Nov 18 2009 This Is the Droid You Were Looking For
As noted by one of my girlfriend sites, a search for R2-D2 in the new Star Trek has ended. (Also of note: there was a search to find R2-D2 in the new Star Trek?) The above shot has been confirmed to be the fabled cross-franchise, fan-fiction-like appearance by the droid in J.J. Abrams' reboot.
Fans of both series should enjoy the subtle nod from one fictional universe to another, whereas superfans of either series should be vexed for years trying to figure out how to justify a being from a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away showing up in the 23rd century, and determining what disastrous consequences this anomaly may hold for both universes.
Oct 21 2009 New 'Star Trek' Getting Shatnier?
Going against all good sense that would logically keep William Shatner from reprising the role of Kirk in a new Star Trek sequel, director J.J. Abrams, speaking to reporters in Australia, revealed that he's still trying to figure out a way to pander to fans by working out some kind of time travel wormhole bullshit to get Shatner in this thing:
"It was a foregone conclusion we wanted him in the [first] movie," Abrams explained."The problem was his character died on screen in one of his Trek films and because we decided, very early on, that we wanted to adhere to Trek canon as best we could ... the required machinations to get Shatner into the movie would have been very difficult to do given the story we wanted to tell and also to give him the kind of part that he would be happy with.
"I feel like the first movie did some of the heavy lifting that needed to be done in order to free us to continue going forward. Maybe there's less of a burden and there's going to be more opportunity to work with [Shatner]."
Maybe have Data chauffeur Shatner from the afterlife to the past on an intergalactic humpback? Or does that make too much sense for the Star Trek universe? OK, just something with Q then.
Jun 8 2009 'Up' Maintains Dominance in Face of Drunks, Dinosaurs
The top movies in the United States last weekend were:
1. Up - $44.2 million, a startlingly large number considering that what appears to be the DVD is coming out soon enough.
2. The Hangover - $43.3 million. Sounds like this is one Hangover you can look forward to! (I'm trying to get quoted in the newspaper ads.) In the case of this Hangover, laughter is the best medicine!
3. Land of the Lost - $19.5 million. This does not bode well for Jack Black is H.R. Pufnstuf.
4. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian - $14.7 million. Do the Tenement Museum next!
5. Star Trek - $8.4 million. I miss the days when this kind of success would warrant a Kirk & Friends Saturday morning cartoon spin-off.
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
UPDATE: It turns out The Hangover probably made more?
Jun 1 2009 'Up' Was Your Favorite Movie Last Weekend
The weekend box office report. Email me for the Excel version.
1. Up - $68.2 million, because Pixar could animate a cockfight and it would still open huge. Especially in Latin America.
2. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian - $25.5 million, bringing its total gross to over $100 million and popularizing use of the saying, "It was no night at the museum!", used to refer to nights that did not include exhibits spontaneously gaining consciousness.
3. Drag Me to Hell - Only $16.6 million. Where are all the teenagers taking dates to scary movies so that when the girl cowers in fear against the boy, he can give a sly grin and put his arm around her? Popular media led me to believe that happens constantly.
4. Terminator Salvation - $16.1 million--just enough to save humanity. We did it.
5. Star Trek - $12.8 million in gold-pressed latinum! Get it? Star Trek reference. The guy with the ears always talked about it.
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
May 26 2009 Deleted 'Star Trek' Scene!
I guess J.J. Abrams cut this when he decided he wanted his relaunch to be less like a nightmare. I heard that's the same reason Christopher Nolan cut this controversial scene from The Dark Knight, but I'm not sure I agree with either edit.
(Thanks, Danielle.)
May 26 2009 'Ben Stiller Battling Cameos in a New Venue' Beats 'Terminators'
Between barbecues and solemn remembrance on this four-day weekend, the following movies were most patronized:
1. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian - $70 million, showing a massive outpouring of support for this finale to the Indian in the Cupboard trilogy.
2. Terminator Salvation - $53.8 million. You'd think a powerful partnership with Pizza Hut would have been enough to push the film into first place. It worked so well for reading.
3. Star Trek - $29.4 million, bringing it well within reach of becoming the summer's first $200 million blockbuster. Unless, as I'm predicting, The Soloist really picks up this week.
4. Angels & Demons - $27.7 million, dropping from first to fourth. What a slap in the Hanks.
5. Dance Flick - $13.1 million. There was a time when a horrible, Wayans Brothers-written comedy could have a summer opening at #2. How times have changed since Little Man.
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
May 18 2009 Weekend Box Office: Tom Hanks Narrowly Beats Out Kirk
These films were considered the "top" movies of the weekend:
1. Angels & Demons - The only major new release this weekend took in $48 million, barely besting Star Trek and making far less than The Da Vinci Code's $77 million opening. Ron Howard really should have caved to studio pressure to add more albinos. Unless there were more albinos in this but they just weren't in the trailer, in which case they really should have sold us on those albinos.
2. Star Trek - $43 million, bringing it within $4 million of Wolverine's total gross, but still no closer to my mom not calling it Star Track.
3. X-Men Origins: Wolverine - $14.8 million, a drop of another 44%, but a fall that is reportedly still not affecting sales of Wolverine X-Treme Capuccinos.
4. Ghosts of Girlfriends Past - $6.9 million. Remember when Matthew McConaughey was in Amistad?
5. Obsessed - $4.5 million, putting the sleeper hit over $40 million above its $20 million budget, not to mention how much it's made in Beyonce action figure sales.
Weekend Box Office Results [Box Office Mojo]
May 14 2009 Original Star Trek Given Extraneous Illumination Overhaul
I hope no one here was planning on making old Star Trek look like new Star Trek, because someone has put up a YouTube video called "i made old star trek look like new star trek," and they've pretty successfully done just that. The secret? Lens flares:
Continue Reading " Original Star Trek Given Extraneous Illumination Overhaul "
May 12 2009 'Star Trek' Almost Had a Little Holo-Shatner
If you haven't seen the Star Trek, look away, because here's a spoiler: William Shatner is not in it. While Leonard Nimoy was given the privilege of donning his prosthetic ears one last time, Shatner was conspicuously absent from the film's symbolic passing of the tricorder. But, as writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci explained in an interview with io9, that wasn't always the case. In one draft of the script, there was apparently a Bill Shatner "Happy Birthday, I'm almost certainly dead" scene:
Orci: We wrote [a Shatner scene], it was in the script.Kurtzman: The very last scene when Spock and Spock meet each other, finally. And elder Spock is convincing young Spock that he couldn't interfere, because it would have diverted [Kirk and Spock] away from their friendship. And that their friendship is the key to the whole sort of shebang.
Orci: He gave him a recorded message from Kirk.
Kurtzman: He [elder Spock] said, "Don't take my word for it." And he handed him [younger Spock] a little holographic device and it projected Shatner. It was basically a Happy Birthday wish knowing that Spock was going to go off to Romulus, and Kirk would probably be dead by the time...
That would have been something, but I'm personally glad they ended the film the way they did:
Did you not stick around for this after the credits?
May 5 2009 Does This Mean They Don't Go Back in Time to Save Orcas?
Tell me director J.J. Abrams at least included the notion that androids could master all of language except contractions.
(Thanks, Todd.)
Apr 24 2009 TREKKING YOURSELF IS GREAT
A friend sent me this over an hour ago and I've only now been able to stop playing with it long enough to post. At TrekYourself, you can upload any head-on photo and make it into a creepy, monotone, CGI Star Trek character! As you probably can tell from my handiwork above (a character I've cleverly dubbed "Spoq"), it's fucking great. Plus, nearly as great, the site has this ridiculous Cheez-Its-in-Space theme; the intro features a bevy of the snack crackers forming the Star Trek logo. Cheez-Its and warp-speed space travel have been irrevocably linked, and we're all better for it.
Hear Spoq's utterly realistic speaking voice:
Apr 7 2009 Star Trek Fans Saw New Star Trek, Loved New Star Trek
Man, some Treksters have all the luck. Last night, Stark Trek fans who attended the Alamo Draughthouse's showing of Wrath of Khan were treated with a nerd super-surprise: Leonard Nimoy showed up. SPOCK. Heard of him? Oh, and they got to watch that new Star Trek movie, and they fucking loved it:
According to a friend who called in to TrekMovie after the event, the audience reaction was very positive. There were "genuine laughs" at the jokes and "quiet moments" with the serious character stuff. And apparently the crowd applauded at the introduction to each character. The film ended with a standing ovation.
People packed in a theater to see Star Trek 2 probably aren't the best crowd for an objective opinion of how the film will play for general audiences or people like me, who mostly just watched syndicated Next Generation episodes after school. Applauding at the sight of each character tells me this was not a completely unbiased crowd. However, they are a scrutinizing crowd, so we at least know Spock's ear shape has been perfectly replicated or we would have heard about it.
TrekMovie has more information.
Mar 31 2009 Green-Skinned Slave Girls Exist in Every Popular Science Fiction Franchise
MTV has just posted some scans of the new Star Trek trading cards, alerting us to several bits of pertinent information:
1. The film apparently features a cameo from Alien Natasha Lyonne's Character in Slums of Beverly Hills (above).
2. Young Spock stupidly gives old Spock a live-long-and-prosper (see here). That's totally going to eff up the time-space continuum. Every time travel movie warns not to blatantly gesture at yourself. That's amateur hour.
3. Companies still make movie trading cards. Who would have thought? Granted, I had the entire set of Tim Burton's Batman trading cards as a kid, but that was before internet and the competition of Pokemons Cards. Is this just a one-time thing because they know there are nerds who will buy anything Star Trek?
Mar 31 2009 Will Youthful Spock Die... Again???
Paramount is putting the tractor-beamed shuttle craft before the starship! (Or whatever the appropriate cart-before-the-horse Star Trek reference is.) Variety is reporting the studio is so confident about the success of their fresh-faced relaunch of the science fiction franchise that they're already preparing its sequel:
As Paramount Pictures readies the May 8 release of its "Star Trek" franchise relaunch, the studio is moving forward with a sequel, and has hired Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof to pen the screenplay.J.J. Abrams, who directed and produced the latest chapter, is onboard to produce the follow-up alongside his Bad Robot partner Bryan Burk. No decision has been made yet on whether Abrams will return behind the camera for the sequel.
Story is still in the embryonic stage, but the trio are aiming to deliver their script to the Melrose studio by Christmas for what would likely be a summer 2011 release.
As for potential storylines, Kurtzman stressed that the writing team will wait to take a cue from fan reaction about which direction to go.
"Obviously we discussed ideas, but we are waiting to see how audiences respond next month," he said. "With a franchise rebirth, the first movie has to be about origin. But with a second, you have the opportunity to explore incredibly exciting things. We'll be ambitious about what we'll do."
Seems a little premature, but following the Star Trek Curse even/odd=bad/good philosophy, a hypothetical second film is probably already better than Final Frontier. I'll only start worrying once I hear Paramount is looking for a young Latino with a sculpted chest.
Mar 30 2009 The Most Amorphous 'Star Trek' Poster Yet!
Is all this motion blurring really confusing for anyone else? The only truly effective way to portray vehicle speed is by showing how high a girl's skirt is blown up as she's driven past.
Star Trek Final Theatrical One-Sheet Revealed Here First! [MySpace]
Mar 6 2009 New 'Star Trek' Trailer: Spock Hugs
It's so hard for Spock to hug. Trying so hard to remain emotionless but realizing the inevitable sentiment that spawns from a good hug. I think that's probably the main conflict in this movie:
Feb 2 2009 'The Star Trek' Super Bowl Spot
All this fast-paced action and extreme-sports free-falling and kissin'! J.J. Abrams is going to make Star Trek so cool, and we'll all be free to finally body modify our ears into points without fear of persecution. Unless you do it to look like an elf, not a Vulcan--that would be so nerdy.
Jan 15 2009 Ricardo Montalban Dies at 88
What a particularly sad week to be a science fiction geek. First the death of The Prisoner, now Ricardo Montalban (thanks for tipping, Niki):
Ricardo Montalban, the suave leading man who was one of the first Mexican-born actors to make it big in Hollywood and who was best known for his roles as Mr. Roarke on ABC's "Fantasy Island" and the villainous Khan of the "Star Trek" franchise, died Wednesday. He was 88.Mr. Montalban died Wednesday morning at his Los Angeles home of complications related to old age, said his son-in-law, Gilbert Smith.
I shall avenge you. (Like you promised Joachim in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.)
Suave actor Ricardo Montalban dies [SF Gate]
Dec 22 2008 Doctor Who and Star Trek Combo Now Real
As promised a couple weeks ago, here's the first part of the fan-made Doctor Who Christmas Special that seamlessly fuses the modern Doctor with '60s Star Trek. Like when a girl puts on a Leia suit at a comic convention, the actualization of such a nerd fantasy is at once beautiful and dangerously close to a lawsuit:
Continue Reading " Doctor Who and Star Trek Combo Now Real "
Dec 19 2008 Majel Barrettt-Roddenberry Passes Away at 76
Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, known as "the first lady of Star Trek", passed away yesterday after a battle with Leukemia. From TrekMovie:
Roddenberry had featured roles in almost every Star Trek television and film entity and became an iconic figure within the fan community. Her roles included Nurse Chapel in Star Trek: The Original Series, Lwaxana Troi in Star Trek: The Next Generation and the voice of the USS Enterprise computer in almost every incarnation of the series. However, it was the love affair between her and the late Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry that earned her the title "The First Lady of Star Trek." Over the course of their more then quarter-century love affair, she became not only Gene’s partner, but also his creative muse. Roddenberry helped Gene expand the Star Trek universe and was an integral part of its continued legacy after his death. Majel recently completed reprising her role as the voice of the USS Enterprise for J.J. Abrams’ new Star Trek film.
To whoever is diligently working on a YouTube tribute in which Picard repeatedly asks for the computer to no reply, then it dissolves to Roddenberry's face with "RIP" under it: I know your heart is in the right place, but give it a few days, OK?
