Roberto Orci Talks About How J.J. Abrams Will Split Star Trek/Star Wars Duties

By Rudie Obias | Published

This article is more than 2 years old

John Harrison

Ever since J.J. Abrams accepted the Star Wars: Episode VII job from Disney and Lucasfilm, it’s been hard to imagine how a single director will have shepherded the modern “resurrection” of both the Star Wars and Star Trek franchises. While Star Trek Into Darkness is only a month away, Star Wars: Episode VII is still down the road in 2015.

In an interview with Empire Magazine, Star Trek Into Darkness producer and co-writer Roberto Orci talks briefly about how J.J. Abrams will split his duties on Star Wars: Episode VII and Star Trek, while working to please two groups of fans and two different movie studios. Orci says:

‘First I was happy for J.J., but I definitely felt a disturbance in the Force — which, incidentally, was first felt by Spock on the original series of Star Trek: when 400 Vulcans died he felt it across space, just like Ben Kenobi, but a decade ahead…’ he told the British magazine. ‘Anyway, we’re all fans of Star Wars. Still, this is going to affect calendars and now it’s two massive corporations having to vie for the right attention to each of these properties. But hopefully it will be fine.’

At this point it’s impossible to gauge how Star Wars and Star Trek fans will react to the new movies, and Paramount and Disney will have to learn to play nice with each other so both franchises can continue to live long and prosper. Orci continues:

‘I don’t know how much Paramount and other studios have to cooperate with each other,’ he continued. ‘But I think everyone will explore every possibility fairly. And even if he goes completely Star Wars, we know now — he can’t ever deny it — he is a big Star Trek fan!’

It’s still very strange to think about how the same director playing around in both the Star Wars and Star Trek universes. Let’s just hope Abrams will make us all forget about the Star Wars prequel trilogy altogether. Here’s Abrams revealing some of his thoughts about the two franchises.

Star Trek Into Darkness will hit theaters everywhere on May 17th, in 3D and IMAX, while Star Wars: Episode VII is slated for release in 2015.

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