A New James T Kirk Appears In Star Trek 11

Star Trek is a dead franchise. There’s no way around that. It’s been dead for years now. There are those out there who vehemently argue that with me, and I appreciate their passion (after all, I’m in the same boat as them defending Revenge of the Sith!) as fans, but the facts are the facts. Star Trek has been loosing its existing fan base steadily for years. By it’s own admission they’ve failed to gain any new fans for the franchise… and most importantly the films bomb and the TV shows rating go quickly into the toilet.

Some people will claim that all those facts are just because Paramount and the creative teams have tanked. That may be 100% true. But it doesn’t matter if a guy dies from a gun shot, a sting ray attack or heart failure…. he’s still dead. Maybe the good ship Star Trek capsized because of the writers and the studio…. but it’s still dead, no matter whose fault it is.

HOWEVER… this is the movie world. That means any dead character can suddenly reappear at any time. Star Trek is no different. I’ve been saying for over a year now that the only hope Star Trek has of being revived is the finally stop with the existing Star Trek Universe as it is. Reinvent itself, restart… reboot if you will. Bring in new blood with a new vision for the Star Trek universe. Throw out all the “rules” and start fresh.

The hiring of JJ Abrams (Mission Impossible 3, Alias, Lost) to take the helm was a great step in that direction. In recent months the new creative team for Star Trek 11 has made statements that they are going to focus more of their attention on NEW fans for the franchise and not hold so dearly to the canon of the original. That is also good news.

Now, official word from Abrams himself is indicating that a younger James Tiberius Kirk is going to be in the new film. I think we all knew that already, but it’s official now. The good folks over at Filmwad give us this:

JJ Abrams says, “James T Kirk appears in the movie.” And quite honestly, without him, the movie would have tanked anyway. As for where he’s at with production on the film, Abrams tells us:

“The respect we all have for Star Trek canon – and for a brand-new audience – is massive. The script is done. We’re now starting pre-prep, and we can’t wait to start shooting! Many more details to follow! “

The new Star Trek would bomb without Kirk???? Newsflash… the star trek movies have been bombing anyway! But I digress. The issue here is that Kirk will be there… but don’t count on him being the exact same Kirk we’re all already familiar with.

Notice how Abrams is using every once of diplomacy here. Saying he has “respect” for the canon. That really doesn’t mean anything since you can respect something and still go off in a different direction. They’ve already claimed that they’re not going to hold to canon, and that’s a GOOD thing. Breath some fresh life into this corpse, change some things. Revive tired characters. Introduce new ones. Get rid of some dead weight ones. Re-imagine the Star Trek universe in a way that works better in a 2007 context than a 1960’s context.

I am a Star Trek fan believe it or not. I’m a fan of most Sci-Fi (I know there are some closed minded purists out there who will say that if I don’t have the same opinion as they do then I’m NOT a Star Trek fan… but they’re wrong). But it’s time to stop worrying about keeping the purist fans happy… because these same purist fans haven’t saved Star Trek from dying in the first place. Just my two cents worth. Let the discussion begin!

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15 thoughts on “A New James T Kirk Appears In Star Trek 11

  1. This whole Shatner is Kirk argument reminds me of the recent James Bond dispute. Many people thought Daniel Craig would be a terrible Bond but audiences embraced him. Both the Batman and Bond franchises rebooted and came out winners. If Star Trek does the same and does it well I think people would accept a new Kirk. The new Bond and the new Batman have a dark side that makes them interesting. The old Kirk had a dark side and the new Kirk needs to also have a dark side, not a politically correct let’s talk to the aliens instead of shooting them attitude. I hated Enterprise and Voyager because the Captains are so politically correct they are boring. The whole point is can they reboot in a way that will win new fans?

  2. I don’t know if I should consider myself a Star Trek fan. I’ve seen only a few episodes of the old original series. I liked, though, the Kirk movies – not so much the Picard ones, liked The New Generation and Deep Space Nine series – not so much Voyager and just couldn’t get interested in Enterprise. Anyway, I really HATE HATE HATE when in Hollywood some schmuck ruines a franchise and instead of hiring creative, talented people to revitalise it (or simply just end it) they start “reinventing” it. I’m all for originality and creativity but reinventing a franchise IS NOT ORIGINALITY. You are basically throwing away something and use some new elements to fill the spaces. Why not do something completely new, not related to anything else?

    BTW, I’m one who thought that Batman Begins wasn’t exactly a bad movie, but liked the Tim Burton ones better.

    And yeah, they did try to breath some air into Enterprise in its last season, but that show had already several flaws; I thought that the characters just weren’t that interesting/charismatic, for example. I also didn’t like the timeline of the series – they should have gone further into the future, as Marina Sirtis said in an interview, not back in time. They should have ended Enterprise, let Manny Coto create a new series and keep Rick Berman and Brannon Braga out of it.

    For me, Kirk will always be Shatner, Spock will always be Nimoy and so on. I can’t care less for what they’re trying to feed me now with “the new Spock”, “the new Kirk” etc. This isn’t the adaptation of a book or a graphic novel. Why not let JJ Abrams do a Star Trek movie set somewhere in Picard’s future, when things have changed, the Federation has regressed/evolved, the alien races have also changed etc? He would basically have complete freedom to do whatever he liked. Why is this stupid reinvention necessary? Just so you would have completely new characters with familiar names while pissing all over known history? Don’t get me wrong, I love Lost and Alias, I’m sure that Abrams will probably make a good movie, I just hate that it will be a reinvention. And I’ll probably end up not seeing it, just as I did with MI3 – I thought it was unnecessary, I don’t like Tom Cruise that much, I just lacked the motivation to go see it.

    As a counter-argument to what I’ve just said, there’s Galactica, a successful reinvention which I actually like. However, I think they could have created something similar without necessary having to reinvent something from the past. Also – old Galactica fans forgive me – there was a lot to improve in the old Galactica and that series had basically no updated sequels, like Star Trek had, and hasn’t grew up to the size of the Star Trek universe. If there was only the original Star Trek series I would have probably had no problem with a remake/reinvention. But it’s more than that; the oringinal series has already been updated/improved in its sequels and movies. It also has connections in a lot of stuff that came after; you can’t reinvent it without reinventing an entire universe. And it’s not necessary. Just leave it alone.

    Or at least let JJ Abrams to a Galactica/Star Trek-like series not related to anything else.

    Also, one final thing concerning those who are “sick to death of the moral 100% purity of everyone on a damn starship”, want more flawed characters and more action: at least in The New Generation, Star Trek was supposed to be about a future where humans EVOLVED. Where they are more RATIONAL, where they have a MORAL code, where they LEARNED something from the past history, past wars and past mistakes, where they used DIPLOMACY instead of kicking alien butt. Yeah, it was sometimes a bit boring and the characters were a little stiff, but IT MADE SENSE. Asking “have the captain nailing the first officers wife, have an engineer with a drug problem, have a security chief who hates his job, have a helmsman who dislikes the captain and struggles with depression” means that YOU ARE MISSING THE POINT.

    The problem is that people in our times are deeply flawed, they like to see reflections of themselves and ideal/perfect characters seem boring. However, you can have anything you want and still use the Star Trek universe – just find a place with some characters which are not as perfect as the others. Or set it in a future where a war or some other event caused people to change/regress a bit. It’s just not necessary to reinvent anything.

    (the quotes in my post are from previous Campea posts, courtesy of Google and my infailible memory :P )

  3. I knew it was too good to be true. You made sense at the beginning John when you FINALLY conceded, “Some people will claim that all those facts are just because Paramount and the creative teams have tanked. That may be 100% true.”

    Then, as I sadly feared, you immediately went back off the rails and went back to Trek-bashing. Embrace your inner-Trekkie John. Stop digesting crap like BSG, you can handle the hard stuff. Stop living a lie. Come back to the light!

  4. I love the Star Trek franchise and I hate to think that it is dead but I think it suffered from over saturation. I mean there was always a new Star Trek Tv Series and Nemesis sucked and was a terrible way for the Next Gen cast to go out. Star Trek films never really bombed they were decent hits at the box office with the exception of a few and a few actually were big hits like Star Trek IV and Star Trek First Contact which are arguably the best in the entire series.

    I don’t like J.J. Abrams that much I found MI3 to be better suited as a Tv show. It seemed very similar to Alias which bothered me a lot I don’t see anything unique about Abrams as a film director but then again that was his first film so I guess I need to give him more of a chance. I just hope he doesn’t cast Keri Russle or any other actors from his Tv Shows into the Star Trek movies.

  5. I think it’s safe to say that the only way this thing is going to work is if they start from “scratch” and forget most of what’s come before.

    As for Kirk appearing in the new movie, I think it’s fair to say that he’ll probably have some sort of small walk on role, maybe even a few lines. Personally, I think that’s for the best.

  6. Just for fun…How to reboot a franchise

    Opening scenes show visions of the federation we have come to know and loathe, with ‘Q’ looking on in contemplation. Q mutters something about things being boring, gets an idea, and suddenly travels back in time to a key point in the formation of starfleet, giving it a little ‘push’ in a new direction.

  7. The thing is john the fans only deseryted star trek because of how bad it got….I like star trek but i only care about the original series….I fucking hate new generation, voyager etc etc. to me that is all horseshit…all i want is wobbly sets…..stories where they fight nazis and soft focus close ups on every woman kirk bangs….

    bbbbuuuttttt i am sorry I know you think no actor is irreplaceable but in this case SHATNER IS KIRK. plain and simple……if they think people will accept just anyone as kirk they are sorely mistaken…..

    whoever they get the guy won’t be able to play it like shatner or it will become a joke and if he is going to play it differently why not rename him completely and start fresh…..

    they think people are so dumb that if they just slap a name we know and love onto it then we will flock back to the franchise. fuck them……reboot this shit…but don’t just call some guy kirk and act like because he has the same name we won’t notice..

    shatner is kirk…fuck damon or whoever the fuck……

  8. another “rich in detail” franchise gets mainstreamed :(

    Star Trek: TNG had a morality and philosophy in nearly each episode,
    it was a realistic vision for the future.
    yes, it wasn’t for everybody but many more than loved it.
    (so called trekkies :))

    Star Trek: Enterprise was a step backwards and i’m afraid Trek XI will do it equaly.

    there are so many “popcorn movies” without depth…
    don’t abuse Star Trek!

  9. I’ve got to disagree with Dignan.

    The whole idea is to get away from the old Kirk. Trying to be like Shatners kirk is what will get this new movie laughed at. Re-do Kirk.

  10. If they can get someone who can do Shatner without it being an imitation (like Ewan did with Obi Wan), then they might have something. Unfortunately, Kirk IS Shatner. To find someone else to play (a younger) Kirk, they must respect the role as Shatner played it or else they’ll be laughed out of the top ten for the weekend.

  11. All i know is that nothing beats a good Star Trek movie for enjoyment and a little substance too. But that hasn’t happened since film 6, and a large part of it was due to the chemistry between that cast.

    I enjoyed the hell out of Mission Impossible 3 and that’s all i’ve got to go on in thinking this could be great. I’m just going to be open minded.

  12. Well John, I’ve started to get interested in this reboot Star Trek movie.

    Was thinking that the Cyclons and Vulcans be the superior society and the Federation be the underdogs like the group in Serentity, and the Borg be the the remains of our present society trying to survive.

    P.S.

    The Borg Queen was the best thing of Star Trek: First Contact.

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