Zoe Saldana admits she enjoyed working on Star Trek, but feels she got left out on the action. She told Cinematical that the sequel will be a different experience for Uhura.
In Star Trek, I had so much fun, but the boys got all the action! J.J. [Abrams] promised me that I'm going to — [that] in the sequel, she will have at least one little fight. I mean, just [let me] kick a guy in the groin or something!
Few details are known about the sequel, but fighting will likely be involved. The LA Times spoke with Abrams and Trek screenwriter Roberto Orci, who says that while he and co-screenwriter Alex Kurtzman are still working out the final story, one clear theme will need to be addressed in the sequel:
We haven't decided anything but we're starting to circle around some ideas. We got a lot of fan response from the first one and a considerable amount of critical response and one of the things we heard was, "Make sure the next one deals with modern-day issues." We're trying to keep it as up-to-date and as reflective of what's going on today as possible. So that's one thing, to make it reflect the things that we are all dealing with today.
So that means ... a bad intergalactic economy? War? Terrorism? Not too far off, actually.
Well yeah, those are the kind of issues we're talking about.
Abrams doesn't think that the movie will be specifically about society's current issues, but will be contemporary.
The ambition for a sequel to Star Trek is to make a movie that's worthy of the audience and not just another movie, you know, just a second movie that feels tacked on. The first movie was so concerned with just setting up the characters — their meeting each and galvanizing that family — that in many ways a sequel will have a very different mission. It needs to do what [the late Trek creator Gene] Roddenberry did so well, which is allegory. It needs to tell a story that has connection to what is familiar and what is relevant. It also needs to tell it in a spectacular way that hides the machinery and in a primarily entertaining and hopefully moving story. There needs to be relevance, yes, and that doesn't mean it should be pretentious. If there are simple truths — truths connected to what we live — that elevates any story — that's true with any story.
As long as Saldana gets to kick someone where it hurts.