After pouring through the ninety-minute-plus interview with Star Trek 3 co-writer J.D. Payne recorded at the LDS Film Festival back in February, we found two more segments of interest to Trek film fans: not only does the writer offer some details into the script development timeline, but he also drops some of the first hints towards the movie’s plot!



Payne: “We’re trying to set up a kind of situation where you really could — and not in just an ‘everything’s relative’ sort of moral relativism — you could be a good person of any creed or philosophical background and come down on both sides of how you should respond to this opportunity that the crew has…. that also has some pitfalls to it. Where you could argue very, very, very compellingly that ‘this’ is what you should do, and if you’re advocating ‘this’ then it’s actually evil. It’s sort of the Adam and Eve thing, where should we eat the fruit or not eat the fruit? Well, there are some very compelling reasons why they should and why they shouldn’t. So, similar kinds of things here that really give the whole movie and opportunity to sort of play with that, and have people come down on different side and wrestle with it; then come to an ending where you can walk out and say, ‘You know, I don’t know what I would do.'”

What kind of pitfall-filled “opportunity” awaits the Enterprise in the next Trek film? Does Captain Kirk get offered a pass to the Q Continuum? Is the Enterprise faced with another planet-killing Prime Directive choice? Perhaps more time travel to go save planet Vulcan?

We’ve got two years to find out.