I am not typically a fan of remakes, and have a little more tolerance for movies that are based on TV Shows (thats only kinda remade) but I have been a little more than excited about the Star Trek reimagining.
There are a number of reasons why I think this will be a success and a lot of it has to do with news that has leaked about the state of the new film. In fact, despite being a Star Wars fan and only a little into Star Trek, I have recently bought the entire movie collection on DVD and have recently been trudging through them in order.
The following news bits were gathered by Screenrant and they likely include mild SPOILERS so you have been warned.
The budget on the film is far below $200MM.
The film will be rated PG-13.
The release date was pushed back to summer ’09 because Paramount really wants it to be a summer blockbuster.
The intent was to re-invent the Star Trek franchise, and that is why they went all the way back to start at the beginning.
The script was written with Leonard Nimoy in mind. Nimoy read the script and liked it. It seems he’s so pivotal to the story that they would have had a big problem if he hadn’t liked it
Orci revealed that originally Steven Spielberg read the script and talked to J.J. Abrams about directing it during a set visit to the Transformers set. Abrams mentioned it to his wife, who also helped talk him into the final decision to take on the potentially scary project.
He also went on to say that he didn’t like the death of Kirk in Star Trek: Generations. He resented it. He then went on to say that it would have been damaging to the story to put Shatner in the film.
There is obviously a LOT of news bits revolving around this project, but these are the few I am choosing to address.
The budget is reasonable. For too long movies have been trying to equate how much money they have spent on effects as a bolstering point of the movie. This is clearly going to be effects heavy, but it seems more effort is spent on quality actors (not just media buzz personalities that hike the production costs) and story.
The PG-13 rating means we wont see brutal violence and blood, and likely no sex. But hardcore Trekkies don’t know what sex is anyways. Star Trek has only ever had one (English) curse that I know of (Data says Shit in Generations), so this fits well. It also means it isn’t dumbed down to cater to a new and growing child audience.
Paramount has confidence that this will qualify as a summer blockbuster. Some argue that when a movie is pushed into a slow release time of year that the studio has no confidence in the film. That same argument is used when a movie is pushed into the highly competitive summer schedule.
The idea is to reinvent the franchise, but not alienate the existing (and fastly fading) fanbase. Here at the TMB we have already been preaching the theory that a reboot is the only thing that would save Star Trek. I didn’t think ANYTHING could save it, but this “reinvention” might do the trick. Nimoy has already said that Shatner was not involved but not for any reason outside of continuity. He doesn’t like that Shatner’s Kirk died in Generations, but recognizes that if Kirk was in the movie alongside Spock it would ignore canon. He’s dead Jim.
Having Leonard Nimoy reprise his role as Spock sets with the fans that this is a flashback story and not a complete reboot. This appeases both camps.
Steven Spielberg was responsible for talking Abrams into taking on this job. He wasn’t shy on telling Abrams how “scary” the project would be. (Screw this up and both remaining Trekkies will burn you in effigy on Hollywood Blvd) So we now have Spielberg endorsing Abrams AND Nimoy endorsing the script.
I have yet to hear any concerning news against this film and it is shaping up to be quite the hit.
I can’t wait.
