LeonardNimoy Tagged Articles at Cinematical

At the press day for the DVD and Blu-ray release of the 2009 Star Trek, director J.J. Abrams talked briefly about the possibility of putting the series' original Kirk, William Shatner, in the forthcoming sequel. "The Shatner thing comes up quite a bit," Abrams said in a news conference Thursday morning. "Would it have been fun to have him in the movie? Of course. Would it be great to work with him? No doubt."

Abrams spoke to reporters about the DVD and Blu-ray release of Star Trek, which is due on November 17, 2009, but fielded a few questions about the next Trek film, including how and why Shatner didn't fit into the design of the previous one.

J.J Abrams seems like the busiest man in Hollywood. Thursday morning during a promotional appearance for the release of his franchise relaunch for Star Trek, he updated reporters on what's next for him. "Jeff Pinkner and Joel Wyman are running Fringe very well. We're still very involved in that, but they're running that," he said of the popular sci-fi series. "We have a new series that we just sold to NBC that we're going to be producing. It's a pilot. And, there's a movie that I'm writing that I would love to direct, early next year, so we'll see if that comes to fruition."

In addition to his television work, Abrams highlighted a few of the projects he's working on in the next several months both as a producer and director.

This week's very solid edition of Saturday Night Live, starring Justin Timberlake (now officially one of the show's greatest all-time hosts), featured a few special guests during the "Weekend Update" segment. Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto arrived first to assuage long-time Star Trek fans' fears about the new film, and then Leonard Nimoy came out to give his authoritative seal of approval (which, if you think about it, is why he's in the movie, too).

The segment is only mildly funny, but it does lead up to a classic closing line, one that's right up there with Shatner's "Get a life!" routine back in 1986. (If you're wondering, Shatner and Patrick Stewart have each hosted SNL once, but Nimoy never has, and neither have any of the various Star Treks' other stars.) The version on Hulu must be taken from the dress rehearsal (they do that sometimes), as it's ever-so-slightly different from the one that aired live on Saturday night. Enjoy.

Few genre properties bring out someone's inner geek – much less in actual fans of the show itself - more easily than Star Trek. Whether you love it or loathe it, everyone seems to have an opinion or a perspective, and almost everyone has an emotional entry point for the long-running series: a parent's welcoming knee or cold shoulder, the dingy carpet of a rec room or the negligent boyfriend next to you, a shelf full of spinoff novels or their indecipherable prose, an unwieldy stack of VHS tapes or the interminable hours suffering through commercials. It seems that no one could possibly be unfamiliar with Trek, no matter how they tried; but it was the unenviable task of writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to digest some 40 years of characters, stories and mythologies, and tell a story that behaved as if no one but them had ever seen all that material.

The result of their labor is Star Trek, a spectacular opus, space opera, mythmaking science fiction story that condenses the sum total of its source of inspiration and reintroduces the series' mythology to viewers both old and new. Cinematical sat down with the duo at the recent Los Angeles press day for the film to discuss the process of reviving and reinventing the franchise for a completely new generation of moviegoers, much less potential Trek fans. In addition to indulging this critic's own passion for Kirk and company, Orci and Kurtzman talked about their ongoing creative collaboration with director-producer J.J. Abrams, discussed their own directorial ambitions, and dished a few details about their forthcoming follow-up to 2007's Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen.

The Internets are abuzz today with talk of the super-secret-surprise Star Trek screening that took place last night in Austin. As demonstrated in the roundup we provided earlier, the response has been overwhelmingly positive -- ecstatic, even.

And why shouldn't it be?

As recounted at the Trek Movie blog, the Alamo Drafthouse was filled with Star Trek fans who'd come believing they were going to see a print of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan on the big screen, to be followed by 10 minutes of footage from J.J. Abrams' new reboot. New Star Trek writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman and producer Damon Lindelof introduced Khan, but the film seemed to malfunction after only a few minutes. As everyone's scrambling to fix it, in walks Leonard Nimoy, holding a film canister and asking if everyone wouldn't rather just watch the entire new Star Trek film instead. The audience explodes in a simultaneous nerdgasm.

Given those circumstances, how could the response fail to be deliriously enthusiastic? Even non-Trekkers such as myself hear it and think: Wow, that sounds really cool. And while I don't doubt that the new Star Trek probably is good, I think we shouldn't put too much stock in these early reports from a screening that was designed to elicit positive reaction. The real surprise here would be if they'd done all that -- the bait-and-switch, the surprise Nimoy appearance, the unspooling of the film a month early -- and the audience had said, "Meh." That would have been noteworthy. But giddy enthusiasm after an event whose sole purpose was to produce giddy enthusiasm? Not exactly earth-shattering.

Apparently there are some Star Trek trading cards making their way around (do people really use movie trading cards?), and MTV got their hands on a stack full of some new images -- including this hot shot of Diora Baird as an Orion Slave Girl ... and not an obsessed Incredible Hulk fanatic. The images also include a pretty cool spoilerish shot of Zachary Quinto's Spock giving the Vulcan salute to Leonard Nimoy's Spock (technically that means he was giving the Vulcan salute to himself), as well as images of the Enterprise, a new strange-looking alien, one of the Starfleet Academy and more. Yeah, they're all pretty cool, but we thought you'd have fun with this Orion Slave Girl -- kinda hot, no? Green, yes ... but still hot.

Orion Slave Girls are said to be vicious and seductive, and claim no human male can resist them. They first popped up in the original pilot, and have since been featured in Star Trek: The Animated Series, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Enterprise. This new version looks a little greener than in the past, but it's a change that works quite well in my mind. What do you think? We've added a few of the photos to our Star Trek gallery below -- along with the film's final poster -- and you can catch the rest over at MTV. Star Trek hits theaters on May 8.

A new trailer for J.J. Abrams' Star Trek has just debuted over at AICN, but be warned that it's exactly like the other trailer save for one particular scene that comes right at the end. Yup, I won't tell you exactly what happens, but one look at the image above and you can imagine what you'll see. This particular scene was part of the four Cinematical screened last week, and it takes place on the icy planet where Kirk (Chris Pine) gets sent to. It's there where he meets an older version of Spock (played by Leonard Nimoy) and a younger version of Scotty (Simon Pegg). Check out the trailer over at AICN. Star Trek hits theaters on May 8.

Also, a brand new motion poster for Terminator: Salvation just arrived online (check it out at this link). Really digging these flash posters -- this particular one begins on an overhead shot of Los Angeles before slowly transforming into the face of our favorite robot via explosions and fire. Oh, and don't forget that memorable score. Sweet. Terminator Salvation hits theaters on May 22.

"I've never been a fan of Star Trek. It's true, I never quite got it." -- J.J. Abrams

Last night Cinematical had the chance to screen roughly 20 minutes of footage from the new Star Trek film alongside select journalists, Paramount executives and Trek director J.J. Abrams. Four scenes in total, each was a fairly critical component of the film -- and while hardcore Trekkers may have a few problems with the final product, there's no denying this rebooted version of Star Trek will kick off the summer of '09 in spectacular fashion.

Below, I'll give you a very brief summary of each scene, then spit out a few initial thoughts on it all before providing a few movie facts (based on what we learned last night). Some of this info will come as a welcomed surprise to those faithful out there, and some ... well ... let's begin, shall we:

Note: We'll be discussing plot points, so there will be spoilers ahead.

Scene Summary

1. Kirk's Introduction -- This was our first introduction to the Chris Pine version of Kirk -- a somewhat disheveled, but great looking punk who hangs around the Starfleet bar looking to pick up chicks. His wooing of one such chick -- who goes by the name of Uhura (Zoe Saldana) -- winds up getting Kirk into trouble with some of the boys. A fight ensues, and a man by the name of Captain Pike (Bruce Greenwood) steps in to save the day before urging Kirk to follow in his father's footsteps and join the Starfleet.

Pictured: Anton Yelchin, Chris Pine, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, John Cho, and Zoe Saldana

Yesterday we told you about those new Star Trek images (revealing snippets of each), and now Entertainment Weekly has revealed their snazzy eight-page Trek spread, featuring all of the aforementioned images, as well as tasty plot information, action scene descriptions, interviews with the cast and, of course, director J.J. Abrams, who talks at length about what brought him to the franchise and which direction he'd be taking: "In a world where a movie as incredibly produced as The Dark Knight is raking in gazillions of dollars, Star Trek stands in stark contrast,It was important to me that optimism be cool again."

On what type of film they were aiming for, Abrams says, "We weren't making a movie for fans of Star Trek. We were making a movie for fans of movies." Regarding the plot -- and here come some mild spoilers -- EW tells us the flick begins when "a Federation starship, the USS Kelvin (pictured right), is attacked by a vicious Romulan (Eric Bana) desperately seeking one of the film's heroes. From there, the film then brings Kirk and Spock center stage and tracks the origins of their friendship and how they became officers aboard the Enterprise. In fact, the movie shows how the whole original series crew came together: McCoy (Karl Urban), Uhura (Zoë Saldana), Scotty (Simon Pegg), Sulu (John Cho), and Chekov (Anton Yelchin)." The mag goes on to reveal locations such as Earth, a harsh ice planet and Vulcan (calling the scenes they viewed "state-of-the-art pop), and also how Leonard Nimoy was an "essential element" of the new Trek. EW says Nimoy's "first scene" as Spock (which means he'll be in more than one) is "goose-bumpingly cool."

Abrams will take some scenes on an international press tour, screening them for select European audiences hoping to "educate people that this is a whole new franchise." Also, EW does indeed confirm that the new full trailer for Star Trek will play in front of Quantum of Solace, which hits theaters on November 14. Meanwhile, Star Trek will finally debut on the big screen on May 8.

Update: AICN has added one more Trek photo to the pack (which they call a Spock "outtake"). View it below, and click to enlarge.

When I went to see Cloverfield over the weekend, the crowd was pretty lively through the trailers. It was not in an excited fan way, but in that last-minute rush of chatter during something that holds little interest. That being said, conversations wrapped up pretty quickly when the Star Trek teaser popped up. At first, when the Bad Robot emblem appeared, people kept talking. I waited. It got a bit more silent as J.J. Abrams' name hit the screen with John F. Kennedy's words bellowing from the speakers. But then, a split second later when the Enterprise came into view, the crowd went wild.

While theater-goers got to see the first teaser in all its glory on Friday, it didn't make it's official appearance on the net until today. Now you can head over to Yahoo and check it out for yourself. Personally, I dug the connections the teaser made between the creation of the ship and America's first forays into space. It made the whole thing seem more real. But maybe all you need is the sight of the Enterprise, and Leonard Nimoy's gravelly voice.

For me, unfortunately, it was a bit ruined when the credits showed up -- I just can't take the idea of John Cho as Sulu seriously. But whatever happens, Star Trek is on its way. What do you think?