• Nobody listens to Elvis Costello. Not one single person.

• The BIGGEST problem in the film is the NOKIA sound effect when young Jim Kirk answers the car-phone. C'mon... I understand product placement, but even TODAY Nokia's almost obsolete. And that chime/melody in particular. Sheesh. This, along with the Beastie Boys song, really was a sad result of one thing: J.J. Abrams' age may have given him a myopic view of the 90s as a historically important decade (much like lame baby boomers think the 60s is the center of history).

• I agree with ZeroCorpse below, you can explain it because Kirk has an entirely different upbringing. In the original timeline he may even have been raised a fair amount of time off-planet or in space, limiting his experience with historic Earth artifacts. The only problem with that is that in later movies I guess it becomes clearer that Kirk was raised in Iowa, and he's a horsey type. Dang. Well, I guess you could pretend that classic cars were extremely rare and he just never saw one. ST is rife with this type of problem, if you compare how "foreign" the past seemed to the early ST episodes versus how familiar the past is in later episodes and later series and movies. Of course, there has to be a TON of excuse-making to get all these Treks to fit together. So the best response is probably just "suspension of disbelief."

• Yes the Trek characters consume and refer to tons of classic art in all the iterations. The problem is that the Beasties' music could never survive that long to become considered "classic." As for the Eugenics Wars, that whole piece of history is obviously blown, you can't really fix it. You just have to pretend they never referred to the "1990s" or something.

• That's perfectly reasonable.

• The problem with the argument that "he likes classical music" is that the Beastie Boys could never be considered a "classic" that far into the future. Comparing the Beaties to Bach is ludicrous. There are likely a few rock bands that will be "classics" hundreds of years in the future; the Beasties are not among them. Some artists from the 1980s/90s that could feasibly make the cut: U2, Green Day (because now they're a Broadway hit) ... actually that's probably it (who even listens to Nirvana any more??). Maybe Elvis Costello, or Radiohead, if the critics and rabid fans give them some staying power. It's kinda tough ... the 90s produced some royal crap.

• i love it. this article and the comments in that one...

• The car should've been a 21st century concept model. By Kirk's time, it would be an "antique".

• @Lynn - Late to the party, but For Your Edification: http://slyoyster.com/movies/2009/did-the-beastie-boys-inadvertently-invent-the-vulcan-nerve-pinch/

• I'm sure the mispronunciation joke explains the reasoning, but the lyrics of the song are also noteworthy in terms of movie's re-working of the old TV continuity in favour of the new movie one, thanks to Romulan time travel... so now everything you thought was going to happen, might be totally different. Take it away, Beasties: "...because your crystal ball ain't so crystal clear...." "'Cause What You See You Might Not Get And We Can Bet So Don't You Get Souped Yet You're Scheming On A Thing That's A Mirage I'm Trying To Tell You Now It's Sabotage!!!"

• This Youtube vid was posted 2 years ago and features the song 'Sabotage' against a montage of Startrek 2: The Wrath of Khan. Notice Mike D's screams overlayed on Shatner's "KHAAAAAAN" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPWM1mbios8 If there was a vid that influenced JJ Abrams' choice it may well have been this one...or it could have been coincidence :)

• Whoa, how come no one's brought up how the Beastie Boys adore dropping Star Trek references in their music, including Ch-Check it Out where they appeared dressed as characters from Original Series, Brouhaha and, of course, Intergalactic with: "Your knees start shakin and your fingers pop, like a pinch on the neck from Mr. Spock"? Combined with this interesting piece o' evidence, the BB and Trek sound like a match made in heaven.

• Spectacular work, PossibleMisnomer.

• if real, awesome

• @V3rloon Presumably, the destruction of the Kelvin (and perhaps the Borg's interference during First Contact) meant that the Federation pushed up their schedule when it comes to technology... There's no reason this can't also include a hyped-up search for intelligence on known enemies, like the Romulans and Klingons. They knew Romulans and Vulcans were connected because they were more aggressive with the Vulcans when it came to information-gathering, and Klingons had cloaking devices earlier for the same reason Starfleet had the Enterprise out much earlier than in the original timeline; Everyone was freaked by the crazy-powerful ship that destroyed the Kelvin, and wanted to be ready if it ever came back. So Klingons started cloaking earlier, and Vulcans spilled their guts earlier.

• I thought the use of the Beastie Boys was great. Much better than the way Zack Snyder shoe-horned all that music into Watchmen. Watchmen would have been better without it.

• Actually, the Kirk in "A Piece of the Action" didn't have Greg Grunberg for a stepdad, so he never got to steal the corvette. His real father was still alive. No, plot holes and continuity errors were with Romulans. The Fedaration didn't know about the Vulcan-Romulan link unti "Balance of Terror" and the Klingons didn't have cloaking technology until around the time of "The Enterprise Incident," but the D7's in the Kobayashi Maru test were 'de-cloaking.'

• Actually Kirk's issue in "A Piece of the Action" was the manual transmission that had to be double clutched, something he didn't know how to do. Also the car had a manual choke. The 'vette has full a syncromesh transmission, not requiring double clutching, and of course has an automatic clutch. BTW I loved how Spock told the Vulcan council "Live Long and Prosper" like it was an insult.

• Has anyone brought up how in "A Piece of the Action" Kirk never was in a car before? Also while I'm here.... Was that Lt Arex from the Animated Star Trek in that opening scene?

• mike said: jeez you people need to get a life Bill, is that you?

• jeez you people need to get a life

• Hah! I sincerely hope that this was JJ's motive behind using the song. The greatest "WTF?" music moment in the movie is when Spock has just thrown the placement offer back in the Vulcan council's face and delivered his "live long and prosper" line like a true badass.... Camera close up of his face... And then the rock music kicks in, just before we cut away to Kirk in the car. There was a split second where I almost believed that Spock was going to turn around and walk out to that song.

• It didn't bother me to begin with, but that's just awesome.

• Anyway, old Kirk had all the artifacts in his quarters in II & III, so maybe it's just a constant personality quirk of his that he's into retro stuff. In another timeline, he'd be playing a Game Boy Pocket.

• Er... 21st, not "22st". I are cornfused.

• Like I've been saying, there's NO shortage of old pre-22st century entertainment in Star Trek, and I don't see how listening to "Sabotage" is any different than: * Dressing up and playing Sherlock Holmes in the holodeck. * Listening to and getting advice from a 1960s nightclub act. * The WHOLE BRIDGE CREW dressing up as ancient sailors. * Fighting side-by-side with Abraham Lincoln. * Visiting Mark Twain and bringing him to the 24th century. * Performing Bach, Beethoven, and other classical music. * Listening to early 20th century Jazz (Riker). * Vacationing in the old American west. * Listening to ancient earth classical music (Picard). * Playing war games based on ancient Earth battles. * Playing cards with Einstein, Newton, and Hawking. * Having Klingons recite Shakespeare. * Having genetically-enhanced humans recite Moby Dick. * Captains who CONSTANTLY reference Moby Dick. * Comparing a new crew member to Pinocchio. * Jim Kirk saying "Double dumb-ass on you!" in the 80s. * Scotty trying to talk to an Apple Macintosh computer. * Data taking an interest in art from various centuries. And so on. I mean, come on! How does a piece of Beastie Boys music playing from a music archive differ from anything else in Star Trek's ancient past? There's only one issue with that *particular* time period (the 90s), and that is that in the original timeline the human race would have been in the midst of the Eugenics Wars when that song came out-- but that doesn't mean it wouldn't have been written either way. Most canon sources make it clear that the Eugenics Wars were centered in Asia and the Middle East, and that America was largely untouched... So the Beasties would have had ample opportunity (and indeed, maybe MORE inspiration) to write "Sabotage".

• I liked the use of the song in the scene. I figured the reason that particular song was chosen was because the old Beastie Boys albums like "Illcommunication" are being re-issued on vinyl and special two-disc editions this year.

• Sweet! My comment's the basis for a post! I'm way happier about this than I would have been for winning the MadLibs contest. :) Church: Honestly, probably the only reason I made the connection is because the first Rock Band game came out. Someone made the Shatner reference while we were playing the song one day, and ever since then we've sung the chorus as: "What could it be, it's a mir-aj, I'm tryin' tell you all it's sabo-taaaaj!"

• I love the new movie even more now. ^_^ However! I will say that restoration has been getting better and better. Look at things we can restore and renew now that we couldn't ten years ago. So, maybe, just maybe, I can excuse the car and music. After all, the MP3 player thingie was very new.

• Heh. Didn't think of that when I saw the flick, but how cool would it have been to get the BBoys to re-record it with the Canadian pronunciation? "It's sabataaj! *thump thump*"

• wow, they were really committed to getting in that shatner joke at the risk/expense of pulling you out of that timeline.

• Ha! Very funny point about the song and it wouldn't surprise me if that was the reason JJ included it. Still thought it was stupid in the movie but at least there may be a reason behind it.

• NEver thought of that. Excellent point. That tape has ties to some excellent Stern Show bits.

• of course Greg Grunberg , him and J.J are B.F.F.F But I did not know that it was his voice

• Another little reference was Uhuru (sp?) orders a slusho at the bar. Another little quirk, Kirk's step dad is Greg Grunberg from Heroes.

• The guy who made this video would like to think it was because he made this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umN2x2t7i5s&feature=channel_page

• <i>It would be like me stealing my dads Horse and Carriage and blasting Bach on the grammaphone</i> @Arsenal - LOL Warp Factor 9.0!! Go Amish Kirk!

• Yeah, I just assumed someone was a fan of oldies. But that explanation is much, much better.

• "It would be like me stealing my dads Horse and Carriage and blasting Bach on the grammaphone" LOL

• See I just assumed that Kirks Stepdad listens to classical music when he is driving his 200 year old car, or is it 300 years old, still working makes it impressive. It would be like me stealing my dads Horse and Carriage and blasting Bach on the grammaphone

• I just keep loving this new Star Trek movie more and more. Given Abrams' love for subtle and blatant easter eggs and puzzles, the use of "Sabotage" makes perfect sense. Also, did anyone else see a Tagruato sign during one of the Earth scenes? For those of who you have lives, Tagruato is the company said to be responsible for the creation of the "Cloverfield" monster in that film's ARG.("Cloverfield" was also an Abrams production). It's really quite pathetic that I know this. Jesus.

• My question was why hasn't that song been used before? Put it over Star Trek 5, and Sybok just became watchable.

• I'M JAMES TIBERIUS KIRK!!!! the music was great! they could have plastered the music over a space battle and i would have loved it. i had a problem with a kid jumping out of a car to counteract the 60 mph plus he was going. it was looney tunes. it's like jumping in a falling elevator to counteract the fall: doesn't work, never works, never comes close to working. buttt...when event horizons to black holes don't exist, what matter physics? i don't need physics... I'M JAMES TIBERIUS KIRK!!!

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