Star Trek sequel scheduled for June 29, 2012 Release

 Man, that's a long time off. 

Not for a movie that has nothing, except a release date.

 I hope I'm still a fan by then!

I hope it doesn't go where the other films have gone and it goes in a completely different direction, please, please no remakes of the old films....please.

It's been a little over a year since this thread started!

 

I just read a report about the reshuffling of films and the Jack Ryan reboot starring the new Kirk, Chris Pine is being scheduled to begin filming in January 2012. So they are hoping that the Star Trek sequel can begin filming no later then September this year so Pine will be done to do Jack Ryan. The release date for Star Trek is still June 29, 2012.

 

The writers are still wrapping up the story. JJ Abrams is expected, but has not agreed to come back and direct.

 

I am surprised I am even writing about this! I'm a huge TOS fan. I like TNG, DS9, Voyager and Enterprise. But this JJ Abrams film irked me. It has it's own vibe and it wasn't TOS. As it should have been of course. It was well filmed, and had great emotional punch. But as I said before, it's not my Star Trek. It's great for the next generation of fans.

 

I hated the new Enterprise external design and how they made it twice as big as it was. I hated engineering. But I really liked the design of the interior of the ship and the bridge. I liked the costumes. I liked Urban as the new McCoy. And I liked the new Sulu and Chekov. And I really really liked Greenwood as Pike. I think for the rest of the cast, their ownership of the roles is yet to be proven to me, especially Quinto. He did a fine job, but his portrayal was very early days. As it was meant to be I think. 

 

Because this is an alternative timeline, that's the part that irks me. They have license to blow up planets. But it was the only way they felt they could go to avoid old ground. Nimoy was happy about that. And it made sense. But quantum mechanics and alternate timelines just didn't work. It wasn't real to me. The Mirror Universe was fun, but it wasn't our Prime Universe. I know, it's a parallel universe and it is all about, "it could go this way" because of Nero.

 

So I am not really anticipating this movie that much! I'd rather spend time of Shatner and Nimoy and Kelley on Blu Ray.

 

In terms of what they'll do next. I'm sure it will be tried and true. Space battles to get the 14 year old kids in. Very little to no substance, Maybe a familiar character. Eye candy.

Right on. They could never be as good.
 

 

^ seconded 

 

There's so much they could do with this concept, just as Mr. Gene had envisioned.  So far, so good! 

Hate to tell you this Ron but the full title of the new film is Star Trek - The Search for the Bottlenose Dolphin.

 

Seems the only way the Enterprise crew can save the universe from a threat is by travelling back in time and grabbing a pair of dolphins...

I don't think the cast as it stands now could make that work.. I had heard different. I thought it was Star Trek the search for more money. Maybe it will be ok, if they don't drink to much Budweiser in that engine room.
 

 

The search for Radioman in a theater seat at the new Star Trek. 

 

Wouldn't have a happy ending. 

The search for facts about the sequel that's a year away to legitimately have gripes about. 

Star Trek: What Happens When Dead Romulans Come Out Of Black Hole From An Alternate Universe.  Kind of like The Search For Spock, in reverse! ;-)

 

or maybe

 

Star Trek: Two Spocks Argue.  (Actually, I'd pay good money to see that...)

Alright....kinda of a trek-nerd question.  But, in the movie.  We are told their are only about 10k Vulcans left after Vulcan is blown up.  But, weren't their Vulcan colonies that were colonized before and after the start of the Federation?  It should have said that only 10k Vulcan's made it off the planet.  And with regards to that.  The Enterprise has more than one transporter.  Couldn't the Enterprise have been beaming up random Vulcans before they are forced to flee?

 

In the original series, the Enterprise had a crew of about 300.  In the new movie, I don't know what the crew compliment was, but it seemed like it was more than that -- Pike says to Kirk in the bar, early on, that his father saved 800 lives aboard the Kelvin.  It seems the Enterprise was bigger, so I'd guess maybe 1000 crewmembers.  But either way, I don't think they had the capacity for 10,000 people onboard.  I don't think they had the transporter power either.  And remember, the Enterprise had about a minute to beam people up from the moment Kirk and Sulu disabled the drill (which blocked the transporter) to when the planet imploded - not a lot of time.  I guess what I'm saying is, I think that 10,000 figure includes former Vulcan colonies and Vulcans that lived in other places.  I doubt the Enterprise was able to save 100 people from the planet's surface, if that.

About the size of the Enterprise, the ILM project manager for the guys who built the digital model, either on his own or by direction from JJAbrams seemed to arbitrarily decide to make the ship much bigger then the original. It was enlarged from Ryan Church's original design for the film which was in scale with the original TMP Enterprise to a size on par with Picard's Enterprise D. That's freaking huge. So a crew of 1000 is concievable. The original TOS enterprise was huge, and perhaps my sense of scale is predicated on that, so I found it unreasonably big for the JJ-prise.

Another example of the JJ crew leaning towards their Star Wars admiration. Nothing says the starships can't be that big, but it seems wrong for the Trek world.

Regarding the surviving Vulcans, I thought there was a short bit of dialogue that suggested there were colonies as part of that 10,000 count, but I'm not positive.

I do not know how i remember these things, but the classic TOS Enterprise was 947 or so, feet long, and the crew was 430. I have seen pics of the scale, of each of the Enterprise ships thru D. The new move did have huge ships, and how many shuttle craft do they have...looks like 50 of them launched when evacuating at the beginning of the flick.

I don't see how that release date stays with the cameras rolling that late on Star Trek 2. Unless they've been in pre-production for a good long while, I just don't see them making that release date.

I'd love to see the sequel start with Kirk, Spock, and Bones on an "Away Mission" on some really cool planet.  That would make me happy.

I know some people were unhappy with the scale of the new Enterprise, but I loved it... I loved how when we first see it in the film, it's so big that it's bigger than the actual frame.  I thought the new film was very respectful of everything that came before -- even setting up an "alternate universe" scenario so as not to completely remake or try to negate anything that previously happened -- but I think it was important for them to make it their own.  (I think it would have been a much harder film to make, and probably not as good, if they felt compelled the keep all of the original Enterprise specs, character histories, etc.  Sometimes it's okay to dream it all up again.)

 

For the new film, the writers have suggested that they might not do something with a traditional villain.  There's a thread about Star Trek: The Motion Picture going on in the Blu-ray section of the forum, and that's one of the things I admire about that film, that it didn't have a traditional bad guy.  If that's the route they go here, that could make for an interesting and unusual film, so I could be behind that.

 

My only wish for the film, and I'm not really expecting it to happen, would be to have Pike involved in some way.  Bruce Greenwood was so good in that role, and I just enjoyed his take on the character so much, that I'd love to see even a small bit with him in it.  It was really cool to see how both Kirk and Spock respected him even when they couldn't stand each other, and that added a nice bit of sibling rivalry depth to the story.  And, like most brothers who have reason to resent each other at some point, by the end they come to understand how each compliments the other.  So it would be kinda cool to see "Papa Pike" getting to see his kids in action, working together.

Nelson Au wrote (post #6):

 

Impossible.
 

 

Where?
 

 

 

How do you figure?
 

 

 

And apparently, the 24- and 34-year-olds as well, these days.  That's "progress"!

 

 

 

 

A staple of the TOS Star Trek-films.

 

 

 

It's the "Star Trek-experience", 21st-century style: a retro-future of high hair, (ultra)mini-skirts, i-store engineering decks, etc., etc., etc. Man, you've missed the "cool-train"!!!


Josh Steinberg wrote (post #20):

 

I admire it's attempt at some semblance of "science fiction", but its failure to have an "identifiable villain"---i.e., one with which audiences could "interface"---helped make it the disappointment that it was. 

 

 

Present Paramount management doesn't have the guts (or the brains) to go such a route.

I just had a Star Trek V flashback. Don't DO that!!!  :*( 

 

 

Warning: Spoiler! (Click to show)

 

 

Ah, Mr. Buchmann, surprised to see you comment!

In reading your post, I realized one of my comments you quoted wasn't well written by me. When I said the JJ Abrams Trek didn't have the same vide as TOS and I added "as it should be." I can see that it can be interpreted in another way as intended. I simply meant that the JJ Abrams films didn't have a TOS vibe, and really shouldn't have a TOS vibe. It is Abram's and the new writer's own take of TOS and as such, it stands as their version, as that should be. And that vibe felt like a mixture of Star Wars and The Little Rascals. The Little Rascals because it has this feeling of we're young, new and excited about getting out to space. The Enterprise launch scene in my head plays like "Ready Steady, Go!" And there's something actually kinda cool about that.

When I said the Alternate Time line was the only way to go, I was quoting the writers and Leonard Nimoy as they felt it was a clever way to get around the problem of possibly rethreading old ground. They felt it opens up the opportunities to go to where no one has gone before, if you'll excuse the quote. I didn't like it. It gave them license to do things TOS wouldn't or may not have done. But I have to give them props for pulling it off. I just don't buy the ideal of an alternate timeline. To me, Nero altered history and as such, the TOS timeline is wiped out, inspite of the writers intention that Quantum Mechanics and other such mumbo jumbo simply split the timelines and you now have 2 parallel universes going on. The TOS continues and JJ's timeline co-exists.

Finally, as far as emotional punch, I felt the pre-title sequence with the Kelvin was very well done. The death of the Captain was a shock and the suicide run into Nero's ship as George Kirk is talking to Winona was emotional for me as Kirk is born.

As far as the jokes about the Enterprise interiors as being "i-store" feeling, I think that's an unfair rap. I'm a designer. I really appreciate the design work done to the bridge and the corridors. If you look at it, think about it, doesn't it remind you more of a certain Kubrick film, or a Moonbase? It's a very similar aesthetic, except dressed up with some modern flourishes and the use of a bit of color to remind us of the TOS bridge.

So I have a mixture of feelings about this film. I like a lot of parts and I dislike the underlying McGuffin they use to propel the circumstances. The characters aren't bad, several are great, McCoy and Pike. Especially Pike. I hate the external design of the Enterprise and the brewery. I'm sure the film makers got that message about the brewery!And the Enterprise is a major character and I'm sad to see her the way she is reconfigured with such poor proportions.

Finally, another thought about the size of the Enterprise. In the 1968 book, The Making of Star Trek, there is a illustration of the Enteprrise overlapping the US Navy Aircraft carrier Enterprise. They are of similar length. And if I recall correctly, the crew of the real Enterprise was 1000. Given the saucer section on the fictional TOS Enterprise is pretty big, I'm thinking the TOS Enterprise probably could have a crew that big in the saucer section alone. Maybe I can count the cabins drawn up by Franz Josephs from the 1973 blueprints........

But Nelson, you have to admit, the engineering section looked just like what it was...a brewery!

 

Hell, the second i saw it, i said that is a milk, or some other kind of processing plant. I hated it. Still takes me out of the flick. The classic TOS never resorted to the 50s thing of using a electric company ( or some such place) sub station, to be a space ship interior! Lots of cool dials and control panels.

 

Well, they look just as futuristic as a processing plant. Not at all.

 

You know what made me proud. My 17 year old son didnt like the new movie. He said TOS was better. This from a boy who will not watch old movies or TV shows.

Hey Rick! I am in complete agreement about the use of the brewery for the Enterprise engineering section and those giant stainless steel tanks where Uhura was working. Same with whatever they used to film the bowels of the Kelvin. I could see the concrete on the side walls of the staircase as Captain Robau is going down to the shuttle. Pretty bad!

 

I'm only talking about the Bridge and corridors and sickbay and the transporter room too. Those were well done. I think all the hate about the use of a brewery has reached the designers of the sequel.

 

Your son has good taste!

Since Battlestar Galactica, (the dark and gritty one) did similar things with it's engineering sections, maybe Abrams and company thought they could do the same?

 

Shooting in real locales sometimes works though. Silent Running was largely shot in the innards of an old aircraft carrier, wasn't it?

I had no problems with the brewery.  I had no problems with pretty much everything in the film - I flat out loved it.  And this coming from someone who fully expected the new movie to be terrible.  Only twice in my life, as the lights have gone down in the theater, have a said a silent prayer to myself, "Please don't suck" -- before this movie, and before Episode III.  I wasn't let down either time.

 

No, it's not TOS, but let's face it -- there's no way it could have been.  Before this movie came out, I was saying to people, there's no way to remake this part of Star Trek because it's not as if there's a novel they can go back to and reinterpret.  William Shatner is Kirk.  Kirk is Shatner.  Same for everyone else.  I just didn't think it could be done in such a way that I could enjoy it.  And then the first trailer came out, showing the building of the Enterprise, and I'm still thinking, "there's no way this could work, but it's a cool teaser."  Then the second trailer comes out, and I'm thinking "this actually looks pretty cool".  And then the third one comes out, the one where Pike says, "Your father was captain of a starship for 12 minutes; he saved 800 lives" -- and that line gave me goosebumps, made me think, "OK, this might actually work."  Just the way that there was some emotion invested into the idea, not just a bunch of people in familiar looking outfits blowing shit up.

 

Ironically, after seeing the new Star Trek, I went home thinking, "OK, JJ Abrams, I have to stop making fun of you and at least give your other work a chance.  I will now watch Fringe and Lost" - and I did, and I don't regret that either.  But this Star Trek... I probably saw it about ten times in theaters, most of them in IMAX (I was lucky that I was living in Boston at the time, where the Aquarium, which has the biggest screen in New England, was showing it long after it disappeared from all other IMAX theaters.)  It was bright, it was beautiful, it had effects that were completely convincing, characters that felt both familiar and new at the same time.  By having Nimoy appear in it, it served as both a farewell to the classic Trek that I so loved as a child (and was a better send-off to the original crew members than Shatner's appearance in Generations) and opened another chapter.  And frankly, after years of seeing Paramount spending as little money as possible to milk the most out of the Star Trek franchise, to see a movie that was given a huge budget where the filmmakers were allowed to dream, and dream big, that in and of itself was pretty awesome.

 

I can't claim to know a ton about quantum physics (or really anything at all.. about physics, that is!), but string theory seems to be at least somewhat accepted, and I can get behind the idea of alternate universes.  I mean, if Nero and Spock Prime went through a black hole and came out in the past and their actions changed things... it seems at least somewhat possible that as events would have played out later in the 24th century, those characters might never have had opportunity to come back in time, and therefore, how could they have gotten there in the first place?  It makes as much sense as anything else to me.  And by doing it that way, this film felt both like a sequel and a prequel... that is, it took place in a time period before the original Star Trek but in a way seemed to come after everything else.  It doesn't really matter that much -- I'm just kind glad about the idea that they don't have to do things in such a way where it somehow has to fit in with all the previous episodes and movies.  I think it would be a much harder film to make, and a far less enjoyable one to watch, if it was predicated on being "filler" in the existing story as we know it.  When Nero is destroyed at the end of the film and the Enterprise is trying to escape the grip of the black hole, at the moment I just said to myself, "please, don't let them get sucked into a black hole therefore somehow negating everything that happened in this film."  And they didn't.  Spock's emotional journey in the film was also pretty wide-ranging; by the end of the film he's come to terms with being a child of two worlds, something that arguably didn't happen in original Trek until the last of the original cast movies.  It takes everything that happened before, acknowledges it, doesn't try to tell you it didn't happen, but says, "we're gonna do things a little differently now."  I understand why that won't work for everyone, but it worked for me.

I don't see how that release date stays with the cameras rolling that late on Star Trek 2. Unless they've been in pre-production for a good long while, I just don't see them making that release date.

 

 

Note: Link removed by mod

 

 

The release date doesn't seem so unimaginable to me - they're supposed to shoot around November this year, right?  Probably 2-3 months of shooting, a few months post, but the effects and stuff they'll start before shooting?  I get what you're saying and it wouldn't shock me if it got moved a little.. but it wouldn't shock me if it didn't, either.  With everything that's already scheduled for Summer 2012 it probably wouldn't be the worst thing in the world in terms of box office for it to get pushed to the Christmas season that year -- I just don't wanna wait that long if it can be avoided!

Nice post Josh.

I'm trying to be more open to the JJ/Orci/Kurtzman Trek. I really wanted to like it, and as I said above it has a lot of positives. I might try to see it again this weekend if I have time.

By the way, another word on Engineering. I've seen the illustration done for the Engineering set in Star Trek The Art of the Film book. It would have been a massive set!