Today is the 30th anniversary of the film Star Trek Generations, which marked the final film appearance of William Shatner as James T. Kirk, who sacrificed his life to save the day on Veridian III. Now you can see Kirk return in a short film in honor of the Generations anniversary.
Kirk returns
The film released today by the Roddenberry Archive and their technology partner OTOY (in cooperation with Paramount) is titled Unification. It launched on The Archive web portal (at roddenberry.x.io) and via the Apple Vision Pro app. This is the fourth from the Archive’s “765874” series of films tied into Star Trek using a combination of live-action footage and computer generated imagery. William Shatner and other Star Trek vets were involved in the making of this new film. Check out what they describe as a “mind-bending Star Trek experience celebrating the 30th anniversary of Star Trek Generations.”
Behind the scenes
The characters from Star Trek history were brought to life through live-action performances, including Sam Witwer as young James T. Kirk and Lawrence Selleck as Spock. According to OTOY, they were filmed in costume, performing as Kirk and Spock on set, aided by “both physical and digital prosthetics resulting in period-accurate portrayals matching the appearance of the characters as they originally appeared in TV and film at the time.” William Shatner and Susan Bay Nimoy, widow of the late Leonard Nimoy, served as executive producers on the production.
The 8-minute video connects multiple decades of Star Trek lore, with nods to Robin Curtis’ portrayal of Saavik (1984’s Star Trek III: The Search for Spock), J.M. Colt (1964’s “The Cage”) played by actress Mahé Thaissa and Gary Mitchell, Kirk’s friend from the second Star Trek pilot episode, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” performed by original actor Gary Lockwood. The short also incorporates the character Yor (Gordon Tarpley) from Star Trek: Discovery who crossed from the Kelvin Universe to the Prime Universe.
According to OTOY, Shatner worked with them to “fine-tune the technical and creative direction required to bring his interpretation of Kirk back to live action.” This included “the addition of his voice to narrate a key moment in the experience.” The film was previewed on Sunday with Shatner at the Star Trek Tour in Ticonderoga, New York. Describing the film, Shatner said it “takes years off of your face, so that in a film you can look 10, 20, 30, 50 years younger than you are.”
Above, left to Right: Robin Curtis (Saavik), Executive Producer, William Shatner (Kirk), Lawrence Selleck (Spock) and Mahé Thaissa (J.M. Colt) at the premiere of “Unification” (OTOY)
765874: Unification was directed by Award Winning Spanish filmmaker Carlos Baena, from a story by Jules Urbach and features original music by Academy award-winning Star Trek composer Michael Giacchino. Production design was provided by Star Trek: Picard production designer David Blass.
Emmy award-winning visual effects supervisor Mark Spatny led OTOY’s team of artists and animators, who combined digital and physical prosthetics with live-action location photography, virtual production, and CG set extensions. According to OTOY, each major scene in “Unification” was filmed twice, “ensuring coverage to create video and spatial content mastered for Apple Vision Pro.” These locations were scanned in and merged with CG set extensions to become part of The Archive’s growing library of 3D worlds and locations. The visual effects in Unification were created using OTOY’s “Octane” rendering software and the “Render Network” decentralized GPU rendering platform. Characters and props were digitized using OTOY’s Academy-Award winning “LightStage” scanning system.
Behind the scenes collage from the making of “Unification” (OTOY)
765874: Unification is accompanied by new interactive sets, props, and worlds from Star Trek Generations on The Roddenberry Archive. The full experience with all related extra content is available in its entirety in Digital Cinema 4k HDR and spatial video, “exclusively mastered at peak fidelity” for viewing on Apple Vision Pro.
For more about the making of Unification check out the blog post at otoy.com.
More short films from Roddenberry Archive
Over the last couple of years the Roddenberry Archive has released three previous short films starting with “765874” featuring Mahé Thaissa as Yeoman Colt from “The Cage.” 765874 is Colt’s Starfleet serial number from the comics.
The second film titled 765874 – Memory Wall features Thaissa as Colt again with Lawrence Selleck as Spock.
And last year they released 765874 – Regeneration with Thaissa and Selleck returning. The film also featured a return to Veridian III and the saucer of the USS Enterprise-D being recovered.
Read more articles about The Roddenberry Archive at TrekMovie.com
