The Next Star Trek Movie Will Destroy The Franchise And Make You Hate It
Star Trek's plan to sprinkle sugary action schlock into a bowl of soggy nostalgia will ruin the franchise both in the future and the past.
Since Star Trek Beyond came out in 2016, there hasn’t been a new theatrical adventure for Star Trek. For a time, it seemed Chris Pine and crew would get a fourth cinematic outing, but now, Paramount is reportedly getting ready to focus on a Trek origin film that could start production as early as 2025. This prequel film is designed to lure in new fans to the franchise, but there’s just one problem: its reported focus on humanity’s early contact with aliens will undo the most important part of Trek’s mythology and could ultimately destroy Gene Roddenberry’s beloved fictional universe.
Paramount was once working on both this origin film and a sequel to Star Trek Beyond, and it was unclear which one would hit theaters first. Now, the Puck newsletter is reporting that the origin movie has a finished script and could get a studio greenlight by the end of the year, paving the way for production to begin in 2025. The movie will reportedly focus on the formation of the Federation and humanity’s early contact with alien life, but since this will effectively retcon Star Trek: First Contact and much of Star Trek: Enterprise, we’re convinced this film will drive more fans away than it brings in.
It’s obvious that Paramount wants this untitled origin film to bring in new fans to the franchise the same way that Star Trek (2009) did. Puck is reporting the movie will take place well before the U.S.S. Enterprise era, which would make it part of (as Variety previously reported) the main timeline rather than the separate Kelvinverse timeline. Not having to suss out which timeline is which will make the film friendlier to new audiences and showing the earliest days of the Federation might be enough to make older fans happy that we’re finally exploring this era.
However, there’s a hole in this plan big enough to drive a Borg cube through: this movie will reportedly focus on humanity’s early contact with aliens. That was already the plot of Star Trek: First Contact. After the Borg travel to the past, Captain Picard and crew follow them in order to preserve the timeline, ultimately ensuring that Zefram Cochrane’s successful warp flight catches the attention of the Vulcans. This plot continued in Enterprise, a show that began with the inaugural voyage of humanity’s greatest starship and ended with the formation of the Federation.
If the new Star Trek origin film is about humanity’s early contact with aliens, that means the franchise will be retconning First Contact altogether. And if it is about the early days of the Federation, the franchise will effectively be retconning Enterprise because, by the time the Federation was formed on that show, humanity had been palling around with aliens for 98 years. Simply put, the entire premise of this Star Trek origin movie won’t work unless the studio strikes the franchise’s best film and its best prequel series (sorry, Strange New Worlds) from the canon.
In our always humble opinion, this is a gamble destined to blow up in Paramount’s face and likely take the franchise with it. Creating a prequel Trek film with entirely new characters is a transparent attempt to bring newcomers to the franchise who don’t know their Kirk from their Picard, but that attempt won’t mean anything if it ends up driving established fans away. And make no mistake, Paramount showing Star Trek fans they’re willing to ditch decades of franchise canon for a soft reset origin movie will drive established fans away.
Certainly, the Star Trek origin movie has some major talent behind it: it will be directed by Toby Haynes, who has helmed episodes of the hit Star Wars series Andor and the Trek homage “USS Callister” episode of Black Mirror. But I fear Paramount hasn’t learned from the criticisms of Discovery and Picard and will simply sprinkle sugary action schlock into a bowl of soggy nostalgia. Considering that the nostalgia itself is worthless in a movie built on a canon graveyard, Star Trek may become just one more tired franchise that, like its fellow Paramount+ traveler NCIS, is just waiting for its chance to die.
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