New Star Trek Film Writers Announced (1 Viewer)

From Startrek.com

It's official: Paramount Pictures and Skydance Productions have recruited J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay to join Roberto Orci (Star Trek 2009 and Star Trek Into Darkness) in writing the next big-screen Star Trek adventure. The new Trek film will be the first produced project for Payne and McKay, who earned the embrace of J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot with their adaptation of the graphic novel Boilerplate, which is in development at Bad Robot. Alex Kurtzman, Orci's longtime writing partner, will not be involved, concentrating instead on the tandem's other in-the-works films and shows.The third Star Trek film does not yet have a title, a release date or a director, as Abrams will be busy with Star Wars. However, the film is expected to be ready in time for Star Trek's 50th anniversary in 2016.

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Sounds good to me.

I wonder if we'll see anything else from those guys before this is released. Nothing to go on yet, really.

Is Orci or Kurtzman the brains of that operation, writing-wise?

This was reported on Trekmovie.com as not official yet the day before, I guess Paramount made it official.I wonder if these guys have even seen Star Trek TOS? They look so young. So I've no reaction either way, except that it will probably be the same old, same old from the Orci-Kurtzman penned first two films.

Nelson Au said:

This was reported on Trekmovie.com as not official yet the day before, I guess Paramount made it official.I wonder if these guys have even seen Star Trek TOS? They look so young. So I've no reaction either way, except that it will probably be the same old, same old from the Orci-Kurtzman penned first two films.

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Which is fine with me since I loved the first two films. And IMO, seeing TOS shouldn't be a requisite for telling an exciting story. The groundwork has already been set by the first two films so moving the story forward should not be an issue. I love TOS as much as anyone but I say honor the past but move into the future. And that's what I believe has been done.

And yet, watching TOS paid off for the makers of TWOK. How else is a writer supposed to get a feel for the source material if they don't at least watch a couple well regarded episodes? Does the Abram's version even have a bible?

If the future means more rehashed villians and plots, there's not much left for us old fans to stick around for. We're not the demographic Paramount wants money from anymore.

I think you're right in that Paramount is more concerned with getting new fans than pleasing the old ones, which as is evidenced by many posts in Trek threads, is virtually impossible. I believe Abrahms' films and his writers have bridged the gap between old and new ingeniously but I know not all fans will agree with me. I regularly watch TOS episodes and films, and still enjoy them very much. But I'm glad with the direction the new films have taken...which I hope the new Star Wars films will similarly follow suit.

I really liked the first one. Wrath of Khan Redux, not so much.

SilverWook said:

I really liked the first one. Wrath of Khan Redux, not so much.

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+1

And Roberto Orci has been confirmed as the director of the third Star Trek film.

http://www.imdb.com/news/ni57182103/

After weeks of rumblings that he was the frontrunner, sources have told Variety that Skydance and Paramount have tapped Roberto Orci to direct Paramount and Skydance’s “Star Trek 3.”
Orci is currently writing the story with J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay and had been campaigning to replace J.J. Abrams as director for some time. Abrams is busy with directing the next installment of the “Star Wars” franchise and will only be producing this pic.
Par, Skydance and his reps had no comment.
Plot details are unknown but the cast, which includes Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, are expected to return. J.J. Abrams will produce along with his producing partner Bryan Burke and Skydance’s David Ellison.

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For reals though, idiocy or not, I'll say this for Orci's online-flaps: they show that he has some real fire in the proverbial belly. He obviously does care what the fans think, whether or not he likes what they think, so he's likely not a guy who'll be content with having "Made a Billion Bucks for Paramount" chiseled on his headstone.

Just how it motivates him remains to be seen, but I certainly do believe he'll really give it his all.

My expectations have sunk to a new low. While I was able to accept the first movie as going in a new direction, the second was absolutely stupid and nonsensical on so many levels. Oh well... more of the same if not worse.

Inside-baseball stuff: They (Paramount) were really close to hiring Joe Cornish, and Orci scared him off.

Into Darkness is hated with the fury of a thousand fanboys scorned by some nerds because Bad Robot did a Bad Thing and went to The Khan Well™, but in real life it's nearly as good as Trek '09 (both films that -- as a Trekker going on 34 years now -- I happen to enjoy).

They both have fundamental structural problems and problematic villains, but on the plus side, they both feature Karl Urban. Apart from the plundering of a holy nerd-grail, they're similar movies in many thematic respects.

Put simply, it suggests that Paramount were comfortable enough with the status quo, and with Abrams and Kurtzman off doing other things, they probably figured Orci was closely involved enough in the last two movies to be able to keep it ticking along.

To an extent, I think that's probably true. He was overseeing the new script already; and the cast, crew, and visual style are already in place from the other couple of movies. For better or worse, I wouldn't be surprised if the finished product is not drastically different from Abrams' first two go-'rounds.

I loved both films so I am psyched. I think Orci will be fine and I'm sure JJ will help. He did a great job with the first two so IMO the trek films are in good hands

I see good and bad points in this news. Bad: Orci is part of the team that brought us the last two films, the first of which was okay but didn't really honor Trek, and the second of which wasn't good at all and actually dishonored Trek (whatever their intentions). He's also a first time director being given a huge tentpole film. Also, he was pretty insulting and arrogant last year on the TrekMovie.com comment site.

The potentially good things include the fact that he is a Trek fan, which Abrams was not. He might be the first Trek director ever who grew up loving the shows. (Unlike, say, Stuart Baird who pretty much had no idea what Trek was.) And if I remember correctly, he's a huge TNG fan, and for those of us who are fans of more than just TOS, it's a good thing to have someone with clout who could - just maybe - get a TNG project going.

I'd say it's 50-50 as to how this turns out. I'm going to wait and see.

There will never be another TNG film. That ship has sailed. Perhaps some characters may appear in future Trek films, but another standalone film, I think not.

I'm dubious. When the first film was announced and I learned about Oci and Kurtzman and later Burk and the others in The Committee, I recall that Orci was the real TOS fan, while Kurtzman and Burk and Lindelof are the TNG fans. When I heard that Orci is a shoe-in to be the next director, I was thinking, okay, maybe this third film will actually have a chance to be at least better then the second. At the same time, I know Orci is beholden to Paramount to make a film to appeal to the mass audience and make a billion dollars. Nothing wrong with that, Gene Roddenberry wanted to do that too with TOS. The difference here is that Gene Roddenberry, Justman and Coon and Fontana never dumbed it down and tried to make thought provoking smart stories. It's pretty hard to still do that. If the new films have fans, that's great and if they find the original series and like it, that's better.

Into Darkness was an anal-raping betrayal of my youth. Those who endorse the film on any level are merely scruffy-looking nerfherders. Oh, wait...

Sam Favate said:

I see good and bad points in this news. Bad: Orci is part of the team that brought us the last two films, the first of which was okay but didn't really honor Trek, and the second of which wasn't good at all and actually dishonored Trek (whatever their intentions). He's also a first time director being given a huge tentpole film. Also, he was pretty insulting and arrogant last year on the TrekMovie.com comment site.

The potentially good things include the fact that he is a Trek fan, which Abrams was not. He might be the first Trek director ever who grew up loving the shows. (Unlike, say, Stuart Baird who pretty much had no idea what Trek was.) And if I remember correctly, he's a huge TNG fan, and for those of us who are fans of more than just TOS, it's a good thing to have someone with clout who could - just maybe - get a TNG project going.

I'd say it's 50-50 as to how this turns out. I'm going to wait and see.

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I'd like to see the story return us to the "real" timeline.

Fans have been yapping for years about how Trek needs a "real" fan who loves the franchise to be in charge.

Well, you just got what you asked for.

What...wait, he's the wrong kind of fan? Yeah, just look around the boards again and see how many people post here that one massively disagrees with about what Trek "is," and how it should be handled, and what constitutes "real Star Trek."

Then ask yourself what the odds have ever been that, if a "real" Trekkie ever took the reins, he/she would be someone whose understanding of Trek you actually approved of. Meyer and Bennett came into Star Trek cold, immersed themselves in the characters, and became good and faithful custodians of them. Orci is at least that good.

He cares about the Trek characters, has his finger on their pulses, and so far, he has taken them in some interesting directions. In my opinion, taking proper care of the characters is 90 percent of making a good Trek story.

One can somewhat-fairly call Orci a hundred bad things (including a whacked-out conspiracy theorist, which, again, given what can be read on the Internet, seems to be an overlapping base with ST fans), but we can't even dare try to pretend for a moment that he's less into Star Trek and less knowledgeable about it than any of the rest of us.