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How Anton Yelchin’s Death Changes Star Trek Beyond

By Scott Meslow

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At a key moment in Star Trek Beyond , Kirk leads the crew of the USS Enterprise in a toast. "To absent friends," Kirk says, as everyone raises a glass. And then the camera shifts, ever so slightly, to refocus on the man standing behind him: Pavel Chekov, the crew member played by Anton Yelchin, who died at age 27 in a freak automobile accident last month.

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At least, I thought the camera pivoted to Chekov. In retrospect, I'm almost 100 percent sure it was in my imagination. But for me, watching Star Trek Beyond so soon after Yelchin's sudden death cast his performance—and the film itself—in a different light. It's a resonance that the film's creative team never intended, but it's still there. When the film began, every time Chekov appeared on screen, I felt a little jolt of grief. As it continued, this feeling gradually softened, but it never totally went away.

None of this is to criticize the creative team behind Star Trek Beyond , who have felt the loss of Yelchin as both a colleague and friend, and who have been unfailingly thoughtful and gracious in their tributes to Yelchin during the movie's promotional circuit. But the death of an actor changes the context in which you watch a movie, and for fans of Yelchin's work, Star Trek Beyond will be both a tribute and a fresh source of grief. And sitting in a movie theater, it's hard to reconcile those feelings with what Star Trek Beyond wants to be: a fun, escapist summer popcorn blockbuster.

Star Trek Beyond is hardly the first Hollywood blockbuster to hit theaters under the shadow of a cast member's unexpected death. The Harry Potter franchise recast the role of Dumbledore after the death of Richard Harris. Last year, the final Hunger Games sequel was reworked to minimize the role of Plutarch Heavensbee, the supporting character played by Philip Seymour Hoffman, who died in February 2014. Earlier this summer, Alice Through the Looking Glass featured the final performance of Alan Rickman, whose unmistakable baritone classed up an otherwise forgettable movie.

Of course, a movie faces a different challenge when a late actor's performance contains echoes of their death. One of the Joker's final lines to Batman in The Dark Knight —"I think you and I are destined to do this forever"—became unintentionally ghoulish after Heath Ledger died. And then, of course, there's Furious 7 —the James Wan-directed installment of a franchise largely defined by Stark Trek Beyond director Justin Lin, who directed installments three, four, five, and six. When Paul Walker died during the production of Furious 7 —in a car crash, no less—the film's producers faced a difficult decision: shut down production, or release a movie with some unsettling parallels to a real-life tragedy? In the end, they concluded that releasing the film was the right decision, and they managed to give Walker's protagonist a relatively graceful exit, using previously shot footage, along with CGI and body doubles, to complete the performance.

Star Trek Beyond is largely constructed as a tribute to another late Star Trek icon: Leonard Nimoy.

But the team behind Star Trek Beyond had a simpler choice to make. Yelchin's performance was finished, and nothing in the film directly recalls the circumstances of his death. In fact, Star Trek Beyond is largely constructed as a tribute to another late Star Trek icon: Leonard Nimoy, who died several months before Beyond entered production.

This timeline enabled screenwriters Simon Pegg and Doug Jung to weave Nimoy's real-life death into the fabric of the film. As Beyond begins, Spock (Zachary Quinto) learns that Ambassador Spock (Nimoy)—his older self from an alternate timeline, as seen in the previous two Star Trek movies—has died. This news sends the younger Spock into a soul-searching grief that informs his entire arc in the movie, as he contemplates leaving both the Federation and his girlfriend, Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana), to spend more time rebuilding his culture with the other surviving Vulcans. The story crescendoes with a brief, poignant nod to Ambassador Spock and the rest of the original cast, offering a final love letter to both the character and Leonard Nimoy.

Star Trek Beyond features one of Yelchin's final performances, which is both the simplest and most complete way to honor his work in the franchise—but his death also hangs over the movie, and the already-announced Star Trek 4 will need to address it. J.J. Abrams has said that the role of Chekov won't be recast, but that it's "too early" to decide how they'll resolve the character’s absence.

As far as I can tell, the only change that was definitively made to Star Trek Beyond in the wake of Yelchin's death happens several minutes after the movie itself has ended. In the middle of the credits, a warm title card appears that was presumably planned a long time ago: "In loving memory of Leonard Nimoy." When those words fade away, they're replaced by a second, simpler dedication: "For Anton."

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Chris Pine Reflects On Anton Yelchin’s Secret Illness Filming Star Trek Beyond

Before J.J. Abrams helped to kickstart the Star Wars franchise with The Force Awakens , he had his eye on another intergalactic property. Abrams brought the Star Trek series back to theaters with his trilogy of movies, starring a talented cast and plenty of lens flares. The fate of the potential fourth movie remains unclear , although the Star Trek family suffered a loss with the death of actor Anton Yelchin .

Anton Yelchin played Pavel Chekov in all three Star Trek movies, although the threequel Beyond was released after his unexpected death at the age of 27. The Star Trek cast recently assembled to celebrate the first movie's 10-year anniversary, and Chris Pine spoke to working with Yelchin. It was revealed posthumously that Yelchin suffered from cystic fibrosis, and Pine remembered a scene where he's sure the young actor was silently suffering. As he put it:

While we were shooting [Star Trek Beyond], especially towards the end, I think we could all tell that something wasn’t right with Anton. I don’t think anyone knew that he was battling the illness that he was. We had about a week of doing a pretty intense stunt, like a really grueling, physically demanding stunt. I haven’t actually thought about it until now, but looking back on it, I remember how hard it was for him to get through it. And he never complained. He didn’t use [the disease] to get out of this fight scene, which he could easily have done, obviously.

It looks like Anton Yelchin was determined to shoot all of his scenes in Star Trek Beyond . So this included silently suffering through symptoms of cystic fibrosis while shooting a weeks worth of stunt footage. It's this type of dedication that made his tenure as Pavel Chekov such a fan favorite aspect of the trilogy.

Chris Pine 's comments to THR just continue to highlight the tragedy of Anton Yelchin's unexpected death. The Russian-American actor clearly had a strong work ethic, and was able to juggle his diagnosis and the long grueling hours of working on a film set. Besides not asking for assistance, Yelchin didn't even share his experience with co-stars like Pine.

Related: Zoe Saldana Recalls Anton Yelchin Being ‘Nervous’ To Do Star Trek Justice

Anton Yelchin's life is being explored through the new documentary Love, Antosha . The doc explores the actor's life and death, with both Chris Pine and J.J. Abrams among the cast who speak to their experiences with Yelchin. You can check the trailer for Love, Antosha below.

Anton Yelchin died on June 19th, 2016 at the age of 27. He was involved in a freak motor vehicle accident in his own driveway, before Star Trek Beyond made it way to theaters. It's particularly tragic that Yelchin didn't get to see the scene that Chris Pine described above, considering the hard work involved.

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The fate of the Star Trek franchise is still a mystery . But if a fourth movie is finally green lit, it would mark the first installment without Anton Yelchin's character.

CinemaBlend will keep you updated on all things Star Trek . Be sure to check out our 2019 release list to plan your next trip to the movies.

Corey was born and raised in New Jersey. Graduated with degrees theater and literature from Ramapo College of New Jersey. After working in administrative theater for a year in New York, he started as the Weekend Editor at CinemaBlend. He's since been able to work himself up to reviews, phoners, and press junkets-- and is now able to appear on camera with some of his favorite actors... just not as he would have predicted as a kid. He's particularly proud of covering horror franchises like Scream and Halloween, as well as movie musicals like West Side Story. Favorite interviews include Steven Spielberg, Spike Lee, Jamie Lee Curtis, and more.

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Star Trek Beyond Cast Pays Tribute to Anton Yelchin With Moment of Silence

T he Star Trek Beyond cast honored their late co-star Anton Yelchin before the film’s premiere at San Diego Comic-Con Wednesday night by holding a moment of silence. Yelchin — who played Chekov in the rebooted trilogy — died in June after being crushed by his own car .

Producer J.J. Abrams stood on stage with the stars of Beyond — including Idris Elba, Zoe Saldana and Chris Pine — before the screening began to speak about the loss of the 27-year-old actor. “As wonderful as this is to be here with all of you and to be celebrating the 50th anniversary of Star Trek , there is something wrong tonight,” he said, according to E! News . “There is something missing tonight. There is someone missing tonight. Anton Yelchin should be here. Anton’s parents are here, Irina and Victor. We love their son, and if I could ask everyone to have a moment of silence for our dear friend, Anton.”

The silence lasted for over a minute. Watch a clip below.

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'Star Trek Beyond' Pays Tribute To Anton Yelchin

When production began on Stark Trek Beyond , the cast and crew knew that it would be without one of their most important founding members. Leonard Nimoy, the original Spock who reprised his role in the Star Trek reboot and its sequel, died in 2015 before shooting began, and screenwriters Simon Pegg and Doug Jung made sure to pay tribute to Spoke Prime (as he was known in the reboot films) in Star Trek Beyond . What they could not have anticipated was losing another member of their beloved crew, though, yet they did, and the Anton Yelchin tribute in Star Trek Beyond will bring everyone to tears. Yelchin, aka Chekov of the Starship Enterprise, died tragically in June , barely a month before Beyond 's release, and while obviously, the actor's death is not touched upon in the movie, filmmakers do pay tribute to the actor with a heart-wrenching dedication.

In a truly classy tribute, Beyond addresses the passings of both Nimoy and Yelchin with two, simple, black title cards before the end credits scroll. "In loving memory of Leonard Nimoy," reads the first. And the second says simply, "For Anton." Both cards appear only briefly on the screen, but the decision by filmmakers to have them appear without music — the famous original Star Trek theme stops before the first title card — makes the tributes all the more poignant.

The additional title card wasn't the only change made to the film in order to pay tribute to Yelchin. According to Pegg, director Justin Lin re-edited the final scene ( spoiler alert ) to add in a subtle tribute. "Justin went back and edited the final moment so that when Kirk says, 'To absent friends,' it cuts to Anton, which is really moving," Pegg said in an interview with The Daily Beast.

The heartbreaking tribute continues off screen as the cast of Star Trek Beyond continues their international press tour without Yelchin. In his interview with The Daily Beast, Pegg revealed that doing promotion for the film and seeing it on-screen has aided the actors in dealing with their castmate's death. "It's helped, it really has helped," Pegg said. "When I watched the movie... when I saw him, it made me happy. It didn't make me sad. It was quite upsetting at times, but generally speaking, it was Anton — and he'll be there forever."

Star Trek Beyond is bound to cheer fans mourning Yelchin's death as well. Despite his tragic passing, the actor appears in the film as eager, happy, and endearing as ever. It's a fitting tribute to both Yelchin and his character.

Images: Paramount Pictures (2)

Star Trek Beyond: an unpublished interview with Anton Yelchin

While creatively Star Trek Beyond was perhaps the most satisfying entry in the rebooted film series, its release was also in some ways overshadowed by the tragic death of Anton Yelchin , who had portrayed Pavel Chekov.

By the age of 27, Yelchin had already amassed a variety of film credits, including Hearts In Atlantis , Alpha Dog , Fierce People , Charlie Bartlett , Middle Of Nowhere , Terminator Salvation , the remake of Fright Night , and Like Crazy . He portrayed Chekov in Star Trek , Star Trek Into Darkness and, of course, Star Trek Beyond . He will next be represented by the Guillermo del Toro TV series Trollhunters , for which he provided the voice of Jim.

In Star Trek Beyond , the starship Enterprise is destroyed by an enemy hellbent on vengeance against Starfleet. Scattered on an alien world, the crew must come together to not only save themselves, but the galaxy as a whole.

The following unpublished interview with Anton Yelchin was conducted on the afternoon of Thursday 16 June of 2016 just three days before his death.

At the Star Trek fan event back in May, Zachary Quinto pointed out that it’s been about ten years since you guys first went before the cameras on Trek . Is that strange at all for you to consider that it’s been that long already?

Yes, actually, it has almost been a decade. You see everyone between the films a little bit, but then it's wild to think that there's a feature every three or four years. It's such an odd thing, you know? Then go back to it and get right back into the same thing. It's a very fascinating and odd experience. But it’s a great feeling. I love it, actually, because you grow in the interim. Let's not say grow, but you definitely evolve and change and transform in the interim, and then seeing what you can bring to it anew is really interesting. You know, what else you can bring to these characters and what else you can do and new moments you can find. We started borrowing as much from the original performance ... At least for me, I borrow as much from Walter Koenig as myself in this weird way. Not to sound like a complete egotist, it's just that I end up going, "Okay, that's something that I was doing. I should do that again." Stuff like that. It's an odd thing.

But the more you play it, doesn’t it become much more your take?

Yes, but I always love borrowing, because I love Walter Koenig's performance. I think it's wonderful and I feel grateful that there's such a wealth of little moments and things that he created, and my favorite thing is incorporating that into my work. It's interesting to revisit that each time.

You brought up a good point about coming back having changed and grown. Can you track how both you and Chekov have changed over the years?

In 2009, I literally had just graduated high school, so it was kind of odd to think about that. Literally I would've been going to University that year, but we did the first Trek . In terms of Chekov, I think in this film, specifically because they're faced with the destruction of the Enterprise, it adds a more dire quality. Existential crisis is a little strong, but it has this very intense existential element of trying to figure out exactly what his place is in this space and world in a way that he hasn't had to before. I think part of it was the themes of the film that there is a complacency that sets in once you've been doing it for awhile, and that's really stripped from everyone on the crew. Chekov has to figure out, "Why am I doing this? What exactly am I doing? What can I bring to it? What do I value most?" I remember making the most notes about that for myself, just moments where you're discovering what it is he values the most in all of this. I assume that to be the people, the crew, each other.

Does that reflect on you at all in terms of what you value the most from making these movies with this group of actors?

Here's the thing: I think the most appropriate way to look at things for me is to have the experiences. It sounds cheesy, but it is true, because every film is such a gamble. Who knows what's going to happen with any film, you know? But you do get this time shared with the people you're there with. You do get to experience that and be together and do things together and study one another. That's a huge part of making these films.

The other part is, of course, being in these huge, fun movies that have this incredible legacy that they're a part of. Especially given it's the fiftieth anniversary, I’m quite flattered and honored to be a part of it, but the other part is on a much smaller scale, just being a part of this group and getting to know everyone. Not just the actors and the crew and seeing familiar faces, but seeing new faces as well. It's really kind of what makes every film special in this weird way.

After the destruction of the Enterprise, the characters pair up in different ways and you end up spending more time with Chris Pine's Kirk in this movie than you have in the other two. What is that pairing like?

I had a lot of fun with it, because Kirk is all balls and all heart and action and intellect. It's paired with activity. He acts. I think Chekov is more cerebral and he is a technician. It was fun to play off that sort of a relationship, but also the moving part of the relationship is how much tremendous respect Chekov has for Kirk, and how Kirk really shows Chekov what it means to be a part of his team and what he values most. Kirk really does that, I think, for the characters. They're always talking about, "Our captain will do this and that." That comes from the original series. Their belief in their captain allows them to believe in themselves and in the enterprise — not their ship, but what they're doing.

Their five-year mission, basically.

Yes, exactly. That character of Captain Kirk is the one that teaches them about themselves and what they're doing and why they want to be doing it and what's important about it. I think to be that close to that character, that's always a subliminal thing. Why is Chekov doing this? It's looking at Kirk that makes him realize that.

Because you're on camera with him much more, you get to play colors of the character that you haven't had a chance to play before.

Totally. Chris is a really funny guy, so it's comedic things, too, that we both got a kick out of.

Obviously this was the first one that Justin Lin directed. What do you think he brings to the mix that contrasts with what JJ Abrams brought?

From what I understand, Justin Lin has been a lifelong Trekkie and has always loved the original series and the films. As an actor, what I look for in directors is that there's a very acute sense of what you're trying to accomplish and what you would like to accomplish; the emotional beats or moments for the characters to indulge in. I just really appreciate that. That's what you're going by. All I have to go by is discovering moments and ideas and things like that. I found that Justin is really sensitive to all of that, and I really appreciated that about him and about working with him.

The first two trailers got very different reactions. Which do you think more closely represents the film?

I'd have to say the second one. I find that both sides of the coin are satisfied by this picture. I think that there are excellent moments of spectacle and action and the film is fun and the action is incredibly well executed. There's a lot for anyone who doesn't give a shit about Trek , just to be frank, to enjoy. You know what I mean? That being said, I think Simon Pegg and Doug Jung worked really hard to infuse this film with qualities from the series in terms of the characters, the stakes that various characters have to deal with, the emotional and intellectual content of the film, and specifically the relationships between the crew members. That is really, aside from the general theme of unity and connection between civilization, what the series thrives on, the relationships of these characters that you love. You love their little idiosyncrasies and their connections, their moments of joy and loss. I’d say that was really great about the original show, and I think Doug and Simon, and Simon on set, worked really hard to find those moments in every scene.

The film is very much something for that fan base, the dedicated fan base that Star Trek is so fortunate to have. It's the essence that's there, and at the same time part of science fiction is spectacle. It is the way that the fiction element is executed. Justin executes that really well and I think that fiction element also allows this film to have a much broader, bigger audience.

The original Star Trek was a perfect prism in which to look at humanity. As these films get bigger and have action and spectacle, is there still the opportunity to provide that prism of exploring where we are as a society, where we are as a people?

The unfortunate thing is that Gene Roddenberry's hope for the future still seems a hope we have for the future, and not at the present moment. If anything, there's probably more disunity and more confusion as a result of the Cold War ending. I think that's what Gene Roddenberry was contending with was the Cold War, and it was two super powers vying for the world in a way, and all of these incarnations in various continents of that fight. Now we live in this post-colonial, post-Cold War world where all you see is disunity. Look at what happened this weekend in Orlando [the mass shooting at the Pulse club in Orlando, Florida]. It's terrifying and devastating. We live in a world that is constantly trying to seemingly implode and find as many reasons not to see eye to eye as possible.

Until we resolve that — and who knows when that will be or how to do that? — Gene Roddenberry's message will always be relevant, and it will always be important. It’s about discovering what connects people and how to connect and not how to destroy one another, but how to try and figure out how to live together. I think that's an ancient quest that, given socio-economics and socio-politics, has gotten more and more convoluted. We seem to be infinitely unified in our technology and infinitely disparate in our ability to see eye to eye.

Star Trek Beyond will be released on Blu-ray 1 November in the US, and 21 November in the UK

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Published Jun 19, 2016

Hollywood Remembers Anton Yelchin

The tributes continue to pour in for Anton Yelchin, Star Trek 's current Chekov, who died in the early morning of June 19, at the age of 27. As reported, the actor was killed, in a freak accident, at home by his own car. He will be seen one last time as Chekov in Star Trek Beyond , due out next month.

J.J. Abrams sent Entertainment Weekly a message on behalf of the Beyond cast and crew. It reads:

"Anton was our little brother. But only by years; he was as wise and clever and intellectually curious as anyone we ever knew. His laugh was preposterous -- you couldn't hear it and not laugh yourself. He was funny, edgy, wild and talented beyond measure. His focus and dedication was admirable, as was his love of family, friends, literature and music.

We loved Anton, at work or at play. We are all shocked and numb and devastated by the world's loss of an extraordinary young man.

To his family, we send our love during this impossible time.

We will miss Anton forever.

His Star Trek family.

Our Star Trek family has lost one of its own. My deepest condolences to his family and friends. -- George Takei

She is beyond devastated and first and foremost her heart and prayers are with the Yelchin family during this time -- Zoe Saldana's rep told E! News

Paramount Pictures released the following statement: "All of us at Paramount join the world in mourning the untimely passing of Anton Yelchin. As a member of the Star Trek family, he was beloved by so many and he will missed by all. We share our deepest condolences with his mother, father and family."

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Here's how Star Trek Beyond pays tribute to Leonard Nimoy and Anton Yelchin

"Absent friends" are remembered in the new movie, which began and ended production cloaked in tragedy

Huw Fullerton
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Contains mild Star Trek Beyond spoilers

New sci-fi sequel Star Trek Beyond began its journey with some tragedy, as original Spock actor Leonard Nimoy (who also appeared in the 2009 and 2013 film reboots) passed away shortly before filming began.

Naturally, the iconic actor’s death added a sombre air to the film’s production, but the sadness was only just beginning for the cast and crew. A few months later, 27-year-old cast member Anton Yelchin (who played Pavel Chekov in the series) was killed in an accident involving his car, shocking his fans and drawing tributes from around the world.

Both deaths hang heavily over Star Trek Beyond in its finished form, which includes tributes to both men. But for the most part the film itself focuses on Nimoy, whose death was far enough before production for the writers to make it part of the film’s storyline (as opposed to Yelchin, who died after filming had completed).

During Star Trek Beyond it’s revealed that Nimoy’s older Spock (who travelled to the new films’ parallel timelines in 2009’s Star Trek) has also passed away, leading to sad reflection from his younger self (Zachary Quinto) and other crew members on his life and achievements.

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Later, young Spock goes through Spock Prime’s effects, finding a photograph of the original Star Trek crew – William Shatner, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols etc – paying tribute to Nimoy’s “family” on the show as well as the 50th anniversary of the original series.

And finally, as the adventure ends and the crew reflect on what they’ve been through, Kirk calls a toast “to absent friends”, a callback to a toast given in 1984's Star Trek III: The Search for Spock after the "death" of Spock in 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (as well as a drink Kirk has in his late father's honour earlier in Beyond). The moment was undoubtedly meant to invoke Nimoy’s memory, but given Yelchin’s passing it gains an even greater poignancy.

Blink and you’ll miss it, but as Kirk raises his glass, the camera seems to linger on Yelchin for a second – a subtle goodbye to a young actor who producer JJ Abrams has recently announced won’t be replaced as Chekov for future films.

And when the movie finishes, both men are honoured, the screen reading “In loving memory of Leonard Nimoy” and “for Anton” before the credits start rolling. A fitting tribute to the loss of both old and new members of the Star Trek family.

Star Trek Beyond is in UK cinemas from Friday 22 July

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'Star Trek Beyond' becomes tragic tribute for two

Both Leonard Nimoy (left, as Spock Prime) and Anton Yelchin (Chekhov) died before the release of 'Star Trek Beyond.'

Star Trek Beyond was always going to deal with heartbreak.

Leonard Nimoy, the only member of the seminal TV series to join the rebooted film franchise as Spock Prime, died in February 2015 at 83 before the third Trek film began shooting.

This sadness was amplified months after filming wrapped when Anton Yelchin, 27, who played navigator Pavel Chekov, died in a car accident in June.

"We knew going into production this would be bittersweet because of Leonard's loss," says Zachary Quinto, who plays a younger version of Commander Spock in the alternate timeline. "But none us could have possibly imagined the unfathomable tragedy of losing Anton.”

The credit tributes for Star Trek Beyond (in theaters Friday) read simply “In Loving Memory of Leonard Nimoy” before going to “For Anton.” But the impact of these deaths goes deeper.

Spock Prime is portrayed as having died in the film, sending Quinto’s Spock into an existential crisis.

Straight Up Hollywood: Go on set of 'Star Trek Beyond'

“(Quinto’s) Spock faces his own mortality with his own (future self) passing. It just seemed like such an incredibly Trekkie idea,” says Simon Pegg, who co-wrote the movie with Doug Jung. “We had become very close to Leonard and loved the idea of this becoming part of Zach’s Spock journey. It seemed cosmically right, a fitting tribute to one of Star Trek 's iconic faces ."

When Spock talks about his own mortality onscreen, Quinto let highly un-Vulcan-like tears flow — not hard to tap into with the loss of his close friend Nimoy.

“They were certainly authentic expressions of my sadness,” says Quinto. “It’s not easy to lose someone so dear as Leonard. I was grateful to have somewhere to put that.”

Yelchin’s sudden death was a devastating shock to the tight-knit cast, coming weeks before director Justin Lin finished editing the film. Lin added a poignant image of Yelchin to a scene where Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) toasts absent friends.

“It's a beautiful shot of Anton, looking relaxed, like he didn’t know the camera was on him,” says Pegg. “That was a way we could at least acknowledge the awfulness of what happened.”

The emotional cast called an emergency meeting to discuss whether they would even talk about the film publicly.

“We were devastated, bereft beyond any idea. The idea of banging a drum, saying 'Come see this movie,' seemed an impossible task,” says Pegg. “It’s been very difficult to process for us all. I would be lying if I said any of us have truly come to terms with it. I don’t know if we ever will.”

'Star Trek Beyond' crashes in a new world

Pegg ultimately found the film a fitting tribute to Yelchin, whose role won't be recast in the already-announced fourth Star Trek.

“To see him onscreen being so great, so alive, it gave me hope that he will be around forever, in some way. Even if we have lost him,” says Pegg. “For people who never met him, he hasn’t gone away and won’t go away. I found myself heartened by that when I watched the movie. That means something to us.”

clock This article was published more than 7 years ago

‘Star Trek Beyond’ actor Anton Yelchin dies at 27

“Star Trek Beyond” actor Anton Yelchin died early Sunday morning at age 27 in a “fatal traffic collision,” according to his publicist, Jennifer Allen.

Yelchin was found pinned between his car and a gate in his inclined driveway, Los Angeles police Officer Jenny Hosier told the Associated Press . The car was in neutral with the engine still running when the actor’s body was discovered, according to TMZ . Friends found the scene after becoming alarmed when he didn’t show up to meet them. No foul play is suspected.

Yelchin, whose third turn as Chekov in the forthcoming “Star Trek” sequel is due in theaters next month, was an up-and-coming actor known for his roles in a number of films, including “Alpha Dog,” “Charlie Bartlett,” “Like Crazy” and “Green Room.” He was no stranger to working with big-name actors — including Morgan Freeman, Bruce Willis, Robert Downey Jr., Diane Lane, Jennifer Lawrence and Susan Sarandon — while barely out of his teens.

Born March 11, 1989, to figure-skating Russian parents, Yelchin and his family moved to the United States when he was 6-months-old. His first acting gig was on the hit show “ER” in 2000. Yelchin acted on several television shows, including “The Practice,” “Criminal Minds,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and “NYPD Blue.” But it was his turn in the 2001 film “Hearts in Atlantis,” based on Stephen King’s book, that earned him critical acclaim and a Young Artist Award for best performance in a feature film.

Yelchin’s death brought an immediate outpouring of grief on Twitter, as his name and the titles of several of his films began to trend on the social-media site. Co-stars, friends and fans alike have expressed their condolences, including King and director Guillermo del Toro, who was set to work with Yelchin in his upcoming Netflix animated series, announced just last week .

The sweetest, most humble, delightful, talented guy you'd ever meet. Worked together for about a year. Shocked. https://t.co/uyg2NlmhqP — Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) June 19, 2016

Anton was a sweetheart. Absolutely a great creative partner and artist. — Guillermo del Toro (@RealGDT) June 19, 2016

Terrible news about Anton Yelchin, crazily talented actor gone too soon. — Stephen King (@StephenKing) June 19, 2016

Anton Yelchin was one of my best friends. Can't say anything that conveys what this feels like — Kat Dennings (@OfficialKat) June 19, 2016

I loved Anton Yelchin so much. He was a true artist - curious, beautiful, courageous. He was a great pal and a great son. I'm in ruins. — John Cho (@JohnTheCho) June 19, 2016

Still in shock. Rest in peace, Anton. Your passion and enthusiasm will live on with everyone that had the pleasure of knowing you. — Justin Lin (@justinlin) June 19, 2016

View this post on Instagram A post shared by Zachary Quinto (@zacharyquinto)

We're saddened to report the passing of Anton Yelchin, best known as Chekov @StarTrekMovie https://t.co/dgpY0gSuem pic.twitter.com/EXMCAJsKgx — Star Trek (@StarTrek) June 19, 2016

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Anton Yelchin, ‘Star Trek’ Actor, Dies at 27

By Dave Itzkoff

June 19, 2016

Anton Yelchin, who played the young incarnation of Chekov, an excitable officer on the Starship Enterprise, in the rebooted “Star Trek” movie series, died early Sunday morning when he was pinned by his car in his driveway at his home in Los Angeles. He was 27.

Officer Jenny Houser of the Los Angeles Police Department said Mr. Yelchin was hit around 1:10 a.m. The car, an SUV, had rolled backward down a steep driveway and trapped him against a brick mailbox pillar and a security fence.

Officer Houser said he was found dead by friends who had come to his house, in the Studio City neighborhood, after he did not show up for a rehearsal.

(On Monday, The Associated Press reported that the vehicle, a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee, was one of 1.1. million vehicles recalled by the manufacturer, Fiat Chrysler, in April because their gear shifters had confused drivers, causing the vehicles to roll away, according to National Highway Traffic Safety Administration records.)

Mr. Yelchin was born on March 11, 1989, in Leningrad (now St. Petersburg), Russia, in what was then the Soviet Union. His parents, Irina Korina and Viktor Yelchin, were superstar figure skaters with the Leningrad Ice Ballet.

But the Yelchins, who are Jewish, fled the Soviet Union six months later, facing political and religious oppression and fearing for their son’s safety. They settled in Los Angeles. His parents survive him.

“It is a very bad situation over there,” Viktor Yelchin told The Los Angeles Times . “I would get angry, too — I’d say, ‘Why should we have to buy things on the black market? Why should we have to stand in line?’”

As a child actor, Anton made memorable appearances on television shows like “ER,” “The Practice” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” on which he played a child magician who frustrates Larry David with a card trick.

He also appeared in the films “Charlie Bartlett” (2007), with Robert Downey Jr., in which he played the title role, a talkative student who appoints himself his school’s resident therapist, and “Alpha Dog” (2006), in which he played an innocent boy who becomes an unwitting pawn in a drug war.

His breakthrough came in the director J. J. Abrams’s 2009 resuscitation of “Star Trek,” the venerable science-fiction adventure franchise. Mr. Yelchin was cast as Pavel Chekov, the Russian-born Starfleet officer portrayed by Walter Koenig in the original “Star Trek” television series and movies.

As played by Mr. Yelchin, Chekov was endearingly antic, humorously navigating his way through high-pressure scenarios and — even in the 23rd century — having difficulty with the “V” sounds in words like “Victor” and “Vulcan.”

Mr. Yelchin reprised the role in a 2013 sequel, “Star Trek Into Darkness,” and will be seen in a third film, “Star Trek Beyond,” to be released this summer.

His other recent roles included the voice of Clumsy Smurf in two “Smurfs” movies and a member of a punk-rock band fighting its way out of a neo-Nazi skinhead club in the horror film “Green Room” (2015).

His co-stars mourned his death on social media. In an Instagram post , Zachary Quinto, who plays Spock in the new “Star Trek” movies, wrote that Mr. Yelchin was “one of the most open and intellectually curious people I have ever had the pleasure to know.” In a post on Twitter , John Cho, who plays Sulu in the new movies, called Mr. Yelchin “a true artist — curious, beautiful, courageous.”

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Tributes pour in for late 'Star Trek' actor Anton Yelchin

Actor Anton Yelchin, best known for his role as Ensign Pavel Chekov in the rebooted Star Trek movie series, has died in what is being labelled a "freak accident" involving his own car.

Los Angeles police found the actor in his driveway at around 1am PST on Sunday morning. The cause of death has been declared accidental by authorities, with LAPD spokesperson Jenny Houser telling The Hollywood Reporter : "It appears he momentarily exited his car and it rolled backward, causing trauma that led to his death."

Born in what is now Saint Petersburg, Russia on 11 March 1989, Yelchin's parents Irina and Viktor – both figure skaters who had qualified for the 1972 Olympics but were prevented from competing by the former Soviet regime – moved the family to the USA when Anton was six months old.

Anton Yelchin's movie debut came in 2000's independent film A Man is Mostly Water . He also appeared on television in series such as E.R., Hearts in Atlantis, and Huff . His big screen career took off in 2009 when he appeared as Kyle Reese in Terminator: Salvation and the JJ Abrams-directed Star Trek .

Yelchin would go on to resume the role of Chekov in 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness in its impending sequel, Star Trek Beyond , and appear in numerous movies including 2011's Fright Night remake, Odd Thomas , and Only Lovers Left Alive . He also lent his voice to animated feature The Pirates! and the English language dub of Studio Ghibli's From Up on Poppy Hill .

Tributes to the young actor have flooded in, praising his charm and charisma, and mourning the loss of such a talent so young.

Trek director and producer JJ Abrams tweeted a note reading "Anton - you were brilliant. You were kind. You were funny as hell, and supremely talented. And you weren't here nearly long enough. Missing you, JJ."

In a further statement to Entertainment Weekly , Abrams said "Anton was our little brother. But only by years; he was as wise and clever and intellectually curious as anyone we ever knew. His laugh was preposterous – you couldn’t hear it and not laugh yourself. He was funny, edgy, wild and talented beyond measure. His focus and dedication was admirable, as was his love of family, friends, literature and music."

"We loved Anton, at work or at play. We are all shocked and numb and devastated by the world’s loss of an extraordinary young man. To his family, we send you our love during this impossible time. We will miss Anton forever."

Paramount Pictures, the studio behind the Star Trek film series, also released a statement. It said: "All of us at Paramount join the world in mourning the untimely passing of Anton Yelchin. As a member of the Star Trek family, he was beloved by so many and he will missed by all. We share our deepest condolences with his mother, father and family."

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Yelchin's Star Trek cast mates also paid tribute. John Cho, who plays Sulu, said "I loved Anton Yelchin so much. He was a true artist - curious, beautiful, courageous. He was a great pal and a great son. I'm in ruins," and "Please send your love to Anton's family right now. They need it."

Zoe Saldana - Lt Uhura - said "Devastated by our friend's loss. We are mourning his passing and celebrating the beautiful spirit that he was. #RIPAnton".

Justin Lin, director of Star Trek Beyond added "Still in shock. Rest in peace, Anton. Your passion and enthusiasm will live on with everyone that had the pleasure of knowing you."

Dozens of other Trek cast and crew, both past and present, have also paid their respects to Yelchin, though it was perhaps a fan tribute to the late actor that most poignantly hits home .

Yelchin will be posthumously seen in Star Trek Beyond , released 22 July, 2016's Porto and We Don't Belong Here , and 2017's Thoroughbred .

This article was originally published by WIRED UK

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'Star Trek Beyond' Cast Fondly Remembers Late Crewmate Anton Yelchin and 'Trek' Icon Leonard Nimoy

The actors reflect fondly on their two friends and pay tribute to them on screen

As Star Trek Beyond readies to beam into theaters on July 22, the cast and filmmakers are hoping the memories of two late costars, Anton Yelchin and Leonard Nimoy, live long and prosper on screen.

During a press conference Thursday in Beverly Hills to promote the latest entry in the rebooted sci-fi franchise, co-stars remembered their colleague Yelchin – the actor who played Ensign Pavel Chekov in three films died at age 27 in a freak car accident on June 19 – both fondly and poignantly, but expressed hope that fans would revel in the late actor’s performances in the new film and throughout his impressive body of work.

“It’s devastating to lose a family member,” said Karl Urban, the film’s Dr. McCoy, reflecting on Yelchin’s loss. “We’re at a point where we should be celebrating, not only this film, but this beautiful man, this talented man. For all of us, it’s almost incomprehensible to be at a point where we have to talk about him in the past. The pain of his loss is still very raw.”

“He was just a good guy,” offered Chris Pine , who plays Captain Kirk and shared many scenes paired with Yelchin in the latest outing. “He was very sweet. He’s very beautifully, authentically Anton. There was not much of a sensor on the boy.”

“I remember one of the first times I met him, like nine years ago or whatever, he was 17,” Pine continued. “I invited him back to my trailer to play guitar because I knew he played guitar, and he played guitar really, really, really well. And he said, ‘I can’t man, I’ve got to go back to my trailer.’ I was like, ‘Okay, why?’ He was translating, like, an esoteric Russian novel into English, just because that’s what he wanted to do. Eight, nine years later I talked to him and he was still translating it.”

“And he was still reading a book on physics that this French philosopher had written,” Pine added. “And he was still trying to get all of us together … We’d be in Vancouver and he’d want to see some German neo-expressionist film that none of us [knew about] … he would talk about as if everyone has or should have seen it.”

“I always looked forward to every day that he was on set and we would huddle up, and he’d have a hundred ideas, even if he was just in the background,” said the film’s director Justin Lin.

“It still doesn’t feel real,” said costar Simon Pegg, who plays Scotty in the film and remembers Yelchin as “an incredible soul.”

“I spent a lot of time with Anton in Vancouver, this last year,” Pegg recalled. “He used to call me up, in the middle of the night sometimes, just to talk. He was an incredibly intelligent man. He would talk about films, so fluently and so maturely that he’d make us all look like dummies. I used to have to engage my university brain, just to sit down and talk to him about movies because he was exhaustively encyclopedic.”

VIDEO: Costars and Other Celebs Remember Star Trek Actor Anton Yelchin

The remembrance “For Anton … ” appears in the end credits of the film, as does a dedication to the memory of Leonard Nimoy, the iconic Mr. Spock of the original television series and films, who died last year at age 83 of chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder.

[IMAGE “1” “” “std” ] Nimoy’s death came before shooting commenced, but his character the original “Spock Prime” and last survivor of an alternate timeline from the new events established when the Trek films rebooted in 2009 is also importantly referenced in the upcoming film.

“If Leonard was well enough to be a part of this film, I’m sure he would have been,” Zachary Quinto, who took on the role of Spock and became close with Nimoy during the filming of Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness , told PEOPLE. “And I know that there were early conversations with him about that possibility, which true to his incredible self, he knew himself well enough to know that that wouldn’t be possible at a certain point.”

“And then I think it became important to all of us to figure a way to honor his legacy,” added Quinto. “I thought [screenwriters] Simon and Doug [Jung] did a beautiful job of incorporating it into the narrative of the film.”

“It became an integral part of the story, not just a kind of nod in Leonard’s direction,” added Pegg. “That felt more right.”

“We all carried him with us through this production for sure,” said Quinto. “And it was definitely a different kind of feeling to make this movie without him, for me in particular. But I think he was very much a part of it in spirit, and certainly in the film now, and will be a part of anything we do moving forward, for sure.”

Watch CBS News

"Star Trek Beyond" cast pays tribute to Anton Yelchin at Comic-Con premiere

By Raphael Chestang

July 22, 2016 / 11:35 AM EDT / ET Online

Wednesday night was bittersweet for the "Star Trek Beyond" cast as they gathered for the film's Comic-Con premiere without co-star Anton Yelchin, who died in a tragic accident one month ago.

"We're missing one of us and that's why we're all wearing a pin," Zoe Saldana told ET's Kevin Frazier, who hosted from the red carpet. "It makes this premiere a thousand more times special."

Celebrities pay tribute to "Star Trek" actor Anton Yelchin

Yelchin, who played Pavel Chekov in the film franchise, was fondly remembered by the cast and crew, and director J.J. Abrams held a moment of silence for the late actor.

"His parents are here tonight, and we loved their son," Abrams told the crowd.

Yelchin died in front of his home on June 19 after being crushed by his car. He was 27.

Anton Yelchin's parents thank fans in touching full-page ad

Earlier this month Karl Urban and Simon Pegg opened up about the loss to ET.

"It is devastating to lose a member of your family, and we were so shocked," Urban solemnly expressed, before his co-star Pegg jumped in. "He was the greatest guy," he said, describing Yelchin as "the smartest guy in the room."

This year marks the 50th anniversary of "Star Trek." The milestone called for fireworks and pandemonium from the crowd.

Netflix snags international rights to upcoming "Star Trek" series

"It's nuts," John Cho told ET on the red carpet.

"Star Trek Beyond" hits theaters July 22.

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Anton Yelchin Dead at 27: ‘Star Trek’ Actor Dies in ‘Freak Accident’

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“Star Trek” actor Anton Yelchin has died in what’s being called a freak accident. According to TMZ , a friend went to the performer’s home in the San Fernando Valley late last night after Yelchin missed a rehearsal hours earlier; once there, he found Yelchin “pinned between his car and a brick mailbox, which was attached to a security gate.” Yelchin was 27.

READ MORE: Anton Yelchin (1989 — 2016): A Career Retrospective in Photos

Law-enforcement officers, who do not suspect foul play, further told TMZ that the engine was running when Yelchin’s body was discovered and that the car was in neutral. They do not know why the actor, whose driveway is on a steep incline, exited his vehicle in the first place. Paramount released the following statement: “All of us at Paramount join the world in morning the untimely passing of Anton Yelchin. As a member of the ‘Star Trek’ family, he was beloved by so many and he will missed by all. We share our deepest condolences with his mother, father and family.”

READ MORE: Exclusive: Zooey Deschanel Finds Anton Yelchin Down A Well In Clip From ‘The Driftless Area’

Yelchin had been appearing in films since 2000, with his roles in the “Star Trek” franchise, “Terminator Salvation,” “Like Crazy” and “Only Lovers Left Alive” bringing him to wider attention in recent years. He recently starred in “ Green Room ” and will next be seen in “ Star Trek Beyond .”

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Anton Yelchin dead: Remembering his funny, frantic Star Trek role

Darren is a TV Critic. Follow him on Twitter @DarrenFranich for opinions and recommendations.

“Russian whiz kid.” That’s what they call Chekov in 2009’s Star Trek — and that’s an accurate description of the actor who played Chekov, too. Anton Yelchin was born in St. Petersburg when it was still Leningrad; his family moved to the United States when emigrating from Russia still counted as “fleeing the Iron Curtain.” The actor wasn’t yet 20 when he was cast as the Enterprise ‘s navigator in J.J. Abrams’ reboot, but he was the most experienced movie star in the cast: 12-year-old Yelchin had the title role in 2001’s pregnancy fairy tale Delivering Milo , and grew through adolescence acting with legends like Anthony Hopkins and Robin Williams in Hearts in Atlantis and House of D .

By summer 2009, Yelchin had already learned to shuttle between low-budget independent fare and major Hollywood productions. Two weeks after Star Trek hit theaters, Yelchin was playing another iconic franchise role as Kyle Reese in Terminator: Salvation . A couple years later, he gave a fine performance in the cultishly adored romance Like Crazy . Earlier this year, Yelchin gave a devastatingly realistic everydude-caught-in-a-bad-situation performance in Green Room , a bleak and terse thriller several million tonal miles away from the bright space-pop of the new Star Trek films.

Next month’s Star Trek Beyond isn’t the last film Yelchin worked on before his impossibly sad and untimely death this weekend . But the film will now stand as a tribute to the late actor. What makes Yelchin’s Chekov so interesting is that, in some respects, the role was an outlier for the actor. Though baby-faced well into his mid-20s, Yelchin’s hoarse voice and melancholy bearing were often deployed to play roles that were at once precocious and world-weary.

Pavel Chekov was created by Walter Koenig, a second-generation child of Russian immigrants. Chekov-on-the- Enterprise was a timely and hopeful vision — Russians and Americans working together! — but the story goes that Roddenberry wanted Koenig to ham up the accent. (“Nuclear wessels .”) By the time Yelchin took over as Chekov, the topical resonance was long gone – but you could feel how he thrilled to the part’s energy, and the comedic potential of combing the “Chekov accent.”

There’s a moment in Star Trek Into Darkness which shows off Yelchin’s talent as a comedic performer. Captain Kirk has just fired his Chief of Engineering – and he promotes Chekov, the ship’s official know-everything prodigy. Koenig’s Chekov was often used as an all-purpose support staff – he’s variously a second-in-command executive officer, a science officer , and a medical officer in the original films – and the new films had a lot of fun with the notion that Yelchin’s Chekov could do pretty much anything, if he had the chance.

So Kirk makes his navigator into an engineer, which requires a change of outfit. “Put on a red shirt,” the Captain says – a line built for a belly laugh from the Trek fandom, who know that “redshirt” is a synonym for “nothing good coming your way.” The camera lingers on Yelchin, staring off into the distance – a look that is knowing without being remotely sardonic, a committed clownish moment worthy of a silent comedian – before he mutters, in that delirious accent, “Aye, kep–tin.”

It’s become a depressingly regular experience in the summer blockbuster months: To see a big-budget fantasy spectacle suddenly rendered as a monument to a performer gone too soon. Yelchin’s career was about so much more than Star Trek , but Beyond will now be a final moment for the mainstream moviegoing public to see one of the true young talents of his generation. Yelchin gave richer performances, but there’s a rare magic to his Chekov, to the way Yelchin seems to be playing human flop sweat. In his big showcase scene in the 2009 Trek , Chekov races from the bridge to the transporter room, all-but-leaving a Yelchin-shaped hole in the walls of the ship. “I can do that! I can do that!” he screams. “Move, move, move!”

That was Yelchin: The kinetic energy, the forward motion, the feeling that he really could do everything, if he only got the chance.

Appreciation: Anton Yelchin’s talent went far beyond ‘Star Trek’

Anton Yelchin, promoting the movie "Green Room," is photographed in the L.A. Times photo studio at the 40th Toronto International Film Festival in 2015.

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Anton Yelchin made a brilliant impression from the beginning.

One of his earliest films was Scott Hicks’ 2001 drama “Hearts in Atlantis,” in which he played Bobby, an 11-year-old boy who spends a fateful 1960 summer with a mysterious older neighbor who introduces him to a world of grown-up wisdom and (this being a Stephen King adaptation) eerie psychic phenomena. The film could be at times stickily sentimental, at times stirringly so, but Yelchin was a natural — evincing a warm, captivating chemistry with his veteran co-star Anthony Hopkins, and charmingly carrying a memorable scene on a Ferris wheel, where Bobby kisses a girl for the first time.

I’m loath to quote myself, but I’ll make an exception for “Hearts in Atlantis,” which was one of the first movies I wrote about as a college film reviewer for USC’s Daily Trojan, and from which I singled out Yelchin’s performance as “wonderfully engaging.” That was fairly stock praise coming from someone rather less skilled at his new craft than Yelchin was, but it remains an entirely accurate description of his effect on audiences over the course of his tragically shortened career.

Years after “Hearts in Atlantis,” Yelchin had another major film role in Nick Cassavetes’ “Alpha Dog,” a feverish true-crime saga inspired by the misdeeds of the notorious L.A. drug dealer Jesse James Hollywood, presently serving time for the 2000 kidnapping and murder of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz. Yelchin played a fictional version of Markowitz named Zack, and against the film’s exuberantly sordid wasted-youth backdrop, he struck a wrenching chord of innocence and humanity — a good kid along for the ride, sadly unaware of what was about to happen to him until it was far too late.

That air of boyish naiveté never fully left Yelchin, though it was a measure of his versatility that he so adeptly turned it to his advantage — and at times subverted it — on-screen. The character for whom he will be remembered most broadly is, of course, Pavel Chekov in the rebooted “Star Trek” franchise. That Yelchin was himself Russian by birth could be guessed from Chekov’s impeccable accent, though genetics alone couldn’t account for the spirited intelligence the actor invested in this excitable space prodigy, racing frantically down corridors to beam his colleagues up at the last minute.

It wasn’t the only time Yelchin would embody a fresh new face in a famous Hollywood franchise. If you remember “Terminator Salvation,” you probably remember him as an unusually intense update of Kyle Reese, the future father of John Connor and a resurgent new wave of humanity. And if you didn’t immediately recognize Yelchin as the accident-prone Clumsy Smurf in the two live-action movies adapted from that cartoon franchise, his identity became clear not long after he opened his computer-generated mouth.

But for those who haven’t seen much of Yelchin beyond the multiplex, he leaves behind a treasure trove of vivid character work. He and Felicity Jones made a winsome couple navigating the pitfalls of first love in Drake Doremus’ heartfelt 2011 Sundance Film Festival prizewinner, “Like Crazy.” Before that, he and Robert Downey Jr. formed a combustible comedic duo in the little-seen “Charlie Bartlett,” which also reunited him on-screen with his “Hearts in Atlantis” mom, Hope Davis, this time in a happier, loopier mother-son pairing. And in Jim Jarmusch’s marvelous “Only Lovers Left Alive,” Yelchin had a brief but memorable role as a rock ’n’ roller named Ian, who meets an untimely end at the fangs of a thirsty female vampire (Mia Wasikowska). (He’s immortalized in perhaps the film’s funniest line: “You drank Ian.”)

Yelchin played the title role in “Charlie Bartlett,” which won Best Feauture Film at Boulder International Film Festival in 2008. Yelchin starred alongside Robert Downey Jr. as a wealthy yet troubled high-schooler.

Yelchin is pictured with co-stars Chris Pine, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban and John Cho in his best-known role playing Chekhov in the 2009 Star Trek reboot.

Very few moviegoers saw “Dying of the Light” (2014), Paul Schrader’s fascinating wreck of a thriller starring Nicolas Cage as a rogue CIA operative. But none of the headaches and compromises of that picture’s embattled production history were enough to quell the warmth and pluck of Yelchin’s performance as Cage’s loyal protégé, Milton, in which the actor did something with the lower register of his voice that I’d never heard before: Raspy and loquacious, he suddenly seemed a very old man in a very young body, an agency functionary imbued with a surfeit of soul.

Yelchin leaves behind projects in various stages of completion, including “Star Trek Beyond” (due out on July 22); the Jarmusch-produced, Portugal-set romance “Porto”; and Guillermo del Toro’s animated Netflix series “Trollhunters.” The last time I saw him on-screen — and incidentally, in person — was in April, at the L.A. premiere of Jeremy Saulnier’s spectacularly grisly backwoods horror-thriller “Green Room.” So good at playing oddballs and misfits of every stripe, Yelchin was thoroughly in his element as Pat, a bassist in a scrappy punk band that finds itself besieged by murderous neo-Nazis in rural Oregon.

Backed into a corner with machete-wielding skinheads clawing at the door, Pat is the recipient of one of the film’s first major acts of brutality (he nearly loses an arm) and also its signature moment of revelation. Flashing back to a childhood experience playing paintball and being similarly on the ropes, he realizes that in confronting his attackers, nothing less than all-out anarchy — the very spirit of the art that he knows and loves — will ensure his survival.

That defiant rage-against-the-machine sensibility wasn’t all that Anton Yelchin and his screen work represented, but it is hardly the worst way to remember him: Possessed of a brilliant punk sensibility in a world that too often prefers American idols, he was a singular voice silenced terribly soon.

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'Star Trek' Actor Anton Yelchin Dead at 27

Anton Yelchin , best known for playing Chekov in the new " Star Trek " films, has died. He was 27.

The " Green Room " star was found dead early Sunday morning, according to TMZ , after suffering a freak car accident at his home in the San Fernando Valley.

The actor came onto the scene with high-profile roles in such films as " Charlie Bartlett " and " Alpha Dog ."

Yelchin played the navigator of the Starship Enterprise, Ensign Pavel Chekov, in director J.J. Abrams ' first two "Trek" films: 2009's "Star Trek" and 2013's " Star Trek Into Darkness ."

One of Yelchin's last films will be this summer's " Star Trek Beyond ," which opens July 22.

Star Trek Beyond

The USS Enterprise crew explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a mysterious new enemy who puts them and everything the Federation... Read the Plot

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The now-tossed Star Trek 4 went through many iterations since the first announcement in July 2016 , including a story by legendary Hollywood director Quentin Tarantino, a surprise 2022 Kelvin cast announcement that apparently Chris Pine and company only learned about through the press, and prequel story set “decades before the 2009 film.”

Following the new Star Trek 5 announcement, star Chris Pine reportedly reacted “with a deep sigh” according to Deadline . “Chris is excited learn about this new film through today’s studio announcement,” said a representative for the actor, “because it went really well the last time this happened, right?”

Also expected for the Trek 5 reunion are co-stars Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), Simon Pegg (Scotty), Karl Urban (“Bones” McCoy), and John Cho (Sulu). Actor Anton Yelchin, who portrayed Chekov in the first three films, passed away in 2016.

While little is known about the planned story of this new film, sources close to Trek 5 development hear that Paramount is pursuing Dune and Wonka star Timothée Chalamet for the role of “Sybok,” half-brother of Spock, originated by actor Laurence Luckinbill in 1989.

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Star Trek 5

Star Trek Into Darkness Deleted Scene Shows What Carol Marcus & Picard's Jack Crusher Have In Common

Dr. Carol Marcus and Jack Crusher share British accents from their upbringing in London, linking their Star Trek legacies.
Carol Marcus investigated her father's shady torpedoes on the USS Enterprise, filled with frozen Khan followers.
Both characters have potential futures in the Star Trek universe, with Carol possibly appearing in "Strange New Worlds."

A deleted scene from Star Trek Into Darkness reveals why Dr. Carol Marcus (Alice Eve) is British in the alternate Kelvin Timeline of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movies, and the reason is something Carol has in common with Jack Crusher (Ed Speleers) in Star Trek: Picard . Dr. Marcus, the daughter of the diabolical Admiral Alexander Marcus (Peter Weller), came aboard the USS Enterprise commanded by Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) to investigate her father transporting experimental torpedoes on Kirk's ship. Carol learned the torpedoes contained the cryogenically frozen followers of Khan Noonien Singh (Benedict Cumberbatch).

Although they exist in separate Star Trek timelines , Carol Marcus in Star Trek Into Darkness and Jack Crusher in Star Trek: Picard season 3 are both Starfleet royalty . Jack is the son of Admiral Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart) and Dr. Beverly Crusher (Gates McFadden), although the son never knew his father until the events of Picard season 3. Jack inherited organic Borg DNA from his father, but Picard saved Jack from the tragic fate of becoming Vox of Borg. Together with the crew of the USS Enterprise-D, they slayed the Borg Queen (Alice Krige) and saved the galaxy.

Star Trek Into Darkness Ending & Problems Explained

Star trek into darkness' deleted scene explains carol marcus' british accent is similar to jack crusher's, carol and star trek picard's jack crusher have similar upbringings.

A deleted scene from Star Trek Into Darkness posted by @AosdailyBTS on X shows Captain Kirk quizzing Dr. Carol Marcus about why she is aboard the Starship Enterprise. When Kirk tells Marcus to "drop the accent," Carol reveals her British accent is real because she was raised in London by her mother while her father, Admiral Marcus, ran Starfleet. Check out the deleted scene below:

Carol's backstory of being raised in London is just like Jack Crusher's. As Dr. Beverly Crusher explained to Jean-Luc in Star Trek: Picard season 3, she and Jack lived in London when he was young, and the accent just "stuck." Amusingly, Beverly explains that it must be the Picard DNA that affords Jack a British accent as if accents can be inherited like Jack's organic Borg DNA . But Carol Marcus, whose backstory was established in Star Trek Into Darkness ten years before Star Trek: Picard season 3, had an absentee Admiral father and gained a British accent while living in London with her mother, just like Jack Crusher.

Star Trek Into Darkness ' deleted scene takes place right before the controversial moment when Carol strips to her underwear and is ogled by Captain Kirk.

Carol Marcus' Star Trek Future Vs. Jack Crusher's Star Trek Future

Carol's comeback may be sooner than jack's.

Both Carol Marcus and Jack Crusher have tentative Star Trek futures. Carol was name-dropped in Star Trek 's first-ever musica l episode, when Lt. James T. Kirk (Paul Wesley) told Lt. La'an Noonien-Singh (Christina Chong) that he has a pregnant girlfriend named Carol. This could mean Carol Marcus may appear in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 3 , although it's unlikely that she will be played by Alice Eve on the Paramount+ series.

There's no telling if the Kelvin Timeline's Carol will be seen again if Star Trek 4 happens.

Jack Crusher's Star Trek future depends on whether Star Trek: Picard season 3's proposed spinoff, Star Trek: Legacy, happens . Despite ardent fan demand, and the actors and creatives' willingness to return, no Picard spinoff is in development at Paramount+. This means Ensign Jack Crusher's adventures aboard the USS Enterprise-G and what comes of Jack meeting Q (John de Lancie) are in drydock. There's a chance Picard could continue as a Star Trek streaming movie on Paramount+, but Alice Eve's version of Carol Marcus wasn't in Star Trek Beyond and there's no telling if the Kelvin Timeline's Carol will be seen again if Star Trek 4 happens.

Source: @aosdailyBTS on X

Star Trek Into Darkness and Star Trek: Picard season 3 are streaming on Paramount+

Cast Peter Weller, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Anton Yelchin, Chris Pine, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Benedict Cumberbatch, John Cho, Alice Eve

Franchise(s)

Where To Stream Paramount+

Cast Orla Brady, Michael Dorn, LeVar Burton, Brent Spiner, Jonathan Frakes, Jeri Ryan, Patrick Stewart, Alison Pill, Isa Briones, Evan Evagora, Marina Sirtis, Amanda Plummer, Whoopi Goldberg, Gates McFadden, Todd Stashwick, Santiago Cabrera, Michelle Hurd, John de Lancie, Ed Speleers

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Writers Akiva Goldsman, Terry Matalas, Michael Chabon

Directors Terry Matalas, Jonathan Frakes

Showrunner Akiva Goldsman, Terry Matalas, Michael Chabon

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Star Trek Into Darkness Deleted Scene Shows What Carol Marcus & Picard's Jack Crusher Have In Common

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Star Trek 4 gets a promising update

The film has landed a new screenwriter.

preview for Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 Official Trailer (Paramount+)

The follow-up to 2016's Star Trek Beyond has faced numerous setbacks in recent years, including director Matt Shakman's departure in August 2022 to direct Fantastic Four for Marvel , leading Paramount to remove the film from its release calendar the following month.

Meanwhile, screenwriter Lindsay Anderson Beer revealed in September 2023 that she had to "hop off" the project to direct Pet Sematary: Bloodlines , though she did also promise that the JJ Abrams-produced film was "still on the tracks".

It looks like this is now finally the case as The Flight Attendant creator Steve Yockey has been brought on board as the new screenwriter, according to Variety .

chris pine as captain kirk in a still from star trek beyond

Related: New Star Trek movie confirmed – but not the one you expected

While specifics of the storyline remain under wraps, the publication has reported that Paramount Pictures and Bad Robot still intend to deliver this final chapter for the crew first introduced in the franchise's 2009 reboot.

This includes Chris Pine as Captain Kirk, alongside Zachary Quinto as Spock, Zoe Saldana as Uhura, Simon Pegg as Scotty, Karl Urban as Bones and John Cho as Sulu.

Pine himself seemed a little less optimistic about returning to the USS Enterprise when asked for an update last year, though, having called the franchise "cursed" .

director jj abrams and the cast from star trek

Related: Star Trek confirms new Starfleet spinoff show from Discovery boss

"After the last one came out and didn't do the $1 billion that everyone wanted it to do, and then Anton (Yelchin) passed away , I don't know," he told Esquire . "It just... feels like it's cursed."

Elsewhere in the Star Trek universe, it was announced earlier this year that JJ Abrams is producing a new prequel movie set decades before the 2009 reboot.

Andor and Doctor Who director Toby Haynes will helm the project, while The Lego Batman Movie 's Seth Grahame-Smith is writing the script.

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Content Production Intern, Digital Spy

After completing her joint honours degree in Journalism and English Literature at Cardiff University, Iona joined Digital Spy as a Content Production Intern in 2022. In this role, Iona writes across both news and features, specialising in TV and movies. During her time at Digital Spy , she has interviewed multiple Love Island stars, reported from the Black Adam red carpet and, most recently, interviewed the cast of Disney’s live-action The Little Mermaid .

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Star Trek Beyond

Bewertung der Redaktion:

Spaßige, lässig-ironische Föderationsrettung

Teil 3 der „Star Trek“-Neuauflage beginnt mit einer Falle.

Halbreptil Krall zerstört die „Enterprise“, Kirks Crew findet sich auf dem Planeten Altamid wieder. Uhura und Sulu geraten in Kralls Gefangenschaft, doch Kirk, Spock, Pille und Kriegerin Jaylah spucken dem Schurken in die Suppe…

Kirk ist amtsmüde, Sulu outet sich, und mit Sofia Boutella als Jaylah und Idris Elba als Krötenfiesling bereichern interessante Neuzugänge das Universum. Gut 50 Jahre nach dem Serienoriginal dockt das Franchise erfolgreich im Hier und Jetzt an. Der eine oder andere zusätzliche Storytwist hätte nicht geschadet, doch im letzten Drittel wird kräftig aufgedreht, gefolgt vom finalen Kracher zu „Sabotage“ von den Beastie Boys.

Tragisch: „Chekov“ Anton Yelchin starb kurz vor Filmstart. Das Auto des 27-Jährigen geriet ins Rollen und erdrückte ihn am Garagentor. Produzent J. J. Abrams wollte die Figur in Fortsetzungen nicht neu besetzen.

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Verschwurbelter Action-Overkill

Angeblich der beste und tiefsinnigste Film der ST "Kelvin-Zeitlinie", mit der ich immer noch nichts anfangen kann... Drei Viertel der Filmdauer hat der Zuschauer keine Ahnung, worum es eigentlich geht, dann kommt die unlogische und widersprüchliche Auflösung, die im Overkill der unrealistischen Action endet. Trotz einiger ruhigen Momente und ein paar gelungen Dialoge kommt keine typische Star Trek- Atmosphäre auf.

nützt nichts, Gutes immer neu erfinden zu wollen.

Enttäuschung überwiegt

Waren das noch Zeiten, als die Enterprise tatsächlich fremde Welten erforschte, sich mit anderen Lebensformen konfrontiert sah und manchmal aus dem Staunen nicht mehr herauskam. Das machte den Zauber der Serie aus. Nicht der wiederkehrende Kampf gegen die Klingonen, das war reine Spannung. Lin hat sich leider ausschließlich diesem Aspekt verschrieben. Die neuen Lebensformen stellen sogleich einen übermächtigen feindlichen Gegner dar, den es mit List und Tücke, vor allem jedoch mit plötzlichen Eingebungen und unlogischem Kriegsgeschick zurückzuschlagen gilt. Das gelingt natürlich vortrefflich, man ist schließlich von der Sternenflotte. Spannung ja, hier und da, auch ein paar Situationskomiken, doch nichts, was den Film zusammenhält; die Werte wie "Gemeinsamkeit" nichts als Worthülsen. Es erfreuen die Darsteller, allen voran Yelchin, dessen unvergleichliche Mimik wir leider nicht mehr zu sehen bekommen werden. Das ist doch was. 2 1/2 Sterne.

Effekte-Overkill

Knallbuntes Effekte-Actionkino. Durchaus unterhaltsam. Spannung satt, große Schauwerte, ausgewogener Humor und ein ernsterer Kirk als in den Vorgängerfilmen. Wer sein Gehirn ausschaltet, bekommt ein fast perfektes Weltraum-Abenteuer serviert. Aber Moment, sind wir hier in einem Marvel- oder Star Wars-Film? Wo ist der Geist von Star Trek? Wo ist der philosophische Unterbau, die Eröterung gesellschaftlicher und moralischer Dilemmas, die das Wesen von Star Trek ausmachen? Und schon wieder ein Ober-Bösewicht mit Rachegelüsten wie schon in Teil 10, 11 und 12. Es wird Zeit, dass die Macher mal anfangen, komplexe Geschichten zu erzählen. Wo bleiben Klingonen, Romulaner und Cardassianer? Nicht falsch verstehen, mir hat der Film als kurzweiliges Action-Vehikel wirklich gefallen, aber mit Star Trek hat das noch wenig zu tun.

Der dritte Teil des Reboots hat nicht mehr die Klasse der ersten beiden Teile. Das liegt vor allem am schwachen Drehbuch.

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Zoe Saldaña Is Holding Out Hope For 'Star Trek 4'

Gamora may be gone, but the same can't be said for Uhura.

The Big Picture

Zoe Saldaña still has hope for a Star Trek sequel and believes there is room for multiple projects to coexist in the franchise.
With Paramount+ expanding the Star Trek universe, the future of Star Trek 4 remains uncertain but possibilities are endless.
The alternate timeline in Abrams' universe allows for creative storytelling and potential crossovers with Paramount+ characters.

Zoe Saldaña has lent her name to many franchises in her time but still has an appreciation for one in particular. On “The Discourse” podcast, the actor maintained support for the Star Trek sequel that has been in development for some time . The origins of Captain Kirk were rebooted in the 2009 film by J.J. Abrams with Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto in the roles of Kirk and Spock. Subsequent films varied in critical reception, but the desire for a fourth film in the franchise has not waned.

“I still have hope,” Saldaña stated, who played Uhura in the reboot films. “I had a wonderful experience through and through and through the three times that I was a part of that team.”

The rise of Paramount+ has paved a path for many Star Trek projects outside of feature films. As Saldaña notes, this could complicate Star Trek 4 , going forward. Must-watch Trek shows such as Strange New Worlds have cast their own versions of Kirk ( Paul Wesley ) and Spock ( Ethan Peck ), as they traverse the stars in the Enterprise. But the Guardians of the Galaxy actor believes there is room for everyone in the Star Trek galaxy.

“I know that they’re always trying to sort of aim to wrangle everybody together, but I also know that Paramount is working on a new sort of fresh take on ‘Star Trek,’ which I think is such a wonderful franchise that should live for a very long time, whether or not us as the original remake cast can come back. I don’t know, but I certainly hope so.”

Star Trek 4 is still up in the air, but there could be a timeline where all Trek projects could co-exist in harmony. Just like the United Federation would want.

'Star Trek 4' Can Still Operate In An Alternate Universe

It has been almost a decade since the third film in the franchise, Star Trek Beyond , premiered. The movie could have been a satisfying conclusion to the series as all the characters come together in unity. The film would also be the final entry for Anton Yelchin , who died at 27 after an auto incident at his home. Preserving without Chekov would undoubtedly be a sad undertaking.

But if the principal actors want to reunite with the great Captain Kirk and honor their former co-star, there are ways to implement that reality. Abrams’ universe has the benefit of operating under an alternate timeline. This decision was a clever way for the new film to be unafraid to disrupt canonical events of the past half-century. With a new timeline, films can make any decision as well as explain the potential absence of Chekov.

This is also how the franchise can operate in conjunction with the Paramount+ universe of characters. And who knows? Maybe more films can make way for a Trek crossover in the future. While viewers wait for news on Stark Trek 4 , they can watch the previous reboot films streaming on Paramount+.

The brash James T. Kirk tries to live up to his father's legacy with Mr. Spock keeping him in check as a vengeful Romulan from the future creates black holes to destroy the Federation one planet at a time.

WATCH ON PARAMOUNT+

The Future of ‘Star Trek’: From ‘Starfleet Academy’ to New Movies and Michelle Yeoh, How the 58-Year-Old Franchise Is Planning for the Next Generation of Fans

“I can’t believe I get to play the captain of the Enterprise.”

“Strange New Worlds” is the 12th “Star Trek” TV show since the original series debuted on NBC in 1966, introducing Gene Roddenberry’s vision of a hopeful future for humanity. In the 58 years since, the “Star Trek” galaxy has logged 900 television episodes and 13 feature films, amounting to 668 hours — nearly 28 days — of content to date. Even compared with “Star Wars” and the Marvel Cinematic Universe, “Star Trek” stands as the only storytelling venture to deliver a single narrative experience for this long across TV and film.

In other words, “Star Trek” is not just a franchise. As Alex Kurtzman , who oversees all “Star Trek” TV production, puts it, “‘Star Trek’ is an institution.”

Without a steady infusion of new blood, though, institutions have a way of fading into oblivion (see soap operas, MySpace, Blockbuster Video). To keep “Star Trek” thriving has meant charting a precarious course to satisfy the fans who have fueled it for decades while also discovering innovative ways to get new audiences on board.

“Doing ‘Star Trek’ means that you have to deliver something that’s entirely familiar and entirely fresh at the same time,” Kurtzman says.

The franchise has certainly weathered its share of fallow periods, most recently after “Nemesis” bombed in theaters in 2002 and UPN canceled “Enterprise” in 2005. It took 12 years for “Star Trek” to return to television with the premiere of “Discovery” in 2017; since then, however, there has been more “Star Trek” on TV than ever: The adventure series “Strange New Worlds,” the animated comedy “Lower Decks” and the kids series “Prodigy” are all in various stages of production, and the serialized thriller “Picard” concluded last year, when it ranked, along with “Strange New Worlds,” among Nielsen’s 10 most-watched streaming original series for multiple weeks. Nearly one in five Paramount+ subscribers in the U.S. is watching at least one “Star Trek” series, according to the company, and more than 50% of fans watching one of the new “Trek” shows also watch at least two others. The new shows air in 200 international markets and are dubbed into 35 languages. As “Discovery” launches its fifth and final season in April, “Star Trek” is in many ways stronger than it’s ever been.

“’Star Trek’s fans have kept it alive more times than seems possible,” says Eugene Roddenberry, Jr., who executive produces the TV series through Roddenberry Entertainment. “While many shows rightfully thank their fans for supporting them, we literally wouldn’t be here without them.”

But the depth of fan devotion to “Star Trek” also belies a curious paradox about its enduring success: “It’s not the largest fan base,” says Akiva Goldsman, “Strange New Worlds” executive producer and co-showrunner. “It’s not ‘Star Wars.’ It’s certainly not Marvel.”

When J.J. Abrams rebooted “Star Trek” in 2009 — with Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Zoe Saldaña playing Kirk, Spock and Uhura — the movie grossed more than any previous “Star Trek” film by a comfortable margin. But neither that film nor its two sequels broke $500 million in global grosses, a hurdle every other top-tier franchise can clear without breaking a sweat.

There’s also the fact that “Star Trek” fans are aging. I ask “The Next Generation” star Jonathan Frakes, who’s acted in or directed more versions of “Star Trek” than any other person alive, how often he meets fans for whom the new “Star Trek” shows are their first. “Of the fans who come to talk to me, I would say very, very few,” he says. “‘Star Trek’ fans, as we know, are very, very, very loyal — and not very young.”

As Stapf puts it: “There’s a tried and true ‘Trek’ fan that is probably going to come to every ‘Star Trek,’ no matter what it is — and we want to expand the universe.”

Every single person I spoke to for this story talked about “Star Trek” with a joyful earnestness as rare in the industry as (nerd alert) a Klingon pacifist.

“When I’m meeting fans, sometimes they’re coming to be confirmed, like I’m kind of a priest,” Ethan Peck says during a break in filming on the “Strange New Worlds” set. He’s in full Spock regalia — pointy ears, severe eyebrows, bowl haircut — and when asked about his earliest memories of “Star Trek,” he stares off into space in what looks like Vulcan contemplation. “I remember being on the playground in second or third grade and doing the Vulcan salute, not really knowing where it came from,” he says. “When I thought of ‘Star Trek,’ I thought of Spock. And now I’m him. It’s crazy.”

To love “Star Trek” is to love abstruse science and cowboy diplomacy, complex moral dilemmas and questions about the meaning of existence. “It’s ultimately a show with the most amazing vision of optimism, I think, ever put on-screen in science fiction,” says Kurtzman, who is 50. “All you need is two minutes on the news to feel hopeless now. ‘Star Trek’ is honestly the best balm you could ever hope for.”

I’m getting a tour of the USS Enterprise from Scotty — or, rather, “Strange New World” production designer Jonathan Lee, who is gushing in his native Scottish burr as we step into the starship’s transporter room. “I got such a buzzer from doing this, I can’t tell you,” he says. “I actually designed four versions of it.”

Lee is especially proud of the walkway he created to run behind the transporter pads — an innovation that allows the production to shoot the characters from a brand-new set of angles as they beam up from a far-flung planet. It’s one of the countless ways that this show has been engineered to be as cinematic as possible, part of Kurtzman’s overall vision to make “Star Trek” on TV feel like “a movie every week.”

Kurtzman’s tenure with “Star Trek” began with co-writing the screenplay for Abrams’ 2009 movie, which was suffused with a fast-paced visual style that was new to the franchise. When CBS Studios approached Kurtzman in the mid-2010s about bringing “Star Trek” back to TV, he knew instinctively that it needed to be just as exciting as that film.

“The scope was so much different than anything we had ever done on ‘Next Gen,’” says Frakes, who’s helmed two feature films with the “Next Generation” cast and directed episodes of almost every live-action “Trek” TV series, including “Discovery” and “Strange New Worlds.” “Every department has the resources to create.”

A new science lab set for Season 3, for example, boasts a transparent floor atop a four-foot pool of water that swirls underneath the central workbench, and the surrounding walls sport a half dozen viewscreens with live schematics custom designed by a six-person team. “I like being able to paint on a really big canvas,” Kurtzman says. “The biggest challenge is always making sure that no matter how big something gets, you’re never losing focus on that tiny little emotional story.”

At this point, is there a genre that “Strange New Worlds” can’t do? “As long as we’re in storytelling that is cogent and sure handed, I’m not sure there is,” Goldsman says with an impish smile. “Could it do Muppets? Sure. Could it do black and white, silent, slapstick? Maybe!”

This approach is also meant to appeal to people who might want to watch “Star Trek” but regard those 668 hours of backstory as an insurmountable burden. “You shouldn’t have to watch a ‘previously on’ to follow our show,” Myers says.

To achieve so many hairpin shifts in tone and setting while maintaining Kurtzman’s cinematic mandate, “Strange New Worlds” has embraced one of the newest innovations in visual effects: virtual production. First popularized on the “Star Wars” series “The Mandalorian,” the technology — called the AR wall — involves a towering circular partition of LED screens projecting a highly detailed, computer-generated backdrop. Rather than act against a greenscreen, the actors can see whatever fantastical surroundings their characters are inhabiting, lending a richer level of verisimilitude to the show.

But there is a catch. While the technology is calibrated to maintain a proper sense of three-dimensional perspective through the camera lens, it can be a bit dizzying for anyone standing on the set. “The images on the walls start to move in a way that makes no sense,” says Mount. “You end up having to focus on something that’s right in front of you so you don’t fall down.”

And yet, even as he’s talking about it, Mount can’t help but break into a boyish grin. “Sometimes we call it the holodeck,” he says. In fact, the pathway to the AR wall on the set is dotted with posters of the virtual reality room from “The Next Generation” and the words “Enter Holodeck” in a classic “Trek” font.

“I want to take one of those home with me,” Peck says. Does the AR wall also affect him? “I don’t really get disoriented by it. Spock would not get ill, so I’m Method acting.”

I’m on the set of the “Star Trek” TV movie “Section 31,” seated in an opulent nightclub with a view of a brilliant, swirling nebula, watching Yeoh rehearse with director Olatunde Osunsanmi and her castmates. Originally, the project was announced as a TV series centered on Philippa Georgiou, the semi-reformed tyrant Yeoh originated on “Discovery.” But between COVID delays and the phenomenon of “Everything Everywhere All at Once,” there wasn’t room in the veteran actress’s schedule to fit a season of television. Yeoh was undaunted.

“We’d never let go of her,” she says of her character. “I was just blown away by all the different things I could do with her. Honestly, it was like, ‘Let’s just get it done, because I believe in this.’”

If that means nothing to you, don’t worry: The enormity of the revelation that Garrett is being brought back is meant only for fans. If you don’t know who the character is, you’re not missing anything.

“It was always my goal to deliver an entertaining experience that is true to the universe but appeals to newcomers,” says screenwriter Craig Sweeny. “I wanted a low barrier of entry so that anybody could enjoy it.”

Nevertheless, including Garrett on the show is exactly the kind of gasp-worthy detail meant to flood “Star Trek” fans with geeky good feeling.

“You cannot create new fans to the exclusion of old fans,” Kurtzman says. “You must serve your primary fan base first and you must keep them happy. That is one of the most important steps to building new fans.”

On its face, that maxim would make “Section 31” a genuine risk. The titular black-ops organization has been controversial with “Star Trek” fans since it was introduced in the 1990s. “The concept is almost antagonistic to some of the values of ‘Star Trek,’” Sweeny says. But he still saw “Section 31” as an opportunity to broaden what a “Star Trek” project could be while embracing the radical inclusivity at the heart of the franchise’s appeal.

“Famously, there’s a spot for everybody in Roddenberry’s utopia, so I was like, ‘Well, who would be the people who don’t quite fit in?’” he says. “I didn’t want to make the John le Carré version, where you’re in the headquarters and it’s backbiting and shades of gray. I wanted to do the people who were at the edges, out in the field. These are not people who necessarily work together the way you would see on a ‘Star Trek’ bridge.”

For Osunsanmi, who grew up watching “The Next Generation” with his father, it boils down to a simple question: “Is it putting good into the world?” he asks. “Are these characters ultimately putting good into the world? And, taking a step back, are we putting good into the world? Are we inspiring humans watching this to be good? That’s for me what I’ve always admired about ‘Star Trek.’”

Should “Section 31” prove successful, Yeoh says she’s game for a sequel. And Kurtzman is already eyeing more opportunities for TV movies, including a possible follow-up to “Picard.” The franchise’s gung-ho sojourn into streaming movies, however, stands in awkward contrast to the persistent difficulty Paramount Pictures and Abrams’ production company Bad Robot have had making a feature film following 2016’s “Star Trek Beyond” — the longest theaters have gone without a “Star Trek” movie since Paramount started making them.

First, a movie reuniting Pine’s Capt. Kirk with his late father — played in the 2009 “Star Trek” by Chris Hemsworth — fell apart in 2018. Around the same time, Quentin Tarantino publicly flirted with, then walked away from, directing a “Star Trek” movie with a 1930s gangster backdrop. Noah Hawley was well into preproduction on a “Star Trek” movie with a brand-new cast, until then-studio chief Emma Watts abruptly shelved it in 2020. And four months after Abrams announced at Paramount’s 2022 shareholders meeting that his 2009 cast would return for a movie directed by Matt Shakman (“WandaVision”), Shakman left the project to make “The Fantastic Four” for Marvel. (It probably didn’t help that none of the cast had been approached before Abrams made his announcement.)

The studio still intends to make what it’s dubbed the “final chapter” for the Pine-Quinto-Saldaña cast, and Steve Yockey (“The Flight Attendant”) is writing a new draft of the script. Even further along is another prospective “Star Trek” film written by Seth Grahame-Smith (“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”) and to be directed by Toby Haynes (“Andor,” “Black Mirror: USS Callister”) that studio insiders say is on track to start preproduction by the end of the year. That project will serve as an origin story of sorts for the main timeline of the entire franchise. In both cases, the studio is said to be focused on rightsizing the budgets to fit within the clear box office ceiling for “Star Trek” feature films.

Far from complaining, everyone seems to relish the challenge. Visual effects supervisor Jason Zimmerman says that “working with Alex, the references are always at least $100 million movies, if not more, so we just kind of reverse engineer how do we do that without having to spend the same amount of money and time.”

The workload doesn’t seem to faze him either. “Visual effects people are a big, big ‘Star Trek’ fandom,” he says. “You naturally just get all these people who go a little bit above and beyond, and you can’t trade that for anything.”

In one of Kurtzman’s several production offices in Toronto, he and production designer Matthew Davies are scrutinizing a series of concept drawings for the newest “Star Trek” show, “Starfleet Academy.” A bit earlier, they showed me their plans for the series’ central academic atrium, a sprawling, two-story structure that will include a mess hall, amphitheater, trees, catwalks, multiple classrooms and a striking view of the Golden Gate Bridge in a single, contiguous space. To fit it all, they plan to use every inch of Pinewood Toronto’s 45,900 square foot soundstage, the largest in Canada.

But this is a “Star Trek” show, so there do need to be starships, and Kurtzman is discussing with Davies about how one of them should look. The issue is that “Starfleet Academy” is set in the 32nd century, an era so far into the future Kurtzman and his team need to invent much of its design language.

“For me, this design is almost too Klingon,” Kurtzman says. “I want to see the outline and instinctively, on a blink, recognize it as a Federation ship.”

The time period was first introduced on Season 3 of “Discovery,” when the lead character, Michael Burnham (Sonequa Martin-Green), transported the namesake starship and its crew there from the 23rd century. “It was exciting, because every time we would make a decision, we would say, ‘And now that’s canon,’” says Martin-Green.

“We listened to a lot of it,” Kurtzman says. “I think I’ve been able to separate the toxic fandom from really true fans who love ‘Star Trek’ and want you to hear what they have to say about what they would like to see.”

By Season 2, the “Discovery” writers pivoted from its dour, war-torn first season and sent the show on its trajectory 900-plus years into the future. “We had to be very aware of making sure that Spock was in the right place and that Burnham’s existence was explained properly, because she was never mentioned in the original series,” says executive producer and showrunner Michelle Paradise. “What was fun about jumping into the future is that it was very much fresh snow.”

That freedom affords “Starfleet Academy” far more creative latitude while also dramatically reducing how much the show’s target audience of tweens and teens needs to know about “Star Trek” before watching — which puts them on the same footing as the students depicted in the show. “These are kids who’ve never had a red alert before,” Noga Landau, executive producer and co-showrunner, says. “They never had to operate a transporter or be in a phaser fight.”

In the “Starfleet Academy” writers’ room in Secret Hideout’s Santa Monica offices, Kurtzman tells the staff — a mix of “Star Trek” die-hards, part-time fans and total newbies — that he wants to take a 30,000-foot view for a moment. “I think we need to ground in science more throughout the show,” he says, a giant framed photograph of Spock ears just over his shoulder. “The kids need to use science more to solve problems.”

Immediately, one of the writers brightens. “Are you saying we can amp up the techno-babble?” she says. “I’m just excited I get to use my computer science degree.”

After they break for lunch, Kurtzman is asked how much longer he plans to keep making “Star Trek.”

“The minute I fall out of love with it is the minute that it’s not for me anymore. I’m not there yet,” he says. “To be able to build in this universe to tell stories that are fundamentally about optimism and a better future at a time when the world seems to be falling apart — it’s a really powerful place to live every day.”

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How Anton Yelchin's Death Changes Star Trek Beyond
CBS via Getty Images. At a key moment in Star Trek Beyond, Kirk leads the crew of the USS Enterprise in a toast. "To absent friends," Kirk says, as everyone raises a glass. And then the camera ...
Anton Yelchin
Anton Viktorovich Yelchin (Russian: Антон Викторович Ельчин, IPA: [ɐnˈton ˈvʲiktərəvʲɪtɕ ˈjelʲtɕɪn]; March 11, 1989 - June 19, 2016) was an American actor.Born in the Soviet Union to a Russian Jewish family, he immigrated to the United States with his parents at the age of 6 months. He began his career as a child actor, appearing as the lead of the mystery ...
Chris Pine Reflects On Anton Yelchin's Secret Illness Filming Star Trek
Anton Yelchin played Pavel Chekov in all three Star Trek movies, although the threequel Beyond was released after his unexpected death at the age of 27. The Star Trek cast recently assembled to ...
Star Trek Beyond
Star Trek Beyond is a 2016 American science fiction action film directed by Justin Lin, ... Anton Yelchin as Ensign Pavel Chekov, the ship's navigator and tactical expert. This was Yelchin's final performance as Chekov, as he died in a car accident on June 19, 2016, after filming his scenes.
Star Trek Beyond Cast Pays Tribute to Anton Yelchin
July 21, 2016 11:22 AM EDT. T he Star Trek Beyond cast honored their late co-star Anton Yelchin before the film's premiere at San Diego Comic-Con Wednesday night by holding a moment of silence ...
'Star Trek Beyond' Pays Tribute To Anton Yelchin
Yelchin, aka Chekov of the Starship Enterprise, died tragically in June, barely a month before Beyond 's release, and while obviously, the actor's death is not touched upon in the movie ...
Remembering Anton Yelchin, 1989-2016
StarTrek.com is deeply saddened to report that Anton Yelchin, Star Trek's current Chekov, died today, June 19, at the age of 27. The actor was killed in a freak accident at home in Los Angeles by his own car. Yelchin played Chekov in Star Trek (2009), Star Trek Into Darkness and will be seen one last time as the character next month in Star Trek Beyond.
Star Trek Beyond: an unpublished interview with Anton Yelchin
The following unpublished interview with Anton Yelchin was conducted on the afternoon of Thursday 16 June of 2016 just three days before his death. At the Star Trek fan event back in May, Zachary ...
Hollywood Remembers Anton Yelchin
The tributes continue to pour in for Anton Yelchin, Star Trek's current Chekov, who died in the early morning of June 19, at the age of 27.As reported, the actor was killed, in a freak accident, at home by his own car. He will be seen one last time as Chekov in Star Trek Beyond, due out next month.. J.J. Abrams sent Entertainment Weekly a message on behalf of the Beyond cast and crew.
Anton Yelchin and Leonard Nimoy receive tributes in Star Trek Beyond
A few months later, 27-year-old cast member Anton Yelchin (who played Pavel Chekov in the series) was killed in an accident involving his car, shocking his fans and drawing tributes from around ...
'Star Trek Beyond' becomes tragic tribute for two
The credit tributes for Star Trek Beyond (in theaters Friday) read simply "In Loving Memory of Leonard Nimoy" before going to "For Anton.". But the impact of these deaths goes deeper ...
'Star Trek Beyond' actor Anton Yelchin dies at 27
Yelchin was struck by his own car and killed Sunday in Los Angeles. He is best known for his roles in "Star Trek Beyond" and "Charlie Bartlett." "Star Trek Beyond" actor Anton Yelchin died ...
Anton Yelchin, 'Star Trek' Actor, Dies at 27
Mr. Yelchin reprised the role in a 2013 sequel, "Star Trek Into Darkness," and will be seen in a third film, "Star Trek Beyond," to be released this summer.
'Star Trek Beyond' actors remember Anton Yelchin
Chris Pine, Simon Pegg and Karl Urban pay tribute to their late "Star Trek" co-star, Anton Yelchin. (July 18)Subscribe for more Breaking News: http://smartur...
Tributes pour in for late 'Star Trek' actor Anton Yelchin
Yelchin would go on to resume the role of Chekov in 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness in its impending sequel, Star Trek Beyond, and appear in numerous movies including 2011's Fright Night remake ...
Anton Yelchin Dead: 'Star Trek' Actor Dies at 27
Yelchin stars in the upcoming Star Trek Beyond, which is set to open July 22. The film's studio, Paramount Pictures, released a statement on Yelchin's death:. All of us at Paramount join the ...
Star Trek Beyond Cast Remembers Anton Yelchin and Leonard Nimoy
As Star Trek Beyond readies to beam into theaters on July 22, the cast and filmmakers are hoping the memories of two late costars, Anton Yelchin and Leonard Nimoy, live long and prosper on screen ...
"Star Trek Beyond" cast pays tribute to Anton Yelchin at Comic-Con
It was a bittersweet "Star Trek Beyond" Comic-Con premiere without co-star Anton Yelchin
Anton Yelchin Dead at 27: 'Star Trek' Actor Dies in ...
Yelchin had recently starred in "Green Room" and will next be seen in "Star Trek Beyond." "Star Trek" actor Anton Yelchin has died in what's being called a freak accident. According to TMZ ...
Remembering Anton Yelchin's funny, frantic 'Star Trek' role
Yelchin's career was about so much more than Star Trek, but Beyond will now be a final moment for the mainstream moviegoing public to see one of the true young talents of his generation. Yelchin ...
Appreciation: Anton Yelchin's talent went far beyond 'Star Trek'
Anton Yelchin made a brilliant impression from the beginning. An appreciation for the actor, who died Sunday at age 27, his reputation already marked by 15-plus years of warmth and wit on-screen.
'Star Trek: Beyond' Cannes Event Canceled After Anton Yelchin Death
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'Star Trek' Actor Anton Yelchin Dead at 27
Anton Yelchin, best known for playing Chekov in the new Star Trek films, has died. ... One of Yelchin's last films will be this summer's "Star Trek Beyond," which opens July 22. Star Trek Beyond ...
Paramount Pictures "Moving On" from STAR TREK 4, Announces New STAR
Actor Anton Yelchin, who portrayed Chekov in the first three films, passed away in 2016. While little is known about the planned story of this new film, sources close to Trek 5 development hear that Paramount is pursuing Dune and Wonka star Timothée Chalamet for the role of "Sybok," half-brother of Spock, originated by actor Laurence ...
Star Trek Beyond
Star Trek Beyond ist ein US-amerikanischer Science-Fiction-Film von Justin Lin aus dem Jahr 2016. ... Juni 2016 geplanter Auftritt beim Cannes Lions Festival wurde aufgrund des unerwarteten Todes von Anton Yelchin abgesagt. Am 27. Juni 2016 wurde schließlich der dritte und finale Trailer veröffentlicht.
Star Trek Into Darkness Deleted Scene Shows What Carol Marcus ...
Jack Crusher's Star Trek future depends ... but Alice Eve's version of Carol Marcus wasn't in Star Trek Beyond and there's no telling if the Kelvin ... Anton Yelchin, Chris Pine, Simon Pegg, Karl ...
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Star Trek Beyond Land: USA Jahr: 2016 Länge: 118/125 Min. Wiederh.: Wh. um 20:15 Uhr FSK: 12 Jahre. Cast & Crew: Kirk Chris Pine Spock Zachary Quinto Uhura Zoe Saldana Bones Karl Urban Scotty Simon Pegg Chekov Anton Yelchin Sulu John Cho Crowl Idris Elba Jayla Sofia Boutella Regie: Justin Lin Drehbuch:
Zoe Saldaña Is Holding Out Hope For 'Star Trek 4'
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At the Star Trek fan event back in May, Zachary Quinto pointed out that it’s been about ten years since you guys first went before the cameras on Trek . Is that strange at all for you to consider that it’s been that long already?

But the more you play it, doesn’t it become much more your take?

You brought up a good point about coming back having changed and grown. Can you track how both you and Chekov have changed over the years?

Does that reflect on you at all in terms of what you value the most from making these movies with this group of actors?

After the destruction of the Enterprise, the characters pair up in different ways and you end up spending more time with Chris Pine's Kirk in this movie than you have in the other two. What is that pairing like?

Their five-year mission, basically.

Because you're on camera with him much more, you get to play colors of the character that you haven't had a chance to play before.

Obviously this was the first one that Justin Lin directed. What do you think he brings to the mix that contrasts with what JJ Abrams brought?

The first two trailers got very different reactions. Which do you think more closely represents the film?

The original Star Trek was a perfect prism in which to look at humanity. As these films get bigger and have action and spectacle, is there still the opportunity to provide that prism of exploring where we are as a society, where we are as a people?

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