The Shuttle Pod Chats About 35 Years Of ‘The Next Generation’ & The Future Of Star Trek Movies

Brian and Matt board the Shuttle Pod to commemorate the 35th anniversary of Star Trek: The Next Generation. They recall their first encounters with TNG, reflect on previous TNG anniversary celebrations, and look forward to Picard season 3 in February. Then the pair discusses the unsurprising news that the next Star Trek movie has been pulled from Paramount’s schedule. They mull over the various scripts that have been prepared over the last few years, and wonder if there’s even a need for a Trek film at this point.

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at this point why not just do the Hemsworth ST4 (aka Trek Thor). keep budget in check 120m max (like Prometheus/Covenant). no huge FX heavy Enterprise destruction stuff or Marvel style city destructions. 10m each to Pine and Hemsworth. bring back Alice Eve. maybe lose 1 or 2 of the main cast if neccesary (not Quinto). director – whoever wants to do it: Frakes? Lin? JJ?

plot (adapted from comments on other big movie thread): Kirk finding out his father survived ST09. being held prisoner on Rura Penthe (so some more Klingon action). Kirk steals the Enterprise-A Trek III style to go on rescue mission with some of the cast, only to find a twist – its George Kirk from only a few months after the Narada attack. and the portal to the past (and/or alt Primeverse future) is still active in the area of the Narada entrance/Kelvin destruction – which opens all kinds of time travel/multiverse possibilities for Kirk & Co to possibly correct the timeline. or not..(basically similar to the Orci ST3 but with Thor. but maybe Shatner could be involved as well somehow :)

I still remember the first time I heard about TNG. I was still just a kid and a teaser came on for a new Star Trek show when I was watching cartoons. This was definitely pre-internet because I knew NOTHING about a new Trek show was coming. But being such a big TOS fan at the time, I couldn’t believe it. I was so excited I went to look at my TV guide to see when it was coming on and frustrated realizing it wasn’t next week lol. It was going to premiere for another 3 months. It may have been 3 years at that age lol.

And when it came on I was a bonafide fan of it a few episodes in. Wasn’t perfect by a long shot but man I loved everything about it. It was fun to see such a different group of characters. The ship felt and looked so futuristic at the time, it was in a different era and it was just great to be watching new episodes of a show I was watching at 5 years old. It took awhile for it to be my favorite show over TOS but TNG has proven itself to be an iconic show in its own right when it could’ve crashed and burn as many thought it would. Now 35 years later we are STILL talking about this show and these characters and the show feels more popular today in many ways. The fact people are still genuinely excited to see them coming back next year is a huge testament of how important the show has been for many fans like me 30 years on. Make it so indeed!

As far as another movie, it’s all been said at this point lol. I don’t think Paramount has a clue of what to do frankly. The latest movie is probably cancelled as the last four which would surprise no one. And you couldn’t have gone a worst way of announcing a movie when you didn’t even tell your cast they were in it and clearly had no script or budget prepared. I mean, wow! They been spending a lot of money on a movie series that averages around $400 million a movie which is peanuts these days and why there is still no movie because they are probably afraid the next movie won’t even make that much. And they have every reason to believe that because as was said in the discussion, momentum for these films died off long ago. I like the Kelvin movies, but the time has frankly passed for them. And it’s no one to blame but Paramount themselves.

If by some miracle another film happens before 2030, I’ll definitely see it. But at this point, if they think spending gobs of money on a floundering movie series and its expensive cast is not worth it to them, then it’s time to come up with something new and frankly much cheaper. Gear it for Paramount+ with a short run in the theater for fans. If that’s not enough, then just keep focusing on the new shows and maybe make a smaller film out of one of them some day. End of the day, the TV shows are more important to the franchise as it’s always been.

The Top Gun movies were thirty six years apart, so hope springs eternal….for anyone under forty five years old.

LOL, it would be depressing we don’t get another movie until after I die. But hopefully my grand kids will love it! ;D

The 10 years between the OS and TMP gave that first film a sense of an event and later on with ‘khan’

Hopefully JJ verse is finally dead now and they move on to something new.

I don’t mind waiting if one of the shows were turned into a movie. I would love either a Prodigy or Lower Decks movie! 😀

I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing the Kelvin characters or universe again in some capacity in the future. But I think their time is simply over to carry more movies because it obviously requires too much money to do. And as said the hype and interest is no longer there. It was never there in the way Paramount wanted in the first place and less so now with so much time passed and fans so divided on them. Paramount themselves seem to acknowledge all of this since they haven’t felt confident enough to do anything with them after 6 years and multiple tries.

And yes I just think it’s time to do something new at this point. Go a completely different way if we get another film within this decade. I would also be into the idea of a Lower Decks or Prodigy film. And both would be waaaaay cheaper to make lol.

If they made another JJ verse movie I would’ve gave it a shot of course but I think it still would bombed like the last one unless the budget is super low.

Hoping they try something new but it’s probably years away if they still don’t have a plan B.

The longest span of years between Star Trek movies was the seven years between Nemesis in 2002 and the Kelvin-verse Star Trek in 2009. ST: Beyond came out in 2016 and here we are six years later. We will tie that record next year and surpass it with every year after that until we get another Trek movie, whenever that may be.

future of trek should not be the old trek. it’s time for a tng remake.

I agree. There are other ‘now-classic’ crews out there to re-invent, if they don’t have the cojones to actually create a new one. Time to let the TOS crew rest, they’ve done their bit for king and country…

But the TNG crew don’t have the worldwide appeal of the OS characters

Exactly.

But that’s the irony of all of this, they thought with the TOS characters they could build on an international audience if they threw a lot of money at the Kelvin movies and ultimately it failed. It didn’t gain a bigger appeal as they were hoping. None of the Kelvin movies had a big international audience. The first movie, despite all the hype, actually bombed internationally.

The reality is that Star Trek is just not a big enough player in the international market regardless of who the characters are. The next movie should just be a lower budget and geared towards American and western countries.

Thanks for your thoughts on the Movie situation guys.

Still hope for another Kelvin movie, maybe move forward to the TOS movie time, maybe after TMP

Because the TV is going well, the Tarantino movie would be something different and appeal to a wider audience which is what they need. But upset some no doubt.

Yeah the Tarantino movie is probably the best bet at this point (as long as he directs). Mass interest from fans (even angry ones) and non fans. Maybe a 90-100m budget. Perhaps it’d be a blend of Prime and Kelvin-verses. Plot: Piece of the Action meets City on the Edge meets Yesterdays Enterprise?. Kelvin cast (probably get away with paying less as it’d be a QT film lol). Shatner (no way would he not be involved in some way if its Tarantino). Some QT actors (trek fans).

No offense but sounds like a pipe dream bro. Tarantino turned it down years ago and Paramount passed on his script. Even if he wasn’t directing they could’ve used it. They probably passed on it for a reason. It was probably either really bad or something only hardcore Trekkies would watch and no one else.

It like when QT said he wanted to do a brosnan version of ‘casino royale’.
A pipe dream that never happened in the end

Yeah set in the 60s with Brosnan. although had it happened I guess they wouldve got him to change it to modern day , bit like his Trek script which apparently was to have the kelvin cast as the prime-verse versions but would no doubt be altered to the kelvin characters ..

Thanks for the podcast. When the time is right, I would welcome a podcast on “what went wrong” with the Kelvinverse. In summary Trek 09 was warmly received by both critics and audiences but by Beyond had largely run out of steam. A pity in my view.