On the 30th anniversary of “Star Trek: Generations”, The Archive and William Shatner revisit Captain Kirk’s final appearance on screen in a new 8-minute video produced for The Archive app on Apple Vision Pro: “765874: Unification”, launched in tandem with new interactive sets and documentary interviews and behind the scenes content celebrating the legacy of the 1994 film.
‘765874: Unification’ launches today on The Archive web portal and native app, an immersive experiential app designed for Apple Vision Pro.
The release is accompanied by new interactive sets, props, and worlds from the 1994 film as well as a 20-minute retrospective by William Shatner himself, looking back over the last 30-years since he played the legendary character, and his aspirations for the future of Captain Kirk as the franchise approaches the 60-year mark.
The full experience with all related extra content is available in its entirety in Digital Cinema 4k HDR and spatial video, exclusively mastered at peak fidelity for viewing on Apple Vision Pro.
Iconic characters from classic Star Trek history were brought to life through the live action performances of a talented cast, led by veteran TV and film star Sam Witwer as James T. Kirk, with Lawrence Selleck as Spock. Witwer and Selleck were filmed in costume, performing as Kirk and Spock on set, aided by both physical and digital prosthetics resulting in period-accurate portrayals matching the appearance of the characters as they originally appeared in TV and Film at the time.
William Shatner and Susan Bay Nimoy, widow of the late Leonard Nimoy, served as executive producers on the production.
Mr. Shatner worked with the OTOY team to fine tune the technical and creative direction required to bring his interpretation of Kirk back to live action for the first time in 30 years, including the addition of his voice to narrate a key moment in the experience.
Describing ‘765874: Unification’ and OTOY’s digital prosthetic technology used to revisit Star Trek history, William Shatner said it “takes years off of your face, so that in a film you can look 10, 20, 30, 50 years younger than you are.” Mr. Shatner surprised fans yesterday when he shared the first private screening of the video at the Star Trek tour in Ticonderoga, New York.
‘765874: Unification’ was directed by Award Winning Spanish filmmaker Carlos Baena, from a story by Jules Urbach, and features original music by Academy-award winning Star Trek composer Michael Giacchino.
The 8-minute video connects multiple decades of Star Trek lore, with nods to Robin Curtis’ portrayal of Saavik (1984’s Star Trek III: The Search for Spock), J.M. Colt (from the 1964 Cage pilot) played by actress Mahé Thaissa and Gary Mitchell, Kirk’s friend from the second Star Trek pilot episode, “Where No Man Has Gone Before” performed by original actor Gary Lockwood.
For post-production and special effects work, skilled artists from OTOY and partner VFX studios combined digital and physical prosthetics with live action location photography, virtual production, and beautiful CG set extensions to deliver feature-film quality visuals. Major scenes in “Unification” were filmed twice, ensuring coverage to create video and spatial content mastered for Apple Vision Pro. All outdoor filming locations were scanned in and merged with CG set extensions, becoming part of The Archive’s growing library of 3D worlds and locations.
Emmy-award winning visual effects supervisor Mark Spatny led OTOY’s international team of artists and animators, including visual effects artists Neil Smith, JJ Palomo, and Aaron Westwood.
Visual effects in ‘Unification’ were created using OTOY’s Octane® rendering software and the Render Network® decentralized GPU rendering platform. Characters and props were digitized using OTOY’s Academy-Award winning LightStage
scanning system
