honestly I don't care about his movie anymore. I'd rather read some certain, sure, news about an actual fourth movie than endless speculations about movies paramount rejected anyway, or endless rumors about future movies that years later are still not made.
I don't have the best opinion about Paramount&co but I'll say this: if they rejected his scripts (apparently they rejected.. 3?) there must be a reason.
I'm not saying it's impossible Orci's movie(s) would have been great but still.. their standards don't seem to be extremely high if I look at Beyond (no offense to the movie, just saying) so I can't help but think that maybe Orci's movies were a real mess if they didn't want to greenlit them. There must be some big issue with them that made the studio so adamant in their no. Maybe he had too much nostalgia? too much fan pandering? resetting the timeline surely sounds a tad suspicious on the pandering kelvin timeline haters side.
After everything he said about quantum mechanics etc etc it seems like going backwards and losing integrity.
i think it mustve been a few issues..
- STID had sort of divided the fan base, fans were seemingly put out with it being a remake of TWOK etc so maybe Paramount wouldn't want anything too over the top fan pandering again (and although ID was bigger than ST09 worldwide, domestic box office was down.. which must've been abit concerning)
-i think Orci had become abit of an issue with his conspiracy theories on 9/11 and stuff like that (some of which had been in STID). also he wanted to direct
-Shatner was in his 80s so that maybe that gave Paramount pause to have him in a major role probably bigger than Nimoys in ST09 (esp for the younger 'Gen Z' moviegoers)
-Nimoy had died so that probably caused issue with the script (but surely couldve been easily rewritten)
-Guardians of the Galaxy had been huge and as we know there was something of an effort to make ST3 more Guardians like (as seen with Beyonds rock songs, frantic space battles, Gamora like badass alien woman, the Abrogate macguffin/Orb infinity stone, the Yorktown abit like the Guardians city planet/save the city finale, the gravity stunt flying, Kirks starlord like jacket, plus the foreign posters looked bit Guardians, 1st trailer etc)
-regarding resetting the timeline think it has been stated by Orci himself that it wouldnt have been reset but it wouldve been like the dilemma/battle to reset it vs not reset it (i.e. Kirk, Spock would be tempted to save Vulcan, Kirks father, Spocks mom but ultimately would protect their timeline - kind of the reverse of Picard in Yesterdays Enterprise). But dealing with the timeline again for another movie (as STID sort of touched upon it as it was a redoing of Khan, and had Spock Prime again) was probably another issue for Paramount but kind of made sense in that these films are an alternate reality .. so why not continue with that theme.. or at least sort of put it to bed in an epic conclusion and bringing back the other original star trek icon to oversee it - like another 'unification' for the 50th (and abit like how The Dark Knight Rises concluded the trilogy/went back to elements of the 1st film... as BatBegins/TDK were mentioned by Orci as partly the model for the previous 2 films) so itd be like a BTTF type timeline trilogy (and with another time travel type movie - everyones favourite type of Trek movie) .. yet Beyond was like a standalone adventure not really acknowledging that it was an alternate timeline (aside Spock Primes death - which i think some of the non trekkie audience whod forgotten stuff from the previous films mightve been confused into thinking was Quinto Spocks father). it was acting as if this is the new main timeline and theres going to be further adventures/movies in the kelvinverse (like the end of ST09)..although at the time i guess they probably thought would be the case..(pre Disco/Picard/ST4 falling apart).
ultimately it mustve come down to Paramount thinking - do we want another movie about the timeline shift/alternate realities and have shatner and all that Trekkie stuff (and promote Orci to oversee it all) ..or something more straightforward/mainstream, actiony and Marvel/Guardians like..(with an established action director). However I think its been stated by orci there were elements of his ST3 in Beyond (possibly the quest for the device, the villain, certain action sequences) and its pretty obvious the plot had been reworked into the ST4 with the more appealling to GenZs Hemsworth instead of Shatner (had the same cowriters)
