What follows is an excerpt from this interview focusing more on the film branch of the franchise. Please follow the link for the full conversation.
Gamepro: So when I watch the second movie. will I be rewarded in some way for having played the game?
Orci: Absolutely, that’s exactly the point. We would not allow a game to go out if it was not somehow a part of the continuity. One of the things that we always loved about Star Trek before we were ever lucky enough to work on it, was that it had this very inclusive universe. If you’re a Star Trek you‘re a canon fanatic. You want to try to see how things fit into everything else. So when the idea of this game came up, we could not help but try to figure out, how does this fit into our universe? If you’re a fan of the first movie or Star Trek in general; hopefully like the Countdown comics, the game is not just a side effect but a part of the universe.
Gamepro: Now that the new Kirk and the new Spock have been introduced, what kind of stories do you want to tell in this universe?
Orci: One of the gifts that we got from the success of the last movie is that fans and the general audience made it clear to us that they like the original characters, but also appreciated the fact that we were breaking new ground. Thanks to the first movie, it’s a different timeline, a different universe, and so we can do whatever we want but also we don’t want to do whatever we want.
We want to make sure that we’re true to what happened in the universe. The things I want to see a lot of the same things that happened in Star Trek , a lot of the same scenarios but I want see them in a new way. In the original series they met the doomsday machine. What would happen if they met it now? The things we want to see are old ideas in a new way. Because it’s a new universe, because things have changed, the outcomes might be different, the decisions might be different. It’s exciting to think about the fact that you could take any one of the old episodes or movies and see what happens if things were just a little bit different.
Gamepro: What part of the first film are you most proud of and can we expect to see something similar in the game?
Orci: One of the things I’m proud of most in the first movie is that one of the ways to look at it is that it’s about Kirk and Spock and when you saw the original show they already knew each other. One of the things we wanted to show was how they met. We felt that our solutions could have worked for the original series. Some people criticized us for the fact that Spock was logical and Kirk was immature, but our response was that you’re meeting them before the original series. In our movie you get to see them grow.
That’s what our movie was about and that’s what the sequel is going to be about. What’s great about the game is that it gets to show that middle step. You get to see Kirk and Spock in a way you’re not going to in the movie. They’re becoming friends; they’re going on adventures you’re not going to see in the movies. The game is giving you new insight into who they are. If you don’t see the movie that’s ok, you’ll still understand, but if you’re true fan of Trek and you play the game you’ll get that amazing middle step.