Star Trek Into Darkness, alternately known as “The Wrath of Spock,” ended with several clear directions they could take things in a sequel. The Federation was going to have to deal with its looming war with the Klingons, and Kirk was probably going to grow closer to Alice Eve’s Carol Marcus or at least catch more glimpses of her in her underwear since she officially joined the crew of the Enterprise. Beyond that, Kirk & Pals were finally (finally!) setting out on their long-delayed five-year mission to seek out new life and new civilizations.
Funny thing about that: J.J. Abrams is now off in a galaxy far, far away, his would-be replacement Roberto Orci was more or less fired and his script completely scrapped, and Simon Pegg and Doug Jung co-wrote a new script as fast as possible while the newly hired director Justin Lin went into pre-production. We got our first glimpse of what they came up with when the 90-second teaser dropped online earlier this week, and to some it looks like more of the same from this rebooted version of Star Trek just with maybe more Fast & Furious-esque stunts this time. The fact that Justin Lin has apparently made another Star Trek action movie is not surprising. What might be vaguely surprising, though, is that this new movie doesn’t appear to be honoring anything which was leftover from Into Darkness. Carol Marcus is long gone, and the Klingons don’t appear to have anything to do with what’s going on.
Or are we reading too much into a mere 90 seconds of footage? Could they be holding back on some of those elements until later trailers or possibly until the film actually comes out? Probably not. Devin Faraci of BirthMoviesDeath got some answers from Justin Lin about this.
First of all, Into Darkness’ “magic blood” ending could be seen as an indication that McCoy found the cure to death. Will that be a thread in the movie? Nope:
[Co-writers] Simon [Pegg] and Doug [Jung] and I have spent some time on that. [laughs] Star Trek has been around for 50 years, and every filmmaker that comes on has a different point of view, and it’s a universe that can support many points of view and journeys and adventures. I embraced what JJ has brought – without him this whole group wouldn’t be together – so I’m definitely very appreciative of him. At the same time, do we address it? No, but we don’t discount it. We don’t sit there and say it doesn’t exist, it’s part of this universe now.
Okay. What about Carol Marcus?:
We pick the crew up about two and a half years after Into Darkness. There were many iterations where we did go and explore [Carol Marcus], but we figured it was two and a half years… It was something we talked about and worked on, but in the presentation of this film it didn’t quite fit in. It’s there with the transporter and everything [laughs].
As they’d say in Arrested Development, say goodbye to these!
It’s your loss, Kirk. Now she’ll never have your secret son who you won’t meet until you’re 50. So, yeah, take that.
Well, at least are Spock and Uhura still together? Probably not:
What we’re doing is appropriate to the two and a half years. It’s a continuation in a way, and I don’t want to ignore things and act as if they don’t exist, so there’s an acknowledgement and I think their relationship is consistent to the way it was before.
Translation: They’re on a very, very long break.
Here’s the question: Are you annoyed that they’re going to pretty much ignore Star Trek Into Darkness? Were you looking forward to Kirk and Carol together again? Geeking out over the prospect of a full movie with the Klingons as the bad guys? Or are you happy to be rid off of both of those things since most people only remember Alice Eve’s underwear in that movie, not the character she played, and the re-designed Klingons lost some of their appeal? Or did you go even deeper with it and only really care about the “magic blood” and crazy transporter logic of Into Darkness? Or does none of this really matter because, dropped story lines or not, this still isn’t the version of Star Trek for you?
Source: BirthMoviesDeath
We Minored in Film 
“Translation: They’re on a very, very long break”
your google translate must be broken then. From what he really said you could even speculate that Spock and Uhura are married! I don’t get where you see ‘the probably are not together’, everyone taking that from that quote is reaching.
Honestly, could go either way. The gist is that their relationship status on star trek Facebook will have changed in the two and a half years in-between movies.
You are just repeating what Devin Faraci (the most biased person of the internet) said, who, btw, didn’t even transcript the whole quote and is seeing what he wants to see. Lin’s tone was like ‘they are definitely (explanation why it’s in the movie) consistent with what was done before’, now tell me how them not being a couple can be consistent with the other movies if they love each other in those movies and ARE a couple by the end of the last movie (and in the comics)? Would you think it’s consistent for Kirk and Mccoy to suddenly dislike each other here and stop to be friends?
No one would infer they were broken up from that quote if they didn’t read Faraci’s speculation first. I find it telling how some of you just take for granted that Spock cannot last with her, as if Uhura is not ‘enough’ to be someone who genuinely is IT for this Spock, and regardless the fact that what we know about vulcans in trek says that they are serious with their relationships. Would you all have the same ‘feeling’ if we were talking about Kirk/Carol? I don’t think so.
I think some of you are biased about that relationship and are waiting for it to fail since the first movie. Because God fordid the friendships between the male characters aren’t the only kind of interpersonal relationship that supposedly dynamic people like these characters can have.
Whoa there. You are taking this out on me and making an impassioned argument, which is great, but you are making some assumptions. To be clear, I 100% do not care about Spock and Uhura as a couple. I am not angry that Abrams put them together nor am I overjoyed to see Spock in a romantic relationship. I am not rooting for them to fail nor am I particularly longing to see their wedding. I grew up on Next Gen meaning romance has always been a secondary concern in the Trek I am most familiar with (e.g., the genuinely consistent pairings which come to mind are Riker/Troi, Odo/Kira, Obrien/Keiko, Paris/Torres, Trip/T’pol). As such, that type of thing is not really what I respond to with Star Trek. I recognize that it is cool/controversial to put Spock with Uhura. It gives her more to do as a character and shows a somewhat new side of him. It flips the script a little (usually Kirk gets the girl), but the central relationships in Star Trek are always more fraternal than romantic, Even these new movies are all about Kirk and Spock ‘ s growing friendship. Ultimately, I don’t really care what becomes of Spock and Uhura one way or another. My interest here is the curious possibility that Beyond might totally ignore Into Darkness. That intrigues me simply as someone interested in the business side of hollywood.
Not sure what to think. Just not remotely excited for this picture. Felt too burnt by the disappointment of STID.
They should have gone with Klingons. However, I really didn’t like the look of the new Klingons. Yet, there was always that unexplained change in their appearance from TOS and TNG. How does Nero’s destruction of 39 Klingon ships cause this third style of appearance?
Carol Marcus was always going to leave… eventually.
This is an odd argument since Into Darkness was already this new casts version of Wrath of Khan, but stick with me: Star Trek Beyond could be there Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan because that’s when Harve Bennett took over and basically called a complete mulligan after The Motion Picture. Let’s just ignore that movie entirely. Present a new, far more militarized version of Starfleet. Change the costumes. Get away from Roddenberry’s hippy, dippy version of the future.
With Star Trek Beyond handing the reigns over to others and the Abrams crew all are just “Executive Producers” it could pull all sorts of similar tricks, and the choice to ignore Into Darkness would be the first step in that process. But the first trailer didn’t make it seem like they’re making anywhere near as many changes as Bennet brought to the franchise back in the day, and I …. I dunno. I’m trying to look on the bright side, and give this movie a chance. They have a good cast. Simon Pegg is writing. After Into Darkness, though, it’s hard to get too entirely worked up.
Ignoring Into Darkness is one of the reasons I have had misgivings about Beyond since details about it emerged. ID is a divisive film, yes; I also think it is among the best 2 or 3 Trek films ever made and one of my favorite films in general in a long time. Jumping to the chase, I certainly was hoping to see the Klingons again as Abrams’ take on them held a lot of promise, looking at them not as the Vikings in space of TNG but as genuinely strange, alien threats, but my major problem is definitely the exclusion of Carol Marcus. They can get away with there being a couple years having passed to explain her absence (though I hope the character is not relegated to some throwaway line of dialog); it allows her to return for a Star Trek part 4 and/or future films. My problems with the ignoring of the character (and the actress) are multiple: she was introduced really very well in ID, with hints at characterization that would make her a new member of the main group, friends and extended family, but come at them with a unique viewpoint Carol and Jim (and Ms. Eve and Chris Pine) had a seductive spark of chemistry that several reviews commented positively upon and their romantic adult relationship would be the last hurdle Kirk needs to successfully overcome to become the fully developed hero, and his own man, by opening himself to , and sharing his life with a woman who is more than his equal (as opposed to the ladies we’ve intentionally seen him with previously to Carol). And also, Alice Eve is not only obviously beautiful, but, as much as Saldana, she is very much a star on the rise in Hollywood and indie films, continually showing greater range as an actor in films like Neil LaBute’s “Some Velvet Morning” (in which she gave an award-deserving performance; she was also highly ranked on a list of Britain’s best film actors by a critics’ group). Additionally, she not only enjoyed working with J.J. Abrams and especially the rest of the cast and consistently in interviews expressed her desires and hopes for Lt. Marcus’ sequel developments that she has (as recently as a year ago) discussed with producer and friend Abrams (she also went out of her way to do extra promotion for Into Darkness for its DVD and BluRay release). I sincerely hope and expect to enjoy Beyond; I’m certain, though, I would enjoy it more had Ms. Eve been included. (For a great Jim and Carol follow-up, read my well-received novel-as-I-write-it, chapter by chapter on the websites Archive of Our Own and Fanfiction by the title Star Trek Beyond Forever – – a title I devised over 2 years ago).