You will likely already have seen the first trailer for Star Trek Beyond, which arrived a couple of days ago (if you haven’t, scroll down to the bottom of the page, where Kirk and co. await your attention). Director Justin Lin has now opened up about the movie itself, including the fact that they’re embracing yet not utilizing some of the bigger (and divisive) elements from Star Trek Into Darkness.
After some early development on the movie, Lin, who directed several of the Fast & Furious movies, was picked by J.J. Abrams to take over for the third current Star Trek film, and their discussions helped give the new entry its title. “It came from my initial conversation with J.J.,” Lin says. “He kinda tracked me down and we’re talking and I didn’t know what to expect. I thought maybe he’s offering to go shoot a script that existed, and he said, ‘No, it’s yours. Go and be bold, and just take it. Be bold and make it what you think you would do to Star Trek,’ and the more we talked about it the more we kept saying, ‘Well, let’s keep pushing, let’s keep pushing,’ and that’s when Simon kinda said, ‘Well, it should be Star Trek Beyond,’ and it was his idea and it kinda came from all our conversations and then we looked at each other and like, ‘Oh! That sounds like the title of this film.’”
And, asked about how much Beyond would reference Into Darkness’ creation of long-range transporters and use of Khan’s blood to cure Kirk when he dies saving the ship, he admitted it’s a tricky issue. “I don’t know if we’re leaving it behind, and Simon and Doug and I definitely have spent some time on that. But you know at the same time Star Trek has been around 50 years and I’m excited to be a part of it but I’m also excited to be a participant but hopefully to see where it’s gonna go, and I think every filmmaker that comes on has a different point of view and it’s a big universe. It could support many different points of views and journeys and adventures, and so I totally embraced what J.J. brought ahead of me because without him this whole group wouldn’t have been together. So I’m definitely very appreciative of that and to have the opportunity to kind of build on that. It definitely now exists. I think the people that really care, you can’t ignore that, but at the same time, do we address that? I don’t discount it. We don’t sit there and say it doesn’t exist. It’s part of this universe now.”
With the movie set around two and a half years after* Into Darkness* Lin also admits that Alice Eve’s Dr. Carol Marcus won’t be back, but that the Enterprise crew will be facing some fresh challenges, particularly from Idris Elba’s alien, who has some very opposing ideas to the Federation, which Lin wanted to explore. “A lot of times, it’s kind of plot vs. character. I think the one thing that, for me, the way the process here is being very clear and hopefully engaging on every character. So it was either Idris or Sofia… It was a lot of time spent on dealing with them and having those point of views. I think without those point of views then you’re just kinda serving plot…When someone is really kinda challenging the way of life, the way The Federation might see how we should act, I mean, I could see that there could be a valid, whether right or wrong, there’s a valid philosophy, and that’s the point of entry.” For more from Lin, head here.
Star Trek Beyond will be out on July 22.