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.
Vasquez Rocks to appear in Star Trek
An inside source has revealed to TrekMovie.com that the Star Trek crew will be shooting at the famed Vasquez Rocks Natural Area Park north of Los Angeles. It isn’t known when the shooting starts, but Paramount scouts have already visited the famed Trek locale. Vasquez Rocks is possibly most famously known as the spot where the Metrons staged the death match between Captain Kirk and the Gorn in “Arena.” The TOS crew also used Vasquez for three more episodes as well as Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (where it stood in for planet Vulcan). The Next Generation, Voyager and Enterprise also shot at Vasquez. Each time the location stood in for a different planet in the Trek universe. It is not known what planet it will be standing in for in the new Star Trek, but a source tells TrekMovie.com that the famous ‘Gorn Rock’ is likely to end up in the film as another one of those homage ‘Easter Eggs’ to the fans.
‘Gorn Rock’ to show up in new “Star Trek”
Vasquez not just for Trek
Vasquez is not just popular with Paramount shooting Trek, the location has been used by dozens of films and TV shows going back to 1928. Many of those films were westerns such as Dakota starring John Wayne, but also include genre films such as Army of Darkness and the 2001 remake of Planet of the Apes. Vasquez’s Trek connection also served as parody for films shooting there, such as Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, Free Enterprise, and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. William Shatner recently returned to Vasquez to film the documentary How William Shatner Changed the World. The location will also be used for the upcoming Star Trek New Voyages episode “Rest and Retaliation.”
It is Kirk v Gorn at Vasquez in TOS “Arena”
Shatner returns to Vasquez in “How William Shatner Changed The World”
Spock gets some ‘me time’ in “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”
More on Vasquez Rocks at Memory Alpha, Ex Astris Scientia and MovieSites.Org.
They need to declare Vasquez Rocks a national monument. I could tell you anything you need to know about Vasquez. Mount Rushmore? Not so much.
intresting.
1st on iPhone uk
Oh well nevermind 2nd
Don’t forget the papier mache boulders!
Love it!
right, guys, you know what to do!!
take some time off, camp out there until they appear and start shooting and take LOTSA pictures (or even videos…!) =p
I’d love to, but i don’t live anywhere near there…
Also seen in Phantasm 3 I believe. Anyone else think of obscure films that used Vasquez rocks?
^
Does this mean were also going to see young Kirk in a ripped up shirt??
This basically says Shatner might be in the movie…or at least present during part of the shooting? Or am I reading this wrong? *hopeful lip bite*
7
I have no idea where you got that inference Vulcan Babe
please people can we not divert this thread into that well gone over territory
No, it says nothing of the kind. Not even by implication.
I have been there several times, usually for nighttime star gazing during meteor showers. Vasquez Blanket Bingo!
VR also appeared in The Invaders a few times – e.g The Saucer…..Hope that series gets the big budget treatment one day….Scoett Bakula starred in a sequel failed mini series in 1995
YESSSSS!!!
That just gives me a great, big, giddy smile on my face. The general public won’t recognize the location from squat, but the die-hards will get a great chuckle when the Rocks make their appearance in TREK XI.
Good call!
Vasquez Rocks, woo-hoo! Curiously, it’s a bit of a disappointment in real life, so close to the freeway when you drive past it. But I have yet to take the exit and see what it’s like down up close and personal. Now I have another excuse to go!
I tell ya….Bill Shatner looks retrospective (yet old) and lost in the picture posted here. To get older and have the best years behind you. Sort of sad.
The instant I saw “famous location,” I thought Vasquez Rocks…exciting. I visited them when I was a kid, before I even knew about their Trek significance…I’ll have to go back some time.
Maybe we’ll see Miramanee’s famous twin peaks.
@6 , lol Phantasm 3 nice , this is funny yea any other obscure films or tv show ?
My guess would be some sort of establishing shot on Vulcan, like it was used in Trek IV.
Maybe it will be the Guardian Planet when a Gorn captain goes back in Time to keep Kirk from beating his scaly a**.
I think after ST 12 wraps, Vaszquez should become a closed natural museum, open only to card-carrying ST fans, fan productions, and of course, studio productions of ST. :D
Oh, and #16, LOL…
Umm…… I’m sure I mean ST 11 up there in my post #20… a result of typing while not yet fully caffeinated…. sorry… :D
Maybe the Metrons will interfere and will not allow fake actors to film there.
JJ and his crewe should invest more in story rather than making location shot and other types of Easter eggs – judging by mi 3, which I finally saw last night. Sure was a lot of plot getting in the way of any story there.
#22 Stanky
You take an awful lot of interest in a film you profess to dislike
Gotta love those rocks! Just saw them in an episode of Wild WIld West…along with the fort on cestus 3…apparently it was built right outside the rocks. It’s only fitting that they should make a cameo in this TOS movie. Cool news for sure!
How time stands still for Vasquez Rock as you can tell by the pictures above however time is still moving along for the Shat.
#23
Couldn’t disagree with you more on MI:3. Best of the series really. Moved along at a clip without sacrificing character moments.
26 …and for everyone else too.
That picture of the Shat wearing yellow pants and white socks under his sandals, is just too funny. Did they let him dress himself? Sadly, my husband dresses like that, but I love him anyway.
i concur…socks under sandals…not cool!
I remember visiting Vasquez Rocks in 1986 where they were filming back ground shots for “Masters of the Universe” with Dolph Lungren – while my wife and my friends and i took trek pose photos…and the crew though we were mad!
ah to be young again!
What a stunning place it is!
Al in the UK!
And of course these rocks made an appearance in Star Trek: The Next Generation’s “Who Watches the Watchers”.
I heard they are recreating Vasquez Rocks in 3D AND on a soundstage.
Your Trek dollars at work.
Shat’s choice of footwear reminds me of those old fogeys I see at the beach, bopping around in print shirts and Bermuda shorts with black support socks and Oxford shoes……LMAO :-)
It’s not Trek, but the first live-action Flintstones film built all the Bedrock locations around Vasquez Rocks… I’m pretty sure at least one episode of Brisco County filmed there as well – it’s a very popular location…
And of course, I even shot part of my own film “The Jedi Hunter” out there five years ago… :)
re: 24 Litenbug
“You take an awful lot of interest in a film you profess to dislike”
It’s like a train wreck. You want to look away…but you can’t.
to everyone in my family, we have fondly called this famous outcropping as “kirk rock”
Stanky is as constant as the northern star.
#37 Shatners Hairpiece Said:
“Please shut up about Shatner being in the movie already, it’s getting old!”
WOW, SHATNER’S IN THE NEW MOVIE! WOO-HOO!!!!!!!!!!! LOL!
Cool – love to look for these references.
The actors look pretty real to me.
Perhaps I just can’t tell the difference between real ones and fake ones.
#35. “re: 24 Litenbug
“You take an awful lot of interest in a film you profess to dislike”
It’s like a train wreck. You want to look away…but you can’t.”
Find the strength of character.
What’s with the “fake actor” business, anyway? It’s not like any of the folks cast so far are, based on their previous work, any more or less “real” than the motley group of TV actors who’ve appeared in TOS and other Trek in the past. I mean, is Eric Bana less “real” an actor than the Shat? Not bloody likely. :lol:
any other obscure films or tv show ?
Yes,
“Bill & Teds Bogus Journey” I believe.
41- Dennis Bailey-
“Find the strength of character.”
Good one.
Kirk said in ST VI, “People can be very frightened of change.”
Spock said, in “Let That Be Your Last Battlefield,” “Change is the essential process of all existence.”
I guess that adds up to a lot of potentially frightened people?
Of course, some change is for the better, some for the worse. No one can tell which r the upcoming ST movie will be. The only thing we know is that the only way change will not happen, in Star Trek as in a person’s personality, is if it is dead.
“They need to declare Vasquez Rocks a national monument.”
I’m all for that.
Just curious, Dennis – does Paramount pay you to defend online every currently-in-production Star Trek project? I very clearly recall you applauding and defending everything going on in the first season of “Enterprise” on TrekBBS.com way back when. Or are you just really enthusiastic about everything until you actually see it?
it is our job as fans to keep trek alive. i very much disliked ent seasons 1 and 2, 3 got better… but i watched every episode and guess how glad i was (because season 4 was the greatest of all trek).
same with nemesis. i didn’t like it and i still don’t like it. it’s like st5 with the many mistakes.
but i have the special edition dvd of nemesis. because i still like to see the enterprise flying into the unknown.
i will watch this movie many times in theaters, i will buy the dvd (special ed. if there will be one), the pc game, the soundtrack cd and the book. no matter what. because it will be a part of trek history and only the money will make sure that the trek continues.
44. steve623 – November 24, 2007
Not speaking for DB, but I’d rather we start positive and see where it goes rather than some of the negativity posted here.
I’d forgotten the “rocks” appeared in ST:IV
#44:”Or are you just really enthusiastic about everything until you actually see it?”
Only things that look interesting. But it’s a lot more fun to look forward to the future than to bitch, complain, and predict/expect the worst.
What, one might be disappointed? One might feel that they’d been “fooled?” Pretty wimpy to fear that kind of thing.
I did enjoy “Enterprise” immensely. That was more fun, too, than hating it appears to be. :)
I remember seeing, several years ago, a magazine spread of the Shat, resplendent in his STVI era uniform, posing with pretty women. Does this ring a bell for anyone? (The discussion of his sock and sandal feux pas popped that memory up out of the hazy hopper….)
Perhaps it was more in the Generatons era, I’m not sure. He had several hot babes hanging on him while he wore a movie-era uniform, and smiled (leered?) at the camera knowingly….it could have been a layout called “The Women Of Star Trek” or something like that…
If anyone remembers that, let me know. Perhaps those pics are online somewhere…they were most cheesy, and yet fun to look at…
since you mention New Voyages someone on their forums sed this since both productions are filming at Vasquez:
QUOTE:
“ah imagine the scene
James Cawley: I’m Captain Kirk
Chris Pine: I’m Cadet Kirk
James Cawley: I’m Captain Kirk.
William Shatner (jumping out from behind a large rock): I’M CAPTAIN KIRK
JJ Abrams: Okay who invited the fat man in the girdle? Get him out of here. If we’ve told you once, we’ve told you twice, Bill, you’re just not in this movie.”
lmao
#49
Then I imagine Shat wiping the floor with all 3 of them. And the funny part is, at 76, I think the fat man in the girdle could do it!