![]() ![]() Today, folks probably think of Wonder Woman first in relation to Pine, and Guardians of the Galaxy first in terms of Saldana. Sure, Chris Pine and Zoe Saldana were hardly nobodies when Star Trek came out, but after? They became huge. But one great irony of Abrams’ Trekverse petering out is that all the talent involved in the first film became mega-stars - mostly thanks to Star Trek. And by the time Star Trek Beyond was released in 2016, you could argue that the moviegoing public had moved on. Because the film’s first sequel ( Into Darkness) didn’t arrive until four years later, some of the mainstream goodwill and momentum of the first film was arguably lost to time. Thinking about William Shatner’s Kirk listening to “Intergalactic” is initially difficult but then endlessly fun.Ībrams’ Star Trek had a mixed impact on the rest of the franchise. Out of all of the retcons in this movie, this is easily the best one. In the movie, this scene is actually a billion times better because, unlike in the trailer, young Kirk is blasting “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys. Kirk driving a vintage Corvette over a cliff. To that end, the first trailer featured a tween James T. Its aim was slightly craven, but effective: do Trek, but make it “cool.” So, if you’re still of the opinion that conflating the stories of Star Trek with action-adventure-team-up-vibes is somehow wrong, then you don’t know your Trek history.Īnd in Abrams’ Star Trek, one can see how the goal was to create a series of movies that had the same relationship to its source material that Tom Cruise’s Mission: Impossible films had to that ‘60s spy-series classic. As a fun bit of film-history trivia, the original ‘60s Mission: Impossible TV series was sold to CBS by producer Herb Solow at the exact same time he sold the original Star Trek to NBC, with both shows debuting in September 1966. Three years earlier, Abrams had made his directorial debut with Mission: Impossible III, working from a script penned by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci (who also wrote the screenplays for 2009’s Star Trek and 2013 follow-up Star Trek Into Darkness). It was all about getting to know these characters in a fun, action flick that felt like Mission: Impossible in space. In many ways, the strength of Trek ‘09 is that its story is both nonsensical and easy to follow. The ‘60s series’ characters were vaguely familiar to non-fans, but this movie dropped those archetypes into a by-the-numbers-superhero-team-origin story. If Abrams’ Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens was guilty of ripping off the plot structure of A New Hope to get audiences to fall in love with new Star Wars characters, he took the opposite approach with rebooting Trek. Science-fiction world-building was less important than things looking awesome (WTF is “Red Matter?”), and fan service was kept to strictly the most mainstream variety (nobody was confused as to who Leonard Nimoy was, for example). Starring Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Simon Pegg, and Anton Yelchin as new incarnations of classic Enterprise characters, the 2009 Star Trek was audacious because it favored form over function. ![]() Ian West - PA Images/PA Images/Getty Images Mild spoilers ahead for Star Trek (2009). Very recent nerd history would be entirely different without this film. It’s streaming on Netflix, and it’s worth another look. In 2009, the man behind Alias, Lost, and Cloverfield changed the course of sci-fi cinema and catapulted the careers of several actors into super-stardom. ![]() While early MCU entries like 2008’s Iron Man and The Incredible Hulk were beginning to indicate the dawn of a new superhero boom, there was another nexus event in geek cinema. It had been a long time since a new sci-fi hit like The Matrix had really captured the public’s imagination, and in terms of “geek” movies, Harry Potter was continuing to prove that fantasy was probably a safer bet. The Star Wars prequels had left fans with mixed feelings, and box-office sales declined with each installment. In 2009, moviegoers lived in a very different cinematic universe than the one we’re swimming in today.Īt that time, the mainstream viability of superhero movies and science fiction was treated with much more skepticism. ![]()
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