Simon Pegg both co-wrote Star Trek Beyond with Doug Jung and plays Scotty, so he was on Late Night With Seth Meyers to promote the film’s opening this Friday. It’s the thirteenth Star Trek movie, so Meyers decided to play the clip of Pegg saying all odd-numbered Star Treks are “sh*t” on Spaced over fifteen years ago. Listen, all y’all; that’s a sabotage.
Pegg joked about wishing he could go back in time to tell himself his future, which is totally something a writer on the Kelvin Timeline Star Trek movies would do. He then went on to talk about the very rushed scripting process, throwing out a previous script and writing his own starting in January of last year for a movie that would film in June. That led to some tense moments with the props department, who needed to build sets well in advance. (“When you’re writing a $200 million film — you know what that’s like,” Pegg joked.)
He also retold the story about the resourceful alien Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) being based on “Jennifer Lawrence in Winter’s Bone“ which was shortened to “Jaylah” for convenience. Which makes a lot more sense upon hearing how hurriedly they needed to replace the script when new director Justin Lin signed on.
As awkward as Simon Pegg writing an odd-numbered Star Trek may seem, it’s still not as awkward as it would be if Disney ever asks him to script a Jar Jar Binks spin-off.
