The Star Trek movies might as well have crossed over with Lost In Space, because we haven’t heard from the U.S.S. Enterprise in years. The last big screen installment from Starfleet was Star Trek Beyond back in 2016. Since its release, we’ve heard about a few other follow-up movies bouncing around from Quentin Tarantino and Fargo’s Noah Hawley, but here’s the first serious development in a while. Yet another Star Trek project has been announced.
This time, Paramount and J.J. Abrams’ Bad Robot Productions has enlisted Star Trek: Discovery writer Kalinda Vazquez to write an “original” Star Trek movie, per Deadline. The television writer apparently pitched this idea herself, but it's unclear if this will feature Captain Kirk and his crew or a wholly new set of characters. Vazquez has been working in TV for over a decade on shows including Nikita, Runaways and Fear of the Walking Dead, and she will also develop George R.R. Martins’ new dragon HBO series, Roadmarks, as announced just last week.
One fun fact about Kalinda Vazquez that might pique the interest of Star Trek fans is that she was actually named after a character from The Original Series. In a 1968 episode of the series called “By Any Other Name,” there was a blonde alien seductress named Kelinda. A little detail such as this shows that Vazquez must have grown up as a Star Trek fan before becoming entangled in Discovery and now developing a Star Trek movie.
Though at this point, it’s a bit tough for us to be excited about Star Trek when the future has been so murky for the franchise in the past few years. Following Star Trek Beyond, we had heard of a fourth film being written by S. J. Clarkson would see Chris Pine’s Kirk be reunited with his late father, George Kirk, as played by Chris Hemsworth, for a time travel adventure. Then, the actors reportedly dropped out of the project due to issues with contract negotiations.
In addition to the botched Star Trek 4, in 2019, we heard that Fargo and Legion creator Noah Hawley had his own concept to bring to the table for the franchise along with Quentin Tarantino, who entertained the idea of making an R-rated Star Trek based on a script by The Revenant‘s Mark L. Smith. It’s still unclear whether those scripts could still see the light of day, but it should be noted that Paramount recently saw a changing of the guards, with Emma Watts being named the new film chief at the studio last summer.
Kalinda Vazquez’s Star Trek movie could very well carry in an entirely new era for the franchise on the big screen, rather than continue where the studio left off years ago. What would you like to see from the universe? A new concept or a continued voyage for Captain Kirk, Spock and the rest of the crew? Vote in our poll below.
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