Star Trek (film)/Trivia

• Actor Allusion: Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock, pins down Kirk by the neck, eerily Sylar-like.
• Ascended Fanon: Uhura's Fanon first name, "Nyota", is confirmed. Nichelle Nichols, who played the role during the original series run, was actually the first person to suggest the name "Nyota" for Uhura. This was known by fans before it ever appeared in novels.
  • The lack of a first name for Uhura is a Mythology Gag for much of the movie, until Spock calls her "Nyota", Kirk notes "Ah, so that's her name..." and Spock archly replies "I have no comment on the subject."
• 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 Scene: Quite a few, including one that makes a big Plot Hole by its deletion.
• 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, retuning 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, was 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/Casting Gag: Spock mentions that Vulcan 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.
• 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.
• Throw It In:
  • McCoy's "All I've got left are my bones" line is an ad lib as is Scotty's "can I get a towel." You can see Spock'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.
• Word of God: If the Fridge Logic bothers you, and off-screen, after-the-fact explanations make you feel better, then here you go.