There's no going back. Guardians of the Galaxy changed things, forever. According to Badass Digest, one of the main reasons Robert Orci was relieved of his Star Trek 3 directing duties was Paramount demanding "
Star Trek 3 to feel more like
Guardians." Orci didn't concur, and off he went. Apparently the studio thinks
Star Trek 3 could benefit from following Marvel's playbook when it comes to odd and unusual creatures, so be ready for more of Scotty's alien sidekick
Keenser.
"They want the third film to be huge, and they want it to be huge overseas especially. They look at Rocket and Groot and then they look at Keenser and they wonder why he doesn't have more of a role." - Devin Faraci
How do I feel about this? Not so happy. I understand it, every so often a film comes along that sets the bar and studio after studio wants to emulate it. I'm sure we will see a lot of films in the near future that have the look and the feel of
Guardians of the Galaxy, but
Star Trek 3 shouldn't be one of them. We saw the same thing happen after Christopher Nolan's
The Dark Knight cleaned up at the box office. Yes, film after film was influenced by it, most notably Sam Mendes'
Skyfall, but I'd rather see
Star Trek 3 embrace visual aspects of
Interstellar and
Gravity. As for story, I'd rather see
Star Trek get back to being clever. I would look to BBC's
Sherlock as an example of being both, smart and entertaining.
Also of note; Devin says Paramount offered the director's chair to
Edgar Wright ("Hot Fuzz"), but he turned it down. The assumption is that Wright passed on it because he didn't want to takeover a film that someone had already started. You know, like what
Peyton Reed did with Marvel's
Ant-Man. That's just an assumption, but it's probably on the money.
When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organisation has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.
STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS was directed by J.J. Abrams ("Super 8"), from a screenplay written by Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci. Returning for the sequel are Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, John Cho, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Zoë Saldana, and Anton Yelchin. Joined by new cast members Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve and Peter Weller.