‘Star Trek 3’ To Go Forward With The ‘Spirit’ Of The Original Series

As great as they were, the recent J.J. Abrams Star Trek reboot (along with its sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness), aren’t exactly revered by old-school Star Trek fans as great examples of what makes the long-running series special. While the television series tended to be cerebral by nature, the 2009 reboot and its sequel were more about high adventure and having a good time in the theater. Whether or not this is a good or bad thing is ultimately up to the viewer to decide, but in the eyes of many Star Trek TV series fans, both films were more Star Wars than Star Trek.

It’s no wonder that J.J. Abrams eventually left the franchise in favor of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. This left Star Trek 3 in something of a limbo for awhile. After Abrams’s departure, the film was set to be directed by screenwriter Roberto Orci, but talks fell through. The film has since been taken over by director Justin Lin, of Fast And Furious fame, though up until this point, it has remained unclear what fans can expect from the latest Star Trek flick. In an interview with Spinoff Online, actor/co-writer Simon Pegg opened up about what to expect from the third installment (via Screen Rant).

“…I think we just want to take it forward with the spirit of the TV show. And it’s a story about frontierism and adventure and optimism and fun, and that’s where we want to take it, you know. Where no man has gone before – where no one has gone before, sensibly corrected for a slighter more enlightened generation. But yeah, that’s the mood at the moment.”

While Star Trek Into Darkness had some of the same ethical questions present in the television series, with the U.S.S. Enterprise finally on its five year mission in Star Trek 3, film fans will finally get to see those ethical questions more pronounced when Kirk and his crew come across strange civilizations that threaten their very ideas of what is considered “good” or “evil.” All that being said, mainstream fans shouldn’t fear that Star Trek 3 will be a wholesale return to the original series’s dry nature (considering the previous two films’s success and Justin Lin’s film track record), but rather the movie will likely include an extra dabble of what made the television series so special to fans.

Star Trek 3 is slated for a July 8, 2016 release. Are you excited for this potentially-new direction, or do you wish Abrams was on board again? Let us know below!

[Image Credits: CBS and Paramount]