Soldiers In Kuwait Get Easter Treat

In a very cool movie, the soldiers in Kuwait got a treat for Easter by getting to see Star Trek a month before the rest of us. On top of that JJ Abrams and entire lead cast were on hand for the showings. One soldier write of the event (see snippet below) and provides a review of the film here.

I am in the Army and currently deployed to Kuwait. We have a movie theater on post that shows “second run” movies, meaning that we get the movie about a week or two after they are released in the states. At times, a special effort is made to show the movie here on the same date it is released in the states. With that being said, I was shocked to see the movie schedule that was published for the first half of April. According to this schedule the new Star Trek movie will have a “special premier” on April 11th. I found it very hard to believe that we would be able to view a big “summer time blockbuster” movie that won’t premiere in the States for another 27 days.

Sure enough, the movie actually did get played today and I was able to get in to see it not just once, but twice. Not only did the movie arrive in Kuwait, but J.J. Abrams and most of the “bridge crew” cast (Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Eric Bana and Karl Urban) were here as well.

The cast went out of their way to entertain us before and after the movie was shown. They were more than happy to interact with the soldiers (Eric Bana leaped out of his “reserved” seat and sat next to a female soldier who invited him next to her) and they took their time describing their experiences making the film and answering questions and requests (Quinto obliged a soldier who asked him to call his daughter back in the states and say hello to her). I was truly impressed and grateful in the fact that they went out of their way to thank us and to offer this film to us. I’ll admit that this review won’t be as objective as it could because of the way the cast lent themselves to us. My biggest thrill was walking up to J.J. Abrams after the film and having the opportunity to give him my general impressions of it. How many times does a geek like me get a chance to do that?