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Abrams: Star Trek getting a modern take |
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Written by Derek Kessler on
Thursday, 01 May 2008
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 JJ Abrams is as usual, tight-lipped about the plot of Star Trek (2009), no matter how many times he is asked by the press about the movie. Speaking with the Associated Press, Abrams merely said, “It's a chance to see what Kirk and Spock would look like done now.” Some Abrams has taken a lot of Trekkie-branded flak for admitting that he’s not the biggest of Trek fans, but he gave the AP his reason for taking on the project: “It was an opportunity to take what I think has been a maligned world – to sound crass, a franchise – and treat it in a way that made it something that I wanted to see.”
That sound you hear is Trekkies worldwide trying to put the keys back onto their keyboard after ripping them off in a fit of rage. This following quote probably won’t help: “The whole point was to try to make this movie for fans of movies, not fans of Star Trek, necessarily.”
Now, before you put a fist through your computer screen, take a look at where Star Trek was just a few years ago. Even though Star Trek Nemesis was universally praised by the fans and even by many critics, it had a poor box office performance, barely breaking even with the combined domestic and international markets – with a budget of just $60 million. At the same time, Star Trek: Enterprise struggled through all four of its seasons, closing out the final season with an average viewership of 2.81 million viewers, while shows like Abrams' Lost getting over 16 million viewers and CSI netting 26 million. Oh, and American Idol with 35.5 million viewers.
While doubtless some will argue that it is these 3 million loyal Trekkies that have sustained the franchise this far, with the budget that JJ Abrams has been handed for ST09 ($150 million) he can’t make a movie for that small of an audience. That said, Abrams hasn’t forgotten about the fans, nor have his writers, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.
 If you’re a fan, we’ve got one of the writers who’s a devout Trekker, so we were able to make sure we were serving the people who are completely enamored with Star Trek. But we are not make the movie for that contingent alone. You can’t really make a movie for them. As soon as you start to guess what you think they are going to want to see, you’re in trouble. You have to make the movie in many ways for what you want to see yourself, make a movie you believe in. Then you’re not second-guessing an audience you don’t really have an understanding of. |
If that’s not enough to satisfy you that Abrams is confident that he knows what he’s doing, he does at least have a grasp on what Star Trek is really about:
| It was an opportunity to take what I think has been a maligned world – to sound crass, a franchise – and treat it in a way that made it something that I wanted to see. 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. To take it and apply it in a way that felt genuinely thrilling. |
[via: Associated Press]
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