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The other day I was watching Star Trek Beyond, and was surprised how little Chekov appears in it.

My understanding was that Anton Yelchin died after filming was complete, but it felt like they may have re-shot some stuff.

In particular:

  • At the start, Bones comes in with alcohol he "found in Chekov's locker", and they pour three shots. The way the scene is framed makes it seem like Chekov is dead.
  • Although there is some stuff with Chekov and Kirk, once they join up with Scotty and the female alien Chekov doesn't do much, and is barely seen.
  • Inspecting the bridge of the crashed starship, Chekov is talking about some things he needs to fix but we don't see his face, and his voice sounds wrong. It's like a different actor.

Given that filming was meant to be complete, it really feels like they did some re-shoots after Yelchin's death and used a double at one point.

Is there any information on changes made to the film after Yelchin died?

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    The movie was released a little more than a month after he died. Movies are usually completely finished by this stage and its more about promotion. It seems from reading online that reshoots were done in March 2016. I think the scenes you point out are just coincidence. After all, Chekov is a (relatively) minor character compared to Kirk, Spock and Bones. Uhura's character is considerably bigger in the new timeline but while Chekov, Sulu and Scotty are important but have never in the history of Trek got the screen time of the big 3 characters
    – iandotkelly ♦
    Nov 14, 2016 at 20:12
  • gq.com/story/anton-yelchin-star-trek-beyond
    – iandotkelly ♦
    Nov 14, 2016 at 20:13
  • @iandotkelly - I read that GQ article but it's an opinion piece, nothing solid. I understand that Chekov may not have had many scenes to begin with, but the first and third of my bullet points still look like they were added after his death.
    – Tim
    Nov 14, 2016 at 20:36

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Anton Yelchin's tragically early death was on June 19, 2016. The movie premiered in Sydney Australia on July 7, 2016.

It is implausible that in the 18 days that elapsed between these dates that they could have shot / reshot scenes, re-edited and distributed the movie in that timeframe. Perhaps in these days of digital distribution that re-editing might be possible, but certainly not easy.

The most they could manage was to add the "For Anton" dedication after the Leonard Nimoy dedication.

The movie explicitly includes a reference to the death of Spock as a dedication to Leonard Nimoy. If they had taken the decision to make some changes in the movie because of Anton's death, it seems strange that no-one involved in the movie would have mentioned it.

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  • Gave you the tick, be to be fair Peter Jackson was only finished editing Return of the King two weeks before its premiere in Wellington, so it is plausible to make editing alterations in that time.
    – Tim
    Jul 6, 2017 at 20:02
  • @Tim ... fair point, so I watered that bit down.
    – iandotkelly ♦
    Jul 6, 2017 at 21:25
  • The first Avengers movie was actually finished after the premiere, if the DVD extras are to be believed. The premiere didn't have the shwarama scene
    – Matthew Barclay
    Aug 20, 2019 at 23:31

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