Star Trek: The Young Hipster Generation

Posted by Josh Radde (josh@filmschoolrejects.com) on May 1, 2008

J.J. Abrams is many things. He produces uber-geeky television shows like “Lost” and “Alias.” He produces interesting guerilla monster films like Cloverfield. He makes better than average action flicks like Mission: Impossible 3 (still a very under-rated film, even by Cruise standards). However, one thing Abrams is not, and this may surprise you since he’s decided to invest himself in it, is a Star Trek fan. Abrams, like many of the people his age and under, grew up a Star Wars fanatic. So why, then, is a Yoda lover filming Spock?

Abrams claims it was a chance to jump at the opportunity to make “something that I wanted to see.” Fwah? Basically, Abrams is not making this film for Star Trek fans (Trekkies). He’s not even making it for Star Wars fans, Potter fans, or the lovable sub-set of Twilight fans either—he’s trying to make it accessible to everybody.

“To take the characters, the thoughtfulness, the personalities, the sense of adventure, the idea of humanity working together, the sense of social commentary and innovation, all that stuff,” Abrams said. “To take it and apply it in a way that felt genuinely thrilling,” as if to suggest the Star Trek films have not been.

Actually, I don’t know how I feel about this bit of news. It’s true that the last Trek film, Nemesis, did horrible at the box-office. The reason for that was mainly due to a cast and storyline that only appealed to Star Trek faithful. This time around, Abrams has put a bunch of young people (and Simon Pegg) in the roles and is hoping to create buzz amongst all sorts of fan-bases. And as much as I agree with that, I don’t agree with a director not loving the source material. To me, that would be like Peter Jackson thinking Lord of the Rings was “meh” but saying, “Hey, I can get people to see this.”

That being said, I’m not accusing Abrams of being Brett Ratner. I think he’ll treat this film with the type of energy and gusto he puts into everything and he has said that the writer is a “devout Trekker”* so at least the Star Trek mythology will be well represented on paper. As for Abrams’ Star Wars fascination: George Lucas’ ILM will be doing the CGI.

Star Trek hits theaters next May

6 Degrees of… Simon Pegg to William Shatner
Pegg was in Abrams’ M:I-3 with Tom Cruise, who was in The Outsiders with Matt Dillon, who co-starred with the woefully miscast Sandra Bullock in Crash, who lit up the screens in Miss Congeniality 2: Armed and Fabulous featuring Mr. William Shatner

* Someone pointed this out in the talkback for Kevin’s latest WTF — is it Trekker or Trekkie? I always thought it was Trekkie. Does it change if it’s pluralized? Is it Trekker if singular or did Abrams mis-speak?

Read more articles by Josh Radde