S.J. Clarkson is a television director with no feature film experience, but she has shot multiple episodes of several prestigious and big-budget television shows in addition to a wide variety of other types of programming. There's nothing in her filmography that screams "Trek!" to me, but there wasn't in Justin Lin's either, and I think he got the cast interactions even better than Abrams did -- Lin's film truly felt like an episode of Star Trek, and it was fun to have a Trek film like that. In many ways, I thought it was the closest to a TOS episode of any of the films to date (both Prime and Kelvin universes).
So I think the idea of bringing a television director on board, someone who is used to working with an already-established cast, who knows how to bring in a project on time and on budget, is a good thing. I think it also speaks to the new Paramount head honcho understanding that the allure to Trek is Trek, and that spending money on a "brand name" director isn't going to change that equation.
I think the last regime at Paramount was hoping that if they just kept saying "Justin Lin! Fast & Furious!" over and over, that all of the F&F fans would come out for Trek, and it obviously didn't work that way. But that was never going to happen in the first place. So good on Paramount for getting that. (I think Lin did a fantastic job, and would have happily welcomed him back, but I don't think their expectations for what he'd bring in terms of audience were realistic.)
I also think this speaks to Paramount wanting to get this done in a timely fashion, and finally understanding that leaving the property dormant for so long between adventures isn't good.
So this all has me feeling very optimistic today. They're starting production two years too late, but at least they're going to start.
