kirk, what a great man. that was another life. >> emergency. >> fire. >> charlie: i'm pleased to have j.j. abrams at this table. welcome. >> it's an arne to be here. >> charlie: look at this, news week. >> i couldn't believe that. no kidding. >> charlie: you don't want them to pull it back, do you. >> no. >> charlie: boldly goes how startrek taught us to dream big. how did startrek teach us to dream big. i realize you didn't write the article. >> actually i didn't. i should read it. i'm not sure. >> charlie: just talk about dream and fantasy and genre and ... >> the thing about startrek is as someone who is never necessarily a fan of startrek, i've come to appreciate it, working on the movie in a way that friends of mine d often smart friends, did. they loved the show. i didn't quite find a way in. what i realized is one of the things gene roddenberry was he was showing us a vision of our future that was optimistic. it wasn't a dark cynical. >> charlie: prophet of doom. >> recently there have been in recent years many films which i've loved but have been, you know, post apocalyptic or preapocalyptic and ultimately very cynical and i think one of the things that startrek has intrinsically that allows us to dream is a hopeful future. that optimism was one of the things that actually got me excited about doing the movie. >> charlie: how did you get to do iten if you weren't a fan. >> i just finished mission impossible and they asked me if i would be interested in producing a startrek film. >> charlie: producing. >> producing. that would help vision a future of star tech is something i could get into with a cool challenge. as i started working for the writers, the producers came on, the five of us, you know, bob orsi one of the writers is a huge startrek fan. the one of produces never seen the episode. so you have this range of experiences with startrek. i was sort of someone who knew of it but didn't really love it. i fell in love with the script. when i finally read it, i said this is nuts. i would be jealous ifen else directs this movie. >> charlie: that produces prerogative in this case. >> yes. i know who we should hire. >> charlie: so you set out to make it. and what was the challenge? this was the television series and you didn't want it to be just a television series installments we haven't seen. >> right. do you rember when the superman movie kaimg out that richard dawn he were produced. it was a cartoon, a comic book and a cam pea show. the poster for superman is you won't believe the man can fly. there was a kind of legitimacy with whiche treated the subject. i just thought that would be a real cool thing to try to with startrek. not that they didn't do it before bethe resources on the show were slim. the film didn't have much more quite frankly. for the first time we were actually given a reall sizeable budget, plus the technology that exists now for visual effects is, you know, light years beyond what he ever had before. we were actually in a situation where we could realize startrek in a way where you would believe -- >> charlie: what's the equivalent of you will believe a man can fly. >> you believe the ship can fly. and the key for me was -- >> charlie: that there's a world beyond. >> but the gime just what dick donor did when he did, he respected the characters as much as the audience. therps funny and unreal. and you had this sort of sense watching these characters. clark kent was no longer a comic book. i loved that treatment. we were trying to tell an epic tale the birth of the character, the coming of the come and that kind of stuff. >> charlie: my impression about you is that you want your audience, whether it's lost or wherever it might be, to understand where the character came from. >> yes. >> charlie: and when you -- then you use all the technology in the world to tell your story. >> that's the key, whether there's any technology at all it's what the twilight did so well. i adore that show. one of the reasons i thought it was so brilliant is you would have rod sterling. then something extraordinary would typically happen and usually they would have no resources either but it would just be an extraordinary story or a turn. anyway, that was to me like the most exciting as a kid, the most exciting inspiration. >> charlie: first you have to cast this story. >> i never had to do that before, cast characters that has been cast. that was a weird thing because i knew i dmentd -- didn't want this to be startrek 11. although technically it's startrek 11. >> charlie: it couldn't be the characters people identified with startrek. >> as somebody who was not a in an to begin with i needed to make the movie for people like myself that would go to the film without any information. i didn't want to make a movie for startrek fans. >> charlie: ecause they'll come anyway. >> if we made a movie that was hopefully a good movie, exciting and fun, we'd get them anyway. that's right. but so yes. i should shut up. but i think that the key with casting this movie was finding people who could take the spirit of what was in the original characters but not the impurse nations because startrek has been mocked so many times we didn't want to do a ask it. >> charlie: is that why you said at one point, you're saying that people who make -- people to make sequels rip off the wrong thing. >> what i was referring to is a lot of times there will be a movie that will be scary. or a comedy whever it is any genre and you will inevitably find the next year, two or three movies that feel somewhat of a xerox that you've seen in the successful film. usually they fail because the thing they're ripping off is the thing that they sold. meaning it's the gimmick of the plot. it's the, you know the pyro technics of it for example.

and inevitably the movie was successful despite those things. that to me my favorite movies are sort of b genre films treated a. and you can look at things like jaws, you can look at things like tootsie, you know. and you can say well when you describe the plot, it's a little come on. and them you see how geniusly it was done. it was like well you cannot deny it. so for me that's the goal, to take the things, the characters, the inner life of the characters. that's the thing that you want to be mining and discovering and figuring out all that kind of, you know, alien. >> charlie: how did you do this here. >> the key for this and the writers obviously i think wrote a wonderful script. the key was get under the skin of these characters. so for example with kirk, i knew he was captain kirk but i never knew why i should care about captain kirk. what we did is come up with a story where we see, this is a broken guy. this is a guy who is lost. he's aimless. he's sort of a punk when you meet him. and he's in bar, picking up some girl, getting into a fight has nothing to lose. and you thing well i know he's kirk so that's captain kirk but he's hard me a captain. so the journey of the story for his character is how he goes from a guy full of potential but unrealized completely. and how does he become that character. that was one way in. i thought that's a cool story anywhere. it doesn't have to be in space. that's exactly an interesting story. hoi did the guy go from being this sort of bum to becoming someone who is proud and earned that captain's chair. >> charlie: take a look. roll tape. this is from startrek, the movie. >> that's supposed to be way down in your rethe cruiting quarter. >> if you're half the man your father was, star fleet can use you. you can be an officer in four years. you can have your own ship in eight. , you understand what the federation is, don't you. it's important to peacekeeping and humanitarian have done. i'm done. >> riveide shipyard, shuttle for new recruits leaves tomorrow,0800. your father was captain of the star trip for 12 minutes. he saved 800 lives, including your mother's. and yours. i dare you to do better. >> charlie: tell me this. okay, so you were more of a star wars fan than a startrek fan because. >> because star wars gave you a way n it introduced this farm boy in the middle of no where and suddenly he's called to adventure and how can this kid -- and you got to know someone in a relatable way who is taken on an extraordinary venture. startrek always had characters in extraordinary adventure mode. >> charlie: so created the notion that you can imagine how this could happen because the beginning is average, normal. >> that's right. it'sunny. even something like, like i was talking about, like movies that i like like die hard i rember seeing, and you know that's a story about the cop. when you first meet him, he's come back to his wife because he's trying to like you know keep their marriage alive and you know, it's a goip who these never become the kind of hero he becomes in the hero. it's not like starting out a complete innocent. but you have to start out someone who hasn't gotten to the end yet. so by the end of the movie, wow that's a whole experience, a whole journey that character's been on. i often think of movies as the dream the main character has that changes him or her. meaning if that main character at the beginning of the story were to fall asleep that night and have a dream, and then wake up a better changed person, what's that dream. and that's the film. >> charlie: what was your dream. >> just to be a charlie rose. >> charlie: every night you went to bed and you fella -- fell -- asleep and you looked at the tain and said. do you know people see me on the street and say some day i'm going to sit at your table. >> what i'm saying here, i'm not kidding around. it's not a joke, i'm telling you. i think the ultimate dream really was to, and i'm not kidding, was to be here, meaning to get to make the movie, to get to do something fell when i was an eight year old kid i was making super 8 films with my parents camera. this is what i've always wanted to do. and to be lucky enough to get a shot and get to do it and literally be sitting here talking to you about a movie that i got coming out is as surreal as it gets. really. >> charlie: i'll take your word for it. tell me, what do you think was the -- it was between a camera and putting it on film. >> when you're a kid you do what kids do. so kids are out in the field playing ball or whatever. i was never an athlete so i was never chosen first. when you're chosen near the end you play less and you get less and you get picked less, if you don't get picked -- >> charlie: pretty soon you're looking for a super 8 camera. >> that's right. does someone have a camera. >> charlie: i can see it, i'll photograph it. >> right. you're not -- even when i was in kindergarten, i would watch kids through the jingle gym and i would see what it looked like through a camera. the teachers would call my parents very concerned. i don't know what ice doing. >> charlie: i don't know what they say now. >> but that was really my, my thing. and i think that i remr going to universal studios tour back when it was a real tour. not an amazement park kind of thing. like lucille ball's dreaming room was huge. they advertised that. it was incredibly bare bones and i remember being inspired and went home to started making movies. >> charlie: in your mind or with your super 8. >> my dad a little jf boxed super 8 camera, just a little thing. i went home and started making movies and i would do all sorts of, build models and blow them up and film them. >> charlie: spielberg is the hero. >> he's my idol,. >> charlie: you're not the only person who said that and actors will say marlon brando and then you go down the line. >> i think part of it is his unbelievable sense of the visual storytelling, you know, that he has, which is he will do in one shot what directors need six seven shots to do.

he will tell stories without editing. there's a fluidity to whate does. and you know, in many so of his films, there's a level of, you know, unbelievable kind of heart breaking realism and then in the next reel there is something mind blowing and that's where the mundane and the amazing connect. that to me is what he does with this facility that's just truly mind blowing to me. >> charlie: was there a moment in which you met spielberg and tom cruise because they wanted you to make mission impossible? >> what happened was i met spielberg years earlier but every time i would see him, it would just be, it was terrifying. i was always just horrified because i thought what if identify say the wrong thing. it was again, it's a weird thing to meet the person that you admire so much most. anyway, so one day tom tom cruise and smealberg come to my office and they're sitting on my sofa and they're asking if i would write a movie they were going to do which was war of the worlds. i was going to do. lost pilot. and i was sitting there with these people for an hour or whatever and it was that thing, i was looking at steve and it's like i can't look at him anymore because i'm too nervous. i would look over at tom and say my god, tom cruise. i couldn't look anywhere. i stopped and said this is too weird for me. then let's continue the meeting. i was overwhelm with the energy. then of course i had to say i couldn't do it because i was doing lost, which you know, to say no to either of these men is not the ideal scenario. but they were incredibly sweet and gracious about it. then tom called and ask if i would direct -- >> charlie: did he call you while you were on the set. >> he watched the first two seasons of alias and he loved it and he was so sweet bit and he says let's hang out when you get back and i'm like okay, tom cruise. then i got back to l.a. -- >> charlie: you can do that. >> yes. i got back to lmpleghts a. -- la. he gave me the shot to direct the film that no one else gave me. >> charlie: mission impossible three. >> i still can't believe it. >> charlie that was the budget, 150. >> around that. a little bit more. >> charlie: how different are movies today, 2009. because of technology? what can you do in startrek you couldn't have done in the year 2000. >> i often wonder, you know, looking back on what we're doing now if it won't feel as real as we think it is because you know when they did films in the 60's and did visual effects, they must have looked pretty well. now we look at these films and think, oh my. we've gotten to place where photo reel is right real where it truly looks real. i think we can to things now that would have been either unheard or just primitive to do. even now on television that would have been i possible to do in films. what you can do with computer graphics it's gotten exponentially more possible. you can do anything now so what are you going to do. >> charlie: the question for me is does that feed your imagination or simply give you the tools to make your imagination real? >> well i think we have become sort of immune to spectacle. but i think that the visual possibility is now become so open ended that there is no shock value anymore in what you can see. it only matters if you have a human connection to it. so a spaceship flying by we've seen that hundreds of time. it doesn't matter. you don't go ooohhh. if you don't love the people on theship the spaceship means nothing. the special effects are huge and important and really fun but they're there to serve the humanity of the story. >> charlie: does it seem that kirk and zulu parachute into planet cull have you -- vulcan. >> can you kick anybody out. >> oh yes. here we go. >> what kind do you have? >> i know you from the uss enterprise. >> gentlemen, we're approaching the drop zone. we have one shot to land on that platform. you have to pull your shute. three, two, one. remember the enterprise will not be able to beam me back so turn off that drill. >> good luck. >> charlie: anything you couldn't do with this that you wanted to do? >> we actually got to make this movie. like i have to say -- >> charlie: the movie you want to make. >> it is. it's a weird situation, especially with the sound, that was so important. we finished the movie and delayed the release of the film while we were shooting, they told me they were going to release it six months later. we finished the film on time for december release and we were done. and then it's like closet space use as much as you want and then we got six more months and i said the mix isn't good enough. the but we went back and it made a huge difference. >> charlie: does it lead you to think of a certain kind of movie you want to make now. >> having been lucky enough to make this movie and mission impossible both of which were obviously based on tv shows and they were sequels, i do look forward to making a story -- >> charlie: that you would write. >> i'm not precious about who writes it, if the thing is compelling that's all that really matters. >> charlie: what about