Saturday, December 19, 2015

Simon Pegg Talks Scripting Star Trek Beyond

Below are excerpts of an interview Simon Pegg did while on the Star Trek Beyond step with Nerdist. In the interview he talks about breaking story, goals he hopes to achieve while writing the story and how trying to balance Trek for fans and new fans. I have admit I am enjoying the more open take that is occurring when talking about Star Trek Beyond. You can tell from reading recent interviews that those involved are not feeling the pressure of maintaining the cone of silence where every itty bitty tidbit, no matter how irrelevant, must be kept secret less the wrath of Abrams descends. Without his involvement, the openness isn't "here are some spoilers!" but just more open with longer and relevant answers to questions without fear of a slip-up. If you can't tell, never a fan of Abrams cone of silence because it was absolute to the point of idiocy. There is middle ground and he just refuses to find it.
How got writing gig
"It was kind of something that came up at the end of the year when I was in the middle of Rogue Nation, and Bryan Burke — who is the producer on that movie and the producer on the previous two Star Treks and Star Wars as well — he was saying they were thinking about blue skying the screenplay and going in a different direction. We just talked about it a lot on set, and then he just pulled me aside one day and said, “Do you want to write it with a co-writer?” I sort of said, “Okay.” I knew it would be difficult, but for some reason I said yes and that was it. Then in January we all met. I never read Bob [Orci]’s script and neither did Doug [Jung]. We started out in a room at Bad Robot that’s just got white boards around the room, just blank white boards. Which is a terrifying thing to see. Then we just filled them and kind of went through so many iterations and so many story ideas. Eventually we began to hone in on what we have now, and it was a very accelerated, kind of intense process—and a difficult one."

Goals in breaking the story
"As we’ve said with this one, we want it to be about them on that five-year mission. In fact, two years into that five-year mission, and how that impacted them personally and what it meant to be out in space that long. And we liked the idea of also, on the fiftieth anniversary, looking at Roddenberry’s original vision and questioning it. The whole notion of the Federation and whether it’s a good thing or a bad thing and how productive is inclusivity and what is the true cost of expansion. That kind of stuff. So we went in with some big philosophical questions to ask … Star Trek’s had to evolve in order to exist in the current marketplace. A film that was totally in the mood of the original series would not be made today, or make money today. Because people want event cinema. They want [things] to be a little more brash and a little more action-oriented. So we’ve had to dial that into the Star Trek brand. But at the same time that doesn’t mean that can’t be fundamentalized by all the tenants of what Star Trek is, and how those characters have evolved over the years, and to really give its DNA a kind of authenticity."

On bridge crew interactions
"I felt like the Kirk-Spock thing, we’d done that now. ... felt like now it was time to move away from the bromance thing and concentrate on the idea of the crew as a family living in a small space together, and what it means to all of them. I really love the dynamic between Bones and Spock, so that’s something we’ve kind of concentrated on a little bit with this one."

Beginning of the story
"Part of the story at least begins with them docking up at a new Starbase which is at the very edge of space. It’s a new kind of diplomatic hub. It’s called Yorktown, and it’s right on the edge of Federation space. It’s where all the most recent Federation inductees can come and mingle with each other and sort of learn about each other."

On making it accessible for non-Trekkies too
"...there has to be a degree of universality when you’re dealing with something like that. Which means you can’t alienate the people for whom it’s their very first Star Trek. If they come into it and it’s indecipherable because there’s a lot of stuff that you have to have prior knowledge to understand, then you’re left with something which is a little bit exclusive. It’s always the trick with these properties. Making it at once something that the fans can enjoy and take a lot from, but also knew people can come in and see it as a one-off and go, “Hey, I’ve got fifty years of this I can go and watch now!”"

1 comment:

  1. As long as we have no more "magic blood", galaxy-wide beaming, & so forth, I think it will be good.

    Honestly, my biggest disappointment about the trailer was that they gave away a MASSIVE plot point with the destruction of the ship! That's kind of a big surprise that is now no longer a surprise.

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