With the success of the first teaser trailer of the upcoming "Star Trek" movie, work already is under way to bring fans a new trailer that will actually feature scenes from the new film. And it's something fans can look for as early as this summer.
"Barring any thievery from our production office, we're working on our first trailer right now, which will hopefully be in theaters early to mid summer," producer Bryan Burk recently told fans attending a chat with some of the film's principals at TrekMovie.
The teaser trailer, which was released more than a week ago attached to "Cloverfield," featured the Enterprise being built in a land-based drydock, which had some fans questioning how canon it was since it is widely believed (although never seen) that the Enterprise was built in orbit like other ships.
"Without giving anything away, nothing in the teaser precludes final assembly in space," said one of the film's writers, Robert Orci, in the chat.
Earlier this month, "Star Trek XI" production designer Dawn Brown shared exclusively with Airlock Alpha some of the interior makeup of the new Enterprise, including the complaint that producers were tending to lean more toward green screen than with actual set building. Director J.J. Abrams addressed those comments in the chat saying that fans will have a hard time seeing where green screens were used, and where they weren't.
"My goal is to make 'Trek' real," Abrams said. "This is to say, not to have it be camp, not have it be phony, not have a scrap of green screen was used anywhere. 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 soundstages or expanding upon found locations, This is important."
Saying that, green screens are being used, but not to the extent of some other science-fiction films where actors are show in nothing more than a green room, and then placed on CGI-created sets later, Abrams said.
"One of our really talented designers [Brown] recently commented online how we shot on a green screen set and what a shame that was since we could have built something incredible," Abrams said. "And she was right -- for that one scene, which will last for maybe 30 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 [money] we have, and partly because I want the studio to see Trek as viable)."
Abrams has run into some of the same problems that the producers of "Star Trek: Enterprise" did back at the beginning of the decade in trying to make s show from the 1960s look like it's really in the future of us despite advances in technology, but still be true to that original show.
"There were two greatest challenges," Abrams said. "The first was getting a handle on the vision of the future. The fact that most of the tech that we use in our everyday lives seems modeled after -- and actually more advanced then -- [the original series] made it tricky to find a way to make our movie's world far more advanced than where we currently are, and yet also consistent with the original show. The other challenge was, obviously, casting. How in the world were we ever going to find actors who can fill the shoes of that remarkable original cast? It was tough in theory and harder in practice. We couldn't -- and wouldn't have -- gone into production with a cast that simply didn't work."
To see more of the chat, pop over to TrekMovie by clicking here.
"Star Trek XI" premieres Dec. 25. Check out the movie's official site by clicking here.
Feeling the need to watch some classic science-fiction with one of the original masters of special effects? Click here for your chance to win one of three special Ray Harryhausen DVD prize packs!
About the Author:
Michael Hinman is the founder and site coordinator for Airlock Alpha and the entire BlipNetwork. He owns Quantum Global Media Inc., the parent corporation of the BlipNetwork. He's a print journalist by day, and lives in Tampa, Fla.