J.J. Abrams Warns New ‘Star Trek’ Not For Trekkers

When I heard that J.J. Abrams was going to be the man charged with reinventing Star Trek, I was over the moon. As a fan of the long running franchise, and a fan of Lost and J.J. Abrams style, it seemed to be a marriage made in heaven. However, J.J.’s latest utterings on the upcoming have me slightly worried.

The self-confessed Star Wars kid spoke to The Associated Press, about what he has tried to do with this film.

“It was an opportunity to take what I think has been a maligned world — to sound crass, a franchise — and treat it in a way that made it something that I wanted to see,”

“To take the characters, the thoughtfulness, the personalities, the sense of adventure, the idea of humanity working together, the sense of social commentary and innovation, all that stuff. To take it and apply it in a way that felt genuinely thrilling.”

That’s all fine, but then he spoke about how the new film was going to be much more mainstream than the previous have been, in an effort to appeal to a wider spectrum of people.

“The whole point was to try to make this movie for fans of movies, not fans of `Star Trek,’ necessarily. If you’re a fan, we’ve got one of the writers who’s a devout Trekker, so we were able to make sure we were serving the people who are completely enamored with `Star Trek.’”

“But we are not making the movie for that contingent alone. You can’t really make a movie for them.”

Abrams followed his normal routine of keeping plot details under wraps, refusing to divulge any secrets. However, he did discuss the effects, this time being handled by George Lucas’ Industrial Light and Magic outfit.

“I feel like this is so unlike what you expect, so unlike the `Star Trek’ you’ve seen. At the same time, it’s being true to what’s come before, honoring it,”

“I can say the effects for `Star Trek’ have never, ever been done like this. … I can only tell you the idea of the universe of `Star Trek’ has never been given this kind of treatment.”

I’m still massively looking forward to the new Star Trek film, due out on May 8th, 2009, but there’s just something in Abrams language that has me concerned that the series is being altered too much.

Change is good, but I still want to be able to recognise the settings and characters I grew up with. Unlike Abrams, I’m definitely a Star Trek kid.