Trek Writers Contrast Writing Projects

Star Trek writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman continue their online promotion of Transformers 2 an interview with Dark Horizons as they contrast working on Star Trek with Abrams and Transformers with Bay,talk about their writing carrers and consider plans for a Trek sequel. Snippet below, full interview here.

Question: Let me ask you this. You’re working with two very, very filmmakers, with Abrams and Bay. And I’m just wondering when you’re working on a Bay film, what the different process is in writing a script, for a director who has very different visual sensibilities to somebody like J.J. Abrams?
Kurtzman: I mean, it’s a very different process. They’re very different directors. They look for very different things.
Orci: But part of that difference comes from the fact that they’re different franchises. They require different things.
Kurtzman: Yeah. That’s right.
Orci: You know, it’s not just that we’re writing for Michael Bay. We’re writing for Transformers. And Michael Bay is perfect for Transformers. And J.J. is perfect for Star Trek, because what Star Trek requires is something else. So, we tend to look at it as, the show is the boss. All of our boss. And we’re servicing that more than anything. You know, in terms of differences in the experience. Obviously, Transformers 2 was unique, in that it went down in the middle of the strike. We were writing the movie three months before it was about to be shot, therefore we were handing Michael pages that night. You know, every night, so they could be prepared. Which was different than Star Trek, where we had six leisurely months to go write two drafts.

Question: Is there serious discussion about the Star Trek sequel? And what would be your ideal – if you could come up with one story line from the original series to incorporate as fans, what would it be?
Orci: I don’t know. Literally, we’re making it a point not to even commit to saying what we would do to each other. We can literally clean out the summer, you know? It’s just too early. It’s sort of like swimming the 100 meter in your time off, you know what I mean?

Question: Do you think there’ll be a period where you’ll be able to sit down and start coming up with ideas?
Orci: Yeah. You know, we’re going to start in a few weeks. We’re gonna just – move past this period of time here, take it all in, as was said, and then re-educate ourselves with the material. Just come at it again without forcing it, you know?