Star Trek Beyond screenwriter Doug Jung spoke with TrekCore before the premiere about the writing process, revealing some strange bits of trivia in the process.
After Paramount dumped Star Trek 3 director and screenwriter Roberto Orci — starting the production from scratch, but not pushing back the release date — producer J.J. Abrams tasked new director Justin Lin with “a rescue mission” to salvage the third Star Trek film in time for the 50th anniversary release.
According to most critics, Justin Lin succeeded (here’s our review). But just as deserving of credit are the two screenwriters, Jung and Simon Pegg, who turned around a script on a radically stunted pre-production schedule. Things were so tight that sets were being built simultaneously with the writing of Star Trek Beyond.
Despite a crunched schedule, Jung and Pegg loaded Beyond with well-integrated references, excellent character work and a plot that many have compared favorably to episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series.
But while references to a giant green hand and Chekov’s strange theories about scotch may be for the hardcore, there’s at least one reference that’s very mainstream. According to Jung, the new character Jaylah — played in Beyond by Sofia Boutella — was modeled after Jennifer Lawrence’s character in Winter’s Bone.
“ We just kept referring to her as ‘Jennifer Lawrence’ for a long time, then somebody, joking, was like J-Law?” Jung said. Hence Jaylah. “It sounded a little foreign. We wanted her character to be someone who was outside of the understanding of the Federation and what it means, and really, to really be a blank slate in the sense that she has no real understanding even of her own people, in a way.”
And that’s how Jennifer Lawrence became a part of Star Trek history, without ever having to star in a Star Trek movie.
