"765874 – Unification" is the fourth in a series of short concept videos that use digital technology to visualize past actors and previously unfilmed imagery from the Star Trek franchise. Created by the Roddenberry Archive, a collaboration between the estate of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and computer graphics company OTOY, the video features a reunion between the characters James T. Kirk and Spock after the events of the film Star Trek Generations (1994). It was directed by Carlos Baena from a story by Jules Urbach.
Urbach conceived of the short by mid-2023. It has no dialogue and is open to interpretation regarding whether the events are actually happening to Kirk, are in Spock's mind, or are taking place in a version of the afterlife. Location filming took place at Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California, in 2024. Sam Witwer was cast as Kirk while Lawrence Selleck returned from the previous videos in the series as Spock; practical and digital prosthetics were used to recreate the likenesses of original actors William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy, respectively. Shatner was an executive producer on the video alongside Nimoy's widow, Susan Bay Nimoy. Robin Curtis and Gary Lockwood reprised their respective Star Trek roles as Saavik and Gary Mitchell. Several crew members returned from previous Star Trek projects, including production designer Dave Blass and composer Michael Giacchino.
The video was released on YouTube and the Apple Vision Pro app The Archive on November 18, 2024, the 30th anniversary of Generations. It has received more than 20 million views and was praised by fans and commentators. The latter discussed the digital recreation technology and whether the video is part of official Star Trek canon.
Plot Gary Mitchell, after acquiring godlike abilities in Star Trek: The Original Series (1966–1969), floats in space in front of a star. He closes his eyes and there are several images: Spock standing over the grave of James T. Kirk on the planet Veridian III from the film Star Trek Generations (1994); a futuristic cityscape; Spock doing a mind meld with J. M. Colt from the Original Series pilot episode "The Cage" (1964); Colt on a high rock pillar looking at an eye-shaped pool inside a circle of stones; the crashed saucer portion of the USS Enterprise–D being recovered from Veridian III by Starfleet; and a different version of Colt from the alternate Kelvin Timeline reviewing a file on Kirk's death in the Prime Timeline.
Kirk walks through a garden and sees a group of people standing by a fountain. He recognizes one of the people, Saavik, and realizes that the man standing beside her is her son with Spock. At the fountain is Starfleet officer Yor from the Kelvin Timeline, who gives Kirk the Starfleet badge which Spock had recovered from Kirk's grave on Veridian III. Kirk then finds himself in a distorted passageway where he sees versions of himself from earlier in his life. After they fade away, Kirk follows the passage. He enters a room on the planet New Vulcan in the Kelvin Timeline where an elderly Spock lies on his deathbed. Kirk takes Spock's hand and they share a look before silently watching the sunset together.
Production Background
The Roddenberry Archive, a collaboration between the estate of Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and computer graphics company OTOY, was announced in August 2021 by Gene's son Rod Roddenberry and OTOY founder and CEO Jules Urbach. In early 2022, the archive team interviewed several individuals involved with "The Cage" (1964), the first pilot episode for Star Trek: The Original Series (1966–1969). Laurel Goodwin, who played J. M. Colt in "The Cage", was expected to be interviewed for the project but died earlier that week. After noticing a resemblance between Urbach's wife Mahé Thaissa and Goodwin's portrayal of Colt, the archive team had planned to accompany Goodwin's interview with new footage of Thaissa as Colt on digital recreations of the episode's sets, filmed using virtual production techniques. Carlos Baena, who joined OTOY as a freelance director in early 2022, directed a short concept video featuring Thaissa as Colt that was released in May under the title "765874", a reference to Colt's in-universe Starfleet serial number. Rod wanted the archive to highlight Star Trek spin-off fiction that had not been visualized in live-action, and the team looked to a 1998 comic book story published by Marvel Comics in Star Trek: Early Voyages as inspiration. In the comic, Colt time travels to the future and when she returns to her own time she has an "awakening" when she sees "all of Star Trek timeline". Urbach expanded on this, treating Colt as an "observer" who has seen different moments throughout Star Trek history.
A second short concept video, "765874 – Memory Wall", was released in August 2022. In addition to Thaissa as Colt, it features Lawrence Selleck as Spock. Prosthetics and digital technology were used to recreate the appearance of original actor Leonard Nimoy, who died in 2015. The video builds on Gene Roddenberry's novelization of Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) which describes Spock's mind meld with the entity V'Ger as an "awakening", allowing him to be treated as another "observer". It recreates imagery from the Early Voyages comic book as well as the 2015 comic book Star Trek: Captain's Log – Pike from IDW Publishing. A third short, "765874 – Regeneration", was released in April 2023. It is set after the events of the film Star Trek Generations (1994), in which the USS Enterprise–D crash-lands on the planet Veridian III, where James T. Kirk is later killed and buried. The third season of Star Trek: Picard (2023) reveals that Starfleet recovered the crashed ship and Kirk's remains sometime after the events of the film. The video depicts Starfleet's efforts to recover the ship, and also shows Spock visiting Kirk's grave. The latter sequence visualizes imagery from Kirk star William Shatner's novel The Ashes of Eden (1995), the first in a series known as the Shatnerverse that imagines a resurrected Kirk's life after the events of Generations. In February 2024, the archive team's digital collection of Star Trek sets, props, locations, and concept videos was made available as The Archive, a new mixed reality app for the Apple Vision Pro.
Development and story
In mid-2023, months after completing "Regeneration", Urbach shared his idea for a fourth concept video with Baena. He was inspired by comments Shatner made in an interview with the archive team, as well as fan frustrations regarding Kirk's death in Generations and the off-screen death of Spock in the alternate Kelvin Timeline, as revealed in the film Star Trek Beyond (2016). Urbach thought it was horrible that the two characters died in separate universes and wanted to give them a "proper sendoff" that would also bring closure for fans. After the team considered whether they should "dare" make such a project, they received approval from Shatner, Nimoy's family, and Star Trek parent company Paramount Global. The video was executive produced by Shatner and Susan Bay Nimoy, the widow of Leonard Nimoy. Shatner gave his approval after enjoying the archive team's previous work. He told them that they should only make the short if it was going to be "something meaningful". The title, "765874 – Unification", refers to Kirk and Spock's reunion but also the creative team's attempt to unify different parts of the Star Trek franchise.
The creators wanted the video to end with the reunion between Kirk and Spock. The rest of the narrative developed through discussions between Urbach and Baena, including during a February 2024 location scouting trip to Huntington Botanical Gardens in San Marino, California. Baena created a bullet-point list and a mood board to guide the story, which was refined with storyboard artist Ahmed Nasri, previsualization artist Jonathan Roybal, and visual effects artist J. J. Palomo. There was no script, but Baena wrote script pages for some scenes to convey the subtext that he wanted. They went through several months of editing to refine the story before production began. Urbach had various Star Trek references and characters that he wanted to include, but some of these were cut during editing for simplicity and focus. The video has no dialogue and is designed to be open to interpretation. Urbach offered three possible explanations for what happens: Kirk is resurrected following the events of Picard third season and physically travels to the Kelvin Timeline to reunite with Spock before the latter's death; Spock is imagining a reunion with Kirk while on his deathbed; or the two characters are reuniting in a version of the afterlife. Urbach said they were "meticulous" in ensuring that they did not contradict one of these options.
The video begins with a prologue featuring the character Gary Mitchell from "Where No Man Has Gone Before" (1966), the second pilot episode for The Original Series. Despite Mitchell seemingly dying in that episode, spin-off fiction had shown him surviving with his newly acquired godlike abilities. Urbach particularly drew on the "A Perfect System" comic book story from IDW's Star Trek #400 (2022). He said Mitchell is "playing god and learning about humanity's future... he has seen enough to pass along information" that sets the story into motion. The prologue continues with clips from the previous videos, recapping the story so far, and then shows Colt reviewing files on Kirk's death and remains. Urbach said this is the version of Colt from the Kelvin Timeline rather than the Prime Timeline version seen in the previous videos, and she is able to review files on Kirk's death in the Prime Timeline because of Mitchell. He said this version of Colt would have interacted with Spock before his death, which "explains possibly more than anything".
The main story starts with Kirk, in a garden, appearing as he did in Generations. Urbach confirmed that this unspecified setting is not the extra-dimensional "Nexus" realm from Generations. He originally envisioned the sequence taking place on a cliff or bluff and wanted to film at Mackinac Island, Michigan, but this proved impractical and Baena suggested the garden setting based on the film Big Fish (2003). Kirk meets Yor, a character mentioned in the series Star Trek: Discovery (2017–2024) who is the only known being to have travelled from the Kelvin Timeline to the Prime Timeline. Yor presents Kirk with his own Starfleet badge, which Spock recovered in the previous video, indicating that Spock took the badge with him to the Kelvin Timeline and gave it to Yor as a message for Kirk. Urbach compared this moment to Orpheus entering the underworld in Greek mythology, with Yor taking on the role of Charon the ferryman. Kirk is transported to the planet New Vulcan in the Kelvin Timeline. New Vulcan was previously only depicted in the IDW comic book Legacy of Spock (2016), written by Mike Johnson who consulted on the video. Urbach said Spock is not expecting to see Kirk but is hoping that he will. The video ends with the pair watching the sunset together. Urbach said it was important to "see them together in a meaningful way. And that is where the piece really ends... They are together and that is a beautiful thing." He said this was the culmination of the characters' stories and he did not intend to continue beyond this point in future videos.