Star Trek XII: Charting the Future

To continue to go where no one has gone before...

The 2009 Star Trek movie was not a let down. I almost always walk into the movies with high expectations. It was nominated for 4 Oscars at the 82nd Academy Awards and won the Academy Award for Best Make-up, making it the first Star Trek film to win an Oscar. Midway through the shoot, Paramount Studios chose to delay the release date from December 25, 2008 to May 2009, believing the film could reach a wider audience...which evidently turned out to be true!

Now that the slate has been wiped clean and the new franchise dubbed "the alternate time line" has taken flight, I greatly anticipate the 2nd installment to be another heart-stopper.

For that, I know that Roberto Orci (Screenwriter), Alex Kurtzman (Screenwriter), Damon Lindelof (Screenwriter), J.J. Abrams (Producer), Bryan Burk (Producer) are involved. It's almost for sure that the drama, character development and action will be present. Still, one has to wonder the premise now for the 12th movie in the Star Trek franchise. Star Trek 2009 took me by surprise. Even non-Trekkies (for lack of a better word) were astounded and I do believe most of the closet cases have revealed themselves after the awesome debut of the new cast. J.J. Abrams' direction was superb, to say the least.

Apart from the sometimes annoying lens-flare, his work takes the audience into a plateau of dynamism and movement. If anything which he can't do is make it less remarkable. I would not render my vote J.J. Abrams polls with vacillation. He's the man for the job. From what I've been reading, the cast in the 2009 movie has signed on.

Word has it that Bruce Greenwood has been husting it for Admiral Christopher Pike. Lest he be strapped to a life-support machine and warps into oblivion as in the Original Series, his reprisal will ever-so guarantee the brass behind Kirk's success. After all, since George Kirk does not live to see James T. Kirk grow up in this time line, Pike is the catalyst in the young captain's career. I really loved his character in the 2009 movie.

Almost nothing has slipped out about the new plot, save as Abrams indication that past stories would not be rejected to form the substratum of the alternate time line sequel. I'm sure fans around the world like me are just dying in speculating the next installment. Could there be a Wrath of Khan tie-in? Who knows? Or does Kirk finds his love interest in Dr. Carol Marcus?



Maybe this time ILM will get the USS Enterprise NCC 1701 sizing right! For the uninitiated, the size of the new starship has been subject of debate. The design size was 366m according to Alex Jaeger of ILM, and this still makes sense, considering that in this case the shuttlebay door and the torpedo launcher would be the same size as on the TMP refit. Also, the hatches would be reasonably tall compared to just 1.8m on a 302m ship. The VFX team at ILM, however, purportedly scaled up the ship to as much as 725m (200%!), the main intention apparently being to be able to squeeze in all the big shuttles.

Shooting is said to start in January 2011, which makes a summer blockbuster release in May 2012 (or thereabouts) a very real possibility, failing which, Christmas 2012 would be a nice present for Trekkers.


Evidently, the Star Trek 2009 movie replica market is not letting up yet. Playmates came out with a few waves of figures and play-sets and of course, the USS Enterprise NCC 1701 starship. Just the other day, I came a across a superbly molded resin core Phaser with chrome and steel plating on eBay. It's 1:1 and the mirror finish does it justice. A nice little, advance birthday present for me I suppose.