The “Star Trek” franchise has never been in a better place than it is this very moment. With J.J. Abrams’ insanely fun reboot earning respectable box-office dollars, and proving to be one of the most rewatchable DVDs in recent memory, it feels like the first time in cinema history that the collective mainstream movie-going populace is actually excited to see where trusty ol’ NCC-1701 warps to next. (Hefty earnings aside, I somehow doubt many 1979 ticket-buyers were chomping at the bit for a follow-up to “The Motion Picture.”)
Well, according to Mr. Spock alter ego Zachary Quinto’s Twitter profile, we’ve got some seriously torturous waiting to do before Kirk and crew can boldly go where no “Star Trek” sequel has gone before.
Indeed, my dear Trekkers/Trekkies/Trekkadoodles, Paramount has scribbled director J.J. Abrams’ next Dilithium-powered space adventure in for the almost painfully far-off stardate of June 29th, 2012 — in the plum pre-Fourth of July weekend slot, no less. That’s a major sign of confidence from the studio and an indication that they’re justly expecting the follow-up to be an even bigger blockbuster smash.
With the first film’s beyond-brilliantly chosen cast all slated to return (thank Lord Xenu for iron-clad contracts!), I’m almost embarrassingly giddy to see where the franchise goes next. While Abrams has cheekily teased the possibility of Kirk’s arch-nemesis Khan popping up, my fingers are crossed that, if he is planning to use the bare-chested wonder, he at least waits until the third film. The new “Trek” universe has so much rich new ground to explore, why already fall back on rehashing the greatest hits?
But then, I’m pretty certain that the wunderkind director is just playing around and is already a dozen or more steps ahead of all of us mere peons. Hopefully, with all the re-introduction/set-up stuff out of the way, he’ll finally be able to deliver a truly spectacular, three-dimensional adversary — a sad rarity in “Trek” films — for the Enterprise’s valiant team to clash with.
Though I’m sure that I’ll end up writing an “About That” on this project at some point in the future, right now I’d like to know who you’d like to see prominently featured in the next “Trek”: Klingons? The Borg? The Ferengi? The Gorn? Tribbles? Please bombard our comments section with veritable volleys of your own verbalized views!
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Click here for a pair of deleted scenes from “Star Trek.”
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Follow Cam Smith on Twitter at http://twitter.com/camspcepisodes.
It’s too far away!
Cant wait to see what they will do this next time.
Same here!
They blew up two planets and killed everybody’s parents in the first one. What’s even left? They also played the time travel card, which should really only be used as a last resort. Transporter accidents done twice, skydiving, ice climbing, alien monster attacks – there’s not much action for a sequel that won’t end up looking redundant. Maybe Scotty and Bones can get wasted and give Kirk a well-deserved blanket party.
CPF: Have you watched the original series? There’s plenty of avenues left to travel down.
I have watched most of TOS through the years, and the most recent movie has little in common except the characters. Abrams’ reboot feels a lot like the Star Wars second coming – compact the explanations of big concepts into catchphrases to make room for more action. There are plenty of things left to explore provided your director allows more than two sentences to be strung together or can go five minutes without blowing something up. And they’ve added one of the main “Lost” writers to the team for the sequel, practically guaranteeing a confusing mess of unfinished thoughts.
I don’t see the new Kirk assessing an unknown culture and arguing his way out of their courtroom. In the new movie the only reason he got out of his Starfleet trial was a convenient war breaking out, only to go on to be conveniently saved by improbable circumstances several more times. Like Chekov running from the bridge to the transporter room and saving them in the time it takes to drop 1,000m (about 20 seconds). And I think I counted four times where Kirk ALMOST falls off the edge of something, among numerous other near death experiences. How many times are we expected to be held in suspense by the same tired gag?
Abrams is a hack and any sequel helmed by him will be more of the same. Keep the actors and crew, lose the director and writers, and then you could have a good sequel.
Can’t wait!