We have another Abrams and Orci interview coming out of the Fox TCA event held earlier this week. Access Hollywood chatted to the pair about what it is like to work together on Fringe and Trek, how it felt for Trek to be completed (which Abrams confirmed), and their anticipation of fan reaction to Star Trek. See the video below (which includes an interesting Brannon Braga sighting).
VIDEO
Access Hollywood talks to Orci and Abrams about Fringe and Star Trek.
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Some key quotes:
Abrams and Orci on if they are anxious over fan reaction to Star Trek:
Orci: Yeah. You never want to be so overly confident to think "yeah they are going to blow it away." We are not smug, but pretty confident.
Abrams: I am not worried about fans of the show liking the movie. Fans of the show have seen it and had really great reactions, but I am as excited and nervous — kind of butterfies which I get about everything — I hope people like it. You work that long and hard on something and you don’t want it to be trashed [laughs].
Abrams on working with Nimoy:
Abrams:Leonard Nimoy is in there and is the greatest. He was amazing. It was the weirdest thing, I knew I was going to be working with Nimoy, but the first day…it was surreal to direct him as Spock, because what the hell am I doing there? This guy has been doing it for forty years. It’s like "I think Spock would…" [laughs]
Braga-Orci summit?
By the way if you watch closely at 2:05 you can see long-time Star Trek writer/producer (and screenwriter of two Trek feature films) Brannon Braga (who works on FOX’s 24) say "it was good to meet you" to new Star Trek screenwriter Bob Orci. So apparently they had a chance to meet for the first time and chat at this FOX event. Oh to be a fly on the wall for that meeting of the past and future of Trek.
Braga and Orci – what did they talk about?
Don’t worry JJ If it’s Star Trek, We’ll like it.
I like that you guys excerpt quotes in text from these movies, because I -hate- watching movies on websites.
Enterprise was Star Trek, and I didn’t like most of that…..
I jump out of my seat with fright when I saw Brannon Braga go past J.J and Bob that’s very scary.
LOL Are we on B & B sighting alert now? Cool to hear that they are confident.
Brannon Braga wrote some fine TNG eps — “Cause and Effect” is his, isn’t it? The downfall of TV Trek was Voyager.
I would say that the downfall of TV Trek was the first and second seasons of Enterprise.
Last week’s 24 episode was written by Manny Coto and Brannon Bragga. FYI
Abrams: “I am not worried about fans of the show liking the movie. Fans of the show have seen it and had really great reactions, but I am as excited and nervous — kind of butterfies which I get about everything — I hope people like it.”
Are we not people?
:)
I am a huge fan of the Original Series and 5 of the 6 feature films centered around those characters. I would like to see it and a have a great reaction too!
It’s fun to hear of a guy who (at least to my knowledge) has never made anything that bombed, and yet still gets nervous about its reception.
” You work that long and hard on something and you don’t want it to be trashed.”
Then I hope he doesn’t take a cue from Bob and spend time reading comments on this site (J/K). There are people here who trash it everyday without even having seen it!
I know it’s quite popular to cap on Berman and Braga and blame them for the “demise” of Star Trek, but it really isn’t accurate. They kept Star Trek alive for many years. Did they make some bad decisions with the direction of the franchise? Certainly. But after Gene passed away, they kept Trek on TV for a long time. And say what you will about Voyager and Enterprise, they did have their fans. And TNG was a pretty popular show. I don’t think everyone is being honest when they come on here and say they just hated TNG. When TNG first aired I was among the biggest detractors. How dare they replace my favorite characters with new ones! And the first season stories were a bit shaky. But I came around. The story writing got better. And Patrick Stewart was and is a compelling actor to watch.
And now I’m waiting to be won over by the new movie. But they have to earn it from me.
Abrams looks like Rick Moranis…
#3—“Enterprise was Star Trek, and I didn’t like most of that…..”;
and,
#7—“I would say that the downfall of TV Trek was the first and second seasons of Enterprise.”
Funny how that works for people of different tastes.
I cared for very little TNG, some of DS9, none of VOY, and only one of the 4 TNG-era movies (I found FC to be ok), but I did like ENT. Go figure.
The first two seasons of TOS and the last season of ENT (minus the ‘TNG nightmare’ finale) may have been the high point of TV Trek for me— qualitywise.
I have to say, I’m touched that everyone involved in the movie is giving so much thought to what hardcore fans are gonna think of it. Very sensitive of them to care!
For me, it’s a simple equation.
Good movie = happy Trek Nerd
Bad movie = unhappy Trek Nerd.
Can’t get the video to load. But the line that JJ said about not worrying about fan’s reactions? Isnt’t that typical? He didn’t make this movie for Star Trek fans anyway. So why should he care what we think?
Trek is Trek….it’s all good. I enjoyed every episode of every series and enjoyed every movie. Some were better than others, of course, but any trek is better than no trek at all!
New age Roddenberry, Rick Berman and Braga etal, turned Star Trek into an abomination that I hardly recognized. I’ll never give them props for that.
But to give credit where it’s due…Coto and Braga’s entry of 24’s premiere rocked the Kasbah. Braga can write…he just can’t write original recipe Trek.
This entire project look like crap to me… Abrams should have stayed away from this if his intention was to change thing around so much. Granted I have not seen it but no one else has and praising it whitout having seen it is starnge to me. I, on the other hand, am critisising on the basis of the redesigning of the ships and sets and on the fact that the Trek universe storyline is being messed up. Uhura should not be there, nor should Checov and the Romulans. I JJ’s not happy with TOS TREK the way it has been put together he should have invented something new on his own. I am very dissapointed in everything I have seen so far…
#14—-I think you may have misread the quote.
Here it is again:
“I am not worried about fans of the show liking the movie. Fans of the show have seen it and had really great reactions, but I am as excited and nervous — kind of butterfies which I get about everything — I hope people like it.”
The reason he gives for not being worried is that fans of the show have already had great reactions to it. Still, he has always maintained that not every fan is going to be pleased.
he also told us here at trekmovie.com that he hoped to make a film that both established fans and mainstream moviegoers would appreciate.
Yet you seem only to remember the comment about not making the film for Star Trek fans, but for fans of movies. That’s interesting.
trekmovie.com has a fantastic archive section where you can find plenty of reason not to judge his position solely upon one sentence.
Check it out.
#17
“Granted I have not seen it but no one else has and praising it whitout having seen it is starnge to me.”
So are we not counting the hundreds of reporters & fans that saw Abrams special screenings around the world? Or Kevin Smith?
It’s an eerie coincidence– as soon as Bob and J.J. start talking about Star Trek, Brannon walks by and talks to Bob. I was watching the video clip not having read that Brannon walks by and it was like, woah, here they just start talking Trek and there’s Brannon!
#15. -Agreed. I think every series/movie of the trek canon to date has had at least a few redeeming qualities, some more than others obviously, but its all part and parcel of the bigger picture. Its like my dear grandmother who loves the Buffalo Bills. She’s a diehard, and says “you have to be along for the ride, for the downs just as much as the ups. That’s what makes a fan.” Although I’m not much for football, I think I have that seed of fandom in me too.
Who exactly has praised the film that hasn’t seen it?
That would seem rather difficult.
I hardly think that being “optimistic” about it is the same thing.
DAMN YOU BRANNON BRAGA! DAMN YOU!!!
Bob Orci and Brannon Braga had a chat.
Is that like when my wife talks with my ex girlfriend?
Awkward.
Another friendly reminder to people that using multiple names is not allowed at TrekMovie, especially when you start ‘agreeing’ with eachother. That kind of sockpuppetting gets you instabanned (and posts deleted)…so say goodbye to C. Colson and his other personas
Virtually every scipt Braga wrote involved time travel. The guy is obsessed with it. He was probably telling Orci how much he loved the script and how he was right all a long.
Im goin to see this movie in may 8th 2009 whether the fans like it or not
The Decline of Trek was caused by that stupid “Enterprise” theme song IMHO
Trek is Dead! Long Live Trek!!!
12. Closettrekker: “The first two seasons of TOS and the last season of ENT may have been the high point of TV Trek for me— qualitywise.”
AGREED! =D
Actually, I liked a lot of Enterprise (theme song apart) and I must confess that I drifted away from Voyager eventually, I just couldn’t force myself to watch it. I even suffered through Enterprise season 3 which was truly, truly terrible in my everso humble opinion but mainly because it wasn’t true to the *ideals* of Trek, it felt warlike and gungho and all that.
But the reason I stopped watching V’ger was that it really was dull and contrived, though fairly true to Trek ideals, so I agree with many of the posts above that it can be as true to Trek as it wants, but my main wish is that it’s a good film. Period.
I do feel that JJ is going to be relieved when this film is finally out and the votes are in *regardless* of whether it’s flamed to bits by us fans or not – the suspense is just killing ME, and I didn’t even get to make it!
:-)
#7, I would agree that the 2nd season of ENT was pretty weak, but one thing that often gets overlooked is that ENT was on a network (UPN) that was imploding and did not properly support the show. I thought the 3rd season was a really interesting experiment in a long story arc, and the 4th season was terrific (except for the crappy finale).
BTW, I think that NX-O1 was one of the best ships they ever produced, much cooler than Voyager.
The first Trek I ever saw was TNG back in 1989. I watched it with my late grandfather. I thought it was absolutely amazing, but didn’t quite grasp all of it. In 1993 we finally got cable and so I was able to watch TOS for the very first time and I loved it. I would reenact Star Trek adventures with my friends (we had our little bridge and I even built a somewhat rudimentary command chair). DS9 came along one year later (here in Europe) and I was not too enthusiastic about the station concept, but it quickly won over me. It’s really hard for me to decide which show is my favourite. It’s really not fair to weigh them against each other. I loved the 4th season of ENT and there are also true highlights in Voy like “Message in a bottle” or “the void”. But here it goes: (It’s really close between the first three)
1. TNG
2. DS9
3. TOS
4. Voyager
5. Enterprise
6. TAS
movies:
1. ST6
2. ST8
3. ST4
4. ST2
5. ST9
6. ST3
7. ST7
8. ST1
9. ST5
10. ST10
Well, they have based the scientific premise of the new film on quantum theory outlined in the TNG episode “Parallels” written by Brannon Braga. It doesn’t seem surprising to me that they would continue with the time travel/parallel universe themes that permeated BragaTrek ad nauseum.
God forbid we return to what Star trek is all about — exploration of space…..
Oh well, a house built on sand………
Now Abrams and Braga comparing notes.
I’m getting less enthusiastic by the day.
So any sequels will involve the alternate timeline reality I suppose.
As I was saying…
#1 Gorandius- No “we” won’t! Not all Trek is good Trek!!!!!
You know watching that clip, given boborci’s presence at this site, made me feel that he was representing us fans in a way.. I guess he does.
Wow, Anthony…good eye. I’m glad you keep an eye out for such things because it got past me. Good for you for keeping the abuse of this sight down to a minimum.
As for the “demise of Trek” on television? I find it hard to place blame on any one individual. I think the problem was more along the lines of over-saturation. Trek always had it’s niche market, but if ANY series was airing multiple spin-offs, syndicated episodes, as well as theatrical movies, its bound to run it’s course and therefor need a break. I am a fan of every incarnation of Star Trek and I eagerly await this new movie. Were all the incarnations, episodes, movies top-notch? By no means, no…but they all still held enjoyment for me as I predict Mr. Abrams, Orci, and Kurtzman’s take on the franchise will. I for one plan on being at the midnight showing with bells on.
#33 yea no kidding, what happened to the exploration of space. TOS and TNG did that the best, even though Voyager was the apex of that definition I still thing TOS and TNG and the best kind of good old exploration.
Yea that Brannon Braga walk by was kind of weird, because he knows what they are being interviewed on and that he is no longer at the helm of Star Trek. The fact that he walked by as soon as they start talking about Star Trek was some weird karma.
#9 well Closettrekker um true for the most part. Cloverfield did kind of bomb but that is it. I am VERY confident in JJ’s talents and what Orci, Kurtzman, and Lindelof have constructed.
#10 I agree everything rises and falls and the fact that Star Trek has had some down time is not their fault. Berman and Braga did some great things with Star Trek and true fans will always be grateful.
Funny DS9 and Enterprise were my favorite with TNG, TOS, and VOY tied. But the thing is though I can watch any Trek movie or TV series episode over and over, I dont really hate any of them. It’s the cartoon that I never liked, never going to own it.
Enterprise was Star Trek and Enterprise was f*cking great! I thought it was a great way to Starfleet pre-federation which is something all fans wanted to see was it not? Because of you fans who hated it, we might have seen the Romulan war but didn’t. I mean for the most part we know up to 2160 do we not want to see the years between Archer and Kirk, which is about 100 years? Not to mention the 70 years between the launch of the 1701 B and 1701 D. I mean there is 170 years of untold history to consider before doing a reboot or going the far future post Nemesis. In the end I am just happy that a new movie is coming out and that there is nothing that any fan can do to stop it.
But I am all for this reboot, it does start off post nemesis so it will tie in nice I think. I would just rather want more movies and a TV show which deal with the afore mentioned 170 untold years rather then reboot movies and reboot TV series. Lets redo the past but not using what we have already seen. Or lets do 26th century Star Trek with Enterprise J.
Regardless of what the future holds or how the past is changed lol…I am going to see this movie May 8th 2009 at the IMAX.
I’ll watch it and I’m sure I’ll enjoy it, but I can’t help feeling a bit slagged off – doesn’t it seem like every time Abrams or Orci mention existing Star trek fans they can;t resist making some kind of veiled, backhanded dig? Maybe it’s meant to be good-natured, but it doesn’t come off that way.
Enterprise season 4 was great. It really felt like Star Trek. No more convoluted time travel plots — for the most part it dealt with the founding of the Federation and encountering ‘new ‘ races (which we, the viewer already knew about, but it was ‘new’ from the point of view of the Enterprise crew). We learned more about Andorian and Vulcan culture from this show and season 4, at least in my opinion, was a real treat. Season 4 Enterprise felt like a true prequel to TOS.
Ha! I saw this video on MSNBC a couple days ago and recognized Braga. Strange moment!
I don’t think it’s fair to bash an entire season of a Trek show. Even the worst seasons had some good episodes. An example: Enterprise Season Two had great episodes like Future Tense, Dead Stop, and the Borg episode. TNG’s first two seasons sucked but in those seasons we had Q-Who and a few others that made it worth suffering thru the crap.
B&B just put out too much Trek at the same time and stayed too long and ran out of fresh ideas. I remember about 10 years ago being able to turn on my TV and find one of the Trek series playing on one of the channels, mainly from Spike running it for most of the day 5 to 6 days a week. It was just too much of a good thing.
Star Trek was about space exploration but first and formost it’s always been about morality plays in space. That’s what Gene was writing about in the 60’s. And to me, that’s what Trek has always been about.
in the future they should retronym this movie as “jj abram’s star trek” to avoid confusing it with the REAL Star Trek that roddenberry created. apologies to mr. nimoy.
“orci: where not smug” yeah right….
“abrams: I am not worried about fans of the show liking the movie” enough said…my god jim…
Anthony, I just wanted to come in here and say THANK YOU a billion times over for a great, well-run, well-written site. I’ve been griping over at the “new” Scifi.com because they’ve been really weak lately, so I thought I’d take a moment to send out some praise to those who deserve it.
So, again, thank you to Anthony and the staff of TrekMovie.com for all the hard work, great stories, great format, and both the freedom to speak our minds and limits to what you’ll put up with. Someone already thanked you for the typed excerpts from the videos, and I agree that’s a wonderful feature. But it’s just one more example of the quality and care that goes into this site.
Thank you!
These guys are so full of themselves, it’s incredible. (Sorry OrcSter)
THE WOMEN!!
=h=
I am a long time Trek fan.. fist loved it with TOS and the original cast movies. I loved each Trek after that… including Voyager and Enterprise. The last season of Enterprise was some great TV Sci-Fi. But DS9 was extremely well written. I still enjoy the reruns to this day.
i found that every Trek series had good episodes and bad episodes. Where I did love all the movies, I enjoys some less than others.
I am really looking forward to this movie too.. I think, from what I have seen already, I am going to see it a few times at the theatre.
In my opinion.. the downfall of Trek was with the creation of UPN. Before that, Trek was sold in syndication. After that it was driven my the UPN network and ratings for THAT network. If they allowed to let Trek (Voyager & Enterprise) flurish in syndication… I feel we would be in the middle of the last season on Enterprise and just starting a new series….
#38—-“…every time Abrams or Orci mention existing Star trek fans they can;t resist making some kind of veiled, backhanded dig”
I can understand how some sensitive fans could interpret that in some of Abrams’ comments, but Orci is a dedicated Star Trek fan himself. He probably spends more time here talking about Star Trek (and not just his movie) than you do. I don’t recall him specifically ever taking what could be interpreted as a veiled, backhanded dig at himself or any of the rest of us.
As for Abrams, expecting someone who is (at best) a mild fan to speak as reverently about Star Trek as we do is absurd. He has far more fanboy credibility than Nick Meyer did when he came aboard. Someone had to actually tell him that it was “the space show with the pointed-eared guy”.
And yet he has been, in the eyes of alot of fans, the one “untouchable” director in Star Trek film history.
It is unfair to pick JJ apart for every little sentence he utters without giving him credit for caring enough to direct this movie. Abrams, like him or not (I like his stuff), is the one who brings real box-office credibility to this movie. I’ll take that over someone who patronizes us with reverant comments about how great TOS was. I don’t need him to sell me on it, and he wasn’t brought aboard to sell TOS.
Give the guy a break.
Abrams:Leonard Nimoy is in there and is the greatest. He was amazing. It was the weirdest thing, I knew I was going to be working with Nimoy, but the first day…it was surreal to direct him as Spock, because what the hell am I doing there? This guy has been doing it for forty years. It’s like “I think Spock would…” [laughs] (How do you Direct someone like Nimoy who was playing Spock before you were born. At least J.J gets it and it just had to be a real thrill to Direct someone like Nimoy. )
(#46 In my opinion.. the downfall of Trek was with the creation of UPN. Before that, Trek was sold in syndication. After that it was driven my the UPN network and ratings for THAT network. If they allowed to let Trek (Voyager & Enterprise) flurish in syndication… I feel we would be in the middle of the last season on Enterprise and just starting a new series… You are right. Upn was the wost thing they could have done)You are very right on that. Tng and Ds9 did well because they had no network telling them what to do and With Voyager and Espicaly Enterprise it was just the Head Honchoes who Canceld it and or made it not as good as it could have been.
Weird.
I always make it a point to say bye to people who are being interviewed at the time.