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Orci/Kurtzman | June 22, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 66 comments so far

Writers Talk About Process for ‘Star Trek’ Screenplay

At a writer’s workshop in Santa Monica on Thursday, Star Trek co-writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman talked about the craft of writing. Most of the discussion and Q&A topics were very ‘inside Hollywood’ discussions about making pitches, drawing characters, doing research, etc. However the subject of Trek came up every once in a while while describing how things work for them. For example they said while making the Star Trek script there came a point when they were falling behind and the studio was saying ‘we need the script – we need the script’…so Kurtzman says "we locked ourselves away for a good two months actually and didn’t take calls and finished it. And they got the script and it was greenlit the next day…which was most satisfying."

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1-18-08/Cloverfield, Abrams, Orci/Kurtzman | June 22, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 22 comments so far

Orci & Kurtzman Working On New TV Pilot w/ Abrams + ‘Cowboys & Aliens’ Movie + New Info on Abrams ‘Cloverfield’

At a writers workshop held in Santa Monica on Thursday, Star Trek co-writer Alex Kurtzman said that he and writing partner Roberto Orci are writing on a new TV pilot with JJ Abrams. The three worked together in TV before on the show Alias and it would be the writers first time back on TV since that show ended. Abrams has a multi-million dollar TV production deal with Warner Brothers, but so far has only announced one show for HBO (a medical drama). After the event Roberto Orci told TrekMovie that it was not a Star Trek show and that they still don’t know if the show is for network TV, HBO or cable. He did say it will probably have some sci-fi/genre elements (kind of like Lost and Alias have some genre elements but are not ‘spaceship scifi’), but they are still working out the details. If the show follows the usual pilot season schedule then it wouldn’t really kick into production until Spring of 2008, which would be after Star Trek enters its post production phase.

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Nimoy, Shatner, ST09 Cast | June 21, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 103 comments so far

Rumor: Shatner Jealous Over Nimoy?

There is a new rumor from the Gossip page of the NY Post stating that William Shatner is upset that Leonard Nimoy has been offered a cameo in the the new Star Trek film and he has not. Last week we reported on the Shatnervision segment where the Shat said he had not heard anything from Paramount and ‘it made him sad’. It is possible the NYP has convoluted that into Shatner being ‘furious.’ The report is denied by Shatner’s manager Larry Thompson and his office tells TrekMovie.com they have nothing else to say on it. No comment is available from Paramount either. The notion that Shatner has not been cast or even contacted but they are casting Nimoy cannot be confirmed. It is also worth noting that both actors have said they were not interested in unsubstantial ‘cameos.’ For now it is just another one of those rumors (remember the one about Tom Cruise playing Spock). If we hear anything more we will provide an update. 

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TOS Remastered | June 21, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 50 comments so far

Rossi Talks Upcoming TOS-R Episodes

In the latest issue of Star Trek Magazine (out now in the UK and elsewhere, in the US next week) TOS-R producer Dave Rossi talks about progress on the project. He says that the team are ‘really proud’ of the work and jokes that ‘the mini skirts look really good’ in HD. Rossi acknowledged that the biggest challenge is time, but noted that now that they have a ‘cache’ of 90 new shots of the Enterprise they can re-use (more than the 17 TOS used), they can focus on episode specific shots. Regarding those he talked about a number of episodes (some of which have already aired), but also gave some hints at what we can expect in four unaired episodes…detail below.

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Fan Fiction | June 20, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 11 comments so far

Guardian Premise Selected for Kirk v Picard ‘Fanisode’ Contest

The votes are in and the ‘Guardian of Forever’ premise is the clear winner and will be the jumping off point for the Star Trek Kirk vs Picard fan fiction contest (I am sure it was the endorsement from TrekMovie.com). Now that they have the device that brings Kirk and Picard together in conflict, mission director Andre Bormanis has set up the first ‘scene mission’ for the writers. The scene starts on the Guardian planet with Kirk and crew dealing with a freaking out Guardian causing serious problems in the space time continuum…and soon enough Picard and the Enterprise D show up. On the official blog for the event, Bormanis explains why he chose to have it start with Kirk. I sincerely hope there are some TrekMovie.com readers who are participating in this event as writers, and even as reviewers (either way you can win some prizes). I should note that after I covered the event in my previous article and interview with Bormans, I got to talking to the FanLib people they asked me to build and run the official blog for the event.

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Review, TOS Remastered | June 20, 2007 | By: Kevin Ganster 46 comments so far

Review – “Plato’s Stepchildren” Remastered

It’s one thing for television producers to torture their fictional characters, but it’s quite another when they torture their hapless viewers. Unfortunately, that’s the result of this pointless, turgid, plodding episode. “Plato’s Stepchildren” is among the “bitter dregs” of the third season, if not the entire series. Here’s the plot: The intrepid Enterprise crew responds to a distress call from a small society of aliens with psycho-kinetic powers who torture Kirk and Spock to force McCoy to make a permanent house call. The crew discovers the chemical source of the aliens’ power, juices themselves up with a super high dose, and beats them at their own game. The end.

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Orci/Kurtzman, Star Trek (2009 film), Trek Franchise | June 19, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 87 comments so far

Orci: New ‘Star Trek’ Film To Bring In New Generation – May Lead to New Trek on TV

Yet even more on Star Trek from Mr. Orci’s press tour for Transformers. In the second part of the IESB interview with Orci there is one Trek question related to the future of the franchise and if it will ‘re-establish’ the universe. Orci replied: Absolutely, it’s gotta bring in a whole new generation, it’s gotta bring in people who don’t know Trek so it absolutely trying to re-establish what this universe should be…

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Orci/Kurtzman, Trek Franchise | June 19, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 27 comments so far

Star Trek Reference/Cameo in Tranformers

[MINOR SPOLIERS]Transformers is sure to be one of the big blockbusters of this summer. The mainstream action movie is full of pop culture references including one nod to Star Trek.  The reference comes from the character of Bumblebee (pictured right). Bumblebee is probably the most realized Transformer in the film and certainly gets the most screen time. He befriends the movie’s hero Sam Witwicky (played by Shia LaBeouf). One of the running gags is that the radio in Sam’s Camaro (aka Bumblebee) tunes into all sorts of things all on its own.

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Orci/Kurtzman, Star Trek (2009 film) | June 18, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 72 comments so far

Orci: Big Budget – Maybe Not Big Stars [UPDATED]

In addition to talking to TrekMovie.com, Roberto Orci also talked to other members of the geekosphere at the Transformers event. The Star Trek co-writer opened up on Trek a bit more to IESB saying that he and writing partner Alex Kurtzman were ready to write the film because they "been researching that [Trek] all our lives…we read the novels, we just had it down cold." Regarding which series were favorites he said that he was partial to TNG and that Kurtzman favored TOS. The co-writer and executive producer also said that they wrote the script with a ‘big’ budget in mind. However Orci said they are not yet set on having big named stars and felt that you do not need them…: I don’t think so, because the star of the movie is Star Trek, you know,so another way to think of it is we feel confident in what the material is and what the paradigm of the movie is that we’re not trying to shove an Academy Award winner down your throat to sell it. Which doesn’t mean that we might not end up there but its not our first place to go there with that. more excerpts from IESB, IGN and SciFi Wire below…

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Orci/Kurtzman, Star Trek (2009 film) | June 16, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 88 comments so far

Roberto Orci Talks ‘Star Trek’ and Fandom with TrekMovie.com

TrekMovie.com had a chance to sit down with the co-writer of the new Star Trek film Robert Orci at a promotional event for his latest film Transformers. The event was mainly for Transformers, but I was able to ask some Trek questions. Regarding his and (writing partner) Alex Kurtzman being fans of the franchise Orci stated “obviously we have been fans of Trek forever." The writer said he couldn’t really talk about the plot for the new Trek film, except to joke “we trek through the stars…and it’s in the future.” (I guess that rules out another Star Trek IV style time travel plot). He did mention that the character of Kirk is in the film (which was already announced by Abrams last month). When asked if Kirk had a big part in the film he wryly smiled and said "maybe." Orci (who also shares an Executive producer credit) did offer a status report saying that they are currently in pre-production and casting with shooting planned for November (which is a month later than previously reported). He also confirmed that the working title for the film is just ‘Star Trek’ and that he is "pretty sure" the simple title will end up to be the final title, saying "how do you deny it?…they might pretend it is not the official title but what else is it going to be?” 

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Conventions/Events/Attractions, Feature Films (TMP-NEM), Star Trek (2009 film), TNG | June 15, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 87 comments so far

Frakes Skewers Paramount – Praises Abrams

At last weekend’s FedCon 16 in Germany Jonathan Frakes let loose on Paramount and the last Trek movie, but then had some nice things to say about JJ Abrams and the next movie. Regarding the box office failure Star Trek Nemesis, the director of two previous films joked "there was a perfectly good director available." He then used a couple empty seats reserved for Paramount to poke some fun at the studio. Holding up the chair signs he yelled out "this is a perfect example, see who is not here…Paramount…need I say more? That speaks volumes." To cheers from the audience he continued, "Paramount doesn’t show up. Paramount doesn’t know what to do with the franchise."

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Comics, Review, TOS | June 14, 2007 | By: Mark Martinez 14 comments so far

Review: Star Trek: Klingons — Blood Will Tell #1 and #2

As part of his valiant efforts to keep the Trek community informed, Anthony has foolishly graciously invited me to contribute reviews of Star Trek comics to the Trek Movie Report. What was he thinking? We’ll get started by catching up with IDW Publishing‘s second mini-series, Star Trek: Klingons — Blood Will Tell. The first two issues of this five-issue mini-series are already in comic shops. Blood Will Tell is scripted by brothers Scott Tipton and David Tipton. Interior artwork is by David Messina. Cover art is provided by Messina and Joe Corroney.

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Fan Fiction | June 13, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 31 comments so far

Premise Choices for Kirk v Picard Revealed – Include Khan and Guardian of Forever

The official site for the ‘fanisode’ writing contest ‘Kirk v Picard’ when live this afternoon. ‘Mission Director’ Andre Bormanis has laid out four choices as a possible premise for what has brought Captains Kirk and Picard together. One has Kirk appearing in cryongenic chamber in Picard’s time, another has Kirk and Picard both meet in present day Earth, another has Picard discover Khan (from Star Trek II) has destroyed the UFP in an altered timeline. The most intriguing (and the one leading the polls) involves the Guardian of Forever (from TOS "City on the Edge of Forever") malfuctioning/going crazy and sending out time quakes that bring Kirk and Picard together. The conflict rises from Kirk wanting to destroy the Guardian before it causes more damage and Picard defending it because it is a sentient life form. This set up is clearly made to show character differences between the action oriented Kirk against the cerebral Picard. For more details and voting check out the official site, or watch the premise videos with Wil Wheaton and George Takei. The winning premise will be chosen by June 19th, leading to the first ‘mission’ for potential writers.

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TAS | June 13, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 52 comments so far

Filmation’s Lou Scheimer Talks TAS

Star Trek The Animated Series has a bit of an odd place in Trek’s history. It is still not officially considered ‘canon’ but it was the only Trek on TV in the 70s. Although it was aired along with other children’s cartoons, many of the scripts were well written with somewhat adult themes (some by TOS writers and even one by Walter Koenig). ST:TAS was produced by Filmation who did a number of licensed properties (including Ghostbusters and He-Man). In a new interview Filmation founder Lou Scheimer reflects on his career…including Trek. Although Filmation’s animation did leave much to be desired he Scheimer feels that they were able to more alien aliens on TAS than they could on the live action show: "All they could do was put ears on guys. They had their money problems. But it was as easy for us to do a monster as it was todo a human being." Even Trek was somewhat toned down to make it appeal as a children’s cartoon, Scheimer does deny the rumor that there were plans to give the Enterprise crew teenage sidekicks.

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Fan Fiction, Trek Franchise | June 12, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 36 comments so far

New Official Fan Fiction Contest Pits Kirk and Picard

Star Trek fans have been creating their own stories since as far back as the 60s. Some of these fan writers have even got their work published. The first of these compilations was "The New Voyages" in 1976. For the last decade Pocket Books has issued a series of fan fiction compilations starting with "Strange New Worlds" in 1998, but that all comes to an end next month with the final planned book "Strange New Worlds 10."  However, CBS have just announced a new deal with FanLib.com for web-based fan fiction contest called ‘Kirk v Picard.’ The contest will have fans collaborate to write a script for an ‘episode’ of the ultimate captain showdown with the help of a virtual showrunner in the form of VOY/DS9 science adviser and ENT writer and story editor Andre Bormanis. The contest site goes live Wednesday June 13th [UPDATE: Site is now Live] and TrekMovie.com talked to Bormanis about the project.

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TOS, Trek Franchise | June 11, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 20 comments so far

Star Trek Wins At Spaceys

Star Trek may be off the air and still a year away from being back in theaters, but it still manages to show up at award shows on Sunday. At Canada’s Spacey Awards Star Trek The Original Series won an award for Favorite Classic TV show, beating out Batman, Buck Rogers, Battlestar Galactica (Original) and The Twilight Zone. George Takei accepted the award on behalf of the show in a taped segment where the award was ‘beamed’ to his home. Veteran Star Trek make-up designer Michael Westmore also picked up a Special Achievement Spacey for his lifetime of work. Star Trek XI director JJ Abrams’ movie Mission Impossible III had five nominations and his show Lost had three, but neither picked up any awards.

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Interview, Star Trek (2009 film), Trek Franchise | June 8, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 92 comments so far

Ron Moore Supports Abrams – Thinks Trek Should ‘Start Over’

There was a Battlestar Galactica special screening in Hollywood on Wednesday and TrekMovie.com was there. BSG co-creator and executive producer Ron Moore had a quick moment to chat about the next season of BSG and Star Trek. On the subject of the new Trek film Moore tells TrekMovie.com that he is a fan of JJ Abrams. "He is tremendously talented and I think he is going to do a really good job," said the veteran Star Trek: The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine writer/producer. I also had a chance to ask the man who killed James T. Kirk (Moore co-wrote Generations) about the the the plans to bring Kirk back in the new film.