Trivia / Star Trek (2009)

• Accidentally-Correct Writing: The red matter black holes actually match certain properties of theoretical black holes, though admittedly not ones that are likely to occur naturally. As outlined in this thread, what makes a black hole a black hole is not mass by itself, but rather the super-compression of that mass, so if we assume that red matter is some supermassive material that collapses in such a way due to technobabble (it is shown collapsing when it detonates inside Narada), it would then create a black hole strong enough to eat a planet. (Due to the degree of compression necessary, in real life this is supremely unlikely to happen outside of the supernova of a supergiant star.)
• Ascended Fanon: Uhura's fanon first name, "Nyota", is confirmed. During The Original Series, Uhura had no canon given name. Someone^note Either William Rotsler or Vonda N. McIntyre, depending on who you ask writing Expanded Universe fiction chose a Swahili name meaning "Star." Both Gene Roddenberry and Uhura's actor, Nichelle Nichols, approved of it, though it took 40 years for the name to finally make it on-screen.^note Note that Sulu's first name, Hikaru, wasn't confirmed until 1991, and likewise originated in a tie-in novel by McIntyre; Peter David, who was visiting the set of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, convinced director Nicholas Meyer to sneak it in. The Running Gag of Uhura's lack of given name is therefore also a Mythology Gag.
  Kirk: So her first name's Nyota?
  Spock: [quickly] I have no comment on the matter.
• B-Team Sequel: The first Trek film created by J. J. Abrams, and the first film in the franchise to be created without any involvement from either Gene Roddenberry or Rick Berman.
• Beam Me Up, Scotty!: The first appearance of this phrase, in its exact form, in any filmed or televised entry in the entire Trek franchise.^note The phrase's first appearance in the franchise was in William Shatner's narration for the audiobook of his 1995 Trek novel The Ashes of Eden.
• Billing Displacement: Despite most of the advertising materials giving Zoe Saldaña third billing after Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, Uhura's role in the film isn't actually that big, especially after the Starfleet Academy sequences.
• Dawson Casting: Most of the cast is semi-plausibly close to the ages of recent Starfleet Academy graduates. However, John Cho is a 37-year-old playing the 21-year-old Sulu. Karl Urban is also 37, though he's closer to his character's official age of 30. And Zoe Saldana (Uhura) is 31.
• Deleted Role: Victor Garber played a Klingon who interrogates Nero in a scene that ended up getting cut.
• Deleted Scene:
  • Amanda holding newborn baby Spock on Vulcan with Sarek. This scene appears in several trailers. In the DVD Commentary, J. J. Abrams explains that this was to be the very first scene in the film, preceding the Kelvin scenes, and that it was cut because it was felt that there would be too much back-and-forth in combination with all the other young Kirk and young Spock scenes.
  • The young Kirk witnesses an argument between his brother George and their uncle Frank, prior to Jim's decision to steal the Corvette.
  • An extension of the scene with Sarek and young Spock where Sarek and Amanda argue over young Spock's fight with the bullies at the Vulcan school.
  • Nero is a prisoner on the prison planet, which turned out to be Rura Penthe. It was Nero's escape from Rura Penthe which Uhura heard about in the transmission she received regarding an attack on a Klingon prison planet. These scenes feature many actors and stunt performers as Klingons and several background aliens from the prison planet such as a multi-eyed alien. This sequence also contains Nero's line, "The wait is over", as seen in trailers for the film.
  • A longer version of Kirk's conversation with Gaila and the subsequent Kobayashi Maru scenario, in which it's revealed that Kirk took advantage of Gaila's feelings for him to reprogram the simulation (via a message from him to her, which she received during his test) – the production staff's commentary would explicitly describe Gaila's visibly annoyed appearance during Kirk's subsequent hearing as a holdover from this scene.
  • Kirk attempts to apologize to Gaila, but mistakes another green-skinned female for her.
  • A brief shot in which Spock Prime walks near Sarek, who seems to sense his presence.
• Deliberate Flaw Retcon: Used on many occasions by the writers to justify inconsistencies with the franchise, for example about the Vulcan sky suddenly being blue (it's a season thing now) or the Federation spaceships being way too advanced for their time period (the Starfleet engineers made use of scans from Nero's 24th-century mining ship).
• Fake American:
  • Kiwi Karl Urban plays Dr. McCoy, and pulls it off so well that he is almost indistinguishable from the Atlanta-born DeForest Kelley, so much so that Leonard Nimoy was moved to tears at how much Karl Urban reminded him of his departed friend.
  • Canadian Bruce Greenwood as Captain Christopher Pike, whose birthplace had been established in TOS (and later re-confirmed in Star Trek: Discovery) as Mojave, California.
  • Australian Chris Hemsworth as Lt. Commander and Captain for 8 minutes George Kirk. Technically George's birthplace was never canonically established, but it had always been generally assumed to be in rural Iowa, like his son.
• Fake Nationality:
  • Dominican/Puerto Rican-American Zoe Saldaña as African-born Uhura (though Nichelle Nichols is straight-up African American so this isn't really any different).
  • The producers were leery of casting an actor of non-Japanese descent to play Sulu, until George Takei himself assured them that it would be all right, claiming that the character represents all of Asia, and reminded them that, according to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, Sulu was born in San Francisco. Besides, Sulu is not a Japanese name anyway^note Roddenberry actually intended it for the communications officer that became Uhura, and there's no reason Sulu couldn't have ancestry from multiple nations, especially in a future where nations don't exist any longer. This paved the way for Korean-American John Cho to assume the role.
• Fake Russian: Downplayed with Anton Yelchin as Chekov. Yelchin was born in Leningrad, but moved to America as a baby. Yelchin kept the fake accent, purportedly as an Homage, but just because he's a Russian/English bilingual native speaker doesn't necessarily mean he can realistically speak English with a Russian accent.
• Fake Scot: Englishman Simon Pegg as Scotty, who is, well, Scottish (though James Doohan was Canadian, so this might be closer).
• Lying Creator: Paramount's pitch was that it was bringing in new writers specifically for new ideas. Then the first trailer showed us... Captain Kirk. While people ultimately still liked the movie, returning to the original characters and timeline wasn't what anyone was thinking when they heard "new".
• Playing Against Type: The case could be made for several members of the cast, but the biggest examples are probably Karl Urban as the cantankerous McCoy instead of a badass warrior, John Cho as a grade-A asskicker instead of his frequent comedic fare, and Eric Bana (and not Zachary Quinto) as the Big Bad.
• Production Posse: J. J. Abrams brought in usual collaborators such as producer Damon Lindelof, composer Michael Giacchino, editor Mary Jo Markey, actors Bruce Greenwood and Greg Grunberg, and most of the crew of Mission: Impossible III.
• Promoted Fanboy:
  • Director J.J. Abrams actually downplayed his enjoyment of modern Trek to emphasize his love of the original series. Screenwriter Roberto Orci is an admitted fanboy as well. And Simon Pegg, who holds the now-famous irony of his statement on Spaced that odd-numbered Trek films suck.
  • Tyler Perry, of Madea fame, is a Trek fan; they got him a guest appearance as the Dean of Starfleet Academy.
  • Randy Pausch, who listed being captain of the Enterprise as one of his dreams in "The Last Lecture," appears as a bridge member of the Kelvin. He walks past the captain's chair, says, "Captain, we have visual," and is not seen again.
  • Most cast members agree that Karl Urban is the biggest Trek geek in the cast.
• Real-Life Relative: Spock mentions that Vulcans and Romulans share common ancestry. One of the Romulans shown when Kirk and Spock beam into the Narada is actually Zachary Quinto's brother Joe.
• Refitted for Sequel: A prequel about a young Jim Kirk entering Starfleet Academy and meeting Spock, McCoy, and Scotty for the first time was originally pitched for the sixth movie in the series. Granted, it would've been set in the Prime Timeline.
• Role Reprise: Thanks to a loophole that the writers implemented, they were able to recast Leonard Nimoy as "Spock Prime," the same Spock from the original Star Trek timeline.
• Separated-at-Birth Casting: In the DVD Commentary, director J. J. Abrams mentions that some viewers thought James Kirk and his father George are both played by Chris Pine, when in fact Chris Hemsworth plays George. And of course, Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy as Spock.
• Shrug of God: J. J. Abrams really doesn't have an answer as to whether the policeman who pursues young Kirk during his joyride is a robot or not.
• Star-Making Role: For Zachary Quinto, in conjunction with his role on Heroes. He's emphasized that he got both roles within short time of each other and while Heroes is what got him the role of Spock, this role is what he's more famous for.
• Throw It In!:
  • McCoy's "All I've got left are my bones" line is an ad lib.
  • Scotty's "can I get a towel" is an ad lib. You can see Quinto's lips twitch after that one since he's trying not to laugh.
  • "Out of the chair" was something that Quinto threw in during rehearsal that just felt right to everyone.
• Underage Casting: A retroactive case as a line in Star Trek Beyond mentions that George Kirk was 29 when he died on the Kelvin. Chris Hemsworth was 25 when the film came out in 2009.
• What Could Have Been: See the page
• Word of God: If the Fridge Logic bothers you, and off-screen, after-the-fact explanations make you feel better, then here you go.
  • Kirk eating the apple during the Kobayashi Maru sequence mimics Kirk's same food during his explanation of the test in The Wrath of Khan. This was unintentional, but they put it in because it made Kirk look arrogant.
  • The creators used the TNG episode "Parallels" to specifically explain how the new timeline works with the Prime timeline.
• Working Title: Star Trek: The Beginning.
• You Look Familiar:
  • W. Morgan Sheppard, who played the Vulcan Science Council minister, previously played Dr. Ira Graves in the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Schizoid Man", the Klingon Commandant of Rura Penthe from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, and Qatai in the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Bliss".
  • Greg Ellis, who played Chief Engineer Olson, also played the Cardassian Ekoor in the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine finale "What You Leave Behind".
  • Anna Katarina, who played a Vulcan Science Council Member, also played Valeda Innis in the TNG episode "Haven".

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