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According to Variety, Roberto Orci will be directing Star Trek 3.
It was reported several days ago by TrekToday that Orci was the frontrunner for the position.
Orci is one of the co-writers on the movie, along with J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay. Star Trek 3 will be produced by J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burke and David Ellison.
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“I now have total power, absolute power, unlimited power, ba-ha-ha!”
But this could be a good thing with producer Damon Lindelof gone. I think Orci is the one more inclined to do original stuff rather than reuse ideas from previous Trek movies.
I have a bad feeling about this.
An Open Letter To Roberto Orci
I write to register my disappointment with your selection as Writer/Director of Star Trek (3/13)
My first concern is that having been on the DGA (Directors Guild of America) website and entered your name into the members search the number of results returned was 0 entries. Based on this and your IMDB entry you appear to have no directorial experience. You are 41 years old and yet I cannot find so much as a student short or reference to a school play that you have directed. Obviously everybody has a first step, Spock himself says “For everything there is a first time” in Star Trek 6. However I am a little unsure what credentials you provided that meant that you were able to demonstrate to Paramount that you were more qualified than every other jobbing director in the country to direct this, or any, film. I wonder what the DGA have to say about their members failing to land this job in favour of a first time director with no apparent experience or qualifications in directing? I wonder how directors across the country feel at having their craft undermined in this way? Every 12 year old making movies with an Ipad, every film student paying their way through college and every director working their way through years of amateur dramatics for nothing just to gain experience has been disrespected by this decision. Your appointment has confirmed that their aspirations, dreams and hard work are meaningless. That instead high level directing opportunities will be handed out via a combination of nepotism and writing such classics as Transformers 2. I disagree with your self confidence, and with your endorsement by Paramount pictures. I believe that plumbing jobs should be given to qualified plumbers, that houses should be designed by architects and that films should be directed by directors. If your response is that directing is not taught but is somehow ‘in the blood’ then yes I accept that qualifications are not the only evidence, however I reiterate that at 41 you have directed nothing, and therefore your directing CV suggests that you are not passionate about the craft.
My second concern lies with your writing CV, which includes Transformers 2, Amazing Spiderman 2 and Star Trek Into Darkness. Having watched these films I am concerned by your apparent lack of understanding of story logic, motivation, character and pace. Without getting into infinite detail lets just examine 3 story elements from Star Trek Into darkness.
1, We are introduced to Khan, a man who believes his compatriots have been murdered by Admiral Marcus. His objective is simple, Murder Admiral Marcus. Khan, who is in possession of a device that can transport anyone anywhere, finds a Starfleet officer with a sick child, convinces the officer that if he gives the sick child a blood transfusion the child will live. In return the officer agrees to detonate a device inside a secret starfleet intelligence building. The purpose of this attack is to convene an emergency meeting to which Marcus will be invited, at the meeting Khan decides to shoot Marcus with a helicopter attack. If I was Khan I would have used the device to beam Marcus into the sun, or I would have beamed the device into Starfleet HQ and foregone the transfusion. Or I would have beamed Marcus from the meeting so I could tell him what I thought of him before I k1lled him. Khan’s plan makes no sense, it contains too many variables and given the device in Khan’s possession it is wholly unnecessary. When the plan fails Khan flees to Kronos, again why? His objective is to kill Marcus, how will he do this from Kronos, why not beam to the USS Vengeance or to Marcus’s apartment? Or to inside the meeting room.
2, In the backstory Khan’s objective was to free his men, to do this he hid his men in long range torpedoes. Why? Because torpedoes are safe places? Because 7ft long torpedoes for some reason have 6ft of redundant space in them. Why didn’t Khan use the magic transporter to beam his people to safety? Why didn’t he wake them up and take over the installation?
3, Having been killed by radiation poisoning, in a scene aping the dramatic climax of Star Trek 2 The Wrath of Khan, Kirk is revived following an injection of Khan’s blood. That Khan’s blood can cure anything is established in the blackmail of the Starfleet officer. However it is established a second time, because you seem to think audiences are stupid, by showing Dr McCoy reviving a dead Tribble using Khan’s blood. This experiment seems unethical, unnecessary and unlikely. As an alien species its unlikely the Tribble would share enough DNA with humans to make the testing worthwhile. My main question is why was McCoy doing this? What made that character, one defined by ethics and emotional courage, perform that action? this was a crisis situation it makes no sense.
I ask these questions not to be nit picky but to highlight that the sequences of events, the actions of characters and the qualities and personalities that make characters who they are ignored in favour of plot contrivances. I have listed 3 but Into Darkness is bursting with examples like those above. I would suggest that simple rewrites and rethinking of obvious story or character flaws would result in a more cohesive story and more credible characters with little or no changes to the scenes shown. I could go on and ask similar questions of nearly every character and scene in the film. In other films for example Iron man or Back To The Future the internal logic of the story works, I understand why characters are behaving the way they do.
Thirdly, I note from your deleted Twitter comments you do not react well to criticism, and I find this a dangerous cocktail for someone in charge of writing and directing a movie. Art usually flourishes where there is creative tension and strong check and challenge from colleagues. For reference I have pasted your comments below.
“Having said that, two biggest Star Treks in a row with best reviews is hardly a description of “broken.” And frankly, your tone and attitude make it hard for me to listen to what might otherwise be decent notions to pursue in the future. As I love to say, there is a reason why I get to write the movies, and you don’t.”
“STID has infinitely [sic] more social commentary than Raiders in every Universe, and I say that with Harrison Ford being a friend. You lose credibility big time when you don’t honestly engage with the Fing WRITER OF THE MOVIE ASKING YOU AN HONEST QUESTION. You prove the cliche of shtty fans. And rude in the process. So, as Simon Pegg would say: FOFF!”
In the first comment here you describe your two star treks as being the ‘biggest’, while you are obviously a part of that you don’t include ticket inflation, film budget to box office ratio, 3d ticket price inflation or that at the time of these film’s release followers of the franchise had been starved of content for years compared with a readily available over abundance of product during the release windowns of films 6 – 10. In addition I would argue that artistic merit is not found in box office figures, I assume that Star Trek Into Darkness took more money worldwide than Hamlet during its opening weekend and that in the same time period Katie Perry enjoyed more Itunes downloads than Mozart. Temporary popularity is not the same as merit. You also state in your first comment that “there is a reason why I get to write the movies, and you don’t”. I would like to juxtapose this comment with your appointment as a film director of a major Hollywood motion picture and ask again, what is this reason? Knowing the right people? Being in the right place at the right time? Because it wasn’t based on demonstrable qualifications or experience, which is how the rest of us get jobs?
In your second comment you state that “Harrison Ford being a friend”. Given that in the film Amazing Spiderman 2, which you co you wrote, Harry Osborn and Peter Parker are “Best Friends”, best friends who haven’t seen each other since they were 11 and in the age of facebook, e mail and twitter haven’t communicated with each other – Peter states he has been following Harry’s movements in magazines – I wonder what your friendship with Harrison looks like? Or why it is relevant? You seek to belittle and impose your movie star credentials where simply answering criticisms with a confident answer using text from the film in discussion would be a better route. Not liking something does not make you a shtty fan or a cliché. For the record I think the Kelvin sequence in particular was a brilliant piece of Star Trek and stands up well with many of its greatest moments. Unfortunately Star Trek Into Darkness was bereft of the same soul or emotional gravitas. In my opinion Into Darkness, Like Amazing Spiderman 2 was a great looking sequence of barely related scenes relying on multiple plot contrivances to cover the absence of any believable or logical character motivation, coherent theme, narrative or structure, and I say that without being friends with an international movie star.
For the sake of fans who will be paying to watch this movie I wish you every luck in directing this film, because based on your record so far, luck seems to be the only thing you have enjoyed in abundence during your career.
This movie stinks even more already. Paramount really has no idea.
Loved the first two movies, so I think this is great news. Can’t wait.
Waiting for all the negativity and hate from the usual suspects.
Yeah, no idea.
The people behind the two most successful Trek movies (in terms of bums on seats and total worldwide box office – not profit) are clearly idiots.
ROBERTO Orci star trek will be the last betrayal. And the last trek film because this arrogant but mediocre pseudo pro will kill star trek with his next crap.
I say: BOYCOTT.
The two more expensive films, too pal.
With the total budget of STID you can pay ST I-ST X production budget…
And then, in USA STID WAS A DEFICIT MOVIE
Total budget $ 250 millions
Box office: 228
And then, you must pay theater s, taxes, marketing…
And a lot of movies earn tons of bucks are they are crap.
Congratulations Bob! Make is big for the 50th anniversary! Let’s see some cameos…Michael Dorn playing Kor would be cool, the Shat, Nichelle Nichols as computer voice…o.k I’m just dreaming now, but lets put the enterprise on the final frontier now that the origins story is done. And no more scary dark ships…or revenge plots…
I’m not filled with confidence and joy, but let’s see what he can do. I loved ST 2009, but hated STID.
Am I correct in thinking that the third movie is likely to be the final installment for the current reboot? If so, I’d really like the trilogy to go out on a high – something financially and artistically successful enough to generate interest in producing more Star Trek, either on film or TV.
And please give Karl Urban a decent role this time round. If they reduce the McCoy role any further from STID, they might as well not bother.
Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan! The final nail in the coffin of a once proud franchise
Leonard Nimoy was a first-time director when he made “The Search for Spock,” and he was great, so brand-new directors CAN do a good job. There aren’t many people who have Mr. Nimoy’s talent or his dedication to making Star Trek GOOD, but maybe Mr. Orci will be one of them. I’m gonna cross my fingers and hope.
At least the people who wanted to put Khan in “Into Darkness” are out of the picture; perhaps Mr. Orci will do a reasonable job without their influence.
Actually, that is not true. So far as “bums in seats”, the two JJ-Trek films are low on that list. Please don’t forget inflation.
I’ve already been doing that since the last one!
As Soctty said: “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.”
How many “optimistic second chances” am I suppose to give this jerk? How many more times am I suppose to let him rip out my Trekkie heart? I’m sorry, but no, Bob had his chances with Star Trek and twice gave us the biggest piece of crap to ever have the “Star Trek” name slapped on it. Not even “Star Trek V”, “Nemesis” or “These Are the Voyages…” could do what JJ-Trek has done, rot the core of the franchise. Does Star Trek even stand for anything anymore past tons of explosions and bad science? At these those other titles were still “Star Trek”. Bob gets no more chances from this Star Trek fan. I’m tried of his watered down Trek!
I want to see STAR TREK damn it, not Star Wars Light. 😛
I’ve been doing that since 2009.
I find some of the independent productions are far more professionally done, and with much better results, with far less cash, then the current official version done by Bad Reboot, excuse me, Bad Robot. I definitely recommend checking out Star Trek Continues and Star Trek: Axanar. Really great high-quality productions which honor Star Trek. I just hope the future official version(s) of Star Trek will look, feel and be that way.
Third time’s a charm.
Nice “in before negativitiy post”. I’m with you, bud 😀
If this clown’s going to be allowed to direct a Trek movie, the least Paramount can do is let Manny Coto write the script, then when the film’s shite, at least Orci will have had decent material to work with.
Like i said fuck star trek it is a dead franchise and long live star wars forever, jj abrahams knows what time it is and originally he is not a star trek fan, he does not give a shit and a rats ass about star trek.He is a star wars guy until the day he dies, that is why he left to direct episode 7.
Booooo!
🙁 NO!
The huge difference is that Leonard Nimoy is talented!
There’s something rather quaint about the notion that Orci would ever read this open letter posted here, on the 270 036th most popular website on the Internet (if you trust Alexa’s figures). Such ad hominem attacks only contribute to the stereotype of the angry, rage-fuelled nerd, in any event.
What a terrible attitude…
It’s going to be interesting thing for me, skipping a Star Trek movie for the first time in 30 years. Paramount doesn’t pretend to care about the fans anymore, but then they’re barely pretending to be producing anything called “Star Trek” now. A budget half the size of STD and maybe a half-hearted stab at a toy line should ensure they don’t end up taking too big a bath on Frat Trek Three, though it’s hard to see the Abramsverse going much further than that. You’ve traded away the cash cow for the once-every-four-years crowd, Paramount; good luck with that.
Just look at that photo at left above, though, and think about it. From Robert Wise, to Nick Meyer, to…. that.
TL,DR: “You don’t even qualify to the level of a hack, Bob.”
Nimoy actually proves the point. I’m a big fan of TSFS, but Nimoy’s camera was very stationary and his style was very cautious and dull, very much what one would expect from somebody helming his first feature. The result is a movie that constantly feels as though it’s straining to be great but never quite getting there. In the hands of a more experienced director, TSFS might be commonly ranked alongside TWOK today.
But, he was still Leonard Nimoy. He understood what made Trek tick as well as anyone, and respected its philosophy. He’d known and worked with the people under his direction for 18 years. He wasn’t some journeyman hack who wrote stories about giant transforming robots.
If you want something to boycott, you can always boycott Star Trek Continues and Starship farragut.
“jj abrahams”?
The third movie is, as I understand, the last one that this cast has been contracted to do. I get the impression that Paramount is very much in “wait and see” mode regarding how or whether they’ll continue with the franchise, pending Frat Trek Three’s performance. The Abramsverse movies simply have not generated the kind of returns they were hoping for at the outset of the reboot — particularly relative to their high cost — and their lack of ancillary merchandising is a big problem.
And give the whole damn FILM to McCoy, I say. Urban tapped into something of the soul of the original character better than anyone else in this cast and has been criminally neglected. Center the entire third movie around him. Let’s see more of McCoy dispensing his own brand of justice, bringing order to a hellish future megalopolis, never taking his bad-assed helmet off…. oh, sorry, I’m thinking of a sequel I’d much rather see than this one.
Hi Guest, thanks for your reply.
You find it rather “quaint” that I post opinion about Star Trek on a Star Trek Website? Really? I would suggest that, given Bob Orci is known to frequent these forums and others like it, it would be the perfect home for it. You use statistics, not lies or damn lies, to suggest that this website is less popular than others but you deliberately don’t break your numbers down by genre or category in order to artificially inflate your point. Do you seriously think Ebay, match.com or bbc.co.uk are more appropriate homes for this letter? Do you think I should see if Google will make this post their ‘google doodle’ for the week?
You accuse me of “Nerd Rage” and yet you cite no evidence of this, the main reason being that there is no “rage” in my post, other than my citations from Orci’s twitter feed of course. My letter is eloquent, well mannered and well intentioned and in the three main points I make I cite evidence to support my position. I also close complimenting Orci on one of the Star Trek scenes he is credited with. By contrast you appear unable to refute my points or provide contrary evidence. You can not provide links to youtube videos of Orci’s directorial successes, there are none. You do not correct the sample of plot holes or poor characterisation I cite with material from the film, there is none, and you do not demonstrate that Orci is a reasonable man who learns from his mistakes, he doesn’t. In the absence of a powerful, or even attempted counter argument, you resort to call me names anonymously on the internet… I agree that someone here is a cliché, and I agree that someone is experiencing “nerd rage” but I am not convinced it is me. Based on your post I suggest you saw that my letter was long and you didn’t read it, alternatively you simply didn’t understand it.
Your only point, as evidenced by you suggesting I post elsewhere and calling me names, is that I am not allowed my opinion, that your and only your worldview is acceptable, and anything contrary, however carefully and politely put, is an “attack”. I would like to point out that this is the polemic of every dictatorship the world has known. You use Latin terms in an attempt to self-aggrandise, and cover the lack of accuracy or substance in your post which is ironic given you seem bewildered by the definition and purpose of another Latin term ‘forum’, congratulations.
Before this becomes a slanging match and there are more names called or baseless accusations of ‘hate’ or ‘negativity’ lets remember we all like the core franchise and product. We all want Star Trek 3 to be a good film and for the franchise to prosper. But, I am not prepared to pay to watch anything just because it is called ‘Star Trek’. I think a story that makes sense with characters performing actions that are recognisable within the established universe and internal story logic, is a relatively basic requirement and one ALL fans of the franchise, or fiction in general, should share.
“Fool me thrice…double dumba$$ on Paramount.”
At least for the 50th anniversary, I can ignore “NuTrek” in favor of a couple of decent fan-made indie films. I’m donating to my favorite: P2.
This one will be easy to skip. Very easy.
2 bad 4 u x
With annually produced Star Wars on the cards, and a more cosmic angle to the Marvel Universe opening up, lower budget, higher concept accessible science fiction would actually be a unique product. Explosions and bad guys on a mission of revenge is about to get very pedestrian.
He also had the respect of the cast and crew, and he had paramount over a barrel. No director’s chair no Spock, he also hadnt written Transformers 2, ST:ID or Amazing Spiderman 2.
Urban’s McCoy remains one of the highpoints of the reboot, his presence in ST:ID was a mistake on the part of the writers/director.
I’d love to see Trek back on TV.
Well I agree about the hate, but people can have an alternative opinion to yours you know 😉
How is that the first time Ive seen the phrase Bad Reboot!
More people downloaded 50 Shades of Grey than David Copperfield last week, are you saying 50 Shades is the better book? In the same week more people downloaded Transformers 2 than Citizen Kane… you see where I am going : )
I haven’t.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=startrek.htm
Adjusted for Ticket Price
Star Trek
Par.
$275,002,200
$257,730,019
5/8/09
2
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Par.
$260,867,500
$82,258,456
12/7/79
3
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Par.
$229,804,900
$109,713,132
11/26/86
4
Star Trek Into Darkness
Par.
$217,312,400
$228,778,661
5/16/13
5
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Par.
$213,655,500
$78,912,963
6/4/82
6
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Par.
$181,163,600
$76,471,046
6/1/84
7
Star Trek: First Contact
Par.
$165,101,400
$92,027,888
11/22/96
8
Star Trek: Generations
Par.
$143,641,000
$75,671,125
11/18/94
9
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Par.
$142,450,100
$74,888,996
12/6/91
10
Star Trek: Insurrection
Par.
$117,001,600
$70,187,658
12/11/98
11
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Par.
$104,683,100
$52,210,049
6/9/89
12
Star Trek: Nemesis
Par.
$58,587,900
$43,254,409
12/13/02
Yes, the films were expensive. Yes they made loads of money.
http://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchises/chart/?id=startrek.htm
Yes, poor films can also make money.
Yes, outside in the real world, the concensus is that the recent films were good.
Star Trek was #3 in 2013 for Rentals and Digital Purchases.
According to iTunes, it was the #4 best selling film of 2013.
TMP is the most profitable of the films, followed by Abrams’ ST, and
TWOK. The worst performing films were TFF, INS, and NEM. It’s no
wonder that TUC almost didn’t happen due to TFF’s poor performance.
Similarly, INS’s poor profit was the reason it took four years for NEM
to be made. NEM ended up killing the TNG franchise.
I also think TUC is down there on the list due to TFF souring some of
the general audience on ST films. It was a big improvement over TFF
though and got the franchise moving back up until INS. Similarly, I
think INS hurt NEM’s performance.
It’s easy to see from this, and the previous aggregate scores from
rottentomatoes.com that the worst ST films in terms of both reviews and
profit were TFF, INS, and NEM, which all made less than $100 million in
terms of profit.
Yes I see where you are going.
Lots of people here didn’t like STID – I get that too.
However, the general consensus in the real world is that the film was very good. Simply check out the Rotten Tomatoes rating (87%) or the IGN rating or even the metacritic index.
Hi James,
Firstly I don’t really look to consensus to help me decide what I like or don’t like, I simply make up my own mind. I take your point but I would suggest that to the millions of people who upvoted STID on rotten tomatoes, episodes like The City on the Edge of Forever, The Inner Light and Duet would be considered boring and dull, instead of series highlights. STID had great visuals and good performances no doubt but for me the story and characterisations were poor. Put it this way if we take the general premise that we would all like Trek 3 to be even better than the first two, which areas would you look to improve? Music? SFX? Script? Performances or storyline?
If we want someone to direct a movie, not just any movie to mark the 50th anniversary of the franchise. Would you hire an experienced director, someone who has a rich film CV and is used to getting good performances out of actors. Someone who knows which lens is which and why they might want a certain lighting rig for a certain shot. Or would you pick someone who hasn’t done is before? Someone for whom this will be their experiment, their test run? Someone who wrote Transformers 2 and still goes out in public?
One of my favourite star trek scenes is Kirk nicking the Enterprise in SFS. The hairs on the back of my neck always stand up during that scene. “You do this Kirk, and you’ll never sit in the captain’s chair again” Kirk’s response “Warp Speed”. For this act Kirk is demoted, and never regains his admiralcy. In the Rotten Tomatoes acclaimed (but not Academy awarded) Star Trek Into Darkness Kirk is demoted for saving Spock, he is reinstated minutes later, and the hairs on my neck remain unmoved. That’s my measure, apologies that it doesn’t fit with yours.
Orci does occasionally drop by and listens to what fans have to say. I don’t know if that’s the case with this site, but I know that he almost regularly visits another Trek-related site.
Heh. With you there mate. As much as I love Star Trek in general, I’ll take Dredd 2 over Star Trek 3 any day of the week. But I very much doubt it’s ever gonna happen :-(.
Maybe if we could just have McCoy say “Dammit Jim, I’m a doctor, not a judge!”. That would be a moment of Urban crossover awesome 🙂
… well fuck.
Have you by any chance submitted a complaint to the DGA? Unless their rules have way changed, your argument has merit.
Next, this should be passed around, submitted to as many Trek and entertainment sites as you can. Possibly with a little editing for brevity, and objectivity (as in the pain does shine through in spots).