*The EUR/Electronic Urban Report was on hand for the Los Angeles press conference of “Star Trek,” where director Justin Lin, producer J.J. Abrams, and stars Zachary Quinto, Chris Pine, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho and Simon Pegg were all in attendance to discuss the film and the history of the franchise.
The release of ‘Star Trek Beyond‘ coincides with the 50th anniversary of the franchise. To celebrate the film, Paramount Pictures held a special fan event in May, on the same stage at the Hollywood studio where much of the original series was filmed. EUR captured the unveiling of a street named on the lot in honor of late franchise star Leonard Nimoy (see below).
With ‘Beyond,’ the crew gets separated from the enterprise and each other, and Lin previously said that for this installment, he wanted to destroy the Enterprise then bring the crew back to together. For this reason, this writer was quite enthusiastic to preview ‘Beyond,’ last week, and the visually intoxicating thrill didn’t disappoint.
We asked co-star and co-writer Simon Pegg if he initially supported Lin’s decision to blow up the beloved Starship Enterprise, and we were surprised by what he had to say:
“I hated the idea at first. I swear, we had rows about it. I was shouting about how, “We can’t do that! You can’t destroy the enterprise!” My problem was that, if you think it’s something new, then we’ve seen it before. It happened in ‘The Search for Spock.’ it happened in ‘Generations.’ But Justin was like, very-very determined, and as we spoke about it, I realized what he was doing brilliantly was, not only was he sort of taking out a main character, but he was removing the physical connective tissue between the crew,” Pegg explained. “To see what happens when you take away this thing that physically bonds them together. If you take away that thing that necessitates their being a unit, do they dissipate? Or do they come back together? And that was the genius of that thing. You take it away very-very violently and dramatically, and then you wait and see if they all come back together to be this family, which is essentially what they are. And, of course they do. And I backed down immediately and said, “Yeah, you’re right.” Which I do occasionally do that, not always. But in this instance, I realized it was a brilliant idea. But yeah, initially I was opposed to it.”
The film also ties-in a lovely tribute to Nimoy, and Quinto spoke about how he and the cast carried Leonard’s spirit with him them through the production.
In the video clip below, Zachary says: “I think if Leonard was well-enough to be a part of this film, I’m sure he would’ve been. I know that there were early conversations with him about that possibility, which, true to his incredible self, he knew himself well-enough to know that-that wouldn’t be possible at a certain point. And then I think it became important to all of us to figure a way to honor his legacy, Zachary said.” I thought Simon and Doug did a beautiful job of incorporating it into the narrative of the film. We all carried him with us through this production, for sure. And it was definitely a different kind of feeling to make this movie without him, for me in particular. But I think he was very much a part of it in spirit, and certainly in the film now, and will be a part of anything we do moving forward for sure.”
Simon Pegg added, “We wanted to make it part of Zack’s Spock’s arc as well, not just a reference to Spock prime, or what we did eventually, which was of course to dedicate the film to him. We wanted to have his passing be something which inspired our Spock to move on as well. So it became an integral part of the story, not to just kind of nod in Leonard’s direction.”
The evolution of ‘Star Trek’ may find the crew of the Enterprise sharing more of their personal lives with fans. With ‘Beyond,’ we learn Sulu is a married gay man with a child. And while the actor who initially made the character famous during the TV series, George Takei, openly lives as a gay man, John Cho, who plays Sulu in Abram’s franchise reboot, explained he was concerned with how George would respond to “gay Sulu.”
“The idea came up, I believe Simon pitched it and then I was told of it through Justin pretty early on when he had set-up at Paramount and we went in to have a chat and get reacquainted, Cho said about how he learned his take on Sulu would be gay. “I thought it was a beautiful idea. I had concerns about how it would be received by George, and I had some other concerns, but it was really the handling of it that was most important to me.”
Many Trekkies have been vocal about not wanting to embrace gay Sulu, but as John Cho said, “It’s kind of news now but if you re-watch the movie in 10 years, you won’t think anything of it. It’ll just go right by you, and that’s the best thing about it.”
Cho’s co-star Zoe Saldana noted the importance showing Sulu as a gay father.
“The one thing that I guess has taken a secondary position is, it wasn’t just that we revealed that he’s gay. We revealed that he’s a father. None of our characters have families that we’ve ever talked about. So I actually feel quite puzzled that in 2016 we’re having a bit of a fit over who he fathered a baby with. I’m happy he’s a dad,” Saldana said.
“What we wanted to do is put somebody we care about in Yorktown so that when Yorktown was under threat, that made the threat tangible. We knew that Sulu’s family was there, so it wasn’t just about a bunch of faceless federation people,” Pegg explained. “There was somebody there that we cared about too because we care about Sulu, and that was really an important thing. The nature of that relationship wasn’t an issue.”
Simon also confirmed that he’s not at war with George over the gay character, as it has previously been reported.
“That whole thing with George is, people like to make things into a spat. George and I email all the time, and had a long, lovely discussion about it and we’re on great terms. We were never shouting at each other or anything like that. And it was a great discussion to have. I’m really happy with the way it’s been talked about and responded too, and I’m still a huge fan of GT, for sure.”
In this day and age, most especially in the “Oscars so white” realm of things, the cast was asked what could the message of ‘Star Trek’ be in 2016 to help propel it forward for perhaps another 50 years.
“I think the message is the same as it was when it began. We have more room to explore and express it than we did at the time. It’s shocking to me how divisive our culture has become. And I feel like Star Trek maintains a position of inclusivity and unity that is as resonant today as it was in the last 60s,” Zachary Quinto said. “This film in particular explores that idea. One side of that being about the unity and inclusivity and the other being about breaking that apart and I think in a way that’s really reflective of the society we live in today.”
He added: “It’s troubling to me on such deep levels that we’ve gotten to this point of unwillingness to see varied points of view or feelings or opinions of perspectives and I think that while Star Trek remains in a landscape of popular culture entertainment, it’s something that is a beacon of inclusivity and progressive thinking. I think it just takes on different forms now than it did 50 years ago.”
Simon chimed in with, “I think the film is actually more — the social commentary of this even since we shot it is stronger than ever. It’s about collectivism. In this era of Brexit and talking about building walls in certain places. Now more than ever we should be thinking about the value of collectivism…about cooperation.”
“Star Trek Beyond” arrives in theaters nationwide Friday, July 22.