November
20
Star Trek Footage Revealed
After everybody had checked their cameras and phones, J.J. Abrams stood in front of the packed Paramount Studio Theatre Wednesday to unspool four scenes from Star Trek, about twenty minutes. With the movie not opening until May and the first trailer out this week, it felt a tad early for a show-and-tell. Underwire posted their reaction.
Right at the top, Abrams admitted he's not a Trekkie. But when he read Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman's script, he said, "it was adventure and funny and romantic and sexy and epic yet intimate -- everything you'd want." He had to do it.
Casting the role of Captain Kirk that was originated by William Shatner back in 1966 was tough. "He had massive shoes to fill," he said. Unlike Spock, "you couldn't fall back on pointed ears. It had to be him."
The first clip introduced Chris Pine as Kirk, trying to pick up language expert Uhura (Zoe Saldana) in a bar. She's initially dismissive, then sees how smart he is. He's drunk and gets into a bar brawl with some Star Fleet Academy cadets. Bruce Greenwood's Captain Pike breaks it up and tries to recruit Kirk, because he knew and respected his late father, who died the day he was born. "We want you if you are half the man your father was," he tells him. Kirk is hooked and turns up at the Star Fleet recruiting call the next day (on a very cool motorcycle). "I wanted the movie to feel fresh and earthbound, as well," said Abrams.
Kirk is a troublemaker at the Academy, natch, and has to sneak onto the U.S.S. Kelvin as it takes off to deal with an emergency on Planet Vulcan. Physician Bones (Karl Urban, who feels the right age, while Pine and Heroes star Zachary Quinto seem a tad young) infects him with a virus to get him on the ship; Kirk figures out that the mission is a Romulan trap (their leader is played by Eric Bana) and warns Pike and Spock on the bridge. "Bana is oddly relatable even though he is mostly evil," said Abrams.
Arch-rivals Kirk and Spock don't get along. In the third clip, acting Captain Spock dumps Kirk on a snowy planet, where he meets a much older Spock, played by Leonard Nimoy, as well as the irrepressible engineer Scotty (Simon Pegg). "Coming back from the future to change history is cheating," Kirk tells Spock. "It's a trick I learned from an old friend," Spock says. "Live long and prosper." Abrams admitted that he was abashed at giving notes to Nimoy.
The big action footage in the fourth clip was stunning, involving Kirk and a sword-wielding Sulu (John Cho) parachuting down from a shuttle to shut down signals that are being sent from a bore platform far above Vulcan. It's very scary. So is the Russian accent used by Anton Yelchin as Chekhov. All in all, I was more impressed by the footage than the trailer below:
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Wow. I'd change Zulu to Sulu before the Trekkies show up and crucify you.
Posted by: Tom | November 20, 2008 at 08:26 PM
Got a call on this and fixed as soon as I got home.
Posted by: Anne Thompson | November 20, 2008 at 10:10 PM
And Abrams really isn't a fan if he thinks Kirk was the one with pointed ears!
Posted by: cadavra | November 23, 2008 at 11:37 AM