Federation Members: Star Trek 2009
November 14th, 2009
With the release of Star Trek on DVD, I finally had the opportunity to do a feature on the new Federation aliens spotted in this alternate version of the 23rd century.
Starfleet Academy
Star Trek (or Star Trek 2009 as I will call it when there is confusion) has a very distinct look that sets it apart from other Star Trek. Just as the space ships, uniforms and sets, the aliens have a different style. Although sadly the majority of alien designs barely made it into the final movie, appearing only in far away background shots, the few major aliens and the behind-the-scenes features show very elaborate masks with moving parts, sometimes even combined with post-production digital effects. Most of the Star Trek movies have used their larger budgets to create more alien looking aliens than the television shows could afford. But it’s also true that in nearly all cases, these aliens appear only in the background, and we never really get to admire the wonderful designs in much detail. I hope we’ll get more information on the weird and wonderful aliens in this Star Trek, but until then, we have to rely mostly on blurry screengrabs for a lot of them. As this post intends to list new Federation aliens, I’ll limit myself to aliens seen in Starfleet uniforms.
Monchezke
Alnschloss K'Bentayr of Monchezke
The first alien we see is an officer on the bridge of the USS Kelvin in the opening act of the movie. According to the script this is Alnschloss K’Bentayr. The Intel viral website Starfleet Shipyard states that comes from the planet Monchezke. And yes, it appears to be a male. The Aliens feature on the DVD explains that, like the Talosians in “The Cage”, this alien was played by a woman yet intended to be a male alien. Physically, the Monchezkeans (Monchezkites?) appear to be be slender humanoids with webbed hands and a large head.
The making of Alnschloss K'Bentayr
Alien doctor
The Kelvin doctor
Another alien crewmember of the Kelvin is the doctor that accompanies Winona Kirk during the evacuation. This particular alien is largely human-like, with the exception of her enormous CGI-enhanced eyes.
Orion
An Orion science officer.
Together with the Vulcans and the Romulans, the only other recurring alien race in the movie are the green-skinned Orions. Surprisingly, they appear to be regular Starfleet crewmembers. Gaila, Kirk’s fling, is in enrolled at the Academy, and a deleted scene (where the above image is taken from) features another Orion lieutenant in a sciences division uniform. We must assume that something happened to make this possible in the alternate 2250s. Either relations with the Orions are dramatically different in this universe, or, as Roberto Orci suggested, these may be Orion slave girls that found a way out. Or, keeping in mind the revelations in Enterprises’s “Bound”, the Orions may have actually succesfully infiltrated Starfleet.
Enterprise bridge officer
Enterprise bridge officer
On the Enterprise, we actually see very few aliens outside of the Vulcans. One of the aliens we do see is a bridge officer with a dark, almost metallic like skin. This alien is known as ‘Madeline’ in behind-the-scenes material, and in the Aliens featurette, the actress under the mask, Kimberly Arland, mentions her homeworld has four suns. She’s playing the character, so I suppose she would know these things!
Keenser
Keenser
Keenser, Scotty’s engineering buddy, is an “oyster-faced small alien” (description by Simon Pegg) with small, moving rods in place of eyes. He appeared to be in Starfleet service. We know very little about Keenser, apart from the fact that he apparently eats very little and has a tendency to sit on things.
.. and the rest.
Various aliens
The rest of the aliens are quite hard to identify in the final cut of the movie. Most of them appear in the background multiple times however. The above 12 I could pick up, although I now believe that #9 is the same as #6. I will come back to this once the Art of the Film book comes out, and maybe shines some more light on these. In conclusion, it appears that we can add around a dozen new candidates for the Federation to our lists. On the other hand, nearly all of these appear only in very minor background rolls, leading to a Starfleet that still seems to be almost entirely human (although a clear effort was made to include many different types of people). And although I admire the extremely intricate designs in the movie, I would like to see some ‘classic’ aliens return for the sequel. I still feel that the Andorians and Tellarites are underused, silly as their concepts may be.
Credits & References
- “Starfleet Shipyard“, via the Internet Archive
- Jordan Hoffman, “Roberto Orci – Star Trek Interview”, accessed 14 november 2009.
- “Aliens”, feature on Star Trek: 2-disc special edition DVD.
1. Talon Lardner said:
Incredible writeup for all these species! It is very fascinating to read up on the behind the scenes info on these different characters, and I do agree that it is nice that they appeared to be lots more complicated than the “face puddy” style aliens that plagued early TNG.
2. JNG said:
Harry, is your big list of all members from the old version of this site still accessible somewhere?
3. Harry Doddema said:
I will add the ‘master list’ soon.
4. Dwight Williams said:
My suspicion re: the Orions is that it’s a mix: escapees from the Orion Syndicate’s holdings, spies working their way up the ranks, both present. How many of the latter posing as the former? Who knows?
5. Mick Edwards said:
Keenser looks a lot like the aliens shown in Nemesis. Are they the same?
All too often, aliens resemble the humanoids frame, with a head, limbs, extremities, etc. in the Star Trek world. We do not see too much details or development of aliens we cannot understand (ergo alien) or find too alien.
6. Ryan Hawe said:
The backstory from Kurtzmann and Orci re: Cadet Gaila was that she was indeed smuggled out of Orion syndicate space as a child by well-meaning missionary types. The unnamed science division officer, however, has so far not been explained (and her scene, where Kirk initally mistakes her for Gaila, was cut from the film).
One possible not yet stated is that the UFP and the Orions have an officer exchange program in this continuity, as the Klingons and UFP do in the prime TNG continuity. After all, not every Orion woman is a “slave” (see Devna from TAS), and it may well be that exposure to Earthen ways is making some of them wanting to be in charge more overtly (sort of a reverse of what happened at Angel One…) rather than relying on misdirection and pillow politics.
At least for now, though, the Orions remain terribly mysterious. At least when some of their secrets were revealed they could still remain competent econmic rivals, unlike the Ferengi.
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