Star Trek XI Writers Talk 'Transformers'

There are challenges in taking an established franchise and translating it to the big screen say Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci.

Speaking recently with SFX, Kurtzman and Orci discuss the making of Transformers. "Each project has different challenges," says Kurtzman, comparing the two. "I think in the case of Transformers, the thing that was challenging was figuring out how to look at this amazing cartoon and this storyline that had a 22-year mythology, take what we loved from it and inspired us as kids, and then figure out what the movie version would be. And in a way it meant stepping back from those things and coming up with a different paradigm for people who hadn't seen Transformers before. That was a big challenge. How do you make it real? How do you make it not feel like the cartoon?"

Star Trek was different, says Kurtzman. "In the case of Star Trek, Star Trek has over 40 years of history and a fan base that's incredibly intelligent and passionate about what they feel is true or not true to Star Trek. Figuring out how to bring new life to it, while staying true to everything everyone loves about Trek, was, obviously, very challenging. And wonderful, because we're now in this kind of crazy, miraculous position of getting to make these movies that inspired us as kids for a whole new generation of kids.

When asked which was easier, both felt that Star Trek was easier. "I would say Transformers was much harder, because Trek actually did have series, movies, novels, a world that had been very established and credible as a real universe. Whereas with Transformers, a lot of what the movie was about, and a lot of what we took our time doing at the beginning, was realizing we knew the robots and that we had to stay true to their mythology, and we knew who their characters were, but we didn't have any human characters. The truth is, in order for this movie to work, we're going to have to, in a way, come into it from a people point of view. So it was a little daunting to try and figure out which characters position in relation to the series of reveals that happen in the movies." Orci added that "Star Trek was a lot easier, because tonally it was clearer to us what Star Trek was."

For more of the interview, head to the article located here.

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