Image credit: MovieStillsDB
Published Sep 1, 2026, 6:00 AM EDT
John Orquiola is a New & Classic TV Editor, Senior Writer, and Interviewer with a special focus on Star Trek. John has over 5,000 published articles at SR, and he has interviewed the biggest names in Star Trek on the red carpet and VIP events, among other beloved shows, movies, and franchises.
Sign in to your ScreenRant account
September 8, also known as Star Trek Day, becomes a celebration of the Star Trek movies for the franchise's 60th anniversary, thanks to the premiere of The Center Seat II: 60 Years of Star Trek.
In 2021, The Nacelle Company produced The Center Seat: 55 Years of Star Trek, which premiered on The History Channel. Directed by Nacelle CEO Brian Volk-Weiss and narrated by Star Trek: The Next Generation's Gates McFadden, The Center Seat's 11 episodes explored the creation of Star Trek, its various TV spinoffs in the 1980s to the 2000s, the first six movies, and looked at the history of Star Trek as a global cultural phenomenon.
Once again directed by Brian Volk-Weiss and produced by Nacelle, The Center Seat II: 60 Years of Star Trek continues the saga of the final frontier, shining a light on the four Star Trek: The Next Generation feature films and the blockbuster "Kelvin universe" Star Trek reboot trilogy directed and produced by J.J. Abrams. The Center Seat II premieres September 8 on Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, Apple TV, and Nacelle’s YouTube page. See the trailer below:
Gates McFadden returns as the narrator of The Center Seat II, which features interviews with Leonard Nimoy, Jonathan Frakes, F. Murray Abraham, Alan Ruck, Brent Spiner, Walter Koenig, James Cromwell, Malcolm McDowell, Shohreh Aghdashloo, Ronald D. Moore, Alice Kriege, Deep Roy, Tim Russ, Brannon Braga, Michael Westmore, Wil Wheaton, Jeri Taylor, Doug Drexler, Bryan Fuller, Rick Berman, and more.
The Center Seat II narrows its phaser focus to how Star Trek passed the cinematic torch from the cast of Star Trek: The Original Series to the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation in the 1990s. The scuttlebutt includes why Leonard Nimoy refused to direct Star Trek Generations, and the complications of bringing the historic meeting of William Shatner's Captain James T. Kirk and Patrick Stewart's Captain Jean-Luc Picard to the big screen.
The Center Seat II will also shed light on the creation of J.J. Abrams' hit Star Trek movies, reveal why Star Trek's biggest box office blockbusters were set in an alternate timeline dubbed "the Kelvin Universe," and the challenges of rebooting the original Star Trek with a younger cast led by Chris Pine as Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock. For better or worse, Abrams' trilogy rewrote the book of Star Trek, and directly influenced the franchise's streaming era on Paramount+, executive produced by Alex Kurtzman.
With the advent of a new Star Trek movie in development at Paramount Skydance, which will reportedly be unconnected to previous Star Trek TV shows and movies, The Center Seat II couldn't be more timely. As the first four Star Trek movies return to the big screen to mark the franchise's 60th anniversary, The Center Seat II: 60 Years of Star Trek will present a compelling behind-the-scenes look at some of Star Trek's biggest, most controversial, and franchise-redefining feature films from the people who were there.
The Center Seat II: 60 Years of Star Trek premieres September 8 on Amazon Prime Video, Tubi, Apple TV, and Nacelle’s YouTube page
Created by Gene Roddenberry
English (US) ·