Kurtzman and Orci On 'Star Trek' Canon

The trick to writing Star Trek XI was being consistent with the legendary characters, yet bringing something new into the mix.

As reported by Crave, neither Roberto Orci nor Alex Kurtzman were tempted to write "dramatic pauses," in dialogue meant for Captain Kirk. "...the tricky part about it, and this is actually hard I think on all the actors, is the actors who played those parts in the original series and established those characters, are legendary," explained Kurtzman. "Everybody knows those actors and everybody knows those characters. So you have to be consistent with that if you are going to cast new people in those roles and yet, you have to bring something new to the mix. So the actors were walking this very tricky line of not giving a cartoony performance that's really mimicking the original actors, and bringing their own thing to the table."

Star Trek canon wasn't merely limited to aired Star Trek as far as the Star Trek XI writers were concerned. "We did a lot of reading of the books," explained Kurtzman. "I think we consider the books canon to a large degree so it's very important to us to stay consistent. But there is a bit of a hole and there's actually different mythologies about their history so it's a matter of staying consistent but also figuring out how you can play around a little bit anchored by the rules."

Working on Star Trek XI was a big responsibility. "The fact that somehow we've inherited that mantle is insane," said Kurtzman. "It's such a responsibility. We take it so seriously and between all of us, Bob and me and Damon Lindelof and Bryan Burk and J.J. [Abrams], there are different degrees of fandom and different degrees of knowledge and different perspectives on what Trek is. It's a really good mix of people because I think it will ultimately allow us to stay very true to canon and also bring something new."

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