Rumor Mill: Star Trek 3 Filming Location
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A Middle East location may be used for filming part of Star Trek 3.
The location would be Dubai, set in the United Arab Emirates.
According to The National, several sources have claimed that the latest Trek movie will film there, towards the end of the year.
Shooting will “begin around November. We are told that non-disclosure agreements have already been signed with major local crew, and a significant part of the movie will be filmed here.”
Recently, the new Star Wars film shot scenes in the Abu Dhabi desert, southwest of Dubai.
William Shatner appeared recently at the Middle East Film & Comic Convention in Dubai.
As to be expected, there was no official confirmation of the plans to film in Dubai. The Dubai Film and TV Commission refused to comment on the matter.
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Vancouver, as well.
http://www.acting-auditions.org/2015/04/casting-calls-for-star-trek-3.html
Sad. This is reason enough to boycott this film. United Arab Emirates has a horrible record when it comes to the rights of workers and women in general. In fact, according to national laws, each woman is required to report to a male guardian and is subject to stoning for violations.
Here’s a news report on Dubai:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ijnrMYFxcQw
And another on the systematic abuse of workers in the United Arab Emirates:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXqHLFngobw
As for Shatner’s appearance, I hope he at least had the courage and decency to speak out against the repressive laws and abuse there.
I was just thinking the same thing. How very, very sad. All that talk from the studios about standing up for human rights was just talk.
Oh puhleaze, give me a break. Every country has some serious issues and dirty laundry. Is the US perfect and therefore the only place permissible for movies to be filmed? Is labor not exploited in the US? Is there no institutional racism and sexism in the US? Please get off your high horse. The UAE runs a better ship in some ways (no homelessness, universal health care, free education for citizens up to the PhD level including women) than many other places in the world. The type of reports you cite, while containing some highly selective truth, are designed and produced to give a veneer of validity to the mainstream media’s anti-Arab and anti-Muslim narrative.
Also FYI, Paramount is building its first branded hotel in Dubai which will house a Breakfast at Tiffany’s restaurant among other Paramount IP attractions (maybe including Star Trek).
Puhleeze? It’s ironic that Dubai is the real-life equivalent of Stratos from the TOS episode “The Cloud Minders” – a city for the elite (who no doubt enjoyed the benefits of universal healthcare, free education, etc. FOR THEMSELVES) but built on the systematic exploitation of foreign workers (Troglytes?) But I guess I’m just being highly selective and anti-Muslim. Everything’s just hunky-dory and anyway we shouldn’t get on our high horse because we see the same things here like stonings and modern-day slavery.
David Gerrold was one of the writers of this episode. I wonder what he thinks of nuTrek and Dubai?
There are no stonings in the UAE. There has been only one capital punishment case in the UAE in the last five years, and it was carried out by firing squad. How many executions in the US in the last five years? There are plenty of documentaries showcasing the abysmal conditions of US workers, and particularly migrant laborers. The Cloud Minders would be an apt metaphor for the present-day US as well. Be careful throwing stones inside a glass house…
No stonings? A woman was sentenced to death by stoning just last year. I’ll admit that when David Gerrold wrote “The Cloud Minders” he must have had the exploitation of workers in the West in mind but, nearly 50 years later, just because problems remain elsewhere, should we overlook the current horrible abuse of basic human rights in the UAE?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_Arab_Emirates
♫ You say Dubai, I say hello ♫
I’ve never heard of stonings in the UAE. You are perhaps confusing it with Saudi. Source please?
Source was provided in the wikipedia link above. Stonings are part of the UAE’s judicial punishment system and last year a woman there was sentenced to death by stoning after being found guilty of adultery.
Sentenced, but not carried out, and never will be (for PR reasons if nothing else). They’re well aware they need to reform their legal system for modernity’s sake: http://www.thenational.ae/uae/outdated-religious-laws-must-be-changed-uae-forum-hears
While it certainly has its share of issues, the UAE is heading in the right direction with universal health care, universal free education, practically crime-free, no racial/ethic/religious strife, a vocal force for moderation among Islamic countries, yet you want to boycott it? You make no sense, sir.
The US is heading in the opposite direction, just check its human rights record:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_the_United_States
“…the United States has been internationally criticized for its violation of human rights, including denying access to basic healthcare, the least protections for workers of any Western country, the return of imprisoning people for debt, shutting off water to impoverished citizens who cannot afford it, deprivation of housing and criminalization of homelessness and poverty, invading the privacy of its citizens through surveillance programs, institutional racism, gender discrimination, police brutality, the incarceration of citizens for profit, the mistreatment of prisoners and juveniles in the prison system, crackdowns on peaceful protesters, the continued support for foreign dictators who commit abuses (including genocide) against their own people, unconstitutional denial of voting rights of certain races or political affiliations, and the illegal detainment and torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay.”
By your logic, Hollywood should stop filming in the US to protest the lack of human rights in the country.
Heading in the right direction? No, the UAE government has not undertaken serious reforms to protect the laborers who have built the country’s magnificent structures. They continue to be systematically used/abused as a modern-day slave labor force. In light of this, your claim that the UAE is headed in the right direction and that the US is headed in the wrong direction is just ludicrous and, although the quote you just posted regarding the US and human rights is full of hyperbole, it does criticize US support for foreign dictators which happens to include the despotic leadership of the UAE.
Also, you keep touting free education, universal healthcare, etc. but, don’t forget that in Dubai (Stratos) such privileges apply only to the elite and not to the laborers (Troglytes). Finally, of course racial/ethnic/religious strife is not existent WITHIN the elite class – that’s because they have and maintain an absolutely monolithic population/culture. It disgusts me that a Star Trek movie would actively promote this system by filming there. Is this what Star Trek has been reduced to – a popcorn action flick franchise with no regard for human rights?
You don’t know what you are talking about. The UAE is rolling out universal health insurance for everyone including laborers and even visitors: https://www.dha.gov.ae/EN/Media/News/pages/dubai%E2%80%99shealthinsurancelawpaveswayforuniversalhealthcoverage.aspx
The so-called “despotic” leadership of the UAE is way ahead of the “democratic” leadership of the US when it comes to health care and education. There are no race riots in the UAE, unlike the US whose cities are becoming roiled by the institutional racism of its police departments.
The workers who come to the UAE come of their own free will. There are no UAE slave ships off the coast of India and the Philippines abducting workers. Those workers provide for their entire families back home from the money they make in the UAE. If you’ve ever been to Kerala, India, or the Philippines, you would see the abject poverty that compels these workers to come to the UAE to support their families. Without work in the UAE, these countries would have even more desperate populations without work, money or food. Is the system perfect? No. But it’s not that bad either, and in some ways it’s way better than the US. There are no homeless people in the UAE.
In short, your worldview is myopic and simplistic, get some perspective and nuance.
What I do know is that the video you posted is clearly a propaganda piece produced by the UAE government itself (www.dha.gov.ae) in order to dispel concerns about its treatment of workers. It is also clear that for one reason or another you are a shill for that government going to great lengths to defend its policies by any means possible – starting with your first post which dismissed my criticism as being anti-Muslim and going on to use the “glass houses” argument in order to deflect criticism of what is happening in the UAE. The reality is that the laborers (Troglytes) who built up the city of Dubai (Stratos) are strictly segregated, locked up in labor camps after being lured by the UAE government with promises of wealth. When they arrive they end up living under a system of modern-day slavery, held captive as the wages they were promised are held by their employers as ransom so that they can force these laborers to work under otherwise intolerable conditions. But I guess I don’t know what I’m talking about and have been rendered myopic after viewing the interviews with these laborers from the very first video I posted. You have either spared yourself by not watching or simply don’t care. Sad.
Universal health care is a UAE government policy goal, that’s what the website says. Can the US make that claim? You have never even been to the UAE yet you condemn it based on a couple videos. That’s not only sad, it’s willfully ignorant. You use Wikipedia to condemn human rights in the UAE, but when Wikipedia is used to condemn US human rights abuses, it’s “hyperbole” in your words. That’s the glass house you live in.
The workers can watch the videos on YouTube or ask their compatriots in Kerala before coming to work in the UAE… yet they still come. You know why? They are not promised riches, but they know the money is good and it supports their families back home where are zero jobs and only abject poverty. The workers are housed in dormitories that would appear ramshackle to us, but are actually far better than in Kerala, and even air-conditioned. They are not segregated, they walk around the city like everybody else and play cricket on Friday. Are some of them abused by their employers? Yes, but the government has made progress on this in the last 20 years, and is trying to do more. No place in this world is perfect, but to single out the UAE for a boycott when it is probably one of the most visionary and forward-looking places in the world, is stunning ignorance and myopia. Your knee-jerk anti-UAE bashing is more likely a symptom of anti-Arab sentiment (“they are primitive people, how could they possibly build a world-class country that is in many ways better than the US?”) and Islamophobia. Just so sick and tired of this ignorance and bigotry.
The most skilled stoners can become great baseball players…