RobertoOrci

The franchise comeback story of the year, if not the decade, is Star Trek, which arrived in theaters with an amount of buzz that could only be matched by a metric ton of tribbles, and eventually grossed almost $400 million worldwide. This week Trek debuts on Blu-ray in a 3-Disc Special Edition, and the set includes enough extras and special features that one can expect the series to continue on successfully for the foreseeable future – even if it's only because you can't get it out of your head.

Though it's unnecessary to revisit the merits of the movie itself – by now you're either with J.J. Abrams' reinvention of the series mythology or you aren't – it looks absolutely wonderful in high definition, emphasizing every last lens flare and visual flourish injected into its agile, lyrical cinematography. The color quality itself is just positively luminous, but augmented by the sound design, which offers a muscular 5.1 TrueHD mix, you're completely immersed in the film; in fact, so great is the sound on Disc One that even the menu screens rumble with house-shaking bass.

As for the encyclopedia of bonus materials.....

At a press day for the release of Star Trek and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen on DVD and Blu-ray, screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman discussed the futures of those respective franchises, and offered a few highlights from their upcoming slate of screenplays and producing projects. When asked about their process for developing sequels, Kurtzman said, "Every franchise has a different need, so you have to look at them differently, based on whatever the mandate is. You need to be able to not have seen the first movie to appreciate the second one. But, for us, it's always about going back to the sequels that we loved as kids and asking ourselves why we loved them."

Offering a list of their favorite follow-ups, Kurtzman continued, "there's Empire Strikes Back, Superman II, Aliens, Terminator 2, Star Trek 2. What do all those movies have in common? Well, they're amazing stories all on their own. You didn't have to see the first movie. And, there was some incredible, emotional test of character, in all of those movies. Superman has to give up his powers for love. The Spock and Kirk relationship is tested by Khan. Ripley finds a daughter. All of those things are such big ideas, in and of themselves, and you really can't tell those stories in movie number one because movie number one is very much about establishing a world."

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen debuts on DVD and Blu-ray October 20, 2009, and Star Trek follows on November 17. The following is an edited version of a news conference featuring Orci and Kurtzman.

In terms of Star Trek's expanded universe, are there any elements from the later series that you might want to throw into the next film?

J.J Abrams, director of this summer's blockbuster relaunch of the Star Trek film series, told reporters that the forthcoming follow-up will, like its predecessor, both appeal to nonfans and reward those familiar with the long-running franchise. "Whatever the story is and whatever the final movie ends up being, I know it will be something that will work on its own terms and be something that you don't need to know and study Star Trek to get," Abrams said in a press conference Thursday afternoon. "But if you are a fan, there will hopefully be gift after gift of connections, references, characters that you hold near and dear. At least, that's the intent."

Cinematical spoke to Abrams at a press day for the DVD and Blu-ray release of Star Trek, which is due November 17, 2009. The following is an edited version of Abrams' comments to the press about the sequel, which is currently being developed by the director and his original screenwriters Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman.

Since you were able to wipe the slate clean with your prequel, do you plan to come up with something completely original, or is there a possibility you will reference some of the existing creatures or races in the next installment?

(J.J. Abrams is beginning to talk more about the obligatory Star Trek sequel and how it needs to be relevant. Some fans are afraid that means it will be dated. Here's Elisabeth Rappe reporting for Cinematical)

Whenever J.J. Abrams, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman are pinned down, the talk inevitabley turns to the Star Trek sequel. They're only just beginning to toss around story ideas, but Hero Complex managed to pry a little more news out of Abrams & Crew, who hinted that Trek might start tackling contemporary issues.

"In many ways a sequel will have a very different mission. It needs to do what [Gene] Roddenberry did so well, which is allegory," says Abrams. "It needs to tell a story that has connection to what is familiar and what is relevant. It also needs to tell it in a spectacular way that hides the machinery and in a primarily entertaining and hopefully moving story. There needs to be relevance, yes, and that doesn't mean it should be pretentious."

Orci echoed Abrams, noting that it had been one of the biggest criticisms of the new Trek. "One of the things we heard was, 'Make sure the next one deals with modern-day issues.' We're trying to keep it as up-to-date and as reflective of what's going on today as possible. So that's one thing, to make it reflect the things that we are all dealing with today." When asked if "modern day issues" meant war, terrorism, and torture, Orci agreed that was "an approach" they were taking.

Read the rest at Cinematical

By: Elisabeth Rappe (originally posted on Cinematical)

I really believe this is the best geek news we'll have all month. Not only is Robert Downey Jr. officially on board Cowboys & Aliens, The Hollywood Reporter announced that he's bringing Jon Favreau along for the ride. Considering the graphic novel was penned by Iron Man screenwriters Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby, it's literally a dream team come true.

As if it wasn't touched by the movie gods enough, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, they-who-can-write-no-failures, are penning the script, and producer Damon Lindelof came aboard last fall. There's no way this can fail. Even if the movie was one big trick, and simply 2 hours of Robert Downey Jr. in a cowboy hat reading a phone book, it would succeed. We would just call it arthouse, and praise them all for subverting our expectations!

But there's no danger of arthouse here, Cowboys & Aliens really does promise to be pure fun with this team. The story takes place in 1880s Arizona, where a war is raging between settlers and Native Americans. Their war is interrupted by the arrival of a UFO, which promptly unleashes hell onto the plains of Silver City. The Native Americans and settlers must unite to fight a larger threat, and are led to battle by Zeke Jackson (Downey), a gunslinger and former member of the Union Army. You can read the entire graphic novel online, which should keep you satisfied until Cowboys & Aliens hits theaters in the summer of 2011.

Now that we've established that Star Trek is cool again, it's time to ponder the future of the franchise. Trek movie scribes Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the screenwriting duo that stole my dream job, recently talked about hashing out ideas for a sequel to J.J. Abrams' summer hit.

"The debate is do you do a story where you go through some familiar things from the series, but now their outcome can be a little bit different, or do you just make it totally new?" Orci told SciFi Wire.

That's the big question, isn't it? Orci and Kurtzman still haven't decided if they want to pen an entirely new Star Trek adventure for the planned sequel or write their own spin on a classic Trek story. What do you say, Trek fans? Do you want to see the young Enterprise crew go on an entirely new adventure, or should these filmmakers revisit the events of a classic Trek episode, like "Space Seed" or "City on the Edge of Forever"?

From Cinematical

It truly has become a geek's world. Heroes star, former Industrial Light & Magic effects artist, gamer, and all-around cool nerd Masi Oka has signed a deal with Dreamworks to develop his feature film The Defenders, about a group of MMORPG (massive multiplayer online role-playing game) players who get together for a real-life adventure.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Oka and writer Gary Whitta bonded over their love of "World of Warcraft" and pondered the idea that in online games, according to Oka, "[y]ou can be whoever you want to be. The question came to me: What if you had to live up to the person you created in the virtual world?"

Dreamworks producers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci are on board after getting an improvised pitch from Oka, who'd come in to their offices to talk about an acting job. After hearing from Orci that the producers wanted to make "the kinds of movies that Amblin used to do, that combined an innocence with the adventure," Oka -- a big fan of The Goonies -- took the opportunity to sell them on his project. It worked, and D.J. Caruso (Eagle Eye) is now set to direct.

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By: Todd Gilchrist

Few genre properties bring out someone's inner geek – much less in actual fans of the show itself - more easily than Star Trek. Whether you love it or loathe it, everyone seems to have an opinion or a perspective, and almost everyone has an emotional entry point for the long-running series: a parent's welcoming knee or cold shoulder, the dingy carpet of a rec room or the negligent boyfriend next to you, a shelf full of spinoff novels or their indecipherable prose, an unwieldy stack of VHS tapes or the interminable hours suffering through commercials. It seems that no one could possibly be unfamiliar with Trek, no matter how they tried; but it was the unenviable task of writers Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci to digest some 40 years of characters, stories and mythologies, and tell a story that behaved as if no one but them had ever seen all that material.

The result of their labor is Star Trek, a spectacular opus, space opera, mythmaking science fiction story that condenses the sum total of its source of inspiration and reintroduces the series' mythology to viewers both old and new. Cinematical sat down with the duo at the recent Los Angeles press day for the film to discuss the process of reviving and reinventing the franchise for a completely new generation of moviegoers, much less potential Trek fans. In addition to indulging this critic's own passion for Kirk and company, Orci and Kurtzman talked about their ongoing creative collaboration with director-producer J.J. Abrams, discussed their own directorial ambitions, and dished a few details about their forthcoming follow-up to 2007's Transformers, Revenge of the Fallen.