STXI Cast

Comic-Con: 1st Trek XI Poster revealed…subtely implying Kirk & Spock storyline

By Anthony Pascale ⋅ July 22, 2006 ⋅  Email this post ⋅  Print this post ⋅ Post a comment

3 months to the day after the first leak hit Variety Paramount released the first teaser poster for their 11th Star Trek film at ComicCon. Even after all the confirmations and discussions about Trek XI from Abrams and even Paramount themselves (especially in the last week), there is something about a visual image that makes it seem even realer.

My quick takes:
- TOS-era
- Kirk and Spock
- No firm date
- No name

The poster art is also adorning StarTrek.com, which had this to say.

“The production team that now holds the creative reins for the next Star Trek movie project has released a piece of artwork this weekend (to coincide with Comic-Con) that provides a Polaroid of an era past, as well as a vision yet to be revealed. With this familiar imagery, the direction of the next movie is now officially open to speculation.”

For indepth geek-analysis on each point, continue reading…

1. Trek XI to be in the TOS era?
This poster just screams TOS (the Original Series). The primary image of the poster is the familiar arrowhead design that is the basic ‘logo’ for Star Trek…but in this case they used a very specific design, one unique to the Original Series (worn by all members of the crew of Kirk’s Enterprise). This insignia is quite different than the insignia worn for the 6 ‘movie era’ films, and the insignia for the 4 TNG crew films and all versions of Trek on TV. Not only does this indicate that we arent going to see Picard and the boys again, but that we are going back to a time before all the previous films…back to the roots of it all…also known as TOS. (or as I believe the time immediately preceding TOS).

2. Kirk and Spock can live again?
But lets get even geekier…it is gold and blue…gold on the left and blue on the right. Gold is the color of command uniforms and blue the color of science (When you click to see the full sized version you can see that the colors are even textured like the uniforms) Oh by the way, Kirk wore gold and a certain pointed eared (half) Vulcan wore blue!! Abrams and company may be being cagey…but this poster says it all. Even the article announcing it on StarTrek.com admits it by saying ‘ poster sends indications of direction of new movie‘. Even more telling is that they now have two new STXI Desktop downloads…one called science and the other command (and none for engineering, medical or other disciplines)


3. ‘2008′
Seems like they don’t want to get more specific yet (like ‘June 2008′ or even ’summer 2008′). Abrams has already stated that he wants to move as quickly as possible, which would indicate an early summer 08 release. The problem for Paramount is that this would conflict with another genre film which they are distributing (as part of their deal with the new Marvel Studios). Just recently they gave Iron Man an early May 08 release date. Ironically Jon Favreau was only made available for Iron Man after his 2008 John Carter of Mars movie was shelved by Para to make room for Trek XI…my bet early/mid-June 2008

4. No Name
No ‘Star Trek XI’, No ‘Trek Returns’, etc etc…only Trek indication is the web address (and logo of course). It is likely that there is a bit of debate going on within the Abrams camp and/or Para on what to call the film…but they still have time. It is a big question and one that Trekkies are already debating. Will Trek even be in the name (remember the last show Enterprise didn’t have the name in the title originally)…more on this naming issue in a future posting.