Star
Trek is a 2009 American science fiction action film directed by J.
J. Abrams, written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman and distributed
by Paramount Pictures. It is the eleventh film of the Star Trek film
franchise and is also a reboot that features the main characters of
the original Star Trek television series, portrayed by a new cast.
The film follows James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary
Quinto) aboard the USS Enterprise as they combat Nero (Eric Bana), a
Romulan from their future who threatens the United Federation of
Planets. The story takes place in an alternate reality due to time
travel by both Nero and the original Spock (Leonard Nimoy). The
alternate timeline was created in an effort to free the film and the
franchise from established continuity constraints while
simultaneously preserving original story elements.
Development for Star Trek
originated in 1968, when creator Gene Roddenberry announced plans to
produce a prequel modeled after the television series. The concept
resurfaced temporarily in the late 1980s, when it was postulated by
Harve Bennett as a possible plotline for the movie that would become
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, but was rejected in lieu of
other projects by Roddenberry. Following the critical and commercial
failure of Star Trek: Nemesis and the cancellation of the television
series Star Trek: Enterprise, franchise executive producer Rick
Berman and screenwriter Erik Jendresen wrote an un-produced film,
titled Star Trek: The Beginning, which would take place after
Enterprise. After the split between Viacom and CBS Corporation,
former Paramount president Gail Berman convinced CBS to produce a
feature film. Orci and Kurtzman, both fans of the Star Trek series,
were approached to write the film and Abrams was approached to direct
it. Kurtzman and Orci used inspiration from novels and graduate
school dissertations as well as the series itself.
Principal photography
commenced on November 7th, 2007 and ended on March 27nd, 2008. The
film was shot in various locations around California and Utah. Abrams
wanted to avoid using bluescreen and greenscreen, opting to use sets
and locations instead. Heavy secrecy surrounded the film's production
and was under the fake working title Corporate Headquarters.
Industrial Light & Magic used digital ships for the film, as
opposed to the previous films in the franchise. Production for the
film concluded by the end of 2008.
Star Trek was heavily
promoted the months preceding its release; pre-release screenings for
the film premiered in select cities around the world including
Austin, Texas, Sydney, Australia, and Calgary, Alberta. It was
released in the United States and Canada on May 8th, 2009, to very
positive reviews. Critics praised the character development as well
as the storyline in the film. Star Trek became a box office success,
grossing over $385.7 million worldwide. It was nominated for several
awards, including four Academy Awards at the 82nd Academy Awards,
ultimately winning in the category for Best Makeup, making it the
first Star Trek film to win an Academy Award. The DVD and Blu-ray for
the film were released on November 17th, 2009. Following the success
of the film, its cast members signed on for two sequels, making Star
Trek the first of a planned trilogy. A sequel, Star Trek Into
Darkness, was released on May 16th, 2013 with Abrams returning as
director and Orci and Kurtzman returning as screenwriters (with the
addition of Star Trek producer Damon Lindelof as screenwriter).
Chris Pine as James T. Kirk
Pine described his first
audition as "awful," because he could not take himself
seriously as a leader. Abrams did not see Pine's first audition, and
it was only after Pine's agent met Abrams' wife that the director
decided to give him another audition opposite Quinto. Quinto was
supportive of Pine's casting because they knew each other as they
worked out at the same gym. After getting the part, Pine sent William
Shatner a letter and received a reply containing Shatner's approval.
Pine watched classic episodes and read encyclopedias about the Star
Trek universe, but stopped as he felt weighed down by the feeling he
had to copy Shatner. Pine felt he had to show Kirk's "humor,
arrogance and decisiveness," but not Shatner's speech pattern,
which would have bordered on imitation. Pine said when watching the
original series, he was also struck by how Shatner's performance was
characterized by humor. Instead, Pine chose to incorporate elements
of Tom Cruise from Top Gun and Harrison Ford's portrayals of Indiana
Jones and Han Solo. Jimmy Bennett portrays a younger Kirk.
Zachary Quinto as Spock
Quinto expressed interest
in the role because of the duality of Spock's half-human, half Vulcan
heritage, and how "he is constantly exploring that notion of how
to evolve in a responsible way and how to evolve in a respectful way.
I think those are all things that we as a society, and certainly the
world, could implement." He mentioned he heard about the new
film and revealed his interest in the role in a December 2006
interview with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: the article was widely
circulated and he attracted Abrams' interest. For the audition,
Quinto wore a blue shirt and flattened his hair down to feel more
like Spock. He bound his fingers to practice the Vulcan salute,
shaved his eyebrows and grew and dyed his hair for the role. He
conveyed many of Spock's attributes, such as his stillness and the
way Nimoy would hold his hands behind his back. Quinto commented the
physical transformation aided in portraying an alien, joking "I
just felt like a nerd. I felt like I was 12 again. You look back at
those pictures and you see the bowl cut. There's no question I was
born to play the Spock role. I was sporting that look for a good four
or five years. The film officially establishes (to Kirk's surprise)
that Uhura and Spock are lovers and have been romantically linked for
some time, a point which had never been previously explored on TV or
in film." Adrien Brody had discussed playing the role with the
director before Quinto was cast. Jacob Kogan portrays a younger Spock.
Karl Urban as Dr.
Leonard "Bones" McCoy
Like Pine, Urban said of
taking on the role that "it is a case of not doing some sort of
facsimile or carbon copy, but really taking the very essence of what
DeForest Kelley has done and honoring that and bringing something new
to the table". Urban has been a fan of the show since he was
seven years old and actively pursued the role after rediscovering the
series on DVD with his son. Urban was cast at his first audition,
which was two months after his initial meeting with Abrams. He said
he was happy to play a role with lots of comedy, something he had not
done since The Price of Milk, because he was tired of action-oriented
roles. When asked why McCoy is so cantankerous, Urban joked the
character might be a "little bipolar actually!". Orci and
Kurtzman had collaborated with Urban on Xena: Warrior Princess, in
which he played Cupid and Caesar.
Leonard Nimoy as Spock (Prime)
Nimoy reprises the role of
the older Spock from the original Star Trek timeline, credited as
"Spock Prime". He is a longtime friend of Abrams' parents,
but became better acquainted with Abrams during filming. Although
Quinto watched some episodes of the show during breaks in filming,
Nimoy was his main resource in playing Spock. Abrams and the writers
met Nimoy at his house; writer Roberto Orci recalled the actor gave a
"'Who are you guys and what are you up to?' vibe" before
being told how important he was to them. He was silent, and Nimoy's
wife Susan Bay told the creative team he had remained in his chair
after their conversation, emotionally overwhelmed by his decision
after turning down many opportunities to revisit the role. Had Nimoy
disliked the script, production would have been delayed for it to be
rewritten. He was "genuinely excited" by the script's scope
and its detailing of the characters' backstories, saying, "We
have dealt with [Spock being half-human, half-Vulcan], but never with
quite the overview that this script has of the entire history of the
character, the growth of the character, the beginnings of the
character and the arrival of the character into the Enterprise
crew." Abrams said "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...'"
Eric Bana as Nero
The film's time-traveling
Romulan villain. Bana shot his scenes toward the end of filming. Even
though he was "crazy about the original series," he had not
seen any of the films. Bana would not have accepted the role unless
he liked the script, which he deemed "awesome" once he read
it. Bana knew Abrams because they coincidentally shared the same
agent. Bana improvised the character's speech patterns.
Zoe Saldana as Nyota Uhura
Abrams asked her to play
the role because he had seen her previous work and liked it. Saldana
had never seen the original series, though she had played a Trekkie
in The Terminal (2004), but agreed to play the role after Abrams
complimented her. "For an actor, that's all you need, that's all
you want. To get the acknowledgment and respect from your peers,"
she said. She met with Nichelle Nichols, who explained to her how
she had created Uhura's background and had named the character.
Saldana's mother was a Star Trek fan and sent her voice mails during
filming, giving advice on the part. Sydney Tamiia Poitier also
auditioned for the part. The film officially establishes the
character's first name, which had never been previously uttered on TV
or in film. And also (in an officially discreet manner) that Uhura
and Spock are, in fact, lovers and had been romantically linked for
some time during the film.
Simon Pegg as Montgomery
"Scotty" Scott
Abrams contacted Pegg by
e-mail, offering him the part. To achieve Scotty's accent, Pegg was
assisted by his wife Maureen, who is from Glasgow, although Pegg said
that Scotty was from Linlithgow and that he therefore wanted his
accent to sound more East Coast Scottish. As a result, the accent he
used is a mixture of both, although it leans more towards the West
sound. He was also aided by James Doohan's son, Chris, and Tommy
Gormley, the film's Glaswegian first assistant director. Pegg
described Scotty as a positive Scottish stereotype, noting "Scots
are the first people to laugh at the fact that they drink and fight
a bit", and that Scotty comes from a long line of Scots with
technical expertise, such as John Logie Baird and Alexander Graham
Bell. Years before, Pegg's character in Spaced joked that every
odd-numbered Star Trek film being "shit" was a fact of
life. Pegg noted, "Fate put me in the movie to show me I was
talking out of my ass."
John Cho as Hikaru Sulu
Abrams had at first been
concerned about casting a Korean-American as a Japanese character,
but George Takei reassured him that Sulu had been meant to represent
all of Asia on the Enterprise, so Abrams went ahead with Cho. Cho
acknowledged that being an Asian-American, "there are certain
acting roles that you are never going to get, and one of them is
playing a cowboy. [Playing Sulu] is a realization of that dream –
going into space." He cited the masculinity of the character as
being important to him, and spent two weeks fight training. Although
Cho suffered an injury to his wrist during filming, a representative
reassured the public that the injury was "no big deal".
James Kyson Lee had originally been interested in playing the part of
Sulu, but both he and Quinto, who had already been cast as Spock,
were at the time members of the cast of the TV show Heroes, and its
producers told Lee they did not want to lose another cast member for
three months.
Anton Yelchin as Pavel Chekov
As with the rest of the
cast, Yelchin was allowed to choose what elements there were from
their predecessor's performances. Yelchin decided to carry on Walter
Koenig's speech patterns of replacing "v"s with
"w"s, although he and Abrams felt this was a trait more
common of Polish accents than Russian ones. He described Chekov as an
odd character, being a Russian who was brought on to the show "in
the middle of the Cold War." He recalled a "scene where
they're talking to Apollo [who says], 'I am Apollo.' And Chekov is
like, 'And I am the czar of all the Russias.' [...] They gave him
these lines. I mean he really is the weirdest, weirdest character."
Bruce
Greenwood plays Christopher Pike, the captain of the Enterprise. Ben
Cross and Winona Ryder portray Spock's parents, Sarek and Amanda
Grayson. Nero's first officer Ayel is played by Clifton Collins, Jr.,
Chris Hemsworth (Thor) plays George Samuel Kirk, Sr., Kirk's father,
who dies aboard the USS Kelvin while battling Nero, while Faran Tahir
plays Kelvin captain Richard Robau. Winona Kirk, Kirk's mother, is
played by Jennifer Morrison (Emma Swan in the ABC adventure fantasy
television series Once Upon a Time). Greg Ellis plays Chief Engineer
Olson, the redshirt who is killed during the space jump.
Some characters had their
scenes substantially or entirely cut from the film, including Brad
William Henke as Kirk's stepfather (the character's lines in the film
were spoken by Greg Grunberg). Spencer Daniels originally played
Kirk's older brother, George Samuel "Sam" Kirk, Jr., but
the majority of his scenes were cut and the opening car chase scene
where Kirk can be heard calling out to him was overdubbed. Victor
Garber plays a Klingon interrogator who tortures Nero during his time
on Rura Penthe. Additional minor roles include Deep Roy as Scotty's
assistant Keenser; and Paul McGillion as a Starfleet barracks leader.
Chris Doohan, the son of the original Scotty, James Doohan, makes a
cameo appearance in the transporter room as Lt. Kyle.
Rachel Nichols (above) was
cast in November 2007, but due to the project's secrecy her role was
initially unknown even to her; she said that month she did not even
know her character's name. It was speculated that she would play
Janice Rand, but she would actually play Gaila, an Orion Starfleet
cadet. A natural blond, Nichols hair was dyed red for her consecutive
roles in Star Trek and later G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra where she
played Shana "Scarlett" O'Hara. Nichols (this time as a
brunette) stars in the Canadian television series Continuum as City
Protective Services (CPS) Protector Kiera Cameron, an accidental time
traveling law enforcement agent from 2077 on the trail of Liber8, a
rebel group out to stop corporations of the future from replacing governments.
Tyler Perry (above center)
appears as the head of Starfleet Academy, Admiral Richard Barnett.
James Cawley, producer and star of the webseries Star Trek: New
Voyages, appears as a Starfleet officer, while Pavel Lychnikoff and
Lucia Rijker play Romulans, Lychnikoff a Commander and Rijker a
Communications Officer. W. Morgan Sheppard, who played a Klingon in
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, as well as Data's allegorical
grandfather in the TNG episode "The Schizoid Man", appears
in this film as the head of the Vulcan Science Council. Wil Wheaton,
known for portraying Wesley Crusher on Star Trek: The Next Generation,
was brought in, through urging by Greg Grunberg, to voice several of
the other Romulans in the film. Star Trek fan and Carnegie Mellon
University professor Randy Pausch cameoed as a Kelvin crew member,
and has a line of dialogue.
Majel Barrett (left), the
widow of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, reprised her role as the
voice of the Enterprise's computer, which she completed two weeks
before her death. Majel Barrett-Roddenberry (23 February 1932 –
18 December 2008; age 76) was a recurring actress in the Star Trek
franchise and was the wife of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry from
1969 until his death in 1991. This association with Roddenberry and
his most famous creation has earned Barrett the title "The First
Lady of Star Trek." Barrett was the only performer to have had a
role on all of the Star Trek series begining with the pilot episode
"The Cage" as Number One. In the original series she played
Nurse Christine Chapel and would reprise the role as Dr. Chapel in
Star Trek: The Animated Series, and in two of the films. She also
voiced M'Ress and several other characters on The Animated Series. On
Star Trek: The Next Generation and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine she
played Betazoid Ambassador Lwaxana Troi, mother to Marina Sirtis TNG
character Counselor Deanna Troi. Barrett is also known as the voice
of the various computers used throughout the series. She also
supplied the voice of the Enterprise computer in five of the Star
Trek films spanning all three film series (Original Series, The Next
Generation Series, and the Reboot Series).
Orci and Kurtzman wrote a
scene for William Shatner, where old Spock gives his younger self a
recorded message by Kirk from the previous timeline. "It was
basically a Happy Birthday wish knowing that Spock was going to go
off to Romulus," and it would have transitioned into Shatner
reciting "Where no man has gone before". But Shatner didn't
want just a cameo, he wanted to share Nimoy's major role, despite
that in the Star Trek timeline his character had already died in Star
Trek Generations. He suggested the film canonize his novels where
Kirk is resurrected, but Abrams decided if his character was
accompanying Nimoy's, it would have become a film about the
resurrection of Kirk, and not about introducing the new versions of
the characters. Nimoy disliked the character's death in Generations,
but also felt resurrecting Kirk would be detrimental to this film.
Untitled
AV
CLUB FEATURETTE DEPARTMENT
Untitled
The greatest adventure of all time begins with Star Trek, the incredible story of a young crew's maiden voyage onboard the most advanced starship ever created: the U.S.S. Enterprise. On a journey filled with action, comedy and cosmic peril, the new recruits must find a way to stop an evil being whose mission of vengeance threatens all of mankind. This reimagining of Star Trek delivers great action, and great surprises as these iconic and familiar characters are reintroduced and played by new actors. Add
Star Trek to your DVD collection.
As early as the 1968 World
Science Fiction Convention, Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry had
said he was going to make a film prequel to the television series.
But the prequel concept did not resurface until the late 1980s, when
Ralph Winter and Harve Bennett submitted a proposal for a prequel
during development of the fourth film. Roddenberry rejected Harve
Bennett's prequel proposal in 1991, after the completion of Star Trek
V: The Final Frontier. Then David Loughery wrote a script entitled
The Academy Years, but it was shelved in light of objections from
Roddenberry and the fan base. The film that was commissioned instead
ended up being the sixth Trek film. In February 2005, after the
financial failure of the tenth film, Star Trek: Nemesis (2002), and
the cancellation of the television series Star Trek: Enterprise, the
franchise's executive producer Rick Berman and screenwriter Erik
Jendresen began developing a new film entitled Star Trek: The
Beginning. It was to revolve around a new set of characters, led by
Kirk's ancestor Tiberius Chase, and be set during the Earth-Romulan
War, after the events of Enterprise but before the events of the
original TV series.
In
2005, Viacom, which owned Paramount Pictures, split from CBS
Corporation, which retained Paramount's television properties,
including ownership of the Star Trek brand. Gail Berman, then
president of Paramount, convinced CBS' chief executive, Leslie
Moonves, to allow them eighteen months to develop a new Star Trek
film before CBS would re-earn the rights to develop a new television
series (in return, CBS would keep merchandising rights). Berman
approached Mission: Impossible III writers Roberto Orci and Alex
Kurtzman for ideas on the new film, and after the MI III had
completed shooting she asked their director, J. J. Abrams (right), to
produce it. Abrams, Orci and Kurtzman, plus producers Damon Lindelof
and Bryan Burk, felt the franchise had explored enough of what took
place after the series, Orci and Lindelof consider themselves
trekkies, and feel some of the Star Trek novels have canonical value,
although Gene Roddenberry never considered the novels to be canon.
Kurtzman is a casual fan, while Burk was not. Abrams' company, Bad
Robot Productions produced the film with Paramount, marking the first
time another company had financed a Star Trek film. Bill Todman,
Jr.'s Level 1 Entertainment also co-produced the film, but, during
2008, Spyglass Entertainment replaced them as financial partner.
In an interview, Abrams
said that he had never seen Star Trek: Nemesis because he felt the
franchise had "disconnected" from the original series. For
him, he said, Star Trek was about Kirk and Spock, and the other
series were like "separate space adventure[s] with the name Star
Trek". He also acknowledged that as a child he had actually
preferred the Star Wars movies. He noted that his general knowledge
of Star Trek made him well suited to introduce the franchise to
newcomers, and that, being an optimistic person, he would make Star
Trek an optimistic film, which would be a refreshing contrast to the
likes of The Dark Knight. He added that he loved the focus on
exploration in Star Trek and the idea of the Prime Directive, which
forbids Starfleet to interfere in the development of primitive
worlds, but that, because of the budgetary limitations of the
original show, it had "never had the resources to actually show
the adventure". He noted he only became involved with the
project as producer initially because he wanted to help Orci,
Kurtzman and Lindelof.
On February 23rd, 2007,
Abrams accepted Paramount's offer to direct the film, after having
initially been attached to it solely as a producer. He explained that
he had decided to direct the film because, after reading the script,
he realized that he "would be so agonizingly envious of whoever
stepped in and directed the movie." Orci and Kurtzman said that
their aim had been to impress a casual fan like Abrams with their
story. Abrams noted that, during filming, he had been nervous
"with all these tattooed faces and pointy ears, bizarre weaponry
and Romulan linguists, with dialogue about 'Neutral Zones' and
'Starfleet' [but] I knew this would work, because the script Alex and
Bob wrote was so emotional and so relatable. I didn't love Kirk and
Spock when I began this journey – but I love them now."
Orci said getting Leonard
Nimoy in the film was very important. "Having him sitting around
a camp fire sharing his memories was never gonna cut it" though,
and time travel was going to be included in the film from the
beginning. Kurtzman added, saying the time travel creates jeopardy,
unlike other prequels where viewers "know how they all
died". The writers acknowledged time travel had been overused in
the other series, but it served a good purpose in creating a new set
of adventures for the original characters before they could
completely do away with it in other films. Abrams selected the
Romulans as the villains because they had been featured less than the
Klingons in the show, and thought it was "fun" to have them
meet Kirk before they do in the show. Orci and Kurtzman noted it
would feel backward to demonize the Klingons again after they had
become heroes in later Star Trek series, and the Romulan presence
continues Spock's story from his last chronological appearance in
"Unification", an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation
set in 2368. The episode of the original continuity in which Kirk
becomes the first human to ever see a Romulan, "Balance of
Terror", served as one of the influences for the film. Orci said
it was difficult giving a good explanation for the time travel
without being gimmicky, like having Nero specifically seeking to
assassinate Kirk.
Orci noted while the time
travel story allowed them to alter some backstory elements such as
Kirk's first encounter with the Romulans, they could not use it as a
crutch to change everything and they tried to approach the film as a
prequel as much as possible. Kirk's service on the Farragut, a major
backstory point to the original episode "Obsession", was
left out because it was deemed irrelevant to the story of Kirk
meeting Spock, although Orci felt nothing in his script precluded it
from the new film's backstory. There was a scene involving Kirk
meeting Carol Marcus (who is revealed as the mother of his son in
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) as a child, but it was dropped
because the film needed more time to introduce the core characters.
Figuring out ways to get the crew together required some
contrivances, which Orci and Kurtzman wanted to explain from old
Spock as a way of the timeline mending itself, highlighting the theme
of destiny. The line was very difficult to write and was ultimately
cut out.
The filmmakers sought
inspiration from novels such as Prime Directive, Spock's World, and
Best Destiny to fill in gaps unexplained by canon; Best Destiny
particularly explores Kirk's childhood and names his parents. One
idea that was justified through information from the novels was
having the Enterprise built on Earth, which was inspired by a piece
of fan art of the Enterprise being built in a ship yard. Orci had
sent the fan art to Abrams to show how realistic the film could be.
Orci explained parts of the ship would have to be constructed on
Earth because of the artificial gravity employed on the ship and its
requirement for sustaining warp speed, and therefore the calibration
of the ship's machinery would be best done in the exact gravity well
which is to be simulated. They felt free to have the ship built in
Iowa because canon is ambiguous as to whether it was built in San
Francisco, but this is a result of the time travel rather than
something intended to overlap with the original timeline. Abrams
noted the continuity of the original show itself was inconsistent at times.
Orci and Kurtzman said they
wanted the general audience to like the film as much as the fans, by
stripping away "Treknobabble", making it action-packed and
giving it the simple title of Star Trek to indicate to newcomers they
would not need to watch any of the other films. Abrams saw humor and
sex appeal as two integral and popular elements of the show that
needed to be maintained. Orci stated being realistic and being
serious were not the same thing. Abrams, Burk, Lindelof, Orci and
Kurtzman were fans of The Wrath of Khan, and also cited The Next
Generation episode "Yesterday's Enterprise" as an
influence. Abrams's wife Katie was regularly consulted on the script,
as were Orci, Kurtzman and Lindelof's wives, to make the female
characters as strong as possible. Katie Abrams's approval of the
strong female characters was partly why Abrams signed on to direct.
Orci and Kurtzman read
graduate school dissertations on the series for inspiration; they
noted comparisons of Kirk, Spock and McCoy to Shakespearian
archetypes, and Kirk and Spock's friendship echoing that of John
Lennon and Paul McCartney. They also noted that, in the creation of
this film, they were influenced by Star Wars, particularly in terms
of pacing. "I want to feel the space, I want to feel speed and I
want to feel all the things that can become a little bit lost when
Star Trek becomes very stately" said Orci. Star Wars permeated
in the way they wrote the action sequences, while Burk noted Kirk and
Spock's initially cold relationship mirrors how "Han Solo wasn't
friends with anyone when they started on their journey." Spock
and Uhura were put in an actual relationship as a nod to early
episodes highlighting her interest in him. Orci wanted to introduce
strong Starfleet captains, concurring with an interviewer that most
captains in other films were "patsies" included to make
Kirk look greater by comparison.
The USS Kelvin, the ship
Kirk's father serves on, is named after J. J. Abrams' grandfather, as
well as the physicist and engineer Lord Kelvin (William Thomson). The
Kelvin's captain, Richard Robau (Faran Tahir), is named after Orci's
Cuban uncle: Orci theorized the fictional character was born in Cuba
and grew up in the Middle East. Another reference to Abrams' previous
works is Slusho, which Uhura orders at the bar where she meets Kirk.
Abrams created the fictitious drink for Alias and it reappeared in
viral marketing for Cloverfield. Its owners, Tagruato, is also from
Cloverfield and appears on a building in San Francisco. The red
matter in the film is in the shape of a red ball, an Abrams motif
dating back to the pilot of Alias.
The
film's production designer was Scott Chambliss, a longtime
collaborator with Abrams. Chambliss worked with a large group of
concept illustrators, including James Clyne, Ryan Church, creature
designer Neville Page, and Star Trek veteran John Eaves. Abrams
stated the difficulty of depicting the future was that much of modern
technology was inspired by the original show, and made it seem
outdated. Thus the production design had to be consistent with the
television series but also feel more advanced than the real world
technology developed after it. "We all have the iPhone that does
more than the communicator," said Abrams. "I feel like
there's a certain thing that you can't really hold onto, which is
kind of the kitschy quality. That must go if it's going to be
something that you believe is real." Prop master Russell Bobbitt
collaborated with Nokia on recreating the original communicator,
creating a $50,000 prototype. Another prop recreated for the film was
the tricorder. Bobbitt brought the original prop to the set, but the
actors found it too large to carry when filming action scenes, so
technical advisor Doug Brody redesigned it to be smaller. The phaser
props were designed as spring-triggered barrels that revolve and glow
as the setting switches from "stun" to "kill". An
Aptera Typ-1 prototype car was used on location.
Production designer
Chambliss maintained the layout of the original bridge, but
aesthetically altered it with brighter colors to reflect the optimism
of Star Trek. The viewscreen was made into a window that could have
images projected on it to make the space environment palpable. Abrams
compared the redesign to the sleek modernist work of Pierre Cardin
and the sets from 2001: A Space Odyssey, which were from the 1960s.
He joked the redesigned bridge made the Apple Store look
"uncool". At the director's behest, more railings were
added to the bridge to make it look safer, and the set was built on
gimbals so its rocking motions when the ship accelerates and is
attacked was more realistic. To emphasize the size of the ship,
Abrams chose to give the engine room a highly industrial appearance:
he explained to Simon Pegg that he was inspired by RMS Titanic, a
sleek ship in which there was an "incredible gut".
Abrams selected Michael
Kaplan to design the costumes because he had not seen any of the
films, meaning he would approach the costumes with a new angle. For
the Starfleet uniforms, Kaplan followed the show's original
color-coding, with dark gray (almost black) undershirts and pants and
colored overshirts showing each crew member's position. Command
officers wear gold shirts, science and medical officers wear blue,
and operations (technicians, engineers, and security personnel) wear
red. Kaplan wanted the shirts to be more sophisticated than the
originals and selected to have the Starfleet symbol patterned on
them. Kirk wears only the undershirt because he is a cadet. Kaplan
modelled the uniforms on the Kelvin on science fiction films of the
1940s and 1950s, to contrast with the Enterprise-era uniforms based
on the ones created in the 1960s. For Abrams, "The costumes were
a microcosm of the entire project, which was how to take something
that's kind of silly and make it feel real. But how do you make
legitimate those near-primary color costumes?"
Lindelof compared the
film's Romulan faction to pirates with their bald, tattooed heads and
disorganized costuming. Their ship, the Narada, is purely practical
with visible mechanics as it is a "working ship", unlike
the Enterprise crew who give a respectable presentation on behalf of
the Federation. Chambliss was heavily influenced by the architecture
of Antoni Gaudí for the Narada, who created buildings that
appeared to be inside out: by making the ship's exposed wires appear
like bones or ligaments, it would create a foreboding atmosphere. The
ship's interior was made of six pieces that could be rearranged to
create a different room. The Romulan actors had three prosthetics
applied to their ears and foreheads, while Bana had a fourth
prosthetic for the bitemark on his ear that extends to the back of
his character's head. The film's Romulans lacked the 'V'-shaped
ridges on the foreheads, which had been present in all of their
depictions outside the original series. Neville Page wanted to honor
that by having Nero's crew ritually scar themselves too, forming
keloids reminiscent of the 'V'-ridges. It was abandoned as they did
not pursue the idea enough. Kaplan wanted aged, worn and rugged
clothes for the Romulans because of their mining backgrounds, and
found some greasy looking fabrics at a flea market. Kaplan tracked
down the makers of those clothes, who were discovered to be based in
Bali, and commissioned them to create his designs.
Barney
Burman supervised the makeup for the other aliens: his team had to
rush the creation of many of the aliens, because originally the
majority of them were to feature in one scene towards the end of
filming. Abrams deemed the scene too similar to the cantina sequence
in Star Wars, and decided to dot the designs around the film. A
tribble was placed in the background of Scotty's introduction. Both
digital and physical makeup was used for aliens.
Principal photography for
the film began on November 7th, 2007 and culminated on March 27rd,
2008; however second unit filming occurred in Bakersfield, California
in April 2008, which stood in for Kirk's childhood home in Iowa.
Filming was also done at the City Hall of Long Beach, California; the
San Rafael Swell in Utah; and the California State University,
Northridge in Los Angeles (which was used for establishing shots of
students at Starfleet Academy). A parking lot outside Dodger Stadium
was used for the ice planet of Delta Vega and the Romulan drilling
rig on Vulcan. The filmmakers expressed an interest in Iceland for
scenes on Delta Vega, but decided against it: Chambliss enjoyed the
challenge of filming scenes with snow in southern California. Other
Vulcan exteriors were shot at Vasquez Rocks, a location that was used
in various episodes of the original show. A Budweiser plant in Van
Nuys was used for the Enterprise's engine room, while a Long Beach
power plant was used for the Kelvin's engine room.
Following the initiation of
the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike on November 5th,
2007, Abrams, himself a WGA member, told Variety that while he would
not render writing services for the film and intended to walk the
picket line, he did not expect the strike to impact his directing of
the production. In the final few weeks before the strike and start of
production, Abrams and Lindelof polished the script for a final time.
Abrams was frustrated that he was unable to alter lines during the
strike, whereas normally they would have been able to improvise new
ideas during rehearsal, although Lindelof acknowledged they could dub
some lines in post-production. Orci and Kurtzman were able to stay on
set without strikebreaking because they were also executive producers
on the film; they could "make funny eyes and faces at the actors
whenever they had a problem with the line and sort of nod when they
had something better". Abrams was able to alter a scene where
Spock combats six Romulans from a fistfight to a gunfight, having
decided there were too many physical brawls in the film.
The
production team maintained heavily enforced security around the
film. Karl Urban revealed, "[There is a] level of security and
secrecy that we have all been forced to adopt. I mean, it's really
kind of paranoid crazy, but sort of justified. We're not allowed to
walk around in public in our costumes and we have to be herded around
everywhere in these golf carts that are completely concealed and
covered in black canvas. The security of it is immense. You feel your
freedom is a big challenge." Actors like Jennifer Morrison were
only given the scripts of their scenes. The film's shooting script
was fiercely protected even with the main cast. Simon Pegg said,
"I read [the script] with a security guard near me – it's
that secretive." The film used the fake working title of
Corporate Headquarters. Some of the few outside of the production
allowed to visit the set included Rod Roddenberry, Ronald D. Moore,
Jonathan Frakes, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Ben Stiller, Tom
Cruise and Steven Spielberg (who had partially convinced Abrams to
direct because he liked the script, and he even advised the action
scenes during his visit).
Abrams chose to shoot the
film in the anamorphic format on 35 mm film after discussions about
whether the film should be shot in high-definition digital video.
Cinematographer Dan Mindel and Abrams agreed the choice gave the film
a big-screen feel and the realistic, organic look they wanted for the
film setting. Abrams and Mindel used lens flares throughout filming
to create an optimistic atmosphere and a feeling activity was taking
place off-camera, making the Star Trek universe feel more real.
"There's something about those flares, especially in a movie
that potentially could be incredibly sterile and CG and overly
controlled. There’s just something incredibly unpredictable and
gorgeous about them." Mindel would create more flares by shining
a flashlight or pointing a mirror at the camera lens, or using two
cameras simultaneously and therefore two lighting set-ups.
When
the shoot ended, Abrams gave the cast boxes containing little
telescopes, which allowed them to read the name of each constellation
it was pointed at. "I think he just wanted each of us to look at
the stars a little differently," said John Cho. After the shoot,
Abrams cut out some scenes of Kirk and Spock as children, including
seeing the latter as a baby, as well as a subplot involving Nero
being imprisoned by the Klingons and his escape: this explanation for
his absence during Kirk's life confused many to whom Abrams screened
the film. Other scenes cut out explained the teenage Kirk stole his
stepfather's antique car because he had forced him to clean it before
an auction; and that the Orion he seduced at the Academy worked in
the operations division. Afterwards, she agrees to open the e-mail
containing his patch that allows him to pass the Kobayashi Maru test.
Industrial Light &
Magic and Digital Domain were among several companies that created
over 1,000 special effect shots. The visual effects supervisors were
Roger Guyett, who collaborated with Abrams on Mission: Impossible III
and also served as second unit director, and Russell Earl. Abrams
avoided shooting only against bluescreen and greenscreen, because it
"makes me insane", using them instead to extend the scale
of sets and locations. The Delta Vega sequence required the mixing of
digital snow with real snow.
Star Trek was the first
film ILM worked on using entirely digital ships. The Enterprise was
intended by Abrams to be a merging of its design in the show and the
refitted version from the original film. Abrams had fond memories of
the reveal of the Enterprise's refit in Star Trek: The Motion
Picture, because it was the first time the ship felt tangible and
real to him. The iridescent pattern on the ship from The Motion
Picture was maintained to give the ship depth, while model maker
Roger Goodson also applied the "Aztec" pattern from The
Next Generation. Goodson recalled Abrams also wanted to bring a
"hot rod" aesthetic to the ship. Effects supervisor Roger
Guyett wanted the ship to have more moving parts, which stemmed from
his childhood dissatisfaction with the ship's design: The new
Enterprise's dish can expand and move, while the fins on its engines
split slightly when they begin warping. The Enterprise was originally
redesigned by Ryan Church using features of the original, at 1,200
feet long, but was later scaled up by a factor of two to 2,357 feet
long to make it seem "grander", while the Romulan Narada is
five miles long and several miles wide. The filmmakers had to
simulate lens flares on the ships in keeping with the film's cinematography.
Carolyn Porco of NASA was
consulted on the planetary science and imagery. The animators
realistically recreated what an explosion would look like in space:
short blasts, which suck inward and leave debris from a ship
floating. For shots of an imploding planet, the same explosion
program was used to simulate it breaking up, while the animators
could manually composite multiple layers of rocks and wind sucking
into the planet. In the battle with the Nerada over Vulcan (pictured
above) some of that space debris turns out to be R2-D2. It's been
confirmed by ILM (marked with an arrow above) this is the droid we
were all looking for, undeniable proof that R2-D2 somehow was
transported through space and time.
Unlike
other Star Trek films and shows, the transporter beam effects swirl
rather than speckle. Abrams conceived the redesign to emphasize the
notion of transporters as beams that can pick up and move people,
rather than a signal composed of scrambled atoms.
Lola Visual Effects worked
on 48 shots, including some animation to Eric Bana and Leonard Nimoy.
Bana required extensive damage to his teeth, which was significant
enough to completely replace his mouth in some shots. Nimoy's mouth
was reanimated in his first scene with Kirk following a rerecording
session. The filmmakers had filmed Nimoy when he rerecorded his lines
so they could rotoscope his mouth into the film, even recreating the
lighting conditions, but they realized they had to digitally recreate
his lips because of the bouncing light created by the camp fire.
Michael
Giacchino, Abrams' most frequent collaborator, composed the music
for Star Trek. He kept the original theme by Alexander Courage for
the end credits, which Abrams said symbolized the momentum of the
crew coming together. Giacchino admitted personal pressure in scoring
the film, as "I grew up listening to all of that great [Trek]
music, and that's part of what inspired me to do what I'm doing [...]
You just go in scared. You just hope you do your best. It's one of
those things where the film will tell me what to do." Scoring
took place at the Sony Scoring Stage with a 107-piece orchestra and
40-person choir. An erhu, performed by Karen Han, was used for the
Vulcan themes. A distorted recording was used for the Romulans.
Varèse Sarabande, the record label responsible for releasing
albums of Giacchino's previous scores for Alias, Lost, Mission:
Impossible III, and Speed Racer, released the soundtrack for the
film. The music for the theatrical trailers were composed by Two
Steps From Hell.
The sound effects were
designed by Star Wars veteran Ben Burtt. Whereas the phaser blast
noises from the television series were derived from The War of the
Worlds (1953), Burtt made his phaser sounds more like his blasters
from Star Wars, because Abrams' depiction of phasers were closer to
the blasters' bullet-like fire, rather than the steady beams of
energy in previous Star Trek films. Burtt reproduced the classic
photon torpedo and warp drive sounds: he tapped a long spring against
a contact microphone, and combined that with cannon fire. Burtt used
a 1960s oscillator to create a musical and emotional hum to the
warping and transporting sounds.
In February 2008, Paramount
announced they would move Star Trek from its December 25th, 2008
release date to May 8th, 2009, as the studio felt more people would
see the film during summer than winter. The film was practically
finished by the end of 2008. Paramount's decision came about after
visiting the set and watching dailies, as they realized the film
could appeal to a much broader audience. Even though the filmmakers
liked the Christmas release date, Damon Lindelof acknowledged it
would allow more time to perfect the visual effects. The months-long
gap between the completion of the production and release meant Alan
Dean Foster was allowed to watch the whole film before writing the
novelization, although the novel would contain scenes absent from the
final edit. Quinto narrated the audiobook.
A surprise public screening
was held on April 6th, 2009, at the Alamo Drafthouse theater in
Austin, Texas, hosted by writers Robert Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and
producer Damon Lindelof. The showing was publicized as a screening of
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, followed by a ten-minute preview of
the new Star Trek film. A few minutes into Khan, the film appeared to
melt and Leonard Nimoy appeared on stage with Orci, Kurtzman and
Lindelof, asking the audience, "wouldn't you rather see the new
movie?" Following the surprise screening in Texas, the first of
many premieres across the world was held at the Sydney Opera House in
Sydney on April 7th, 2009. For almost two years, the town of Vulcan,
Alberta had campaigned to have the film premiere there, but because
it had no theater, Paramount arranged instead a lottery where 300
winning residents would be taken to a prerelease screening in Calgary.
The first teaser trailer
debuted in theaters with Cloverfield on January 18th, 2008, which
showed the Enterprise under construction. Abrams himself directed the
first part of the trailer, where a welder removes his goggles.
Professional welders were hired for the teaser. The voices of the
1960s played over the trailer were intended to link the film to the
present day; John F. Kennedy in particular was chosen because of
similarities with the character of James T. Kirk and because he is
seen to have "kicked off" the Space Race. Orci explained
that: "If we do indeed have a Federation, I think Kennedy’s
words will be inscribed in there someplace." Star Trek's later
trailers would win four awards, including Best in Show, in the tenth
annual Golden Trailer Awards.
Paramount
faced two obstacles in promoting the film: the unfamiliarity of the
"MySpace generation" with the franchise and the relatively
weak international performance of the previous films. Six months
before the film's release, Abrams toured Europe and North America
with 25 minutes of footage. Abrams noted the large-scale campaign
started unusually early, but this was because the release delay
allowed him to show more completed scenes than normal. The director
preferred promoting his projects quietly, but concurred Paramount
needed to remove Star Trek's stigma. Abrams would exaggerate his
preference for other shows to Star Trek as a child to the press, with
statements like "I'm not a Star Trek fan" and "this
movie is not made for Star Trek fans necessarily". Orci compared
Abrams' approach to The Next Generation episode "A Matter of
Honor", where William Riker is stationed aboard a Klingon
vessel. "On that ship when someone talks back to you, you would
have to beat them down or you lose the respect of your crew, which is
protocol, whereas on a Federation ship that would be a crime. So we
have to give [J. J. Abrams] a little bit of leeway, when he is
traveling the 'galaxy' over there where they don't know Trek, to say
the things that need to be said in order to get people onto our side."
Promotional partners on the
film include Nokia, Verizon Wireless, Esurance, Kellogg's, Burger
King and Intel Corporation, as well as various companies specializing
in home decorating, apparel, jewelry, gift items and
"Tiberius", "Pon Farr" and "Red Shirt"
fragrances. Playmates Toys, who owned the Star Trek toy license until
2000, also held the merchandise rights for the new film. The first
wave was released in March and April 2009. The first wave consists of
3.75", 6" and 12" action figures, an Enterprise
replica, prop toys and play sets. In order to recreate the whole
bridge, one would have to buy more 3.75" figures, which come
with chairs and consoles to add to the main set consisting of Kirk's
chair, the floor, the main console and the viewscreen. Master
Replicas, Mattel, Hasbro and Fundex Games would promote the film via
playing cards, Monopoly, UNO, Scrabble, Magic 8-Ball, Hot Wheels,
Tyco R/C, 20Q, Scene It? and Barbie lines. Some of these are based on
previous Star Trek iterations rather than the film. CBS also created
a merchandising line based around Star Trek caricatures named "Quogs".
Official
screenings in the United States started at 7 pm on May 7th, 2009,
grossing $4 million on its opening day. By the end of the weekend,
Star Trek had opened with $79,204,300, as well as $35,500,000 from
other countries. Adjusted and unadjusted for inflation, it beat Star
Trek: First Contact for the largest American opening for a Star Trek
film. The film made $8.5 million (US) from its IMAX screenings,
breaking The Dark Knight's $6.3 million IMAX opening record. Its
opening weekend numbers alone outgross the entire individual runs of
The Undiscovered Country, The Final Frontier, Insurrection and
Nemesis. The film grossed $127,764,536 in international markets, and
Paramount were happy with the international sales, as Star Trek
historically was a movie franchise that never has been a big draw overseas.
Star Trek was acclaimed by
film critics and pleased traditional Trekkies and new fans alike. Ty
Burr of the Boston Globe gave the film a perfect four star rating,
describing it as "ridiculously satisfying", and the
"best prequel ever". Burr praised the character development
in the film, opining that "emotionally, Star Trek hits every one
of its marks, functioning as a family reunion that extends across
decades, entertainment mediums, even blurring the line between
audience and show." He continued: "Trading on affections
sustained over 40 years of popular culture, Star Trek does what a
franchise reboot rarely does. It reminds us why we loved these
characters in the first place." Owen Gleiberman from
Entertainment Weekly gave the film an 'A-' grade, commenting that
director Abrams "crafts an origin story that avoids any hint of
the origin doldrums." Similar sentiments were expressed by
Rolling Stone journalist Peter Travers, who gave the film a 3.5 out
of 4 stars. He felt that the acting from the cast was the highlight
of the filming, asserting that the performance of Chris Pine radiated
star quality. Likewise, Travers called Zachary Quinto's performance
"sharp" and "intuitive", and felt that Quinto
"gave the film a soul". Slate's Dana Stevens felt that the
film was "a gift to those of us who loved the original series,
that brainy, wonky, idealistic body of work that aired to almost no
commercial success between 1966–69 and has since become a
science fiction archetype and object of cult adoration."
The chemistry between Chris
Pine and Zachary Quinto was well received by critics. Gleiberman felt
that as the film progressed to the conclusion, Pine and Quinto
emulated the same connection as Kirk and Spock. Burr opined that
Abrams had an accurate understanding of the relationship between Kirk
and Spock, and wrote, "Pine makes a fine, brash boy Kirk, but
Quinto's Spock is something special – an eerily calm figure
freighted with a heavier sadness than Roddenberry's original. The two
ground each other and point toward all the stories yet to come."
Some
film critics were polarized with Star Trek. Roger Ebert of the
Chicago Sun-Times stated that "the Gene Roddenberry years, when
stories might play with questions of science, ideals or philosophy,
have been replaced by stories reduced to loud and colorful
action." Ebert ultimately gave it a 2.5 out of 4 stars.
Similarly, Marc Bain of Newsweek opined: "The latest film
version of Star Trek [...] is more brawn than brain, and it largely
jettisons complicated ethical conundrums in favor of action sequences
and special effects". These criticisms could also be applied to
all the films since the storytelling betweem TV shows and movies is
different and the films always tend to be "louder" and more
action oriented. In a movie you have two hours to tell a story and
develop characters, on TV you only have a hour, but you'll be back
next week and the week after that. Slate journalist Juliet Lapidos
argued that the new film, with its "standard Hollywood torture
scene", failed to live up to the intellectual standard set by
the 1992 Next Generation episode "Chain of Command", whose
treatment of the issue she found both more sophisticated and
pertinent to the ongoing debate over the United States' use of
enhanced interrogation techniques.
The film garnered numerous
accolades after its release. In 2010, it was nominated for four
Academy Awards at the 82nd Academy Awards, for Best Sound Editing,
Best Sound Mixing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Makeup. Star Trek
won in the category for Best Makeup, making it the first Star Trek
film to receive an Academy Award. The film was nominated for three
Empire Awards, to which it won for Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy. In October
2009, Star Trek won the Hollywood Award for Best Movie, and attained
six Scream Awards and the 2009 Scream Awards Ceremony. The film
attained a Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by a
Stunt Ensemble in a Motion Picture at the 16th Screen Actors Guild Awards.
The film was nominated for
a Grammy Award for Best Score Soundtrack Album for a Motion Picture,
Television or Other Visual Media, but was beaten out by Up, also
composed by Michael Giacchino. At the 36th People's Choice Awards,
the film received four nominations – cast member Zoe Saldana was
a contender for Favorite Breakout Movie Actress, while Chris Pine and
Zachary Quinto were nominated for Favorite Breakout Movie Actor. On
June 15th, 2009, the film was nominated for five Teen Choice Awards.
In addition, Star Trek was nominated for five Broadcast Film Critics
Association Awards and was named one of the top-ten films of 2009 by
the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures.
Bruce
Greenwood plays Christopher Pike, the captain of the Enterprise. Ben
Cross and Winona Ryder portray Spock's parents, Sarek and Amanda
Grayson. Nero's first officer Ayel is played by Clifton Collins, Jr.,
Chris Hemsworth (Thor) plays George Samuel Kirk, Sr., Kirk's father,
who dies aboard the USS Kelvin while battling Nero, while Faran Tahir
plays Kelvin captain Richard Robau. Winona Kirk, Kirk's mother, is
played by Jennifer Morrison (Emma Swan in the ABC adventure fantasy
television series Once Upon a Time). Greg Ellis plays Chief Engineer
Olson, the redshirt who is killed during the space jump.
Generation,
was brought in, through urging by Greg Grunberg, to voice several of
the other Romulans in the film. Star Trek fan and Carnegie Mellon
University professor Randy Pausch cameoed as a Kelvin crew member,
and has a line of dialogue.
In
2005, Viacom, which owned Paramount Pictures, split from CBS
Corporation, which retained Paramount's television properties,
including ownership of the Star Trek brand. Gail Berman, then
president of Paramount, convinced CBS' chief executive, Leslie
Moonves, to allow them eighteen months to develop a new Star Trek
film before CBS would re-earn the rights to develop a new television
series (in return, CBS would keep merchandising rights). Berman
approached Mission: Impossible III writers Roberto Orci and Alex
Kurtzman for ideas on the new film, and after the MI III had
completed shooting she asked their director, J. J. Abrams (right), to
produce it. Abrams, Orci and Kurtzman, plus producers Damon Lindelof
and Bryan Burk, felt the franchise had explored enough of what took
place after the series, Orci and Lindelof consider themselves
trekkies, and feel some of the Star Trek novels have canonical value,
although Gene Roddenberry never considered the novels to be canon.
Kurtzman is a casual fan, while Burk was not. Abrams' company, Bad
Robot Productions produced the film with Paramount, marking the first
time another company had financed a Star Trek film. Bill Todman,
Jr.'s Level 1 Entertainment also co-produced the film, but, during
2008, Spyglass Entertainment replaced them as financial partner.
The
film's production designer was Scott Chambliss, a longtime
collaborator with Abrams. Chambliss worked with a large group of
concept illustrators, including James Clyne, Ryan Church, creature
designer Neville Page, and Star Trek veteran John Eaves. Abrams
stated the difficulty of depicting the future was that much of modern
technology was inspired by the original show, and made it seem
outdated. Thus the production design had to be consistent with the
television series but also feel more advanced than the real world
technology developed after it. "We all have the iPhone that does
more than the communicator," said Abrams. "I feel like
there's a certain thing that you can't really hold onto, which is
kind of the kitschy quality. That must go if it's going to be
something that you believe is real." Prop master Russell Bobbitt
collaborated with Nokia on recreating the original communicator,
creating a $50,000 prototype. Another prop recreated for the film was
the tricorder. Bobbitt brought the original prop to the set, but the
actors found it too large to carry when filming action scenes, so
technical advisor Doug Brody redesigned it to be smaller. The phaser
props were designed as spring-triggered barrels that revolve and glow
as the setting switches from "stun" to "kill". An
Aptera Typ-1 prototype car was used on location.
Barney
Burman supervised the makeup for the other aliens: his team had to
rush the creation of many of the aliens, because originally the
majority of them were to feature in one scene towards the end of
filming. Abrams deemed the scene too similar to the cantina sequence
in Star Wars, and decided to dot the designs around the film. A
tribble was placed in the background of Scotty's introduction. Both
digital and physical makeup was used for aliens.
The
production team maintained heavily enforced security around the
film. Karl Urban revealed, "[There is a] level of security and
secrecy that we have all been forced to adopt. I mean, it's really
kind of paranoid crazy, but sort of justified. We're not allowed to
walk around in public in our costumes and we have to be herded around
everywhere in these golf carts that are completely concealed and
covered in black canvas. The security of it is immense. You feel your
freedom is a big challenge." Actors like Jennifer Morrison were
only given the scripts of their scenes. The film's shooting script
was fiercely protected even with the main cast. Simon Pegg said,
"I read [the script] with a security guard near me – it's
that secretive." The film used the fake working title of
Corporate Headquarters. Some of the few outside of the production
allowed to visit the set included Rod Roddenberry, Ronald D. Moore,
Jonathan Frakes, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, Ben Stiller, Tom
Cruise and Steven Spielberg (who had partially convinced Abrams to
direct because he liked the script, and he even advised the action
scenes during his visit).
When
the shoot ended, Abrams gave the cast boxes containing little
telescopes, which allowed them to read the name of each constellation
it was pointed at. "I think he just wanted each of us to look at
the stars a little differently," said John Cho. After the shoot,
Abrams cut out some scenes of Kirk and Spock as children, including
seeing the latter as a baby, as well as a subplot involving Nero
being imprisoned by the Klingons and his escape: this explanation for
his absence during Kirk's life confused many to whom Abrams screened
the film. Other scenes cut out explained the teenage Kirk stole his
stepfather's antique car because he had forced him to clean it before
an auction; and that the Orion he seduced at the Academy worked in
the operations division. Afterwards, she agrees to open the e-mail
containing his patch that allows him to pass the Kobayashi Maru test.
Unlike
other Star Trek films and shows, the transporter beam effects swirl
rather than speckle. Abrams conceived the redesign to emphasize the
notion of transporters as beams that can pick up and move people,
rather than a signal composed of scrambled atoms.
Michael
Giacchino, Abrams' most frequent collaborator, composed the music
for Star Trek. He kept the original theme by Alexander Courage for
the end credits, which Abrams said symbolized the momentum of the
crew coming together. Giacchino admitted personal pressure in scoring
the film, as "I grew up listening to all of that great [Trek]
music, and that's part of what inspired me to do what I'm doing [...]
You just go in scared. You just hope you do your best. It's one of
those things where the film will tell me what to do." Scoring
took place at the Sony Scoring Stage with a 107-piece orchestra and
40-person choir. An erhu, performed by Karen Han, was used for the
Vulcan themes. A distorted recording was used for the Romulans.
Varèse Sarabande, the record label responsible for releasing
albums of Giacchino's previous scores for Alias, Lost, Mission:
Impossible III, and Speed Racer, released the soundtrack for the
film. The music for the theatrical trailers were composed by Two
Steps From Hell.
Paramount
faced two obstacles in promoting the film: the unfamiliarity of the
"MySpace generation" with the franchise and the relatively
weak international performance of the previous films. Six months
before the film's release, Abrams toured Europe and North America
with 25 minutes of footage. Abrams noted the large-scale campaign
started unusually early, but this was because the release delay
allowed him to show more completed scenes than normal. The director
preferred promoting his projects quietly, but concurred Paramount
needed to remove Star Trek's stigma. Abrams would exaggerate his
preference for other shows to Star Trek as a child to the press, with
statements like "I'm not a Star Trek fan" and "this
movie is not made for Star Trek fans necessarily". Orci compared
Abrams' approach to The Next Generation episode "A Matter of
Honor", where William Riker is stationed aboard a Klingon
vessel. "On that ship when someone talks back to you, you would
have to beat them down or you lose the respect of your crew, which is
protocol, whereas on a Federation ship that would be a crime. So we
have to give [J. J. Abrams] a little bit of leeway, when he is
traveling the 'galaxy' over there where they don't know Trek, to say
the things that need to be said in order to get people onto our side."
Official
screenings in the United States started at 7 pm on May 7th, 2009,
grossing $4 million on its opening day. By the end of the weekend,
Star Trek had opened with $79,204,300, as well as $35,500,000 from
other countries. Adjusted and unadjusted for inflation, it beat Star
Trek: First Contact for the largest American opening for a Star Trek
film. The film made $8.5 million (US) from its IMAX screenings,
breaking The Dark Knight's $6.3 million IMAX opening record. Its
opening weekend numbers alone outgross the entire individual runs of
The Undiscovered Country, The Final Frontier, Insurrection and
Nemesis. The film grossed $127,764,536 in international markets, and
Paramount were happy with the international sales, as Star Trek
historically was a movie franchise that never has been a big draw overseas.
Some
film critics were polarized with Star Trek. Roger Ebert of the
Chicago Sun-Times stated that "the Gene Roddenberry years, when
stories might play with questions of science, ideals or philosophy,
have been replaced by stories reduced to loud and colorful
action." Ebert ultimately gave it a 2.5 out of 4 stars.
Similarly, Marc Bain of Newsweek opined: "The latest film
version of Star Trek [...] is more brawn than brain, and it largely
jettisons complicated ethical conundrums in favor of action sequences
and special effects". These criticisms could also be applied to
all the films since the storytelling betweem TV shows and movies is
different and the films always tend to be "louder" and more
action oriented. In a movie you have two hours to tell a story and
develop characters, on TV you only have a hour, but you'll be back
next week and the week after that. Slate journalist Juliet Lapidos
argued that the new film, with its "standard Hollywood torture
scene", failed to live up to the intellectual standard set by
the 1992 Next Generation episode "Chain of Command", whose
treatment of the issue she found both more sophisticated and
pertinent to the ongoing debate over the United States' use of
enhanced interrogation techniques.
