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Simon Pegg On Board To Co-Write Next Star Trek Film

According to a report at The Verge, itself based on another at Deadline.com, Shaun of the Dead creator Simon Pegg is to co-write (along with Doug Jung) the next Star Trek film. Pegg is also signed on to play Scotty, as he did in both the Star Trek reboot and Into Darkness.

24 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. Sounds good to me by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    The rest of the cast can become Borg and Scotty can kill them.

    1. Re: Sounds good to me by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 2

      nominating for AC first-post hall of fame.

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    2. Re:Sounds good to me by NotDrWho · · Score: 5, Funny

      I'm thinking what these movies need is even more action and less of that boring talking bullshit. You know, get back to their roots. Maybe a bunch of scenes too where characters get punched in the balls. Those are always cool. And tits, intergalactic weed, maybe a road trip. And a *TALKING DOG*! SHIT THAT WOULD BE AWESOME! A fucking TALKING DOG!

      --
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  2. Scotty Might Have a Bigger Role in This One? by nucrash · · Score: 2

    Because I would be okay with this.

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  3. what about... by johnnys · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nick Frost as Harry Mudd?

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    Sometimes the "writing on the wall" is blood spatter...
    1. Re:what about... by ArcadeMan · · Score: 4, Funny

      Nathan Fillion: Do you want to run this ship?
      Simon Pegg: Yes!
      Nathan Fillion: [caught off guard] Well... you can't...

  4. Re:It's about time. by gstoddart · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Because ... severing yourself from the canon isn't new or original?

    Star Trek now has freedom to have any future the writers can come up with ... how is that now awesome for the franchise?

    I personally like the idea that it basically gives a preemptive "Shhh" to the nerds who are going to go all Comic Book Guy and say "but clearly this is in contradiction to episode 62 where Kirk says the saliva of Dactarian Moon Bats is the source of his secret powers".

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  5. I suppose this means there's still hope by magsol · · Score: 2

    The first movie in the reboot series was passable. The second was flat-out some of the laziest writing I've ever seen; I'm still raging about the "cold fusion" bomb.

    Hopefully this means the writing will improve somewhat. Granted, it's not exactly a tall order but I'll take what I can get.

    --
    "I'd just like to emphasise that taking a million years isn't a metaphor here..." -Rich Bradshaw
  6. Two suggested titles by WindSword · · Score: 3, Funny

    Star Trek: You've Got Red on You
    Star Trek: Skip to the End

  7. Re:Expect a lot of Star Wars jokes by NotDrWho · · Score: 5, Funny

    Seth Rogen playing a Klingon

    Well, it would save a lot of money on makeup.

    --
    SJW's don't eliminate discrimination. They just expropriate it for themselves.
  8. Re:It's about time. by Kokuyo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The direction I don't care about. I care about the fact that they have made yet another "solve all problems with firepower" franchise out of something that has dealt with so many important and/or taboo topics in the past.

    First kiss between white and black actors, knowingly keeping a gay actor on, solving problems with diplomacy, observing the wishes of a people and let them die, even though it goes against your own moral concepts...

    This is a US made show that dared suggest that a society that has relied on cloning so much they're basically inbred need to band together with a society of hillbillies and had to effing ditch monogamy to survive! The question over Data's and the Doc's sentience or do the Borg enjoy the same considerations as other species... can the Borg even be considered a species... The list goes on and on.

    They took EVERYTHING Star Trek had which let me hope for a brighter future for once instead of the pretty redundant apocalypse mindsets and turned it into fucking space cowboys...

    So do excuse me if I shed a tear over the clusterfuck Abrams created.

  9. Re:It's about time. by neilo_1701D · · Score: 3, Funny

    You must mean Tiberian bats you insensitive clod!

    Episode 67 clearly established they were Factarian moon bats. What you hear was an overdub based on a misspelling.

  10. Re:It's about time. by wierd_w · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because it sheds the ideological purpose that startrek was created for.

    Startrek was by design, created to illustrate a damned-near utopian future where all races and genders work together as equals, and accomplish a society that all can be proud of.

    In fact, Johnathan Frakes shares this little pearl of wisdom on the subject.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    It is for this reason that I do not like the startrek reboot. It has shed its soul, to capitulate to the american audience's desire for boobies and explosions. It is not startrek.

  11. Plot synopsis by pla · · Score: 5, Funny

    So, in #12, they decided to save us the trouble of having #13 do "The Search for Kirk". So that puts #13 as...

    Kirk violates the prime directive again, resulting in yet another five-minute demotion and a random crewmember reassigned to a garbage scow for the Ganymede outpost.

    Suddenly an alien probe starts microwaving Earth's oceans. To save Earth, Starfleet instantly promotes Kirk to double-plus-admiral and gives him an experimental portable time travel module, which he uses to take the enterprise back to 1980s Earth.

    Once there, he must find and kill a 10 year old Benedict Cumberbatch before he invents the plague that wiped out the whales.

    In the second to last scene, wacky hijinks ensue as we learn that Uhura secretly hid a chihuahua in her purse before returning to the future, which due to tachyon flux has evolved into a catch-phrase spewing mascot with the power to float just out of reach.

    Finally, Kirk makes a speech (possibly as a voiceover) intended to beat some cheesy moral principle about the benefits of communism into the audience.

    Credits.

  12. Re:It's about time. by Mr.+Slippery · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Star Trek now has freedom to have any future the writers can come up with

    No, they're stuck with the universe Abrams left them. A universe which makes no sense, where starships are irrelevant because transporters can move people over interstellar distances (from Earth to the Klingon homeworld), and where a cure for death has been found in Khan's blood. Not to mention the absurd political situation, with a corrupt Starfleet operating accord to some bizarre system of personal prerogative of individual commanders rather than any rational chain of command.

    --
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    You cannot wash away blood with blood
  13. Re:First five minutes of the film. by ArcadeMan · · Score: 2

    Wait... this almost makes sense...

    It's a Shaun of the Dead remake, but the pub is on Vulcan (they travel to the past, of course) and the zombies are replaced by Borg.

    That's gold, Jerry, GOLD!

  14. Re:It's about time. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    TOS really didn't push the utopian future as much. Gene really started pushing that with TNG. TOS pushed the envelope with a lot of things, but I never got quite the same utopia vibe from it that I did with TNG. Especially TNG when Gene was still alive and in charge.

    As for the boobies, did you not see TOS? They might not have shown as much skin as now, but they were pushing it for the times. Gene Roddenberry was no prude in that sense. Even though the strip down scenes in the new movies feel a lot more gratuitous, that's only because they aren't more carefully worked into the story and look more obviously like fan service. Boobies are a proud Trek tradition.

    And explosions. Exploding consoles and the cast running around the set in sync. If they could have done CGI explosions in TOS, they would have. You know it's true.

  15. Re:It's about time. by gstoddart · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yeah, because that could be in no way allegorical for government agencies acting according to their own personal prerogative, instead of any rational chain of command, or following the law.

    Nosiree, you could never get the situation where a security/military branch lies to those who give it oversight.

    Nor could they ever go to extremes to protect the citizenry, to the point of being willing to lie, cheat, steal, kill, or break the law.

    They'c certainly never create secret weapons and then try to find an excuse to use them.

    Sorry, but this is just nerd rage that Trek isn't living up to your personal expectations.

    Not all of the movies dealt with big issues in deep ways -- Final Frontier was based on the bad hippie episode, and it was pretty hokey.

    The series was dead in the water. It needed to be rebooted, and you don't do that by diving into preachy plots nobody else will watch ... you do it in such a way that people actually watch the damned thing, and you have a chance to do things with it later.

    It's a movie. by definition, it's escapism.

    And let's not pretend for a minute that every episode of every variation on Trek was some great work of art dealing with weighty issues, or that Weasley didn't magically save the day with some contrivance or another in the last 5 minutes.

    I reject all parts of those links you provide which say "but this isn't what happened in the original". Yes, they changed the timeline, the canon doesn't exist ... deal with it.

    I think you people take Trek way too damned seriously. Yes, it was innovative and ground breaking ... but it's not holy scripture pointing us to the promised land.

    --
    Lost at C:>. Found at C.
  16. Good writing is good writing by edawstwin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I like Simon Pegg, but I'm not sure if his writing CV is best suited for the genre...

    Forget genre - his writing is very strong (unless it's mostly written by Wright, and Pegg is taking too much credit, which is doubtful). Take any of the films in the Cornetto trilogy and try and find a serious flaw. I don't mean whether or not you thought it was funny. The screenplays are solid pieces of writing. Just look at the opening scene of Shaun of the Dead: We learn very quickly all we need to know about each main character, the dialogue of the characters completes others sentences in a clever and funny way, and it sets the (I would argue actual) plot in motion by establishing that Shaun is slacker who needs to start caring more about his girlfriend. The zed-words are just the MacGuffin to help show that Shaun really does care. I for one am ecstatic that he'll be on board for the next Star Trek, because I was done with the franchise otherwise.

    --
    I don't want to achieve immortality through my work. I want to achieve it by not dying. - Woody Allen
  17. Re:It's about time. by Warhaven · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The direction I don't care about. I care about the fact that they have made yet another "solve all problems with firepower" franchise out of something that has dealt with so many important and/or taboo topics in the past.

    First kiss between white and black actors, knowingly keeping a gay actor on, solving problems with diplomacy, observing the wishes of a people and let them die, even though it goes against your own moral concepts...

    This is a US made show that dared suggest that a society that has relied on cloning so much they're basically inbred need to band together with a society of hillbillies and had to effing ditch monogamy to survive! The question over Data's and the Doc's sentience or do the Borg enjoy the same considerations as other species... can the Borg even be considered a species... The list goes on and on.

    They took EVERYTHING Star Trek had which let me hope for a brighter future for once instead of the pretty redundant apocalypse mindsets and turned it into fucking space cowboys...

    So do excuse me if I shed a tear over the clusterfuck Abrams created.

    Agreed. However, I would like to think Simon Pegg might be able to rescue this. He's a devout classic science fiction fan, to the point where he burned his Star Wars collection upon a funeral pyre after Episode I launched (according to Simon Pegg's commentary on the first episode of Spaced). So, if Simon is at all offended by the new Star Trek as you are, he may bring this alternate Star Trek back to some semblance of the Roddenberry-inspired sagas.

  18. Re:It's about time. by delt0r · · Score: 2

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

    Star Trek was not what you think it was.

    --
    If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?
  19. Still not Star Trek by Berkyjay · · Score: 2

    Star Trek always looked forward, never backwards. As long as they keep on with this retread, Star Trek is dead to me.

  20. Re:It's about time. by ConceptJunkie · · Score: 4, Interesting

    And for all that, Star Trek was still pretty much "science fiction lite"... it didn't tackle some of the really wild concepts that you see in SF books, where the authors are not limited to practical budget considerations or keeping it simple enough that new viewers can pick up partway through a season. I haven't seen "Interstellar" but from what I've heard it's a great movie that actually holds up as real science fiction. Most so-called SF movies these days are really just action movies or horror movies in a science fiction setting (including JJTrek and JJTrek 2). That's not necessarily a bad thing. I thought "Pacific Rim" was great. But the thing is, audiences are more sophisticated than they were almost 50 years ago when the original series aired. We've seen "Blade Runner", "The Matrix", "Contact", "Fringe" and whole host of other movies and TV shows that expanded the popular consciousness of SF tropes. There's room to tackle all the heady and serious subjects that were tackled in the original series and the newer series, plus there's a whole lot of science fiction concepts that people take for granted today that would have been incomprehensible or at least confusing to most audiences from decades ago.

    Sure, you need to have wide appeal, and you can pretty much get that for free with good SFX, but is there no room for something other than fluff? Is Michael Bay the template from which the Star Trek reboot needs to be cut? Is the audience really that dumb? (Note I just described above that the audience isn't. I think there is a wider demographic to which a "real" Star Trek movie could appeal to now than there ever was). Besides, Star Trek II, widely considered the best one (by me as well) wasn't deep or complex, it was just a really good story that utilized the SF setting and Star Trek canon well). "Star Trek IV" had even wider appeal could almost be considered a comedy and yet most people also consider it excellent, and it was still very true to the spirit of the TV series. I know a lot of people liked JJTrek, and there were elements of the production design that I really liked, as well as some of the actors (particularly Karl Urban, Simon Pegg (despite his overuse as comedy relief) and Zoe Seldana, all of whom captured their respective roles with heart), but I thought the movies overall were awful... a Bay-Transformers level of awful.

    The problem with the Star Trek movies is that they always lacked the primary advantage of the TV show, the ability to address a topic in detail, to be thoughtful and detailed, and sometimes slow and talky, which is usually the best way to express and explore these ideas. The movies never did could really do this (with the exception of the "The Motion Picture", which I always really liked as well... it was the most true to the original series, whatever its flaws were), even the good ones, because there is a built-in requirement for action and spectacle. What we are seeing now, however, is all action and spectacle and absolutely none of the issues and concepts that are the heart of Trek (and of any good fiction) or even a decent story. The new movies are just mindless eye candy.

    --
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  21. Re:It's about time. by Kittenman · · Score: 2

    You must mean Tiberian bats you insensitive clod!

    Episode 67 clearly established they were Factarian moon bats. What you hear was an overdub based on a misspelling.

    I'm sorry, I've got the Swedish dub and translates back to English as Fat, Aryan moon bats. This fits in with that Nazi vampire episode - the one that's only ever screened at Fan meetings.

    --
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