When it was announced that J.J. Abrams would be the director of the newest Star Wars trilogy, the entire sci-fi community almost collapsed in on itself. It wasn’t that the community thinks Abrams is a bad director or terrible person or ill-informed or anything necessarily negative; it’s just the fact that at the time of his hiring, Abrams was also the director of the newly rebooted Star Trek movie series. With the long-lasting feud between Jedi-wannabes and Trekkies, there was no way Abrams was going to be able to direct both franchises. Understanding that Star Wars was the bigger and better opportunity (Admit it, Trekkies.), Abrams decided to give the opportunity to direct the Star Trek series to someone else. That someone else happens to be Roberto Orci, Abrams’s co-writer for the first two installments of the Star Trek reboot.

In speaking with BBC News yesterday, Simon Pegg (who plays Scotty in the reboots), confirmed that Orci will indeed be the newest director of the Star Trek franchise, despite reluctance from Paramount Studios:

I’m really happy he’s doing it as it’s kept within the family kind of thing, it’s not somebody coming in from outside.Bob’s been there since the first Star Trek – by that I mean the 2009 one – so it seemed to make perfect sense that he come in as a director on this one because he gets it. He was always the most Trekkie of all of those guys anyway, he’s always understood the story the best so it’s great that he’s going to be involved in the writing and directing.

The statement from Pegg corroborates an earlier statement the actor made at a Star Trek convention last month when he simply said, “Bob is going to direct the new film.”

Simon Pegg says Roberto Orci, expected to direct the next installment, is "part of the 'Star Trek' family" http://t.co/dASgn4YtGs

— Hollywood Reporter (@THR) August 11, 2014

Rumor has it that Rupert Wyatt (Rise of the Planet of the Apes) and Joe Cornish (Attack the Block) were the original frontrunners for the directing job because Paramount wanted someone who had no previous relation to the franchise.

While Orci has written for the first two movies, he does bring a breath of fresh air to the series as this will be his directorial debut. In the past, Orci has written for such films as Transformers, Mission Impossible III and The Amazing Spider-Man 2. With the newest installment of Star Trek, Orci is expected to hearken back to the original series moreso than Abrams.

The plot for Star Trek 3 (not the working title, by the way) centers around the original five-year journey of the USS Enterprise as featured in the original TV series. Because of its central plot idea, many think this installment will bring more of a philosophical flair to the series, giving original Trekkies exactly what they want.

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