Archive for Trek News

Opinion: ‘City on the Edge of Forever’ is the Ultimate TREK…Period!

01/23/2012 Sci-Fi Classics, Trek News No comments

The Enterprise command-crew encounters the Guardian of Forever…

STARDATE: UNKNOWN

As a boy, it took ‘The Next Generation’s’ high-standard of quality to peak my interest enough to start exploring its forefather’s three Seasons. Minutes in to The Original Series, I was hooked! And as I soon discovered, ‘Classic Trek’ has some of the best writing ever produced for television with The City on the Edge of Forever the crowning-achievement of the entire run. First broadcast on April 6, 1967 (episode #28, production #28) this penultimate episode of the first Season is considered one of the most critically acclaimed shows aired; it was awarded the 1968 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation. The only other episode with such an honor is the two-parter The Menagerie. The teleplay is credited to Harlan Ellison, yet was also rewritten by several others, including Gene L. Coons & D. C. Fontana, before filming began. Directed by film & television veteran Joseph Pevney, with pacifist & Kirk love-interest Edith Keeler, played by Joan Collins. This installment involves the crew of the Federation Starship Enterprise discovering a portal through time & space, which leads to Dr. Leonard ‘Bones’ McCoy accidentally altering history.

This classic episode has it all, meteoric social commentary with all the best elements of ‘smart’ Science Fiction blended together & tethered with a tender love-story for our hero, concluding with terrible loss & regret. A high-water mark for the series. A grief-stricken Kirk’s final words, “Let’s get the hell out of here.” before beam-up, gets me every time. Truly heart-breaking…

‘City’s’ Synopsis reads as follows:

The Enterprise investigates temporal disturbances centered on a nearby planet. Helmsman Sulu is caught in a console explosion during the investigation & suffers a heart flutter. ‘Bones’ is summoned to the Bridge & decides on a risky ‘cordrazine’ shot to revive him. Moments after, a further temporal-disturbance-wave shakes the ship violently; as a result, McCoy accidentally injects himself with an overdose of serum; insanity-boardering paranoia quickly sets in. Delusional, ‘Bones’ flees the ship by beaming to the surface. Kirk forms a landing search party comprised of two ‘red shirts,’ Spock, Scotty, Uhura & himself. Once on the planet below, Spock discovers the time distortions’ source, an ancient gateway, with pulsing, stone-like properties. When a question is directed at this ‘portal,’ a booming voice identify’s itself as the ‘Guardian of Forever,’ a temporal doorway to ANY time & place; soon displaying fragmented periods of Earth’s history in its portal opening.

The search-party soon locates the demented Doctor, but he sprints, then leaps through the portal-mouth before he can be stopped. Suddenly the away-team loses contact with the Enterprise. ‘The Guardian’ informs them that history has just been altered & that, as a result, their once-orbitting vessel no longer exists. It’s clear to Kirk & Co. that after leaping through the portal, McCoy has somehow reshaped the past & erased THe United Federation of Planets from existence! Kirk asks the Guardian to loop the history images again and he & Spock prepare to jump through to a time just before ‘Bones’ penetrated, in the hope that they can correct the timeline. At the correct moment, Captain & First-Officer leap through in hot pursuit; materializing in New York City during the 1930′s Great Depression era. With both their uniforms & Spock’s ears a shock to pedestrians, Kirk steals clothes hanging over a fire escape & the two hide in an adjacent building basement. There they meet Edith Keeler (Joan Collins), who identifies herself as a social worker of the 21st Street Mission. They apologize for trespassing & offer to work for her; she allows them to stay. In the meantime, Mr. Spock begins to construct a crude, barely-functional processor in order to interface with his tricorder in order to find out what part of history McCoy has altered. The Captain soon begins to fall in love with Edith as he finds her to be a remarkable visionary with a positive outlook about what the future of mankind holds.

McCoy materializes, & after an encounter with a homeless man, stumbles into the 21st Street Mission where Edith notices him & takes him in. Kirk & Spock are not aware of his arrival. Meanwhile, Spock finally finishes the interface & he and Kirk analyze the data. It reveals that Edith was supposed to have died shortly after in a traffic accident but that, having been spared this fate on account of McCoy’s actions, she instead went on to form a pacifist movement whose influence delayed the entry of the United States into World War II; this delay in turn gave Nazi Germany time to develop an atomic bomb and ultimately conquer Earth. Kirk must face the fact that if Edith does not die as she is supposed to, history will be altered forever. Meanwhile, Edith nurses McCoy, who tells her who he is & where he’s from. Edith does not believe his fantastic-sounding story, but tells him that he would fit in nicely with her eccentric new boyfriend who will later be taking her to a movie starring Clark Gable, an actor with whom (to Edith’s great surprise) McCoy is not familiar.

Later, as Kirk & Edith are walking to the movie house, Edith is startled that Kirk does not recognize Clark Gable. It prompts her to mention that “Doctor McCoy” does not either. Alarmed, Kirk emphatically tells Edith to “Stay right here” before dashing across the street to notify Spock. As he reaches Spock, McCoy emerges from the mission right in front of them. A surprised Edith crosses the street to join them, but fails to notice a fast-moving truck which is approaching. Instinctively, Kirk moves to pull Edith out of the way but freezes when Spock cries, “No, Jim!”. McCoy then tries to save Edith but is held back by Kirk; the truck crushes & kills her. A shocked McCoy exclaims to Kirk, “I could have saved her…do you know what you just did?”. Kirk pushes him away, speechless, and Spock says quietly, “He knows, Doctor. He knows.”

With Edith’s death, history reverts to its original timeline & Kirk, Spock, & McCoy return to the ‘Guardian’s’ planet to find the rest of the landing party where they had left them. Scotty remarks that the trio had only been gone for a few moments. The Guardian says, “Time has resumed its shape. All is as it was before,” and adds, “Many such journeys are possible. Let me be your gateway.” However, Uhura indicates that the Enterprise is ready to beam them back up & a traumatized Kirk responds with the instruction, “Let’s get the hell out of here.” The landing party is beamed away & the Guardian is companionless once again.

Brilliant story arc…highly emotional & well-structured. Classic television at the height of creative integrity.

JPabes X

After months of speculation, TREK 2 is finally a go! Principal Photography begins…

01/16/2012 Prequels & Sequels, Sci-Fi Classics, Trek News No comments

Following is a brilliant article from The L.A. Times (Hero Complex’s contributing editor Geoff Boucher). I must say, I haven’t been this excited for a feature in a very long time! J.J. is fast becoming one of my favorite Film Directors; and his writing team isn’t too shabby either. 2009′s Trek was BEYOND satisfying & SUPER 8 was one of my favorite movies last year…In Abrams & Co. we have trust!

‘STAR TREK’ SEQUEL: A COSMIC CAST REUNION ON THE SONY LOT – Jan. 13, 2012 | 5:37 p.m.

The “Star Trek” sequel is still way off in deep space – it won’t reach theaters until May 2013 — but there was a cosmic cast reunion Monday on the stretch of sidewalk in front of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf over at the Sony lot in Culver City.
Throughout the morning, the crew members of the Starship Enterprise were scheduled for fittings with the wardrobe department and the atmosphere was a bit like the first day of school with big grins, backslaps, hugs and handshakes. There was Simon Pegg (Scotty) and John Cho (Mr. Sulu) ducking into the coffee shop just before lunchtime and, on the patio out front, Bruce Greenwood (Capt. Christopher Pike) and cast newcomer Peter Weller discussing their golf swings and the enduring allure of John Le Carre novels. Pegg, with a toothy grin, stopped by Greenwood’s table to pay his respects: “Nice to see you!” Greenwood responded with a “My man!”
Sipping Red Bull and waiting for a lunchtime session with the cast and director J.J. Abrams, Greenwood said the “Trek” experience has been a true highlight in his career and he quickly added that he wasn’t referring to the box office receipts or strong reviews. He pointed instead to the friendships he has now with people such as Chris Pine (Capt. James T. Kirk) and Anton Yelchin (Mr. Chekov). Zachary Quinto as Spock, left, and Chris Pine as James T. Kirk in “Star Trek.” (Paramount Pictures)
“The family deal that happened was just amazing,” Greenwood said. “I loved the first one and I loved making it too. Usually when you work on a job and you love the experience, it’s rare that the film matches the experience. You get one or the other but this was one of the few where it was all there. It was just great. I was talking to Anton the other day and he was saying that they all got together on the bridge a few weeks ago and it was just like no time had passed at all. None. I had dinner with Chris a few months ago and he said he couldn’t wait to get back with the gang of people that makes this work. The same with me. They’re wonderful people and the show is like the icing. What’s great is the family. I know it’s an overused term and people roll their eyes but it really feels that way to me.”
The “Trek” sequel was aimed for a 2012 release at one point but Abrams became caught up in ”Super 8,” a passion project that was relatively small in its budget and shooting schedule but loomed large in the writer-director’s personal history. Screenwriters Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Damon Lindelof were in a sort of holding pattern waiting for Abrams to return to Federation space.
Greenwood said it’s clear already that the project has been worth the wait: “Everybody’s got their script – all printed on red paper with every actor’s name stamped across every page — and their brown bag and we’ve all signed these releases that are as long as your leg. The script is good, as you would expect. You won’t be given anything by anybody when it comes to the movie. It’s easier to push the building than get anything out of anyone. We have a huge stage here, I haven’t seen it. It’s exciting.”
About half an hour later, it was as if the entire coffee shop had been transported to Federation space; there was Pine, Zoë Saldana (Lt. Uhura), Karl Urban (Dr. “Bones” McCoy), Yelchin and Cho all parading by out front. “Hey man, you’re back!” Pine said to Greenwood, wrapping an arm around his shoulders. Saldana chimed in with a “Welcome back!” A moment later Greenwood came back to the seat on the patio with a big smile. “Who wouldn’t want to be part of that?”
A few days earlier, on Saturday night, J.J. Abrams hosted a party on the rooftop of Bad Robot, his production offices on Olympic Boulevard in Santa Monica, and at one end of the chilly patio there was an orchestra in scarves and winter coats sitting shoulder-to-shoulder. The reason? The event was a salute to composer Michael Giacchino with a special emphasis on his work on “Super 8.”
The starry sky party was attended by some of the top filmmakers in the Comic-Con sector of Hollywood (Jon Favreau, Brad Bird, Joss Whedon, Frank Darabont and Kevin Smith) and actors with Abrams connections (Urban, Jennifer Garner and Elle Fanning among them) and when the orchestra played the themes of “Lost” and “Super 8″ there were plenty of smiles. When Giacchino conducted the musicians during the soaring theme from “Star Trek,” though, there were even more grins and Abrams bobbed his chin with a faraway expression. Another cosmic moment…
Principal photography started on the “Trek” sequel on Thursday. That day, by email, Lindelof answered a question I had asked him about the pressure and possibilities of this next voyage. His response was funny and revealing: “I have had the good fortune to once again step upon the Enterprise bridge, surrounded by the primary colors worn by, in my humble opinion, one of the greatest casts ever assembled. Every single person involved with this movie has the same ambition — to do everything they can to justify the long wait … to live up to the lofty expectations of 40-year ‘Trek’ fans and those who are coming to the party for the first time. The energy is crackling. The warp core is primed. And we are, at long last, ready to boldly go once again. I hope to God we don’t screw it up.”

— Geoff Boucher

Beyond STOKED! The family has reassembled, and prepped to kick some serious Klingon butt!

JPabes X

Cinema’s Greatest Villains & Foes…

01/11/2012 Sci-Fi Classics, Trek News, Villains & Foes 7 comments

FEATURED BADDIE: KHAN NOONIEN SINGH, the genetically engineered superhuman tyrant & Kirk’s worst nightmare.
FAVORITE QUOTE: “No. No, you can’t get away. From hell’s heart, I stab at thee. For hate’s sake, I spit my last breath at thee.”

According to backstory given in the character’s first appearance, the Star Trek: The Original Series episode “Space Seed” (1967), Khan is a genetically engineered superhuman megalomaniac who once controlled more than a quarter of the Earth during the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s. After being revived in 2267 by the crew of the Enterprise, Khan attempts to capture the starship, but is thwarted by James T. Kirk and exiled on Ceti Alpha V to create a new civilization with his people. The character returns in the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, set fifteen years after “Space Seed”, in which Khan escapes his imprisonment and sets out to seek revenge upon Kirk. The character was portrayed brilliantly by Ricardo Montalbán in both the television episode and in the film.

JPabes X

 
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