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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 explores the backstories
of James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto), before they
unite aboard the USS Enterprise to combat Nero (Eric Bana), a Romulan
from the future who threatens the United Federation of Planets. The
film was released in conventional theaters and IMAX 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 they 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 8, 2009, believing the film
could reach a wider audience.
Star Trek 2009 Movie poster
Cast
* Chris Pine as James T. Kirk. Pine and Quinto work out at the same
gym, and Quinto became supportive of casting him as Kirk. 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. 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." Pine watched classic episodes and read encyclopedias
about the fictional universe, but stopped as he felt weighed down by
feeling he had to copy William Shatner's mannerisms. 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 also said
when watching the original series, he was struck by the humorousness
of Shatner's performance. After being cast, Pine sent Shatner a
letter, and received a reply wishing him good luck. Beforehand, it was
widely rumored that Matt Damon would play Kirk. Upon hearing the
rumors and that Shatner gave him a "seal of approval", 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.
o Jimmy Bennett plays James Kirk as a boy.
* Zachary Quinto as Spock. Quinto pursued the role as he was
interested in 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." For the audition, he 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." Adrien Brody had discussed playing the
role with the director before Quinto was cast.
o Leonard Nimoy reprises his role as the old Spock, who has come from
the future to provide help. Nimoy befriended Quinto after being cast
in the role. 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; 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...'"
o Jacob Kogan plays Spock as a child.
* 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. Orci and Kurtzman recommended
Urban to Abrams, as they had cast him as Caesar in Xena: Warrior
Princess.
* Simon Pegg as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott. To perform Scotty's accent,
Pegg was assisted by his Scottish wife. 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."
o 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". Chris Doohan previously cameoed
in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
o Paul McGillion auditioned for Scotty, and he impressed producers
enough that he was given another role in the film.
* 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.Sydney Tamiia Poitier also auditioned for the
part.
* 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. 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. Cho suffered an injury to his wrist during
filming, although a representative assured it was "no big deal". 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.
* 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 Russias.' ...
They gave him these lines. I mean he really is the weirdest, weirdest
character."
* Eric Bana as Nero, the film's timetravelling Romulan villain. Part
of his past involves escaping from the Klingon prison Rura Penthe.
Bana shot his scenes toward the end of filming. He was "a huge Trekkie
when he was a kid", 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. Bana knew Abrams because they coincidentally shared the same
agent. Bana improvised the character's speech patterns.
Eric Bana aka Bruce Banner aka Romulan
* Bruce Greenwood as Christopher Pike, the captain of the Enterprise.
* Clifton Collins, Jr. as General Ayel, Nero's henchman.
* Ben Cross as Sarek, Spock's father.
* Winona Ryder as Amanda Grayson, Spock's mother.
* Chris Hemsworth as George Samuel Kirk, Sr., Kirk's father, who died
aboard the USS Kelvin while battling the Romulans.
* Jennifer Morrison as Winona Kirk, Kirk's mother.
* Brad William Henke as Frank, Kirk's abusive, alcoholic uncle. Star
Trek: Enterprise star Dominic Keating auditioned for the role.
* Spencer Daniels as George Samuel "Sam" Kirk, Jr., Kirk's older
brother, who appears in a scene with Jimmy Bennett.
* Faran Tahir as Richard Robau, George Kirk's captain.
* Greg Ellis as Chief Engineer Olsen.
Rachel Nichols and Diora Baird play Orions.Tyler Perry appears as the
head of Starfleet Academy. James Cawley appears as a Starfleet
officer, while Pavel Lychnikoff and Lucia Rijker play Romulans,
Lychnikoff a Commander and Rijker a CO. W. Morgan Sheppard, who played
a Klingon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, appears in this
film as a different alien. Greg Grunberg has a cameo as a result of a
schedule conflict that deprived him of the role Abrams intended for
him. A tribble appears in the film. 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. Majel
Barrett, 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 on December 18, 2008.
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." Nimoy disliked the character's death in
Generations, but felt resurrecting Kirk would also be detrimental to
this film. Shatner added he wanted to share Nimoy's major role, and
did not want a cameo. Orci and Kurtzman had written a scene for
Shatner before they decided they would rather maintain continuity.
Nichelle Nichols suggested playing Uhura's grandmother, but Abrams
could not write this in due to the Writers Guild strike. Abrams was
also interested in casting Keri Russell, but they deemed the role he
had in mind for her too similar to her other roles.
Production
Development
Here's what Gene Roddenberry said in an interview just before he died
in August 1991; somebody had asked him, 'What's going to become of
Star Trek in the future?' And he said that he hoped that some day some
bright young thing would come along and do it again, bigger and better
than he had ever done it. And he wished them well.
—Richard Arnold, Roddenberry's assistant
At the 1968 World Science Fiction Convention, Star Trek creator Gene
Roddenberry declared he would make a film prequel to the television
series. The prequel concept resurfaced in the late 1980s with Ralph
Winter and Harve Bennett during development of the fourth and sixth
films. For the latter, David Loughery wrote a script entitled The
Academy Years, but it was shelved in light of objections from the
original cast and the fan base. 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 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 the original series, during the Earth-Romulan War.
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. The trio, 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.
Abrams had not seen Star Trek Nemesis because the franchise had
"disconnected" for him, explaining that for him, Star Trek was about
Kirk and Spock, and the other series were like "separate space
adventures with the name Star Trek". Abrams also preferred Star Wars
as a child. He noted his general knowledge of Star Trek made him
suitable to making a film to introduce the franchise to newcomers
though, and being an optimistic person, he felt the optimistic nature
of Star Trek would be a refreshing contrast to the likes of The Dark
Knight. He continued 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. However, Abrams
disliked that the budgetary limitations of the original show meant
they "never had the resources to actually show the adventure".
On February 23, 2007, Abrams accepted Paramount's offer to direct the
film, having been only attached as producer. He had decided "I would
be so agonizingly envious of whoever stepped in and directed the
movie", because he found the script "emotional", "fun", and "big" in
scope. Orci and Kurtzman felt their aim had been to impress a casual
fan like Abrams with their story. 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."
Writing
"We're from different worlds, Alex Kurtzman was born here, and I was
born in Mexico City and lived there until I was nine. Kirk and Spock
are opposites from two worlds. That's us in a nutshell. We're drawn to
each by what each of us lacks. The story of this film is about two
guys who are such opposites that they might end up strangling each
other but instead they bond and thrive together. That's us. We can go
warp speed together."
—Roberto Orci on the film's emotional context
Orci said creating a clean reboot would have been disrespectful, and
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 the time travel creates jeopardy, unlike
other prequels where viewers "know how they all died". 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 he does in the show. 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. 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.
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. Kirk's love interest Carol
Marcus, who becomes the mother of his son in Star Trek II: The Wrath
of Khan, was dropped from the final draft because the story needed
more time to introduce the core characters. 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 ambigious as to whether it was built in San Francisco, but this is
a result of the time travel rather than an embellishment. 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 dark 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 J.J. 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–which I love
about it, but," said Orci. Star Wars permeated in the way they wrote
the action sequences; the writers approached the starships as like
submarines rather than ships, to get closer to the aerial dogfights
Star Wars was based on. Burk noted Kirk and Spock's initially cold
relationship mirrors how "Han Solo wasn't friends with anyone when
they started on their journey." 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 temperature scale Kelvin, itself
named after physicist and engineer Lord Kelvin (William Thomson). The
Kelvin's captain, Richard Robau (Faran Tahir), is named after Orci's
Cuban-born 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 is mentioned in an Iowa bar in this
film. Abrams created the fictitious drink for Alias and it reappeared
in viral marketing for Cloverfield. The old Spock's Jellyfish ship
contains a red ball, an Abrams motif dating back to the pilot of
Alias.
Filming
Filming began on November 7, 2007. 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. Filming was also done at
the City Hall of Long Beach, California; Vasquez Rocks (a location
used in the classic episode "Arena"); the San Rafael Swell in Utah;
and the California State University, Northridge (which was used for
establishing shots of students at Starfleet Academy). A parking lot
outside Dodger Stadium was used for a section of a Romulan drilling
rig, and an industrial location was used for the Enterprise's engine
room (although the rest of the ship's rooms were built as sets).
Principal photography finished on March 27, 2008, although second unit
filming took place during early April in Bakersfield, California,
standing in for Kirk's childhood home in Iowa.
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. In the final few weeks before
the strike and start of production, Abrams and Damon Lindelof polished
the script 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. Lines may still be
altered with dubbing. 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.
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's fake working title was 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 small 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.
Design
The film was primarily designed by Ryan Church and Star Trek veteran
John Eaves. Carolyn Porco of NASA was consulted on the planetary
science and imagery, while the Cloverfield monster's creator Neville
Page reunited with Abrams to design creatures for this film.
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 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. To
emphasize the size of the ship, Abrams chose different styles for
various decks: the sickbay is more modern whereas the transporter and
engine rooms are very industrial. The Enterprise went through three
major designs before being approved. Production designer Scott
Chambliss maintained the layout of the original bridge, including the
placement of Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Sulu and Chekov's chairs, but
aesthetically altered it with brighter colors to reflect the optimism
of Star Trek. Abrams 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. The phaser props were designed as
spring-triggered barrels that revolve and glow as the setting switches
from "stun" to "kill", and the transporter beam effects swirl rather
than speckle.
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 finally, 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. Kirk
and Sulu also wear extra-vehicular activity suits, which are blue and
green respectively. 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 unique tattoos and disorganized
costuming. Their ship, the Narada, 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. The
Romulan actors spent two to four hours applying make-up. 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.
Industrial Light & Magic and Digital Domain created the visual
effects. Visual effects supervisors Roger Guyett 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.For example, when
filming at California State University, bluescreens were placed to
hide palm trees, and the Aptera Typ-1 prototype was placed in a corner
of the location. Both digital and physical makeup was used for aliens.
Music
Michael Giacchino, Abrams' most frequent collaborator, composed the
music for Star Trek. He kept 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." Scoring took place from September to October
2008. Varese Sarabande, the record label responsible for releasing
albums of Giacchino's previous scores for Alias, Lost, Mission:
Impossible III, and Speed Racer, will release the soundtrack for the
film on May 5.
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 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 and
release meant Alan Dean Foster was allowed to watch the whole film
before writing the novelization (although the novel will still contain
scenes not in the final edit).
The first of many premieres across the world will be held at the
Sydney Opera House on April 7, 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. |
