765874 - Unification

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's 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's 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's 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".

Filming and post-production

The video was directed by Baena in early 2024. He felt dialogue would take away from "the power of visual storytelling" and wanted to create a "visual poem" that worked for anyone regardless of what language they spoke. Baena's background in animation helped with this approach. He said the short explores themes of connection and "what it truly means to be human—including themes of mortality and goodbyes. That's why I wanted to leave space for viewers to bring their own interpretations, shaped by their personal journeys and perspectives." Baena was influenced by key moments in his personal life from the five years leading up to production: being with his father when the latter died, not being with his mother when she died, and becoming a father himself. Baena used animatics created during previsualization as the basis for discussions about filming each shot with the heads of production, such as cinematographer Leonidas Jaramillo who also worked on Picard and the television film Star Trek: Section 31 (2025). The previous videos were managed through Zoom, but the increase in scope and complexity for "Unification" required a new workflow to handle dailies and feedback. The production used the SyncSketch tool developed by Baena's former Pixar colleague Bernhard Haux. Major scenes were captured in two ways: they were filmed in a video format for the short, while the archive team also captured them in a "spatial experience" format that was mastered for The Archive. The crew expected to film in Huntington Gardens for one day, but it was raining which did not match their hopes for sunny weather. Baena asked to shoot the scenes again on a different day, and Urbach agreed despite the cost.

Returning from the previous videos were Thaissa as Colt and Selleck as Spock, with practical and digital prosthetics again used to recreate the likeness of Nimoy for Spock. Sam Witwer was cast as Kirk and the same technology was used to recreate Shatner's likeness from earlier Star Trek productions. Witwer, who had previous experience with similar technology on another project, contacted Urbach in late 2022 to ask how the recreation of Spock for the "Memory Wall" video was achieved. Coincidentally, the archive team already planned to speak to Witwer about him joining them to work on a potential recreation of Shatner's Kirk. Witwer and visual effects producer Clay Sparks led a research and development team dedicated to the project, working for more than a year on the technology and performance elements before they presented their progress to Shatner. Their tests included recreating Kirk's scenes from earlier Star Trek projects and also shooting new scenes written by former Star Trek writer and producer Ronald D. Moore.

Release

OTOY released a teaser trailer for "765874 – Unification" in November 2024 which revealed the video's release date, 30 years after the premiere of Star Trek Generations on November 18, 1994. Shatner made a surprise appearance at the Star Trek: Original Series Set Tour in Ticonderoga, New York, on November 17, 2024, for a private screening with fans before it was released the next day, as an unlisted video on YouTube.

Reception

The video was viewed more than a million times within a week of its release, and reached 20 million views by the end of January 2025. Blass said it was "insane" for an unlisted video on YouTube to reach that many views. As of January 10, 2026, the short has 38 million views on YouTube. James Whitbrook at Gizmodo said the video was met with "huge, viral appreciation" and responses to the digital recreations from Star Trek fans were "almost universally positive". Upworthy's Heather Wake reported on fans being moved to tears by the short. Based on online comments from fans, Urbach believed the team had succeeded in creating a meaningful reunion for Kirk and Spock. Blass also discussed online responses, saying the video was connecting with people who were not die-hard Star Trek fans and had been making "disgruntled middle-aged men cry".

Whitbrook described the video as a "bittersweet farewell to Trek's first generation of heroes" and noted the connections to various parts of the franchise. He thought viewers would primarily watch for the emotional farewell to Kirk and Spock, believing this moment overcame the uncanny valley effect of the digital recreations. Wake said the short gave Kirk and Spock the goodbye they deserved while also bringing closure for Star Trek fans who were disappointed by the characters' original endings. She called it a "tearjerking love letter to the two characters who first made [Star Trek] so special". Ryan Britt at Inverse similarly said the video was a "strange, sweet love letter to Star Trek's past" and one of the highlights of 2024 for the franchise. He thought the reunion between Kirk and Spock was a "wonderful end to one of the most enduring partnerships in science fiction", and said the video was an example of how "subtle art can be made from something that is also, fundamentally, canon-obsessed fan service". Writing for Engadget, Lawrence Bonk said the video was "surprisingly touching, particularly for die-hard Trek fans", and praised Giacchino's score for enhancing the emotions. Screen Rant's Dan Zinski felt the digital recreations fell into the uncanny valley, but the overall video captured the spirit of Kirk and Spock.

For The Telegraph, Christian Kriticos said the digital recreation technology was a "major leap forward for special effects". He thought its continued use in Star Trek storytelling may be apt due to the franchise's history with innovative technology, but also questioned using "forward-thinking technology to recreate the past" and have dead actors "live forever through artificial avatars, playing out endless adventures for our amusement". Dylan Roth wrote about the history of digital de-aging in film and television for Polygon and was mostly critical of it, but thought "Unification" was the best argument for it in 2024. He said the technology was needed to tell this story, rather than casting new actors, because it is actually a reunion between Shatner and Nimoy. Roth praised Witwer's performance, believing most viewers would assume they were watching a de-aged Shatner. He felt a Star Trek fan could try to tell this story with generative AI but would not be able match the short's results, and concluded that the de-aging technology "doesn't have to represent a creative doomsday" if it can be used to make critical viewers cry.