The future of Star Trek, the reboot, and beyond
Where is Star Trek headed in 2013? Your guess is as good as mine.
If you’re a fan of Star Trek, and you’re at all interested about the upcoming twelfth film currently in the works from J.J. Abrams and Bad Robot, you know as well as I do that news on that front has been pretty slim. As they had in previous years, the cast and crew of the forthcoming movie had little to no presence at this year’s San Diego Comic Con, and have been extremely tight-lipped about details. This is not new to anyone familiar with Abrams & Co. and their dedication to secrecy around projects, who are all busy promoting their other work — Abrams has Revolution, while Damon Lindelof has spent the summer talking people down from Ridley Scott’s Prometheus, and writers Kurtzman and Orci are currently writing, well, everything.
We’ve had a lot of casting news, with the new movie pulling in cult powerhouses like Peter Weller and Noel Clarke of Doctor Who fame. Benedict Cumberbatch has been brought on as the unnamed villain, as rumors about his role, said by many to be that of classic nemesis Khan Noonien Singh, and other major story elements have been flying around almost completely unchecked. How much of this is due to excited chatter, lazy journalism or deliberate disinformation from the creative team itself remains to be seen. (Simon Pegg has come out time and again to try to put the Khan rumors to rest, but it appears that nobody’s listening.)
What little has been leaked involved Karl Urban sort-of-kind-of-maybe letting slip the name of Benedict Cumberbatch’s character — who has been theorized to be everybody from Khan to Kirk’s friend turned villain Gary Mitchell to Trelane, which would make me claw my eyes out — a comment that, according to Urban, landed him in a lot of hot water. This tidbit was immediately contradicted and quashed by Roberto Orci, who makes Gary Mitchell out to be the Schrödinger’s cat of the Star Trek universe, both in the movie and not in the movie at the same time. The leak-that-wasn’t only served to cause more confusion and debate among fans, already a little tired of the back and forth, as theories rage on in comment threads and discussion hubs across the web. With the writers and producers limiting their communication with the media to largely Trek-related news sites, and the cast and crew under gag-order not to give anything away, fans don’t have much to go on, in any event.
Of the Comic Con silence, co-writer/producer Damon Lindelof said earlier this year,
Our feeling is, that if we can get something together that is worthy of showing on that timetable, then we will most certainly show it. But, if it is sub-par or not ready or requires more post-production, then nobody at Comic Con is going to want to hear us say “hey this is very temporary, but we wanted to show you something.” We need to put our best foot forward. We just wrapped principal photography as you know and Comic Con is in mid July so it is an aggressive timetable. If we are going to go we are going to go big or not go at all.
So far, this is what we know for sure:
The movie comes out May 2013.
Benedict Cumberbatch is in it.
Stuff…happens.
Khan isn’t the villain but that’s not going to stop people from talking about it.
For some reason, they decided to make another G.I. Joe movie before Star Trek.
I can’t really blame a creative team for wanting to go big or go home in terms of promoting an upcoming film. However, after watching Marvel Studios whip up a frenzy at this year’s SDCC as they unveiled their next five films, with little more than a trailer, some logos and Ant-Man test footage, it raises a few questions for fans. The fans of contemporary franchises have come to expect a steady stream of news and spoilers from both the convention floor and the red carpet, and when that stream is cut off, there tends to be a lot of complaining on the internet. That said, the natives are getting a bit restless with this one, and I can definitely see why.
It’s already been three years since the last movie came out in May 2009, while the twelfth film lingered in production will-they-won’t-they as the creative team moved on to a slew of other film and television projects. What little news that has come out about this movie has been steeped in rumors and a lot of disinformation, with plenty of big casting announcements with little actual concrete details. In the meantime, fans have been teased with the possibility of a new Star Trek series, but with interest in an ongoing Star Trek show still uncertain, any show is still several years out in development and production.
While a little secrecy never hurt an audience, and good things are usually worth the wait, this is a franchise that has suffered numerous missteps in the last several decades. From show cancellations to poorly planned and executed movie sequels (Anybody remember Sybok? Nope? Good.), whenever it gets quiet, fans get worried. And right now, arguing on messages boards and in article comment threads, fans appear split pretty evenly on whether or not this back-and-forth will help or hurt the film. Nobody can say for sure. What is clear, however, is that Star Trek is a franchise in transition. Not just in terms of creative control, from Roddenberry’s utopian vision to Abram’s slick new canon, but in terms of tone and accessibility, as well.
2009′s Star Trek reboot opened a new alternate timeline with younger characters and a more energetic pace. It served as a good jumping-off point to new fans who feel a bit intimidated by the five shows (give or take a very silly cartoon), ten previous films, and numerous novelizations and comic book tie-ins of the previous canon. It remains to be seen whether the next movie can maintain the excitement and fun of this timeline, and just how far the Powers That Be want to go in this new direction. After such a long hiatus, will fans still be interested in the adventures of this younger, fresher Enterprise crew? Is there still room for an ongoing Star Trek series, and if so, which reality? Can a new show stand on its own without just rehashing the current film franchise? Only time will tell.
Personally? I’ll be there with bells on. And by bells, I mean my Nurse Chapel costume. (Obviously.)
