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Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman Talks Star Trek Canon in New Video Interview

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By GustavoLeao / 16:44, 27 August 2008 / Star Trek: Nemesis

Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman recently sat down with Fox Movie Channel's "Life After Film School" series and spoke about being the co-writers of the upcoming Star Trek movie.


They discuss how challenging it can be to deal with the weight of the Star Trek canon which is over 40 years of continuity of television history and why they decided to set the movie storyline at the beginning of The Original Series era and why they decided to tell the story of the original crew first meeting. Here is an excerpt.

"Our version of Star Trek is not exactly a prequel." said Orci "It is in some ways and you will have to see it to label it exactly. Canon, that is a word that was invented for Star Trek, meaning, does it fall within the continuity of this forty-year puzzle. But it was amazing when we went back to look at Star Trek,  no one had ever done the story about how the original crew came together."

"[...] there's five thousand hours of Star Trek and no one ever covered how they all met [laughs]." Orci continued "So in a way that was liberating in that no one had stated how that happened exactly. And because we had been fans truly-who knew all those years sitting in front of the TV watching Transformers and Star Trek that we weren't wasting our time. It was all tax deductible. It was daunting, but we thought, if we can't do it, the no one can! No, not exactly. But it was like we had been called to duty and it woudl have felt cowardly to back away just because ‘it has been forty years, what can we do?'" 

"We, at first, we were scared -- not because we didn't think it was worthy, it was we didn't think we were worthy of it." said Kurtzman "So, it became kind of about thinking, "Alright, well, god, if we're going to do this, what did we really love about it?" What inspired us when we were kids, and how do we get back to that feeling, and what was that feeling about for us? Ultimately, I think it was very much about Kirk and Spock and that bridge crew, that was a big part of it. So, what got us through the fear was the excitement of that opportunity, which really comes probably once in a lifetime."

You can see the interview here.

Thanks to TrekMovie.com and 'TRexx' for the transcript.



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RE: People miss the whole point of the canon problem... | Report this post to moderator
By: ericphillips (Odo's file, contact) @ 21:16:25 on Aug 28, 2008

Quote:
If Star Trek just stuck to what it's SUPPOSED to be about-exploring strange new worlds every week- were unable to come up with interesting new alien races they fell back on "this week B'lanna must celebrate the Klingon holiday of G'grrth or she will die!" type of stories.

You don't watch much TOS do you. How many shows actually dealt with "exploring strange new worlds." Not as many as you think. One of the most popular stories of TOS, "The Trouble With Tribbles," had the ship dispatched to a Federation space station, with a whole lot of Klingon back story. So many others as well that did not just explore starage new worlds. Some off the top of my head include: "Charlie X," "Conscience of the King,"
The Enemy Within," "Dagger of the Mind," "Court Martial, and "Space Seed." There are more, and all dealt with mission within the Federation. This is because the writers found that a "new world each week" show gets to be stake and formulaic. Other episode

One of the best "add to canon" stories was episode 14, "Balance of Terror," which introduced Romulans, the Romulan-Earth War, cloaking devices, and so on.

As for your contention that Quote:
when the writers on those shows were unable to come up with interesting new alien races they fell back on "this week B'lanna must celebrate the Klingon holiday of G'grrth or she will die!" type of stories., what about "Amok Time" from TOS? If Spock doesn't mate, he will die!!! It is a great classic story. Or how about "Spock's Brain," the crap story where Spock's brain is stolen!!!!

My point is that new ideas, expansion of canon and so on can be good, but bad writing is bad. Bad Gene Coon for writing Spock's Brain, good idea to put a pen name on it!!!

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RE: People miss the whole point of the canon problem... | Report this post to moderator
By: ericphillips (Odo's file, contact) @ 21:16:42 on Aug 28, 2008

Quote:
If Star Trek just stuck to what it's SUPPOSED to be about-exploring strange new worlds every week- were unable to come up with interesting new alien races they fell back on "this week B'lanna must celebrate the Klingon holiday of G'grrth or she will die!" type of stories.

You don't watch much TOS do you. How many shows actually dealt with "exploring strange new worlds." Not as many as you think. One of the most popular stories of TOS, "The Trouble With Tribbles," had the ship dispatched to a Federation space station, with a whole lot of Klingon back story. So many others as well that did not just explore starage new worlds. Some off the top of my head include: "Charlie X," "Conscience of the King,"
The Enemy Within," "Dagger of the Mind," "Court Martial, and "Space Seed." There are more, and all dealt with mission within the Federation. This is because the writers found that a "new world each week" show gets to be stake and formulaic. Other episode

One of the best "add to canon" stories was episode 14, "Balance of Terror," which introduced Romulans, the Romulan-Earth War, cloaking devices, and so on.

As for your contention that Quote:
when the writers on those shows were unable to come up with interesting new alien races they fell back on "this week B'lanna must celebrate the Klingon holiday of G'grrth or she will die!" type of stories., what about "Amok Time" from TOS? If Spock doesn't mate, he will die!!! It is a great classic story. Or how about "Spock's Brain," the crap story where Spock's brain is stolen!!!!

My point is that new ideas, expansion of canon and so on can be good, but bad writing is bad. Bad Gene Coon for writing Spock's Brain, good idea to put a pen name on it!!!

Reply
Reply
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Quote
Parent
Parent
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RE: People miss the whole point of the canon problem... by jimbtnp @ 02:12:02 on Sep 01
    RE: People miss the whole point of the canon problem... by ericphillips @ 06:41:51 on Sep 01
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