The good news is that there will be more Star Trek. The bad news is that Roberto Orci may direct it. Every silver lining has a cloud.

[Deadline](http://www.deadline.com/2014/05/roberto-orci-frontrunner-to-helm-star-trek-3/):

> After an aggressive lobbying campaign, Roberto Orci has emerged as the clear frontrunner to replace JJ Abrams and direct Paramount‘s third installment of the Star Trek series. I’m hearing they’re in talks. This comes after Orci parted company with longtime partner Alex Kurtzman (though they continue on TV projects). This would amount to another first-time director taking on a massive project, which has been hit (Snow White And The Huntsman) and miss (Transcendence, John Carter, 47 Ronin).

> Orci could be an exception on the positive side of the ledger because he has been involved for so long as writer and producer in shaping such big scale films as the Star Trek films as well as the Transformers and Amazing Spider-Man movies.

I know that basically all the films he’s been involved in have been big hits, but somehow he’s managed to get himself into the position of being involved with all these huge franchises which seem to be unable to fail despite the writing being, well, terrible.

How is that happening? No idea. One speculation I’ve read is that he’s really good at taking orders; at fitting whatever BS ideas his directors/producers have into the screenplay he’s writing. [Devin Faraci as Badass Digest points out ](http://badassdigest.com/2014/05/09/can-roberto-orci-make-the-best-star-trek-reboot-film) that Orci didn;t want to do Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness but were forced to by Abrams for example.

So maybe if he’s in charge of everything it’ll be ok. Maybe he won’t be forced to shoehorn bullshit into otherwise decent scripts. I have no confidence this will be true but I’d rather hold on to a fools hope at this point than just be totally cynical about the future of my favourite franchise.