The new issue of the official Star Trek Magazine (#17) on sale this week has lots of behind the scenes interviews about the new new Star Trek movie. See below for excerpts from interviews with Paramount executive Marc Evans, casting director April Webster, and Executive Producer (and ‘Supreme Court’ member) Bryan Burk.
Paramount Exec talks Nimoy and fans
An extract from an interview with Paramount’s production executive Marc Evans, featuring in issue #17 of Star Trek Magazine.
Star Trek Magazine: Leonard Nimoy said he was gratified that there was a story that understood the character of Spock so well. What was it about the story that sold it to you?
Marc Evans: There is this phenomenal thing in all of J.J.¹s work, in Bob and Alex¹s work, in Damon¹s work, that shows the massively personal inside the most exciting framework that it can be done in. J.J. is a guy who has done Felicity on the one hand, and Mission: Impossible on the other hand. Alex and Bob wrote the story for Transformers which is really just about a boy getting his first car. The Star Trek pitch and the Star Trek script had exactly those same things.
Star Trek Magazine: Outside the fans, with the general public, Star Trek has gained a reputation of being for the ‘geeks and nerds’ is that a perception you want to change before the movie or are you hoping that the movie will drive that?
Marc Evans: The beauty of the movie, at least in my opinion, and in all of my colleagues’ opinion associated with the movie, is that we all really believe that Trekkers are going to love it, and that we have created something for them. Bob and Alex, J.J., Damon and Bryan have all talked about this a lot what was so great about the Supreme Court on this was their varied acquaintance with the Star Trek Universe. Bob knows every single detail of the world, and has probably read every single Star Trek novel, but Bryan on the other hand I do genuinely believe had never seen an episode of the original show.
We have created a movie that is for everyone. The teaser trailer I thought was a stroke of genius, and then the trailer which went up with Quantum of Solace serves both purposes. Frankly I think there is very little work for us to do to define it one way or the other because I think that the film does that, and the materials that we will have in the marketplace do it for it. I believe someone who has never seen an episode of Star Trek, who never believed it was for them, will watch the trailer and want to go to the movie. Fans and those people who maybe were fans at one point and then drifted away are going to look at it and go, "I’m coming back," or "Man, I’m definitely going to that." I think we have such a great movie that it’s easy to create publicity materials from it which will tell everybody that the movie will appeal to all of them.
Evans’s says new Trek is for ‘everyone’
Star Trek Casting Director on casting the new Kirk
An extract from an interview with April Webster, casting director of J.J.
Abrams’ new Star Trek movie featuring in Star Trek Magazine issue #17.
April Webster (On casting Christopher Pine as James T. Kirk): It became really hard to cast Kirk because you really need someone who had that cockiness that Shatner brought to it when he was hired. He was a theatre actor who had come from Canada. He gave a little smirk, and you knew exactly where James T. Kirk was coming from.
We saw a lot of really good actors, but what Chris brought to it was that sense of ‘I know how good I am!’ Not that that’s how he is personally, because he’s not an arrogant guy at all he’s really down to Earth. He’s so smart and such a good actor. I recently saw Smokin’ Aces again, and was blown away by the character he created there, so willing to go wherever he needs to go.
I’ve known Chris a long time. I used to know his father Robert when I was first starting out his father is a wonderful actor himself, and you can see Chris, with his parents, had a good upbringing. He wasn’t a typical Hollywood kid, acting out all the time. He¹s got a healthy narcissism, as opposed to a destructive narcissism: there is such a thing as someone who has a sense of himself and I think when you have an actor who has that, it shows up on the screen.
Webster says it was hard to find the right Kirk
Star Trek Executive Producer on Trek’s canon
An extract from Star Trek Magazine #17 interview with Bryan Burk, an executive producer of J.J.Abrams’ new Star Trek movie and one of the ‘Supreme Court’.
Bryan Burk (on the ‘canon’ of the new Star Trek): Nothing is by accident: You have to see the movie before you judge anything ‘out of canon.’ The truth of the matter is that everything was very conscious. The very first conversation was about how to do the movie and be completely loyal to the 40 years of Star Trek that have come before it. Anything we do in the movie comes out of the canon of Star Trek. The canon is still intact, and everything in our storytelling is all birthed out of canon.
Burk is adamant that the new Trek fits with Star Trek canon
Star Trek Mag # 17 – on sale this week
There is much more from Evans, Webster and Burk in
Star Trek Magazine #17, which is on sale this week in the US (and in the first week of April in the UK). The issue also contains an interview with Star Trek production designer Scott Chambliss (see excerpt). There is also plenty of non-movie coverage, including a novel excerpt from "Star Trek: Vanguard: Open Secrets
Cover for STM #17
You can find STM #17 on newsstands starting this week or buy it at TFAW.com.
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Special movie souvenir issue – Star Trek Magazine #18
The next issue of Star Trek Magazine due out around the release of the new Star Trek movie will be all about the film. SMT issue 18 stands in as the ‘movie souvenir special magazine’ and will include interviews with many of the cast members and more exclusive movie content. You can pre-order that issue now.
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STM #18 |
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$7.99 |
Or just Subscribe to get all the upcoming issues of Star Trek Magazine.
yeah, the whole canon thing is a biggie with trekkies/trekkers, and people always seem to be jumping the gun here and shouting about hwo things don’t look canon and all that, but i mean come on, this is Star Trek. They constantly were doing things, having things destroyed, adn then fixing them ieTime travel and the whatnot, so if we see Vulcan get destroyed in a trailer or something, who’s to say it can’t be canon, yet people say it isn’t, and they haven’t seen the movie yet. Time for the cliched but true saying, never judge a book by its cover (especially if it’s a bad photoshop job of spock!)
So much is repeated in this magazine, I’ve skipped a few so this one should hold me until May.
1
Canon, schmanon. TOS itself destroyed its own canon on an ep-by-ep basis. IMHO, the TOS era didn’t really start paying attention to such things as ‘canon’ until they hit the big screen. Then, at least we had three movies in continuity with one another. And since this new version tells a story not told before, there is no canon to violate !
2
Nope, sorry. Missed first by that much……
Ooops. The guy at #2 who said “First?” and nothing else got himself zapped by AP. Sorry, guy. What a way to go…..
Current #2, ignore the above, if you please….
No canon nuts posting yet. Wow. We have to see the movie first before judge it.
As far as “canon” goes, I don’t care one way or the other. Trek was DEAD. Period. It needed a reboot.
Now, on the subject of Sylar…I mean Quinto: The more I see him in his Spock wig and makeup, the more freaky he looks. He’s too porcelain. Even Nimoy had razor stubble that you could see when he was Spock. Quinto (having not yet seen the movie, obviously) looks like an androgynous Spock action figure to me.
Still jazzed about the movie, though!
I’m glad I was open to the complete re-imagining of Battlestar Galactica, with females Starbuck and Boomer, human-looking Cylons, and all. Looking back, I’m kinda sad that many people have evaded the entire Star Trek “thing” because of the stigma that only “geeks and nerds” would like it and understand it.
So, keeping both in mind, I’m glad that as a Trekkie, my mind is open to the entirely new prospect of a new Enterprise and new cast, plus the fact that JJ & Crew have maintained canon, plus putting a new spin on it that my non-Trekkie wife would enjoy watching and finally figuring out what I found so special many years ago.
The movie’s not even out yet, and all I can say is that, in my eyes and many others, they’ve already pulled off an incredible miracle… and all we’re waiting for is its debut.
For me I’ll live with the cannon violations as long as the movie’s good. Dont get me wrong, I still think the idea of having Enterprise built on Earth is beyond stupid, and not just for cannon sake, but it looks like that somehow fits in with the story, so its not the end of the world, just stupid. My biggest thing is 24th century cannon. If theyre gonna destroy Romulus in the 24th century that’s gonna make it hard to make new Star Trek in the 24th or 25th century. And they cant keep making Star Trek in the 23rd century forever, eventually they’re gonna run out of stories there to tell and will have to move on.
#6 – Don’t you think that Spock, in all these air-brushed photos, looks a little more alien than before? Maybe that’s the intent behind it – to make him seem a little more otherworldly.
It’s odd though that he’s so airbrushed in these magazine shots, but in what I’ve seen in trailers he seems to have the razor stubble and all.
Somehow, sadly, I know Burke’s comments still won’t silence the canon nazis. Ugh, lame.
@9…
The smooth skin portraits stem from a session with photographer Jill Greenberg. It is her personal style…
http://www.manipulator.com/
6. Look closely at clips of Sylar as Spock in the trailers. He’s got the stubble shadow thing happening. I don’t know why they airbrush him in these promo shots. Terrible!
I’m just looking for a movie with a great story, great acting and character development and killer special effects. I’m not a canon junkie myself……if the “essence” of the characters are intact then I will be happy. Look how many character changes there were in M*A*S*H and it continued to be successful. Don’t judge it till you’ve seen it.
Re: #8 who said:
“My biggest thing is 24th century cannon. If theyre gonna destroy Romulus in the 24th century that’s gonna make it hard to make new Star Trek in the 24th or 25th century. And they cant keep making Star Trek in the 23rd century forever, eventually they’re gonna run out of stories there to tell and will have to move on.”
Now me:
I think that’s an extremely silly stance to take. The 24th century stories have run over 21 TV seasons and 4 movies for a grand total of many hundreds of stories. The 23rd century tales, by contrast, have run through 3 TV seasons, 6 films, and less than 2 dozen animated cartoons, for a grand total of less than 110 stories. There is far more uncharted territory in 23rd century Trek than 24th, and I am very happy that they’re taking a break from TNG-era storytelling.
that’s a good point, trek seems to have gotten itself stuck in this 24th century loop, and besides, if Romulus gets destroyed, maybe in the future we’ll get new villainous species and things like that. Trek writers seemed to rely on the romulans to pull them out of a story sometimes, but the Cold War is supposed to be over now, so it’s the time for a new regin to begin
Who says Romulus remains destroyed?
Stay tuned….
Wow, no wonder Spock looks like an airbrushed model… that’s what the photograper in those shots does! With a nickname like “manipulator” why expect anything else? I expect him to break into a “vogue” any second.
#15
The novels already introduced a new 24th century opponent after taking the Borg out of the picture. It’s called the ‘Typhon Pact’.
Frederick, today’s sensor resolution is so high that no portrait stays untouched…
11. thorsten – March 24, 2009
The smooth skin portraits stem from a session with photographer Jill Greenberg. It is her personal style…
Heh, air brushing to the max. It’s not at all flattering to the subjects. I wouldn’t want to let anyone do that to my face. Makes them look like a was figure or freeze dried.
@18…
The Typhon Pact… which are the Romulan Star Empire, the Breen Confederacy, the Tholian Assembly, the Gorn Hegemony, the Tzenkethi, and the Holy Order of the Kinshaya!
@20…
Right, New Horizon, Jill’s treatment is special.
But you wouldn’t believe how those covergirls really look like ;))
Something had been bugging me and I just realized what it is.
Has anyone else noticed that the yellowish make-up Nimoy had is absent on Quinto! And in this cover shot, Pine looks yellow- due to lighting or whatever- but Spock’s fleshtone looks far too “human,” not to mention, way over-processed. Also, he’s missing the eye shadow.
Too bad. It would have helped sell the illusion that this is the same character.
I have 4 words for the canonistas:
UESPA
James R. Kirk
I have another few words for canonistas:
~Bird of Prey bridge from TSFS vs. TVH~
That’s just BLATANT disregard for the previous film.
@23…
Dr. Image, the Pine shot from another light setting, and is not color corrected… for comparison here the EW cover in HiRes…
http://tinyurl.com/cytz7j
#3
I have heard this before–most recently from Abrams himself and it is so lame. TOS was a work in progress. The writers, producers, etc., were creating the show, making changes and improvements at the early stages, consequently, there were going to be errors and contradictions. The “bible” for the show was being written as they produced the series. IMO that’s different than knowingly violating canon, or not looking or checking to make sure info is correct.
I thought that magazine folded a few years ago.
it did, but they brought it back in i think 2007
I am convinced the movie will not stray from cannon. The re-boot is what Trek needed. Every detail, photo, TV spot, trailer etc just makes this movie look like one of the greatest theatrical rides ever!
Personally I cannot wait to see it. We need to see some of the promo focus on Spock now. There has not been much really. It is KIRK focussed at the moment. Be good to see some interaction between Spock, McCoy and Kirk.
If that’s done right the movie will not fail IMO.
Bryan Burk
“Anything we do in the movie comes out of the canon of Star Trek. The canon is still intact, and everything in our storytelling is all birthed out of canon.”
Anyone else birthed in this manner can attest to just how painful it can be.
In the “canon” argument, I never see this addressed:
Gene Roddenberry himself wrote in his novel of Star Trek: The Motion Picture that the TV show was only a mythical version of what “really” happened, a series of exaggerated tales about the married, deskbound Admiral Kirk. Yet his take on Star Trek here is probably not what most people would think of as canonical, with the Federation implanting mind control chips in captains, etc.
Is the idea that true Star Trek is based on how closely it matches the ideas of Gene? If so, how do we justify the fact that Trek has shoved Gene aside since Wrath of Khan in favor of ideas from other producers and directors? Who here prefers the vision of the TMP novel to the show or to the “Spock trilogy”?
The article talks about how fans who obsess over detail will be pacified, and then most of the first 25 posts are nitpicking makeup and lighting used during a promotional mag cover. Hilarious!
27
I agree about TOS being a work in progress…. but I’m sure back then, Roddenberry and Coon’s only real goal was just to get the stories and characters right each week.
I doubt they had the time to worry about keeping the canon consistent. Especially considering how often the episode order got shuffled around by the network.
Well, nitpicking over every detail is going too far in my opinion. I do think the makeup and lighting stuff is way too off the wall and seriously, they need to shut up about it. It’s a re-imagining, of course things are going to look differnet.
On the other hand,
Yes there are some things I’m not too crazy about in this movie. The design of the [i]Enterprise[/i] – no I don’t want a completely meticulously done TOS [i]Enterprise[/i], but there are some aspects of this one that seem like they are designed by a 10 year old.
I think bringing back the miniskirt uniforms was a dang foolish idea. Off-duty, fine. On-duty, no. That’s bad.
I’m also concerned about them making Kirk too much like a superhero.
“Now, on the subject of Sylar…I mean Quinto: The more I see him in his Spock wig and makeup, the more freaky he looks. He’s too porcelain. Even Nimoy had razor stubble that you could see when he was Spock. Quinto (having not yet seen the movie, obviously) looks like an androgynous Spock action figure to me.”
That’s one reason I prefer the black and white shots to the color ones. But I suppose, that’s the point, in a way. Spock is the odd man out in both worlds so perhaps our reaction is exactly what they want.
I wouldn’t be too concerned about Kirk coming across as a superhero, he visibly gets beaten up severely in the bar and he has a cheek cut on Delta Vega and when confronting Spock.
I personally like Star Trek canon, and I hope that the new film stays true to it. But, by my own admission, what we refer to as ‘canon’ is conflicting and contradictory. So it’s not like they have no margin for error, deliberate or otherwise.
There’s plenty of examples of canon being contradictory, especially in TOS. References to UESPA, death sentences being issued in the Federation (!) are just a few that spring to mind immediately. And that’s before you start talking about Klingon ridges (or not), Chekov in ‘Space Seed’ (or not :-)), and other bits and pieces.
Star Trek canon is like history, or mythology. All of these contradictions and violations thus far have been accepted. I’m sure that this new film will throw up some new ones, some deliberate, some not. I’m also sure that they’ll be accepted.
@35: What, no miniskirts?! Dude, you gotta have the miniskirts. And the go-go boots. Did I mention the go-go boots? (drifts into boyhood memories of Yeoman Rand, before waking with a start)
38 – I am a Heterosexual male. I have to have those Miniskirts ;-)
The movie IS within Canon. The differences are due to an implicit Alternate Universe created by a single time-travel event.
#34
Some thought had to be given to consistency otherwise, TOS could have had monumental glaring errors. It’s is possible to do two things at the same time. Actually, I think they did a splendid job keeping what “canon” there was, straight.
The fact that JJ Abrams is involved in this as a director should tell you right away that things will not necessarily be as they appear.
Roberto Orci knows Star Trek canon in and out. Not only has he told us that “anything which appears to violate canon will have a canon explanation”, but Lindelof has said that it will “honor canon”, and now this statement from Burk:
“Nothing is by accident. You have to see the movie before you judge anything ‘out of canon.’ The truth of the matter is that everything was very conscious. The very first conversation was about how to do the movie and be completely loyal to the 40 years of Star Trek that have come before it. Anything we do in the movie comes out of the canon of Star Trek. The canon is still intact, and everything in our storytelling is all birthed out of canon.”
So three of the film’s producers have weighed in on the subject (one of whom is one of the writers as well)–all assuring us that the film will not violate canon.
I feel that Star Trek canon is safe.
Will Star Trek fans agree with every creative decision made? Probably not–but when has that ever been the case?
I’m looking forward to a great experience and a movie that fits well on my “Star Trek shelf”, as well as more to come with this young cast.
@42…
okay, CT, post us an image of ye olde shelf!
Thanks for all the responses and explanations as for why SySpock looks so porcelain in the photos. That photog is whack!
I hadn’t noticed his razor stubble in the trailers, but I’ll go back and rewatch now…
#41—“Some thought had to be given to consistency otherwise, TOS could have had monumental glaring errors. It’s is possible to do two things at the same time. Actually, I think they did a splendid job keeping what “canon” there was, straight.”
Eventually—yes. But not until about midway through the first season did it become coherent at all, and not until midway through the movie-era was the time period established as being the late 23rd Century. Prior to that, it had been all over the place. TWOK had suggested before that it was indeed “the 23rd Century”, but then also suggested that 1996 was merely 200 years before. Even if Khan was only being roughly accurate (seems unlikely for a genetically enhanced person), that would have placed this time period (15 years after “Space Seed”) as the very beginning of the 23rd Century. As we all know, the VOY episode “Q2” once and for all establishes that the historic five year mission under Captain Kirk ended in 2270.
It took 30 years just to straighten *that* out (although, in fairness, it was only so unsettled for about 20 of them), and that was only the most *glaring* bit of contradictory canon.
@45…
“Der Weltraum – unendliche Weiten.
Wir schreiben das Jahr 2200…
Dies sind die Abenteuer des Raumschiffes Enterprise…”
That is the german version of “Space, the final frontier.
These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise.”
For some reason the german dubmeisters placed the year 2200 in the intro…
25. Dave Schilling
This was explained at the start of TVH in Kirk’s log. They refit it some in the time they were on Vulcan.
is anyone still beating the “canon” horse? it’s dead, Jim! It died when Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan came out. Remember that one? Everyone was up in arms because the uniforms were all military and Spock died. There were talks of boycotts and the whole thing. Then people started going to the film and seeing how cool it was and now its the “best of the series!”
PULEESE!
At least this time there’s an explanation for the supposed “reboot” and Kudos to JJ and his crew for finding a Kobashi Maru way of rebooting Canon.
I suggest anyone who’s still worried about it check out the STAR TREK COUNTDOWN comic which does the seeming impossible task of linking the last Star Trek movie to this one and then you’ll see the new film has a reason for being what it is that fits in perfectly well with what went before.
You know, even if you look at TOS, it was kind of ‘pre-canon,’ i.e., Spock smiling with glee when he discovered the ‘singing plants of Talos IV’ in the Menagerie, his ignorance to a humanity in ‘where no man has gone before’ that was part his “Irritating…..ah, yes; one of your earth emotions…” In other words, in TOS you could see canon being developed and if you watch closely, you find that it was NOT a seamless process. But as you look at ‘vintage’ TOS, even the inconsistencies are endearing.
In that same vein, let’s roll with it and see where it goes: we might be pleasantly surprised and, dare I say it, entertained…
Sorry- I’m not going to “shut up” about the make-up or photography.
I’ve been a photographer and make-up artist for probably longer than most of you have been alive.
At this point, I do trust them to deliver a smash hit of a movie.
I’m just making some observations on their (physical) creative decisions, which have been curious at best.
Wait– I just scrolled up- did Jill Greenberg shoot this stuff? No wonder it sucks!!