “Conquest” (for Wii and PS2) are all hitting store shelves…just in time for holiday shopping. NOTE: It looks like Amazon has the best price on the TOSR set and they are in stock now…click image above
Well the casting for Star Trek is pretty close to complete, so how about a story about people who were almost in it. In an interview with MTV, Deadwood star Timothy Olyphant revealed that he and director J.J. Abrams met about an unnamed part in the film which was followed up by “a series of conversations” and “lots of emails.” At 39 it seems a good guess that Olyphant was likely up for the role of Bones or maybe the villain Nero. In the end the actor says they made a mutual decision it wasn’t going to work out, but Olyphant remains a huge fan of Abrams and noted “I’m sure he got the best cast.”
More shots from Star Trek’s location shoot last week have shown up on a French website. Check out at Buzzline for 15 shots. If you missed it, the first shots are JFX Online