This article or section contains information about one or more upcoming films. The content will change as more information becomes available closer to the release date(s).

Star Trek
Combined Comic-Con International posters
Directed by	J. J. Abrams
Produced by	J. J. Abrams Damon Lindelof Bryan Burk
Written by	Screenplay: Roberto Orci Alex Kurtzman Characters: Gene Roddenberry
Starring	Chris Pine Zachary Quinto Karl Urban Simon Pegg Zoe Saldana John Cho Anton Yelchin Eric Bana Leonard Nimoy
Music by	Michael Giacchino
Cinematography	Daniel Mindel
Editing by	Mary Jo Markey Maryann Brandon
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date(s)	May 7, 2009: Australia New Zealand May 8, 2009: United Kingdom North America
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$150 million1
Preceded by	Star Trek Nemesis

Star Trek is a science fiction film directed by J. J. Abrams, written by Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, and produced by Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk. It is the eleventh Star Trek film and features the main characters of the original Star Trek series, who are portrayed by a new cast. It follows James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) enrolling at Starfleet Academy, his first meeting with Spock (Zachary Quinto), and their battles with Romulans from the future, who are interfering with history.¹ The film is scheduled to be released on May 8, 2009 in North America and the United Kingdom.

Development of the film began in 2005 when Paramount Pictures contacted Abrams, Orci and Kurtzman for ideas to revive the franchise. The creative team contrasted Orci and Lindelof, who consider themselves "Trekkies", with casual fans like Abrams, who all aimed to create a film that would interest a general audience. They wanted to be faithful to Star Trek canon, but also introduced elements of their favorite novels, modified continuity with the time travel storyline, and modernized the production design of the original show. Filming took place from November 2007 to April 2008 under intense secrecy. Midway through the shoot, Paramount chose to delay the release date from December 25, 2008 to May 2009, believing the film would perform better in the summer.

Cast

• Chris Pine as James T. Kirk. The actor dropped out of starring in a film adaptation of White Jazz to take on the role.² Pine felt his first audition was awful, because he could not take himself seriously as a leader, but Abrams was impressed enough to have him practice a scene with Quinto.¹ Pine cited Harrison Ford's performances as Han Solo and Indiana Jones as an inspiration because of his "absolute grumpy manner; the accidental hero. Not to say that I modeled my version of James T. Kirk on anything in particular but I think I definitely have wanted to bring that kind of Harrison Ford humor to Kirk."³ Pine watched classic episodes and read encyclopedias about the fictional universe, but stopped as he felt weighed down by feeling he had to copy Shatner's mannerisms.⁴ After being cast, Pine sent William Shatner a letter, and received a reply wishing him good luck.⁵ Beforehand, it was widely rumored that Matt Damon would play Kirk. Upon hearing the rumors and that Shatner gave him a "seal of approval",⁶ Damon contacted Abrams to ascertain the truth, only to be told that the Kirk in the film was a younger man and he was "too old" for the part.⁷
  • Jimmy Bennett plays James Kirk as a boy.⁸

• Zachary Quinto as Spock. Quinto pursued the role as he was interested in the duality of Spock's half-human, half Vulcan heritage.¹ He was also fascinated "that 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."⁹ He bound his fingers to practice the Vulcan salute, and shaved his eyebrows and grew and dyed his hair for the role. Quinto commented the physical transformation aided in portraying an alien.¹ Adrien Brody had discussed playing the role with the director before Quinto was cast.¹⁰
  • Leonard Nimoy reprises his role as the old Spock, who has come from the future to provide help.¹¹ Nimoy befriended Quinto after being cast in the role.¹² Had Nimoy disliked the script, production would have been delayed for it to be rewritten.¹³ Roberto Orci said Nimoy's presence would "resolve continuity issues" and give an "appropriate transfer" to the new version of the Enterprise crew.¹⁴ Nimoy was "genuinely excited" by the script's scope and its detailing of the characters' backstories,⁹ 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."¹⁵
  • Jacob Kogan plays Spock as a child.¹⁶

• 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.¹⁷

• Simon Pegg as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott. To perform Scotty's accent, Pegg was assisted by his Scottish wife.⁵ He 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."¹⁸
  • Chris Doohan, the son of the original Scotty, James Doohan, makes a cameo appearance in the transporter room. Pegg has e-mailed Doohan about the role, and the actor has promised him his performance "would be a complete tribute to his father".⁵ Chris Doohan previously cameoed in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
  • Paul McGillion auditioned for Scotty, and he impressed producers enough that he was given another role in the film.¹⁹

• Zoe Saldana as Uhura. Abrams had liked her work and requested that she play the role. Saldana never saw the original series, but agreed to play the role after Abrams had complimented her. "For an actor, that's all you need, that's all you want. To get the acknowledgement and respect from your peers," she said. She met with Nichelle Nichols, who explained to her how she had created Uhura's background, and also named the character.²⁰

• John Cho as Hikaru Sulu. Abrams was concerned about casting a Korean-American as a Japanese-American character, but George Takei explained to the director that Sulu was meant to represent all of Asia on the Enterprise, so Abrams went ahead with Cho.²¹ Cho acknowledged 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.²² Cho suffered an injury to his wrist during filming, although a representative assured it was "no big deal".²³ James Kyson Lee was interested in the part, but because Quinto was cast as Spock, the producers of the TV show Heroes did not want to lose another cast member for three months.²⁴

• 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 noted this was a trait more common of Polish accents than Russian ones.¹⁶ 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 Russias.' [...] They gave him these lines. I mean he really is the weirdest, weirdest character."²⁵

• Eric Bana as Nero, the film's Romulan villain. Part of his past involves escaping from Klingon prison.¹⁶ Bana shot his scenes toward the end of filming. He was "a huge Trekkie when [he] was a kid",²⁶ but had not seen many of the films. Even if he were "crazy about the original series", he would not have accepted the role unless he liked the script, which he deemed "awesome" once he read it.²⁷ Bana knew Abrams because they coincidentally shared the same agent.²⁸

• Clifton Collins, Jr. as General Ayel, Nero's henchman.²⁹
• Bruce Greenwood as Christopher Pike, the captain of the Enterprise.¹
• Chris Hemsworth as George Samuel Kirk, Sr., Kirk's father,³⁰ who died aboard the USS Kelvin while battling the Romulans.¹⁶
• Jennifer Morrison as Winona Kirk, Kirk's mother.³¹
• Brad William Henke as Frank, Kirk's abusive, alcoholic uncle.³²
• Spencer Daniels as George Samuel "Sam" Kirk, Jr., Kirk's older brother, who appears in a scene with Jimmy Bennett.⁸
• Ben Cross as Sarek, Spock's father.³⁰
• Winona Ryder as Amanda Grayson, Spock's mother.³⁰
• Faran Tahir as Richard Robau, George Kirk's captain.³³
• Greg Ellis as Chief Engineer Olsen.³⁴

Rachel Nichols and Diora Baird play Orions.³¹³⁵ Tyler Perry appears as the head of Starfleet Academy.³⁶ Pavel Lychnikoff has an unknown role, while James Cawley appears as a Starfleet officer.³⁷ Lucia Rijker plays a Romulan communications officer.³⁸ W. Morgan Sheppard, who played a Klingon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, appears in this film as a different alien.³⁹ A tribble appears in the film.⁴⁰ Star Trek fan and Carnegie Mellon University professor Randy Pausch (who died on July 25, 2008) cameoed as an Enterprise crew member, and has a line of dialogue.⁴¹

William Shatner wanted to appear as the old Kirk, despite the death of the character in Star Trek Generations. He suggested the film canonize the novels where Kirk is resurrected, but Abrams argued, "You and I could come up with dozens of ways [to resurrect Kirk], but every way that we came up with felt like it was transparently fanboys trying to get Shatner in the movie."⁴² Nimoy disliked the character's death in Generations, but felt resurrecting Kirk would also be detrimental to this film.¹³ Shatner added he wanted to share Nimoy's major role, and did not want a cameo.⁴³ Nichelle Nichols was offered a cameo as Uhura's ancestor, but this could not be written in due to the Writers Guild strike.⁴⁴

Production

Development

Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry considered making Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) a prequel to the television series.⁴⁵ He later opposed Harve Bennett's prequel proposal in 1991 after the completion of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.⁴⁶ In February 2005, following 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 were developing a new film,⁴⁷ entitled Star Trek: The Beginning. It was to revolve around a new set of characters, led by Kirk's ancestor Tiberius Chase. It would take place after Enterprise but before Star Trek: The Original Series, during the Earth-Romulan War.⁴⁸

Meanwhile in 2005, J. J. Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman were filming Mission: Impossible III, and Paramount asked Orci for ideas to revive the franchise: he also proposed a prequel.¹⁴ The trio, plus producers Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk felt the franchise had explored enough of what took place after the series.⁴⁹ Orci and Lindelof consider themselves trekkies,⁵⁰ and feel some of the Star Trek novels have canonical value, although Gene Roddenberry never considered the novels to be part of the Star Trek canon.⁵¹ Kurtzman is a casual fan, while Burk was not.¹ 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.⁵²

Abrams had not seen Star Trek Nemesis, feeling the franchise eventually "disconnected" for him,⁵³ and also confessed that he preferred Star Wars as a child.¹ He does like Star Trek's optimism though, being an optimist himself, and felt the film would be a refreshing antidote to the likes of The Dark Knight.¹ On February 23, 2007, Abrams accepted Paramount's offer to direct the film, having been only attached as producer.⁵⁴ He had decided "I would be so agonizingly envious of whoever stepped in and directed the movie",⁵⁵ because he found the script "emotional", "fun", and "big" in scope.³⁰ Orci and Kurtzman felt their aim had been to impress a casual fan like Abrams with their story.⁵⁶ Even when filming, Abrams was 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."¹

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).⁵⁸ Humor was an essential part of the script, as Abrams noted "Without comedy (my fave TOS eps had great wit), the audience finds their own places to laugh. And in a world of humans and aliens, that could be disastrous."⁴⁹ Abrams, Burk, Lindelof, Orci and Kurtzman are all fans of the second film, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, while Orci stated they also looked towards "Balance of Terror" and "Yesterday's Enterprise" for inspiration.⁵⁰ The writers also noted the influence of Star Wars, particularly in terms of pacing.⁵⁶

Abrams's wife Katie was regularly consulted on the script, as did Orci, Kurtzman and Lindelof's wives, to make the female characters as strong as possible. Orci noted "Trek is so much about equality and women’s rights."⁵⁹ Katie Abrams's pleasure with the strong female characters was partly why J.J. signed on to direct.¹⁴ Orci noted he wanted to introduce strong Starfleet captains, concurring with an interviewer most Starfleet captains in past films were cannon fodder written to simply make Kirk look great.⁵⁹ They also read graduate school dissertations on the series for inspiration.⁴⁹ Orci compared Kirk and Spock to John Lennon and Paul McCartney, and called Kirk, Spock and McCoy Shakespearian archetypes.⁵⁰

Where issues of canonicity were ambiguous, a "Supreme Court" consisting of Orci, Kurtzman, Abrams, Burk and Lindelof acted as the final arbiters and that they did not "sweat every little detail [...] either you buy [our interpretation] or you don’t".⁶⁰ The two novels that served as inspiration were Prime Directive and Spock's World.⁵⁰ Orci said creating a reboot would be disrespectful to those who maintained a strong continuity in the franchise in the past.⁵⁹ One example of a concept which seemingly contradicts Star Trek canon but came from the precedent set in the novels was having the Enterprise built on Earth, rather than space. Orci said that the idea that some things have to be constructed in space is normally associated with "flimsy" objects which have to be delicately assembled and would not normally be required to enter a gravity well. He said that this did not apply to the Enterprise 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.⁶⁰

Abrams chose to set early scenes in Iowa and San Francisco to ground the film for audiences before it advanced to a space setting, arguing the film needed to emphasize Star Trek as humanity's future, rather than being set in another galaxy.¹⁶ He deemed the Romulans more interesting villains as they were less commonly seen than Klingons in the show, and felt it was "fun" to have them time travel and attack Kirk before he met them in the original series (in Star Trek canon, no one before Captain Kirk ever saw a Romulan because they had no form of visual communication). A large Klingon subplot in early drafts of the script was dropped because Abrams felt "it confused the story in a [...] cool but unnecessary" manner.⁶¹

The USS Kelvin (a ship Kirk's father serves on in the opening sequence battling Nero)¹⁶ is named after J. J. Abrams' grandfather, as well as the temperature scale Kelvin (itself named after physicist and engineer William Thomson, 1st Baron Kelvin).⁶² Another reference to Abrams' previous works is Slusho, which is mentioned in an Iowa bar in this film. Abrams created the fictitious drink for Alias and it reappeared in viral marketing for Cloverfield.⁶³

Filming

The Oviatt Library at California State University, Northridge was used for shots of Starfleet Academy

Filming began on November 7, 2007.⁶⁴ The shoot was to last eighty-five days, taking place on eleven sets built at the Paramount backlot, as well as two weeks of location shooting in Iceland.¹² Filming was also done at the City Hall of Long Beach, California;⁶⁵ Vasquez Rocks (a location used in the classic episode "Arena");³⁰ and the California State University, Northridge (which was used for establishing shots of students at Starfleet Academy).⁶⁶ A car park outside Dodger Stadium was used for a section of a Romulan drilling rig,⁶⁷ and an industrial location was used for the Enterprise's engines (although the rest of the ship's rooms were built as sets).³³ Principal photography finished on March 27, 2008,⁶⁸ although second unit filming took place during early April in Bakersfield, California, standing in for Kirk's childhood home in Iowa.⁶⁹

Following the commencement of the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike on November 5, 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.⁷⁰ In the final few weeks before the strike and start of production, Abrams and Damon Lindelof polished the script a final time.⁷¹ 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. Lines may still be altered with dubbing.⁷²

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."⁷³ Actors like Jennifer Morrison were only given the scripts of their scenes.³¹ 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."⁷⁴ The film's fake working title was Corporate Headquarters.⁷⁵ Some of the few outside of the production allowed to visit the set included Ronald D. Moore,⁷⁶ Jonathan Frakes,⁷⁷ 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).¹⁴

Design

The redesigned bridge

The film was primarily designed by Ryan Church and Star Trek veteran John Eaves.⁷⁸ 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.⁴⁹ Though the Enterprise's bridge maintains an oval shape, railings, the captain's chair, and viewscreen, it has been aesthetically altered with bright colors: Abrams joked it made the Apple Store look "uncool".¹ To emphasize the size of the ship, Abrams chose different styles for other decks on the ship: the sickbay is more modern whereas the transporter and engine rooms are very industrial.⁷⁹ The phaser props were designed as spring-triggered barrels that revolve and glow as the setting switches from "stun" to "kill",¹ and the transporter beam effects swirl rather than speckle.¹⁶ Carolyn Porco of NASA was consulted on the planetary science and imagery,⁸⁰ while the Cloverfield monster's creator Neville Page reunited with Abrams to design creatures for this film.¹⁶

The Starfleet uniforms follow the show's original color coding (command officers wear gold shirts, science and medical officers wear blue, and Operations (technicians/engineers) and security personnel wear red). The uniforms consist of a gray (almost black) undershirt, and colored overshirts with slight v-necks. Each shirt has a subtle pattern of delta symbols woven into the fabric, while the badges are pins rather than woven. The undershirts themselves have the Starfleet insignia embossed on them. The female officers' miniskirts are slightly longer than the originals.⁸¹ As a cadet, Kirk only wears the undershirt.¹ Kirk and Sulu also wear extra-vehicular activity suits, which are blue and green respectively.⁸² 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?"⁸³

Eric Bana as the bald, tattooed Romulan Nero

Lindelof compared the film's Romulan faction to pirates with their unique tattoos and disorganized costuming. Their ship, called the Narada,⁸⁴ is purely practical with visible mechanics, as they are on a mission, unlike the Enterprise crew who give a respectable presentation on behalf of the Federation.⁸⁵ The Romulan actors spent two to four hours applying make-up.⁸⁶ The actors shaved their heads for the roles to differentiate them from Vulcans. Previous series in the franchise attempted this by designing the Romulans with ridged foreheads.⁶⁷

Industrial Light & Magic is creating the visual effects. Visual effects supervisors Roger Guyette and Sherri Hanson worked with Abrams on Mission: Impossible III. Abrams avoided using bluescreen and greenscreen as much as possible, with the exception of one scene, because it "makes me insane". Instead, he used special effects to extend the scale of sets and locations.⁴⁹ For example, when filming at California State University, bluescreens were placed to hide palm trees, and a silver Aptera Typ-1 was placed in a corner of the location.⁸⁷

Music

Michael Giacchino, the composer for several other Abrams projects, is scoring Star Trek. He will keep the original theme by Alexander Courage. 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."⁸⁸ Scoring took place from September to October 2008.⁸⁹⁹⁰

Release

In February 2008, Paramount announced they would move Star Trek from its December 25, 2008 release date to May 8, 2009. The move was not due to the end of the WGA strike, but because the studio felt more audiences would see the film during summer rather than winter. The film will still be practically finished by the end of 2008.⁹¹ 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.⁷²

Marketing

The first teaser trailer debuted in theaters with Cloverfield on January 18, 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.⁹² 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."⁶⁰

The first conventional trailer was enclosed with Quantum of Solace upon its US release on November 14, 2008, but it was not shown in some theaters.¹ Paramount faced two obstacles in promoting the film: the unfamiliarity of the "MySpace generation" with the franchise, and the generally weak overseas performance of the series. Six months before the film's release, Abrams toured Rome; Cologne; Madrid; Paris; London; New York City and Los Angeles with 25 minutes of footage. Abrams noted the large-scale campaign start 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. When asked where they would go from there, Abrams replied "Oh, there's a whole crazy campaign [...] We have a life-size Enterprise, but I'm not allowed to talk about it."⁹³

From January 2009, IDW Publishing will release a comic book entitled Star Trek: Countdown, presenting Nero's backstory and bridging the gap between the film and the old Spock's last appearance in The Next Generation episode "Unification". It also features the characters Jean-Luc Picard and Data. The comic was written by Orci, Kurtzman, Tim Jones and Mike Johnson, and drawn by David Messina.⁹⁴⁹⁵ Master Replicas will create collectible items for the film,⁹⁶ while Playmates Toys will create action figures, electronic toys, ship models and costumes for children. The first waves will be released in March and April 2009, and then in September.⁸⁴ Playmates previously owned the toy license to Star Trek until 2000. Diamond Select/Art Asylum still own the rights to items based on previous incarnations of the franchise.⁹⁷

References