Articles by Anthony Pascale

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Star Trek (2009 film) | February 27, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 208 comments so far

It’s Official – Star Trek Is Back 12/25/08 – Film To Embrace Canon

Paramount have now issued their first official press release related to Star Trek XI with the headline ‘J.J. Abrams to direct Star Trek Feature Film For Paramount in Theaters Christmas Day 2008.’ Abrams is quoted as saying.   If there’s something I’m dying to see, it’s the brilliance and optimism of Roddenberry’s world brought back to the big screen,…Alex [Kurtzman] and Bob [Orci] wrote an amazing script that embraces and respects Trek canon, but charts its own course.  Our goal is to make a picture for everyone — life-long fans and the uninitiated.  Needless to say, I am honored and excited to be part of this next chapter of Star Trek.

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ST09 Cast | February 26, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 154 comments so far

Casting Rumor: Damon, Brody & Sinise for Kirk, Spock & McCoy

Now that the film is a go, the casting (and therefore the casting rumors) can begin in earnest. IGN is reporting that Paramount are in talks with Matt Damon, Adrian Brody and Gary Sinise to play ‘the big 3’ of Kirk, Spock and McCoy in Star Trek XI. Damon’s name was first mentioned last July when Marc Malkin of the Insider reported that Abrams was interested in the Oscar winner for James Kirk. Late last year Damon said he had not been approached, but would be interested if he liked the script. Brody and Sinise’s names have been suggested by many fans, but there had not previously beeny any reports connecting the actors to the production. IGN didn’t just stop with the big 3, they are also reporting that there may indeed be truth to the reports of James McAvoy playing Scotty and even threw in the name of Lost’s Daniel Dae Kim for Sulu. The IGN report also states that Damon’s talks are the farthest along.

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STXI Status | February 26, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 41 comments so far

Star Trek XI Has Been Greenlit

Official Announcement This WeekAfter spending almost almost a year in development Star Trek XI has been given the green light by Paramount. TrekMovie.com has spoken to a number of sources in and around Paramount to confirm that last week’s news of JJ Abrams decision to direct the film was indeed the last step before the film could go into pre-production. An official announcement is forthcoming, but we are told it will not include any casting information. The announcement this week will be the first official word from Paramount on Star Trek XI since the release of the teaser poster at last summer’s Comic-Con. The release is likely to not include any plot details or even a name for the film, but we have previously reported that the film is an origin story for James T. Kirk and his relationship with Mr. Spock. TrekMovie.com has also reconfirmed the film is set to be released Christmas 2008 with production starting sometime this summer or fall. 

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Abrams, STXI Status | February 23, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 187 comments so far

Abrams Confirmed To Direct Star Trek XI – Expected To Be Out Christmas 2008

For weeks TrekMovie.com has been telling you not to believe everything you hear and to be patient…well now that patience has paid off. According to the Hollywood Reporter J.J. Abrams finalized his deal to direct Star Trek XI on Friday. TrekMovie.com also learned earlier this week that Paramount have slated Christmas 2008 for the release of Star Trek XI. It is also likely that Abrams and the studio have agreed on a script. When we last spoke to him, Abrams told TrekMovie.com that his decision to direct would not be made until the script was finalized and he felt he was the right man for the job. The director deal is one of the last steps before an official greenlight and it may be that this has happened as well.

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Abrams | February 22, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 20 comments so far

Abrams’ Episode of The Office Airs Tonight

We still don’t know if JJ Abrams will direct Star Trek XI, but we do know that he directed an episode of The Office. When TrekMovie.com interviewed Abrams last year he mentioned how much he loved the hit NBC comedy, so much so that he squeezed in directing one in between the million other projects he has going. It will be interesting if we see Dwight make a reference to Lost again. The JJ Abrams created show has come up on The Office and Dwight even has a blog posting about what would happen if the Battlestar Galactica crash landed on the Lost island (best line ‘first of all, they would have lasers’). In other Lost news, after seeing a big dip in ratings Lost has started to climb back up but is still off from its highs of the past. Regarding Trek XI, still cannot confirm if Abrams has made any decision yet regarding directing. Abrams good taste and ability to direct comedy is perhaps a clue that we may see some of that TOS trademark humor in Star Trek XI. Abrams’ The Office episode "Cocktails" airs tonight on NBC at 8:30. More info and a preview at TV.com.

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Abrams, TAS | February 20, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 16 comments so far

Abrams, Lost & MI:III Receive Saturn Nominations

Star Trek XI producer (and possible director) JJ Abrams has received a Saturn Award nomination as best director for Mission: Impossible III. In addition the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror have nominated M:I:III for best action/adventure thriller. In the directors category Abrams will be going head to head with fellow Trekkie Bryan Singer for Superman Returns. Singer’s Superman racked in a total of 10 nominations and M:I:III garnered a total of 5. Lost (produced by both Trek XI producers JJ Abrams and Damon Lindelof) led the TV nominations with a total of 6, including best series.

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Books, CBS/Paramount, Star Trek (2009 film), Trek Franchise | February 19, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 55 comments so far

Posters, Directors, Books, Robots, Psuedosience and Paramount Politics in a Presidents Day Roundup

Here are some some bite sized Trek nuggets to hold you over until the next item on TOSR or STXI. To promote TOSR StarTrek.com is running a giveaway for a new poster for Star Trek Remastered. Got to this page to enter to win this 2′ x 3′ poster made for syndicated stations. SciFi.com ran a poll on who should direct Star Trek XI and Joss Whedon came out on top with almost half the votes. Abrams came in 2nd to last with only 14%, click here for full results.

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Trek Franchise | February 18, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 102 comments so far

History Channel Airing Trek Documentaries – Reviews Not So Good

The History Channel is taking a break from its regular schedule of shows on ancient Rome and World War II to take a look at the history of Star Trek. They are running two documentaries, the first of which ‘Star Trek Tech’ will air tonight (Sunday) at 9pm. ‘Tech’ is a regular show that devotes each episode the the technology of a particular time period or event or in this case a fictional universe. The second and bigger documentary is ‘Star Trek: Beyond the Final Frontier’, a two hour retrospective on Trek hosted by Leonard Nimoy (airing Monday at 9 pm). ‘Beyond the Final Frontier’ focuses much of its attention on the Christies auction and includes interviews with actors from each of the Trek series, but notably not William Shatner. There are already some reviews in on the longer doc and so far they are mixed at best.

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TOS Remastered | February 17, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 43 comments so far

Remastered “Amok Time” Airs Today – T’Bring It On

Pon Farr has got Spock feelin’ frisky and to make it worse he has to fight Kirk to work it out of his system. Preview | Episode Info | Show times Another Trek classic with some of the best Kirk, Spock, McCoy character moments. Plus probably most memorable score of the series. This week doesnt offer CBS Digital with much to work with, but what they have they are really going to town on… New matte painting replacing live action ‘troika’ walk to arena on Vulcan New matte painting replacing live action establishing shot of arena plus a few Enterprise shots including some around planet Vulcan

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Interview, TOS Remastered | February 16, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 30 comments so far

Spinrad Talks TOSR Doomsday – Plus A New VideoBlog On ‘Saving Star Trek’

Norman Spinrad, the writer of "The Doomsday Machine" has now seen the new remastered version and  gave some of his reactions to TrekMovie.com. TrekMovie.com: What did you think of it?Norman Spinrad: I haven’t watched it at all for a while and it is a strange experience. My first take is that everything looked cleaner – not just the effects but the whole episode looked cleaned up. For the new special effects it seems the biggest change is that they seem to be able to do motion a lot better. Things are moving in a more complicated way. The doomsday machine isn’t that different. The way I conceived it, it was something else. It should look both alive and robotic..and neither the new or the old looked either.

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ST09 Cast | February 16, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 24 comments so far

McAvoy Still Talking Trek – Hopes Trek XI Will Show The Man Behind Scotty

James McAvoy is again kind of sort of hinting that maybe there is something to the rumor that he may be involved in Star Trek XI. In a new interview with ComingSoon.net the subject of Trek came up: CS: I was reading on the Internet about someone asking you about playing Scotty in a Star Trek movie, probably just because you’re Scottish. McAvoy: I know! I’m a huge Star Trek fan. No, I don’t know what’s going to happen with that. It might happen, it might not.

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TNG | February 14, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 104 comments so far

Stewart: Star Trek Was A ‘Calamity’

Patrick Stewart seems to be continuing to distance himself from Star Trek and Jean Luc Picard. In an interview with The Stage, the veteran actor talks about the life changing event in 1986 when he choose to  do Star Trek: The Next Generation instead of taking a role in "Who’s Afraid of Virginia Wolf" on the London stage.    I was a different actor after that — doing that kind of play, and finally being able to make truth of an emotional commitment to a role like that in such a small, exposing theatre, with the support of three magnificent actors [Billie Whitelaw, Saskia Reeves and Matthew Marsh], made all the difference to me. The calamity that then happened to me was that I was offered Star Trek: The Next Generation. […]It did change many, many things, and I’m immensely grateful for that. I have worked hard not in any sense to feel they were wasted years —though time is a factor in all of this, and I now have a lot of catching up to do. I feel that acutely — not that there have been lost opportunities, but that there are things I might have done and I’ve got to do a lot of them quickly now.

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1-18-08/Cloverfield, Abrams, Rumor | February 13, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 30 comments so far

More Rumors: Abrams To Direct Dark Tower Adaptation? [UPDATED: Rumor somewhat confirmed]

The ‘Abrams is going to direct another movie’ rumors keep flying. Now IGN is reporting that Abrams will direct an adaptation of the Stephen King series "The Dark Tower." IGN claim their sources indicate an announcement is forthcoming, but are not sure if the project is for TV or film. Dark Tower is a popular 7 book series that mixes elements of sci-fi, fantasy and westerns. IGN speculate that the Dark Tower project may related to the previously reported mysterious "Cloverfield" project. TrekMovie.com has recently confirmed that Abrams does have multiple projects in the works (including one called Cloverfield) and that he is still considering directing Trek XI. Sources close to the production indicate that Trek XI news should also be forthcoming. Hopefully soon all the various Abrams projects and his involvement will be clarified. Even if Abrams does not direct Trek XI, all indications are that he will still produce and that the project is still moving forward (but is yet to get the official ‘green light’). UPDATE: Hollywood Repoter confirms talks between King and Abrams

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Humor, TOS Remastered, TrekMovie.com | February 12, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 81 comments so far

CBS Digital Guys Use TrekMovie.com To Play Prank On Boss

We all know that "Doomsday" was the big one for CBS-Digital, and that Special Effects Supervisor Niel Wray went a bit grey getting it finished. Well the effects team thought they would play a little prank on Niel and try and convince him that eagle eyed TrekMovie.com readers spotted an error in the final product (in the trailer). To that end they recreated a fake version of TrekMovie.com with a faked trailer and some rewritten comments…

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Feature Films (TMP-NEM), Nimoy | February 12, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 56 comments so far

Nimoy Wanted STIV To “Lighten Up” – OK Being Typecast

Leonard Nimoy has had a long and successful career and now says he can trace much of that success back to Star Trek. In a new interview with FatFreeFilms he talks about how Trek opened up many opportunities for him to both act and direct. After directing Star Trek III, Nimoy went on to direct a number of films including the hit comedy 3 Men and a Baby. Regarding humor, the man who portrayed the original emotionless Vulcan talks about why he wanted Star Trek IV to have a sense of humor:  when we developed Star Trek IV I said going in "this film has to lighten up". We have been dealing with death and destruction in these Star Trek movies and we have had enough of that. Spock died and Kirk’s son died and the Klingons were all being killed, and I said "Enough – lets find a way to have a lighter tone. In spite of the fact that Earth is being jeopardized we have got to find some humor." And I think we did.

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TOS Remastered | February 10, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 81 comments so far

Remastered “The Doomsday Machine” Airs Today – as if you didn’t know

Kirk and crew find a weapon of mass destruction, and an unshaven superior officer obsessed with taking it down.  Preview | Ep. Info | Show times A classic if there ever was one. CBS have been working on this for months with over 100 new effects shots, you will see… Lots of shots of the Enterprise including multiple shots of weapons firing A seriously messed up USS Constellation A big scary planet killer A shuttle and shuttle bay and all of the above from some new angles

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TOS Remastered | February 9, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 35 comments so far

Spinrad On The Transparent Doomsday Machine

Some have noted that CBS’s new CGI Doomsday machine doesn’t have that partially translucent look of the original. Well their reasoning is simple, it was never supposed to have it. Mike Okuda tells TrekMovie.com that he talked to the the original writer for the episode Norman Spinrad about this issue. According to Mike, here is what Spinrad had to say: It was a glitch, not at all intentional. The FX was really primitive, simple blue screen stuff, which is why you can also see fringes around a lot of spaceships and so forth against star backgrounds.

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1-18-08/Cloverfield, Abrams, STXI Status | February 9, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 23 comments so far

Abrams & Trek XI Update

This has been a busy week for JJ Abrams and Trek XI rumors, here is what we know. The decision on the green light for Trek XI is still pending, but things look good for it to start pre-production in the coming weeks. Multiple sources close to the production tell TrekMovie.com that Abrams is still involved in Trek XI as well as other projects at Paramount as part of his multi picture deal. We have learned that one of these other projects is a horror film called "Cloverfield", but (contrary to rumors) it should have not impact Star Trek XI. We can also confirm that it is not related to a ghost story script called "The Battle for Cloverfield" which was to be made by Columbia before going dormant in 2003. Many of the preparations for Star Trek XI are already underway with inquiries on availability going out to various crew people. The art department is slated to start going in March, with set construction probably starting in late Spring. We have also been told that as many as 5 stages have been set aside for Star Trek XI, all of which have been used for Trek TV and film projects in the past. There is no word yet on Abrams directing, but that decision should be made soon. Again this is Hollywood so things can change, but that is the status as of now.

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Merchandise | February 8, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 9 comments so far

Star Trek Goes Mobile

CBS have launched the "CBS Mobile Store" providing exclusive content from CBS shows for mobile phones. Included in that are 12 Star Trek ringtone/voicetones and 15 wallpapers. For now the sounds are primarily from TOS and the images span all series. The wallpapers cost $1.99 and tones go for $2.49, or you can subscribe and get 3 CBS tones and 1 graphic for $6.49/month. Check em out at CBSMobile.com. Also in iTunes news – The Trek TV episodes (from Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: Enterprise) are temporarily not available due to technical difficulties. The Trek films are still available.  

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1-18-08/Cloverfield, Abrams, Rumor, STXI Status | February 7, 2007 | By: Anthony Pascale 94 comments so far

Abrams Still On For Star Trek XI – May Still Direct

Again with the rumors. Latino Review (who pushed last week’s debunked rumor that Abrams has left the project) have now morphed their rumor into saying that Abrams will not direct Star Trek XI, but will direct a different film called "Cloverfield" for Paramount. TrekMovie.com have been told by a source close to the production that this rumor is "so totally wrong". Abrams is still attached to the project as producer, the film is still going forward, and preperation are being made (including a number of stages being set aside). No decision or deal (either way) has yet been made regarding if Abrams will be directing the film. In addition Abrams confirmed to AICN that he is ‘not off Trek’.Some of this confusion may be due to the fact that Abrams has a multi-picture deal with Paramount; in fact Greg Grunberg recently told IGN Abrams had 3 projects going at the studio right now. As we have been reporting, this month may be where many of the big decisions on Trek are made so expect more rumors and more fact checking here at TrekMovie.com. And of course, things change so take it all in with the usual grains of salt.