Jendresen hints at pre-United Earth movie?

I see from a heads up on Aus-Scifi.com that "SyFy Portal interviewed Erik Jendresen (Band of Brothers), writer of the 11th Star Trek film, who revealed new details about

"I can certainly say that the story concept, the basic idea of this thing, is pretty damn big," ... Jendresen confirmed that the movie would take place more than a century before Captain Kirk, but acknowledged that it would not be an Enterprise spinoff."We're going 160-odd years before Kirk is born. It's an earlier time, and I think it would be really refreshing to feel something in the course of telling this tale, instead of being wowed by special effects ... By the end of this story, everyone isn't fine," Jendresen added. "I can safely say as a storyteller with certain standards... my intention is literally as a writer, as a storyteller, as a filmmaker, to go boldly where no one has gone before."

"Aussie Trekkie" did his homework and worked out that, since Kirk was born in 2233 (Startrek.com) then 160 years before would be 2073. This pretty much matched the "reports circulated" hint on SciFiWire that I quoted a couple of months back, that puts the new movie in the era between First Contact and the creation of a United Earth.

Of course you had the inevitable "why go back? ... why not after Nemesis? A DSN movie? The Romulan War?" Ok, so I wouldn't mind seeing a Deep Space Nine movie or a take on the Romulan War - in fact I wouldn't mind seeing Archer and Enterprise in the Romulan War if they could get Manny Cato and his crew to write and produce it. Most couldn't see anything happening in Trek Canon around 2070. Well unless you exclude ...

• 2063--First warp flight and First ET Contact["ST: First Contact"]
• 2067--The Friendship One probe is launched from Earth. ["Friendship One"]
• 2067--The Terra Nova colonization expedition departs Earth. ["Terra Nova"]
• 2079--Earth is still going through the Post Nuclear Horror. ["Encounter at Farpoint"]
• 2103--Colonies on Mars declare their independence. ["The 37s"/"Court-Martial"]
• 2113--The New United Nations becomes the Terran world government. ["ST: First Contact"]

Fifty years from Anarchy to Utopia: someone should write a story about that. Oh, right, I already am. (~!^)

Whenever the movie is set, Jenderson seems to be committed to making it a story worth telling, something with grit and bite and, perhaps most revolutionary of all, without a happy ending for all. Could we dare to hope for some cutting edge Science Fiction? Something that has a bit more relevance to the modern world?