With Roberto Orci no longer directing Star Trek III, fans chip in with their suggestions for who should direct.
Following the announcement last week that Roberto Orci – who co-wrote both Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) – had stepped down from his intended directorial debut for Star Trek 3, speculation has begun as to who will replace him in the director’s chair.
This week, fans have chipped in with their own suggestion: Star Trek veteran Jonathan Frakes, better known to fans as Commander William Riker in Star Trek: The Next Generation, with the hashtag #BringInRiker trending on Twitter.
No stranger to the director’s chair (he directed a number of episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation and Voyager, as well as two of the franchise’s feature films: the highly regarded Star Trek: First Contact (1996), and the somewhat unfairly maligned, in my opinion, Star Trek: Insurrection (1998)) Frakes himself has been candid about his enthusiasm for the possibility. In an interview on Komo News, he said: “I’m all over it […] I already contacted J.J. [Abrams, director of Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness] and I got my agent to stir the pot at Paramount. I say, unabashedly, I’d be great at it and would love to do it.”
In the light of First Contact in particular, Frakes is without a doubt a director who would be suited to the more action-orientated take on Star Trek established by Abrams in his 2009 reimagining, and yet at the same time may bring with him a touch of the feel of classic Star Trek that certain members of the fanbase may have previously felt was missing from the reboot.
With Star Trek 3 thought to be scheduled for a 2016 release it may well be that Frakes is the ideal man to helm (pun intended) what may well be Star Trek‘s 50th anniversary adventure.
