Lots of people come to L.A.'s Griffith Observatory to view stars, but last night the historic landmark was filled with stars of an entirely different kind. To celebrate the release of Star Trek on DVD and Blu-ray, Paramount Home Entertainment hosted a spectacular bash for the cast and crew (at least we heard it was spectacular – journalists weren't invited inside).
Having already previewed the disc we were excited to talk about it with director and producer J.J. Abrams, producer and co-writer Roberto Orsi, producer Damon Lindelof and several members of the cast, including John Cho ("Sulu"), Zoe Saldana ("Uhura"), Karl Urban ("Bones"), Leonard Nimoy ("Spock Prime") and more.
The red carpet, which was actually black to fit in with the color scheme of the marketing campaign, was situated on the front lawn of the Observatory, near a statue of James Dean and the spot where Arnold Schwarzenegger killed a young Bill Paxton in The Terminator. Following a trio of green girls in red dresses, the two young boys who played the younger incarnations of Kirk (Jimmy Bennet) and Spock (Jacob Kogan) stopped to talk with us. Both of them grew up in a time when Star Trek was off the pop-culture radar, so they came to the franchise without any prior knowledge.
"I didn't really grow up when it was coming out, so it wasn't really too familiar to me," Bennett told us. Once he got the part, however, he researched it like any typical 13-year-old would: "I looked it up on YouTube and TiVo'd it."
It was the same for the 14-year-old Kogan. "I had never seen anything Star Trek before I got the part," he said. "I just watched the first season afterwards. So it was all very new to me. Of course, I'd heard of it. When I got the part I knew I'd be a part of something pretty big."
The older generation of Star Trek was also represented at the event. Walter Koenig, who played the original Chekov, shared a bit of trivia that connects him to Anton Yelchin, the actor who played his younger counterpart in the film.
"I haven't actually said this to anybody else, but my parents were from Russia too, my father was a professional figure skater, like Anton's father," Koenig said. "His [father] was actually a competitive figure skater, and my father taught skating, but it's an interesting parallel."
As for his reaction to the new version, he gave both Yelchin and Abrams high marks for their interpretations. "I thought that the film was terrific," he said. "It was very enjoyable. They gave the proper respect to the original, but then did their own thing, which I think is very important."
Koenig hasn't yet been asked to revive his version of Chekov for the rebooted franchise, as his one-time co-star Leonard Nimoy did with Spock, but if he were, he has an answer ready for the producers: "I'd say, 'Let me read the script.'"
We also got a few minutes with Nimoy himself, the only actor from the original series to appear in the new film. He went on to work with Abrams again after the film, appearing in the role of William Bell on the Fox series Fringe, which Abrams produces. Nimoy said that with Abrams at the helm, he feels confident the Star Trek franchise is in good hands.
"I admire his work," Nimoy said of Abrams. "I admire what he does. He knows how to do a lot of things that not a lot of directors know how to do. ... I had a wonderful meeting with him and the writers, Bob Orsi and Alex Kurtzman, and the producers. Their description of what they thought Star Trek could and should be, and what the Spock character could and should be, was very touching to me. I thought, 'They really get it.' I had been away for many, many years, sort of out of the Star Trek loop for a long time. But what they were describing sounded like something I very much wanted to be involved with."
Nimoy wasn't the only actor on the red carpet who had praise for Abrams' vision. Karl Urban, who played "Bones" McCoy in the film, said that, as a longtime Star Trek fan, he's especially proud to be a part of the reinvigoration of the franchise.
"I watched the original series growing up," Urban said. "And to be part of something that brought me such a huge amount of entertainment over the years is a huge honor and a privilege and a pleasure. I had such a great time making this. They're all really, really wonderful people involved and I look forward to continuing this journey with them."
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