If you feel as if today's science fiction is full of remakes, retreads and just plain rip-offs of what's come before, there's a reason for that, according to Star Trek and Transformers co-writer Roberto Orci. And it's not laziness.

As part of a larger piece in Variety about the JJ Abrams-related army of creators taking over genre entertainment, Orci says:

Cinematically, this generational movement is kind of like hip-hop... Entertainment exploded when we were kids. We all became students of film and TV because we were so saturated with it. Now our (work) is kind of like hip-hop where we're sampling things we all know and love.

We're unconvinced that "sampling" really works as a musical metaphor for something like Star Trek, GI Joe or Transformers, mind you. Isn't that more like Goldfinger's cover of "99 Red Balloons"?

Abrams keeps it all in the fan family [Variety]

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