There has been a lot of talk and speculation and even hints about who the bad guys are in the new Star Trek movie, including another hint from an interview with Anton Yelchin today. So TrekMovie.com has done a little digging to confirm what we all should know by now, and found a few interesting tidbits. Details below.
[SPOILERS BELOW]
Romulans!
The involvement of Romulans has been reported before by this site, IESB and AICN. There is also evidence from a couple of the film’s actors themselves. Last summer Zachary Quinto told SciFi Wire to prepare for Trek he was “learning a lot about Vulcans and a lot about Romulans.” And in a new interview, Anton Yelchin (Chekov) talked about it being fun to “sit on the bridge screaming about Romulans.” And this isn’t the first time Yelchin has talked about screaming at Romulans. Also in an interview with TrekMovie.com last year, co-writer Roberto Orci stated that “Balance of Terror,” the classic TOS episode that introduced the Romulans, was one of the key episodes they ‘referred to’ while creating the movie. Lastly we have this photo from Orci’s behind-the-scenes on the Star Trek shoot collection:
Even Romulans got to eat
So even though it has yet to be officially acknowledged, as far as TrekMovie is concerned (and this is confirmed with multiple sources), the new Star Trek features Romulans and they are the primary antagonists, lead by Nero (Eric Bana) and his 2nd in command General Ayel (Clifton Collins, Jr.).
Romulans: hairless…and ridgeless
When Eric Bana showed up on the Tonight Show with a shaved head the same week he was to start shooting for Star Trek people took notice. But TrekMovie.com has learned that it isn’t just Bana who has gone Kojak. According to sources close to the production, all actors playing Romulans, including Collins and even background performers, were required to shave their heads. TrekMovie.com has been told that the reason the Romulans are bald was at least partly to help distinguish them from the Vulcans. It has also been confirmed that the Romulans in the new Star Trek do NOT have the extra forehead ridges seen in the TNG era (both on film and TV).
Bana and Collins spotted hairless (both pics from February)
Romulans are up to no good!
So what is it the Romulans are doing? Well TrekMovie.com has already confirmed rumors that time travel plays a part in the film and the Romulans are knee deep in that as well. But once back in time what do they do? Well as it happens we have already seen part of their dastardly plan. Back in February we reported that a local traffic news helicopter flew over a large rusty object which was being filmed in a parking lot around Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles (we later reported that JFX got some shots of John Cho and a bald actor at that location). Initial speculation was that this object was some kind of ship, and the bald actor was a Klingon. However, TrekMovie.com has learned the object is actually a ‘drilling rig’ being used by the Romulans and that it is related to an attempt to destroy a planet. The practical location is just part of the larger rig that will mostly be done in CGI by ILM. the bald actor is, of course, a Romulan who Sulu (Cho) fights. Although he wasn’t seen by the paparazzi, apparently Kirk (Chris Pine) will also be in that scene, but not part of the fight.
Romulan bad guy for Sulu to fight
and part of the Romulan drilling rig
Romulans…the other Star Trek villain
Not all a total surprise, but it is interesting that the Star Trek team went with Romulans. Although Romulans have been featured in all five Trek TV series and both the TOS and TNG film series, Klingons are the more traditional Trek villain and much better known to the general public. In fact, the original draft for Star Trek III: The Search for Spock had Romulans as the antagonists but Paramount had it switched to the more familiar Klingons. However fret not, TrekMovie has already reported that we will see Klingons in this film…and we all know how well Kirk gets along with them.
Of course “Balance of Terror” sets up some canon issues that the film makers are surely aware of (e.g. seeing the Romulans for the first time). But the prequel series Star Trek Enterprise figured out a way to use Romulans and keep within canon (some debate this), so Abrams and his team may have some of their own tricks up their sleeves. Or the Abrams ‘Supreme Court’ may have made a ruling on this issue.
Romulans first seen in TOS episode “Balance of Terror”
Nice. Romulans with bald heads > Romulans with ridges
I can’t wait to see the movie!!!
Greets from the Netherlands
So, basically we’re going to have Kirk and company squaring off and fighting with the Romulans years before “Balance Of Terror.”
This movie is going to be a lot of fun – but all of the complaining about (apparent) canon violations concerning “no one has ever seen a Romulan…” between now and then will provide its own kind of entertainment. LOL
Nice!
Ok… Romulans. That seems very problematic. I think we expected that Nimoy Spock would probably start with something Romulan based, but if you get the original crew too involved with Romulans, isn’t that a big problem? At Balance of Terror, Kirk & Crew didn’t know who the Romulans were related too– just rumors. Even Enterprise handled this fairly well, so I would assume the timeline can remain intact, but it does cause a problem with storytelling I think. I would rather see Klingons myself– and I can’t wait to see what they go with for a Klingon look now that DS9 and Enterprise established a backstory explaining the TOS appearance of the Klingons.
Thank god no stupid ridges always hated that, the goofy shoulder pads and the dumb fright wigs they wore. Hated that alot!!! Bald Romulans should be interesting I suppose
OK — prequel? So… they can’t see the Rommies unless it’s a flash forward? Oh, my head hurts. Cool stuff, even so. Thanks, Anthony.
horray! No silly ridges!!! Whooo hoo
Thank God!!
If they are watching Balance of Terror, then JJ & Co know the canon. But remember they are the “Supreme Court” when it comes to violating canon for dramatic purposes.
I’m glad they are going back to ridgeless Romulans. It was silly in TNG episode Unification that everyone but Spock had ridges. Wouldn’t that have singled him out for not being a Romulan? Would’ve made it hard for him to blend in.
This has plot hole already! Kirk never met the Romulans til Balance of Terror.
Well, at least the Klingons get to put their feet up for this one, I’m sure they’re happy to have the blame shifted elsewhere. And what’s with the balding Romulans? Ain’t they heard of Rogaine in that part of the galaxy? Mugatu says he swears by it…
OK, Battletrek, here’ the deal: the plot is about time travel. Anytime someone goes from the future to the past, some elements of the timeline will be disrupted. The time traveler can keep these changes to a minimum, or the changes may be massive- but there will be some changes.
For instance, prior to First Contact, who was on the flight with Cochran? Certainly not Riker and LaForge, right? So time-travel created an altered timeline.
In other words, by changing canon, they are actually keeping canon. Think about it.
Ruffles have ridges…Romulans shouldn’t. Bald? Doesn’t mean they’re all bald…maybe an elite force that has this distinguishing look.
It’s been established that the film jumps around in time… how do we know the Romulan/Sulu fight scene *doesn’t* take place after “Balance of Terror”? Also, how do we know the Starfleet crew knows the aliens are even Romulans? Maybe they think they’re Vulcans gone bad, or some evil race that just happens to have pointy ears? We don’t know and won’t know until the movie comes out, so let’s not raise the red canon flag yet, folks. ;)
btw, awesome spoilers, Anthony. I look forward to more! :D
6. Garth
My sentiments exactly! I’ve always disliked the bad wigs (Vulcan wigs, too) and that unneccessary forehead thingy. This is a welcome step in the right direction.
What if the fact that the Federation had not met the Romulans for x amount of years was altered and that is why Nimoy Spock has to go back in time?
just saying. Just because you can’t think of a solution offhand, it doesn’t mean it won’t make sense in the end.
Man, the whole Romulan thing cuts right into the bone of Balance of Terror and blows the whole episode apart. Kirk even made a little speech to the ship explaining how Romulans had never been seen by the Federation, including the fact that the peace treaty was signed and the Romulan Neutral Zone established over a hundred years before. Perhaps an alternate universe story? Mr. Bob, I cannot wait to see how you handled this pretty big bump in the Trek road…
Well, at least the Romulans do not have ridges…
I suspected Nero would be Romulan . . . Nero was a Roman Emperor, and all references to the Romulans had something to do with Rome. (Praetors, Senates, Romulus and Remus, etc).
If time travel is involved in the movie then all canon is available to be changed. As a diehard Trekker I hope they don’t change too much, but I’m open to changing enough to breathe new life into the franchise.
Chuck#14- Okay, perhaps your shifting time theory might work. Sounds like it might be viable.
Well it seems to me that the romulans will be doing some pretty bad things. Hey maybe even the older spock will meet the younger spock in the movie. Now that would be kinda cool. But as much as i like time travel shows and movies i am a little tired of them as they have been done a lot. But heres to another time travel movie and i hope it’s a great one. Star trek 4 was fantastic as a time travel movie and first contact was a great seconed. The best time travel episode of all treks is the city on the edge of forever and the second was tommorow is yesterday. Third on the list is assingment earth.For the next generation the best is Yesterdays enterprise.There are others but to me those are the best time travel episodes. I just hope the new movie lives up to those listed above and be better.
One more. The next generation episode cause and effect was a great one as well. Great to see kelsey grammer as capt batesman of the starship bozeman.
Great story but the the Cannon fanatics are are going to be crying foul on this one, but you what? I don’t care, the movie sounds like a lot of fun.
Maybe all artifacts from the future will be erased from the memories of the 23rd Century characters’ minds with an MiB neuralizer or that special surgery by Dr. Pulaski or something. History can be changed, but the crew won’t remember meeting people from the future and the Vulcans can still deny time travel until the crew gets surprised by it after escaping Psi 2000, etc.
I don’t care if the Rommies are Coneheads as long as they lose the cheap Moe Howard wigs.
I remember in Star Trek 6 that when they showed the Romulan Ambassador, he had no ridges at all. So having no ridges is definitely canon, as far as the TOS movies are concerned. It makes me wonder though why Romulans have ridges by the time of TNG. I know that they did it to make them look “more alien” on the show, but I would like to hear some explanation created for it. Best bet: genetic manipulation to create better, stronger Romulans.
Thank gods no ridges! Hopefully no wig caps either…
27 continued…
Romulan government is also the type of power I could see making it mandatory for all Romulans to undergo genetic manipulation. They wouldn’t give their citizens a choice.
It was interesting how TNG seemed to make Vulcans and Romulans more different than they were in TOS, with the ridges and whatnot. I thought it was unfortunate that they also established that internally Vulcans and Romulans are quite different, even though it was necessary for the plot of one of my favorite TNG episodes, “The Enemy.” I thought it would have been more poignant if Vulcans and Romulans were identical physiologically.
Certainly plenty of reason to be concerned about having Romulans pre-Balance of Terror. That said, I’m not. I think it’s good to take the focus of the franchise on the Romulans. After all, the Romulans DID come first in just about everything. First major interstellar war for Earth. First major antagonist aliens introduced in Star Trek. They are related to the Vulcans, the first species humans met.
This is the way to go. Klingons are recognizable, yes. But the Romulans are priceless. That’s a great way to go to get to your fan base. However, when you consider cannon, there may or may not be a conflict. Considering someone IS jumping back in time, the timeline is effectively altered. Which, from what we’ve heard, is what is being established in some manner. Star Trek-B : virtually the same as A, but some changes that are noticeable.
Also, someone mentioned First Contact and who flew on the ship. Clearly, it was Riker and LaForge. It has to be. After all, the Enterprise in Enterprise is (most likely…I believe mentioned in a throwaway line at the beginning of the series that Cochrane named the warp 5 ship himself…) named for the Enterprise-E. And then the Enterprise in the upcoming film is (most likely) named for the NX-01. And then the A is named for the original, B for A, C for B, D for C, and E for D. (Can’t leave out the Enterprise-J!) So if the E is named (presumably) for the NX-01, and that ship is (presumably) named for the Enterprise-E, then Riker and LaForge had to be on the Phoenix when it flew. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a ship named Enterprise. It’d be the Phoenix or whatever.
If its a great film who really cares. this obsession with perfect continuity becoming a royal pain, just forget about. its not that important. If it’s a great film that pleases the audience no one is going to raise the issue except the die hards.
31. Son – May 16, 2008
Sorry, but….huh?
More non canon nonsense:
So many books have purported to know what Vulcan is like or Romulus. I always imagined Vulcan as Las Vegas with 1950’s-1960’s style architecture. Vegas used to have some swank digs and I always imagined Sarek and Amanda living a quiet Zen/Rat Pack lifestyle. The swingingest couple on Vulcan. Remember Cochrane’s pad in “Metamorphosis” that’s what I’m saying, baby.
What’s that have to do with anything? Nothing. We are all free to use our imaginations.
What we don’t have and the Trek 11 team does is a team of experts to fact check and make things provable, not just believable. Why? Because Remus as presented in Nemesis can NOT exist. A planet heavy enough to have gravity without rotation would have all its atmosphere frozen in layers heavy to light on the night side and be completely barren on the day side. Azimov was the science guy for TOS. Too bad Berman & Moore never hired a professional scientist to fact check their soap operas.
Why don’t the Romulans have ridges? There’s probably a damned good reason for it and not “just because it looks cool” Pointy ears are enough for looking cool. Remember Kirsty Alley refused to shave her eyebrows for Khan. Robin Curtis was happy to shave her eyebrows for Spock & Home. I dont remember if Curtis had brow ridges for her guest appearance in TNG.
What I don’t like about Trek canon is how if something is presented on screen it becomes immutable fact and cant be changed. Was Ilia bald or are all Deltans bald? The Klingon Bird of Prey in Spock was a stolen Romulan ship. It even fired a plasma torpedo. BUT: Little kids with little imaginations incapable of accepting any but their own ideas turned the BoP into the wackiest and most over used Klingon ship in all of Trek. Is it a little scout ship with 12 officers and crew or 12 officers and unspecified number of crew. Throughout all of Trek, the BoP changes scale. How big is it? How small? Were the ships stamped out in a factory like Checker Cabs? (Checker used the same stamps for its entire run, even when engines and other parts changed to fit more streamlined cars)
I don’t care if Trek 11 is “canon” or not, as long as it makes SENSE. This is TREK rooted in science not Wars rooted in LOTR fantasy.
Now if Spock plucks his lyre and starts singing “The Ballad of Bilbo Baggins” that, would be awesome!
Not
Shatner should cameo as a hologram singing “Rocketman”
Yeah, baby
This whole year is going to very unpleasant. and the outcrys of the diehards are going to get louder as film premier gets closer, im not even sure its going to abate even after, Maybe not, by the sound of things.
I think it would be coolest thing ever if as the credits roll, Shatner sings “Rocketman”
We should start a write in campaign.
Who’s with me?
Isnt this a reboot?
I’m with you, the guy that never posts©.
BEST!!
=h=
#37 Scott Xavier — Not exactly, no. The filmmakers have stated that the movie will be set in pre-existing canon, but they won’t let canon interfere with telling a good story.
Romulans are bald was at least partly to help distinguish them from the Vulcans
and wait they dont !!! have ridges ? why not i kinda like them , and it was
way easyer to tell the different , at the very least would it not have been better to
have some of them with the ridges or something
so all romulans are bald now thats kinda annoying i think i loved the romulan/vulcan type hair cut .
meh i guess i will get over it since the romulans are my fav aliens , and always wantet a movie with them in , and not a create a race remans and a picard clone that was nemisis,
they better keep the romian imperial undertones , but expand on the culture that would be cool .
Hmmm… How can we explain away those ridges???
The Roms didn’t show up again until the end of Season 2 of TNG, stating that they had had some internal issues for 60-some years, but now they were back. Perhaps those ridges were the result of some a rampant illness or radiation poisoning that affected their DNA. OR, perhaps the Praetor required that all Roms wear cranial implants so that the government could trace each of their people or that they could more easily control/communicate with them or that the people could more easily interface with their computers/ ships. That way, if they were running out of soldiers, a citizen could be pressed into service with no need for training. Just activate his/her implant.
Just a thought after too much caffeine. Whee!
#41. ster j — That doesn’t explain why they had the ridges in the 22nd century (on Enterprise), then they didn’t have ridges in the 23rd century (the original series & movies), only to get them back in the 24th century (TNG, etc.).
I always thought the ridged Romulans were those that were born and raised on Romulus while the ones without ridges were Vulcans like V’Las (http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/V%27Las) who defected to the Romulan Star Empire. Or something like that. :)
Maybe in the next movie or this one as well the Klingons will be ridgeless.
I’m a little leery about the Romulans being bald, if all of them are, that is. However, I trust Abrams, Orci, Kurtzman, etc. and the film hasn’t been released, so, I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt for now, at least. Plus, as long as the change can be explained away in a canonical way, it won’t bother me once I get used to the new look. But, I will admit all Romulans being bald is a bit disconcerting to me and it will take a good while for me to get used to this new look.
Last thought of the day, then I’ll leave everyone alone
After they remake Trek, do you think they can remake “The Black Hole” or “Unidentified Flying Oddball”
The fact that they’re Romulans is something we’ve known for a long time, but thanks for filling in the details, ESPECIALLY the part about the lack of ridges. Dammit I hated those, particularly when they had the ridged bastards in “Enterprise!” But that show always spit on canon anyway (and then trampled on it…then crumpled it up and flushed it down the toilet, where it was eaten and digested by a crocodile in the sewers) so it didn’t really surprise me. I’m happy to see that Abrams is at LEAST doing that much. Maybe there is hope for this movie after all.
#45 the guy that never posts — There have been rumors that a Black Hole remake is coming, but there’s been nothing official. As for Unidentified Flying Oddball… um, I wouldn’t count on it. :)
Actually, strike that… given Hollywood now-a-days, look for a remake of Unidentified Flying Oddball to be in theaters around 2012. :P
John Travolta and Samuel L Jackson star in Quentin Tarantino’s Disney’s The Black Hole Co-Starring Uma Thurman Bruce Willis and Earnest Borgnine with Harvey Keitel as Dr Hans and Ving Rames as Max
Hilarity ensues!
I’ve had it with these MF asteroids on this MF Black Hole!
This ridge-less Romulan thing sounds like honoring canon more than bending it.
Sounds cool to me. And canon is in good hands with JJ and Orci, I am sure.