On Friday afternoon, JJ Abrams and the cast and crew of Star Trek sat down with TrekMovie.com to field questions from the fans. Here are the informational highlights:
- The first movie trailer first will “hopefully be in theaters early to mid summer.”
- Production is scheduled to wrap the beginning of April 2008.
- Long time JJ Abrams’s collaborator and fried Greg Grunberg WAS gonna be in Star Trek, but had to bow out because he is attached to another movie. JJ jokes “Who knows, maybe he’ll be a tribble.”
- They are anticipating about 1000 visual effects shots.
But the most interesting bit of the chat was JJ Abrams talking about how he wants the film not to look effects heavy:
“My goal is to make Trek REAL - that is to say, not have it be camp - not have it be phony - not have it look like a scrap of green screen was used anywhere,” says Star Trek director JJ Abrams. “Of course, this is Star Trek. We’re using every trick in the book. But WHEREVER WE CAN, we are shooting on sets - either built on sound stages or expanding upon found locations. This is important. What this means is that the movie won’t have that ‘actors performing in a blue or green void then placed in front of a spaceship set’ feeling that makes me insane.”
“One of our really talented designers recently commented online how we shot on a green screen set and what a shame that was, since we could have built something incredible. And she was right - for that one scene, which will last for maybe thirty seconds on screen, we built only pieces and were surrounded by green. But that is the exception. We can’t build EVERYTHING, and need to make this film on a budget (partly because that’s the $ we have, and partly because I want the studio to see Trek as viable!). The Enterprise will be a combo of the physical and the virtual. A photo is forthcoming!”
Read the full shat on TrekMovie.
January 25th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
So……some shots of the ship are going to be a model??
Good ole abrams, having to save a buck and use visual effect technology pre-1995, and trying to spin it as somehow better.
January 25th, 2008 at 10:34 pm
He did say that it won’t “look” like a green screen movie.
January 26th, 2008 at 12:29 am
Jerry Butler - In all honesty, the film has a MASSIVE budget, over twice that over Nemesis.
One of the big complaints fans had was the studios have been veering away from actual physical models in favor of CGI. If there are physical parts, perhaps an entire physical model for the Enterprise, this would probably be what many fans have wanted for several years now. ILM is handling the visual effects here.
January 26th, 2008 at 11:27 am
Yeah, apparently they had a large budget going in, but from those abrams quotes above, seems like he’s trying to cut corners and bring this baby in under projected numbers to appease and impress the studio brass.
It seems like it comes down to keeping a few men in ties who fund your movies happy by saving them money, or keeping the fans happy by delivering the best movie possible and not scrimping on a cent.
ILM is only a tool. Depending at who is at the helm in the director’s chair telling them what to create and how, you can have a varying degrees of win or fail.
January 26th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
“Yeah, apparently they had a large budget going in, but from those abrams quotes above, seems like he’s trying to cut corners and bring this baby in under projected numbers to appease and impress the studio brass.”
Can’t say I blame him just to impress them though. It’s just good business is all. However, having both a physical and CGI model, that would take up a bit of money. I don’t know if he’s really saving the money that way!
January 26th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
Fair enough. Being a Trekker myself, I’m hoping this thing is good and does the franchise justice.
I’m just not a fan of Abrams apparent preoccupation with impressing the execs first and foremost. Seems like a pretty shallow approach to film making.
If history has proven anything, it’s that the studio ties have no idea what in the hell makes a good movie, which is why they entrust the project to a director and/or producer. If he’s just looking to make these number crunchers happy, we are going to wind up with one sucky trek.
January 26th, 2008 at 7:57 pm
Although I’ve never seen anything Star-Trek related before, it won’t suck. It’s J.J. Abrams here, people.