Where to watch Star Trek (2009)

Trivia & production notes

• J.J. Abrams initially joined the project only as a producer but decided to direct after reading the script, realizing he would be envious of whoever else got the job.
• The film was developed under tight time pressure after Viacom and CBS separated in 2005, with Paramount given just eighteen months to develop a new Star Trek film or lose the rights entirely.
• Bad Robot, J.J. Abrams' production company, financed the film alongside Paramount, marking the first time another company had co-financed a Star Trek film.
• Abrams had never seen Star Trek: Nemesis because he felt the franchise had become disconnected from the original series, and as a child he actually preferred Star Wars movies.
• Writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman included time travel in the film from the start to create genuine jeopardy, since prequels typically suffer from audiences knowing the characters' fates in advance.
• Leonard Nimoy's involvement as Spock was important to the writers, who rejected the idea of simply having him share memories and instead incorporated time travel to justify his presence in the story.
• The filmmakers chose the Romulans as the main antagonists partly because they wanted Kirk to meet them before he does in the original series, unlike the Klingons who had become heroes in later Star Trek shows.
• The Enterprise was designed to be built on Earth in the film, inspired by fan art that Orci showed Abrams, justified by the ship's need for artificial gravity calibration in Earth's specific gravity well.
• A scene showing Kirk meeting Carol Marcus as a child, which would have connected to The Wrath of Khan, was cut because the film needed more time to introduce the core characters.
• Orci and Kurtzman drew inspiration from Star Trek novels like Prime Directive, Spock's World, and Best Destiny to fill in background details not covered by existing canon, particularly Kirk's childhood and parents.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article Star Trek (2009 film), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Rewritten for StreamShack; errors are ours — tell us about them.