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July 25, 2006

Star Trek: XI

J.J. Abrams takes the helm.

By Greg

Let me just say that I may be the world's biggest Star Trek fan. Mind you I'm not going to sit here and tell you that every hour of Star Trek is science fiction at its best, or even that every hour of Star Trek is worth watching. And I've never been to a convention. I'm not that kind of fan. Only in certain moods am I an apologist for the most recent series: Enterprise, and I really never had any use for Star Trek: Voyager or the last two TNG films. In recent years the production value of the franchise has gone steadily up while the quality of the writing has gone steadily down. For the most part it's become uninteresting. Seemingly unwilling to take any risks or stop recycling old episodes, Star Trek has become flat and tired.

Still, I have seen (and own) all 700 some hours of the various shows and movies. And over all I do take the franchise pretty seriously. So I am naturally very curious/excited about where it's all boldly going next. Actually, I've known for some time that the next installment would be the eleventh feature film. However, just what that would be has changed quite a bit over the last year since the cancellation of Enterprise. What information has come out has been scanty and in small timed release capsules. So I have waited until today to update/punish the readers of Lucid Screening with the rundown on Star Trek XI.

Why now? This weekend at Comic Con and at STARTREK.COM, Paramount unveiled the above poster for the upcoming film. This marks the first tangible evidence that any of the leaks, hints, or rumors were true. In fact it is the best evidence so far that this film will actually happen.

Obviously there is not much here. It does tell us that they are planning a release for 2008. By the 23 century Star Fleet insignia we can surmise that this is in fact a Kirk & Spock prequel as the rumors have suggested.

On that subject I have some thoughts. To me the idea of casting other actors as a younger Kirk, Spock and possibly McCoy and Scotty sounds more like a cheap gimmick than a solid attempt at a great sci-fi film that could revitalize the franchise. What is less assuring is the rumor that Matt Daemon is being considered for Kirk. So far this is unconfirmed. If it's true I think it would further illustrate the gimmick approach to this film. The only way to take a film like this seriously would be to cast unknowns as the existing characters. It's hard enough to buy into another actor as an existing character, but if you cast a huge face it's hopeless. They should go the way Singer went with Superman. I thought Brandon Routh was totally believable as Christopher Reaves' Superman.

There has also been some talk/assumption that this prequel will take place during the characters' time at the academy. The idea of doing a Kirk and Spock cadet movie comes from a script from the late eighties that Harve Bennett has been trying to get made for over a decade. Bennett, who produced Star Trek films two though five, felt this was a good way to get some more mileage out of the classic characters. While it's clear that they will not be using the same script, and that Bennett will not be involved, it still seems likely that they will be using the academy concept. Again, this just sounds too cute to me.

This whole concept has only come out in the last several months. For the last year the official story from Paramount has been that Rick Berrman, long time Trek producer, would do the next film with a script by Band of Brother's writer Erik Jendresen. Apparently this script featured all new character's not previously introduced in a TV series. The story surrounded the founding of the United Federation of Planets and the first war with the Romulans in the 22 century. These are events long hinted at in Trek lore and long awaited on the screen. I was very exited about this, but it's not going to happen. When Paramount and CBS went thought there recent shake up this concept (and Mr. Berrman) were abandoned.

This brings us to the one piece of this puzzle that I would say I find generally encouraging: the people who are making this film. J.J. Abrams of Alias, Lost, and MI:III fame is producing, writing and probably directing. He's currently writing the screenplay with his co-writers from MI:III, a film that I enjoyed and thought was one of the best shoot ‘em ups I'd seen in a while. What is also unique about this approach is that the reigns of this film are totally in Abrams hands and not in the hands of the other Trek producers who have been with the franchise for fifteen years. This means this film will probably look and feel like a real movie and not like an episode of Star Trek on the big screen. Abrams and his team will almost certainly bring a new take on the universe to this film.

So I'm open minded. I try not to be one of those fans who decide well ahead of actually seeing a film that it will piss them off. It could be good, it could suck, you'll hear the verdict from me here in 2008.

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