Star Trek's Chris Pine on how he took over the role of James Kirk

Thursday, April 30, 2009

Star Trek's Chris Pine on how he took over the role of James Kirk

Chris Pine, who takes on the iconic role of James T. Kirk in J.J. Abrams' upcoming Star Trek, told SCI FI Wire that the main challenge in rebooting the franchise was to create a first adventure that appealed to longtime fans and also brought new fans into the fold.

Pine steps into William Shatner's boots in the May 8 release, playing a young version of Kirk. In the film, Kirk begins to emerge as the man who'll become a legendary Starfleet captain and barrels into action with the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise, which includes Spock (Zachary Quinto), Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana).

Earlier this week, Pine told a roomful of reporters that he met Shatner for the first time only on Saturday at a charity event. "I saw Bill last night for the first time, actually, at his charity show in Burbank," Pine said Sunday at a news conference in Beverly Hills, Calif. "And he was very kind. I mean, it was a very short meeting, he had a lot of people to see and it was a big event that had been taking place all day. But my interaction with him has only been really wonderful. I mean, I sent him a letter early on in the process and ... explained to him who I was. ... Who [is] this punk kid was who was taking over, at least for the time being, the role? And he was very kind and wished me all the luck in the world. Leonard [Nimoy] was the same way. There was a wonderful feeling of handing over the mantle ... to us. ... It was more about ... allowing us the freedom to make these characters our own without having any feelings of weight and expectation and responsibility."

SCI FI Wire spoke to Pine in an exclusive telephone interview last month. Following are edited excerpts from the first part of our exclusive two-part interview. Star Trek opens May 8. (Spoilers ahead!)

What was your sense of how J.J. Abrams went about pulling off the dual task of pleasing the diehard fans and making new fans?

Pine: Thank God we had a great general's council behind the film. That consisted of J.J., who is the self-professed non-fan. On the other end of the spectrum you have people of [ci-writer] Bob Orci and [producer] Damon Lindelof, who are avid, passionate fans and protectors of canon. I think with that came a great, great balance. One of J.J.'s wonderful attributes is that he's not precious about anything. So he's not a dictator on set.
A hundred heads are better than one...

Pine: If certain things needed to be cut, if a scene needed to move because the pace wasn't working, if an actor needed a certain thing, if a part of canon had to be sacrificed just to make the scene work better, then J.J. would be the one to do that, but then you had these other voices on the council that were [helping Abrams] find that balance between what was needed in the scene, what would, again, appease and work for the fans, what would make fans smile, what would make fans happy, but also never becoming too precious about it that it sacrificed the integrity of the story that we were trying to tell.

What, if anything, did you choose to borrow anything from Shatner?

Pine: J.J. and I... Well, J.J. and every person that was taking over for one of these legendary actors talked about the ways in which we could pay homage to what had been done before, but pay homage while not mimicking. So there was a discussion about how to take the scalpel and which parts to take from the original versions. And I think it comes across. Hopefully, knock wood, it comes across more nuance than beating people over the head. This is not Mr. Shatner's portrayal. But there were certain things. I remember watching the original series and being struck by certain parts of his physicality, and little things about how he walked across the deck of ship, screwy little things that I wanted to pay tribute to.
(For his part, Abrams repeated that he the filmmakers were unable to find a role for William Shatner in the new film that satisfied both him and the demands of their story. "We had a scene with him in there that we wrote," Abrams said in a news conference on Sunday. "It was sort of a flashback thing, but Bill made it clear he didn't just want to do a cameo. So we ended up realizing that we would have to change the whole story and bring him back to life and make it different. We had to bite the bullet and say, this communication is more about Shatner. But we would have loved to have worked with him.")

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Enjoy The Prologue From My Upcoming Book.. "Strolok"............by R.Goldberg

"WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOUR RACE WAS TARGETED FOR EXTINCTION?"

The Sun is a powerful force in our Universe. It brings us light, warmth and a promise of a galaxy beyond the stars. Often we associate massive flashes of light with the reflection of our Sun's light bouncing off of another surface.

This is not always the case though, especially if you believe that we are truly not alone in the Universe. When we witness things that we can't readily explain we sometimes turn our heads and shrug our shoulders in a display of apathy.

A display such as this occurred on Friday January 29, 1982 at the Crater Lake National Park just outside of Chemult, Oregon. The snow had been falling steadily for a period of four days. The winds had been whisking about at 40 miles per hour.
Then there was one of those unnatural flashes of light. This created an eerie silence as a lanky boy, just nine years old, seemed to appear from out of that flash. If he had walked to this point there would have been a distinct trail in the newly fallen snow.
There was no trail and as a matter of fact the only tracks in the snow were the ones that outlined his feet where he was standing.

He began to trudge through the snow wearing what could only be described as dark brown long johns. He seemed dazed yet, at the same time, very clear about the direction that he was travelling. This boy with no identity or name seemed to be on a mission that would take him to places he had never been before.
His main goal was to reach Chemult, Oregon and he had no intention of stopping until he accomplished this. As strange as it seems the extreme cold seemed to have little or no effect on him at all.

Why Chemult? What was so special about this town located at an elevation of 4,758 feet above sea level in a frozen winter wilderness in Oregon?

The town of Chemult was first opened to the local traffic in 1926 and here in 1982, with its population of only 241, offered little in the way of comfort for a nine year old boy who was all alone. This journey, although prompted by something deep inside of him, did not provide a feeling of comfort and yet he had hoped that he would at least experience a feeling of accomplishment once he reached the town.

The wind was getting stronger and he noticed a small piece of yellow paper tattered and torn from whipping about in the snow. He only stopped long enough to
pick up this paper..........it read:

.....With the winter season here there was a lot of fun to have. Travelling miles of open trails on snow mobiles skiing or simply hiking, but there are dangers of doing so. Please remember safety first. Do not travel alone and be sure someone knows where you are and where you are going before travelling our trails, and please read the safety rules and codes of ethics before hiking the trails...

Nightfall was near and he had already walked 38 of the 40 miles needed to reach Chemult. He was just off of Route 97 when he spotted an old barn just about 200 feet NE of his present location. Making his way to the barn he went in and found it to be totally deserted, it was a perfect place to rest for the night.

Morning had arrived and once awake the boy started to look around the barn in the daylight light to see if there was anything that was lying in the barn that he could use to assist him on his trek.

Over in the far corner of the barn he found an old metal locked box that had long been forgotten. It was all rusted out and the key was nowhere to be found. After several failed attempts to open the box the young boy closed his eyes, sat back on his tired limbs and placed the palm of his right hand on top of the box. All of a sudden a dull red glow appeared from his right palm and the box lid flew open. Strangely enough once the red glow disappeared all that remained was a faint thin black outline where the outside of the red mark had appeared on his palm. Inside of the box he found several items all of which were unfamiliar to him and it was obvious that they had been there
for a very long time.

The contents included a tattered passport with the picture missing, a pocket knife, a compass, an antique pocket watch with a broken crystal, a time-worn souvenir porcelain coffee mug with the words; "Atlanta, Georgia, The Peach State, A Perfect Place to Live", on it and a frayed map of the Metro Atlanta Area It was difficult to make out the name on the passport but with a couple of light brushes with his fingers he saw the name Jason Tredmore. This is now who this boy would become.

Sci-Fi Blast

Thursday, April 30, 2009