Star Trek Sequel Talk

Last time they made a Star Trek II, it was pretty good.  

The Star Trek buzz has been so high that as you know, it’s already booked a sequel. ComingSoon has a great interview with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, writers of the current movie, and Damon Lindelof, producer, who will join the other two in writing the second movie. They talk about the difficulty of pleasing hardcore fans by bringing in familiar stories from the original show while also keeping it fresh. Lindelof says:

I think that everybody is expecting us to do “Okay, now it’s the continuing adventures of the Starship Enterprise, so they can start doing the stories”… Our approach to those stories will be from an entirely different angle. Hopefully the old fans will go “Oh, wow. That looks familiar to me.” But then suddenly we zig instead of zagging. Or we warp instead of going impulse power. That’s what is exciting about doing this.

And surprisingly, they are interested in listening to the fans. Orci says:

Fans have been so important. We genuinely mean it when we say we want to wait and see what they think of the first movie. We want to see if we are lucky enough to get a demand for a second movie. Lets see what our fan consultants say. We were fans. These “Star Trek” fans are some of the smartest fans in the world.

I can’t wait to see the movie but probably won’t get to it until next week. Sigh. A friend saw it at a press screening last night, though, and she just raved about it. She’s a good test case because she likes Star Trek, likes sci-fi/fantasy movies, but doesn’t know Klingon or recite episodes by name and number. Anyway, she said that it manages to navigate the tricky balance between bringing in the elements of the characters and story that people love, but finding a way to keep it fresh–and without being snarky or ironic. I think the box office is going to be huge. I’m predicting above $100 million.