While Star Trek is perhaps more exciting than ever when it comes to the different TV shows currently available, it is boldly going nowhere when it comes to its movie franchise. Despite JJ Abrams finding a clever way to reboot the beloved characters from the original series in a way that allows them to forge their own path without breaking the rest of the cannon, movie fans didn’t seem too excited about the more action-oriented approach of the movies, even though I actually found them rather enjoyable.
And when the third movie, Star Trek Beyond ended up not been financially successful, the studio decided to return to the drawing board. Or by drawing board I mean more of a blank board filled with nothing but ideas that aren’t going anywhere, even a pretty cool sounding Quintin Tarantino idea. It was only recently that Paramount announced that Noah Hawley, creator of FX series Fargo, has been signed on to write and direct a new Star Trek movie.
But then came reports that the studio was rethinking their Star Trek movie franchise, prompting many to think that Hawley’s efforts had been cancelled. Speaking to Variety though, the filmmaker revealed that his movie, which already had a completed script and begun pre-production hiring, was just on hold.
But exactly what was this movie though? It wasn’t clear if Hawley planned to continue the story of Chris Pine’s young Capt. Kirk and the rest of his crew from the three current movies, do a fresh reboot, or something unexpected. Looks it’s door no. 3, as Hawley revealed that the plan was for a completely new cast, but the story they would embark on would have an “explicit link” to existing canon.
We’re not doing Kirk and we’re not doing Picard. It’s a start from scratch that then allows us to do what we did with Fargo, where for the first three hours you go, ‘Oh, it really has nothing to do with the movie,’ and then you find the money. So you reward the audience with a thing that they love.
For those of you haven’t seen the Fargo TV series, I guess this a bit of a spoiler, but the opening few hours of the award-winning show appeared to be completely unrelated to the Coens Brothers’ classic 1996 Oscar-winning movie of the same name. That is until much later when a TV series character finds a bag of money lying in snow at the side of a road, and it’s the same bag that Steve Buscemi’s character buried in the movie but then never came back to retrieve. It was a neat twist and I’m intrigued as to how something similar would play out in Star Trek. Also, which existing canon though? The original timeline of Star Trek movies and series which is continuing with Discovery, Picard, and Strange New World, or the newer Kelvin timeline that began with JJ Abrams’ reboot?
Either way, I like the idea that Hawley is not trying to repeat territory with familiar characters but rather using the experience to explore new stories in the vast Star Trek universe, which I think is definitely needed. Like Star Wars, Star Trek too often leverages the same group of characters we are familiar with when there are so many great stories that can be told with unique and different characters which I would rather spend the time learning about.
Hopefully, Paramount finds more success with this approach than they did with JJ Abrams that can see Star Trek become a long-running film series to go along with their many excellent TV series.
Last Updated: September 17, 2020
cloudzn
September 17, 2020 at 17:51
I agree, don’t focus on established characters. Do new and different crews. We don’t need another Discovery
Son of Banana Jim
September 17, 2020 at 19:44
Better yet, do what Next Generation did. Go into the future, and create a completely new series of Star Trek. Leave the past alone, and rather use what’s come before to frame and ground the future.
Insomnia is fun
September 17, 2020 at 21:31
But that’s too high risk. Take superheros for example. Use an established character, gender swap or reboot it but with woke themes because that’s the go to for Hollywood these days.
Son of Banana Jim
September 18, 2020 at 10:30
Yeah, it’s a combination of laziness and being so risk averse that they’ve buried themselves so far up their own behinds or hid so far in their echo chambers, that they believe that the vast majority of the normies out there want gender swapped reboots.
They’ve convinced themselves that the majority (that comprises of hard working family man Joe Bluecollar and his wife, Sally Crotchet-Bluecollar) shouldn’t be their target market but rather the minority of childless and child-like weirdos on Tumblr ( who all presumably smell of cabbage, kale, soy, defeat, regret and cheetos).