UK magazine SFX have been talking with Star Trek reboot director and producer JJ Abrams, as well as scripters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman about their various ideas for the sequel, which is currently in development over at Paramount.
Trekmovie.com have extensive excerpts from the interview, which you can look at here, but here are the highlights:-
Abrams started off typically and predictably vague,
“The universe that Roddenberry created was so vast. And so it’s hard to say there’s one particular thing that stands out as what the sequel must be. Which is on the one hand, a great opportunity. On the other hand it’s the greatest challenge – where do you go? What do you focus on?”
Co-writer Orci then went on to discuss the possibilities for the next film’s villain, with Khan (the villain from the original franchise’s Star Trek II) and the Klingons (the bumpy-foreheaded ones, for those non-Trekkers out there) as two of the various options under consideration:-
“Introducing a new villain in the sequel is tempting because we now have this incredible new sandbox to play in. On the other hand, some fans really want to see Klingons and it’s hard not to listen to that. The trick is not to do something that’s been seen before just because you think it will be a short cut to likeability.”
Kurtzman then expanded on this idea of not just choosing a villain with built-in recognition, in place of an organically developed story and character:-
“Starting at a premise of what you want to see and then working a story around it is not how we do it. You have to start with what is the right story. And that if you can say “That’s a story that Khan fits into”, that’s how you get to that. Not deciding on a menu list of items and then seeing if you can’t string them all together.”
They then discussed, perhaps inevitably, the necessary balance of dark elements and humour. No-one wants two hours that are relentlessly downbeat and gloomy, however too light a tone and you wind up with something like The Fantastic Four, which doesn’t help anyone. The rapport of the crew of the Enterprise seems the likely and obvious source of elements of humour, building on the banter developed between Spock, Kirk, Bones and Scotty in the first film.
To be honest, I loved the Star Trek reboot and am genuinely excited to see where the creative team will take the sequel. Genuine and considered thought seems to be going into the process of developing the story, which will be very welcome considering the “bigger, louder, more” approach of, say, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.
What do you all think on the villain front? Khan, Klingons, more Romulans or something else entirely? Speak your mind below.
