StarTrekSequel Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Whenever J.J. Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are pinned down, the talk inevitabley turns to the Star Trek sequel. They're only just beginning to toss around story ideas, but Hero Complex managed to pry a little more news out of Abrams & Crew, who hinted that Trek might start tackling contemporary issues.

"In many ways a sequel will have a very different mission. It needs to do what [Gene] Roddenberry did so well, which is allegory," says Abrams. "It needs to tell a story that has connection to what is familiar and what is relevant. It also needs to tell it in a spectacular way that hides the machinery and in a primarily entertaining and hopefully moving story. There needs to be relevance, yes, and that doesn't mean it should be pretentious."

Orci echoed Abrams, noting that it had been one of the biggest criticisms of the new Trek. "One of the things we heard was, 'Make sure the next one deals with modern-day issues.' We're trying to keep it as up-to-date and as reflective of what's going on today as possible. So that's one thing, to make it reflect the things that we are all dealing with today." When asked if "modern day issues" meant war, terrorism, and torture, Orci agreed that was "an approach" they were taking.

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This is a wacky one, but it's kinda fun. I'll stipulate up front that I'm only a mild Trekkie -- I dig the series but I'm unfortunately not a fanboy. Real fans, feel free to share your opinions on this one, I'm really anxious to hear what you've got to say. Here's the scoop: In 2004 there was much ballyhoo and rumor about a possible Trek film sequel, from producers J. Michael Straczynski and Bryce Zabel. Obviously, the sucker never got the green light, but for whatever reason the two have decided to share their dead-in-the-water concept with us now, to let us know what might have been.

Straczynski and Zabel wanted to approach the Trek world with what I've taken to calling the "reset button" approach. That's right, the duo wanted to re-imagine the whole universe. They'd take the Big Three (McCoy, Spock and Kirk) and put them in a "Universe B," telling their story as it might have been in a slightly different parallel world. The primary mission of the Enterprise was to be a quest to discover knowledge about an ancient life-form that "had a hand in creating the numerous species throughout the universe." Zabel summed up the plans by saying: "We wanted to do what they do in the world of comics, create a separate universe so we could embrace the good stuff, banish the bad, and try some new things. We wanted to use Kirk, Spock and McCoy, but show them off as you'd never seen them before."

Not too often do you hear about Variety getting a little too ... enthusiastic with a particular scoop, but Mission: Impossible III director J.J. Abrams has taken mild exception to the magazine's report on the filmmaker's involvement on Star Trek 11. Across the virtual pond at Empire Online, Mr. Abrams (who's also given the world TV treats like Felicity, Alias, and Lost, none of which I watch but am told are quite ... good) maintains that while he has been tapped to act as producer on a new Trek, he only has the 'option' to direct -- and apparently he's not quite sure if he wants to just yet.

"The whole thing was reported entirely without our cooperation," says the director with a hint of regret. "People learned that I was producing a Star Trek film, that I had an option to direct it, they hear rumours of what the thing was going to be and ran with a story that is not entirely accurate."

So maybe Variety jumped with the story a bit more expeditiously than J.J. would have liked -- but I don't exactly see a denial between those quotation marks. Plus, news is news, right? It's all academic anyway: Even the smallest bread crumb of Star Trek 11 news will be picked up and reported on every website from Philly to Chile, so stay tuned, Spock-fans.

And yes, J.J. Abrams still wrote Gone Fishin'.

The last time an Enterprise crew paid a visit to the multiplexes, the result was 2002's Star Trek: Nemesis, which was the fourth (and final) sojourn of the Next Generation gang. Prior to that we had Robert Wise's The Motion Picture in 1979, the Holy Trilogy of The Wrath of Khan ('82), The Search for Spock ('84), and The Voyage Home ('86), and then ... The Final Frontier ('89) and The Undiscovered Country ('91) before Picard's crew (thankfully) took over. Their efforts yielded Generations ('94), First Contact ('96), Insurrection ('98), and the aforementioned Nemesis. And for a while it looked like that was it, at least as far as the silver screen was concerned. Yeah, right.

Today's Variety indicates that not only has a Star Trek 11 earned a green light, but also that J.J. Abrams will be the one behind the helm. (Abrams, as you most likely know, wrote and/or directed such entertainments as Alias, Lost, the upcoming Mission Impossible 3, the underrated Joy Ride, the certifiably insane Armageddon, and the woefully atrocious Gone Fishin'. Yes, J.J. Abrams wrote Gone Fishin'.)

And that's not all. Seems that Mr. Abrams will be joining the Federation with his MI3 writing team of Alex Kurtzman & Roberto Orci. (These guys also wrote The Legend of Zorro, The Island, the upcoming Transformers adaptation and, if the IMDb is to be believed, an old Nintendo game called The Goonies II.)

According to the Variety report, the new flick "will center on the early days of seminal "Trek" characters James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock, including their first meeting at Starfleet Academy and first outer space mission," and hopes to be complete in time for a 2008 release. Talk about living long and prospering, eh?