A Brief Guide to Star Trek

Ark
(1981). It was with the
Star Wars
prequel trilogy, however, that the concept really entered the mainstream of blockbuster filmmaking. The urge to go back and explore the origins of characters or events already seen was the narrative driving force behind many sequels (such as
Red Dragon
(2002) and
Hannibal Rising
(2007), both prequels to 1991’s
The Silence of the Lambs
), while several sequel films since the year 2000 numerically tagged as ‘2’ were looks back at events before those of the first movie (
Vacancy 2
,
The Scorpion King 2
,
Internal Affairs II
. . .). Following
Star Trek: Enterprise
,
Caprica
(setting up the rebooted
Battlestar Galactica
) and
Spartacus: Gods of the Arena
were prequel TV series. Origin stories or major franchise reboots would also provide fertile ground for sequels and re -imagining, especially of comic book characters, as in
Batman Begins
(2005).
    For his part, Gene Roddenberry had first mentioned the notion of making a film that took place before his
Star Trek
TV series as early as 1968, at the World Science Fiction Convention.
Star Trek
movie producer Harve Bennett had repeatedly promoted the idea of an origin story for Kirk, Spock and McCoy as part of his Starfleet Academy concept. Although a
Star Trek
prequel idea (with all-new characters) had come to fruition in the
Enterprise
TV series, it had been deemed a failure. The idea of setting up the universe fans were familiar with was still seen as fertile ground, though, with Rick Berman pursuing development of Erik Jendresen’s
Star Trek: The Beginning
script.
    Most of these concepts had steered clear of the most obvious
Star Trek
prequel concept of them all, one most likely to have popular appeal to mainstream audiences: the reinvention of Kirk, Spock and McCoy (as boldly suggested in J. Michael Straczynski and Bryce Zabel’s
Star Trek
‘reboot’ concept for television from 2004). It had taken a long time for the executives at Paramount to accept that the time was right for this approach, but with the failure of
Enterprise
they almost immediately embarked upon the search for a new creative team who could reinvent classic
Star Trek
from first principles as a block-buster movie.
    By 2006, due to corporate takeovers and restructuring, the rights to make new
Star Trek
were held by two different com -panies. Essentially, Paramount Pictures (owned by Viacom) retained the movie option, while CBS now controlled the
Star Trek
television franchise. Paramount chief Gail Berman decided that the right place for a dramatic reinvention of
Star Trek
– despite the failure of
Nemesis
– was on the big screen, not on television, following the declining fortunes of
Voyager
and
Enterprise
. Part of her approach was to remove the control of big screen
Star Trek
from those who’d been making the television version. Her aim was to turn over Paramount’s valuable property to experienced blockbuster moviemakers, rather than exhausted television producers. Berman negotiated with CBS to give Paramount a clear eighteen-month run at developing a new
Star Trek
feature film before the television company could even think about developing a new television series (as part of the deal, CBS retained all
Star Trek
merchandising rights). Thequestion was, what kind of film would the new
Star Trek
be and who could Berman task with creatively driving the project?
    Writer, director and producer J. J. Abrams already had strong connections with Paramount, having directed 2006’s
Mission: Impossible III
to great critical acclaim and box office success. Abrams had a track record creating cult TV series that also had broad mainstream appeal in spy-thriller
Alias
(2001–6) and the mystical island castaway drama
Lost
(2004–10). Abrams had previously written screenplays for the movies
Regarding Henry
(1991),
Forever Young
(1992) and
Armageddon
(1998), as well as an unproduced
Superman
script in 2002. He’d followed
Mission: Impossible III
with the weird science TV series
Fringe
(from 2008). To Gail Berman, Abrams was just the right kind of maverick left-field talent needed to bring new life to the moribund
Star Trek
franchise.
    Abrams himself was a casual
Star Trek
fan. He was born in June 1966, just two weeks after the final draft script for Harlan Ellison’s acclaimed episode ‘The City on the Edge of Forever’ had been completed. For Abrams,
Star Trek
was Kirk, Spock and McCoy – the core characters he’d grown up watching during syndication reruns