The 13th in the series beginning with Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1980) the film contains all the requisite action and visual effect sequences that have now become standard for multiplex blockbusters.
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Leonard, who had a cameo as an alternate reality version of his character in the modern films, is honoured within the plot of the new movie, a tribute Zachary was delighted about. “There’s no recasting”, Abrams told Postmedia Network.
The famed director admitted that he has thought about killing the character off, but he’s not ready to approach that topic just yet.
The sci-fi sequel premiered Wednesday night at a flashy event at the Embarcadero Marina Park just outside the site of the four-day pop-culture convention. “There’s no recasting. I can’t possibly imagine that, and I think Anton deserves better”, Abrams said. Since he’s been answering a lot of the same questions about Star Trek, plus the fact that I didn’t want to talk about spoilers from the movie, I chose to ask some fun questions.
Chris Pine, who plays Captain Kirk in the newer movies, also addressed how hard it has been for he and his fellow cast members to promote Star Trek Beyond so soon after Yelchin’s death.
Anton played Chekov, a brilliant prodigy who is later promoted to chief engineer of the Enterprise. After all, we already know that Chris Hemsworth is somehow going to return for Star Trek 4 as Kirk’s dead father, and that’s complicated enough without throwing a resurrected doppelganger from an alternate timeline into the mix.
Abrams was not sure about how he would address Yelchin’s death within the film. Abrams spoke with The Toronto Sun recently and revealed that he doubts the original Captain Kirk will ever make an appearance in the new franchise.
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The studio said in its statement that the main franchise stars are expected to return, including Chris Pine (Capt Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), Simon Pegg (Scotty), Karl Urban (Dr. McCoy), and John Cho (Sulu).
