Screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman haven’t yet started writing a Star Trek sequel, but last week we published some quotes from the duo talking about the debate of revisiting an old story/villain, or exploring new territory (something we’ve discussed about in a past video blog) This weekend at the Transformers 2 junket, my good friend Steve from Collider was able to probe them for more speculative details.

Here is a nice excerpt from the interview:

We have had discussions about the debate of the exploration sci-fi plot where the unknown and nature itself is somehow an adversary or the villain model. That’s an active discussion we’re having right now. In terms of thinking about more than one movie, we want the movie to be self-contained in a way, but we’re discussing the idea of having a couple of threads where if the second movie works, you could pick up into a cohesive whole. No thread more exciting and shocking for me when in Star Trek III you realize that Spock grabbed Bones and downloaded his Katra into him. When I saw Star Trek II I was like, ‘What’s going on here?’ and two years later, you’re watching it and you’re like ‘They’re geniuses! They’re geniuses!’ So we’re trying to think is there a version of that but again, Star Trek II does not rely on that thread, even though it turns out to be a thread. So we’re thinking in those terms.

I think most people will agree that the villain Nero was the weakest element of JJ Abrams’ Star Trek, and it would be nice to see a sequel which completely foregoes the traditional villain and is more about the concept of exploring new worlds which may offer its own mysterious antagonist element.

I’m also happy to hear that they’re also thinking ahead to a third film, because it would be stupid not to. Star Trek is not a self contained story, its a series. Unless the sequel bombs horribly (which would be completely unexpected) we can expect at least a couple more. So why not tie the stories together, even if just a subplot. Many sci-fi geeks have acclaimed Empire Strikes Back for the cliffhanger ending. And I feel that films in recent years like Pirates 2 have handled this aspect so horribly that the concept now has a bad stigma attached.

You can watch the whole interview on Collider.