Quentin Tarantino’s Star Trek Revealed As Hard R That Would’ve Been Astounding
While fans don’t always want to give credit where credit is due, the success of the current Star Trek renaissance can be traced very directly back to the reboot films that began with Star Trek (2009). That franchise now seems so dead that not even enhanced Tribble blood could bring it back to life.
But at one point, Quentin Tarantino was set to direct a fourth Star Trek film in this rebooted universe. As Collider reports, screenwriter Mark L. Smith said the film would have had a “hard R” rating and featured “some Pulp Fiction violence.”
Star Trek Never Violent
In other words, Quentin Tarantino’s Star Trek film was going to be just as hilariously over-the-top as his other famous movies.
This would have been shocking largely because the franchise has never been known for being overly violent. The Original Series pioneered a stun setting so heroes like Captain Kirk could incapacitate rather than kill.
Somewhat ironically, the Star Trek franchise seemingly got bloodier after Tarantino pulled out of directing a fourth film: Picard, for example, has a gruesome torture scene in which a former Voyager character has his eyeball violently removed, and he later dies onscreen from the pain.
Quentin Tarantino Cold Feet?
We know that at one point, Quentin Tarantino was keen to put his violently stylistic mark on this 23rd-century franchise. So why did his Star Trek film never happen?
To hear Mark L. Smith describe things, Tarantino eventually got cold feet because he began worrying about his Hollywood legacy. Smith claims the legendary director began worrying “that Star Trek could be my last movie, the last thing I ever do,” leading him to ask a simple question: “Is this how I want to end it?”
Based On The Original Series?
Sadly, Quentin Tarantino bowing out means we’ll never see what he could have done with these iconic characters, but that brings us to the next question: what would his Star Trek film have even been about?
Regarding this, Smith is very coy, claiming that “I can’t say anything about the story” because Tarantino “would kill me.”
However, there are earlier reports of what the director was hoping to do with this film, including which episode of The Original Series it was loosely based on.
Star Trek Gangster Setting
According to Deadline, the script Smith wrote for Quentin Tarantino’s Star Trek film is “based on an episode of the classic Star Trek series that takes place largely earthbound in a 30s gangster setting.”
Major fans of The Original Series will recognize this episode as “A Piece of the Action,” which was about a primitive planet that had been contaminated when a visiting starship accidentally left behind a book about Chicago mobs.
This eventually turned the entire planet into a recreation of 1920s Chicago. Kirk and Spock must go undercover in some snazzy period attire and work out a very unconventional solution to this very unexpected problem.
Not What Fans Thought
Such a setting would naturally lend itself to Quentin Tarantino’s particular brand of violence because the would-be mobsters are armed with replicas of Earth weaponry such as Tommy guns.
And longtime Star Trek fans have to give the director credit. Everyone assumed he would base his movie on “Patterns of Force,” an Original Series episode where a Federation cultural observer transforms a primitive planet into a recreation of Nazi Germany.
A Trek mobster movie was pretty much the last thing any of us expected him to focus on.
Surpises Up His Sleeve
It’s good to know that Tarantino has a few surprises up his sleeve, but now that he’s bowed out of directing a Star Trek movie, we hope he’ll answer our question.
What do they call a Plomeek soup with cheese in Paris?
