Star Trek writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman deny the predictions made by Zoe Saldana that the script for the next movie is half way done. They did discuss possibilities for the sequel with SciFi Wire:
Developing a worthy sequel to this year’s generally acclaimed and certainly lucrative Trek reboot will take much more time, Kurtzman said. They have to exhaust every possible idea to find the best ones.
“We take nothing for granted at this point,” Kurtzman said. “We’re only going to do it when it’s really right.”
The discussions include brainstorming classic Trek missions, which could be revisited with a new timeline established thanks to Spock and Nero’s time travel. Even generating new ideas brings up past Trek episodes, Orci said.
“Even when you pitch stuff, sometimes someone will be like, ‘Wow, that’s like that one episode,'” Orci said. “So even in trying to stay away from it, you can crash back in there.”
They hope to get some more of the classic catchphrases into the next movie:
One thing Orci does want to do is get more classic catchphrases into the sequel. Memorable moments in Abrams’ Trek included Spock Prime’s “Live long and prosper” and young Bones’ saying, “Dammit, Jim, I’m a doctor, not a … .” An example of a possible catchphrase to come? Bones has yet to say “He’s dead, Jim.”
“I noted that,” Orci admitted. “I was watching cable the other night, watching Star Trek. It’s been on rotation, the original series. He said, ‘He’s dead, Jim.’ I was like, ‘Oh, that has to go [in the script].'”
Getting that into the movie is fine, as long as they don’t screw up a script purely to give excuses to fit in such phrases.
Rod Roddenberry, son of Gene Roddenberry, gave his views on a sequel to Star Trek in an interview in The Los Angeles Times:
HC: Is there anything you would like NOT to see in the sequels? Or anything specific you WOULD like to see?
RR: Well, not that this is factual information, but we all know they’re going to make another one. They would be crazy not to. So we all know that that’s going to happen. I’d like to see that the same team stays onboard. What tends to happen is someone comes in, they make their mark, now they’re gonna bring in someone else, and it becomes generic sci-fi action. That’s not “Star Trek.” “Star Trek” was never science fiction. “Star Trek” was about people, humanity, characters. That was just thrown into the bubble of science fiction.
Airlock Alpha reports that Epitaph One, the unaired episode of Dollhouse which I discussed here, will be critical in the upcoming season. The series will move towards the apocalypse seen in the episode, but details might not be as the memories restored in the episode described them.
Two of the promising new science fiction series for next season are a remake of V and FlashForward based upon Robert Sawyer’s novel. Spoiler TV has videos of a panel and interview regarding V. FlashForward executive producer David S. Goyer has discussed the show:
“FlashForward” executive producer David S. Goyer said that almost all of the mysteries presented in the show’s pilot will be solved by the end of the first season. But “to do the show justice” the serialized ABC program should run at least three seasons.
The only major question from the pilot that will be left unanswered by the end of S1 is what’s behind the blackout, which Goyer says will remain the central question of the show’s mythology.
“I really like to feel like storytellers need to know where they’re going,” Goyer said. “We have an obligation to know.”
Asked if he’s learned any lessons from ABC’s “Lost,” Goyer said, “it proved to me there could be a place on network television for a show like that … ‘Lost’ taught me that you could do a show with a large ensemble cast and tell a big cinematic story.”
In the show, everybody in the world blacks out and sees a glimpse of themselves six months in the future. Goyer says the first season will extend past that point in the story, revealing whether the characters’ prophesies come true.
And, finally, the latest pictures to gain attention in the blogosphere (beyond yet more nude pictures of Vanessa Hudgens) are recently resurfaced pictures of the next Doctor Who companion, Karen Gillan, in a bikini (picture above).
