How Will ‘Star Trek 4’ Handle The Absence of Chekov?

The news of the accidental death of Chekov actor Anton Yelchin at the young age of 27 was a shock to his family, friends, castmates, and fans. Yelchin can never be truly replaced, but as progress is being made on the fourth Star Trek movie set in the Kelvin timeline, we thought we’d discuss what’s next for Chekov and the navigator’s station on the bridge of the newly launched USS Enterprise-A.

The USS Enterprise-A from the end of Star Trek Beyond

Shooting Star Trek 4 without Anton will be hard for the cast

Yelchin’s fellow castmembers have often expressed how deeply his passing impacted them, especially as they were tasked to promote Star Trek Beyond so soon after. And even more recently, as the word got around about new interest in the Trek film franchise, Yelchin’s castmates said they’ll have a hard time shooting the next movie without him.

In late 2017, Karl Urban told ScreenCrush:

I think it [Star Trek Beyond] was a good note to end it on. And certainly, it wouldn’t be the same without Anton [Yelchin], so that would be bittersweet.

More recently, in April, Simon Pegg said to The Quietus:

I know we’re doing more. I’d love to – I love those guys. It’s, of course, difficult because we lost Anton [Yelchin] and moving forward without him still feels unimaginable.

Anton Yelchin and John Cho goof around on the set of Star Trek Beyond

Chekov won’t be recast, so what happens to him?

Producer J.J. Abrams made sure to address the burning issue on fans’ minds. Speaking to the Toronto Sun in July 2016, he confirmed that the role of Chekov would not be recast:

I would say there’s no replacing him. There’s no recasting. I can’t possibly imagine that, and I think Anton deserves better.

However, when asked if Chekov would be killed off, Abrams was more vague:

I have thought about it, we’re working on it, and it’s too early to talk about it.

It seems in poor taste to kill off Chekov the character, as there are a number of ways to gracefully write him out of the current adventures. For example, why not say he transferred to the USS Reliant? It’s a bit of fan service, and handles the issue nicely, fitting in with a history we’re already familiar with.

Chekov was transferred once before, this time it could be off the ship.

An ensemble of six?

The loss of Yelchin and his enthusiastic take on Chekov as a young, eager officer leaves a hole in the cast. He was a proxy for young audience members, while the rest of cast are approaching 40 (or older). It could certainly behoove Paramount to get a younger character back into the ensemble. This character could take Chekov’s navigator station on the bridge, or possibly have some other role on the ship.

On the other hand, as much as we love the idea of a large ensemble cast, it gets harder to give screen time to everyone as the cast grows. There’s also the very real issue of money–we’d tend to expect that the next movie will be more conscious of the budget, so one less main character could help the bottom line.

The seven main cast members on the set of Star Trek (2009)

What about Jaylah?

If it is decided the main crew works best as an ensemble cast of seven, one possible choice would be to bring back the character of Jaylah who was a breakout character in Beyond, a lot of fans want to see more of her. Actress Sofia Boutella seems like she might be available, and in 2016, she told USA Today that she’d be “…excited to be a part of it again,” even though it hadn’t come up as an option at that time she said “I’m ready to jump on the next plane, no problem.” Storywise, Jaylah would be fresh out of Starfleet Academy and ready to go. Jaylah could be assigned to Chekov’s old position of navigator, or possibly a different role.

Sofia Boutella as Jaylah in Star Trek Beyond

The Enterprise-A still needs a navigator

If a new main character isn’t introduced as the new navigator, the ship still needs a navigator, even if they have limited or even no dialogue. They could possibly just have a background character fill the role, perhaps named for one of the commonly seen background characters from TOS such as DeSalle, Hadley, or Leslie. They could of course also create a new character, but there are a few reasonable possibilities for new navigators from the Kelvin movies and classic Star Trek. We have pulled together a few suggestions.

Original Kelvin timeline characters

Darwin – Lieutenant Darwin took over the navigator’s station for Chekov during the events of Into Darkness, when he was reassigned to engineering. She didn’t get to say much in her first appearance, and it would be nice bit of continuity to give actress Aisha Hinds some more screen time.

0718 – Transferring Science Officer 0718 to navigation is another possibility. This unique cybernetically-enhanced character from Into Darkness would certainly make for an interesting navigator, since according to behind-the-scenes information, they intended him to have a link to the Enterprise computer with his augmentations. Actor Joseph Gatt told fans that 0718 was written into the script for the initial idea for a third movie (by “Star Trek 4” scribes McKay and Payne) that was later scrapped, so maybe they’ll include him in the fourth movie.

Kevin the Teenaxi – “Kevin” (his real name is unpronounceable for humans) was one of the two Teenaxi beamed up while Captain Kirk was under attack at the beginning of Star Trek Beyond. He appears at the end of the movie in a blue civilian shirt during Kirk’s birthday celebration. Behind-the-scenes, while shooting the birthday celebration, they used a physical model of Kevin in a blue sciences uniform, which was then replaced with the CGI character in post production. So there’s a non-canonical hint that Kevin apparently joined Starfleet in some capacity. This idea was picked up in the IDW comic series Boldly Go, where they gave Kevin his own issue, in it he works along side the crew (while still not wearing pants) to get the new Enterprise-A ready to launch. He’s of course a CGI character, so there’s a concern about budget if they pick him.

Classic characters

Arex – A number of fans have expressed their interest in seeing The Animated Series three armed and legged alien navigator Lieutenant Arex brought to life with modern cinema techniques. He would be pretty expensive. While a similar alien named Alnschloss K’Bentayr was seen on the USS Kelvin, Alnschloss was on screen for no more than 10 minutes, so springing for an entire movie’s worth of Arex as navigator is likely out due to budget.

Dave Bailey – The newly promoted Lieutenant from “The Corbomite Maneuver” is one of the first navigators we meet in TOS, and over the years he’s caught the interest of a number of authors in the non-canon expanded universe books and comic books. He was also featured quite a bit in the funky Star Trek UK weekly comic strip.

Kevin Riley – “Have no fear, O’Riley’s here!” This early TOS reoccurring character is a fan favorite and would be a fun addition to the Kelvin-verse Enterprise crew.

Who will the new navigator be?

What do you say?

How do you think Star Trek 4 should deal with the absence of Chekov? Do you think the movie needs a new character to replace him? Who would you chose to be the new navigator? Sound off in the comments below.


Stay glued to TrekMovie.com for all news, whispers and more about the future of Star Trek movies. You can keep tabs on all updates on the next movie via our Star Trek 4 category.

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What about Saavik? The original canon never gives her age, so she could easily fit into the Kelvin timeline.

I was about to say the same…bring in Saavik

That’s a good idea.

But since everyone in the Kelvinverse seems to have been born roughly around the same time as everyone in the prime universe, Saavik couldn’t be more than a child (in-universe, Vulcans appear to age at the same rate as humans until a certain point and Saavik was obviously in her early twenties in TWOK, which takes place well over a decade after the five-year mission), if she has even been born at all. Remember that Vulcan is gone in the Kelvinverse and the Vulcan population has been utterly decimated in that timeline.
[Edit: Oh, I only just realised that Kirstie Alley was already over 30 when she played Saavik. Nevertheless, the character’s age must be far below that, since she’s a cadet in TWOK… who’s also a commissioned Lt. JG… I never got that, to be honest]

actually…in the official cannon, Saavik is meant to be a half Romulan from when Spock and kick 1st met the Romulan cloak ship episode..the story time line is that Spock investigates and finds out the Romulans have been kidnapping Vulcans and NOT releasing prisoners who eventualy settle on a small colony/prisoner world and some marry and have children with Romulan guards, Spock finds out the Vulcan gov has known this and done nothing and he leads a covert rescue operation to bring them ‘home’, Saavik is one of these children who returns with Spock…in the Into Darkness movie they imply they know the Romulans and Vulcans are related, in the last movie they reference a Romulan war..so they could bring in a Saavik character

Remember that T’Pol was 60-65 years old during Enterprise yet appeared to be in her mid 30s, signifying that Vulcan females look relatively young for their age. Saavik could have easily been in her 30s-40s and simply entered Starfleet Academy later than usual.

Hmm, yeah. Argh, my head! I guess canon states that Vulcans are aging at plot-speed…
Or maybe they have really capable plastic surgeons on Vulcan.

The same way TNG movies handled Worf being back on the Enterprise…

“Oh Chekov’s away on… (inaudible)”

” Commander Chekov has been re-assigned to the Uss Reliant. We will miss him dearly but we are happy to welcome Ensign Jaylah to the helm. “

I like it. Jaylah for navigator!!

I agree, Jaylah for navigator !!!

I kinda thought that Jaylah would be more into engineering than navagation, I do want her to return, but not that way.

Jaylah makes the most sense. Otherwise Riley or Arex.

Any Chekov replacement should be as bold as having a Russian character was at the height of the Cold War. I think the best option would be a Muslim character (Arab, Indonesian, whatever). It expresses the same hope for a future of cooperation among all people of Earth that Chekov’s presence did in the 60s.

That’s a fabulous idea, truly Trekkian!

But wasn’t the original “Trekkian” idea that people of Earth moved past religions, leaving it behind, as one would leave behind old clothes that grew too small to wear? I mean, the ultimate “hope for a future of cooperation” is exactly that there are NO muslims (or buddhists, or zarathustrians or mormons or anabaptists or amishes) anymore. Because we grew out of our old stuff and left it behind, as mature people are supposed to.

Also, a huge part of Chekov’s charm was that the character was a stereotype personified, used to poke good-hearted fun at Russians. Last time someone tried to poke fun at muslims like that, embassies were burning.

And personally, I don’t see much hope for cooperation with people who can’t understand that you are supposed to _undress_ before entering a swimming pool. ;)
(See, that was the kind of humor they did with Chekov back in the 60s. Do you think that would be viable, or even acceptable, in the current political climate? No, of course not: the writers would be too scared to pull anything like that. Ultimately, we would end up with a deadly serious character whose only noticeable trait would be that he/she has to stop working five times a day in order to wash their feet and curl up on the floor while facing in a particular direction. And strictly speaking, you don’t have to rely on Star Trek to see that, either: simply book a trip to Paris and watch it live.)

Religion can mean all sorts of things to different people. It will always be part of humanity. Good and bad.
Spock had a religion.

No. We have seen Trek characters such as Picard celebrate Christian holidays (Christmas) and references to Easter.

So religion has not entirely disappeared, although it is likely the secular values of Europe went global.

Actually, the idea of “modesty” was around long before Islam. Ergo, you could have a Bedouin or Arab crewmember who is “non-religious”, but is sensitive to his or her cultural heritage.

Good idea.

Agreed.

Cool idea

That would be an awesome idea. They don’t even need to be Muslim specifically but even a humanoid alien (such as Bajoran for example) that had a strong religious belief that initially seemed at odds with the more secular outlook of the other crew members.

Kal Penn. Think about it.

Do you *really* want to risk putting Kal Penn and John Cho on the bridge together?
“Mr. Kumar, set course for the planet code-named ‘White Castle’.”
Besides, Penn is a bit long in the tooth to play a noob.

Do they have White Castles on Starbases?

That’s more in the spirit of Worf than Chekov.

Well, yeah. You don’t even need to go the explicitely religous route there. A character with a distinctly Arabian name would be one idea (of course, we already had Bashir on DS9, but to be honest, Siddig El Fadil and the character he portrayed never struck me as anything other than English…) or why not go for broke and introduce a character with a Persian name?

“why not go for broke and introduce a character with a Persian name?”

I would be in favor of the producers’ casting as Persians.

Perfect suggestion

YES. Great idea. Perfect.

There haven’t been any Christians represented in any of the Star Trek series, as far as I can remember. As much as Star Trek loves the debate about science vs faith, wouldn’t this be also a great narrative? As of 2010, Christianity was by far the world’s largest religion, with an estimated 2.2 billion adherents, nearly a third (31 percent) of all 6.9 billion people on Earth,” the Pew report says. “Islam was second, with 1.6 billion adherents, or 23 percent of the global population.” But sure, Muslim or transgender or whatever.

The TOS character of Angela Martine was presumably Catholic. And even though it was never explicitely stated, the character of McCoy always struck me as rather obviouly Christian (as indicated by his outrage over the Genesis device, his stance towards the “God”-alien in TFF and just his general… “southern-ness”)

But anyway, if I read David’s comment correctly, it wasn’t about representing any one specific religious group, but rather about depicting ideologies that are currently conflicting, but wouldn’t be in an utopian future.

@Brandon Home — I trust you mean as regular crew members? Certainly there was a whole planet of Christians explicitly represented in Bread and Circuses.

Whaaaaaat? Star Trek’s entire ethos is about humankind bettering itself and moving away from misogynistic superstitions. I can’t think of the worst representation of that then a devout Muslim… what an absolutely clueless sheltered and privileged life you must live. I wish I lived on your unicorn cloud but coming from a middle eastern family myself – I watch Star Trek to get away from the nonsense of 2018! although discovery thought they were being very clever by putting a headscarf on one of their crew members… it just makes me cringe.

although discovery thought they were being very clever by putting a headscarf on one of their crew members

Huh? When? Where? – The only headscarves seen in the series that I can think of, would be those worn by Burnham and Georgiou in the pilot when they’re on the desert planet.

People seem to be forgetting Kirk’s line from Who Mourns for Adonis to Apollo:

“We don’t need gods. We find the One sufficient.”

Klingons have religion.
Bajorans have religion.
Vulcans have religion.
The Dominion has religion.

Why must there be a rule that humans can’t have it when obviously so many in the rest of the fictional galaxy does?!

I appreciate your response.

Sadly in this modern world many people view religion as a superstitious thing. The bible teaches us to love one another, to turn the other cheek, and tolerance.

The real problem is that religion and the bible are two different things. If you put faith in the bible but fail to live by it, then you have no faith.

Many people claim to be Christians yet they ignore bible teachings. They pray the “our father”, where they say “let thy kingdom come.”

So many pray for this government that God has established, which will eventually bring all other governments to an end, yet those same Christians also promote nationalism and encourage people to fight for America. The bible tells us to beat our swords into plow shears and also not make war anymore.

Yet priests bless troops on both sides of conflicts. I can kind of understand the atheism. Because nothing seems to make any sense…so few practice what they preach or claim to beleive.

Also, Kirk is reminded of a previous encounter with a female crew member at the “science lab Christmas party” in the TOS episode, “Dagger of the Mind.”

@Ron Obvious — Christmas has already been secularized around the world. It’s not hard to imagine a world 300 years into the future where the wonderful traditions and trappings of the holiday are dissociated with the Christian religion that conscripted it in the first place from the Pagan holiday otherwise celebrated on December 25th.

@TokyoGaijin — the beauty of lines like that is, Kirk could have been referring to the idea of individuals being their own god, or Egotheism. “We find the one sufficient”, i.e. ‘ourselves’. Regardless of interpretation, it by no means suggests that the “one” god is the Judaeo/Christian God.

Gene Roddenberry was NOT a fan of religions at all. In his Trek World there was no place for human religions.

and OF COURSE Chekov went to the Reliant! Seems like a no-brainer without distastefully killing the character.

My thought exactly.

It can be pointed out that Chekov was the latest crew member to part of the Enterprise. The Navigator role was played by various people until he came around.

@Todd — I vote for a Medusan as navigator. Just have a box sitting on the chair.

Considering how off Trek was with the advent of AI, it’s time to welcome Watson aboard….

Re: AI

Watson’s too busy trying to get a date with the amazingly fluent and versatile UNIVERSAL TRANSLATOR.

The ship’s computer interfaces the way that it does likely because of a conscious choice not to run its I/O thru the UT.

Forget the M5, in the 1st series’ TOMORROW IS YESTERDAY the E’s computer hardware is shown to be more than capable of running a fluent sensual AI with feelings that can be hurt that embarrasses Kirk giving the USAF pilot a tour. Also, in RETURN TO TOMORROW and WOLF IN THE FOLD, the Enterprise’s computer hardware is also shown to be likewise capable of containing and sustaining complex lifeborn personalities of beings far in advance of its human creators.

What’s more mysterious is why the misogynist, Pike, agreed to give it a female voice – let alone one based on his Number One, although he did note she was the one exception to his bridge decree? And why did he and his science officer decide that that stilted delivery was ideal for efficiency?

The 1st series does reveal a healthy mistrust of AIs but that’s something that could still come to pass — eventually the death tolls both accidental and intentional [warfare] will reach some number that the bloom will fall from the current AI rose; but for the nonce, AIs have a ways to go to catch up to humans responsible for the deaths of others.

M-5. Just don’t try to unplug him.

Classic, nice one there, Cadet.

Can’t believe you left out M’Ress from the Animated Series and she would be easier to do than Arex.

We’d probably end up with a #metoo story involving a certain starship captain who has a taste for aliens…

Jonathan,

Re: …she would be easier to do…

Since Pine’s Kirk has already been depicted as bedding two of her species on screen, one would think so.

The emotional part of my brain wants Ares or M’ress from the animated series as navigator but the logical part of my brain says bring back Jaylah.

My guess is they’ll have Jaylah at the helm.

And that would be fine too. Plus she could go fill in for Scotty if he has to go to the Vengeance

I think there was a glimpse of Arex, on Star Trek New Voyages, 4xV4, Going Boldly, whixh I assume was the work of Tobias Richter?

Why not have this timeline have Chekov having a sister? It would be a great way to keep a Chekov on the Enterprise while brother is out making a name for himself on the Reliant.

Because Sulu said Chekhov was an only child in the hippie episode.

What abou the Deltan Ilia from the first Star Trek movie?

Yup. She’s my vote.

Well, I’d imagine she be a bit young at that point. Considering that the main character attribute that sprang forth from the frisky mind of Roddenberry was her raging pheromones that left a trail of horniness in her wake, that has potential to be really creepy. Maybe in QT’s movie….

Priyanka Chopra as Ilia.

Darwin.
Jaylah should be in Engineering with Montgomery Scotty!

Agreed!

Want to explain where Chekov is? Easy:

Bones: If we’re all here, where’s Chekov?
Kirk: Commander Chekov….On assignment.

I’ve long thought that it wouldn’t be the worst thing to have Chekov die, but that it could perhaps serve as the thrust of the story. Maybe Chekov dies or disappears and Kirk makes it his mission to find out what happened to him.

Why not Gary Mitchell?

@DeBeckster — this gets my vote. Unfortunately it doesn’t address the need for diversity so badly needed in TOS-era Trek. Unless we make Mitchell another race. I’d be down for that. There’s nothing in canon that identifies him as a particular race, or species for that matter. But I’d prefer adding another woman to the core crew. Since this Trek is supposed to take place in the “Kelvin Universe”, how about Gayle Mitchell? Maybe even make her Kirk’s ex girlfriend from his cadet years, as Ilia was Decker’s? That could make for some interesting storylines …

All valid suggestions. Or maybe Benedict Cumberbatch is free….

PLEASE another woman on the cast. It can’t just be Uhura.

Seeing Gary Mitchell in this timeline would be cool. If they had chosen that story line vs. Khan, we would have had a better movie than Into Darkness…

Yup, oh what could have been.

Jaylah would be awesome!

I agree. Jaylah would be awesome!

Jaylah would be great. More loud beats and shouting. :)

Cupcake

Nah, he’s in security.

Chekhov is promoted and assigned to the Reliant. Done.

Make it so!

Arex would be my top choice, but if the budget isn’t there to pull him off successfully then I would be happy with Riley.

Split the role between Lt. Arex & Lt. M’Ress from the animated series.

I say just don’t replace him in any noticable way. Just have the postion be filled by a one liner extra (preferably female to balance the crew more) when needed. TOS did fine without Chekov in season one and also in TAS. Something the movies suffer from is trying to give everyone something to do.

As for what explanation to give, in STID Chekov is made chief engineer while Scotty is away. Since nu!Chekov is a boy genius, I think it makes sense that by after 3 films worth of time he has been transfered to a perminant chief of engineer position elsewhere. Killing him off in anyway would be bad taste.

Having rewatched Beyond last night, in the final crew gathering party, Chekov is shown chatting up an alien which I think Justin Lin says in the commentary was Anton’s idea. Why not have Chekov leave Starfleet to raise a family? They can have Kirk writing a letter of congratulations or have a photo of Anton and the alien happily married together in the background of a scene. Or use the marriage combined with being promoted to chief engineer elsewhere.

To clarfiy on my “giving everyone something to do” point, I meant that sometimes it feels like scenes were written to have a character do something because they have to use everyone and not to forward the plot. Having less characters in the main team will mean less characters awkwardly standing around on the bridge while conversations are happening around them.

Also, I believe the production team mentioned upon Anton’s death that they had no plans to recast Chekov.

I would love to see Jaylah return but I get the distinct impression that having made her the central focus of film 3, they would feel that they couldn’t just make her generic navigation officer with not much to do in the 4th. I disagree and think it would be cool to have that kind of prolonged introduction for a character that then doesn’t do much more than say “thrusters at maximum!”. The actress hasn’t really gone onto the massive success that was at one time expected (due to the flop of The Mummy) so I can’t imagine she’d turn down the paycheck either.

He’s been transferred to the Reliant.

With Kevin Riley being the most popular of the known possibilities, I would say his character would fit in very nicely.

Way over thinking this – crew have transferred on and off ships since men first took to the seas. Even with Chekov on screen, Enterprise had plenty of navigators. We just didn’t see them. Transfer him off, shore duty, shore leave, there’s no compelling reason at all to have to explain his (or anyones) presence, or lack of it. If they reconsider and recast the character, that’s not horrible, either.

Creatively, why would an ensemble cast be chiseled in stone? The original series was, first and foremost, about Kirk and Spock. Sulu, Chekov, Uhura, and Scotty were supporting cast. If the next movie wasn’t an ensemble cast, and well made, the world doesn’t come to an end, and it doesn’t dishonor Yelchin’s memory.

Lieutenant Ilia

Done and done.

Hey, now THAT is a good suggestion. We didn’t explore much of the character in TMP, although the novelization went into great detail about the sexual prowess of the race, the Deltans. A movie treatment of the character and the race could be interesting. I’d cast another Indian in the role to continue the exotic look set by the late Persis Khambatta. If its a Tarantino R-rated Trek.. imagine the possibilities of this character in this timeline. Hmmm.

@JoeTrekFan — yes that makes a lot of sense. Probably the best option of many good ones. Also, casting an Indian continues a trend established by Lt. Rahda in “That Which Survives”. That said Jaylah also fills that bill nicely as a new original, and truly alien character.

I would say that Jaylah as a full-fledged replacement character seems to be the only viable option. As far as I know, the character was very well-received, too. That bit of “Leloo-ness” sure struck a chord with many audience members [Edit: Okay, reading through the comments here it’s quite clear that pretty much everyone LOVED Jaylah]. I for one would love to see a bit of storytime dedicated to her.

Navigator Jaylah. Maybe she and Chekov were close when he died. I don’t know if transferring him to the Reliant honors Anton’s memory. Vulcan was destroyed, Amanda, Admiral Pike and Ambassador Spock died, no established character is entirely safe in the Kelvinverse. Maybe an Arex cameo to underscore Chekov’s absence.

How about Jaylah and a cameo from Arex.

Chase I was thinking the Same thing What about Saavik But Also they can have a New Character in the Movie as well or even Kirk’s Nephew can be the new Navigator

A No-Brainer Jaylah

While I’d prefer a woman, I wouldn’t want Jaylah as navigator. She’d obviously be better suited as an engineer.

I’d love to see Kevin Riley as long as his personality comes across, rather than just filling a seat with a familiar name. Mitchell would make a lot of sense too.

I’d be happy with Mitchell, Riley, or Saavik, although Saavik might be a little young at this point in the timeline?

If it’s Kevin Riley, I want a musical number!

…one…more…time… ;)

Kevin O’Riley!! The Original Series should have used more of him— cast a very young actor for the role. If not him, then a non-white character, or a woman– but she/he should be young! The character should be 20 to 22 years old, approx. Chekov’s age in “Beyond.”. — Keith G. Knight, Star Trek fan since 1966 (3rd grade?)

I understand about Chekov, but the idea of saying that he transfer himself to the Reliant sound great. But please put Jayla and Kevin. I love the idea of Kevin and Jayla part of the crew.

Or, the suggestion of Cadet/ just graduated Jaylah, or Lt. Gary Mitchell (but never do the 2nd pilot story).

Or do it differently, perhaps…well?

Unlike bringing in the character of Carol Marcus only to do an ill-conceived Wrath of Khan rehash… ugh..

I like the Jaylah senario where she becomes the new pilot since she is a strong presence and funny at times…

While Ilia makes the most sense, it could be anyone. Leslie had the most screen time other than the big three. I disagree that Trek is needs an “ensemble of seven”. It was about Kirk, Spock and McCoy. The others are secondary charters. The scripts had good agents to make them more important in the movies. The Kelvin timeline has pushed McCoy in favor of a Spock- Uhura relationship, and I’m ok with that. Just move the story on.

Use the original chekov as a cameio and claim a accident with transporter or something and let him retire

I vote for Jaylah. She was great! And there needs to be more than one female character either way, so why not her? Another guy is not a good option. And she is an alien and the Enterprise could use some more in the crew.

It makes sense and id love it

How about Pike’s navigator, Jose Tyler?

Adding a hispanic character would also keep the classic Trek diversity juices flowing.

You think about how many Hispanics there are in America and you think about how Hispanic culture has integrated into American culture you seriously wonder why in the heck there has never been Hispanic star trek character! They were going to in the 1980’s but didn’t. Why not recycle a concept from the 1980’s that it is absurd that is hasn’t yet. And I’m not even Hispanic. A British or Australian or a Kiwi character would be cool.

Belanna Torres is chopped liver? (To say nothing of Erika Hernandez, who was basically a semi regular in Season 4.)

@Drew — excellent suggestion. I never bought Jose was Hispanic in the first place, but they could definitely emphasize it. I suspect that had more to do with the network opposition to a minority depicted on screen in any major role.

Has any one even asked walter koenig

To portray an 82-year-old navigator?

Well it could work. I’ve said it elsewhere but my idea to close Chekov’s arc would be to open the movie in the middle of the TOS episode ‘The Deadly Years’ but have him not be responsive to the treatment.

Asked him what?

I like the idea I’ve seen going around of filling his seat with a character in the spirit of putting a Russian on the bridge in 1967: someone who represents a culture we in America today very often cast as the enemy.

Jaylah & Lt Darwin both make a lot of sense to me. Lt Darwin is already a navigator, presumably of senior time in service by the time JJ 4 comes out. Jaylah also makes alot of sense to me given her engineering knowlege of the USS Franklin and by extension Starfleet ships. As a newly minted Ensign she’d have at least as much experience as Checkov did in JJ 1 if not more. It’s not every cadet that gets to have a few years in the engineering plant of a Starfleet ship before even entering the Academy. Just my 2 cents.

Dax

Hmmm… Emony Dax. But she would actually have to be rather old then (definitely older than McCoy).

Promoted to first officer aboard the USS Reliant. Arex takes over.

Yeeeeeees, Darwin! I LOVE Aisha Hinds and you bet I picked up on her bit part immediately!

I have no qualms about recasting Chekov. The 3 Star Trek Kelvin timeline movies have not reached the iconic status that makes recasting problematic. If they were to bring a previous character back, I’d sooner like to see them bring back Chapel and Rand to an already male heavy cast. And Kevin Riley did man the nav station occasionally in TOS so he’d make sense.

I agree with all you say, sir!

@Phillip — I agree. At this point, re-casting a character shouldn’t be a big deal to anyone. Chekov would be the easiest of the bunch to recast due to the accent.

They should have iT where he was needed back home in Russia so he resigned from star fleet. As for the new navigator have Riley, he was great in tos.

They Could just say That he was Killed by Klingons on a Mission, maybe the Klingons Bored the Enterprise and they Killed Checkov, that’s how you write off Checkov nice and Clean.

Or have Checkov get infected with some virus that ages him rapidly and bring back Walter Koenig lol