Star Trek (2009)

Director:

J.J. Abrams

Writers (WGA):

Roberto Orci (written by) &
Alex Kurtzman (written by) ...

Release Date:

8 May 2009 (USA)

Genre:

Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

The future begins.

Plot:

A chronicle of the early days of James T. Kirk and his fellow USS Enterprise crew members.

Plot Keywords:

Captain | Vulcan | Alien | Starship | Planet

Awards:

1 win & 9 nominations

Cast

Chris Pine	...	Kirk
Zachary Quinto	...	Spock
Leonard Nimoy	...	Spock Prime
Eric Bana	...	Nero
Bruce Greenwood	...	Pike
Karl Urban	...	Bones
Zoe Saldana	...	Uhura (as Zoë Saldana)
Simon Pegg	...	Scotty
John Cho	...	Sulu
Anton Yelchin	...	Chekov
Ben Cross	...	Sarek
Winona Ryder	...	Amanda Grayson
Chris Hemsworth	...	George Kirk
Jennifer Morrison	...	Winona Kirk
Rachel Nichols	...	Gaila

Also Known As:

Christa & Christan's Big Adventure (USA) (fake working title)
Corporate HQ (USA) (fake working title)
Corporate Headquarters (USA) (fake working title)
Star Trek (IMAX DMR version) (Hong Kong: English title) (IMAX version)
Star Trek XI (USA) (working title)
Star Trek Zero (USA) (working title)
Star Trek: The Future Begins (Malaysia: English title)
Star Trek: The IMAX Experience (USA) (IMAX version)
The Ernest Castelhun Chronicles (USA) (fake working title)
Untitled Blake Allen Project (USA) (fake working title)
Untitled Paramount Project (USA) (fake working title)
Untitled Walter Lace Project (USA) (fake working title)
Wet Paint (USA) (fake working title)

MPAA:

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

Runtime:

127 min

Country:

USA | Germany

Language:

English

Colour:

Colour

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | SDDS | Dolby Digital | Sonics-DDP (IMAX version)

Certification:

USA:PG-13 (certificate #44847) | South Korea:12 | UK:12A | Netherlands:12 | Ireland:12A | Finland:K-13 | Singapore:PG | Norway:11 | Switzerland:10 (canton of Geneva) | Switzerland:10 (canton of Vaud) | Australia:M | Portugal:M/12 | Italy:T | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PG (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba/Ontario) | Brazil:12 | Sweden:11 | Philippines:G (MTRCB) | Hong Kong:IIA | Argentina:Atp | Peru:PT | Iceland:10 | Germany:12 | South Africa:10V | New Zealand:M | Mexico:B | France:U

Filming Locations:

Bakersfield, California, USA

Company:

Paramount Pictures

Trivia:

This is Leonard Nimoy's first live-action film role since Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991).

Goofs:

Incorrectly regarded as goofs: In the scene at the Star Fleet outpost on Delta Vega , Mr. Scott says he had a transporter mishap with "Admiral Archer's prized beagle". The series "Enterprise" (2001) with Archer was set around 100 years before the events of the movie. Nero traveled 154 years into the past from 2387 to 2233. Spock arrived 25 years later, in the present, which is the year 2258. Enterprise was set in 2151 meaning Archer would be around 140-150 years old. So it is theoretically possible that he is still alive. His Starfleet record shown briefly in the two parter "In A Mirror Darkly" states he was at the launch of the USS Enterprise NCC-1701. Also the Beagle they are referring to is obviously not the same dog from the series Enterprise. It is also possible that Archer had children, and that an "Admiral Archer" is his offspring. A Star Fleet officer with the surname Archer appears on Star Trek: Voyager, indicating his progeny have a tendency to join Star Fleet. (It's also entirely possible that this Admiral Archer is no relation at all to the Archer of the Enterprise series - "Archer" is not an uncommon surname in English-speaking nations, nor are beagles rare as pets.)

Quotes:

Spock: [standing across Lt. Uhura before he and Kirk are about to be beamed onto the Romulan warship] I will be back.
Lt. Nyota Uhura: [leaning in] You better be! I'll be monitoring your frequency.
Spock: [actually quite emotional] Thank you, Nyota.
James T. Kirk: [after Uhura leaves] So her first name's Nyota?
Spock: I have no comment on the matter.

Movie Connections:

References Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)

Soundtrack:

Sabotage

What a production - cheesy bits forgiven!

There was no way that this reboot was going to avoid all references to either the original series of Star Trek or the other spin-off series - anyone going in to see this film had to accept that as a given. But any cheesy bits (of which there were relatively few) are blown away by the sheer beauty and bravado of this film.

I was a fairly big Trekkie in my youth, but in the last 10 years only really kept up with it by watching a few new episodes here and there and seeing the big screen outings (OK, I admit that I have all 10 films on special edition DVD - £47 was a bargain!) - but Abrams' vision here has me thinking the new franchise will be even better than what has come before.

What made this film special for me was not the story (remarkably good, bearing in mind that, like the first film in any new franchise, it's backbone was character development). What made this film for me was the....photography? Can you even call CGI photography? Well, either way, this film was a visual feast. The way that scale was conveyed was breath-taking. I'm not sure whether I read this somewhere or if I can take credit for it myself, but the difference came in the way that Abrams shoved aside the traditional Star Trek view of Enterprise as a lumbering naval ship and took a more Star Wars-esquire dogfight approach. This has set a high standard for a new era of Star Trek that I hope will spawn at least a couple more films.

It's not that I wasn't impressed with the character development, the acting, the script or the story - it's just that this film looked so gorgeous that I haven't been able to think of anything else since I saw it last night! But sufficed to say, this was overall an excellent feature. It might not quite deserve a 100% rating, but it's worth more than 90% in my eyes - so, by rounding up, it gets 10/10 from me! Final warning: see this film in the cinema. Do not wait for it to come out on DVD. It. Will. Not. Do. It. Justice.

JJ, you've won a fan!