Simon Pegg has been on a roll this week, and I agree with about 99% of the commentary he has offered in regards to nerd-centric film/TV culture and the way the biggest pop culture blockbusters are digested by the fanbase. But he made additional headlines this week when discussing the upcoming Star Trek movie he is writing, where he mentioned that Paramount/Viacom rejected Roberto Orci's original script for being "too Star Trek-y." There are two very distinct ways to take this comment, both of which are worth examining. So with the caveat that I am discussing an offhand comment from a writer of a film that doesn't come out until next summer, what exactly does "too Star Trek-y" mean?

Paramount is well-aware that Star Trek Into Darkness was not the great break-out sequel that they were hoping it would be when Star Trek reignited the franchise back in 2009. Yes, the film made a little more than the first film worldwide ($467 million vs. $385 million), but that was mostly due to the 3D conversion. This was no Bourne Supremacy-style breakout. The film courted controversy among the hardcore fanbase (or at least the loudest members of said fanbase) for its militarized Federation, it's too-cute-by-half "Benedict Cumberbatch isn't playing Khan, no wait he is!" marketing strategy, and its plot that arguably only made sense if it really was a 9/11 "truther" parable. I happen to like the film. Chris Pine's Kirk is an entitled jerk for the sake of others as opposed to his selfish benefit this time around. The movie doesn't chicken out on its "extrajudicial execution by drone strikes are wrong" politics by revealing that he really baddie is a "ghost in the machine" Nazi from World War II secretly causing everything bad that has ever happened. In the end the film operates as a "new Trek philosophy" versus "old Trek philosophy" parable with old Trek winning out by a landslide.

The fact remains that general audiences enjoyed it without being overjoyed, and the fans quickly turned on the film and immediately proclaimed it to be the worst Trek anything ever (cough-Star Trek Nemesis-cough). But Paramount has a unique opportunity to take one last shot at turning Star Trek into a top-tier blockbuster franchise again, as the third film (entitled Star Trek Beyond) will open during the 50th anniversary of the original Star Trek show. As Skyfall showed back in 2012, the amount of free publicity that will be drummed up on this occasion for the sake of the property and thus the new movie will be comparatively unprecedented. This gets us back to the notion of Paramount chucking a Star Trek script for being "too Star Trek-y." Well, the pessimist in me (and arguably you) sees Paramount looking at that Avengers money and worries about the studio making the same mistake that Sony did with Amazing Spider-Man.

Sony had a somewhat well-liked reboot that earned plaudits for its core romantic relationship, but they sold the sequel not as a Peter Parker-centric character drama with action (which it basically was) but rather a villain-stuffed prologue for an expanded universe and/or Sinister Six spin-off. They wanted what Walt Disney had, so they undercut their strengths to sell a variation of someone else's blockbuster and got smacked down as a result. The fear is that Paramount is looking at the Marvel grosses and wondering how they can make Star Trek Beyond more like The Avengers or at least Guardians of the Galaxy. And in the process, they will create a film that doesn't look or feel like Star Trek and get rejected for being Marvel-lite. This happens in politics when Democrats try to win midterm elections in "swing states" by being Republican-lite and end up turning off the actual liberals and failing to get votes from constituents who would rather vote for an actual Republican than a Democrat pretending to be a Republican.

Star Trek fans don't want a Star Trek movie that runs away from itself. General audiences buying tickets to Star Trek Beyond don't want an Avengers movie in Star Trek clothing, as they can just go watch Avengers for that. That's the pessimistic take on the comment and apparent studio thinking. The optimistic take on the apparent studio thinking is that they are learning the right lessons, not just from Marvel but the Fast & Furious franchise. The final comment in the above-noted Guardian piece has Pegg stating that the studio's solution was to "make a western or a thriller or a heist movie, then populate that with Star Trek characters so it’s more inclusive to an audience that might be a little bit reticent." First of all, that's what the old Star Trek series was. It was a high-action, special effects-filled adventure show that dipped its toes into all manner ofIt was a high-action, special effects-filled adventure show that dipped its toes into all manner of genre. It was basically Stagecoach in space and is as much an outer-space approximation of a different genre as Firefly was.

It had episodes in space, it had episodes set on Earth, and everything in between. Heck, everyone's' favorite Star Trek movie is a submarine thriller set in outer space. Heck (again), everyone's favorite episode of the original series takes place in New York City during the 1930's. The notion that Star Trek is a kind of "everyone stands around a debates important issues and/or great discoveries" is somewhat of a misreading of both Star Trek: The Motion Picture as the rule rather than the exception and a misreading of unfair stereotypes involving Star Trek: The Next Generation. But being a little more pessimistic, let's presume that Paramount doesn't necessarily want to mix genres for the sake of being true to Star Trek. They are still potentially learning the right lessons from the Marvel universe and the Fast & Furious films. Paramount (hopefully) understands that fans come for the characters, not the plots.

Guardians of the Galaxy was a success because audiences gravitated towards the main heroes, and The Avengers scored because of the witty banter and friendships developed between its core stars. The Phase Two Marvel films had done well by mixing up the genre of their stand-alone films as well. Captain America 2 was a 1970's paranoia thriller, Thor 2 was a 1980's fantasy/sorcery adventure, Iron Man 3 was a 1990's action comedy, and Guardians of the Galaxy was the best kind of post-Star Wars rip-off of Star Wars. The same goes for the Fast & Furious movies. Fast & Furious was a dark revenge thriller, Fast Five was a caper/heist movie, Furious 6 was a superhero ensemble adventure, and Furious 7 was a Mission: Impossible/007-style espionage movie. The same logic even applies to the Netflix Daredevil show, where the each of the first several episodes exists in a different genre that combines to tell a long form story involving characters we enjoy.

The formula was the same, mainly putting the characters we wanted to see in different genres and different types of movies that weren't necessarily "generic superhero movie" or "generic street racing crime drama." No one flocks to Star Trek because of the plots or even the technology or the action. They go because of the characters. You get that right, and you can do whatever you want with them. Paramount (presumably) knew what they were doing when they hired Justin Lin to take over for J.J. Abrams. The Better Luck Tomorrow director revitalized the Fast/Furious franchise by taking the characters fans liked out of the expected milieu, upping the action but also boosting the character development and emotional payoffs. I have no idea what Simon Pegg has in store for Star Trek Beyond, but his comments about geek culture has me as optimistic as I've ever been for a Star Trek movie originating from his pen. His comments about Paramount's intentions has me wondering just what lessons they have learned from the franchise they want to emulate and the director they have hired to bring Star Trek Beyond to life. Star Trek Beyond opens July 8th, 2016. As always, we'll see...