At the height of Vietnam, the cold war and the civil-rights movement, the
series represented the American dream in space: a ship called Enterprise,
consisting of a multiracial (multiplanetary) crew, seeking reconciliation
over regime change.
“It’s easy to forget how utopian the vision of Star Trek was,” says the
British actor Simon Pegg, who appears as the Enterprise chief engineer, the
up-beaming Scotty. “Which is why it is so beloved by people who maybe don’t
fit in. Because maybe there’s a universe where they would.”
Had George Takei (Mr Sulu) swooshed his way out of one of the Starship’s
numerous closets, the Enterprise would have been a fully inclusive rainbow
warrior, too. And Star Trek still claims its place in history (among other
contenders) as the show that provided American TV’s first black-white kiss —
between Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), his chief
communications officer, who yanked the spark plug from her ear long enough
to lock lips with her incorrigibly frisky skipper.
Unfortunately, Star Trek, perhaps too cerebral, was a ratings flop. In 1969,
after three seasons, it was phased out. But, in the early 1970s, the
syndicated repeats proved extremely popular in America and internationally.
It was but a short step to pop-cultural acceptance of “warp drive”, engines
that “canna take it”, and the notable expendability of the crewman in the
red shirt. Not to mention a natty piece of gear. “The communicator, which at
the time was absolute fantasy,” says Abrams, “we all have in our pockets
now.”
In the late 1970s, Paramount dusted off Star Trek for another series, but with
movies such as Star Wars and Close Encounters raking it in, the studio
chanced its arm with a feature film instead. Thus came Star Trek: The Motion
Picture (1979), the first of a now 11-film run. Eventually, the corseted and
bewigged crew handed over to Patrick Stewart’s gang from Star Trek: The Next
Generation, the show that begat other TV Star Treks — Deep Space Nine,
Voyager and Enterprise. Star Trek, Jim, but not as we know it.
“You can argue Star Trek hasn’t done very well, especially the last films,”
Abrams says. “It’s not an obvious, ‘Oh, it’s going to be a huge hit.’ It’s a
huge challenge.” While the most successful movie to date remains 1986’s Star
Trek IV: The Voyage Home, the last one, 2002’s Star Trek Nemesis,
disappeared into a black hole. In which case, why do a Star Trek film at all
and not just create an original sci-fi adventure? “You certainly could — and
I would love to, one day — do something like that,” he says. “This one
literally came out of being asked. Having said that, one of the cool things
about working on something that has a pre-existing awareness is that the
baggage is another element you can play with. So when you meet a guy who is
this hunk in this bar, just hitting on girls, thinking he’s being clever,
starting a fight and getting his ass kicked, and his name is James Kirk, you
know he becomes captain of a starship. You have an expectation.”
For all his professed nonchalance, Abrams knows his lore. “The movie makes
tons of references to things that obviously embrace what’s come before.” In
futuristic Iowa (where they still use Nokia phones and drink Bud), superbrat
James Tiberius Kirk (a star-making turn by Chris Pine), “the only
genius-level repeat offender in the Midwest”, is evidently
unenthusiastic about tracing his late father’s career trajectory into the
wide and dark blue yonder. Things soon change. En route to a showdown with a
cosmic biker gang, the Romulans, we learn that “pointy-eared bastard” Spock
(Zachary Quinto from Heroes), half-earthling, has been the victim of
speciesism on his native Vulcan; and we discover how the crumpled Dr McCoy
(Karl Urban) acquired the nickname Bones. Meanwhile, the comely Uhura (Zoe
Saldana), a xeno-linguistics expert, vaunts her, ahem, “excellent oral
sensitivity”.
“So I don’t think in any way this movie’s going to be an insult to anyone,”
says Abrams, “other than the absolute purist, for whom anything other than
the original series is some sort of affront.”
Despite the huge security surroundingthe production — one that finished
shooting in May 2008 — it has been an open secret that it marks the return
of Leonard Nimoy as an older Spock. The loyalists wanted Shatner too, and
Shatner himself was said to have lobbied for inclusion. Kirk, we are
reminded, had been killed off in Star Trek Generations (though Spock was
bumped off in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, then happily resurrected).
“I wrote William Shatner a letter and explained who I was because I heard
there was bad blood between him and the studio,” Pine recounts. “I said,
‘I’m just an actor who happened to get a role that happened to be James T
Kirk, and I’m not trying to usurp your status or anything.’ He replied,
‘Thank you very much for the letter. I wish you the best of luck.’ I have it
on my fridge.”
For Abrams, the most prized affirmative came from the Roddenberry family.
“Majel (Roddenberry’s widow) is in the movie,” he says. “I
recorded her voice for the ship’s computer, as she used to do. Rod, the son,
came to the set. We were embracing what Roddenberry had done so completely,
I felt like he was there. Obviously Leonard Nimoy was there, Walter Koenig
(Chekov) and Nichelle Nichols came, and we had people who, on the same
studio lot, 40 years ago, had done the original work. It felt like it was a
connection with them. We weren’t embarrassed by the changes in the things we
were doing. It felt like we were doing them proud.”
Abrams need not worry. A sneak screening in Austin, Texas, to a gathering of
Star Trek diehards elicited frothing adulation. (“It melted my pants,”
squealed one blogger.)
In a tongue-in-cheek YouTube clip, even Shatner has chipped in, denying he was
ever approached to be in the film, but confirming that, should there be a
follow-up, he’s available. “You can think of ways of bringing Captain Kirk
back to life,” he tells Abrams. “I brought him back to life in one of my
books very easily.”
The question of another outing rests officially on the performance of this
one. But with the actors already enlisted for another tour of duty, it’s a
dead cert. “I can’t really talk about that, but the characters are so
compelling I would love to see them continue on in some other adventure,”
Abrams says. “We have some ideas, for sure.”
Star Trek opens on May 8
