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Star Trek Sequel Will Reflect Contemporary Political Issues

by Ethan Anderton
September 16, 2009
Source: LA Times

By now we all know that a sequel to Star Trek is on the way, but we're going to be waiting until summer 2011 to see it. There haven't been any official script pages yet, but we do know that director J.J. Abrams and writers Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof (of "Lost" fame who has also been added to the writing team) have been tossing around some potential story ideas for the follow-up to the box office behemoth that has grossed over $383 million to date. The LA Times sat down with Abrams and Orci where they divulged a little bit more information regarding where the Enterprise crew will boldly go next.

Here's what Abrams had to say about what they really need to accomplish with the Star Trek sequel:

"The ambition for a sequel to 'Star Trek' is to make a movie that's worthy of the audience and not just another movie, you know, just a second movie that feels tacked on. The first movie was so concerned with just setting up the characters -- their meeting each and galvanizing that family -- that in many ways a sequel will have a very different mission. it needs to do what [the late Gene] Roddenberry did so well, which is allegory. It needs to tell a story that has connection to what is familiar and what is relevant. It also needs to tell it in a spectacular way that hides the machinery and in a primarily entertaining and hopefully moving story. There needs to be relevance, yes, and that doesn't mean it should be pretentious. If there are simple truths -- truths connected to what we live -- that elevates any story -- that's true with any story."

So dealing with our current political climate, it seems issues would need to circle the tense war times, the ethics of certain war strategies (interrogation, torture, etc), and the dilemma one has using violence to stop more violence. LA Times' writer Geoff Boucher equated these touchy issues to that of a conflict that might erupt between Starfleet and the Klingons in the Star Trek universe and Orci was all about that exact idea:

"Well yeah, those are the kind of issues we're talking about. Wow, you're good! But seriously that's the way we're thinking, that's an approach. So if you have any ideas..."

Well now we're starting to get an idea of just how Star Trek will use this generation's culture to craft the world inside of this science fiction series. If there's one thing I love about motion pictures, it's the message that soaks through them because of the climate of the times in which they were made. Especially because when a film stands the test of time, you can tell that a filmmaker really honed in on the human factor of a story, and it can hit on a personal level with everybody. Certainly I hope that the political messages in Star Trek aren't over-zealous, as it's supposed to be fun, too. But I know Abrams won't steer us wrong at all.

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