Star Trek director J.J. Abrams and writer Roberto Orci have confirmed that they intend for the Star Trek sequel to take a cue from Battlestar Galactica’s approach to story telling.
Well, they didn’t exactly use those words, but they did explicitly confirm their intentions are to write a story infused with modern day allegories.
Leonard Nimoy Mind Melds William Shatner at Dragon*Con 2009
William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy attended Dragon*Con 2009 n Atlanta, GA. over the weekend and provided fans with a hilarious panel presentation during which a few interesting things emerged.
First, William Shatner hasn’t seen Star Trek. He’d like you to believe the reason is he’s simply been too busy.
Second, there are no plans, at least at this stage, for Leonard Nimoy to reprise his role as Spock in the sequel to J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek.
I could summarize the rest for you, but then I’d rob you of your chance to catch some very humorous moments of banter being exchanged between the two actors. Instead, grab a coffee, sit back and relax. You can watch the entire panel presentation after the jump.
On Friday Paramount will be re-releasing J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek in almost 100 IMAX locations.
Under normal circumstances a film will run for four weeks in an IMAX theater. Star Trek’s original run was cut short due to an IMAX commitment to play Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian instead. Since then Star Trek has had to wait while Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen and Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince completed their IMAX runs.
The re-release will only run for two weeks, so take the opportunity to see it on the big screen while you can.
Source: Variety
On November 17 Amazon are releasing an exclusive Limited Edition (5000 only) Star Trek Blu-ray set that include an 8.5 inch replica solid metal USS Enterprise.
Star Trek fans will want to move fast on this collectible as it’s high quality and because it’s available for pre-order now I have no doubt it won’t be available for long.
'Star Trek' Director J.J. Abrams and Composer Michael Giacchino
Recently Michael Giacchino was nominated for ‘Film Composer of the Year’ in the upcoming 2009 World Soundtrack Awards for his scores to Star Trek, Up, and Land of the Lost. But those aren’t the only scores he worked on throughout the year. He also composed the scores to three short films, the television shows Lost and Fringe and more.
So how does he find the time to manage such an overwhelming, deadline driven workload? Like many other film and television composers, Giacchino spreads the love.
The nominees in the 9th Annual World Soundtrack Awards have been named by the World Soundtrack Academy.
There are three principal categories: Film Composer of the Year, Best Original Score of the Year and Best Original Song Written Directly for a Film. The sci-fi and fantasy genres only received nods under the Film Composer category.
Star Trek Magazine #20 includes an interview with J.J. Abrams, an interview with the Borg Queen Alice Krige, and a rundown on the history of the Borg. Here are extracts from each of those features:
Excerpt from the interview with J.J. Abrams
Q. Every director approaches a script differently initially; when you read a script for the first time, do you visualize it, hear it, and see it edited?
J.J. Abrams: When I’m writing something, I tend to see it specifically, at least in ways that are usually more clear than I even realize – meaning, I’ll see things in a certain direction. I’ll see the composition of a shot or a sequence. But because it’s such a collaboration, part of the fun is discovery. The actors that you get, the director of photography you work with, the production designers: they all have ideas. While you may have a certain vision, there’s an immense amount of flexibility and fluidity that you have to approach any project with that accounts for the unexpected, which is usually the thing that makes it good.
Paramount have issued a press release confirming the DVD and Blu-ray release details of Star Trek.
The highly successful film will received three separate releases:
all of which will hit the stores November 17, 2009.
Here is the complete official press release:
'Star Trek' Director J.J. Abrams and Composer Michael Giacchino
The latest issue of ‘Star Trek Magazine’ features an interview with Star Trek music composer Michael Giacchino. Here’s a short excerpt from that interview in which he explains why the direction of the score went towards sad and brooding themes.
Your approach to the score is very different from the John Williams template from Star Wars…
Michael Giacchino: Quite honestly, that was the first direction we went in, and I had written several themes that we’re in that space opera kind of vein, somewhere between what Jerry Goldsmith and John Williams did, in that language of what we’ve all come to know as ’space music.’ On every one of them, it felt right for a big space movie, but it didn’t feel like our movie. Again it goes back to the idea that we were trying to do something that wasn’t exactly what you had seen or heard before. We wanted to do something that was a little different, space movies don’t have to have this sound.
J.J. [Abrams] always wanted to make it about the character. He’d say that the theme for this movie can’t be polished, it can’t be soaring, it has to have an almost unfinished feel in the way that Kirk is almost an unfinished character. He’s not a finished person he’s getting there but he’s not there. He’s a little rough around the edges. J.J. wanted something that was somewhat sad, somewhat brooding. That is clearly not what Star Trek has been in the past, or Star Wars, or anything that would normally go in that direction.
I think he was absolutely right to say what he said and it really took the music in a different direction. We are dealing with the start of the relationships with these characters that we know so well. It’s a tough beginning for them, not an easy one. Any time we did try to be too heroic or too traditional, it felt wrong, and not true to what was going on emotionally in the story. Musically, had we gone in a direction that it had gone before, it might have felt hollow. It wouldn’t have felt like we were taking it anywhere different. I feel like it really needed to be treated differently than it has been the last 10 years.
On-sale dates: US Issue #19, on sale now / UK Issue #146, on sale 9 July
For more information and to subscribe visit:
US: http://titanmagazines.com/startrek
UK: http://titanmagazines.co.uk/startrek
Image courtesy of ScoringSessions.com
Terminator Salvation continued to do wonders for Sony over the weekend by staying on top of the international box office with an estimated $46.1 million dollar haul. The film stole the no.1 spot in 30 different countries.
The fourth Terminator film is now heading towards cracking the $300M mark having raked in $165.5 million on the international circuit and $113M on the US circuit.
Although Star Trek is currently the highest grossing movie of 2009 as a result of a dominating US box office performance, Terminator Salvation has now well and truly eclipsed it on the international circuit with Star Trek’s international tally beginning to level out at $119M.
Further, Star Trek has now exhausted its release territories whilst Terminator Salvation has yet to be released in Mexico, one of the top 10 international markets. Although Star Trek’s total haul is still a way off (currently around $350M), the possibility remains that Terminator Salvation could eclipse Star Trek’s overall gross sometime in August (after its Mexican release on July 31).
Figures via THR and Box Office Mojo and are subject to further updates
