With Abrams off to play in the Star Wars universe, it only seems right that the Powers that Be hand off the Star Trek franchise to someone else. Who would you like to see take it on and what would they bring to the party?
Personally, I would love to see what Edgar Wright and Simon Pegg would do with it. They love the source material, write & direct really good movies, and I wouldn’t mind watching a more Scotty-centered movie. They are so good at embracing a genre’s cliches and refreshing them with good stories, acting, and directing. ST should be more character-centered, not so much a “wouldn’t it look cool” boys-own space adventure. Oh, and bring in Bill Bailey to play Mudd!
All that I ask is whoever gets the franchise as actually watched Star Trek before getting the offer and has some kind of clue about why it worked.
Maybe some kind of a test?
Why is Spock one of the most memorable characters in recent popular culture?
The Abrams answer - he has pointy ears and can be played by a hot actor - would get one immediately fired.
The one that was wildly popular and more critically accliamed than any of it’s predecessors? Yeah, I’ve seen that one. I’ve haven’t seen the new one that is also wildly popular and critically accliamed, though.
I was thinking of Edgar Wright before I even opened this thread. Great minds and all that.
Wright has handled genre jumping pretty well, going from zombies, to cop action and now sci-fi with the upcoming World’s End. He’s also shown that he genuinly enjoys and respects sci-fi & Trek. My only concern is that he may not be able to tone down the comedy enough for a passable Star Trek movie.
Or they could just bring back Nicholas Meyer (director of ST II & VI), he’s still directing, according to IMDB.
I thought it was that he had pointy ears, can be played by an actor with caterpillar brows, and can have an interspecies/interracial relationship with The Only Woman On Board The Goddamned Ship. (I know, I know.)
(Also, in all seriousness, I quite like Abrams’s flicks and hope he’ll have plenty of time to juggle both of the Star franchises. Perhaps some cross-overs, even… (I keed, I keed!))
I think Abrams made a couple fun Trek movies and will do a bang-up job with Star Wars, it being mostly silly space opera and not really character dependent, but Trek was always about the characters first. The zooming around space was just how they got to work.
Don’t get me wrong, I like soft sci-fi eye candy as much as the next person and I own Trek 1 and have Trek 2 on order. I’d just like to see somebody grab and go with a character-driven vehicle next. They don’t all have to be stories made up of plot holes covered in pretty wallpaper.
Yeah, it’s just a different type of joke-the brainless action movie. I’ve actually heard people say that when I point out plot holes. “It’s just an action movie. Stop taking it so seriously.”
Well, yeah, that was the point of the OP - get a director and writer/s to take over from Abrams, not start from scratch. I’d be happy to see Alfonso Cuaron for a more serious take. Maybe Wright/Pegg do the next and Cuaron for the one after that.