Star Trek Beyond Dubai Press Conference
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Filming for Star Trek Beyond has moved to Dubai, and a press conference was held today at the Burj Al Arab Hotel in Dubai.
The conference included Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba, Justin Lin, Jeffrey Chernov, and Douglas Jung.
One of the topics included why Dubai was chosen for filming, especially external filming. “We came searching for the future and we found it,” said Chernov. “We’d drive around Dubai and look at things and we’d have to figure out how we can use those visual guides to tell our story. I’d see a building and say ‘we have to figure out how to put that in our movie.'”
Dubai looks like “whatever tomorrow would be,” said Pine. “It’s futureland.”
Pegg spoke about what Star Trek means to us today. “The film series offered a “utopian ideal where we can all just live together and there is no judgment and there is no prejudice...Star Trek, above all else, has something to teach us, which is that, imagine that, imagine if we could all get along.”
Quinto spoke about returning to Star Trek after the death of Leonard Nimoy. “Coming back to the role for the first time without him, I guess I feel the significance of the responsibility in a different way,” he said. “Leonard has such profound and positive impact on millions of people around the world because of his portrayal of this role and I think what he and Gene Roddenberry created with this character is so unique, and there’s a depth to it and there’s something that I think a lot of people connect to and find some sort of emotional resonance within and so I do take that seriously. I’ve always wanted to do good work and I think all of us up here agree on that…for me there is another undercurrent in this film which is to truly honor my dear friend and carry on the legacy that he worked so hard to create.”
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> “Dubai is futureland”nnWomen everywhere, rejoice! Here’s what’s in store for you.
Unless they’re remaking “The Cloud Minders”, what the hell is a series with progressive ideals like Star Trek doing in such a repressive state built by 21st-century slave labour?nhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gMh-vlQwrmU
Money talks. It’s that simple. i’m pretty disgusted Trek is being flimed there, but it’s de rigeur at the moment. I blame Cruise and MI.
In addition to needing fancy looking buildings, I assume there were great $ incentives to filming there which help make everyone forget the moral implications. I recall some protestations of terrible wages coming to light during the filming of Hobbit movies, with workers demanding better pay. Peter Jackson’s response, in essence: “If we had to pay you well, we couldn’t afford to make the movie.” Inspiring. I think this was around when Del Toro backed out and Ron Perlman along with him. The production was troubled because it relied on not having to pay people well.
Not actual slaves. Not actually sold or traded as property. Just employees working in terrible conditions.
Yes, not quite but when you are a foreign worker who has his passport taken away from him (which is standard in Dubai) so he cannot quit while projects remain unfinished you are literally a slave to the company. This is done with full knowledge and support of the government. Think about it – would Star Trek have filmed in South Africa under apartheid? nnnThis is disgusting – not a relatively trivial matter such as arguing over “lens flares” and rehashing characters. By the 23rd-century, on Earth I hope societies like Dubai would have long since been relegated to the dustbin of history.
Glad to see those sentiments from Mr. Quinto; I’m glad he understood what Spock and Mr. Nimoy meant to us.
I must confess, when I saw that statement by Pine, I winced. The future they offer women and foreigners is not the future I want.
the whole press conference, saved for the point where Quinto remembers Nimoy, is filled by pretentious statements tbh.
I must admit that I have been less than thrilled by the Abrams films but to think that the 50th anniversary Star Trek film would end up as part of a PR campaign for the tourist industry of a repressive state like Dubai disgusts me on a whole other level. This film is rightly named “Star Trek Beyond”, but not in a good sense. If this is the direction of the franchise then, no thanks. Star Trek has been reduced to yet another brainless action series and has lost me as a fan.
No, it’s more like indentured servitude, which is still a thing in some countries. It’s entered into voluntarily, because it seems preferable to the alternative. It’s a guaranteed job, as opposed to desperate poverty with no prospects. The conditions in the Gulf states for foreign labourers are notorious, but the workers aren’t slaves. Don’t use the wrong word just because it’s more emotive than the messy reality.
You can split hairs all you want – the fact is that, yes, they come looking for work voluntarily but upon their arrival their passports are taken from them in order to hold them hostage to their employer.They are no longer free to escape the squalid conditions and hard labor that they are subjected to. Also, just because similar systems operated elsewhere in the past does not mean we should give this government a free pass in the 21st-century. If the official franchise has been co-opted into a partnership with real-life “Cloud Minders”, I no longer expect anything of substance from them – just more “pew-pew and ‘splosions.” Star Trek, R.I.P.