The “Star Trek” universe appears to be healthy as the property boldly goes to celebrate its 50th anniversary. A new “Star Trek” series is on the way from CBS next year, and this summer “Star Trek Beyond” hits theaters. But the narrative for the latter hasn’t been great since an unfinished trailer leaked online a year ago. In fact, many of the past members of the “Star Trek” movies and series were quite publicly critical of said not-complete trailer.
And this hasn’t sat well with the new “Star Trek” crew, including ‘Beyond’ director Justin Lin and co-star/co-writer Simon Pegg. In a lengthy profile with Lin in WIRED magazine, the filmmaker said he was hurt when original Sulu, George Takei, bashed the leaked trailer publicly.
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“George has always handled things with class,” Lin told the magazine. “He was a huge part of my life, so for him to swing a sucker punch, that hurt.” He’ not kidding. Apart from being a huge influence on Lin — the actor was one of the only Asian-Americans on TV and Lin’s father loved “Star Trek” — the director had worked with Takei before. He had lent his voice to Lin’s Bruce Lee mockumentary, “Finishing the Game.”
Pegg, who co-wrote the ‘Beyond’ screenplay and also stars as Scotty, was less diplomatic in his response. The actor said he was “disappointed that Wil Wheaton, Patton Oswalt, and George Takei were slagging off the trailer, because they know a finished trailer is never a reflection of the finished film. Get a fucking clue! It’s really good fun: thrilling and heartfelt.”
Maybe they’re right and also feeling the pressure. The first half of the WIRED feature essentially focuses on the fact that “Star Trek Beyond” was rushed into production to meet the 50th anniversary and J.J. Abrams and the film’s producers chose Lin because of his reputation for being able to put together big blockbusters in a limited amount of time under huge pressure.
“It was like, hey, this is a rescue mission,” Lin said of getting the third film up and running in time. “It was, ‘You’ve got six months.’ ”
Meanwhile, the director, who helmed the extremely successful “Furious 6” which put the franchise back on the map, says he could be convinced to come back to the ‘Fast & Furious’ series.
“I’m going to bring him back,” Vin Diesel told WIRED when asked if Lin will direct the finale. “Whenever we had a day off — even on Thanksgiving, his favorite holiday — it was Justin and me working on how far we could take it. Success comes from 10 years of that mentality.”
Lin’s response? “Vin says you finish what you started, and he’s very persuasive.” Considering “Fast 8” through 10 is being looked at as a new trilogy, Lin certainly has some time to decide.
“Star Trek Beyond” flies into theaters on July 22nd.