With the 50th anniversary of Trek coming upSept.

Why, Scotty, of course.

What emerged is… still a closely kept secret.

Kirk is having doubts about why he signed up with Starfleet in the first place.

In fact, he may want to bring about its utter destruction.

The idea of Pegg getting involved with writing the film was suggested to him by producer Bryan Burk.

We were just sort of talking over ideas about where the story could go.

And then Burk sort of sprung it on me…

I actually cant remember if it was on the set ofMission: ImpossibleorStar Wars.

I think it wasStar Wars, and he took me around the back.

[Laughs] Like up the alleyway where Christopher Reeve pulled open his shirt in the originalSuperman.

He said, So, do you want to write it?

I just sort of agreed, because saying no just seemed like the wrong thing to do.

It was a frightening blank page, Pegg admits.

Ive looked at many blank pages in my life, and that one was particularly daunting.

It was just a case of kind of writing theStar Trekmovie we wanted to write, he continues.

We had the whole canon and 50 years of history.

Doug came over to stay with me in the UK for a little while, Pegg says.

Our sort of daily routine would be to work about 12 hours… it was an intensive process.

We were really up against it, time-wise.

We were delivered a deadline schedule that was terrifying.

[Laughs] It was crazy.

[Simons] a fantastic guy to work with, says Jung.

Hes just a real creative person.

Hes just as smart and funny as you would imagine him to be.

I so distinctly remember being in his guest house, and we would be working all day.

Those were the most fun for me.

It was mostly out of recreation, but also wed take our notepads and jot down names and places.

We were always trying to work in Spocks musical instrument and stuff.

It didnt happen, but that was kind of a really fun way to end the day.

We wanted to challenge a bit the idea of this [Gene] Roddenberry universe, Jung says.

Pegg concurs with this sentiment about exploring the protagonists cultural morality.

Thats a whole other species.

And maybe, and Im sure certainly everyone involved would agree, slightly too early…

It was very well meaning and I really likedInto Darkness.

Im proud of it, and its something I would defend.

We wanted to confirm we didnt make that mistake again and be too sort of inside baseball.

Finding a villain is incredibly hard, offers Jung.

And we just wanted to infuse him with a lot of mystery.

I think hes going to surprise a lot of people.

The first two did lean so heavily on the sort of bromance between Kirk and Spock.

But it was just great fun to put them together with different characters.

But the writers wanted to see to it thatStar Trek Beyondwas a full ensemble piece.

A lot of them hadnt in the last two movies.

Like Chekov and Sulu.

So, I really came around to the idea.

A few people have said to me, Why did the Enterprise have to be destroyed again?

I was like, Yeah!

I was exactly the same!

I was asking the same thing of Justin.

It just felt like the right thing to do.

Its now only a matter of days until we know for sure.

Would Scotty be interested in building the engine (i.e.

writing the script) for that one?

Oh, I dont know if Ill be brought back as a writer, Pegg says.

Thats not even been discussed.

I hope we do make more.

Its such an enjoyable project whenever we do it.

Its a great team of people.

And as long as people want to see it, I hope we get to do it.

A version of this story appeared in Den of Geeks San Diego Comic-Con Special Edition magazine.

To read the full digital edition, click below.