star trek 2009 is remake

'Star Trek' At 10: J.J. Abrams' 2009 Film Reboot Reinvigorated The Franchise With A Perfect Cast

Released ten years ago today, on May 8, 2009, director J.J. Abrams' Star Trek reboot is the cinematic equivalent of a rock band going mainstream. It's a hit remix version of an old song. Critically and commercially, the film was an unqualified success. Holding steady at 94%, edging out classic big-screen entries like The Wrath of Khan and First Contact , it remains the highest rated Star Trek movie on Rotten Tomatoes, as well as the top-grossing film in the series according to Box Office Mojo. Anytime a band goes mainstream, however, there's always going to be a contingent of old-school fans that you hear affecting a Leonard McCoy grumble. They were with the band from the beginning but now it's out there in the world and it belongs to everyone.

By the late 2000s, the  Trek  franchise was in a place where the overlapping runs of four straight television shows had ended—their viewership numbers falling victim to the law of diminishing returns. Fans like me, who grew up watching  The Next Generation  and  Deep Space Nine  in syndication, had lost touch with the final frontier. This is the movie that resuscitated that brand and opened the door to more adventures like the ones we're seeing now on  Star Trek: Discovery   and the ones we'll soon be seeing on the Captain Picard series .

As a storyteller, Abrams' great strength is character. His weakness is plot. Both of those qualities are on full display in Star Trek, but the movie has such a velocity to it (not unlike the U.S.S. Enterprise itself when traveling at warp speed) that the viewer can't help but get swept up in the youthful exuberance of this faster-than-light reboot. Beam yourselves aboard, then, and let's take a long and winding trek into Star Trek on its tenth anniversary.

TWIN PLANETS IN A UNITED FEDERATION

Now more than ever, the world needs Star Trek . At a time when it feels like Aldous Huxley and George Orwell's vision of the future is coming to pass — with civilization moving closer to the distracted dystopia of Brave New World and the post-truth landscape of 1984 — the world needs a reminder of the hopeful ideals that humanity can embody when it's not bent on dividing and destroying itself. There are different ways to inspire that kind of hope but the way the 2009 Trek film goes about it is by making us believe that people who are destined for greater things can overcome their differences and find a common purpose.

The movie seeks to distill the essence of all these classic '60s characters from Star Trek: The Original Series into new affable forms. It succeeds beautifully on that front. As James T. Kirk, the future captain of the Starship Enterprise , Chris Pine embodies a different kind of swagger than the one William Shatner originally brought to the role.

Shatner's Kirk had a quieter confidence to him. Pine's version of the character, as seen in this movie, is brash and has yet to learn the lessons that will make him a good leader—one who's capable of putting the good of his crew above his own life, even.

That scene after the bar fight in Iowa, where Kirk is talking to Captain Pike (played with great gravitas by Bruce Greenwood), is so well done that it becomes almost transcendent when Pike says, "Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved eight hundred lives, including your mother's. I dare you to do better." Sitting there watching that scene, you feel like you're the one being dared not to "settle for a less and ordinary life." You feel like you're the one "meant for something better, something special."

The movie draws immediate parallels between Kirk and Spock, showing how their trajectories on Earth and Vulcan align as much as they differ. Until he meets Dr. McCoy and makes his first Starfleet friend, no one sees anything in Kirk except for Pike. In the bar, he has burly cadets ganging up on him, dismissing him as a "townie." This is directly preceded by a couple of scenes where we see how Spock's half-human nature has made him the target of both overt and subtle discrimination.

It doesn't get much funnier than the first scene on Vulcan where we witness the hyperintelligent version of school kids taunting each other. "I presume you have prepared new insults for me today," says the young Spock, all stoic and resigned to his fate as the-kid-who-gets-picked-on. "Affirmative," replies one of the older bullies. Spock drolly intones, "This is your thirty-fifth attempt to elicit an emotional response from me." And then the restrained Vulcan equivalent of bullying begins.

Inheriting the black bangs and pointy ears of Leonard Nimoy's character, Zachary Quinto balances out the contradictions in an adult Spock who's still a paragon of rationality but also full of repressed rage. It's a show-stopping moment when he finally employs the famous Vulcan nerve pinch. The movie amps up the tension between him and Kirk, and there are some really good scenes where the two of them are hashing out their fundamental differences in approach as Starfleet members on the Enterprise bridge.

One of these is a tense mid-warp scene where Kirk pleads his case that the ship is flying into a trap. At that moment, we see how Kirk and Spock, the Earthling and the Vulcan — one impetuous, the other logical — are diametrically opposed in terms of their outward behavior. They couldn't be more different, yet we know from what we've seen of their lives leading up to Starfleet that they also have similar experiences running deep into their backgrounds.

Ultimately, they're able to get more done by putting aside pettiness and working together in the spirit of a United Federation. With the real world seemingly teetering on the brink of destruction in 2019, maybe we should all aspire to that model before some crazed Romulan (whose name references Nero Caesar ) sets off a black hole causing the planet to implode.

REVIVING HUMANISM WITH FRESH FACES

If the essence of Star Trek can be regarded as humanism, then everything else — all the sociopolitical allegories the franchise has become known for over the years   — would have to flow first from that foundation. Say what you will about it, but Abrams' film and the characters running through it are aggressively, irrepressibly human. This extends beyond Kirk and Spock to the rest of the quippy cast, most of whom were relative unknowns at the time.

2009 was the Year of Zoe Saldana. She was, by far, the best thing about Avatar , which you may remember as the fourth best science fiction movie of that year (with Star Trek, District 9, and Moon comprising the top three, of course ). Here she delivers a star-making performance as Uhura, a character whose verbal tangos with Kirk are fun to watch and whose relationship with Spock feels more believable than it probably deserves to be, thanks largely to Saldana's emotive range. She can wield sarcasm but there's also a soulful quality to her that comes out in moments like the one when she and Spock are on the turbolift together and she's attempting to console him after the obliteration of  his planet .

By revealing her as Spock's girlfriend, the movie does inadvertently set Uhura down the path toward underutilization . In Star Trek Into Darkness , she would fade to the background a bit, to the point where her concern and anger with Spock and his apparently casual willingness to sacrifice his life would become her whole subplot. In Star Trek , however, their relationship is merely one element of her character. She comes across as more well-rounded, enough so to justify the positioning of her face in DVD box art as the movie's third lead.

Karl Urban is a revelation. The beauty of this Trek is that i t's the kind of movie that you can watch and rewatch, shifting fondness to a new favorite character every time you do. For me as a first-time viewer, the real MVP was Urban, whose scene-chewing turn as McCoy bowled me over in terms of how it channeled the spirit of the character without lapsing into imitation. As the curmudgeonly doctor, he's so pitch-perfect, talking out of the corner of his mouth, that you completely forget you're watching the same Viking-looking dude who led the Riders of Rohan in  The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers.

Speaking of Vikings, before there was Thor, God of Thunder,  there was James T. Kirk's dad, George Kirk. People love to debate who the best movie Chris is , but whatever the answer,  Star Trek  introduced the world to two of them: not just Pine, but also Hemsworth (who would go on to star in his first Marvel movie two years later).

For viewers behind on their Edgar Wright films, Star Trek might have also been their first real exposure to Simon Pegg, who is so likable (and appropriately excitable) as chief engineer Montgomery "Scotty" Scott  that there's almost a comedown that sets in when you see Pegg in his other, non- Trek roles. Likewise, Scotty's sidekick — for reference, his name is Keenser, and he's played by actor Deep Roy — deserves a shout-out as one of the movie's two best aliens, the other being the long-faced creature at the bar counter between Uhura and Kirk.

Foregoing the Monkees-inspired moptop of Walter Koenig, the late Anton Yelchin portrays a baby-faced Chekhov, one who's referred to as "Russian whiz kid" and whose accent is so thick that he has to keep repeating himself because even the voice-recognition computer can't understand what he's saying. John Cho's Hikaru Sulu, meanwhile, inhabits the other forward station on the Enterprise bridge. In this movie, Sulu is more straight-faced, less bug-eyed, than he was when he first employed his fencing sword   in the Original Series episode "The Naked Time." H is most meaningful contribution to the lives of some LGBTQ fans would come later .

All of these characters live in service to the utopian exemplar of Starfleet, which we're told functions as "a peacekeeping and humanitarian armada," but which can also be seen as a surrogate family unit for individual characters in individual crews like the one on board the Enterprise. To anyone who followed its previous adventures on television, the environment of the ship feels very much like home. Its living room is the bridge and its soundscape is iconic , not just the music, but also the sound effects: all the chirping communicators, whistling intercoms, swooshing doors, and other noises that make up the fabric of what we hear.

With his memorable music theme from the opening and closing credits on TV, Alexander Courage left some big shoes to fill, but c omposer Michael Giacchino wears them well. His score is its own character in the film. There's a sweep and — at key moments — a poignancy to it that gives the movie lift and bears it aloft, in new ways, to the soaring heights we've come to expect from Star Trek .

One moment that really tugs on the heartstrings, music-wise, is the birth of Kirk and death of his father. My favorite moment comes right after that, when the soundtrack transitions into the first cue of "Enterprising Young Men" and we see the escape pods: these little black dots breaking away against the backdrop of a huge, fiery sun, showing the terror and awe of humans in the cosmos. Then the title logo appears, lighting up like it's been waiting on the dark side of an adjacent planet.

That's a sequence that manages to convey the full, breathtaking wonder of Star Trek . Though not without its flaws (more on those in a second), this is a movie that's beautifully orchestrated both in the sense of its music and in the sense of its staging.

RED MATTER AND LIGHTNING STORMS IN SPACE

Updating Star Trek for the twenty-first century, making it flashier and more accessible to modern audiences, is a two-edged sword. On the one hand, it keeps Trek relevant and not too beholden to the past; on the other hand, you run the risk of compromising its integrity, betraying its core ethos. While motorcycle jumps set to Beastie Boys music and the pointless, pre-release, is-he-or-isn't-he Khan dance of Star Trek Into Darkness may have soured some fans on Abrams and the direction he took things, he deserves some credit for restoring Trek 's vitality with an entertaining blockbuster. If the franchise was flatlining circa the late 2000s, then this is the film that broke out the defibrillator and set about re-electrifying it.

Having said that, Star Trek is one of those movies whose immediate glow seems to have worn off some in the intervening years. Among hardcore fans, at least, there's a mound of quibbles that is sure to arise like Tribbles in any room where Abrams and his overall effect on the franchise are being discussed. In 2013, at the annual Star Trek Convention in Las Vegas, Trekkies greeted Star Trek Into Darkness with boos and voted it the worst installment in the series , behind even Galaxy Quest , which is a spoof of Star Trek that's not actually part of the official franchise or even produced by the same movie studio.

This would be like Star Wars fans abandoning any pretense of impartiality and ranking The Last Jedi behind Spaceballs, just out of spite for Rian Johnson. In the present online climate, that's actually a believable scenario, but let's put that aside for now. Given that Trek Into Darkness (can we all agree that dropping the "Star" from the title would have made it less clunky?) is Abrams' direct sequel to Star Trek, it's possible there's some very real, residual distaste being felt for the 2009 film based on the 2013 film.

Indeed, people with a permanent Movie Sin Counter dinging inside their skulls will find much to nitpick in Star Trek . You don't have to be a hardcore Trekkie to dislike this film, of course, but I can understand why those people especially, the longtime fans, might have serious issues with Abrams' reboot. It's a less cerebral take on Star Trek , one that puts heart over head because it's more concerned with wrangling as much delight out of the mythos as possible.

Here's the thing: Star Trek is, first and foremost, a TV franchise. By its very design, it's best-suited to the format of the hour-long drama, which allows for both self-contained, episodic stories and serialized, long-form ones. Creator Gene Roddenberry originally pitched the series as " Wagon Train to the Stars," and trying to translate that to the big screen has always led to mixed results.

The long and short of it is that if you're going to watch the movies, you have to meet them on their own terms. Like Fight Club 's "single-serving friend," the 2009 reboot is single-serving Star Trek, perfect for a plane ride, even if you never see it again (which you will, because it's the kind of flick that demands a revisit every few years). A fairer way to judge it, then, might be to stop comparing it to the TV shows and just sort it against the other twelve Trek movies, in which case it definitely belongs more in the "hit" than the "miss" column.

It's not as though the TV shows are free of embarrassment, anyway.  Like any other long-running franchise, Star Trek has some goofy, graceless, outright cringe-worthy moments in its history. Shall we put on our nerd glasses and talk about Kirk vs. Gorn, and the Original Series punch that spawned the dubious tradition of "double ax-handles" in awkwardly choreographed fights?

The cynical response would be to ignore this history and insist that the reboot dumbed Trek down, raising the action quotient and sexing it up into a glib rendering for the masses: something that takes all the thought out of Trek and panders to the popcorn crowd. If we carry this line of thinking further, it's not a stretch to see the reboot as a complete mercenary endeavor, as opposed to something that was a labor of love for many people.

Admittedly, there are plot contrivances in the movie that might cause one's bullshit detector to bleep—much like James T. Kirk, giving a blank-faced pause before swearing in an ice cave at the unbelievable claims of Old Man Spock. This is, after all, a J.J. Abrams film. Personally, I like Abrams; I think he's that rare breed of director who has never made a bad movie. At the risk of trotting the Tomatometer out too much, it's worth noting that the five films he's directed are "Certified Fresh" across the boards. There, you see? Objectively not bad. Because the review aggregator says so. (I am aware that this is not true Vulcan logic and am being facetious).

Nevertheless, the bullshit detector, the poppycock radar, the Movie Sin Counter, whatever you want to call it, does go to red alert at odd intervals in Abrams' films, if and when they slow down enough (in-between requisite action beats) for you to catch your breath and think. In Star Wars: The Force Awakens , it was Rathtars and mind-numbing exposition about thermal oscillators that massaged the grief of thinking persons. In Star Trek , it's red matter and little snippets of dialogue for dummies, like the oft-repeated phrase, "a lightning storm in space."

With its "super ice cubes" for volcanoes, 300-year-old frozen men in torpedoes, and cheap resurrections via super blood serums, Star Trek Into Darkness is arguably sloppier. Credit where credit is due: screenwriting duo Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman penned the script for both films. Their best work has come when paired with Abrams, but Orci, who self-identifies as a Trekkie, may have engendered some ill when he lashed out at Into Darkness haters back in 2013. For his part, Kurtzman has continued to shepherd the franchise on TV, bringing it more into the melodrama realm with Star Trek: Discovery .

It's not a surprise that some would see it as a relief when Orci and Kurtzman's next script was abandoned and Simon Pegg stepped in to co-write Star Trek Beyond. Pegg, too, was clearly conscious of the dissatisfaction with Into Darkness , and by that point, he already had some experience running around in character as Scotty, trying to save an imperiled starship, saying, "I'm givin' her all she's got, Captain!"

"UNDER CONSTRUCTION" … IN HOLLYWOOD

The screenplay for Star Trek, it should be noted, isn't brain-dead. On the contrary, its humor is rather witty in places and the emotional beats are rousing, as well. Tell me you don't get a chuckle out of moments like Bones mouthing the phrase, "Green-blooded hobgoblin." You'd almost have to be a hobgoblin not to get a lump in your throat when Kirk's father is on his collision course with the Romulan ship, and he and Kirk's mother are naming their baby right as the acting captain is about to die.

"Whatever our lives might have been, if the time continuum was disrupted, our destinies have changed," Spock says. Moments like this and the above-mentioned one plug the film into universal themes of fate and familial love. That's the kind of story this movie is trying is tell. Star Trek 's screenwriters were aiming at a wider audience; they needed to liberate their story from decades of franchise baggage, but they also needed to anchor it to the existing Trek mythology so as not to just flippantly disregard everything that came before it. By incorporating time travel and alternate realities into the narrative, they were able to spin Trek off into the quadrant where nothing is written, nothing is known, and the pleasure lies not only in the discovery of new things, but the rediscovery of old things.

Maybe it's not space that's the final frontier; maybe it's time. Either way, the makers of the 2009  Star Trek  reboot admirably fulfilled the mission of seeking out new life in the universe, of boldly going where no  Star Trek  movie had gone before.

Abrams' overuse of lens flares may have become a joke, but the ones in this movie, coupled with the camera's perspective tilts, do give it the visual quality of a mind-bending journey. At the same time, the fact that  Star Trek  is not overindulgent in computer-generated imagery, the fact that Abrams and his crew used real locations and sets, adds a layer of realism to the film. When you're in Iowa with the young Kirk, and there are those huge hazy towers  in the background, and the android-cop comes along on his hoverbike, it all feels like part of the real world.

On television, Star Trek , was, at its best, always thought-provoking in a way that allowed the viewer to tie it back to what was going on in the real world. The reboot's most thought-provoking moments come from its meta treatment of Trek. Maybe that makes it a hollow Hollywood construct, one whose inner workings lay exposed like those of the Enterprise itself in the film's enigmatic first teaser —which offered glimpses of welders building  the ship up close, followed by the words, "Under Construction."

In the actual movie, Kirk sees the construction happening outside the ship yard on the ground in Iowa. The camera moves in behind him , letting us gaze a t that ship, which holds the promise of so much destiny. Yet if Trek 's destiny going forward is merely to cannibalize past highlights, and if our d estiny as viewers is merely to get lost inside the looping dream of this fictional world, how is that ship any different from the deceptive Talosian illusions that  caged Captain Pike in the pilot episode of The Original Series?

Star Trek: Discovery recently revisited Talosian territory , so i t's worth remembering the pilot and its line: "When dreams become more important than reality, you give up travel, building, creating." Coming as it did in the very first episode of the series, that line could almost be read as a warning to the elaborate web of fandom that would spring up around Star Trek in the decades to come. Maybe we should all take a step back before we get too caught up in the fictional mythology of Trek  and its alien worlds.

That said, if the reboot is, in some sense, a cage for the franchise and for the viewer, then it's as pleasant a prison as the IP zookeepers in Tinseltown ever constructed. Keep in mind, Pike was aware of his predicament, and some illusions can serve as a wake-up call, renewing one's appreciation for what one has back in the main reality (if not the real world, then at least the wide world of  Trek on TV).

Flipping back through the 2009 film yearbook, cinephiles may recall that Star Trek was released the same summer as Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, a movie that landed squarely on the opposite end of the quality spectrum. Orci and Kurtzman also made up two-thirds of the writing team for that movie. Between it, X-Men Origins: Wolverine , Terminator Salvation , and G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra , 2009 was a tough year for summer popcorn flicks.

The point is, anyone who thinks this Star Trek is bad maybe needs to go back and do a little comparative rewatching. Drawing as it does from cartoon toy mythology, Revenge of the Fallen is much less convincing on the plot level. Next to a nonsensical MacGuffin like the Matrix of Leadership , Star Trek 's red matter at least sounds more plausible.

Unfortunately, the film brings back the late great Leonard Nimoy as Spock, only to saddle him with an info dump in the midst of a mind meld. It's sad to hear his frail voice become a puppet for plot exposition; and unless you believe in the gleeful serendipity of Lost Connections , it's criminally convenient that Kirk, the marooned mutineer, stumbles upon the elder Spock in a random cave on a random ice planet (#NotHoth). On that same planet, Scotty is also conveniently waiting for them in a Starfleet outpost, ready to be fed the deus ex machina equation that will allow him to invent trans-warp beaming right at the moment when Kirk most needs it to get back on the Enterprise.

These wonky plot mechanisms aside, it's all okay, really, because this Star Trek is superluminal. It distills the inherent optimism of the franchise down into the can of a quick energy drink that we can all slam back together at Quark's Bar on DS9. Shouldn't sci-fi nerds, by their nature, prefer quarks to qualms? What is a qualm, anyway? I've forgotten the definition of the word because it holds no meaning for me when I watch Star Trek ... a movie that doesn't have time for your concerns about plot holes ... not when it's busy conjuring that big black hole to eat the Vulcan planet.

With his home world destroyed, it starts to feel like Spock, the mythic "child of two worlds," is getting a new Superman-like origin whereby he'll become something akin to the last son of Vulcan instead of the last son of Krypton. That's alright: he's still got a single parent, as does Kirk. His human mother, played by Winona Ryder — then the biggest celebrity face in the movie (this side of Romulan Eric Bana and Starfleet Admiral Tyler Perry, that is) — dies simply because Bambi's mother died. It's tradition: one parent per hero. That's what happens in Disneyfied fairy tales.

It wouldn't be the last time Abrams directed one of those. If it pains you to see Kirk and Spock become the live-action Paramount Pictures equivalent of lion princes in a Disney animated feature, just know that there's probably some moviegoer out there who got drawn into the universe of Star Trek through the instant accessibility of this film. The movie is gateway Trek for neophytes, courtesy of Bad Robot Productions.

THE JOY OF J.J.

Coming at the tail end of the 2000s, Star Trek put Abrams at the forefront of a new generation of fans turned filmmakers who would, in the 2010s, set about remaking, remixing, and rebooting the well-known movies they grew up on. No longer would homages be confined to the underground gems and obscure foreign films that Quentin Tarantino had been stealthily repackaging for years.

Hollywood's ( still-going ) reboot-o-tron had already fired up with great success in the mid-2000s, courtesy of Batman Begins and Casino Royale. Star Trek is where the machine settled into a new groove. A few years down the road, in among all the other franchise wannabes with colons in their titles, even the good tentpoles would start to resemble each other, with The Avengers , Skyfall , and yes, Star Trek Into Darkness, all being faintly derivative of The Dark Knight— that movie where the villain plans to get caught all along just so he can stare out from a cell and then escape.

With Star Trek , you certainly could make the case — as others have — that Abrams, as director and field marshal, is the delinquent juvenile Kirk, cranking up the song "Sabotage" and driving the franchise over a cliff while trying to outrace some paternal shadow. Instead of his father, George Kirk, it's the legacy of his blockbuster forerunners, George Lucas and Steven Spielberg, that has chased Abrams through most of his film career (including the Raiders of the Lost Ark -inspired foot chase in  Star Trek Into Darkness ). In his red Corvette, J.J.'s got Nokia product placement and a glove compartment full of mystery boxes. Han Solo's pair of gold dice hangs from the rearview mirror. There's also a bottle full of creative lightning that the boy furtively uncorks despite open container laws in California.

That's Abrams, or at least my perception of him. He's out there on the open road and his critics, all the Anton Egos of the world, are just bitter backseat drivers. The man has pretty much conquered Hollywood at this point. Love him or hate him, there's no denying that he's been i nstrumental in shaping American pop culture at the highest levels.  Remember when M. Night Shyamalan was supposed to be the next Spielberg? With his nostalgia-driven forays into populist filmmaking (especially Super 8 ), Abrams consciously strives toward the same ideal.

He may have jumped starships to the galaxy far, far away, but first, Abrams had to make the jump from television to film. Like David Fincher, he started with a random franchise threequel. Mission: Impossible III  put him on the movie director map, but  Star Trek  solidified him as one to watch, a filmmaker with a whole new pseudo-auteur cred.

The movie is an announcement: with it, Abrams let us know that he had truly arrived and would be an important force in the film industry.  As reboots go, this one was monumental, the kind that shifted the earth beneath the feet of general moviegoers and made them realize that this thing called  Star Trek  was cool, not just something for Trekkies.

What really irks some fans, I think, is that Abrams gave Star Trek a space fantasy facelift. Then he had the temerity to abandon his dubious cosmetic procedure, flinging it aside at the first sign of Star Wars , as if, all along, the Enterprise was just keeping his butt warm for the Millennium Falcon.

Full disclosure: i n addition to Star Trek , I'm a  Star Wars fan from way, way back, which may go a long way toward explaining my irrational love for this iteration of Trek , if you're of the mind that this is Trek , by way of Wars . Nevertheless, as a child of these two worlds (much like Spock himself),  what I'd like to know is ... w hy can't a toy model of the Starship Enterprise occupy the same shelf as a toy model of the Millennium Falcon? I'm genuinely asking because I have this feng shui problem in my entertainment room and the geomancy of J.J. is the only thing that seems to solve it.

Listen, we've established that J.J. is Kirk, so if Kirk's too busy munching on an apple to play by the rules of the Kobayashi Maru test, do you really think J.J.'s going to play by the rules of a no-win situation or even a win-lose situation? Oh, sure, the Western mind has been trained to see the world in those dichotomous terms. This or that. Win or lose. The Beatles vs. Elvis Presley. Star Trek vs. Star Wars . Either-or.

Abrams don't play that game. The question, "Save or kill?" is too limited for him. He's too nice a guy, or at least that's what his public persona conveys, and so he can only answer demurely, "Save, save." If you reject the notion of that, you won't like Abrams because he's a remix artist who's taken up the self-appointed impossible mission of curating as many film franchises as he can. Remember, he's the one who got Ethan Hunt's adventures back on track in 2006. The Mission: Impossible franchise suffered from the sophomore slump but it's gotten progressively better since Abrams came on board (he's produced every installment since then, including the phenomenal Fallout .)

Look, I get it: people have valid complaints about the Star Trek reboot. The Abrams brand isn't everyone's cup of tea, but it knows that , don't you see? With its alternate-reality setup, the 2009 Trek bends over backwards to say, "Hey, this is its own thing." Unlike most reboots, it doesn't erase franchise history or pretend as though it never happened. Rather, it shows us a vision of alternate history, one where the characters, their connections, and their backstories are different, but the core of humanity is the same. This time, the "strange new world" explored, per the famous captain's speech, just so happens to be a different timeline: the Kelvin Timeline, as it's now known.

They're on a starship powered by a warp drive, but it's the sublime characters and the perpetual pep in their step that give this movie its tremendous propulsion through outer space. You'll never see as much sprinting, relentless running, Tom-Cruise-level running, on board the Enterprise as you'll see in this movie. That's its M.O: it's the running Star Trek movie (not to be confused with that other one we've referenced, the motorcycling Star Trek movie).

If you think Gene Roddenberry is rolling over in his grave at the state of Star Trek post-2009 , well, maybe you're right. Maybe you know him better than I do. Then again, maybe Star Trek 's creator wore a progressive outlook . It's like that scene in La-La Land where John Legend's character, the progressive one in the conversation, asks, "How are you going to be a revolutionary if you're such a traditionalist? You're holding onto the past, but jazz is about the future."

History might very well determine that Star Trek was J.J. Abrams' best film. You probably think I smoked some crack before typing that. I'm probably digging myself a hole with these kinds of loose-lipped, life-affirming, Trek -adoring statements ... but hear me out, one last time, as we near the end of this long love letter to the final frontier.

Star Trek was more of a sugar-rush shock to the system than The Force Awakens (which I love, by the way). It offered a fresher take, one less caged by reverence or rhyming with past episodes. While it may have strayed too far from the franchise's roots for the tastes of some, perhaps it is precisely "that instinct to leap without looking" (as Greenwood's Captain Pike would call it), that gives the movie such raw, unbridled kinetic energy.

Trek confession: I grew up thinking  Star Trek  meant  The Next Generation . My first captain was Jean-Luc Picard. The Original Series was before my time. It was the stuff of old reruns. I was aware of it; I had watched some of the episodes and some of the later movies , but  I had never gone back and watched the whole series until this film reboot set me down that path. Only then would I learn to luxuriate in all those early space-faring adventures, punctuated by Kirk's piercing eyes, Spock's inquisitive looks, and the romanticized faces of women in soft focus .

This movie made me rediscover my love of Star Trek and ultimately connect to the franchise in a deeper way than I ever had as a kid. I love it because of how it was so sure-handedly able to recapture the sense of wonder, the sense of pure exhilarating joy, that I felt as a kid watching movies.  It beamed me back aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise, where I would stay for good this time. I know I can't be the only fan who had that kind of experience.

BLESSED ARE THE GEEKS

Star Trek began life as a cult phenomenon. This year marks the fiftieth anniversary of the untimely cancellation of The Original Series. The show went off the air after a mere three seasons, only to find a second life in reruns. Despite its dated flourishes, it still holds up after all these years ... but now it's become something more, expanding into a thriving multimedia empire full of widely recognized pop-culture icons. Klingon is a legit language and the split-finger Vulcan salute is as good as International Sign Language.

Much has changed since the airing of that old Saturday Night Live sketch with Shatner at a Star Trek convention, telling a room full of geeks, "Get a life!" I don't know about you, Trekkers, but I always found that sketch to be funny and spot-on, an incisive little satire of geekdom. It hit close to home for me in a way that made me realize we probably shouldn't take any of this make-believe stuff too seriously. My favorite part — a bit that feels very 2019 — is how Shatner is forced to immediately retcon his own stage appearance, telling the assembled fanboys, "That speech was a recreation of the evil Captain Kirk."

A few years before he passed away, I once saw James Doohan, the original Scotty, in a basement convention hall in Manhattan, not that far from Rockafeller Center, where SNL is filmed. It was a far cry from Hall H at Comic-Con. That wasn't even a thing yet, because this was circa 2000-2001.

Somewhere along the way (the mid-to-late 2000s, by my estimate), geek became chic. In 2019, we're now apparently at  peak geek, with Avengers: Endgame , the final season of Game of Thrones , and Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker all rolling over us the same year.  To paraphrase an old biblical quote, "Blessed are the geeks: for they have inherited the earth."

Abrams' Star Trek is a fleet-footed, funny, at times fumbling expression of geek love for one of the most important media franchises  on the planet. The beautiful people run ubiquitous through his film and television projects, and this one is no exception, but if you think of them as glamorous spokespersons for science, it's hard to fault them for baring their torsos. Kirk and Uhura parade around in their underwear, trading snappy patter because they're young and alive, as much so as Uhura's green-skinned roommate or the original Green Girl, Susan Oliver . That's the audience for this movie: people who are young, or young at heart, and maybe a little green, but most importantly, still alive and not so jaded that they're unable to enjoy the verve of the occasional ace summer blockbuster.

Star Trek wants the franchise out in the streets, not in some insular basement. Maybe, just maybe, what the series needed at this particular point in time was a non-fan, or casual fan — someone with an outsider's perspective like Abrams — to come in and shake it up, just to remind it that characters come first and big science fiction ideas are nothing without them.

That's a lesson the franchise seemingly learned between Star Trek: The Motion Picture and The Wrath of Khan. It's a lesson that's reinforced by the disparity between the pilot episode for The Original Series and its first few broadcast episodes. Compare the cast when it was only Pike and the pointy-eared Spock, surrounded by vanilla faces, to the cast when it was Nichelle Nichols and George Takei and all these other diverse actors.

What a difference a Deforest Kelley makes.  In the first season premiere, "The Man Trap," Shatner and Kelley, the real McCoy, you might say, exude immediate charisma and chemistry with each other, and there's more of a personal stake in the plot for McCoy because it involves an old flame of his. The show came alive when it put its characters front and center and let the audience, too, have a personal stake in them.  This film reboot is an electric reminder of that character-based approach to storytelling.

In 2009, J.J. Abrams and his cast and crew set out on a fun, freewheeling voyage. Their continuing mission over the course of two hours? To make people care about Star Trek again, so that it can "live long and prosper." Mission accomplished.

Film Review: ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’

J.J. Abrams sets his filmmaking to 'stun' with a sequel in every respect equal or even superior to its splendid 2009 predecessor

By Scott Foundas

Scott Foundas

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J.J. Abrams sets his filmmaking to “stun” for “ Star Trek Into Darkness,” a sequel in every respect equal or even superior to its splendid 2009 predecessor, which lovingly and cleverly rebooted Gene Roddenberry ’s long-running space opera following the black hole of 2002’s “Star Trek Nemesis.” Markedly grander in scale, although never at the expense of its richly human (and half-human) characters, “Into Darkness” may not boldly go where no “Trek” adventure has gone before, but getting there is such a well-crafted, immensely pleasurable ride that it would be positively Vulcan to nitpick. Global box office cume should easily warp past the prior pic’s $385 million for this sturdy Paramount tentpole, which opens overseas May 9 before beaming down Stateside one week later.

Abrams, whose last pic was the lyrical “E.T.”/“Close Encounters” homage “Super 8,” here tips his hat to the “Indiana Jones” series, opening with a thrilling setpiece that finds Kirk ( Chris Pine ) and Bones (the sly, loose-limbed Karl Urban ) on the run from a tribe of very angry natives on the planet Nibiru. The natives, decked out in head-to-toe clay body paint, shimmer like human ceramics as they chase the Starfleet officers through a crimson forest, the lush colors of returning d.p. Dan Mindel all but searing the screen. Meanwhile, Spock ( Zachary Quinto ) toils away nearby, attempting to insert a high-tech ice cube into the raging volcano that threatens to destroy Nibiru and its inhabitants — a dangerous mission that quickly goes awry, building to a classic “Trek” standoff between stubborn Vulcan logic and impulsive human emotion.

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The Enterprise crew has scarcely recovered from that one when, back on Earth, a terror bombing lays waste to a top-secret Starfleet intelligence facility and brings to the fore a new galactic baddie: a rogue Starfleet officer named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) who claims credit for the attack and, after an equally brazen follow-up, hightails it deep into Klingon-controlled space. The hawkish Adm. Marcus ( Peter Weller ) dispatches the Enterprise in hot pursuit, with this familiar-sounding objective: Shoot first, ask questions later, and avoid starting a war with the locals. Welcome to “Star Trek Into Zero Dark Thirty.”

Only, this John Harrison is a slippery sort who, when given the chance, claims not to be the villain at all, but rather a pawn in someone else’s deadlier scheme. And for much of its running time, “ Star Trek Into Darkness ” makes a good guessing game out of whether this mysterious stranger with the glacial glare and bones seemingly made of steel is friend, foe or — like the “old Spock” of Abrams’ first “Trek” — a little bit of history repeating. It hardly matters, because whatever Cumberbatch is playing, he’s wonderful to watch, infusing the movie with the kind of exotic grandeur Eric Bana’s wan Romulan henchman (arguably the weakest link in the 2009 film) largely lacked. Also making her maiden “Trek” voyage is the lovely Alice Eve as an ambitious science officer who lies her way on to the Enterprise deck and makes goo-goo eyes with the good Captain. She is not, it turns out, the ship’s only stowaway.

Having previously established an alternate “Trek” timeline in which all the events of prior series and movies still happened, but aren’t necessarily doomed to recur, Abrams and returning writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (now joined by “Lost” co-creator Damon Lindelof) here take that idea and run with it, invoking prior “Trek” lore when it suits them, freely branching off into new directions when it doesn’t. (Hell, there’s even some trouble with a tribble.) It’s a tricky business, balancing reverence with reinvention, but like the young Kirk, Abrams seems altogether more comfortable in the captain’s chair this time — not just in the large-scale action scenes, but particularly in the quieter ones, where you can sense his real investment in these characters and his confident touch with actors.

SEE ALSO: ‘Star Trek’ Premieres in London (Photos)

The film builds particularly well on the burgeoning Kirk-Spock friendship, with Pine showing reserves of vulnerability and doubt beneath his cocksure exterior, while Quinto adds gravitas to Spock’s eternal inner conflict — and his deepening romance with Lt. Uhura ( Zoe Saldana ). But make no mistake: The action, when it comes, is superbly executed, whether it’s giant vessels making mincemeat of one another, or the simpler excitements of old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat and foot chases through crowded promenades.

The best, even-numbered films in the original “Trek” film franchise were shaped by the guiding intelligence of writer-director Nicholas Meyer , who laced the Starfleet jargon with high-toned literary references and a gently self-mocking sense of humor. Abrams, too, manages to keep the mood buoyant even when the fate of the universe is hanging in the balance, more than earning his tears when he finally decides to milk them. But if Meyer’s primary references were Shakespeare, Dickens and Conan Doyle, Abrams’ are Spielberg, John Hughes and Cameron Crowe. In defiance of the self-congratulatory snark that has become de rigueur in Hollywood franchise fare, he brings a shimmering pop romanticism to “Trek’s” stalwart ideals of friendship, heroism and self-sacrifice. There’s something bold about that, indeed.

“Into Darkness” is a beautifully modulated and sustained piece of work across the board, with visual effects that seamlessly meld live-action and computer-animated elements, given further texture by old-fashioned celluloid lensing (with 65mm Imax used for key action scenes). Post-production 3D conversion by Stereo D ranks among the best of its kind. The Enterprise has rarely looked sleeker than it does on production designer Scott Chambliss ‘ sets. Adding the cherry to the top of this cinematic sundae, composer Michael Giacchino ‘s soaring score once again revives Alexander Courage’s immortal Trek theme for the closing credits.

Movie Stills:

Paramount Pictures

Reviewed at AMC Loews 34th Street, May 2, 2013. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 132 MIN.

• Production: A Paramount release presented with Skydance Productions of a Bad Robot production. Produced by J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk, Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci. Executive producers, Jeffrey Chernov, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Paul Schwake. Co-producers, Tommy Gormley, Tommy Harper, Ben Rosenblatt, Michelle Rejwan.
• Crew: Directed by J.J. Abrams. Screenplay, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, based on “Star Trek” created by Gene Roddenberry. Camera (Deluxe color, Panavision widescreen/35mm/Imax, 3D), Dan Mindel; editors, Maryann Brandon, Mary Jo Markey; music, Michael Giacchino; production designer, Scott Chambliss; supervising art director, Ramsey Avery; art directors, Kasra Farahani, Michael E. Goldman, Andrew E.W. Murdock, Harry E. Otto, Lauren Polizzi; set decorator, Karen Manthey; costume designer, Michael Kaplan; sound (Dolby Atmos/Datasat), Peter J. Devlin; sound designer, Ben Burtt; supervising sound editors, Burtt, Matthew Wood; re-recording mixers, Will Files, James Bolt; visual effects supervisor, Roger Guyett; ILM visual effects co-supervisor, Patrick Tubach; ILM visual effects producer, Luke O’Byrne; visual effects, Industrial Light & Magic, Pixomondo, Kelvin Optical, Atomic Fiction; stunt coordinator, John Stoneham Jr.; assistant director, Tommy Gormley; second unit director, Guyett; second unit camera, Bruce McCleery; casting, April Webster, Alyssa Weisberg.
• With: John Cho, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Peter Weller, Anton Yelchin, Leonard Nimoy.

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How The 2009 Star Trek's Time Travel Works

Greetings fellow time travelers, and welcome back to the CinemaBlend labs! Don’t mind the mess you might see around you, as we’re still cleaning up after several attempts to dissect the complex nature of The Butterfly Effect’s rather gruesome travels . The bad news is, I lost many lab coats to that experiment; but the good news is, I’ve fully healed from the side effects after one final trip. (Sorry folks, but those Butterfly Effect sequels actually do need to exist… for reasons.) Anyhow, the past is in the past, and it’s time for us to boldly go from here to there in the then and now with Star Trek’s 2009 reboot; where a dreamy Chris Pine awaits his destiny, and box office glory.

But before we beam aboard the IMS Blenderprise, and take off into time, let’s tidy things up a little more around the lab. And by tidy up, I mean I’d like to remind you that not only can you head over to the CinemaBlend Time Travel Archives and see out complete collection of studies in time and space, you can also put in requests for the future adventures. We’re open to suggestions, and without them, we might not have gotten to Star Trek as quickly as we did. With those pleasantries out of the way, and a quick diversion to the space elevator, as our transporter won’t be installed until Thursday, it’s time to boldly go once more into Star Trek history.

The Time Travel in Star Trek

Space… the final frontier. At least, it was until Star Trek started playing around with time. This series has seen it all: slingshot maneuvers around the sun in order to save the whales, and sailing across a temporal wake so that the Borg didn’t prevent ( Star Trek) First Contact . But in this latest example of cinematic clock turning, the very fundamentals of Gene Roddenberry’s iconic crew are challenged, thanks to some alternate history.

Who's Time Traveling?

Nero ( Eric Bana ) and the crew of the Narada, as well as Ambassador Spock ( Leonard Nimoy ,) aboard his experimental spacecraft, the Jellyfish.

From When To When

Both the Narada and the Jellyfish travel back from the far flung year of 2387, however they land at relatively different points in time. Nero and the Narada emerge in 2233, where they destroy the USS Kelvin and officially create the Kelvin Timeline. 25 years later, Ambassador Spock’s Jellyfish winds up in 2258, seeing these unintended foes square up yet again.

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The Purpose Of Their Trip

The funny thing is, in a franchise like Star Trek that’s always embraced conscious acts of time travel, this adventure is a purely accidental jaunt down the timeline. While trying to save the planet Romulus from a supernova event, Ambassador Spock triggers perhaps the greatest temporal rift in Star Trek movie history.

How Time Travel Happens In Star Trek

Have you ever wanted to time travel, but also leave a horrific mess in your wake thanks to generating a black hole in the process? Then friends, Red Matter is the perfect way for you to get into some temporal trouble in the Star Trek universe. This is, quite possibly, the most haphazard method of time travel; and we’ve already covered 12 Monkeys’ pull and prey method of throwing travelers back in time like hand grenades.

Theoretically, Red Matter is a substance that’s supposed to generate a black hole; so in that respect, it does what it says on the tin. Just one drop is supposed to be able to, say, “collapse a star, or consume an entire planet.” So don’t put this stuff on your chili dogs, folks; because you won’t be the one who's getting fed in that scenario. However, as Ambassador Spock attempted to save Romulus from its sun going into supernova, the resulting black hole quelled that particular disaster too late to achieve its desired effect. Which lead to both Spock’s craft, the Jellyfish, and Nero’s craft, the Narada, being sucked into its vortex, and emerging at two different points in time.

Star Trek’s time travel is inexact, and it wasn’t even supposed to happen. It’s also a one-way trip back into the past, as there’s no way to exactly measure where or when you’re going to end up. So Ambassador Spock’s future will always lead him to the past, and a brand new version of its events, the moment he finally emerges from the black hole.

Can History Be Changed As A Result Of Time Travel In Star Trek?

History can definitely be changed in Star Trek , and we see an entire timeline created as a result. After Nero and the Narada take out the USS Kelvin, killing Captain George Kirk in the process, the Kelvin timeline branches off from that moment in 2233 and creates a tangent universe where a major studio can rebrand a legacy franchise all it wants, in the name of keeping it fresh. Which means that while we watch a younger Spock try to choke out a younger Kirk, we’re observing a timeline being rewritten in real time.

Though we do also see the presence of Ambassador Spock in Star Trek’s shiny new Kelvin timeline. Maintaining his memories of the future past, as well as the future, the classic Spock is able to help advise on certain events that have come to pass in the original timeline. Of course, he tries not to interfere too much, as that would be cheating; a fact that a younger Kirk would call him out on in the middle of saving Earth from Nero’s destructive scheme.

As if that wasn’t the epitome of Star Trek time travel shenanigans, we also see Montgomery “Scotty” Scott ( Simon Pegg ) being given his own equation for “Transwarp Beaming” by Ambassador Spock to help beam Mr. Scott and then First Officer Kirk onto the Enterprise. Since the good and future ambassador was present for Mr. Scott’s similar actions during Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , that’s the most Trek way of proving that yes, history can change, especially when it’s convenient to the mission.

What Are The Consequences Of Time Travel In Star Trek?

For starters, transwarp beaming is a thing a lot earlier than one would have expected. But that’s merely the first consequence in the Kelvin Star Trek lore. On a more personal level, James Kirk’s father, George, never lives to see him become a captain. The original timeline for Star Trek events sees George Kirk dying at some point past 2265, the year where James becomes the captain of the USS Enterprise-A.

Throughout the events of the Kelvin Timeline trilogy, Star Trek would see new and exciting wrinkles present themselves in the timeline. Star Trek ‘09 saw the destruction of Vulcan, as well as the untimely death of Spock’s mother Amanda Greyson ( Winona Ryder ), two more major events that absolutely didn’t happen at this point in the franchise. In fact, we see Spock’s mother, as well as the planet Vulcan, alive and well throughout the series and films of Star Trek’s original timeline; which has Ms. Greyson passing in the year 2366.

The whole point of the Kelvin Timeline in Star Trek is to present a rebooted continuity where anything and everything can happen; and it continues to throughout its two sequels: Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek Beyond . One of the greatest examples of that sort of madness comes in that first sequel, where Captain Kirk sacrifices himself rather than Commander Spock, in order to save the Enterprise. Ultimately, this time travel madness might have sorted itself out in Star Trek IV ; because Chris Pine’s James T. Kirk and Chris Hemsworth ’s George Kirk were supposed to run into each other again , through some sort of temporal mayhem. But, of course, that’s an idea that’s probably dead in the water at this point, as both Chrises kind of had a bit of a dispute involving something even the Klingons cringe at: contract negotiations .

Thrusters On Full. Mr. Sulu, Take Us Out.

Well friends, we’ve just completed Star Trek’s Kelvin Timeline origin story! While there’s plenty more problems involving time travel in the Star Trek universe, for the moment they lie on the TV side of the house. So unless a rift opens between the world of TV and Movie coverage, we’ll be moving onto more cinematic adventures with temporal excitement. And our next installment is going to be exciting, as we’ve once again gotten away with traveling through time without destroying a ship!

I hope you’ve all got a bathing suit, wet suit, or other waterproof outfitting to wear, as it’s time to climb into the hot tub! Prepare yourselves, as we’re going to look into how the Hot Tub Time Machine duology uses time travel. Take all the time you need to restock your home bar, as well as hide all of your copies of Lisa Loeb’s “Stay” somewhere that these temporal shenanigans can’t erase them, and I’ll see you then!

Mike Reyes is the Senior Movie Contributor at CinemaBlend, though that title’s more of a guideline really. Passionate about entertainment since grade school, the movies have always held a special place in his life, which explains his current occupation. Mike graduated from Drew University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, but swore off of running for public office a long time ago. Mike's expertise ranges from James Bond to everything Alita, making for a brilliantly eclectic resume. He fights for the user.

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J.J. Abrams and Paramount Reveal Star Trek 4 to Begin Shooting This Year

Paramount announced that the 2009 Star Trek cast, including Chis Pine and Zachary Quinto, are being approached for a new sequel.

Paramount finally confirmed today something that Star Trek fans have wanted to know for a few years; that J.J. Abrams will be producing the sequel to Star Trek Beyond with Chris Pine , Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg and John Cho all set to boldly go where they have been three times before. A fourth entry in the rebooted Star Trek franchise was originally discussed six years ago, but for a while, there had been no word on whether a new Star Trek movie would be moving forward until today.

As reported by Variety , during the Paramount Investors Day Presentation, among the many movie and series announcements, J.J. Abrams himself made the announcement that a sequel to 2016’s Star Trek Beyond would be looking to begin shooting by the end of the year, and will also be intending on bringing back all of the available cast members from the previous movies in the rebooted series that began in 2009.

“We are thrilled to say that we are hard at work on a new ‘Star Trek’ film that will be shooting by the end of the year that will be featuring our original cast and some new characters that I think are going to be really fun and exciting and help take ‘Star Trek’ into areas that you’ve just never seen before,” Abrams said. “We’re thrilled about this film, we have a bunch of other stories that we’re talking about that we think will be really exciting, so can’t wait for you to see what we’re cooking up. But until then, live long and prosper.”

The yet-to-be-titled movie will be produced by Abrams through Bad Robot Productions and sees WandaVision’s Matt Shakman take over directing from Justin Lin, who helmed Star Trek Beyond to great praise from critics. It seems like this movie is looking to avoid the fate of the original sequel proposition that was announced and then abandoned in 2018, when it was alleged that the studio had not been able to reach a deal with Chis Pine to return as Kirk, or Chris Hemsworth, who was to reprise his 2009 role as Kirk’s father in that particular story.

Paramount Have Taken Time to Work Out How to Avoid a New Star Trek Movie Being a Flop

According to numerous reports, Paramount has been eager to return to the Star Trek movie series, and as one of their biggest IP’s, with multiple spin-off series and movies in production, it is not surprising that they want to get the best return possible from a third sequel to the 2009 blockbuster return of Captain Kirk and Spock. This time around, though, it looks like they are not coming into the project without having done some groundwork to find out if there is still an appetite to see Pine, Quinto and the rest of the crew reassembled.

Despite good reviews and a reasonable performance on the surface, Star Trek Beyond actually ended up losing money for Paramount, so they were not about to jump into another movie without making sure they avoid that scenario rearing its head again, and it looks like their research has confirmed that fans do want to see the cast returning to their roles once more. However, the challenge now before Abrams and the production team is going to be getting all of the actors together again.

Chris Pine has multiple projects already in production and an upcoming Wonder Woman sequel on the horizon. Zoe Saldana is in the middle of filming Guardians of The Galaxy Vol.3 , and has a potentially mammoth run of Avatar films coming up, while Keith Urban will be seen in Amazon’s The Boys in June, and Simon Pegg is working on the final Mission: Impossible movie. Fellow 2009 cast member Anton Yelchin will be missing from the returning lineup, following his sad death in 2016, just before the premiere of Star Trek Beyond . It was revealed at the time that his role of Chekov would not be recast in any future sequel, and that isn’t expected to have changed.

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“Star Trek” as a concept has voyaged far beyond science fiction and into the safe waters of space opera, but that doesn’t amaze me. The Gene Roddenberry years, when stories might play with questions of science, ideals or philosophy, have been replaced by stories reduced to loud and colorful action. Like so many franchises, it’s more concerned with repeating a successful formula than going boldly where no “Star Trek” has gone before.

The 2009 “Star Trek” film goes back eagerly to where “Star Trek” began, using time travel to explain a cast of mostly the same characters, only at a younger point in their lives, sailing the Starship Enterprise. As a story idea, this is sort of brilliant and saves on invention, because young Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Scotty and the rest channel their later selves. The child is father to the man, or the Vulcan, and all that.

Don’t get me wrong. This is fun. And when Leonard Nimoy himself returns as the aged Spock, encountering another Spock ( Zachary Quinto ) as a young man, I was kind of delighted, although as is customary in many sci-fi films, nobody is as astonished as they should be. Holy moly! Time travel exists, and this may be me! It’s more like a little ambiguous dialogue is exchanged, and they’re off to battle the evil Romulan Capt. Nero ( Eric Bana ).

Time travel as we all know, is impossible in the sense it happens here, but many things are possible in this film. Anyone with the slightest notion of what a black hole is, or how it behaves, will find the black holes in “Star Trek” hilarious. The logic is also a little puzzling when Scotty can beam people into another ship in outer space, but they have to physically parachute to land on a platform in the air from which the Romulans are drilling a hole to the Earth’s core. After they land there, they fight with two Romulan guards, using ... fists and swords? The platform is suspended from Arthur C. Clark’s “space elevator,” but instead of fullerenes, the cable is made of metallic chunks the size of refrigerators.

But stop me before I get started. I mention these details only to demonstrate that the movie raises its yo-yo finger to the science, while embracing the fiction. Apart from details from the youths of the characters and the Spock reunion, it consists mostly of encounters between the Enterprise and the incomparably larger and much better armed Romulan spaceship from the future. It’s encouraging to learn that not even explosions and fires can quickly damage a starship. Also that lifeboats can save the crew, despite the vast distance from home base.

That would be because of warp speed, which for present purposes consists of looking through an unnecessary window at bright lights zapping past. This method of transportation prevents any sense of wonder at the immensity of outer space and is a convenience not only for the starship but also for the screenwriters, who can push a button and zap to the next scene. The concept of using warp speed to escape the clutches of a black hole seems like a recycling of the ancient dilemma of the rock and the hard place.

But there are affecting character moments. Young Spock is deliberately taunted in hopes he will, as a Vulcan, betray emotion. Because Zachary Quinto plays him as a bit of a self-righteous prig, it’s satisfying to see him lose it. Does poor young Spock realize he faces a lifetime of people trying to get a rise out of him? Nimoy, as the elderly Spock, must have benefitted, because he is the most human character in the film.

Chris Pine , as James Tiberius Kirk, appears first as a hot-rodding rebel who has found a Corvette in the 23rd century and drives it into the Grand Canyon. A few years after he’s put on suspension by the Academy and smuggled on board the Enterprise by Bones McCoy ( Karl Urban ), he becomes the ship’s captain. There are times when the command deck looks like Bring Your Child to School Day, with the kid sitting in daddy’s chair.

Uhura ( Zoe Saldana ) seems to have traveled through time to the pre-feminist 1960s, where she found her miniskirt and go-go boots. She seems wise and gentle and unsuited to her costume. Scotty ( Simon Pegg ) seems to have begun life as a character in a Scots sitcom. Eric Bana’s Nero destroys whole planets on the basis of faulty intelligence, but the character is played straight and is effective.

The special effects are slam-bam. Spatial relationships between spaceships are unclear because the Romulan ship and the Enterprise have such widely unmatched scales. Battles consist primarily of jump-suited crew members running down corridors in advance of smoke, sparks and flames. Lots of verbal commands seem implausibly slow. Consider, at light warp speeds, how imprecise it would be to say “At my command ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...” Between “2” and “1,” you could jump a million galaxies.

I thought about these things during “Star Trek” because I could not help myself. I understand the Star Trek science has never been intended as plausible. I understand this is not science fiction but an Ark movie using a starship. I understand that the character types are as familiar as your favorite slippers. But the franchise has become much of a muchness. The new movie essentially intends to reboot the franchise with younger characters and carry on as before. The movie deals with narrative housekeeping. Perhaps the next one will engage these characters in a more challenging and devious story, one more about testing their personalities than re-establishing them. In the meantime, you want space opera, you got it.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Film credits.

Star Trek (2009)

Rated PG-13 for sci-fi action and violence, and brief sexual content

127 minutes

Chris Pine as James Tiberius Kirk

Zachary Quinto as Spock

Leonard Nimoy as Spock Prime

Eric Bana as Capt. Nero

Bruce Greenwood as Capt. Christopher Pike

Zoe Saldana as Uhura

John Cho as Sulu

Anton Yelchin as Chekov

Ben Cross as Sarek

Winona Ryder as Amanda Grayson

Chris Hemsworth as George Kirk

Jennifer Morrison as Winona Kirk

Directed by

• J. J. Abrams

Screenplay by

• Roberto Orci
• Alex Kurtzman

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Paramount announces yet another Star Trek prequel

It’s a prequel to the prequel, itself a sequel to another prequel..

Movie-industry shindig CinemaCon was the venue at which Paramount Pictures announced it has started work on a new Star Trek movie. Slashfilm reports Untitled Star Trek Origin Story will be a prequel to Star Trek (2009), J.J. Abrams’ glossy prequel to Star Trek (1966). It’ll be directed by Toby Haynes, most famous around these parts for helming episodes of Andor and Black Mirror’s USS Callister . The screenplay has been written by Seth Grahame-Smith, who wrote The Lego Batman Movie and Pride and Prejudice and Zombies .

So that we’re clear, Untitled Star Trek Origin Story will serve as a prequel to the 2009 origin story and a sequel to 2001’s origin story, Enterprise . It will likely be set before Discovery, which was conceived as a prequel to Star Trek (1966) and Strange New Worlds , which is a prequel to Star Trek (1966). And, look, if you’ll allow me to get a little personal for a moment, I am deeply overjoyed at the news. Given the dearth of origin stories, prequels and nostalgia-parades in the Star Trek universe, an Untitled Star Trek Origin Story is a welcome, necessary and life-giving addition to the franchise.

Let’s be honest, it’s high time we got something insular and backward-looking after so many years of non-stop groundbreaking, original adventures shorn from the burdens of continuity.

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Published Aug 26, 2022

Why Star Trek (2009) Remains the Perfect Jumping-On Point for New Fans

13 years ago, J.J. Abrams gave Star Trek the shot in the arm it needed.

StarTrek.com

" Star Trek ." Just saying the words carries an immense sense of history and legacy. Everyone knows about Star Trek — but not everyone knows Star Trek . To the uninitiated, the franchise can appear to be something daunting and challenging to get into, a near-impossible universe to find an introductory foot in, like the complicated comic book continuity of the DC or Marvel universes. And I should know because, once upon a time, I was one of them.

Growing up, Star Trek was something that I was aware of, but that was it. Like most, I knew about Spock , Kirk , the Enterprise , and Jean-Luc Picard , but I had no idea what any of it was actually about — or why it was so popular. In 2009, in an era before Netflix and other streaming services, you couldn't just find the first season of a show at your fingertips, binge-watch it all in one sitting, and move onto the next. For that reason, Star Trek just always seemed like something out of my reach — not because I didn't want to get into it, but because I literally couldn’t access it.

But lo and behold, all of that changed when Paramount released J.J. Abrams' cinematic reboot, Star Trek (2009) . I was sold on the movie the minute I saw the first trailers — it was epic and emotional, and it seemed like something I could get into without all of the baggage that came before. The perfect entry point for someone who doesn't know anything about anything, just like me. I bought tickets for the premiere, and I first saw the film in a room packed with Star Trek fans. This was my own personal "First Contact" with the franchise, and it was an experience I'll treasure forever.

As soon as the film began, I realized that while it was a reboot, it was also nourished by all that had come before. In the audience, I heard someone fondly chuckle at the sound of the U.S.S. Kelvin 's familiar radar sensor, and that was when I understood the immensity of what I was embarking on. This sound was followed by plenty of important callbacks to Star Trek: The Original Series that I wasn't yet aware of — the Kirk and Spock relationship, Bones' snarky quips, red alerts, the Vulcan salute, even the theme music. On the screen, names were spoken with a legendary weight, and events appeared to be dictated by fate itself. All of this elicited a thunderous reception from the audience, and I cheered along with them thanks to a film that included a stellar cast, an exciting story and an emotional core grounded in friendship and heroism. Of course, I didn't understand all of it but I thought to myself, "This is something I want to be a part of."

Once the credits rolled, that was that. I was now a Star Trek fan. My first foray into this universe may not have been the same as old school fans, but after the film, I was in it for the long haul. I wanted to learn more about Spock and Kirk, and why their friendship was, essentially, the pillar of the franchise. I wanted to see more of Sulu, Uhura, and Scotty, and all the adventures they went through together to spark a franchise that would get me to hear "Space, the final frontier..." for the first time ever in the theatre more than four decades later. Shortly after this, I bought the first season of Star Trek: The Original Series , sinking my teeth into an era that was far from my own. And I never looked back. Today, I proudly stand as a fan of the franchise, from The Original Series and The Next Generation to Discovery and Lower Decks .

In 2021, Star Trek is growing bigger than ever before, and I'm so glad to be a part of it. And yet, it never would have happened without J.J. Abrams' Star Trek (2009 ). Thanks to this film, I fell in love with a universe that had so much to offer — and that has so much more yet to come. As the franchise continues to fire on all its dilithium-powered engines, more and more people might be exposed to Star Trek — and some may easily find themselves in the same spot I was in in 2009, asking "Where do I possibly begin?" The answer is simple.

J.J. Abrams' first Star Trek film remains, to this day, the perfect entry point for new fans. It distills everything that is great about the franchise, roping it in an action-packed spectacle that has something fundamental to say about courage, and what it means to boldly venture into the unknown. It's a concise introduction to the franchise that works as both a reboot and a continuation of everything that came before, thanks to a carefully constructed story that involves time travel and an alternate timeline. The film may be a modern reimagining of classic characters and concepts, but they all remain true to who and what they are.

Star Trek (2009) is the first entry in the 'Kelvin Timeline,' and it can be enjoyed on its own, but the film is also an easily accessible gateway to the world Gene Roddenberry created all the way back in 1966. The film delivers a sense of wonder that I can imagine viewers experienced when they first saw William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy step onto the bridge of the U.S.S. Enterprise 55 years ago. Plus, thanks to a promising ending, it leaves viewers wanting more, a curtain call that effortlessly doubles as a springboard to explore everything else the franchise has to offer.

In 2009, J.J. Abrams' film was the shot in the arm Star Trek needed. Since then however, the franchise has evolved and now, the trilogy may no longer be the figurehead it once was. Some fans will even disparage the 'Kelvin Timeline,' claiming that it's too different from what Star Trek is truly about. But take it from this fan — it's all one big universe, and one doesn't take away from the other. Rather, the entire franchise is enriched by its various extensions. Star Trek (2009) and its sequels inform The Original Series , and vice versa. The film is an important cornerstone in the franchise's storied past. Not only is it a great film, it's a celebration of all things Trek , and it will leave you ready to hit warp speed.

And if you don't understand that reference, don't worry, you will soon enough.

A Timeline Through the Star Trek Universe

This article was originally published on May 3, 2021.

Ian Cardona (he/him) is a freelance writer who primarily contributes to CBR by covering various comics, movies, and TV shows. You can find him on Twitter @ianc_1701.

Stay tuned to StarTrek.com for more details! And be sure to follow @StarTrek on Facebook , Twitter , and Instagram .

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Spock: I would cite regulation, but I know you will simply ignore it. Kirk: See? We are getting to know each other.

The one where... we go back to the beginning ... with Lens Flare — Lots. And Lots . Of Lens Flare.

Star Trek is the eleventh movie in the Star Trek film series, released in 2009.

The Film of the Series and partial Continuity Reboot from Lost creator J. J. Abrams , featuring the characters from Star Trek: The Original Series played by a new cast, and set in an Alternate Timeline during the time period of The Original Series . Alternatively called J.J. Abrams' Star Trek , Star Trek 2009/'09 , Star Trek: The Future Begins (even though that "subtitle" is actually the tagline ), and Star Trek XI/11 to keep confusion in check with the other Trek films.

In 2233, The Federation starship Kelvin comes across a "black hole"-like spatial phenomenon near a distant sun. Emerging from it is a massive ship called the Narada captained by a Romulan named Nero ( Eric Bana ). Nero kills the Kelvin 's captain, and deploying weaponry vastly superior to that of the Federation ship, the Narada forces the Kelvin crew to abandon ship, with many crewmembers lost. While the survivors flee the devastating battle, a young boy is born amongst them: James Tiberius Kirk , son of the first officer of the Kelvin ( Chris Hemsworth ), who sacrifices himself and the ship to buy time for his crew's escape. This incident ultimately sets a new series of events in motion; one of them being James T. Kirk ( Chris Pine ) growing up an angry, rebellious young adult until he is recruited by Captain Christopher Pike ( Bruce Greenwood ) to join Starfleet.

As Kirk makes waves at Starfleet Academy, the Narada and Nero emerge again after years in hiding. The Federation scrambles its fleet to confront the warship, deploying the flagship Enterprise , commanded by Pike, for the first time. All the rest of the fleet is destroyed, with the Enterprise only surviving due to a brief delay in getting to the battlefield. When the Enterprise engages the Narada , Pike is taken hostage. When they learn the Narada is from the distant future and begin to put together the events that lead to that future, it falls on Kirk and Spock ( Zachary Quinto ) to overcome their initial mistrust of each other and on the ship's green, hastily put-together crew of cadets note  actually, concerning those with major roles, it's three cadets (one of whom is a lieutenant, and another of whom is already a qualified doctor), an ensign, a lieutenant, a lieutenant commander who was Reassigned to Antarctica , and a commander who was told You Are in Command Now —( the young TOS characters )—to somehow save the day.

The film also stars Karl Urban as Leonard McCoy , Zoe Saldaña as Nyota Uhura, Simon Pegg as Montgomery Scott, John Cho as Hikaru Sulu, Anton Yelchin as Pavel Chekov, Ben Cross as Sarek, Winona Ryder as Amanda Grayson and Leonard Nimoy as Spock Prime.

The first theatrical Star Trek film to feature any of the original characters in 15 years . Released seven years after 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis (the biggest gap between films to date) from which it takes a major Tone Shift and, believe it or not, to which it is also a loose Stealth Sequel .

Star Trek is the first entry in what has been officially dubbed the "Kelvin Timeline" that continues with the 2013 sequel Star Trek Into Darkness and the 2016 sequel Star Trek Beyond .

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Abrams: Star Trek Sequel Will Not Be ‘Remake’ – But Khan Still A Possibility

| November 2, 2009 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 499 comments so far

Khan 2.0? In an interview with MTV , JJ Abrams noted one of the advantage of the new universe timeline that was set up in the first film, and notes that finding a new Khan is no different than recasting the main crew:

Now that we are in a parallel existence with what fans of the original series love so much, we could introduce any number of characters, settings, references and situations that the original series introduced. Dealing with Khan would certainly be a challenge, but we had an equal challenge in finding our crew of the Enterprise.

It should be noted that Abrams was not saying Khan is in the movie, just pointing out that it is still possible, he went into more detail, saying

While I don’t want to approach the second film as a remake of episodes we’ve seen in the past. I don’t think any of the writers or producers are interested in just rehashing or throwing characters for the sake of it, and Khan is certainly the most obvious one in the history of the series for me, I do think that…nothing is off limits in terms of what we’re discussing. When Bob Orci and the others who know ‘Trek’ so well, when we are discussing stories, the fun of working with them is they know this universe so deeply they’re the ones who are always considering what it means to deal with the stuff in the past, so it’ll be exciting.

Listen to Abrams comments here:

More from Abrams at MTV

KHAAANNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

DON’T DO IT

…it’s a no-brainer…

“I don’t think any of the writers or producers are interested in just rehashing or throwing characters for the sake of it…”

Really? So you guys are going in a completely different direction with this one. Delta Vega, Spock Prime, or Chekov ring any bells?

Don’t do it. Use an original idea and create a story based on someone or something else. Star Trek II is my favorite out of them all, the Shat was awesome and Montalban was spectacular. Don’t try to out do the best movie of the series, create something yourself.

Dammit Jim, I’m a moviemaker – I don’t have original ideas!

How about Mudd’s men instead of Mudd’s women …….. not that there is anything wrong with that

NO! If we’re gonna rehash the series, I’d like to see Harry Mudd or Cyrano Jones create some serious universe threatening problem. Wouldn’t you like to see Harry Mudd unwittingly create a situation that threatens the entire Earth or some other part of the universe?

Worst. Idea. Ever.

Quit trying to go back to the damn well for a bucket o’ hermetically-sealed antagonist so often. Want to ladle out a pop culture reference to the die-hards? Try bringing back Gary Mitchell, only this time without the microwaved giblets and slept-in contact lenses. Make him a classmate of Kirk’s and his weapons chief, who likes to tweak Chekov’s fuzzy widdle cheeks. Don’t be so overt with the tributes and tip o’ the hats. Star Trek hasn’t had a memorable bad guy since the Borg showed up.

C’mon, guys, think: what sort of menace could there possibly be out there that your industry hasn’t milked yet, but would scare the jammies off of people?

Very cool. Obviously they are focused on the story and not a character gimmick to drive the next movie.

Bring it on! I’m ready to see what they do.

the bad guy should be playted by Andy Samberg as the guy in Space Olympics

Can we stop with the whole “threatens the entire Earth” plot already? Is that all Star Trek has become, a lame wannabe comic book film franchise? “Saving the Earth, Episode 4!”

Maybe Khan should kill spock prime, then use his shapeshifting ability to take over the jellyfish. Then maybe it could turn into a big pile of poo .

I am still holding out that we will not see Khan in the next film. I really don’t see any reason to go down that road, but I accept that my opinion is just that… an opinion. If the guys have come upon some clever way to make Khan work, I’ll go along with it. But since they are still, apparently, in the story-making stage, I’m jumping up and down and waving like a frantic idiot shouting, “We already had Khan, we don’t need him again!!!!!”

Look, I voted to see Gary Mitchell and Christine Chapel in the next film, and, while I could go along with seeing Klingons as the villians, I’d love to see the Gorn, or the Tholians, or one of the more obscure alien species cast as the villian. But I simply have no desire to see Khan.

Khan and lens flares.

All in all, I’d rather more creativity than re-imagination. Hollywood redoing Hollywood has never been worthwhile. Khan is a boring choice. If one must mine past Star Treks for inspiration, I’d rather they return to the old Enterprise!

Sincerely, C.S. Lewis

Now that the lawsuit is over with Harlan Ellison – Remake ” City on the edge of forever “

please don’t do it. It takes them at least 2 years to make a movie and we don’t have any tv shows to hold us over in between. That means the only chance (currently) for new star trek is the movies. So please don’t waste our time with a completely unoriginal movie.

I’m definitely open to any of their ideas at this point. They did a phenomenal job with Star Trek and I’ll trust them to do a good job with the new one.

Man, what’s with all the Khan hate? He was a memorable villain and an interesting character. If they handled the character right, I wouldn’t mind seeing new stories with him in it. I DO think that if JJ is going to do Khan, he shouldn’t do it in the sequel. He’s such a memorable bad guy that he should be saved for a few movies down the road (& possible hinted at in the sequel?). Especially when there are so many iconic baddies left to explore, the Klingons being chief among them. Heck, for that matter we haven’t even seen the Romulans (of this time line) yet…

The risk in writing Khan back in as a character is that everyone will be comparing the movie to TWOK moreso than usual. If they cast a really good actor though I think a lot of people would be silent on the issue though.

As other fans have suggested and your poll to the right – the addition of a new strong (Hot) female lead character to the Enterprise bridge; to be the new in-house antagonist to Kirk and to be a true rival to Spock, would allow for continued conflict on the bridge and greater exploration of all our human emotions.] > Lieutenant Commander “__?__ ”, a Andorian / Human hybrid > https://market.renderosity.com/mod/gallery/index.php?image_id=1648565&member > graduated second in her class to Spock from Starfleet Academy – current posting, first officer aboard the Andorian Federation Flag Ship – but she has been obsessed with a command post on the Enterprise since her construction began.

So the next time Kirk and Spock leave the bridge for a “landing party” we don’t have to see ever again a 17 year old Chekov in command of the Enterprise!

{Possible Canon – This new character could be the great grand daughter of Commander/ General Thy’lek Shran- http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Thy%27lek_Shran the grand child of his daughter Talla Shran— and her human Star Fleet officer husband?}

Again, just one emample…

There’d be such a flaw with having Khan in the next movie. JJ would have to introduce him, have Kirk royally piss him off, and then vow revenge; all in the span of 2 1/2 hours. To do all that, JJ would need do the first two things within the first 30-45 minutes or so. The next 90-120 minutes would be devoted to the whole revenge deal.

The character of Khan would need a multi-movie arc to portray him as well as Gene Roddenberry and Nicholas Meyer imagined. Those are movies that I don’t think JJ is up for making.

I’m so going to copy this:

-zooms out into the vacuum of space, yet is stil audible- KKKKKHHHHHAAAAANNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!

No Khan,no episode remake, please!!!!! Be original for the love of Trek!!!!!

I say Klingon female villain!

Please don’t do it; maybe down the line after this gang has a few movies under their belt, but not now.

KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNN!!!!

Do Klingons! You could do Gary Mitchell, he deserves his own movie and he’d be a good match for new Kirk. You could do anything from the Original Series that was a great episode that already has not had a feature length film devoted to it, thus, no more Khan!

And no more talk of old trek series cast tie-ins! This is a new alternate reality! No more gimmicks! Original ideas only!

Khan is still one of the best villains of all time, he doesn’t need a reboot!! Besides, nobody could match Ricardo Montalban’s performance. He IS Khan Noonien Singh! In my opinion, Klingons are the way to go!

Enough with Khan. Been there, done that, and very well, too.

No Borg. Don’t screw up the 23rd century with a 24th century villain.

Best solution?

THE GORN. Lots of them. What makes them tick? Why have they attacked so many Federation outposts?

Maybe you can tie in the creatures of Operation: Annihilate! with the Gorn. They’re overwhelming Gorn homeworlds, they’re pissed, and they’re taking it out on the Federation, because they think it’s their fault. And we can’t seem to communicate with them and convince them otherwise.

I swear, there is SO MUCH MORE to be mined from the original series than Khan again. Please.

Why explore Classic Khan when there is so much more unexplored Khan territory…like Gengis Khan, Zor Khan, or even the most nefarious of all…The Comic Khan.

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

We’ve worked this hard to reboot the franchise, so now we’re gonna rehash Khan?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!! Can’t we tell *one* original story? Please? Especially since we’re gonna have to wait three years for it?

Bring on the Gorn. Call him Gor-Khan.

Yes we Kahn? I don’t think so.

It always perplexed me that Star Trek [The Tele Vision] which had a virtually open ended galaxy of story line possibilities kept recycling episode plots. Of course I understand re-imagining the crew of the Enterprise for its past and our future (are you with me so far?) but bringing back an epi *and* a movie villain, I’m just saying…

FWIW, I don’t think sneero was such a great villain. But he had a monster truck.

You can get way bad ass out there in the universe so there’s no real need for the snarling boy from the Botany Bay. AND, you can’t use Ricardo Montalban anymore, and he was what made Kahn, not the writing. So if you have to recast it, go the freakin distance and create a worthy, nuanced, invincible foe. And hire a real actor to play her.

no khan please…it would be star trek ripping off star trek

Roberto and Orci are not the brilliant writers that this site keeps shoving down our throats that they are. Get some new guys who can write a story that is fun and exciting, not spock walking away from the bridge in horror after Kirk rips away his command and says his dead mother never loved him… and then become best friends out of that.

Stop exposing trek for your freakin paycheck…stick with transformers… and leave Khan alone.

11. sci-fi bri – November 2, 2009

the bad guy should be playted by Andy Samberg as the guy in Space Olympics ———————————————————————————————

Or, better yet.. LASER CATS!!! LOL

I agree, no more “threat to Earth” scenarios..

1. No “alien probe” or V’ger-type threat to the Earth 2. No Khan (at least, not yet) 3. No Khan-like/Nero-like/Schinzon-like, single villain vs. the Enterprise 4. No “super alien” Borg-type opponent

Something very, very original.. maybe a threat more “X-Files”-like in nature, more of a paranormal/mystery-type threat or disaster? (Some people may hate that idea. I’m just brainstorming, here)

No Khan, no Orci and no Kurtzman.

do harry mudd!

How about this.. the Enterprise collides with the Allspark in deep space, turning the Enterprise into a Transformer.

Harry Mudd is gay.

#31 “THE GORN. Lots of them. What makes them tick? Why have they attacked so many Federation outposts?”

I agree! The GORN. “Remember Cestus III !”

Hell JJ, you can reflect lens flares off the multi-facetted eyes of the Gorn and I wont even fraking bitch about it. Just DO NOT DO KHAN! There’s just some things that should be considered sacred and should be left alone.

#16 – talk about stale (TOS ENT)

I would love to see a new Khan with someone like Javier Bardem, as has been suggested elsewhere. Khan means business and he’s a villain that the audience would take seriously. Throw in some Klingons and we have a helluva film!

yes kurtzman/orci, no khan

People keep forgetting that if they do Khan, it wont be a remake of the “Wrath of Khan” it will be the episode when they introduce Khan

Khan can’t have a Wrath without being introduced now can he?

i would dig some khan flares in a brewery. ilea, or any hot bald indian babe would be sweet, too. and bring back janice rand! only this time, base her on lee whitney and make her a boozy sex addict. oh yeah.

but in this future, couldn’t khan be like a sweet, eco-friendly guy who runs a little space cafe? with like, batter-fried earslugs on the menu?

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Will the New ‘Star Trek’ Prequel Movie Change the Kelvin Timeline?

J.J. Abrams is once again boldly changing the Star Trek timeline, or is he? It’s complicated, just like Nurse Chapel and Spock’s relationship status on Facebook. 

Originally reported by  Deadline , Paramount has teased a forthcoming  Star Trek  prequel movie set in the same continuity as the Abrams series of films in the iconic science fiction franchise. While the exact details of the new film are still under wraps, the report states it will take place “decades before”  2009’s  Star Trek and is set to be penned by Seth Grahame-Smith ( Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter  and  The Lego Batman Movie ) and directed by Toby Haynes ( Star Wars: Andor , Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell , and  Doctor Who ).

Abrams was heavily criticized for turning  Star Trek  into  Star Wars , with some fans arguing that he was trying to show Lucasfilm that he was the right director for upcoming films set in a galaxy far, far away. Bad Robot is back to produce the prequel, which will be the fourth in Abrams’ series of  Star Trek  movies, so you’d think he’d think twice about choosing a  Star Wars  director. However, fans don’t need to worry about the story feeling like it’s set in another IP. Just like with  Star Trek , not every Star Wars  project is created equal, and one of the highlights of Disney+ has been the Haynes-directed  Andor , a migrant story about Diego Luna’s Cassian Andor, set before his introduction in  Rogue One: A Star Wars Story . Notably, Andor ‘s first season felt more science fiction than fantasy, paving the way for more “what if  Star Wars  was more like  Star Trek ” projects from Lucasfilm, like  Star Wars: Skeleton Crew,  which appears to be a  Star Trek: Prodigy-like show  about a misfit group of youths adventuring throughout the galaxy.

If Abrams had to go with a  Star Wars  director, Haynes is up for the job. He just needs to bring the same energy to the  Star Trek  prequel that he brought to  Andor , and both the pro- and anti-Abrams movie crowd will be happy. 

How will the  Star Trek  prequel impact the timelines?

With very few details about the film, it’s hard to tell. Deadline  reports that the new film is an “origin story” set “decades before” the events of 2009’s Star Trek , seemingly indicating it will be set before the establishment of the Kelvin timeline and could take place in the prime universe. 

The Kelvin timeline diverged from the main timeline in  Star Trek ’s opening moments when a Romulan named Nero (Eric Bana) travels back in time to 2233, destroys the  U.S.S. Kelvin , and kills Acting Captain George Kirk (Chris Hemsworth). Therefore, setting the prequel before that event can impact both the Kelvin and main timelines, including events in  Star Trek: The Original Series . Except, in  Star Trek , time travel isn’t so simple. 

What is the Star Trek prequel film about?

While we don’t know much for sure, one possibility is that the prequel could see the return of  Star Trek: Enterprise ‘s Captain Jonathan Archer (Scott Bakula). 

In 2001, Enterprise  (stardates: 2151 – 2155)   set out to depict Archer and the  Enterprise  NX-01 crew’s first five-year mission. However, the series was canceled after only four seasons, leaving fans feeling like the story was never finished properly. A  Star Trek  origin movie could fill in the gaps between  Enterprise season 4, episode 21, “Terra Prime,” set in 2155, and the show’s controversial finale, “These Are the Voyages,” set in 2370 but about the NX-01’s decommissioning in 2161.

Alternatively, Archer could return as President of the Federation. It was teased in production artwork for Enterprise ‘s Mirror Universe episodes that Archer went on to become Federation President , which offers another way for him to come back. 

Bakula coming back as Archer isn’t as far-fetched as it seems. Enterprise  was frequently referenced in Abrams’  Star Trek  movies. In the first film, when Scotty (Simon Pegg) is figuring out how to beam a person from one planet to another, he loses “Admiral Archer’s prize beagle.” After this, Archer exiles him to the Federation outpost on Delta Vega, where he first meets Kirk and the older Spock (Leonard Nimoy). Additionally, the plot of Beyond revolved around an  Enterprise  deep cut; the movie’s villain, Krall (Idris Elba), was former Starfleet officer Balthazar M. Edison, who commanded the  U.S.S. Franklin  before it was lost, a callback to the Xindi War.

This is all just speculation. While there are plenty of opportunities for Archer to appear in the new movie, it’s also possible that the prequel will sidestep  Star Trek  canon to tell a brand-new story with a fresh cast of characters. 

Are we still getting Star Trek 4 ?

Yes, with an asterisk. There isn’t official confirmation that a sequel to Star Trek Beyond is in the works, but “insiders” told Deadline that plans for a prequel film wouldn’t impact the sequel. While it’s heartening to read rumors that Paramount hasn’t given up on Star Trek 4 , there’s still much to be skeptical about. Star Trek 4 has been “in the works” since 2016, when Beyond hit theaters, and was originally scheduled for a Christmas 2023 theatrical release. But after Marvel wonder-man Matt Shakman left the project, joining Chris Hemsworth, Quentin Tarantino, and Lindsay Beer in their decisions to depart, the film was delayed.

(featured image: Paramount)

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Everything we know about Star Trek 4

Will captain kirk and co return for one more outing.

It looks like the only thing trickier than surviving a mission into deep space is getting all of your starships in a row long enough to send Star Trek 4 speeding into production.

The last time we saw Captain James T. Kirk and his pointy-eared pal Spock in action was in 2016 threequel Star Trek Beyond . Ever since then, updates on their next adventure have been sporadic at best, with news of stand-alone spin-offs from critically acclaimed talent and even a new prequel story drifting in and out of focus like passing asteroids.

Multiple writers and directors have boarded Star Trek 4 only to hit eject before any meaningful progress has been made, leaving this sci-fi tentpole franchise lost in space. However, a promising new update suggests that the crew of the USS Enterprise could be gearing up for a new mission in the not-too-distant future.

With that in mind, here’s everything we know about Star Trek 4 so far…

When will Star Trek 4 be released?

Star Trek 4 is currently without a release date. In fact, the film hasn’t even entered production so we’ll likely have to wait a few years before we can see the Enterprise crew back on the big screen.

What is the plot of Star Trek 4?

As it stands, we don’t have any details of what adventure Star Trek 4 will send audiences on. That said, we do know that the fourth film in the franchise is set to be the final outing for this particular chapter of the Star Trek story that J.J. Abrams started in 2009.

To say that Star Trek 4 has had a long and varied gestation process so far is a bit of an understatement. Initially, talk of a fourth film began before the release of its predecessor Star Trek Beyond and not long afterwards, auteur filmmaker Quentin Tarantino was reported to have pitched his own idea to Abrams in 2017.

This new take on the Star Trek story was being developed separately from Abrams’ primary universe and was reported to have an R-rated tone thanks to its violence and language. Despite gathering a group of writers to work on the project, Tarantino’s Star Trek ultimately hasn’t come to fruition just yet.

Madame Web helmer S.J. Clarkson was the next person to be hired to direct but dropped off of the film when negotiations surrounding the return of Kirk star Chris Pine and his on-screen father Chris Hemsworth fell apart.

Fargo’s Noah Hawley was then enlisted to take the franchise forward in a new direction that would’ve been starkly different from what had come before but involved the franchise’s same ensemble cast however his plans fell apart too, leading him to start work on the new Alien series instead.

Prison Break writer Kalinda Vazquez was the next person to be linked to Star Trek 4 before she was replaced by It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia’s long-time director Matt Shankman. He was set to direct a new story written by Pet Sematary: Bloodlines scribe Lindsay Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, writer of 2018’s Tomb Raider reboot.

Unfortunately, cast negotiations dragging on hampered the development process and it wasn’t long before Shakman left the project to tackle Marvel’s Fantastic Four reboot instead. Despite this, Beer offered an update in September 2023 that suggested that her and Robertson-Dworet’s story was still in active development.

“It's still on the tracks,” Beer told Collider . “I love that project, and it was another one that I had to hop off of to direct [Pet Sematary: Bloodlines], and that was a hard thing to do. But I love everybody involved with that project.”

The franchise experienced some promising signs of life in March 2024 when The Flight Attendant screenwriter Steve Yockey was enlisted by Bad Robot and Paramount Pictures to write a new Star Trek 4 script. While story details are non-existent, it’s believed that Yockey’s story is still planned to be the final outing for Abrams’ crew.

Will there be a Star Trek prequel movie?

Yes, a stand-alone Star Trek prequel movie is also in development from Abrams’ Bad Robot production company.

Set decades before the 2009 Star Trek reboot, the project is described as an origin story that will be written by Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter's Seth Grahame-Smith and Andor director Todd Haynes.

Who will be starring in Star Trek 4?

If Star Trek 4 does finally come together, the project will have to reunite the crew of the USS Enterprise. That includes Pine’s Captain James Kirk, Zachary Quinto’s Spock, Karl Urban’s Dr. Leonard “Bones” McCoy, Zoe Saldana’s Nyota Uhura, Simon Pegg’s Montgomery “Scotty” Scott and John Cho’s Hikaru Sulu.

Pavel Chekov star Anton Yelchin tragically passed away following a freak accident in 2016 and it is unclear how the sequel might address his absence.

Bringing the movie’s crew together on deck might be harder than it sounds, with Quinto recently describing the process as “complicated.”

“I think there’s a lot of other stuff, creative things,” he said during a convention appearance in summer 2023. “The fact that anything good gets made is kind of miracle.

“I think it’s about different people having different agendas and ideas about what it will be. And I don’t know if and when it will happen... And if it coalesces again and we come back and we're able to do it, wonderful. If not, we had a great run.”

Meanwhile, Pine has also shared his frustrations surrounding delays and being able to see up-to-date scripts. He even called the sequel “cursed” following its trouble getting off the ground.

“After the last one came out and didn't do the $1 billion that everyone wanted it to do, and then Anton [Yelchin] passed away, I don't know. It just... feels like it’s cursed,” he told Esquire .

“I know costume designers that have read scripts before the actors. I would say it's frustrating. It doesn't really foster the greatest sense of partnership, but it's how it's always been. I love the character. I love the people. I love the franchise. But to try to change the system in which things are created – I just can'’ do it. I don’t have the energy.”

Speaking to ComicBook.com in January 2024, Saldana said she would be “grateful” for one more outing with her galaxy exploring colleagues.

“I mean, I heard what you heard in the trades. I just heard they’re gearing up to do a new one with a younger, sort of, take on it... I don't know if it’s from the before or the after, but that they really still hope to grab all of us veterans and bring us back for one last round.”

“Listen, I know it’s a lot to wrangle a whole bunch of people with busy schedules,” she added. “But working with J.J. Abrams, and for J.J. Abrams at Bad Robot, was always just a wonderful and beautiful experience for me. So, if I get to do that one last time, I would be so grateful.”

Saldana reiterated these thoughts during a chat with The Discourse podcast in April 2024, saying “I still have hope”. She added that Star Trek “should live for a very long time, whether or not us as the original remake cast can come back. I don’t know, but I certainly hope so.”

If the crew of the USS Enterprise manage to get their act together, only then can then start to discuss who might be playing their new big-bad plus anyone else who may return – or be introduced – in Star Trek 4.

Is there a trailer for Star Trek 4?

Unfortunately, there’s no trailer or footage available for Star Trek 4 just yet.

Star Trek 4 is still in development.

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Screen Rant

Star trek: discovery movie & “crossover opportunities” discussed by sonequa martin-green.

Sonequa Martin-Green gives an update about the possible future of Star Trek: Discovery after the series ends with season 5.

• Sonequa Martin-Green hints at potential crossovers and movie opportunities for characters like Captain Michael Burnham.
• Season 5 of Star Trek: Discovery wasn't meant to be the end, and the cast found out it would be the final season after filming.
• While Discovery is concluding, fans may see familiar faces in Paramount+ movies or in the Starfleet Academy series.

Star Trek: Discovery series lead and producer Sonequa Martin-Green discusses the potential for crossovers and a movie after the show ends with season 5. Star Trek: Discovery season 5 wasn't produced to end the series, and the cast and crew found out after filming wrapped that season 5 would be the final season on Paramount+. But while Star Trek: Discovery i s coming to a close, there are possibilities for characters like Captain Michael Burnham to return in Paramount+'s streaming Star Trek m ovies or in S tar Trek: Starfleet Academy , which is set in Discovery 's 32nd-century timeframe.

In an interview with TrekMovie delving into Star Trek: Discovery season 5, episode 4 , "Face the Strange," Sonequa Martin-Green was asked what she knows about Paramount's developing plans for Star Trek movies. While Martin-Green doesn't have any specific info to share, she confirmed that Star Trek: Discovery movie opportunities and crossover opportunities with Star Trek: Starfleet Academy have been discussed. Read her quote below:

No, I wish I did. I wish I did! We talk about movie opportunities a lot. We talk about possible crossover opportunities. It’s tough because where we ended up was further beyond where any Trek is gone. I think we ended in 3191. So there’s very little we can do in terms of just not breaking too many rules because when we jumped to the future, that was our last shot. But I think that there are some crossover opportunities coming up with maybe Starfleet Academy . It would be a lot of fun to do a movie. I haven’t heard anything about it, but it could be a lot of fun.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Returning Cast & New Character Guide

Can star trek: discovery get a movie or crossover after season 5, discovery season 5 likely won't be the last we see of burnham and her crew..

Star Trek: Discovery ' s most likely future is to have some familiar faces appear in Star Trek: Starfleet Academy. Confirmed to be set in Discovery 's 32nd century, Starfleet Academy was set up in Star Trek: Discovery season 4, and Lt. Sylvia Tilly (Mary Wiseman) is pulling double duty as an Academy instructor and serving on the USS Discovery in Discovery season 5. While T illy has not been confirmed to be part of Starfleet Academy 's cast , it would be logical to believe that Sylvia would be part of the show.

Captain Burnham, Ambassador Saru, Commander Rayner, and Ensign Adira Tal would also be logical candidates for Star Trek: Starfleet Academy guest appearances.

Any Paramount+ streaming movie continuation for Star Trek: Discovery would likely be dependent on how well Star Trek: Section 31 starring Academy Award-winner Michelle Yeoh performs on the streamer. Section 31 has a sequel possibility, and that could include a guest spot by Captain Burnham or other Star Trek: Discovery characters. A Star Trek: Discovery reunion movie might be too early to predict with season 5 still underway, but fan demand could reunite Burnham's USS Discovery crew in their own Star Trek streaming movie on Paramount+. To quote Burnham's adoptive brother, Spock (Leonard Nimoy), "There are always possibilities."

Source: TrekMovie.com

New episodes of Star Trek: Discovery season 5 stream Thursdays on Paramount+

Star Trek 4 Has To Happen In 2026

• Star Trek 4 is crucial for the 60th anniversary celebration in 2026 to honor the franchise's legacy with a big-screen mainstream blockbuster.
• Star Trek 4 is in development with new screenwriter Steve Yockey.
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds offers an opportunity to honor the 60-year milestone with Kirk and Spock on the USS Enterprise.

Star Trek 4 needs to be released in 2026 to properly celebrate Star Trek 's momentous 60th anniversary. Star Trek: The Original Series premiered on September 8, 1966, and the franchise is going stong going into its sixth decade. The J.J. Abrams-produced Star Trek 4 is currently in active development with new writer Steve Yockey tackling script duties. Star Trek 4 has the opportunity to honor Star Trek 's 60th-anniversary milestone and continue the adventures of Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), and the beloved USS Enterprise crew in Star Trek 's alternate Kelvin Timeline.

In 1996, Star Trek celebrated its 30th anniversary with crossover episodes in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager . DS9 's “Trials and Tribble-ations” sent Captain Benjamin Sisko (Avery Brooks) and his crew back to the 23rd century to save Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the USS Enterprise. Voyager 's "Flashback" featured Captain Kathryn Janeway (Kate Mulgrew) interacting with Captain Sulu (George Takei) and Commander Janice Rand (Grace Lee Whitney). However, Star Trek ’s 40th anniversary passed without much fanfare, although Star Trek Beyond was released in 2016 to mark Star Trek' s 50th anniversary. Star Trek 4 must now seize the opportunity to release in 2026 to honor Star Trek 's 60th anniversary .

Every Star Trek Movie Ranked (From Worst To Best)

Star trek 4 has to release in 2026 for star trek’s 60th anniversary, star trek beyond, the franchise's latest movie, was released in 2016.

The 60th anniversary of Star Trek in 2026 presents a perfect opportunity for the release of Star Trek 4 in tandem with wider franchise celebrations. Despite persistent interest from fans and cast members, a movie continuation of the alternate Kelvin Timeline has been in development hell for almost a decade. Star Trek 4 offers a return of the Chris Pine-led USS Enterprise cast for what has been dubbed its “ final chapter .” While details remain unknown, the timing for Star Trek 4 is crucial. Ten years after the release of Star Trek Beyond , Star Trek 4 must embrace the 60th anniversary deadline to avoid missing a huge opportunity.

Star Trek evolved from a groundbreaking science fiction show into a cult phenomenon.

A 2026 movie release would make Star Trek 4 the centerpiece of Star Trek' s 60th anniversary celebrations . Aligning with other franchise festivities to blend innovation, continuity, and tradition would appeal to longtime fans and modern audiences and offer a unique chance to celebrate everything and everyone great about Star Trek . Celebrating 60 years since Star Trek began and evolved from a groundbreaking science fiction show into a pop culture phenomenon and multi-decade global movement, Star Trek 4 could unify the franchise's legacy with a modern generation and pave the way for a new era of Star Trek .

Star Trek On Paramount Plus Can Also Mark Star Trek’s 60th Anniversary

But a new star trek movie in theaters is a bigger draw for star trek's 60th anniversary.

Paramount+ positions itself as " the home of Star Trek ," but uncertainties loom over the future of Star Trek content on the platform, with shows like Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Lower Decks coming to an end. Multiple Star Trek series cancelations diminish Paramount+’s potential to celebrate Star Trek's 60th anniversary with a wide range of legacy characters through animation, archive footage, or live-action. In 2026, only two Star Trek shows are expected to be streaming on Paramount+: Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and Star Trek: Starfleet Academy.

Director Toby Haynes's Untitled Star Trek Origin Movie has been announced for a 2025 release.

Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is Paramount+'s best bet to honor Star Trek's 60th anniversary. Strange New Worlds is renewed for season 4 , which could potentially be released in 2026 following season 3's expected 2025 premiere. Since it also has Lt. Spock (Ethan Peck) and Lt. James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) aboard the Starship Enterprise, Strange New Worlds is Paramount+'s best opportunity to honor Star Trek's 60 years . However, the return of Captain Kirk, Spock, and the USS Enterprise to movie screens in a multiplex blockbuster like Star Trek 4 would be an even bigger event to capture mainstream audiences in 2026 and give Star Trek 's 60th anniversary the prestige it deserves.

All Star Trek series (except Prodigy), and J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movies are available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek: Prodigy is available to stream on Netflix.

Star Trek movies I-X are available to stream on Max.

Star Trek 4

Writers Steve Yockey

Studio(s) Paramount

Distributor(s) Paramount Pictures

Cast Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Chris Pine, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, John Cho

Franchise(s) Star Trek

prequel(s) Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Beyond

'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 5's Captain Rayner Ran His Ship Like a Pirate

Callum Keith Rennie also discusses coming into 'Discovery's final season, getting into prosthetics, and how much he has in common with Rayner.

The Big Picture

• Callum Keith Rennie's Captain Rayner brings conflict and depth to Star Trek: Discovery 's final season.
• Rennie discusses his experience on Star Trek: Discovery , praising the supportive cast and crew, despite the initial challenges of joining an established series for its last season.
• In Season 5, Episode 4 "Face the Strange," Burnham and Rayner must work together within a time bubble to save the universe.

As Captain Michael Burnham ( Sonequa Martin-Green ) embarks on one last adventure with her crew, Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 is bringing a few new characters along for the ride. Chief among those newcomers is the blunt, war-worn Captain Rayner. Played by Battlestar Galactica alum Callum Keith Rennie , Rayner is Burnham's new second in command on the Discovery , taking over after Saru ( Doug Jones ) took a different position at Starfleet.

Having lived through The Burn, Rayner doesn't have time for niceties and butts heads with Burnham almost immediately — so naturally, she takes it upon herself to give him a second chance when Starfleet is ready to cut him loose. Last week's episode saw him, rightfully, put in his place a bit as Tilly ( Mary Wiseman ) attempted to help him connect with the crew, much to his chagrin. In Season 5 Episode 4, "Face the Strange," Rayner and Burnham are thrown into a time bubble, forcing them to work together if they ever want to get back to the correct timeline and prevent the universe from being destroyed.

Ahead of the episode, I sat down with Rennie to dig into Rayner's backstory, what we can expect from him in the rest of the season, and what it will take for Rayner to truly connect with the crew of Discovery . During our conversation, we also discussed Rennie's history with sci-fi, what it was like joining Discovery for the show's final season, and what he's taking away from the whole experience.

Star Trek: Discovery

*Availability in US

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Taking place almost a decade before Captain Kirk's Enterprise, the USS Discovery charts a course to uncover new worlds and life forms.

Rennie is no stranger to science fiction, having had roles in such series as The Umbrella Academy , Jessica Jones, and Battlestar Galactica. As Battlestar Galactica was the series that turned me into a sci-fi fan, and perhaps Rennie's most recognizable role, I had to ask him about being a part of such massive and beloved franchises within the genre. "It's amazing," he said. For Rennie, even though Battlestar was also a reboot of a classic series , the show's success was a lot less predictable than the mainstay that is Star Trek . He explained, "Like, say Battlestar , when I started on that I had no idea where that one was gonna go. Discovery was already very established , but I actually didn't let any of that into my [head], because I went, “That's not gonna help.” So, I didn’t. Now, I'm feeling the world of it. Now, I'm sensing what the world of Discovery is and how many people love it, and how it fits. "

Discovery also isn't his first experience with Star Trek , "I watched the original. That was my thing, and that was it," Rennie told me. While he may have missed some of the series' in between, saying, "There's big chunks of time where I just didn't watch a lot of TV, so I missed all of the other stuff," he'll always make time for The Original Series when he comes across it, "even if the old Star Trek comes on, I'll still watch it because that was my Star Trek . Jim Kirk, and all of that. "

While we've gotten a pretty good sense of who Rayner is in these first four episodes, most of his backstory remains a mystery. Rennie revealed that "some backstory comes up in a few episodes." Part of his gruff exterior will be explained as we'll "get a sense of why he's maybe got a chip on his shoulder and has some unprocessed resentments about a bunch of things that maybe have played out in his work in a negative way."

Rennie Calls 'Star Trek: Discovery's Latest Episode "Amazing"

"Face the Strange," is such a classic Star Trek episode, employing the ever-entertaining sci-fi trope of sticking our main characters in a time loop, both to put an obstacle in their path as well as to bring them face to face with some of their own demons. For Rennie, the episode really put the science in science fiction. "It was like, 'Whoa! What's happening? I don't get it.' There's just so much science stuff and talk, so much jumping about to places and history and stuff." But he had high praise for his fellow castmates as well as the crew behind the camera." Lee [Rose] being the director, you're in great hands. Being in scenes with Sonequa, you know that you're gonna be in it , and it was great. I watched it again last night, and there’s just an amazing amount of stuff in there. It was just an amazing episode. "

In this episode, Burnham and Rayner are tossed back in time to the first season of Discovery , bringing them both face to face with the version of Burnham who's fresh off her own demotion in Starfleet . Throughout the episode, it becomes quite clear that Burnham and Rayner have a lot more in common than either of them might have realized. When asked if this experience might put them more on equal footing, Rennie confirmed that "he's learned an understanding of the crew." He went on to point out that we haven't seen the relationship that Rayner had with his own crew.

He explained: "We're not on the Antares talking about his crew, which I think is an important part that we missed, where you go, 'How did I see my people on my particular ship? And how well did I know them?' No one's asking me how well I knew everybody because I did, but if I've only been there a brief time, you're only gonna have facts." He admits that it is important for Rayner to connect past the surface level. "Through that particular episode, you learn and go, 'Yes, it is good to know what people are up to and where they're from,' because in that particular instance, it saved us. So, I learned a thing, and I give a, 'Yes. Got it. Thank you.'"

Rayner Will Have to Shorten the Distance Between Himself and the Discovery Crew

While it doesn't sound like we'll be getting any flashbacks to Rayner's time on the Antares Rennie believes that he'd spent a similar amount of time with that crew as Michael has with hers. "We didn't get to inhabit that, I get to make it up in my own mind," he said. "But for me, it was more like a pirate ship that I had. " While Rayner comes off as the more stubborn, stick-to-the-mission Captain between him and Burnham, Rennie doesn't think he was quite so strict on his own ship. He said:

"That's the way I perceived it. It wasn't some rigid, completely stoic, boss fest, but a little bit of a wild card ship. We're gonna go into things that nobody else wants to go into, or knows how to deal with, but we would. "

While the walls around Rayner are still pretty high, Rennie explained that we will see him "shorten the distance" he's put between himself and the crew of the Discovery. "There's a great bit, there's an episode where Burnham leaves me again to take control of the ship. There's an interaction with everybody in a certain way because they don't like me yet. [Laughs] And I need some help a little bit, but I've created a distance, and I have to shorten that distance between everybody." He went on to say there are plenty of "fun dynamics" to look forward to and Rayner's insistence on keeping everyone at arm's length will likely come back to bite him.

Star Trek has quite a long list of original alien species created for the franchise, and Rayner just happens to be a Kellerun, a race that hasn't been seen since Deep Space Nine . In classic Trek fashion, Kelleruns appear mostly human with the most visible difference being the shape of the ears. As he follows in the footsteps of the likes of Leonard Nimoy and any actor who has ever played a Vulcan or a Romulan, I asked Rennie about getting into prosthetics for the role. "Those guys are great. Rocky [Faulkner] was great, Nicola [Bendrey] was great." While it was certainly an extra step the process was brief enough that it didn't bother him to come to set a bit earlier than usual. "That was probably an hour, and I really didn't think about that enough to go, 'Oh, that's right. I have to get up earlier.' But I think we got it down to an hour and a bit for just the ears because there’s a lot of stuff on them."

Despite the agonizing wait of sitting in front of a mirror for an hour, Rennie noted that Faulkner and Bendrey made the make-up experience as fun as it could possibly have been. He said: "I don't love just sitting there looking at myself for an hour, but there's music and great company and coffee, and it became a really sweet part of the day, and then another sweet part of the day where I download. " It wasn't his first time getting into prosthetics, but his previous experience had been brief. After playing Rayner across an entire season, Rennie admitted by the end, removing the glue actually started to feel like you'd expect pulling costume glue off your ears to feel. "There was a point near the end where the glue-on, glue-off became quite painful for a while."

The Support of the Cast and the Fans Are Highlights of Rennie's 'Star Trek' Experience

While this is Rennie's first season on the show, it's the final bow for Star Trek: Discovery . When asked what he'd be taking away from this experience, he had nothing but high praise for the cast and crew. As a newcomer on a well-established show, jumping into the fifth season had a bit of a learning curve. "I found that coming into the show was difficult for me because it was unlike a show that I'd been on before. It was already very well established." He went on to say:

"I pat myself on the back because I made it through, and there was this wonderful group energy that helped me do that. The good naturedness of the show was something that I maybe haven't worked on. There was a wholehearted goodness about it, which was quite nice, which overlapped into how people treated each other and mutual respect. Also, I kind of blocked out all Star Treks in my mind, so I'm there not thinking of Star Trek history. I'm just doing scene-to-scene and working on this stuff, and then it finishes, and then I forget that there's an incredible vast following of the show that somehow you are now part of it like that. All of that, this is all relatively new to me."

As a new addition to an already established group, I pointed out that it seemed as though Rennie's experience mirrored that of his characters, and he agreed. "I'm excited for people to see the season. And then, coming into it playing, “I don't want to be liked. It doesn't matter if I'm liked. I'm there to do my job, like Rayner, and I'm doing it. And then there's the after-effect of an incredible fan base that seems to be very supportive ."

You can watch our full conversation in the player above, and catch the latest episode of Star Trek: Discovery now on Paramount+.

'Star Trek: Discovery' Season 5 Review: One Hell of a Final Ride

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