Well, just the fact that we're talking about novels means there will have to be fleshed out characterizations and exposition and other elements which might not appear to be priorities in a fast-paced 2-hour film where visuals -- be they special effects or big action set pieces or what have you -- are the big selling points. You have to dive deeper when you're talking about a novel. and we're not talking about writing "dumber" Trek novels.
Indeed. Maybe we're going lighter on the really involved continuity and technobabble and such, so that the books will be less "inside" and more accessible, but that definitely doesn't mean dumbing down. For instance, in
Seek a Newer World, there are several big action set pieces, but they're just as scientifically grounded as everything else in my Trek fiction.
The way I see it, a key point of focus for "nuTrek" novels would seem to be the differences in how the characters relate to one another as well as the "new" timeline in which they now find themselves. It's not just the fact that they're younger than when we first met them in the "prime" timeline, but also the fact that the way in which they came together is radically different than what we know to be true in the prime timeline. That will affect the interpersonal dynamics on multiple levels, I'd think.
Yep. I had fun writing about the Kirk-Spock and McCoy-Spock relationships (and to some extent the Sulu-Chekov relationship) in their nascent phase, while they're still getting acquainted.
I kind of approached SANW similarly to
Ex Machina -- a movie followup that, while telling a separate story, deals heavily with the character ramifications of the movie's events. Although it's not quite as immediate a followup as ExM (which began only 10 days after TMP ended).
In several respects, Kirk's personality reflects an upbringing markedly different from the one (we believe) characterized his youth in the prime timeline. The new film posits that he's even more brash and perhaps even reckless than we originally were led to understand, and -- events of the new film aside -- he's still largely inexperienced. Are some harsh, even cruel lessons coming his way, which will influence his command style and even the way he conducts his personal life from that point forward, leading him toward something resembling the Kirk we know/knew?
Speaking for myself, and saying this as a diehard, unapologetic fan of the original series, this is a dream come true: Kirk, Spock, and the rest of the TOS cast, in their prime with a blank canvas before them? Sign me up.
I hope you get the chance. It's fun.
but, they also bought back into the star trek fold people who were fans of tos, who grew up watching star trek.
That's true. I'm sure we all hope these books will be accessible to old-school fans as well, and of course we are all fans of Classic Trek ourselves. Part of the fun I just mentioned is getting to tell stories about the classic characters in the classic setting, yet with a fresh twist. It's that mix of the familiar and the new that makes it intriguing.
In the movie itself, there was a lot that was new, that was changed, that was sometimes radically reinterpreted. Yet there were also moments when I was watching these new actors do a scene together and I thought, "Yes. That's really Kirk and Spock. That's really Spock and Bones. It feels just like I remember." And hopefully we'll be able to do something similar with the books: capture the essence of the old within a new framework.
i think the writers are walking an interesting tight rope in that yeah there are some thing news with the abramverse but if they stray to far from certain things like the friendship among the characters, that people care about these characters into too much go go go action they might turn of as many fans as they attract.
Don't worry -- there's plenty of character focus in the action scenes I've written, and I don't doubt the same will be true in the other books. The action in SANW generally serves to support and advance the plot and character arcs.
I am simply saying that if the old stuff is Prime Universe, does it not mean that the new is Sub-Prime?
Err, no. I think you're basing that on the "subprime mortgages" that have been in the news lately, but that's a specialized definition of the word, i.e. "at less than the prime interest rate." In other contexts, "subprime" means "inferior, lower in quality." It's a negative value judgment.
The "prime" in "Prime Universe" is not being used in the sense of "best" or "most important," but merely in the sense of "first, original."
Certainly Orci and Kurtzman have had more than a few wine spritzers in their time judging from Transformers 2. 
