‘Star Trek’ Sequel Aims For Contemporary Relevance
Star Trek director J.J. Abrams and writer Roberto Orci have confirmed that they intend for the Star Trek sequel to take a cue from Battlestar Galactica’s approach to story telling.
Well, they didn’t exactly use those words, but they did explicitly confirm their intentions are to write a story infused with modern day allegories.
Here’s what J.J. Abrams said:
“The ambition for a sequel to ‘Star Trek’ is to make a movie that’s worthy of the audience and not just another movie, you know, just a second movie that feels tacked on. The first movie was so concerned with just setting up the characters — their meeting each and galvanizing that family — that in many ways a sequel will have a very different mission. it needs to do what [the late 'Trek' creator Gene] Roddenberry did so well, which is allegory. It needs to tell a story that has connection to what is familiar and what is relevant. It also needs to tell it in a spectacular way that hides the machinery and in a primarily entertaining and hopefully moving story. There needs to be relevance, yes, and that doesn’t mean it should be pretentious. If there are simple truths — truths connected to what we live — that elevates any story — that’s true with any story.”
And here’s what Orci said:
“We’ve literally had two meetings now. We haven’t decided anything but we’re starting to circle around some ideas. We got a lot of fan response from the first one and a considerable amount of critical response and one of the things we heard was, ‘Make sure the next one deals with modern-day issues.’ We’re trying to keep it as up-to-date and as reflective of what’s going on today as possible. So that’s one thing, to make it reflect the things that we are all dealing with today.
Read the full story at LA Times.
I should add there are plenty of sci-fi stories written with allegory both past and present, and clearly this is not the sole domain of Battlestar Galactica. I draw the parallel only because Battlestar was quite obviously one of the few to receive critical acclaim for doing so.
It should also be pointed out that the Star Trek sequel is still in the very early stages of conception. As yet no script has been written.
