Orci And Kurtzman On Being Offered 'Star Trek'

The desire to see Star Trek done right overcame the fear of not being worthy to do it for Star Trek XI Executive Producers and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.

As reported by Newsarama.com, Orci and Kurtzman, sharing their expertise with film school students, explained what it had been like to have been offered Star Trek XI. "It was daunting, but it was also like, well if we can't do it, then no one can," said Orci. "No, not exactly. But it felt like we had been called to duty and it would have felt cowardly to back away just because 'oh well, it has been forty years, what can we do?'"

Kurtzman added that "as daunting as it was, because it has such a die-hard fan base and it has forty years of rules that you can't re-write...the thing that I think compelled us to do it, is that it's a very, very rare to be handed a franchise that you loved as a kid, that you grew up on. 'Are you kidding me, you want to give us 'Star Trek', are you insane? You're going to do that?' And we at first we were scared, not because we didn’t think it was worthy, it was we didn't [feel that]...we were worthy of it. So it became kind of about thinking, 'all right, well God, if we were going to do this, what did we really love about it, what inspired us when we were kids? And how do we get back to that feeling? And what was that feeling about for us?' And ultimately, I think, it was very much about Kirk and Spock and that bridge crew. That was a big part of it. So what got us through the fear was the excitement of that opportunity, which really comes probably once in a lifetime."

Like others associated with the film, Orci denied that Star Trek XI was a prequel. "Our version of 'Star Trek' is not exactly a prequel," he explained. "It is in some ways and you will have to see it to label it exactly. Yeah, 'canon,' that is a word that was invented for 'Star Trek,' meaning, 'does it fall within the continuity of this forty-year puzzle?'"

One thing that Orci and Kurtzman found surprising was that in all its long history, Star Trek had never covered how the original series crew had met. "...it was amazing when we went back to look at 'Star Trek', no one had ever done kind of the story about how the original crew came together," said Orci. "So we actually went back and kind of looked...there’s five thousand hours of 'Star Trek' and no one covered how they all met. So in a way that was liberating because...nothing had stated about how that happened exactly."

To see the video, head to the link located here.

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