Star Trek

By StarTrek.com Staff

July 15, 2010

Not every scene of a movie makes it into the final cut that reaches theaters, and those scenes – bits and/or sequences trimmed for time or pacing -- tend to turn up as extras on the subsequent DVD and Blu-ray releases. It’s a common occurrence and it happened with J.J. Abrams recent blockbuster Star Trek feature. Fans were treated, for example, to more young-Kirk back story, a Klingon interrogating Nero, and Spock nearly having a close encounter with his father, Sarek.

But when was the last time you saw the movie poster equivalent -- concept art?

The answer is… now.

Quantum Mechanix Inc. is making available, for the first time, concept art created for the Star Trek movie poster. QMx will offer several thematic sets, each with four 18” x 24” prints. The first set features retro, Works Progress Administration (WPA)-style themes that were contemplated at an early stage of the promotion/marketing process, back when the target release date for Star Trek was still December 25, 2008. Abrams, his team at Bad Robot and the marketing unit at Paramount Pictures ultimately elected to go in a different direction, but the concepts developed and the art commissioned were nothing less than stunning, and now they’re available to the public.

“About the closest analogy I can come up with is that these are like the director's cuts of movie posters,” says Andy Gore, CEO, Quantum Mechanix Inc. “While they may not have been necessary to tell the story, having access to them adds dimension and color to an already great experience. As far as I know, no one has ever done something like this before, for any franchise. It’s unusual for a studio to release promotional artwork they didn’t use. And I think if these images were any less compelling than they are, we probably wouldn’t have gotten clearance to release them.”

Gore recalls that when he and Quantum Mechanix staff were first given access to the concept posters, everyone involved was dazzled. “The work was just breathtaking, all of it, really,” he says. “But we were especially taken with the retro, WPA-style art. It was reminiscent of our own Blue Sun Travel posters and Battlestar Propaganda posters. So it’s a school of design we really love. And I knew we just had to bring these to our customers.”

The Star Trek Movie Poster Set, Series 1: Retro costs $29.95 and is comprised of four plated-printed lithographs that, like all QMx poster sets, come on 100-pound, aqueous-coated, satin-finish paper. Series 1, it should be noted, is intended to pave the way to additional sets in the very near future.

“We already have three more series in the planning stages,” Gore says. “I can’t really tell you much more, except each series will be thematically unique. Not just the concepts, but the art styles that were experimented with span the gamut. You could seriously fill a museum with all the wonderful art that sprang from Star Trek’s creative process."

Get them now at www.quantummechanix.com.