Star Trek Into Darkness Enlisted A Surprising Name To Puppeteer Its Tribble

One of the more notorious scenes in director J.J. Abrams' oft-criticized 2013 film "Star Trek Into Darkness" involves a curious Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban), the blood of Khan Noonien Singh (Benedict Cumberbatch), and a rogue dead tribble that happens to be lying around. Tribbles, as Trekkies can tell you, are small, living balls of fur that do nothing more than coo, wiggle, overeat, and multiply at a frightening rate. They're also cute, and their trilling seems to have a calming effect on the human nervous system. The original name for the tribbles was pretty adorable as well.

Dr. McCoy, just to see what might happen, injects the tribble with a vial of Khan's blood. Khan, you see, is a genetically enhanced human who has greater strength, healing, and intelligence than the average person. Genetic modification of humans was outlawed far earlier in the "Star Trek" timeline, as people like Khan were taking over countries on Earth and starting wars. (The only reason Khan's still alive is because he's been cryogenically frozen for years.) Naturally, Dr. McCoy is interested in the genetic differences between Khan's blood and that of an ordinary individual, so he jabs the dead tribble and gauges the effect.

Later in the film, after Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) dies of radiation poisoning, Dr. McCoy sits next to the dead tribble to weep for his friend's passing. Unexpectedly, the tribble begins to stir. It's alive! Something about Khan's blood can revive dead tissue. So, as soon as he's able, Dr. McCoy injects Kirk with some of Khan's blood. It works, and Kirk is revived.

As for the wiggly little tribble? In a 2013 interview with Screen Crush, Urban revealed that Abrams himself actually served as the puppeteer for the tiny fuzzball.

The interviewer was wise enough to ask Karl Urban about what it was like to work with a tribble on "Star Trek Into Darkness." After all, the original series "Star Trek" episode in which they first showed up, "The Trouble with Tribbles," is decidedly famous. Urban was delighted, at which point he offered up the following trivia about J.J. Abrams:

"It was fun getting to work with the tribble. Here's some inside information. It was J.J. Abrams himself who was animating the tribble. He was operating the mechanism that brought the tribble to life. You believe that? He was like a kid in a candy store. [...] He was underneath the table, operating the puppet." 

Abrams, rather infamously, has admitted that he wasn't really a Trekkie when he was younger. "'Star Trek' always felt like a silly, campy thing. I remember appreciating it, but feeling like I didn't get it," as he told The Guardian in 2009. In spite of that, it appears the filmmaker possessed a weakness for tribbles, knowing their esteemed status in the larger franchise. He may not have been a Trekkie, but he did appreciate the classics. 

Urban was also asked if Abrams had a monitor so he could look at his puppeteering, but he said no; it was just a little wiggling. But did he make the tribble's unique animalian cooing noise from under the desk? "Uhhhhhhhhh ... no." Urban replied. That, it seems, would have been much too silly. 

Was "magic resurrection blood" a silly plot point in "Star Trek Into Darkness?" It definitely was. Is death now cured in many cases? It seems so. But at least there was a tribble.