Some Longterm Fans Of Star Trek Are Nervous About Alex Kurtzman - Why, And Is It Fair?
8. Fan Stories Over Actual Stories
Another responder said the following:
In my opinion, what Kurtzman is doing is writing slash fiction and trying to pass it off as Trek. I've seen better writing in fanzines.
The attached image is from the wonderful film Please Stand By, starring Elle Fanning, Alice Eve and Patton Oswalt. The story revolves around a young writer with autism whose attempting to submit her fan-script for an episode of Star Trek.
If we are to imagine this as Alex Kurtzman, then we can imagine someone with a lot of passion for what they do, attempting to get their vision across! In the recent Star Trek Day celebrations, Kurtzman, along with Michelle Paradise, spoke to their involvement with Star Trek throughout their tenure. There is very clearly a lot of passion there, yet also there is evidently a lot of research having been done as well.
Ahead of the release of Star Trek in 2009, JJ Abrams spoke openly about how he had not been a Trekkie ahead of making this film. That is not a sense that comes from Kurtzman. In various interviews in the last few years, he has spoken about the wish and concern to adhere to canon while creating something new.
This criticism seems to fit Star Trek: Picard the most, as the show is a very different depiction of the seminal Starfleet Captain.