Script Review For Pegg’s SciFi Comedy ‘Paul’ Reveals Star Trek Refs

Star Trek’s new Scotty Simon Pegg’s next project is the geek road picture/sci-fi comedy Paul. Pegg co-wrote the film and now the script has got a positive review, which also reveals some of the Star Trek references. See below for the latest details on what is sounding like a fun movie.

Paul is a sci-fi comedy starring Simon Pegg and Nick Frost as two sci-fi fans who come across an escaped alien (voiced by Seth Rogen) near Area 51 and try to help him find his way back home. Currently in production, Paul follows Clive and Graham (Pegg and Frost) as two comic book creators who decide to take a detour from attending the San Diego Comic-Con for a road trip to New Mexico to look for Area 51. Though they fail in that endeavor, they do find an alien named Paul (Rogen).  Paul ends up hitching a ride with the two in hopes of finding his way back home. Sigourney Weaver (who knows a thing or two about aliens) was just recently added to the cast but her role is currently unknown.

And now Bleeding Cool has got their hands on a draft of the screenplay and have reviewed it.  Overall they came away very impressed:

This script is chock full of gags, bursting at the seams. Comedy of repetition,  plenty of pull-back-and-reveals and overflowing pop cultural references including one Back To The Future gag that had me gasping for breath I laughed so hard. But these references aren’t surface, they are used to describe the relationships that the characters have with each other. Why use words to explain how you feel, when you can just find a common episode of Star Trek that does the job a lot more effectively. It’s honest, it’s true, yes it’s mocking but in a way that both validadates and celebrates both the actual reality and the often unrealised potential of the geek lifestyle. Damn it if the screenplay isn’t moving and poignant in places. But mostly it’s Simon Pegg and Nick Frost revisiting their past screen partnership performances, the friends who know each other so well, forgive the other’s eccentricities as their own are forgiven and would likely die for each other. As long as they were trying to Capture the Flag. No one does bromance like these boys. It’s not surprising that Paul is the character who seems, well, most normal most of the time.

The site also included the following script cut-out featuring a reference to Star Trek:

Paul will film at this year’s San Diego Comic-Con.  Keep it here at TrekMovie for further developments.

If you haven’t seen one of their many collaborations, here are Pegg and Frost in their last film, Hot Fuzz.