Writer/director Roberto Orci has already spoken about the planned trajectory for Star Trek 3 saying the next installment will take the crew of the Starship Enterprise “closer to the original series characters” as they “set off on their five-year mission.” Now Zachary Quinto, who will again reprise his role as Spock, reiterated Orci’s sentiments in front of an audience on Friday at the Television Critics Press Tour (via Variety).
“I think the five-year mission will be a part of this next film in some way… We’re coming up on the 50th anniversary of one of the most iconic sci-fi series in entertainment history so it’s inherently an ongoing story,” Quinto said. “But I do think that we’ll feel some sense of evolution in these characters that’s been building through the first few films.”
The “five-year mission” is a reference to the opening monologue read by Captain Kirk (William Shatner) at the beginning of the original “Star Trek” series (see video to the right) where he says: “Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”
Orci has already said the goal is to take the crew into “deep space” and Quinto adds to that saying, “Bob [Orci] is definitely sort of a purist about the ‘Trek’ universe so I’ve spoken to him a number of times about his ideas and they’re really exciting and I’m really excited that we get to be a part of his feature directorial debut.”
“It’ll be a different world without J.J. [Abrams] on set every day, but this is a family and Bob is an essential part of that family and we’re all really excited to see where it goes,” Quinto added. “The script is being tightened and polished and finished, and I imagine that the phone will be ringing in the next few months to see when we’ll go back into production.”
Orci was credited as a writer on both 2009’s Star Trek and 2013’s lackluster Star Trek Into Darkness and he will now sit in the director’s chair previously occupied by J.J. Abrams as Abrams has gone from Trek to Star Wars: Episode VII, and he previously told Collider he was still in the middle of writing the screenplay for Star Trek 3 with newcomers John D. Payne and Patrick McKay.
It’s an incredible show of support for untested talent when it comes to Paramount considering this will mark Orci’s directorial debut and neither Payne, nor McKay have a feature film to their credit having written the Flash Gordon remake at Fox, but that hasn’t yet received a greenlight.
Orci continued in his chat with Collider adding:
“If I’m lucky enough that Paramount loves the script and that we go forward, it’ll be because I have loved Star Trek for so long and the idea of having seen one of the best guys in the business direct two of them already, and to have seen it from the vantage point of a producer too, I know where a lot of the challenges are and where a lot of the fun is.
“If we’re lucky enough that everything goes right, then I’ll start to feel the pressure. Once it’s really happening, it’s like, ‘Oh, my God, the 50th anniversary! Holy, moly!’ As a writer, I feel the pressure as the returning screenwriter to this franchise. I feel it at the story level. I can’t speak for Payne and McKay, but they seem to be having a good time. They don’t look as nervous as I feel, but maybe they’re just good at hiding it.”
I have a hard time believing Paramount will have many issues with Orci’s script. After all, they greenlit Star Trek Into Darkness as well as the G.I. Joe and Transformer movies. Then again, financially Star Trek Into Darkness was a bit of a disappointment considering the massive $190 million budget and the lackluster $467 million worldwide take, only an $82 million improvement over the 2009 installment and it also got the 3D bump.
As of now, Star Trek 3 is expected to hit theaters some time in 2016 and I have to imagine that will stick and I would also imagine a late year release, giving it a good bit of distance from Star Wars, which will open in December 2015.
Personally, I like what I’m hearing so far. It sounds like we’re getting back to what Star Trek is supposed to be about and not silly little remakes of old movies when there is so much imaginative territory for the franchise to explore.
