Nicktoons Star Trek

Nicktoons Star Trek is an American live-action/animated science fiction action comedy film directed by Andrew Adamson from a screenplay by Ted Elliott, Terry Rossio, Adam Beechen, Paul Dini, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, based on Star Trek characters and series created by Gene Rodenberry and on Nickelodeon's animated series and characters created by Stephen Hillenburg, Arlene Klasky, Gabor Csupo, Paul Germain, Joe Murray and Craig Bartlett. Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho and Anton Yelchin reprise their roles from the previous films, while the voice cast from the represented Nicktoons reprised their vocal roles.

Being a crossover featuring the cast of Star Trek and from Nickelodeon's animated franchises known as Nicktoons, the film is produced by Paramount Animation, Nickelodeon Movies, Bad Robot Productions, Skydance Productions, K/O Paper Products, United Plankton Pictures, Joe Murray Productions, Klasky-Csupo, Snee-Oosh Inc. and Nickelodeon Animation Studios. Characters from Spongebob Squarepants, Rocko's Modern Life, Rugrats and Hey Arnold! serve as the main protagonists from the film, with characters from The Ren & Stimpy Show, ''Aaahh! Real Monsters, The Angry Beavers, The Wild Thornberrys, CatDog, Rocket Power, Chalkzone, The Fairly Oddparents, The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius and My Life as a Teenage Robot'' acting as supporting characters and/or cameos.

Development
Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies tapped Andrew Adamson to helm the project which was announced to be a crossover film featuring characters from Star Trek and Nickelodeon's animated franchises. This led to a massive backlash from both Star Trek fans who feared the intellectual concepts, ethical magic and timeless humanist values would be definitely replaced by Nickelodeon's signature kiddie-pandering wacky random comedy and dated pop culture references, and from Nicktoons fans who feared the studio would not consult their original creators on how they would write their favorite characters into a crossover with the Star Trek franchise. Nicktoon creators Stephen Hillenburg, Joe Murray, and Craig Bartlett assured they would work on the project to oversee how their characters and franchises would be represented properly in the film.

Filming
Filming took place in Vancouver, British Columbia and at six soundstages in Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox, Sony, Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount and Universal. Adamson helmed both the animated and live-action portions of the film.

Animation
Animation of the Nicktoons was mostly done in traditional hand-drawn animation. Adamson championed this approach as a tribute to the art of hand-drawn animation and claimed that CGI would never do justice to the Nicktoons people grew up with. The bulk of animation was done on Wacom Cintiq tablets, which allowed animators to draw the footage directly on the screen, cheapening and fastening the animation process. Luckily, for Paramount and Nickelodeon, the increasing critical and commercial success of computer animated films caused endless layoffs of numerous Disney, Don Bluth, Warner Bros. and Dreamworks 2D animators and artists, whom Nickelodeon desperately took under their wing to work on this film, creating a classical animation look, with full feature-quality using Nicktoons. Among the top talent animators involved in this animation work were David Brewster, John Pomeroy, Ron Husband, Tom Sito, Mark Kausler, Brian Fergurson, Chris Wahl, James Baxter, Eric Goldberg, Anthony deRosa, Duncan Marjoribanks, Ken Stuart Duncan and Linda Miller.

The character layouts, posing and early animation were done at the Nickelodeon Animation Studio in Burbank, California. Titmouse, Inc. and Rough Draft Feature Animation helmed the actual animation work alongside Nickelodeon Animation. The final animation work (inbetweens, clean-ups, digital ink and paint and compositing) were farmed to different US and non-American animation studios. Weta Digital animated a computer-animated sequence featuring Jimmy Neutron.

Live-action
Adamson used puppetry and practical effects on rehearsals to help the Star Trek cast convincingly interact with emptiness and "hallucinate" Nicktoons on the Enterprise set. Some live-action props were operated on set with robotic arms holding the props. Francesca Marie Smith, the voice actress of Helga G. Pataki from Hey Arnold!, puppeteered her character on set while filming to convey the soul of her famous Nicktoon character. One of the restaurants seen in the film is named Good Burger after one of the popular segments from Nickelodeon's 1990s live-action sketch sitcom All That! which was lated adapted into a feature film. Kenan Thompson and Kel Mitchell reprised their roles from the sketch and feature-film. A slime geyser from the defunct Nickelodeon Studios Florida at Universal Studios Florida also appears in the film.

Visual effects
Industrial Light & Magic provided the visual effects work for the film. ILM did the photorealistic props used by the Nicktoons, digital spaceships and set extensions. Jim Henson's Creature Shop provided the animatronic Caitian and Kzinti costumes, Tribbles and stand-in puppets of Nickelodeon characters used for live-action reference. 32Ten Studios did the live-action spaceships, miniature sets and other practical effects such as explosions, water splashes and gross humor scenes with the Nicktoons.