Star Trek boss Kurtzman on the future of the franchise: “Let’s show people a future that’s better”

"Ephraim and Dot" -- Coverage of the CBS All Access series STAR TREK: SHORT TREKS. Photo Cr: Best Possible Screengrab/CBS ©2019 CBS Interactive, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Star Trek boss Alex Kurtzman continues to make the interview rounds as part of CBS All Access’ Emmys FYC (For Your Consideration) pitch. Deadline published an interview with the executive producer, in which the conversation focused on Star Trek: Short Treks, as it has in the last few interviews he’s done.

Star Trek: Short Treks has been nominated for the Emmy award for Outstanding Short Form Comedy or Drama series. It’s a first for the franchise, and one that Kurtzman seems to see as validation of what he’s been trying to do with Trek for the past several years. “I think the mission is to make the world better,” Kurtzman said. “Roddenberry’s vision of this was, ‘I’m going to create something that can show us the best of who we are, and can act as a compass that we can follow toward a future that’s better than the one we’re living in now. [...] So that’s the mission, right? Let’s show people a future that’s better.”

Kurtzman pointed to Pixar as a particular inspiration for the work he’s done on Short Treks. “I really am astounded by the work that Pixar has been able to do, really across the board, but their shorts are so powerful, and I always marvel at the fact that they can make you feel so much in so little time.” Kurtzman also revealed in the interview that some of the credit for the action of the animated Short Treks came from a somewhat unlikely place: composer Michael Giacchino.

Giacchino is best known as an Oscar-winning composer, having created the memorable music for a number of treasured films, including Up (for which he won the Oscar in 2009), The Incredibles, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story, and of course, J.J. Abrams’ Kelvin Timeline Star Trek films. Kurtzman has worked off and on with Giacchino since the series Alias, and Kurtzman said he drew on Giacchino’s experience in animation to help come up with the idea for the Short Treks episode “Ephraim and Dot”, which Giacchino directed. Kurtzman said of working with Giacchino, “He is one of my favorite composers on the planet, and he has such an extraordinary background in animation [...] But what’s so great about Michael is that he has such an intuitive sense of where the emotion lies, and where it lies rhythmically, as it relates to music.”

Kurtzman went on to talk more in depth about the production that goes into creating a Short Treks episode, as well as some hints about upcoming series, like Star Trek: Prodigy. About the several shows coming up in the future, he said, “The idea for us is that it isn’t just about expansion for the sake of expansion. It’s actually about exploring different corners of the universe [...] the idea being that each show should have its own unique identity, and you should not be thinking that you can get from one show, what you can get in another.”

To read the whole (lengthy) interview for yourself, just head over to Deadline.com.