Trek fandom has been ablaze since the first trailer for Star Trek Beyond hit the interwebs yesterday. Today, director Justin Lin shared more about the film, including the name of Idris Elba’s character. More after the jump.



Lin spoke with Birth.Movies.Death‘s Devin Faraci and revealed all sorts of interesting things about the new movie. Let’s get the most interesting thing out there first:

His name is Kraal, and he’s not a Klingon

From the moment Idris Elba was cast there was speculation about who and what he would play, with many suspecting that he was playing a Klingon or some other race/character from Star Trek‘s storied history. Turns out that he’s playing someone named Kraal (which is Faraci’s guess at how it’s spelled) who, despite the Klingon-sounding name, is from a species we’ve never seen before.

Lin says that Kraal is going to question Kirk and crew about the Federation’s ideology:

I really like his character because he’s challenging the Federation’s philosophy, and it’s something growing up I wanted to see. He’s a character that has a distinct philosophy. Sometimes I watch Trek and I see utopia in San Francisco, and you think “They don’t have money, so how do they live, how do they compete?” Those are things that his character, in a way, has a very distinct and valid point of view about…when someone is really challenging a way of life, how the Federation should act, I can see – right or wrong – that this is a valid point of view, and that’s a point of entry.”

Lin speaks further about the philosophical underpinnings of the movie and more here.

Magic blood? What magic blood?

Lin says that the film will deal with some of Star Trek Into Darkness‘s more controversial elements (i.e. magic blood and interstellar transporters) by, well, not really dealing with them at all:

[Co-writers] Simon [Pegg] and Doug [Jung] and I have spent some time on that. [laughs] Star Trek has been around for 50 years, and every filmmaker that comes on has a different point of view, and it’s a universe that can support many points of view and journeys and adventures. I embraced what JJ has brought – without him this whole group wouldn’t be together – so I’m definitely very appreciative of him. At the same time, do we address it? No, but we don’t discount it. We don’t sit there and say it doesn’t exist, it’s part of this universe now.

More, including whether Carol Marcus will return, and if Spock and Uhura are still a couple, can be found by clicking this.

Orci not involved in STB script

Many have noticed that Roberto Orci, John Payne, and Patrick McKay are listed as co-writers in both the trailer and a recent IMAX press release. According to Lin, the film’s writers are Simon Pegg and Doug Jung:

The WGA has to figure it out, because I don’t know who those writers are, I never met them. I came on, I had an idea and then Simon and Doug came on. I had one conversation with Orci after I came on, and that was it.

When asked if any elements whatsoever were reused from previous scripts, Lin is very clear:

Nothing was refurbished [from the first script[ because I don’t know what was done before I came on.

Ultimately, the script will go to arbitration and the Writer’s Guild will make the final call on who receives screenwriting credits, but it appears that the Star Trek Beyond script is exclusively a Pegg/Jung production.

Star Trek Beyond arrives at theaters across North America on July 22, 2016.