Simon Pegg explains why Alice Eve didn't return for Star Trek Beyond

The British actor played Lieutenant Carol Marcus in 2013 sequel Star Trek Into Darkness

The majority of people who have seen Star Trek Beyond would have you believe that the rebooted sci-fi franchise's third outing was better than its first sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness.

While the jury is still out on that point (this writer disagrees, at least), one clear omission from the latest adventure was Lieutenant Carol Marcus, the character played by Alice Eve in JJ Abrams' 2013 sequel.

The film's co-writer Simon Pegg - who also stars in the films at Scotty - has now explained to Collider why Eve wasn't asked back.

He said:

“With this it felt like we would under-serve her if we included her, she might end up feeling like she hadn’t been given the amount of screen-time she deserves, so rather than bring her in and just have her be a supporting role, like, have her not be in this one, and when the time comes [bring her back]. The worst thing to do would be to have her in the film and have that character be killed, and that felt like a cynical thing to do. We thought rather than have Carol Marcus not be used to a reasonable capacity, let’s just not include her, have her be alive, in canon, and ready to come back at any time.”

It seems as fair a reason as any, especially considering there have been a few films in the blockbuster season guilty of doing exactly what Pegg avoided.

A fourth Star Trek film was recently confirmed by producer Abrams; it is unknown whether Beyond's director Justin Lin will return but the film's cast - including Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana and Karl Urban - will all be boarding the Enterprise once again.

A TV series from Bryan Fuller is also on the way, the trailer hinting that it'll be an anthology centring on multiple sets of characters.