Alex Kurtzman On Sequel Writing Approach

Star Trek sequel (sheesh I will be glad when they give this movie a name), Alex Kurtzman continues his marketing push for his directorial debut with People Like Us. This leads to Trek questions where he answered a few for The Hollywood Reporter. As always the cone of silence remains in place. He spoke about his writing approach to the script and characters and re-iterated that this crew still has a lot to learn. Below are a few segments, the full article is here.

The Hollywood Reporter: If theoretically Star Trek 2 examines what it means for Kirk to be Captain, how much is the film a Quantum of Solace follow-up that starts right after the first film, and how much does it take place some time after the events of Star Trek?
Alex Kurtzman: I can’t answer your question directly, but I can say the assumption that we did not want to make was that just because he’s in the chair and they’re on the bridge together that they’re the crew that you remember from the original series. They’re not -- the crew from the original series had gone on many, many journeys, they were a well-oiled machine in terms of how they function, and these characters are still figuring out who they are and who they are to each other. And I did not want to jump so far ahead that we missed a really important emotional connection to that transition for them.

THR: Has it been a struggle to find stories that are different than the library of tales from previous iterations of Trek, or is there groundwork laid out through those stories that you can build upon for your film but just make it more cinematic?
Kurtzman: Star Trek at its best was always allegory, and wildly entertaining at the same time -- they always coexisted, those two things. And we were supposed to be out this year in theaters, and part of why we all collectively said we really shouldn’t do this is because we put a lot of love and time and effort into making this without violating canon, and yet bring something totally new to the table when it came to Star Trek. The last thing we wanted to do was destroy that by letting a speed mandate mess up our storytelling, and we just felt we weren’t ready. So we wanted to take more time with the story to make sure that the story is as true to everything that keeps you watching one episode a night before bed.