Star Trek 3 Gets New Writers? Why J.J. Abrams And Co. Should Finish What They Started

Star Trek 3 will have a completely new writing team, according to various reports.

Some fans apparently weren’t too happy with the script for Star Trek Into Darkness, which has caused Bad Robot productions to apparently second-guess its writing team of Damon Lindelof, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, who penned the script.

Among the complaints were Khan’s needless re-invention, a poorly homaged death scene, and way too much focus on Captain Kirk as a philanderer.

Though J.J. Abrams’ role in Star Trek 3 is still uncertain (we know for sure that he’s not dropping out of Star Wars to direct, despite reports), he might be looking to replace his longtime writers with Ashley Edward Miller and Zack Stentz, who wrote Thor, contributed to X-Men: First Class, and worked on Bad Robot’s own Fringe.

Kurtzman and Orci will be involved to some degree, but it wasn’t specified what their new roles with Star Trek 3 would be.

Paramount has saddled Star Trek 3 with a release date sometime in 2016 in time for the franchise’s 50th anniversary. Whoever’s writing the script, it needs to get underway soon unless they want another four-year wait.

But who’s directing?

Devin Faraci of Badass Digest has doubled-down on rumors that Abrams is parting ways with Star Wars for another Star Trek, but Lucasfilm said that’s not happening.

It does kind of make sense, given Abrams’ track record. He has a habit of piloting a franchise and shepherding it for a little while only to take everything but his name with him into the next project. A strong starter and a non-finisher, Abrams is a high concept machine who leaves loose ends to be sloppily tied up by whoever he left in charge.

This is exactly why he should drop Star Wars and finish his Star Trek saga with a neat trilogy at the least. I know fanboys go balls-nuts for all things J.J. Abrams, but do we really want two of sci-fi’s biggest tent poles given the lens flare treatment for a few films only to be left with time paradoxes and a fist full of narrative loose ends? Not this fanboy. What’s next for the J.J. Abrams crew after they’ve consumed Star Wars? The Alien franchise? Wait, that sort of already happened.

What do you think? Should J.J. Abrams finish what he started with Star Trek before leaving for Star Wars? Or would a new writing team on Star Trek 3 be a good thing for the franchise?