JJ Abrams Completes ‘Star Trek’ Edits
JJ Abrams spoke briefly with MTV News about Star Trek, allowing us a chance to show off the new banner released today by Paramount Pictures.
The film’s trailer has wowed crowds and Abrams has completed editing the movie, which doesn’t up until May 8, 2009.
He admitted not everything shot will make it into the final cut. “You make a movie, and I think you always find yourself losing things here and there, embellishing things. It’s sort of par for the course. They’ll probably end up as deleted scenes on the DVD.”
Abrams noted that the film is intended for the widest audience possible but there remain nods to the diehard fans who have stuck with the franchise though some very lean times. “I think what you’ll see is there are — both story-wise and performance-wise, visually and aurally — many connections to what is familiar and what has come before. Which for the new fans of Star Trek, the newcomers to the world, will be irrelevant. But for those people who are fans and who hope for or expect certain familiar nods, they will undoubtedly get those,” he said.
He also confirmed that Leonard Nimoy’s Spock will be more than just a mere token appearance. “He’s in the movie, and his role is critical. I always think "cameo" feels like a role that the movie could exist without. This is critical, emotional and also a story element.
When asked to compare his film with the previous Trek films, Abrams spoke about how they pick up from the television series where everyone has been introduced and the crew knows one another. His film, in contrast, takes things back to those very early days.
“But on a much more practical level, Star Trek has never had the opportunity, nor the resources, to be realized in this way,” he said. “Things like the ships and the battles and the planets and the chases and the action sequences … and do them in a way that felt thrilling and terrifying and entertaining in a way that the show and the prior movies simply couldn’t afford to do. I feel we were able to bring to life, in a way we’ve never seen before, what it is to be a member of Starfleet. And that’s kind of cool.”