When you hear the words Star Trek, certain images probably come to mind. Maybe it’s Spock’s (Leonard Nimoy) distinctive pointy ears, the Starfleet rank insignia on everyone’s uniforms, or the various designs of the U.S.S. Enterprise itself. Film and television history has no shortage of instantly recognizable costumes and props (take the ruby slippers from The Wizard of Oz, for example), but Star Trek is arguably one of the rare franchises where multiple fictional items have entered the pop culture lexicon.
It’s not uncommon for actors to take home a prop that holds special significance for their character once filming wraps, or for eager fans to snatch up iconic items at an auction. The captain’s chair from the Enterprise bridge might seem like a less obvious — and more unwieldy — prop for someone to take home, but hauling a large piece of furniture around apparently hasn’t stopped certain people from snatching up Captain James T. Kirk’s (William Shatner) chair over the years. Only one captain’s chair ever made it from one Star Trek movie to the next without being stolen, and that same chair lived long enough to unconventionally grace the small screen.
How Did Chris Pine’s Star Trek Chair Wind Up in an Insurance Commercial?
In 2013, actor and stand-up comedian Darrin Rose starred in a car insurance commercial tied to director J. J. Abrams‘ second Star Trek reboot film, Star Trek: Into Darkness. The ad — also starring Mr. and Mrs. Smith and Blue Eye Samurai’s Maya Erskine — spoofed the frequent ship-to-ship battles for which the franchise is known. After an alien vessel bumps into a Federation starship, the crew prepares for a hostile battle. Instead, the other captain awkwardly apologizes for grazing them and offers to trade insurance information.
According to a dual post on Rose’s Facebook and Instagram, the ad used the same captain’s chair prop from Abrams’ 2009 Star Trek movie as well as its follow-up, Into Darkness. Because Abrams’ company, Bad Robot, produced the commercial, they automatically had access to the movies’ props, costumes, and makeup, and replicated a high-budget starship bridge — which makes the already clever tie-in commercial even funnier. As for how Chris Pine‘s Enterprise chair factors into the ad, Rose learned during filming that every other captain’s chair from previous Trek movies had met an unfortunate end. He wrote on social media:
“All the costumes and props [in the commercial] are authentic — the captain’s chair I sit in is the same one Chris Pine sits in in the movie. I was told it was the first Captain’s chair to be used twice (in the first two Chris Pine Star Treks) — all the other chairs had been stolen after each production wrapped.”
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Is the Captain’s Chair From J. J. Abrams’ Star Trek Movies Still Safe?
Considering that Hollywood made 10 Star Trek films before Abrams’ reboot timeline kicked off in 2009 — six with the cast of Star Trek: The Original Series and four starring the ensemble of the sequel series, Star Trek: The Next Generation — that means 10 different illegally obtained captain’s chairs are stashed away somewhere. Rose jokingly added that after filming the commercial, the Into Darkness chair was placed under humorously strict protection: “This chair had been stored in a box marked Biohazard.”
Even though the seats that helped Shatner’s Captain Kirk and Patrick Stewart‘s Captain Picard save the galaxy would make an impressive addition to one’s memorabilia collection (or just a futuristic piece of furniture), obviously, we here at Collider don’t condone stealing. That said, for all the props not to survive from movie-to-movie, sneaking out with a chair seems a little more conspicuous than, say, a pair of Vulcan ears.
Star Trek: Into Darkness is available to stream on Paramount+.

Star Trek Into Darkness
- Release Date
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May 5, 2013
- Runtime
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133
- Writers
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Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, Gene Roddenberry