Star Trek

ST 2,3 and 4, all take place back to back to back. It's a trilogy. I wonder if the producers had thought it would be that way. And 2 and 3 were dark as Hell.... Spock dies, Kirk's son dies, the original Enterprise is destroyed...

I woner if they are doing a similar theme now with the new timeline movies. ST 2009 was pretty dark. And gee, the new movie is called "Star Trek into Darkness". ANd all the previews look dark as Hell. Thoughts?

I don't think it was intended. I think when they shot TWoK they still didn't know if Nimoy was really done with the franchise, so they had Spock die but ended the movie with a question mark, just in case. Linking the 3 films seems to have sort of happened. I don't know. Maybe someone else has info on it.

No, ST 2, 3, and 4 were not originally intended to be a trilogy, according to producer/writer Harve Bennett.  He thought it was neat that it worked out that way, but, unlike the SW trilogy, where at least an outline existed and/or a trilogy was intended, there was no intent at the time of TWOK for that to be the beginning of a trilogy at all.  If I have time, I'll see if I can post the references to interviews that pertain to this subject.

It is very fortunate that "The Trilogy"
worked out as it did, because I do not
believe that an "episodic" film series was
a viable option for the aging TOS cast.
A story arc was about all they could do
that would've worked, really. And I would
include FINAL FRONTIER in that arc, as well.

It wasn't really a trilogy since Star Trek V picked up where Star Trek IV left off. The crew got the Enterprise A at the very end of ST:IV, And then near the beginning of ST:V Scotty said they just got the Enterprise A shortly before that, and it was his job to fix everything that didn't work.

it just worked out that way