Star Trek - What You Missed

TNMC.org has posted a summary of cut scenes and dialogue that was not used in the theatrical release of Star Trek (but might have been filmed and used as deleted scenes for the disc release). Click here for the full details but below is a summary which assumes you have seen the film already.

Deleted scenes:
- Film opens with birth of Spock and Amanda not please Sarek isn't present then goes to birth of Kirk (just before attack).
- After the Narada destroys the Kelvin, Klingon warbirds decloak and surround it leading to Nero's capture.
- Before Kirk's joyride we meet Uncle Frank (a douche) and brother George who is leaving and says Kirk's follows the rules to much. Later Kirk is washing the corvette and then the joyride (I guess to prove brother wrong).
- cut to Rura Penthe Klingon Prison with Nero and crew as caught trying to smuggle Federation maps to determine when/where Spock will emerge. A slug (like one used on Pike near film's end) is used on Nero to try and torture him into confession why he wants the maps. Nero's (now dead) pregnant wife is used to overcome the torture. Shortly after Nero busts out of the prison with ease to begin his revenge against Spock.
- Another scene shows how Uhura's roommate the Orion Gaila helps him hack the Kobayashi Muru test by opening a message at a certain time to unleash a virus on the program.
- A line is cut on the Delta Vega ice planet commenting on the improbability of the two meeting.
- On approach to Earth, Narada crew considers mutiny since destruction of Vulcan completes their revenge and they just want to return to Romulus. Nero kills Ayel (who lives in the final cut of the film) as he wants revenge against off of the Federation.
- The gun battle in the film originally had Spock getting cruelly violent with the Romulans.
- In Spock meets Spock Prime scene, the written Kirk Prime scene with a holographic video of William Shatner's Kirk singing happy birthday to Spock and congratulating him on becoming an ambassador. Shatner's refusal to do cameos put the kibosh on that scene.

Trek Writers Contrast Writing Projects

Star Trek writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman continue their online promotion of Transformers 2 an interview with Dark Horizons as they contrast working on Star Trek with Abrams and Transformers with Bay,talk about their writing carrers and consider plans for a Trek sequel. Snippet below, full interview here.

Question: Let me ask you this. You’re working with two very, very filmmakers, with Abrams and Bay. And I’m just wondering when you’re working on a Bay film, what the different process is in writing a script, for a director who has very different visual sensibilities to somebody like J.J. Abrams?
Kurtzman: I mean, it’s a very different process. They’re very different directors. They look for very different things.
Orci: But part of that difference comes from the fact that they’re different franchises. They require different things.
Kurtzman: Yeah. That’s right.
Orci: You know, it’s not just that we’re writing for Michael Bay. We’re writing for Transformers. And Michael Bay is perfect for Transformers. And J.J. is perfect for Star Trek, because what Star Trek requires is something else. So, we tend to look at it as, the show is the boss. All of our boss. And we’re servicing that more than anything. You know, in terms of differences in the experience. Obviously, Transformers 2 was unique, in that it went down in the middle of the strike. We were writing the movie three months before it was about to be shot, therefore we were handing Michael pages that night. You know, every night, so they could be prepared. Which was different than Star Trek, where we had six leisurely months to go write two drafts.

Question: Is there serious discussion about the Star Trek sequel? And what would be your ideal – if you could come up with one story line from the original series to incorporate as fans, what would it be?
Orci: I don’t know. Literally, we’re making it a point not to even commit to saying what we would do to each other. We can literally clean out the summer, you know? It’s just too early. It’s sort of like swimming the 100 meter in your time off, you know what I mean?

Question: Do you think there’ll be a period where you’ll be able to sit down and start coming up with ideas?
Orci: Yeah. You know, we’re going to start in a few weeks. We’re gonna just – move past this period of time here, take it all in, as was said, and then re-educate ourselves with the material. Just come at it again without forcing it, you know?

Writing Trek Comments from Orci, Kurtzman

In an interview with SciFi Scanner, Star Trek writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci talk about writing Star Trek compared with Transformers and fandom. Snippet below, full interview here.

Q: Are Transformers fans as ravenous as Trekkies?
BO: Transformers fans taught us how to deal with Star Trek fans. And they're both heavy-duty. But Transformers fans taught us how to interact, how to turn the conversation constructive a little bit, and not just have it be, "You suck. Go jump off of a building, please."

Q: Did you learn anything from writing Transformers 2 that's been helpful in formulating Trek 2?
AK: They're so different. You're putting on a different hat. And the choices that you make in Transformers with Michael as the director versus Star Trek with J.J. couldn't be more 180 degrees in the opposite direction. So I don't know that for me there's a natural corollary between them.

Q: Would you ever again want to draw characters from the Prime universe in the sequel, like you did for Spock?
BO: We can't be done with it completely. But I would start with what's happening to the crew now, and if that became a great thing, organic to the momentum of where the first movie is going, then maybe. Anything is possible right now. That's really the juice and the curse of this path.

Abrams Talks Sequel at Saturn Awards

On June 24th, the 25th annual Saturn Awards were held that honors science fiction in its various forms. As part of that JJ Abrams presented to Leonard Nimoy the lifetime achievement award.

Before the show, Abrams spoke with Collider about possibilities for the sequel. To sum it up, they are tossing around ideas, he has not decided if he will direct or not, and open to various villain possibilities (which I assume means Khan). I am pretty sure that is the lovely Jill Wagner (Wipeout) behind Abrams in the video below, who would probably kill to be cast by Abrams in anything he is working on.

Behind Scenes of Shatner's Tonight Show Appearance

William Shatner has posted a video that is a behind the scenes view of his appearance on the Tonight Show from a little over a week ago that ended with Shatner giving Conan O'Brien the bird (funnier than it sounds). The net result is bygones but it wouldn't surprise me if he isn't a guest on the show anytime soon.

Abrams' Star Trek Biggest Trek Ever

According to AICN, as of Monday, Star Trek (2009) is officially the top grossing film ever for the franchise passing previous king Star Trek: The Motion Picture by $100,000, and yep that is accounting for inflation. This is after only 46 days in theatres, by contract TMP was in theatres over a year which is unheard of now since at the time there wasn't a home video industry or the sheer volume of releases there is now.

Domestic Box Office (adjusted for inflation, in millions)
$51.4 Nemesis (2002)
$89.5 The Final Frontier (1989)
$92.2 Insurrection (1998)
$108.4 Generations (1994)
$116.8 The Undiscovered Country (1991)
$149.4 First Contact (1996)
$156.4 The Search for Spock (1984)
$176.0 The Wrath of Khan (1982)
$212.7 The Voyage Home (1986)
$240.7 The Motion Picture (1979)
$240.8 Star Trek (2009)

These number do not include overseas gross, but Star Trek is already the most successful film overseas too based on available data so top grossing of all time is not a reach.

Ocri Talks Star Trek and Khan for Sequel

With Star Trek doing very well at the box office despite very heavy summer competition, now the conversation has switched into full sequel talk mode. The one name that comes up more then any is will Khan Noonien Singh be reprised in the new Star Trek 2.0 Universe. Short answer from Roberto Orci is they are definitly open to the idea but right now there isn't even a script so really all ideas are game.

Click here to listen to his audio about Khan.

Trek Wrtiers Talk Sequel Villain Ideas

Collider.com recently spoke with Star Trek writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman about ideas they were tossing around for the sequel to the movie and sequel ideas under consideration.

Highlights from the video below include:
- glad that Trek was able to hold up against Angels and Demons in domestic sales and overall review scores
- trying to tune out the noise while considering sequel ideas but does read fans posts online
- wouldn't mind shooting for a script by Christmas but factors depend on time they need and who might end up directing the project since Abrams hasn't made a decision.
- will try for a self contained movie, but not opposed to dropping threads that could lead to a sequel (a la Spock's katra leading to Search for Spock).

Another Weekend, Another Box Office Summary

Star Trek continues its slow decline down the box office ladder showing remarkable resiliency despite stiff competition. By now most movies have dropped off the top 10 entirely but Star Trek took the 7th spot for the weekend.

US Box Office results:
1) The Proposal - $34.1M in its debut
2) The Hangover - $26.8M, 18.1% drop
3) Up - $21.3M, 30.6% drop
4) Year One - $20.2M in its debut
5) Taking of Pelham 123 - $11.3, 51.7% drop
6) Night at the Museum 2 - $7.3M, 24.1% drop
7) Star Trek - $4.7M, 13.8% drop

This brings the domestic total of Star Trek to $239.4M in 45 days of release. I wasn't able to find the foreign box office results but more than likely that total was probably a couple of million as the movie performed well compared to its predecessors but compared to other movie releases this year, it was not a strong showing. As it stands, the worldwide total for Star Trek is at $358,046,263.

On a related note, the film has now taken the top spot as the most attended Trek film in franchise history according TrekMovie.com. The calculation is based on a buying power calculation that accounts for inflation to estimate the audience of each film. Check out the graph for the calculated numbers.

Why Star Trek Is Cool Pie Chart

I guess someone was bored as someone over at SciFi wire put together a pie chart to explain why Star Trek is cool again. Personally I thought it always was and mainstream just hadn't caught up yet. Any case the article is some amusing entertainment.

Shatners Memorable Tonight Show Appearance

Star Trek's William Shatner appeared on the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brian to promote his new autobiography. What you would think would be a pretty standard interview turned into something much more entertaining.

Orci and Kurtzman Talk Sequel

In an interview with Sci-Fi Wire, Star Trek writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman discuss their suprise at the success Star Trek is writing and which path to take when writing the sequel. Sections below, the full article is here.

"I think the major lesson we learned is that fans were willing to accept differences and surprises, provided that they were somehow echoes or inspired by canon," Orci said in an exclusive interview earlier this month. He added: "We still have to be true to Star Trek the next time around, but we've also been blessed with being able to be unpredictable. And that doesn't mean we can just be shocking for no good reason and just throw everything away. ... It still has to echo everything that Star Trek has been."

Tell me about your reactions to the reactions to Star Trek. What surprised you, what were you pleased with, what were you disappointed with?
Kurtzman: Well, you know, it was sort of stunning for us, actually, because ... we did not know how people were going to react to the movie in general. ... The last version of Trek was fairly unsuccessful at the box office, and, ... in talking to people, there was such a stigma against Star Trek [and] sci-fi: how polarizing it was, it wasn't accessible to women, it was too cold, any number of things that people have to say about it.

So in aiming to make a movie that both reached a broad base and ... satisfied the fans, ... A, we weren't sure we were going to be able to accomplish both, and, B, we just didn't know if people were going to show up. And the tracking for the movie, which we all watch religiously right before the movie comes out, was telling us that the movie was going to do fine but not great.

And usually, in our experience, tracking has been extremely accurate. You know? Like within a margin of, like, a couple of million bucks. It's pretty close. So we were told that we were probably going to be on track for, like, a $50 million weekend, which frankly was going to be a disappointment to the studio. And, you know, we were bummed. The movie was a labor of love for us, and we tried very hard to make it work.

The night before the movie came out, literally hours before, there was a 36 percent spike in tracking.

It was, like, shocking. And all of a sudden, ... everyone went, "Wow. Now we have no idea what kind of a number we're going to have this weekend." So by Friday night everyone kind of knew where we were going.

Orci: It was the fact that people were reacting well, and it was impossible to [predict]. It was the first time we had seen word of mouth in action, so that was fascinating. And we're so grateful that most of the fan base was open about it, and that new people were willing to risk being in a room with people who speak Klingon. ...

In thinking of a story, the inclination for a fan would be to see a new version of a story that's been told in some fashion. Or to pick up tropes from one of the TV episodes or the films and maybe combine them. Or is your inclination to do a completely original story this time?
Orci: Well, that is the debate, literally. And that is going to be one of the first conversations that we have. But that's exactly the question.

Star Trek Nominated for Five Teen Choice Awards

JJ Abrams' Star Trek received five Teen Choice Award nominations yesterday. The awards are given out by FOX and per its name it is for things that are of interest to 13-19 year olds. I am not sure but it seems the awards are based on the May 2007 to May 2008 window but many of the nominations are from the Christmas season and early summer releases.

Nomination Categories:
Best Action Adventure Movie
Best Action Adventure Actress - Zoe Saldana (Uhura)
Best Villain - Eric Bana (Nero)
Best Fresh Face Male - Chris Pine (Kirk)
Best "Rumble" - Chris Pine as Kirk vs. Zachary Quinto as Spock

The full list of categories and nominations can be found here. If you are between the ages of 13-19 then click here to find out how to vote for your favorites. The awards will be given out on Monday, August 10th starting at 8:00pm EST.

Star Trek Weekend Box Report

Another weekend has ended and time to check in on how Star Trek is doing in box office results. The Hangover had another outstanding week taking the top spot ($32.8M, 27.1% drop) do to excellent audience word of mouth, Up took second ($30.7M, 30.3% drop), Taking of Pelham 123 debuted at third ($23.3M) and will likely drop like a rock considering the poor showing and subpar reviews. After the top three you have Night at the Museum 2 ($9.6M, 34.3% drop), Land of the Lost ($9M, 52.3% drop) and Imagine That ($5.5) for spots 4-6.

This brings us to 7th place Star Trek which did took in $5.4M for a 34.4% drop as it starts showing its 38 days in theatres. Its number remain outstanding overall but with Sandra Bullock's The Proposal and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on the horizon there is only one direction the movie will go in.

As far as overseas sales, Star Trek continues to lag behind the competition with 8th place overall with another $3.4M in sales. Overall, overseas sales are $118,519,512, US sales at $231,882,965 bringing its total worldwide gross to $350,402,477. Star Trek is supposedly a worldwide phenomena but it still has much ground to cover to get its audience back.

Star Trek Timeline

Star Trek Online has released a timeline summary that shows where the upcoming MMORPG will be set within the Star Trek Universe and canon. It also offers a simple way to see where the new 2.0 Universe created in Abrams' Star Trek is in relation to the Prime universe of the last 40 plus years. As far as the game itself, it is going to hop scotch over all of it by setting the game about 40 years after the end of Star Trek: Nemesis (or 20 years after Nero and Spock go back in time) to the year 2409 when the Federation is once again at war with the Klingon Empire.

The website also has a "Path to 2409" storyline that takes place starts about one year after destruction of Romulus in the Prime universe. In the Prime universe, the peace between Klingons and the Federation was partly out of necessity due to the threat of the Romulan Empire. With the Empire essentially destroyed, suddenly that necessity starts to crumble leading to events in the online game.

Star Trek Visual Effects Story

CG Society has posted an article on their website that covers how some of the details behind the special effects done for Star Trek by ILM and Digital Domain. Below are a few of the highlights with the full article here.

Highlights:
- Work done in six months, 800 shots from ILM, 150 from Digital Domain
- Many discussions of form following function so attempt to get the science right were possible and give "back-stories for what the ship does here and what the crew stored there."
- Unlike the previous films and series, there are no miniature models in the film, all are digital. VFX Supervisor, Roger Guyett, realized “due to the scale of the film and the compressed schedule, we ruled out [traditional] models early on.”
- The new Enterprise is 2,357 feet (718.41m) long, it’s size much larger than previous Enterprise incarnations.
- The jump sequence over Vulcan represented 250 shots out of the 800 ILM worked on.
- 1/3 of the platform was a real set built at the Dodger Stadium parking lot, the rest was CGI.
- New program called Fracture was created to help realize the destructions sequences used in the film such as the Kelvin. What pattern used in the destruction depended on what was being blown-up.
- Despite the bump summer, budget restrictions forced the effect houses to stick to their original schedule which was why Digital Domain was brought in the help.
- DD's work included the engineer bay pipe sequences, shot at the Anheuser-Busch Company brewery which was much more complicated than you would think (not even going to try to summarize but lens flares played a part in the complications).
- Other DD work included the robot policeman whose mask was digital created as were some of the details on the face of Scotty's alien friend along with his digital tribble.

Shipyard Sketches, Concert, and Orci Talks Shatner

John Eaves' Riverside Shipyards from Star Trek
Found by Trekmovie, John Eaves has posted on his blog his artwork he created as part of the design team for Star Trek. His inspiration was based off of images of the the Navy's San Francisco Shipyards in Alameda. Click the link above for more sketches, old shipyards photos used for comparison and a photoshopped Enterprise-E to help with scale.

Houston Symphony's Star Trek Concert
The Houston Symphony is going to have a concert on July 9th at 7:30 that "will explore the music of Star Trek films and television series as well as other sci-fi classic." The concert will include themes all not just the Original Series but TNG and others and will include music from the current film. There are also two contests to help promote the event. For full details click the link above.

Roberto Orci Talks Shatner Scene
While at William Shatner's Charity Horse Show dinner a little over a month ago, Star Trek writer Roberto Orci talked very briefly about a scene he and his partner Alex Kurtzman wrote that would allow Kirk Prime to return, even if only for a cameo and enjoyment of Star Trek.

Black Is Mudd? A Sequel Update

Apparently a rumor started making the rounds that JJ Abrams was meeting to Jack Black to play the role of Harry Mudd in the sequel. Mudd is a really annoying character that appeared in two episodes of the original series that essentially a space traveling car salesmen. The episodes were not exactly the height of the series potential. AICN contacted Abrams to find out if there was any validity to the rumor and as part of his he answer he provided an update on the sequel status.

Yes, talking to Jack Black about doing something -- but not Mudd.

Bryan, Damon, Alex and Bob and I have not had MEETING ONE about a sequel.

Brief, casual, blue-sky conversations, of course. But "okay, what's next for The Crew?" Not a meeting. So any character decisions, let alone actor discussions, feel like a ways away.

I can tell you one thing. For the sequel? I think we should have a shitload more lens flares.

Hope your summer is going well -- DYING to see The Hangover.

Talk soon, Sir!

JJ

So Black as Mudd is a big negative. Does that mean Black is going to be in the sequel? Keep in mind that Abrams has a lot of irons in the fire with about 5 projects at least that I am aware of not including television shows so the meetings with Black could be for anything really that has nothing to do with Star Trek. As for the status, there is none. More than likely everyone is simply decompressing from all the traveling promoting the film and I am betting that a Trek sequel is the last thing on their minds right now beyond considering how they are going to spend the checks they are getting for the film's success.

Star Trek Rumored Future Blu-Ray, DVD Releases

As part of the build up to the release of Star Trek, Paramount Home Entertainment released the previous movies on Blu-Ray and the first Season of The Original Season. Now, probably to help promote the movie’s release, the rumor mill is saying that the next round of releases is in the works.

Star Trek The Original Series Season 2 Blu-ray - maybe September 22nd
Star Trek The Next Generation movie box set - Trek set of the 4 TNG movies to co-inside the movie release to disc.
Star Trek (2009 movie) - possible October (my guess based on Paramount's very successful Transformers disc launch) with usual 1 disc DVD, 2-disc special edition, and special edition Blu-ray.

Star Trek Wins Golden Trailer

The 10th Annual Golden Trailer Awards were held last Thursday night at the DGA Theater in Los Angeles. As the naming indicates, the awards are not for the movies themselves but the trailers created to help promote the movie. Star Trek won Best in Show award so already a good start in hopefully getting more awards for the movie.

Awards in the best trailer categories:
Action: "Fast and Furious," AV Squad; Universal.
Animation/family: "WALL-E," Craig Murray Productions; Disney.
Comedy: "Bruno," The Ant Farm; Universal.
Documentary: "Man on Wire," The Editpool; Icon Film Distribution.
Drama: "Frost/Nixon," Empire Design; Working Title.
Horror: "The Unborn," Buddha Jones; Rogue.
Independent: "The Wrestler," Mark Woollen & Associates; Fox Searchlight.
Music: "Where the Wild Things Are," "The Ant Farm; Warners.
Romance: "(500) Days of Summer," Mark Woollen & Associates; Fox Searchlight.
Thriller: "Angels & Demons," Trailer Park; Sony.
Video Game: "Star Wars: The Force Unleashed," Eyestorm Prods.; Lucasarts.
Don LaFontaine Award for Best Voice Over: "Tropic Thunder-Hollywood Legend," Buddha Jones; DreamWorks.
Golden Fleece: "The Spirit," Seismic Prods.; Lionsgate.
Most Original: "My Winnipeg," Kinetic Trailers; IFC Films.
Summer 2009 Blockbuster: "Star Trek," Aspect Ratio; Paramount.
Trashiest: "One Eyed Monster," The Refinery; Liberation Entertainment.
Best in Show: "Star Trek," Aspect Ratio; Paramount.

Another Weekend, More Bucks for Star Trek

Another weekend has ended as the estimate takes flow in. Up ($44.2M, 35% drop) retained the top spot, The Hangover ($43.3M) took second thanks to excellent word of mouth, Land of the Lost ($19.5) tanked badly as people start to realize that Will Ferrell is just not that funny. Fourth went to Night at the Museum 2 ($14.7M, 40% drop), and fifth to Star Trek ($8.4M).

With a still weak economy, theaters goers are relying on word of mouth more than ever which Star Trek proves. Terminator 3 ($8.2M, 50% drop), Drag Me to Hell ($7.3M, 54% drop), Angels & Demons ($6.5M, 43% drop), and others are all performing worse and the one thing they all have in common is nowhere near the same word of mouth and critical score that Star Trek has. Basically for a movie to succeed in the crowded summer schedule, they just can't have flashy effects, they must actually be entertaining with a good story.

Foreign box office is estimated to be $6 million bringing its overseas sales to $112M for a worldwide take of $334.8M. This is actually a pretty weak showing as the movie needed to split its sales nearly 50/50 with US sales to achieve blockbuster status. As it stands, it probably will fall short of $400 million, something that Angels & Demons sailed past due to the strength of its oversea sales. Having said that, this film is out-performing its franchise precedessors with ease indicating a bright future for the sequel in the global box office.

Now out for 31 days, Star Treks US take is a total of $222.8 million, passing Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to become the second highest domestic grossing film (adjusting for inflation) for the franchise. All that remains for the 2009 film to take the top spot is to pass its 1979 counterpart.

Weekend Box Office Estimates

The weekend estimates are in and to no surprise Pixar's Up took the top spot with $68.2 million to become the 10th consecutive hit for the studio. Second place to Night at the Museum 2 ($25.5M, down 53%), third to Drag Me to Hell ($16.6M), fourth to Terminator Salvation ($16.1M, down 62%, probably no sequel in the works), and Star Trek was fifth with $12.8M (down 44%) bringing its 24 days domestic total to$209.5M.

This total allows Star Trek to easily enter the top 100 All Time Domestic Box Office list (not account for inflation) at the 81 spot, just behind Back to the Future. At the current rate of drop per weekend (about 45%), it appears that Star Trek will probably top out around $225M, so around 65th place with Wall-E ($223.8M). The foreign take will hopefully be in tomorrow.

Abrams Solos for MTV Awards Skit

The 2009 MTV Movie Awards were held yesterday and as part of that Andy Samberg created a new musical short called "Explosions" that makes fun of all the moments in movies as characters walk away from explosions without looking at them. As part of the skit, JJ Abrams solos on keyboard in a rather odd outfit.