Lindelof: Star Trek XIII Hints
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Right as Star Trek into Darkness released last month, Writer/Producer Damon Lindelof gave some hints about the next Star Trek movie.
In the interview, Lindelof discussed a possible storyline, and future and past villains.
It was only logical to have a plan for the next movie, said Lindelof. “You should always know where you’ve been; you should always know where you are; but most importantly, and I learned this from Lost, you should know where you’re going.”
A familiar race from Star Trek into Darkness might be back next movie. “You can never see enough Klingons,” said Lindelof, and I think in this film we’ve given the audience a little taste, but there’s also a promise that there’s a larger conflict on the horizon, and that would be fun to see.”
Could we see Benedict Cumberbatch in a third film? “To answer that question would be to determine whether or not he actually survives this movie,” said Lindelof, “but if he survives this movie, I think that we would be incredibly stupid to not use him again.”
Lindelof also said something that might be of interest to The Next Generation fans. “You can’t talk about Trek and not talk about the Borg, and certainly about Q,” he said. “Very iconic adversaries from The Next Generation which is, outside of the original cast films, was my entry way into Star Trek, so I wouldn’t mind getting – towards the end of our run on Star Trek, maybe baby Picard could be born. There has to be some sort of crossover we’re not thinking of.”
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I would definitely like to see more Klingons but I think they should stay away from the Borg and Q. I think Q’s character was great for an episode here or there but I can’t imagine an entire movie revolving around a Q. As for the Borg… that’s a bit of a stretch. Yea, it’s an alternate universe and all but the Borg are still decades away from reaching the Alpha Quadrant so I don’t think it would make much sense to have them show up. I would be willing to bet they end up going with the Klingons as the major “villain” or antagonists in the next film.
Judging from the original story in ITD the klingons are set to be the big baddy in the next film but after the events of the second half I should imagine BC will be back
I can’t believe they’re already starting with this crap, nor can I believe they’re letting this one-trick hack anywhere near the next film.
Khan. No. Not again. Lindelof learns nothing.
Hmm… I don’t know if they’d bring him back so soon for the next one. Some of the negative comments on ITD were about how it wasn’t quite as “fresh” as the 2009 film. I think they’ll steer away from a villain that familiar for the next one but not so far as to rule out the Klingons. I agree they were set up to appear in the near future.
No. No. No. No. No.
Paramount shoud give other writers a chance. Writers that actually care about things such as story and character, and who aren’t just putting together a string of action set pieces.
What was the point of the villan being Khan in this movie?
None, as far as I can tell. Unless you were a Trekie, the name doesn’t mean anything to you.
It’s already been hinted at by those who knew from the start that ST XIII is another Khan movie. Why should we expect it to be any different? The Cumberbitches are a whole new group of “delusional duds” to add to Trek fandom. Welcome to Shakespearian/Sherlockian Star Trek. Neither Abrams, Lindelof, Orci, Kurtzman and any of the poor cast that were put in position of lying can deny it either, since every single one of them continually lied about Khan being in the last movie.
“Baby Picard?” Baby Picard was fortyish, I might go as far as late forties, at the beginning of Next Gen. There was seventy years between TUC and Next Gen, and stated almost eighty years in Generations. Which baby Picard would this Next Gen fan be talking about? Wasn’t the time distance between the two series supposed to be enough so as not to confuse the two?
Eliminate Baby Picard, the Borg, Q, the Klingons because the indication is that they could be in the next movie, and Lindelof lies. Khan might not be in the next movie. He’s in. Well, you know why. I keep going back to that famous quote. “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…” What the Hell? Do we look like idiots?
“It was only logical to have a plan for the next movie, said Lindelof. ‘You should always know where you’ve been; you should always know where you are; but most importantly, and I learned this from Lost, you should know where you’re going.’
I really hope that he is admitting to mistakes with Lost, and having learned something from them, because his meaning is vague. But if he actually meant those words, Prometheus would have benefited much better from them. He didn’t follow or adhere his own advice.
I think introducing the Borg and Q at this point in the new franchise would be jumping the gun. What about all the unexplored happenings between the TOS and TNG casts in the original universe? Decades worth of material involving the Enterprise B and C. Oh, plus there are Klingons. JJ loves mindless fighting, right?
Correction: not JJ, I mean the newest Star Trek audience.
Lindelof is a hack writer who lives off of re-using other people’s ideas. The sooner he is gone from the series the better.
And yet again, I’ll ask: If we’re just going to have a retread of the borg, Q, etc. what was the purpose of the reboot in the first place? Allegedly it was to tell new and open stories without being fettered by extant Trek. To then tie themselves so closely to extant Trek just tells me these people are hacks.
Picard was more like late 50s when TNG started (57-58). His birth year was 2305. Theyd have to be doing these movies for another 50 years before a baby Picard could show up .. unless they pushed the time frame up at a faster rate
Otherwise I think they should stick to more original material, come up with something new. Whats the point of wiping the slate clean with the first movie to only slouch back to ‘been there done that’ like Khan?
What made me mad was even if they were to use Khan, why not give a more original twist on it ? Why not have it be that everyone thinks Khan is bad but toss in a twist that maybe this one has turned a leaf or something ?
I enjoyed the movie but it was far too self referential and I was disappointed at its lack of originality and felt that it really didnt push the new movies in any positive direction.
Exactly. Yes they are. The 2009 movie for all its flaws took some big steps away from Trek formula. It was a promising start, and I had fairly high hopes for the next movie.
I’m surprised to find myself defending those knuckleheads Kurtzman and Orci, but in Trek XI, they appeared to actually give a damn about the source material. I think Lindehof is the real turd in the Trek XII punch bowl. It smells too much like Prometheus and the way Lost wrapped up.
All of them, JJ and his trio of poop-flinging monkeys, are making just too much money to be told anything like “no” or “that’s a bad idea” or “are you an idiot or something?”
trelane the squire of gothos-is a precursor of the Q , i would go with a trelane theme movie the they can have it where it not trelane its the Q appear on the bridge of the enterprise … but in all relatly i agree with u guys it would be to soon to interduce the Q or borg into the current timeline … so lets keep this in the kirks enterprise timeline.all thought its a alternate time line they can do what ever they want to even though it ticks off some trekkers like me!
I have to say that I was not aware of a specific birth date for Picard, but yes, it’s still too early for that particular Picard.
As for any of the augments “turning a leaf,” I’m not sure what you mean. Since the defect was in their DNA, and
re-sequencing isn’t a possibility for many decades to come, their still going to be highly aggressive and prone to violence, as the movie suggested when Khan kicked Marcus, because he could, not because he needed to.
I liked the movie also but as you said, it was far too self referential. It didn’t push me to go again because I’m just tired of remakes and at this point, Hollywood seems to be recycling scripts. I’ll buy the, “Marcus has Starfleet doctors reconstruct his features and he spent time in London and picked up the dialect,” but I don’t think Cumberbatch brought anything to this Khan. I’m not a Cumberbitch so I’m sure they would blindly disagree.
I kind of do look forward to watching Kirk deal with his new “superior” abilities. I almost expect McCoy to experiment on himself as well. That ought to thrill Marcus and send her screaming to join Chapel in the “far reaches of Federation space.” We won’t see Pon Farr (and thankfully, not with Saavik). Like the reconstructive surgery explanation, I hear it’s being dealt with in the comics.
It’s the difference between Lawrence Kasdan and Rick McCallum… One was willing to tell George Lucas his ideas were shit, the other was not… and the results were very different visions of Star Wars… I guess that’s the one hope we can hold for Episode VII, it actually has someone like Kasdan who is willing to tell people their ideas don’t work.
@Daniel Ireland
“As for the Borg… that’s a bit of a stretch. Yea, it’s an alternate universe and all but the Borg are still decades away from reaching the Alpha Quadrant so I don’t think it would make much sense to have them show up.”
True, and you know what else hasn’t shown up? The “I wanna talk to the whales” probe. I can’t imagine that Nero’s incursion would affect the whale probe in any way that would cause it not to seek out Earth. And the circumstances for the confluence of events that allowed the TOS crew to “defeat” the whale probe are not in place. The Enterprise had a big space battle with Khan; Spock died; Kirk stole the Enterprise to bring Spock back to Vulcan, captured a Klingon vessel that had a cloaking device, and was conveniently off Earth when the whale probe shit hit the fan; Spock had to undergo the retraining of his mind and be reminded of his humanity by his mother; Kirk knew about the “slingshot around the sun” gag, and so on. Any chance of a confluence of events like that happening in the JJverse? Not bloody likely. If I were Old Spock, I’d be telling Kirk & Co. *now* to haul ass back to before twenty-first-century Earth and get some damn whales so the probe has someone to chat with.
What a d@@k!
You’re absolutely right, of course, but, then again, were we in a universe wherein the Borg had invaded 21st Century Earth and left a Borg behind in the arctic for Archer’s group to find, it would be reliant on the exact events of First Contact to precipitate those events as well… Which, in turn, suggests that once this universe gets to that point and doesn’t fulfill that requirement, it will force a paradox… the result of which? I dunno… I didn’t write the stupid shit… then again, they don’t know either because they think by pretending to create an alternate timeline it has freed them from all of this… nothing is a boundary, either before or after Nero for these hacks.
First, reconstructive surgery doesn’t explain the wholly blank faces when he reveals he’s Khan… Spock has to call Spock Prime. In TOS, Khan was a well known historical figure. Even if his face had been changed, if someone 200 years from now claimed they were “Hitler”, I doubt anyone would need to call up themselves from an alternate timeline to figure out that the Hitler in question was Adolf… Khan didn’t even hide who he was… he didn’t say he was Mark Khan… So… when someone like that throws out that he’s Khan… he’s probably Khan… and yet, somehow, it doesn’t ring a bell.
Secondly, I don’t think Kirk has any abilities, does he? I think they used the blood like a drug… it entered the system, did its work, and will have no lasting effects… It’s like the difference between how they think the Grail will work in Last Crusade and how it does… They think they’ll just be able to take the cup and get immortality… When, in fact, they would have to stay behind the seal drinking from the cup… Same here. Kirk gets resurrected, but he doesn’t become Khan or an augment… he wasn’t infected with an augment virus… At least, I sincerely hope that’s the case and they haven’t further bastardized the character of Kirk.
And thirdly, regardless of whether a canonical date was ever set for Picard’s birth, I think we can all agree he wasn’t a hundred in Encounter at Farpoint, which is 2364… STD was 2259. So, whatever year it was that he was born, it certainly wasn’t in the 2200’s, I’d think…
I said I’d accept reconstructive surgery, didn’t say I liked it.
“Wholly blank faces.” Glad you mentioned that. This is why I think that Cumberbatch brought nothing to the character. The crying scene was overdone. I agree. TOS Spock knew the history of the augments. It is silly that AU Spock did not know. Even ditsy Marla McGivers knew the history.
Viruses (and bacteria) get a bad rep because we associate them with illnesses that sometimes result in death but they are necessary in research when changing (the virus) or breaking down (the bacteria) a cell for use in the human body. It’s not out of the realm of possibilities for Kirk to acquire some effect, lasting or not, since a virus can “burn” itself out. We also don’t know if he was repeatedly exposed during the two weeks he was unconscious. It’s reasonable to assume that McCoy would have administered further doses Kirk, in his unconscious state. He wouldn’t be aggressive that was a genome defect. The other effects are a possibility.
Seriously, can they bastardized Kirk anymore than they did with kitty cat sex. That was highly disturbing.
My Star Trek Encyclopedia suggests that Picard’s DOB and mother’s name was set in “Tapestry.” However, the transcript does not. Could Okuda be wrong? Of course, that’s going on canon, which is useful when you are right and a tool or weapon to throw at someone when you’re wrong.
I do enjoy corresponding with someone who doesn’t blindly follow anybody writing for Trek because it fit’s his personal needs.
Because we all know Trek is all about the villain, just like the writers said.
That’s not true. In Space Seed, no one knew who he was when he identified himself as “Khan.” It was only later, when Spock looked it up and found his full name, “Khan Noonien Singh,” that anyone realized who Khan was.
It’s probably extrapolated from his graduation year in that episode, so probably totally right.
Talking Trek is always fun… I just wish we had better new Trek to discuss.
Well, it’s kinda fitting. A hack director, hack writer…
Bring it back to the original time line with an ORIGINAL story and no re-hash!!
According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia, Picard was born on July 13 (Patrick Stewart’s DOB, actually), 2305. In 2364 he would have been 59 years old. Stewart at the time the pilot episode aired was 47 years old. So, he was 10-12 years younger than the character he portrayed. Let’s say Picard can look 10-15, maybe even 20 years younger, but I doubt he could look 50 years younger. 🙂 So, no he could not have been born in Kirk’s time. Unless in Abramsverse Picard turns out to be a Vulcan…
As soon as they leave Khan, Kirk asks Spock if Khan might not be a product of selective breeding, to which, Spock grimly notes that the dates fit. At that point, they set up the dinner with Khan where Kirk let’s Spock bait Khan until he reveals he’s one of the supermen… At which point, they confirm he’s KHAN, not just Mr. Khan.
McGivers has a painting of Khan in her quarters.
And Scotty, upon confirmation that he’s Khan Noonien Singh admits to admiring the tyrant.
My point is, they were at least on to him from the start, some more than others.
Seems like the real villain of Into Darkness is Lindelof. In some recent on line rants, I was blaming Orci.
My apologies. Lindy isn’t lucky. His “vision” for Trek resulted in a pretty lame film. (Though, to Abram’s credit, well paced and beautiful to look at.)
What DL failed to understand, is after decades of reruns, fans wanted and deserved
something new and different. What we got was a glossy, big budget remake. For the next film, if there is one, put DL on the DL.
Lindelof…the second coming of Rick Berman? Well, Berman in his later years on Trek anyway.
Yes, and apparently the entire concept of basic research was forgotten when the Narada turned up. After all, if the writers don’t believe in it, why the hell should the characters.
He knows where he is; out of his depth. He knows where he’s going; another ridiculously overpaid gig. Why would you think what he said had anything to do with writing?
Well, it could be worse. Vic Mignogna could have been one of the writers. That man is a killer of Star Trek, period.
Ricardo Montelban was sorely missed.