![\"startrek-kirkspockbridge\"](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/227\/2014\/12\/startrek-kirkspockbridge.jpg\")
<\/a>A lot of developments on the Star Trek<\/a><\/i> front these last few days. In a nutshell, the people who made the last two movies aren\u2019t involved in the new film in any serious way, but the studio is determined to get the film out in time for the franchise\u2019s 50th anniversary \u2014 which is now only a year and a half away \u2014 and so they\u2019ve hired a director who has experience making big-budget multi-ethnic action-oriented box-office hits and reviving troubled properties. Details below.<\/p>\nThe last time I posted anything about the Star Trek<\/i> movie franchise, screenwriter Roberto Orci, who co-wrote the last two films, had just been hired<\/a> to direct the third film in the rebooted universe. That was back in May. Earlier this month, however, Orci lost the gig<\/a> \u2014 whether he quit or was fired is a matter of some dispute<\/a> \u2014 and then, three days before Christmas, Justin Lin was hired<\/a> to take his place. One day later, the studio revealed that the film now has a release date of July 8, 2016<\/a>. And then, one day after that, Orci confirmed that he is no longer one of the film\u2019s writers<\/a> and, even though he is still credited as a \u201cproducer\u201d on the film, he expressed uncertainty as to whether Star Trek<\/i> fans should boycott the movie that Lin ends up making.<\/p>\n Orci is not the first person whose role in the Star Trek<\/i> universe has been diminished if not eliminated. Director J.J. Abrams, of course, left the franchise to direct the next Star Wars<\/a><\/i> movie, and Orci stopped collaborating with his longtime writing partner Alex Kurtzman earlier this year<\/a>. Presumably Abrams\u2019 production company, Bad Robot, is still involved in some way, but it remains to be seen how<\/i> involved they will be. At this point, we don\u2019t even know how drastically rewritten the script will be.<\/p>\n For example, before Orci\u2019s demotion, there were reports that Leonard Nimoy was going to come back<\/a> to play Spock in his ninth Star Trek<\/i> film, and that William Shatner would join him<\/a> as the older Kirk. This was a horrible, horrible idea \u2014 Shatner and Nimoy had already passed the baton to younger crews, in Star Trek: Generations<\/a><\/i> and Abrams\u2019 Star Trek<\/a><\/i> respectively, and one of the worst things about Star Trek into Darkness<\/a><\/i> was Nimoy\u2019s cameo and everything that followed it \u2014 but it might be out the window now, along with the rest of Orci\u2019s script. You also have to wonder if Nimoy, who has become quite chummy<\/a> with Abrams and his crew, would want to stick around for the next film if it was being directed by someone entirely different.<\/p>\n There were also reports that Orci was going to shoot the film in Vancouver and Korea<\/a>, which would have made this the first Star Trek<\/i> film to be shot primarily outside of Los Angeles, but it remains to be seen whether those<\/i> plans have been scrapped, too.<\/p>\n In the meantime: What, you might be wondering, are Justin Lin\u2019s credentials?<\/p>\n Well, for starters, he directed the last four movies in the Fast & Furious<\/a><\/i> franchise. Lin, in fact, oversaw a minor miracle of sorts, coming on board that series when it was at its lowest (with Tokyo Drift<\/i>), and then gradually building it up into one of the most enjoyable action franchises around. I can\u2019t think of another major series that had \u201crotten\u201d ratings at Rotten Tomatoes for its first four installments and then suddenly got \u201cfresh\u201d ratings for movies five and six \u2014 but Lin did it. Many Trekkies, including myself, would argue that the Star Trek<\/i> movies don\u2019t have<\/i> to be action-oriented \u2014 after all, the most popular film before the reboot was The Voyage Home<\/a><\/i>, a.k.a. \u201cthe one with the whales\u201d, and that was a comedy without any villains \u2014 but if action is what the studio wants these days, then Lin has more than proven his chops.<\/p>\n What\u2019s more, with the last few Fast & Furious<\/i> films, Lin helped to create one of the most ethnically diverse franchises around \u2014 and Star Trek<\/i>, of course, has always relied on an ensemble cast who were meant to represent the entire world. Lin has even worked with John Cho, the actor who plays Sulu, before; Cho co-starred in Lin\u2019s first two films, Shopping for Fangs<\/i> (1997) and Better Luck Tomorrow<\/i> (2002).<\/p>\n And while this obviously means nothing from an artistic perspective, Lin also probably has more box-office cred than any director who has joined this franchise since Robert Wise directed the original film 35 years ago. Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, David Carson and Jonathan Frakes all had no feature directing experience whatsoever \u2014 they were all veterans of the Star Trek<\/i> TV shows \u2014 when they first tackled the job of directing a Star Trek<\/i> movie. Nicholas Meyer and J.J. Abrams had each directed a single film prior to directing their first Star Trek<\/i> movie, and Stu Baird had directed just two films before he killed the franchise with Star Trek: Nemesis<\/a><\/i>. Lin, on the other hand, has eight<\/i> films under his belt, the last two of which were much bigger hits worldwide than any Star Trek<\/i> film has ever been. That beats pretty much all of Lin\u2019s predecessors except for Wise, whose hits The Sound of Music<\/i> and West Side Story<\/i> still rank among the top-grossing films of all time once you adjust for inflation<\/a>.<\/p>\n So, even as the studio parts ways with Orci and company in all but name, it seems that the studio really wants to invest in the Star Trek<\/i> franchise, even more than it did during Abrams\u2019 turn at the helm. Everything hinges now on the script.<\/p>\n As I ponder all this, I find myself caught between two analogies.<\/p>\n On the one hand, I am reminded of how the first two X-Men<\/a><\/i> films were pretty good, and then director Bryan Singer left the franchise to make the superhero movie he really<\/i> wanted to make (i.e. Superman Returns<\/a><\/i>), and as a result, the third X-Men<\/i> movie<\/a> was given to a director who was not worthy \u2014 and the results were so bad that Singer came back to the franchise this year and made a time-travel flick<\/a> that basically wiped out the timeline in which those original films took place.<\/p>\n On the other hand, I am also reminded of how the first \u201crebooted\u201d James Bond movie<\/a> was pretty good, but then the second one was a big disappointment, so the producers made a special effort to get things right for the third film, which happened to come out in time for the franchise\u2019s 50th anniversary \u2014 and while I didn\u2019t care much for Skyfall<\/a><\/i> myself when I first saw it, it was certainly a huge, huge box-office hit.<\/p>\n For now, I\u2019m leaning towards the latter analogy, though there are obvious caveats. In the case of Skyfall<\/i>, the producers decided to class things up by hiring an Oscar-winning director and an extremely talented cinematographer, while in the case of the next Star Trek<\/i> movie, the studio has gone for someone who knows his way around popcorn entertainment. But the end goal is the same: a successful hit film.<\/p>\n We shall see how successful the studio\u2019s plans are in a little over 18 months.<\/p>\n Incidentally, two other points:<\/p>\n First, I wonder what will become of the Star Trek<\/i> comics<\/a>, which Orci has been overseeing \u2014 and which Orci says he regards as canon \u2014 if Orci himself is no longer involved in writing the films. Orci says he\u2019s the guy who came up with the idea of setting these films inside a parallel universe in the first place. So would he want<\/i> to work on stories based on someone else\u2019s vision for that universe? What if this new film ends up ignoring or even contradicting the stories that Orci has overseen?<\/p>\n And second, a year and a half isn\u2019t a lot of time to write and produce a film like this, so we can\u2019t rule out the possibility that the studio will bump the date to sometime later in the year. It\u2019s certainly happened before: the first J.J. Abrams film was set for Christmas 2008<\/a> but got bumped to May 2009<\/a>, and Star Trek into Darkness<\/i> was originally scheduled for June 2012 before it got bumped to May 2013<\/a>. So it wouldn\u2019t surprise me if the studio decided at some point down the road to release this film around Christmas instead of in the summer. As ever, we shall see.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Justin Lin, of Fast & Furious<\/i> fame, is the most experienced director to join the Star Trek<\/i> franchise since Robert Wise directed the first film 35 years ago. But what’s going on with the script?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1116,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[2336,2584,252,83,2720,2719,806,2721,139,255,78,1146,1077],"class_list":["post-22985","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-bryan-singer","tag-fast-furious","tag-james-bond","tag-jj-abrams","tag-john-cho","tag-justin-lin","tag-leonard-nimoy","tag-robert-wise","tag-roberto-orci","tag-skyfall","tag-star-trek","tag-william-shatner","tag-x-men"],"yoast_head":"\n