No stars, no trekkers

Hyper-hip director JJ Abrams has boldly gone where no film-maker has gone before – to the days before two cultural icons morphed into William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy. His rebooted, retooled Star Trekwill please everyone, not just geeks, he tells DONALD CLARKE

EVERYONE'S talking about Star Trek. With JJ Abrams's terrific rebooting of the classic sci-fi franchise currently in orbit about multiplexes, the streets are alive with chatter about the men and women of Starfleet. Do you have the latest Star Trekhat? Try this Star Trekcocktail. Dance the Star Trekrumba.

You’d expect the folk promoting the film to be delighted. Not entirely.

Here in London's Dorchester Hotel, where Abrams and his cast have gathered for interviews, the S-word and the T-word are approached with surprising caution. If Mr Abrams, creator of Lostand director of Mission: Impossible III, says that he "was never a serious Star Trekfan" once, he says it a thousand times.

What's going on? Star Trekrules. Doesn't it? "People in the studio were saying they wanted to change the title and not have Star Trekin the title at all," he laughs.

Huh? How on earth would that work? "They maybe wanted to have a colon somewhere. I don't know. But they were afraid. Many countries rejected Star Trekfrom the beginning, or it died out soon after. In the States it was not in the healthiest condition when we decided to start it up again. It really is not obvious that Star Trekis a beneficial title. But I thought: if you want to do a Star Trekmovie then do it as a Star Trekmovie."

A line has been agreed and that line is being assiduously stuck to. The film may be called Star Trekand it may feature youthful versions of all the characters from the original series, but, though Trekkers are welcome, Abrams's picture is aimed at a general audience. There are, I suppose, a lot of people who regard the franchise as the preserve of Nerdy McNerd. JJ invites you to cast those prejudices aside.

"This Star Trekwas not made for fans of Star Trek," he reiterates. "Having said that, we knew that this movie had to honour what's come before."

Despite Abrams's frequent attempts to distance himself from the Star Trekfan club – "I was more of a Star Warsguy," he says – it's not hard to see why, following his crack at the Mission: Impossiblefranchise, he was lured into a film version of another 1960s series.

The son of a TV executive, Abrams is clearly obsessed with the mechanics of storytelling. Lost, which still trundles on, could almost be seen as an essay on the possibilities of screen narrative. Other Abrams series such as Aliasand Fringeare similarly twisty.

“Yeah. I think I was obsessed with the mechanics as a kid,” he says. “I was initially interested in the practical. How do they do that? How do they make that effect happen? Then I became interested in the mechanics of the stories themselves. There are two approaches. I sometimes approach stories from the inside out: how does the story function? Then sometimes I just want to see something on screen, so I make it happen.”

It's hardly surprising that a man with this attitude would be intrigued by the notion of reinventing a franchise as complex as Star Trek. It's been more than 40 years since the original series debuted to uninterested shrugs.

Since then there have been five further series, 10 films and countless books, comics and games.

"I guess my main aim was to make a film about people you could care about. I never cared too much about the characters before. Then I wanted to make a film that was fun. And, finally, it was important to make a film that fitted into the Star Trekuniverse."

By the time you read this, JJ and his team may have relaxed a bit. Initial screenings of Star Trekhave gone down a bomb with both hard-line Trekkers and the uninitiated. Like so many recent reinventions of popular franchises, the film takes us back to the origins of the story.

The young James T Kirk, whose father, a Starfleet captain, died heroically in a fight with a Romulan ship, is a boozy layabout with a taste for hyper-bikes and a penchant for getting into fights with bigger men. Spock, son of a human mother and a Vulcan father, is being forced to decide which culture to embrace.

After an incredibly busy opening hour, the two rivals, now recent graduates of the Starfleet Academy, find themselves propelled into command of the Starship Enterprise. Mr Chekov muddles his W’s with his V’s. Bones grumbles in the sickbay.

I note that, whereas Anton Yelchin’s Chekov perseveres with that absurdly unconvincing Russian accent, Simon Pegg’s Scotty, eschewing James Doohan’s notoriously deranged vowels, offers us a convincing Scotsman.

“I know. Anton is born in Russia and speaks the language. That thing with the W’s could not be less Russian, but it was fun to honour the series in that way. Simon’s wife is Scottish and I think he felt it important to get the accent right for that reason.”

As you may have gathered, Abrams has fun with the mythology of the series – true fans will already have realised that this Star Trekexists in its own alternate universe. Still, the core of the picture remains the relationship between Spock and Kirk.

Chris Pine, hitherto largely unknown, is presented with the challenging task of creating a character that might grow up into William Shatner. Zachary Quinto, (Sylar from Heroes) takes on the role of Spock. The original series always allowed mild tension between the impulsive human and the logical half-Vulcan, but in the new film they begin by positively loathing one another.

“These two characters are yin and yang,” Abrams muses. “Alone they are full of potential, but together they are something special. It is like Lennon and McCartney. They did great work alone, but together they were unbeatable. As somebody who was not a fan before, I was happy to discover that. I’ll be honest: before I started, this I didn’t even know that Spock was half-human.”

Oh, Lord. We're back with the "not a Star Trekfan" thing again. JJ continues to reassure those wary of phasers and ignorant of the Prime Directive. "I could have studied and pretended that I was a fan. But I couldn't pretend to make this film as one of them."

I note that he uses the phrase “one of them”. It’s almost as if he regards Trekkers (they don’t like to be called Trekkies) as members of an alternative religion.

"It is like that. Look, I am Jewish and I am married to an Irish-Catholic. I couldn't make The Passion of the Christthe way Mel Gibson, a Catholic, could. I wouldn't pretend to."

So we must regard this suave, funny, ironical version of Star Trekas a secular take on the myth. Still, if Abrams wanted any advice on the theology of the series, he did have a high priest on hand. Leonard Nimoy, availing of a temporal eccentricity that we won't spoil, turns up as the older Spock and has several mind-bending conversations with the young crew.

It has been reported that William Shatner was rather hurt that Abrams had failed to find him a major role. JJ sighs goodhumouredly.

“I like Bill a lot. I just talked to him two weeks ago. He is brilliant and hysterically funny. We met and were keen on having him in the film, but we had the obstacle that his character died in one of the movies. Every attempt we made to get him into the film felt like a cynical, clumsy way of keeping the fans happy. So, we eventually said: ‘Let’s not try and do everything.‘ Let’s stick with the choice made in earlier films.”

Knowing what a hoot Shatner is, many observers assumed that his fit of pique was merely playing to the gallery. It gave him a new shtick for chat-shows. “I think he was playing to the gallery,” Abrams agrees. “He may have been initially disappointed, but, to be honest, he’s been very supportive. He is an incredibly funny guy.”

Shatner must, in spite of himself, be delighted that a series that bombed on its initial outing is still puffing about the universe. It has been reported that a sequel is already in the works.

“It is presumptive to assume there will be one,” Abrams says. “There is a deal that was reported. But there is no story. There is no script. There is no movie. The mechanisms are in place to enable that. That’s all.”

Oh, I think they'll be all right. The Enterprise will fly again. Star Trekhas, despite the studio's fears, made Star Trekcool again.

**  Star Trekopens next Friday

Origins of the species: prequel fever

Films detailing the prehistory of popular characters have become a real craze in recent years. In Batman Beginswe saw how Batman began. In Casino Royalewe learned how bashing some bloke to death in the loo turned James Bond into the 007 we love. The useless Hannibal Risingeven dared to offer a backstory to the hitherto intriguingly motiveless Hannibal Lecter.

This week the origins of Wolverine are outlined. Next, the smashing Star Trekgives us Spock, Kirk, Uhuru and Chekov in their student years.

Such an approach used to be quite rare in popular cinema. Beginning with Draculain 1931, Universal Studios continued their interconnected series of horror films right up until 1945. In that year's tired House of Dracula, only one of the monsters, Lon Chaney's Wolfman, was played by the actor who originated the role, but it never seems to have occurred to Universal to start again from scratch. Wouldn't that just confuse people?

A few decades later, Hammer films did reboot their Frankensteinseries with 1970's Horror of Frankenstein, but, despite Ralph Bates's best efforts, horror fans still think of the Hammer doctor as Peter Cushing.

It took Christopher Nolan's Batman Beginsto prove that audiences could cope with this class of re-invention. The technique has been so successful that it has even crept into less energetic schools of drama. What is Becoming Janebut an origin myth for Jane Austen? Watch Miss Potterand learn how Beatrix Potter became the mistress of creative anthropomorphism.

There may be another one along later this year, when Terminator Salvationhits our screens. The film depicts the origins of the cyborg, played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the first film. But that still means the story takes place many decades ahead of the events depicted in The Terminator. Does this still count as a before-it-was-famous film? Does your brain hurt?