As a loyal Trekkie, I just read about J.J. Abrams heading up the next project for Star Trek. I'm glad that a new direction is in store for us loyal Trekkies and Trekkers who have seen the best days of Trek behind them.

I'm actually surprised that no one else has made mention of this yet, even though this is supposed to be a sports-oriented bulletin board.

Thanks for the info UCLAfan. Can't wait to see the final results of this project...They so better include The Borg episodes. I'll kill 'em if they don't!

I hope we finally get to see some openly gay characters in the Trek universe

Ditto on that one. I lost interest long ago in any depiction of the future that doesn't involve gay characters, open or closeted.

In fact a closeted one might make for a better plot. But he's only closeted to us earth humans.

Imagine: 'Yo da homosapien' that lurks on human gay websites to understand what makes these earthborn humans kill; a gay alien sociologist trying to stop us from destroying cosmic harmony.

UCLA, check out this thread to visit some Federation star ships as well:

http://www.outsports.com/cgi-bin/ultimateb...c;f=22;t=001736

I think that if we can see Spock and Kirk being attracted to each other during their academy days, that will bring a few more folks into the Trek fold. Don't you agree?

Well, isn't Ensign Wesley Crusher gay? (Actually, I think Will Wheaton is.) wink

Its about time!!!!!

Sorry to rain on your parade, MIB, but Wil Wheaton is straight & happily married for about 10 years now. However, that having been said, Wil made a great statement on gay marriage on his website that is pretty powerful and quite insightful. If he ever decides to run for something political here in the Golden State, I'll vote for him.

Amen Wil!

The sad thing about the article was that Wil predicted that Bush would lose the election because of his bigoted & divider ways. We still ended up with that insufferable buffoon. :mad:

David Gerrold was going to write an episode with gay character for the Next Generation series but that never happened. The excuse is that in the future sexual orientation will not matter.

Here's some new light on the Spock/McCoy relationship:

http://echosphere.net/star_trek_insp/insp_...spock_mccoy.jpg



[ September 04, 2006, 11:34 AM: Message edited by: chi-town ]

As Oscar Wilde might say \"That is why it's called fiction.\" And that is called a cop-out.

HILARIOUS! It must be true then.

Well we sort of get our wish.

Kirk and Spock are going to be played by Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto who according to this pic from a blog have locked lips in Surrender Dorothy.

Between quantum jumps from one blackhole to another, a little quality time in the sauna on the Starship, perhaps?

We can only hope.

For the record, I'd prefer a storyline with a little more..ahem, cough...depth.

if only that was a pic from the movie, I'd become a Trekkie for sure. Pine has been on the cover of Men's Fitness or Men's Health recently. Can't keep those two mags straight (pun intended!).

I'm not a Star Trek fan (I don't think I saw any of the Star Trek movies), however I'm curious about the cast for this prequel, including the likes of Simon Pegg (love him) as Scottie and John Cho as Sulu. Chris Pine is easy on the eyes.
Official website.
Trailer and clips.

Can't remember whether I've even seen any of the other movies except in replays on television, certainly not in cinema; and they were all snoozers.

Pine was on Men's Health:



He's practically banging nipples with Quinto now on Entertainment:



There may not be a gay element to the relationship in the movie but they are barring no holds in pushing the man-lovers sex appeal.

The gay community should be able to instigate a class-action suit for image theft if there are no openly gay characters in this one.

It's getting really annoying to see Hollywood play around with the image for profit and still leave the creators in the closet. How would they like it if their creative work were propositioned and used without permission?

The film is getting pretty great reviews so far and I love almost everything JJ Abrams has done. Though never a fan of the TV show, I did like a couple of the movies. But I've seen Chris Pine interviewed a couple of time spromoting the movie and he seems like an all-out douchenozzle.

Saw the movie tonight and we really liked it. I have been a fan of Trek since my grandfather took me to see "Star Trek: TMP" in 1979. Not long after that, a local station started showing the original series episodes and I got sucked in from then. If you have ever been a fan in any way, shape, or form, go see it! Have to admit that the way they chose to "reboot" the franchise was... unique. I don't think I'm spoiling anything by saying it will be difficult to re-tell any old stories (but I'll leave it at that).

But, since this is technically Star Trek 11, does that mean that now the odd numbered ones will be good instead of the even ones?

Not nearly as bad as I was expecting, but suffers from generic bone-crunching action, a bad villain and silly time-travel stuff, and a militaristic bent. (also, I can't believe they destroyed Planet ******.) Leonard Nimoy saved it for me.

The critics who find this "sublime" are industry hoes.

I found the movie fair at best. I agree Leonard Nimoy was the best thing about it.

Second best thing was Chris Pine in those trunk-briefs.

Scariest part of the movie for me was realizing I watched first-run episodes of 'Star Trek'!

I thought Star Trek was pretty good. I disliked the ridiculous plot, villain, time travel business, etc. I did like the humour, and thought Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto were very good as Kirk and Spock.

(All that said, Star Trek doesn't even compare with Star Wars.)

I think the time-travel plot was a way to reboot the franchise. Now they can revisit, in sequels, some of the prior stories -- but with changes, under the reasoning that the actions of the villain in the past have changed the future (one change in particular, which I will not spoil specifically, was key to one main character's actions). So they can make changes without the long-time Trek fans going nuts, but also not just repeat the prior stories.

The villain wasn't all that tremendous, though. And the whole "this is not your father's Star Trek" ad campaign is silly. Of course it is. There are a few twists but it's not that radically different.

I have to say...I am not really a Star Trek fan. I can't tell you what happened in any of the previous movies (the only one I really remember is the one where they visited earth) and didn't watch any of the tv series but that movie was pretty damn good in my opinion. It started out intense and it kept me intrigued throughout the whole thing. I liked the whole prequel aspect of it and showing how Spock and Dr. Kirk's relationship formed. I absolutely LOVE Zoe Saldana (one of the few women I would let try and turn me straight) and because I'm not a Trekkie I wasn't worried so much about the typical Star Trek aspects of the film others seem to be mentioning. My friend and I saw it at IMAX and I really enjoyed it. Oh and I did not know until the end of the credits that it was Winona Ryder playing Spock's mother in the movie. Every time I looked at her face and was like "Who is that? She looks familiar?" Then when the credits came up it was the big a-ha moment. Nice to see sticky fingers in a movie role.

I saw Winona Ryder's name in the end credits and kept thinking, "Who was she?" There were so few female characters in the film (other than foxy Uhura), but men of all types. Same with Nero. I kept thinking "I recognize that guy" and thought he was the guy who plays Alex in Grey's Anatomy before I deduced he was Eric Bana. I had to watch the end credits, though, to verify this. Also, I thought that "long-faced" alien in the bar was Leonard Nimoy. Seriously, I though he was until later in the film.

I've never seen any of the Star Trek movies, and never saw a complete episode of any of the Star Trek TV series (incl. the original, which I'm old enough to remember), but I enjoyed this. But they need to remember that the bad guys are as important as the good guys--these bad guys didn't make sense.

I just looked it up and the guy who played Bones (who I thought looked familiar) played Eomer in The Lord of the Rings (part 2 and 3).

The Long Face Bar Alien (his name in the end credit). I thought he was Leonard Nimoy in costume:

I thought this movie was an amazing popcorn flick with romance, action, and danger. Special effects were tremendous. There was no Chris Pine sex scene halfway through and Spock had a hot girl. Good times.

Wiona played Spock's mother. Great comeback vehicle.

And for you angry purists, I agree with Joe in Philly that the time warp was necessary to reboot the franchise and make it interesting. Or would you rather have them have just redone the old stories exactly the same way but with younger actors??? Boring! Who wants to watch that?

From an interview with the writers:

"One of the obstacles that we found ourselves butting up against [when we took on the job] was this idea that we already knew the fate of the characters," writer/producer Alex Kurtzman told us of the newly established parallel "Trek" dimension, forever altered by the reckless actions of time-travelling villain Nero (Eric Bana). "If you're going to bring a whole new iteration of 'Trek' to life, you could never put them in any real danger — because you already know how they either died or lived. So, we felt like, all right, we have to find a way to make the future unpredictable, so whenever they're in these difficult, treacherous situations there truly is the risk of death."

Obviously, I would've preferred they left the original characters alone, and there was no movie. Perhaps I'll go back in time and prevent it...

(Just read a Stephen Hawking quote about strong evidence against time travel: we've found no tourists from the future.)



No Canmark, because Star Wars was never science fiction, but space opera. And that's what Abrams apparently wants to turn Star Trek into. Count me out.

What is with people using words like "franchise" as if they're studio execs? Also, "popcorn movies" is an oxymoronic category; that's 99% of what people see.

I went to see Star Trek tonight, on IMAX. It was the first time I'd ever been to an IMAX theater and was wondering if it was worth the extra 5 bucks. OK, maybe that makes me sound like a cheapskate, but yikes, 15 bucks to see a movie?? But it turned out to be TOTALLY worth it!

Chris Pine did a pretty good job of re-creating Captain Kirk. He didn't try to mimic William Shatner, good thing, because that would have been a huge mistake. Karl Urban did mimic Deforrest Kelley as Bones, which made for an amusing performance. But the one who really blew me away was Zachary Quinto. If I hadn't seen Leonard Nimoy on the screen, I would have thought he died and came back reincarnated as this Zachary Quinto guy. Quinto really stole the movie for me. The chemistry between him and Chris Pine's Kirk was pitch-perfect. And the connection between Uhura and Spock ... ROCKED!! Maybe that's what I liked most about this iteration of Star Trek, that they retained the old characters and dynamics yet threw in some fun, crazy twists.

There are parts that could have been better. As Star Trek villains go, I thought Nero was kinda weak. Then again, maybe superficial me was just disappointed that they had uberhottie Eric Bana in the role without exploiting his sex appeal. I like my villains to be evil and sexy. The wild machinations by which Kirk became captain of the Enterprise were a bit of a stretch. But all in all, I loved this movie.

Bill, your definition of "popcorn movies" and mine differ completely so the oxymoron issue is mute. I won't explain because you sound like a bitter bitch right now which isn't like you. I hope everything is okay. Cheers.

As a geek & Trekkie, I liked this film (I saw it on IMAX). But my favorite is still First Contact:

For once I think they got almost everything right.

What do people think of all the lens flares in Star Trek? Personally, I love them. That was part of the style of the film and I think they looked cool. But I can see how some people might think them ridiculous, even director J.J. Abrams.

Here's a little parody video w/examples of the lens flares.

J.J. Abrams on the lens flares:

To be honest, I didn't even take notice of them when I saw the movie.

The lack of openly gay characters, or dealing with homosexuality in any way, in Star Trek and most of Hollywood-produced sci-fi, is more indicative of the genre's refusal to deal with reality than lens flares.

Both suggest an inability to cope with science in general. "Time travel's" only scientific relevance is the ability to approximate the past for the purpose of learning from it in the present, and improving in the future.

There is no reason to believe that we can return to the past and change the current "future". I think to suggest otherwise is a cop-out.

I'd love to see more sci-fi movies that had the serious input of real scientists. Realistic science speculation is what produces good sci-fi in my opinion.

Isaac Asimov speculated about the rules for robots, Robert Heinlein about human emotions, Arthur Clarke about both. Where are today's scientist, or at least science savvy, sci-fi writers?

Whatever happened to sci-fi writers who tried to at least put a modicum reality into their works?

The stuff we see now looks like souped-up uni-lateral non-interactive video games. Young people are not only too lazy to think about science, they are too lazy to even play a game that at least requires they act out.

There was a part of the movie where Spock is speaking to his mother, telling her that as he becomes more Vulcan (he's about to join the Vulcan academy) that he may not be able to show emotion towards her, and he says that this is not because he's 'rejecting' her or the human-side of himself. And she says that she will always love him as himself, regardless of how he acts. And I thought that speech of a mother to a son could be read in a gay sense, of a mother telling her son she would would always love him whatever he... becomes. (And that Spock was half human/half Vulcan, made him "different" from the other kids, and victim of their bullying, which is something that gay kids could relate to.)

And in that sense, sci-fi does relate to being gay in that it usually shows people of different cultures accepting each other.

True, there were no explicitly gay characters in Star Trek (there were noticably few female characters, either, which I think is more revealing), but that could be developed in future sequels. After all, we know George Takei is gay in real life, and perhaps Sulu will express some gayness in the future... with the cute, young Chekov, perhaps.

They say that science fiction is set in the future, but it is really about the present. So, one would hope that future Star Trek films could examine current issues, while also being a populist action adventure film.

I read this article by a Trekkie a few years back & he says the opposite of what you say. There's also this one about "warp speed." (And also this article on the same subject on the Discovery Channel's website). Now grant it, I'm certainly no physicist nor any other type of scientist so I really cannot give the articles a thumbs up or down. But they're certainly interesting to read and ponder about.

And finally, there's this interesting take on Star Trek & sexuality.

I saw the movie last night and liked it a lot. I never saw a complete episode of any of the TV series, and none of the original movies, so it worked as a stnd-alone for me. Just basic, escapist fun. Also, all this talk about gay characters seems a little silly to me. Having said that, isn't Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock, one of the few out gay actors in Hollywood?

I did a quick google search on Zachary Quinto and it seems that there are rumours that he is gay, but he's not officially out.

Some pics of Zach and Chris jogging in Sydney. I think they would make a cute couple, although I'm sure they're not.

Chris Pine on the Kirk-Spock bromance:

The time travel theory is interesting speculation. It might improve sci-fi movies to work it in to their plots. The visuals would be tricky but fascinating.

As for the pseudo-gay characters in sci-fi, they're a cop-out. Why don't we just have men pretending to possibly be closeted women instead of having real women roles? Doesn't fly.


Quinto is definitely the more quaint of the two. Look at him playing tourist in Australia. He's as interested in them as they are in him. Cute.

Quinto was perfect Spock. The official Star Trek universe remains heterosexual- that's why there is all that Kirck/Spock slash fiction.

It's official, young Spock is out. Zachary Quinto confirms it in New York magazine article.

He explains more in this blog entry. My question: What, Zachary Quinto, do you have against capital letters?

Out Magazine did a profile of him and they insinuated that he was gay.

Yeah there had been rumors about Quinto for awhile but kudos to him for coming out on his own terms and not because of any kind of pressure to do so. He has a Jake Gyllenhall attractiveness to me and he seems like a pretty nice guy from what I've seen in interviews.

Apparently he inspired and ABC News Now anchor to come out on air while reporting the story......he wouldnt mind dating Quinto.

http://www.advocate.com/News/Daily_News/20...ome_Out_On_Air/