This week, the Watch brings you news on George Takei’s singing lessons, James Cromwell getting presidential, Visitor’s role on Battlestar, Wheatong geeking out on gaming, Eric Bana’s concerns regarding his image, TV appearances for Scott Bakula and Ethan Phillips, a birthday wish for Marina Sirtis, and more!
141 days after he declared ‘action’ for the first time, JJ Abrams has wrapped principal photography for his Star Trek movie. This comes in pretty much on the original schedule (although a couple of weeks earlier than the revised schedule). The 20-week shoot is long, but actually comes in 2nd place for the franchise behind the 24 week shoot of the last ‘epic’ scale Trek film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
In January we ran early excerpts from an unpublished interview with Leonard Nimoy, and now the full interview is available. In the interesting discussion, the original Spock talks about aging, photography, his long career and politics. He also talked a bit about the character of Spock and how it has influenced his life, excerpts below.
Out promoting Run Fatboy Run, Simon Pegg continues taking Star Trek questions. Regarding the size of his role in the film, the actor tells AICN he worked on the film for five weeks and “the rough and tumble chirpy engineer from Linlithgow is very much in the film.” He also talked to AICN about Abrams approach to Trek and to EW about fan reaction to his casting.
Strip-mining a planet to the bone has to begin somewhere. This week the Library Computer reviews "Day of the Vipers", the opening salvo of the Deep Space Nine prequel "Terok Nor" trilogy, from which any would-be planetary overlord might learn a thing or two. We also have a mini-interview with the book’s author and some thoughts on the works of Arthur C. Clarke.
Is it 2009 yet? While the next feature film is 408 days away, Trek fans can get ready to start checking off those days with the new 2009 Star Trek Wall Calendars which are now available for pre-order. Just like 2008, there will be a Kirk era calendar and another in the popular CGI art "Ships of the Line" series. TrekMovie.com has got some details and sneak peeks of the two new calenders.
There are some new shots available at Aint it Cool from yesterday’s Star Trek location shooting Lebec, CA. [UPDATED: AICN removed images at request of Paramount]
It has already been reported that members of the new Star Trek crew have had a chance to meet their predecessors (Quinto and Nimoy, Saldana and Nichols, Yelchin and Koenig, plus Pegg has met James Doohan’s son, Chris). Now, finally, William Shatner reveals on a new ShatnerVision video that he has met the new Kirk, Chris Pine (and Quinto as well).
Today is Leonard Nimoy’s 77th birthday. Words cannot express the admiration and respect that we have for the the man and the artist. So instead we offer only this tribute…in black and white
Simon Pegg attended the premiere of his new movie, Run, Fat Boy, Run, in Los Angeles last night and the actor continued to discuss his role as the new Scotty with a variety of news outlets. He describes the difficulty he had in accepting of the role of Scotty, Trek fandom, fan reaction to his casting, and his approach to the role.
New Feature: The latest column to evolve out of the old ‘This Week In Trek’ column is one for ‘Trek Links on the web’ that aren’t related to Trek Celebs, merchandise or other areas covered in our regular columns. For this week’s ‘Great Links’ we have a magazine honoring the importance of Trek in TV history and another honor for ‘space smack talk’ plus some lighthearted ‘photo challenges.’
In a series of recent interviews promoting his latest film, Run Fatboy Run, Simon Pegg also talked more about his (now complete) time on Star Trek. The new Scotty again expressed his intent to honor (but not imitate) James Doohan. Pegg also revealed who visited him on set, what he was not able to pinch from the set and who is doing his Scottish accent coaching. He also again showed off his inner geek.
Last weekend the latest in the line of leaked Star Trek movie footage hoaxes showed up at io9, bringing out Senator Vreenak once again to pass judgment. The folks at io9 decided to turn this lemon into lemonade and due to the lack of real footage, start a contest for fake footage. They have asked TrekMovie.com to joined in as well. So are you a faker?
Last week Ron Moore talked about his visit to the new Star Trek set and today there is more at Sci-Fi Wire. The TNG/DS9 vet writer/producer says after seeing Trek at Paramount again, “all that kind of really hardcore, Trekkie geek stuff came flying back.” Moore (who has not read the Trek script, but has experience rebooting the Battlestar franchise) opined on Abrams’ plan to bring Trek back.
TrekInk this week breaks into a "New Frontier" with the first issue of Peter David’s "Turnaround" mini-series (due out this week). This story introduces an action-packed tale of Edward Jellico, Mackenzie Calhoun, and a stolen ship with a fancy new propulsion system. A must-have for fans of the New Frontier novels, but what about those new to the storyline?
While attending the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival last week (where we reported he arrived with a ‘Star Trek wrist injury’) John Cho did a couple of interviews. The actor joked he got injured “going for the almond dispenser” at craft services, but also talked about fight training and also gave his thoughts on being a Korean American playing Sulu.
This week in SciFi brings news on possible comebacks and sequels for Dune, V, Friday the 13th, Dark Knight, Fantastic Four, Green Lantern and more. Plus new images and videos, including Indy 4, Speed Racer and a scary new Wolf Man. In TV news there a few obituaries as well as some birth announcements, including a Star Trek-themed comedy! Plus there are Hugo nominations, including one for some fan-made Trek.
io9 are running an article titled “First Clip of New Enterprise?”…is it?
Today is William Shatner’s 77th birthday. The original Captain Kirk is still going strong both acting as well as with all his other myriad of activities (as pitchman, writer, philanthropist, entrepreneur, etc.). He is an endless source of inspiration and entertainment and so we thought we would honor him with a list of the 77 reasons why we think he is awesome.
A few weeks ago we reported that Paramount had cancelled all HD DVD titles, effectively killing off the planned (but never announced) Star Trek Remastered Season Two on HD DVD / DVD combo (Season One was released last November). Now TV Shows On DVD is reporting that CBS and Paramount are going ahead with TOS Remastered Season Two, but for DVD only.
There is a new rumor being floated by iPhone Savior (and picked up by TrekWeb) that the communicator props being used by the crew of the USS Enterprise in the new Star Trek movie are based on “a slickly modified version” of Apple’s iPhone. TrekMovie.com has checked with multiple sources and has confirmed this is rumor is entirely untrue.
It’s Friday and you know what that means! Time for a round-up of what’s happening in the science world this week. Today we bring you a new discovery about Titan’s underground oceans, possible beginnings for the tricorder, the reason why you need a salt shaker on Mars, a new place to see the northern lights, and a mans best friend gets upgraded for the gadget of the week!
This week, the Watch brings you Quinto on Obama, Billingsley on life after Phlox, Winona Ryder’s latest possible five fingered discount, a TV deal for Kirstie Alley, Mulgrew out on the town, George Takei showing new talents, news from Trek’s "welder guy," and more. PLUS: The Watch now covers Trek celebrity birthdays!
A couple of weeks ago we reported that William Shatner will taking his ‘Shatnvervision’ live with an online chat with fans, but it was postponed. Now The Shat’s team have set a firm date of Monday March 31 at 3:00PM Pacific. The chat will be on LiveVideo.com (for more info check out this announcement). In the mean time Bill has been taking fan questions the old fashioned way via his regular Shatnervision Blog, some recent answers below.
Tomorrow a new Star Trek-themed art show opens at the Caren Golden Fine Art Gallery in New York City. The solo exhibition by artist Devorah Sperber is called "Mirror Universe." The choice of name was not just to allude to the famous episode, but also because the theme of the show is "the concept of a mirror or parallel universe."
In a new interview with Den of Geek, veteran character actor William Morgan Sheppard revealed he has a small part in JJ Abrams new Star Trek (and TrekMovie.com has verified the report). Trek fans should recognize Sheppard from his multiple Trek appearances, most notably as the Klingon commandant of Rura Penthe in Star Trek VI. Sheppard only revealed that the role is ‘small’ and he plays a race he hasn’t played before.
Anton Yelchin, who recently finished work playing Star Trek’s new Chekov, may be stepping in to another famous role in another sci-fi franchise. According to The Hollywood Reporter the 19 year-old actor is “in negotiations” to star as Kyle Reese alongside Christian Bale in the post-apocalyptic Terminator Salvation: The Future Begins, the fourth film in the Terminator series.
Today brings lots of news on the future of Trek vet Ron Moore’s Battlestar Galactica franchise. The BSG co-creator tells The Hollywood Reporter that he doesn’t expect the show to follow in the footsteps of Trek to the big screen. However, the show will be finally getting the TV prequel announced two years, ago as Sci-Fi have given the greenlight fo the pilot of Moore’s Caprica.
AP is reporting that legendary science-fiction writer and futurist Arthur C. Clarke passed away at his home in Sri Lanka after suffering from breathing problems. The author of over 100 books was 90. Clarke never wrote for Star Trek, however he certainly had an influence many of those who were involved with Trek , including creator Gene Roddenberry.