Well, there goes a lot of good will between Roberto Orci, Paramount, and a lot of ‘Star Trek’ fans. Orci, the man chosen to direct the 50th Anniversary franchise film ‘Star Trek 3’ after J.J. Abrams left to helm the first of the new ‘Star Wars’ trilogy, stepped down from directorial duties to be replaced by Justin Lin (‘Fast and Furious 6’) recently, all over Paramount’s demands that ‘Star Trek’ feel more like ‘Guardians of the Galaxy.’ While this perplexed many fans, at the time there was comfort in the idea that Orci would still be onboard as one of the writers and a producer. That bubble just burst as Orci went onto a message board at Trek Movie.com and responded to some of the fans posting there. First, he replied to comments about Abrams’ company, “Bad Robot” being responsible for the time travel alternate reality which some fans had been complaining about, to which he said:
“466 stop blaming BR [Bad Robot]. It was my idea so that you would not know what was gonna happen next. Nothing more or less. I Stand behind it. And it, again, is the reason why I make movies and you don’t.”
I say kudos to Orci for defending the choice to create the alternate Trek universe, as it truly helped propel ‘Star Trek’ into uncharted and exciting waters, and was a wonderful way our having our cake (the return of the original characters that fans all loved) and eating it too (which is to maintain the old continuity but still have new stories). In regards to ‘Star Trek 3’ and his involvement, Orci wrote:
“I’m producing, [N]othing more or less.”
To me, this is Orci saying that he’ll have a minimal role in the project, and clearly he is not writing anything anymore. Which is a shame as I had been excited to see the man take the reigns, was joyed to hear he had a good idea for bringing William Shatner back into the franchise, and was comforted at the thought of having a man who had worked so closely with J.J. Abrams taking over the franchise. Hopefully Lin will be up to the task, and Paramount won’t get any more crazy ideas that will cause them to scrap everything that had been worked on in favor of something new.
