Plot Details Of Abandoned ‘Star Trek 4’ Project With Chris Hemsworth Revealed By Writers

Before Paramount’s most recent attempt at a follow-up to Star Trek Beyond there was a “Star Trek 4” project being developed that would bring back Chris Hemsworth as George Kirk. That project was close to production including having a director, but fell apart in 2018 due to salary negotiations with Chris Hemsworth and Chris Pine. Now the writers of that original planned Beyond sequel are revealing details about their movie

The writing duo of J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay are currently the showrunners for another big genre franchise: Amazon’s ambitious The Lord of The Rings: Rings of Power. Their Trek script from 2016 would have seen James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) reunited with his long assumed dead father George Kirk (Chris Hemsworth). They recently spoke to Esquire about their careers, Rings of Power, and of course Star Trek came up. The writing duo shared a few details about that script for the first time.

JD Payne and Patrick McKay at The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power world premiere in London.

 Like Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in space

Patrick McKay: The conceit was that through a cosmic quirk in the Star Trek world, [Pine and Hemsworth’s characters] were the same age. It was going to be a grand father-son space adventure—think Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in space. We were really thrilled about it. We had an original villain and a really cool 2001: A Space Odyssey-esque sci-fi idea at the core. We worked on it for two and half years with Lindsey Weber, our non-writing executive producer on Rings of Power, and an amazing director, S.J. Clarkson. The movie eventually fell apart and it really was a heartbreak for us. It’s part of what led us here, because it got us thinking, “Gosh, with a big IP title, big movie stars, and a story that we all felt had the chance to be terrific, it couldn’t come together.” We felt the winds were shifting against big movies, which is part of what made us start taking TV seriously. That led us to Rings of Power. But we would have loved to make that movie. I want to spoil a piece of it that’s exciting—how they end up together. Can we do that, JD?

J.D. Payne: Sure, why not? There’s an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called “Relics” where they find Scotty, who’s been trapped a transporter for a couple of decades, and they’re able to have cool adventure with him. Our conceit was, “What if right before the Kelvin impacted with that huge mining ship, George Kirk had tried to beam himself over to his wife’s shuttle where his son, Jim Kirk, had just been born? And what if the ship hadn’t completely exploded—what if it left some space junk?” Think about when you send a text message and you’ve typed it out, but you haven’t quite hit send. On the other side, they see those three little dots that someone has typed. It’s like the transporter had absorbed his pattern up into the pattern buffer, but hadn’t spit him out on the other side. It was actually a saved copy of him that was in the computer.

Chris Hemsworth as George Kirk in 2009’s Star Trek

Patrick McKay: So the adventure is that Chris Pine and the crew of the Enterprise have to seek out the wreckage of the ship that his father died on because of a mystery and a new villain. In the ship, they stumble across his father’s pattern. They beam him out and he has no idea that no time has passed at all, and that he’s looking at his son. Then the adventure goes from there.

For years we’ve wondered what sci-fi gimmick they were going to use to get the two Chrises together, and now we finally have a bit better idea of how they’d do it. What do you think?


Keep up with all the news on Star Trek 4 and upcoming Trek films at TrekMovie.com.

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I’m glad they did ROP instead, because that plot idea for finding Kirk Sr is dumb and totally unoriginal.

It’s WAY more original than “oh look we time traveled again”

Sounds OK, but it’s obvious they were just trying to get Hemsworth in the movie because he became a big star. How they bring him back does sound a bit forced. When did Starfleet ships have transporter capabilities from the bridge? But I would’ve been there opening day lol.

But it sounds like the crew would’ve been dealing with probably another uber-villain who is trying to wipe out the Federation and blames it all on Kirk from the future or something. Maybe that guy came from the 25th century. Do I sound a bit cynical? Gee, I wonder why?

Out of all of these cancelled movie scripts, I be curious if there was at least one story without a villain in it? Yeah, who are we kidding. Why Trek is just better on TV these days IMO.

How about instead of a villain, you have an Antoganist. Someone who isn’t out for vengeance, doesn’t want to harm anyone or even destroy anything, but their goals somehow put them into conflict with our crew that needs resolving without pew punch bang smack boom ow.

Despite the writer’s ‘efforts’ to make their villain’s different, it’s still the same thing all over again. They are characters from a different time who are hell-bent on revenge against the Federation while commanding a dark starship that can easily overpower the Enterprise and get into a brawl with Kirk.

Yeah having an antagonist would actually feel original for a change. Out of all the movies, we’ve had only one this entire time IMO and yes it’s Sybok from Final Frontier! As much criticism there is both toward the movie and character has gotten, and it’s valid criticism, it actually felt completely unique in that sense. Sybok was the first villain who wasn’t trying to kill or had any animosity against anyone. He wasn’t looking for some super weapon or used any ships to have a big battle scene against the Enterprise. Nor was he trying to take down the Federation for any reason. He was the only ‘villain’ that did none of that. His mission, at least in his eyes, was to help or enlighten people.

Yes the entire premise of the movie was lame and at the time having a character like Sybok wasn’t that big of a deal because TOS didn’t rely on a villain in every film anyway. But now, that character just feels so refreshing. And especially a guy who after he realized he made a mistake bringing them there, he sacrificed his own life to save the others.

But all the villains today are basically the same as you said. They look different, motives slightly altered but they are all painted with the exact same brush most of the time. Even if you can somewhat sympathize with their motives, they NEVER take a step back and reflect what they are doing is wrong. Not once has any of them thought maybe they just gone too far this time. It’s always anger amped up to 11.

There has been many sympathetic characters like Soran, Nero, Shinzon and Krall because they didn’t start out as ‘bad’ it was profound grief or feeling like no one cared about them that pushed them into that role. But yet not any of them ever had a ‘what have I done’ moment after realizing innocent people could die just like people they knew did. It’s just constant rage and if the entire crew or even a planet has to get taken out for their wacko mission to succeed, so be it.

It’s just gotten really tiring for me personally. I got really tired with all the Kelvin movies but it started with the TNG movies where it’s been nothing but villains raging against the machine in every film. And I don’t think this movie would’ve been any different.

So what you’re saying is basically that the scene “Yeah, Damar, what kind of people give those kind of orders” would be the most refreshing thing for you to see for a villain in a Trek movie?

Because if you do, I agree completely!

Yes that’s a perfect example and another reason why DS9 is still my favorite show today! And look at how layered Damar was as a character? He started out as just a henchman of Gul Dukats who was gleeful to see the Federation tuck in its tail and run when the Dominion took over to someone who had profound regret of everything he was doing and turned against them to become a hero of the story. That’s how good writing is done.

I know it’s different for a TV show where you can dive deep into a character when you have 100 hours to do it, but you can still just show a TINY bit of introspection and remorse with these characters. Just one time in these movies.Surprise us! Even Darth Vader managed to make a turn lol. But in Star Trek it’s the same damn thing movie after movie.

The Problem with TFF was never the idea, it was the execution. I actually think Shatner’s idea was a good one. The problems were just too great. First and foremost, the idea that our beloved crew could turn against the trinity so easily was very off-putting to me. Second, and I know this is technically Sci-Fi, but there is no planet at the center of the galaxy! There is a supermassive black hole that there is NO WAY the Enterprise or any other ship is ever going to escape! Third, if you are going to go the “God” route in a movie, you have to go big. And why in all of the trillions or whatever galaxies in the universe would God bother hanging out in ours?

Oh yeah definitely agree. The writing for TFF was abysmal to say the least along with its other problems. There was definitely a really interesting story in there but it just never got close to its potential.

I have never hated the movie, I do think it’s still entertaining at least. But it’s still at the bottom end of my list just the same. But I always thought Sybok was great (and really happy he’s finally showing up again in SNW). The character was marred mostly by making him Spock’s brother (STOP giving this guy secret siblings lol) and just being in a bad movie in general. But the irony is Sybok is probably the most unique Star Trek villain ever had. Besides being more of an antagonist as mentioned, we finally got to see a different type of Vulcan we never seen before. He was the only one that had his ‘what have I done’ moment when the entity attacked Kirk and Spock. We’ve never seen it in a character again 8 movies later as the death toll and weapons got bigger and deadlier.

The ironic thing about TFF IMO is it had the second best trinity scenes in all of ANY Star Trek movies. The Yosemite scenes were just perfect. Say what you will about Shatner’s writing or scripts but he got the relationships between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy perfectly. Take the actual movie out of the movie and just make the Yosemite part into a short Trek and it would be PERFECT

I think everyone at least agrees the Yosemite scenes between those three were great. And it is the movie where they were together the most. Shatner clearly understood how important it was to show the bond with them.

And Nimoy and Kelly are probably the only two actors in the bunch who likes being around him, so it made more sense llol.

LOL so true. Shatner clearly wrote that movie with that in mind

If you think about it, TFF is the most “Star Trek” Star Trek movie.

In TMP: We have Admiral Kirk, Spock was checked out, we had a different first officer……

In TWOK: We had Admiral Kirk, a new Vulcan Lt., no Chekov on board.

In TSFS: Admiral Kirk again Spock is Dead, no Uhura on the Enterprise, no crew, no uniforms…….. Bones was Spock…… and not.

In TVH: No Enterprise, no uniforms…….

In TUDC: New Vulcan Lt., no Sulu…..

In TFF: Everyone is RIGHT where they should be from the television series.

I tend to agree on that one. This was the one movie that focused on the three of them which I really missed up to that point. I think Shatner understood that. And the film also had the best lighter moments of all the movies. The film had a lot of problems, yes but there are still good things in it that make it worth watching IMHO.

Nah, the idea was pretty sh**ty, too. Trek is littered with supreme brings, who, in the end, either arn’t that supreme, or interesting. Sybok was the only thing keeping TFF from being a complete disaster.

Yeah… Trek has done that a lot and more often than not they have come across as dull and uninteresting. Q is a perfect example.

TNG went the “God” route right away with Q.

Great points. Sybok’s turn gave the character additional depth and complexity. Soran is still up there for me too, but could have been given similar treatment and with McDowell’s performance, could have cemented him as one of the greats.

I also think Krall should’ve been given similar treatment as well. After all, he was a former Starfleet officer and it would’ve been a nice turn to remember why he became one in the first place once he was faced with his actions. And I remember thinking we were going to get a turn of some kind with this guy.

It was the scene when they made it back to the Yorktown base at the end of the fight with Kirk trying to get rid of the bio-weapon and you saw Edison on his way to stop him. They had that very specific shot of him seeing his reflection in the floating glass. I thought that was the moment he realized what he had become and was going to reclaim his humanity and all of that. He was going to decide to help Kirk stop the weapon and give himself a small redemption sacrificing himself to stop it. But nope! Instead he only got angrier and of course died anyway.

I just don’t get it? None of these films want to give these guys any layers beyond just being an angry tragic figure. Why not do a redemption arc at least once? It would give them some level of depth besides doing the same thing.

The problem with Star Trek movies today is that all these characters have been turned into one dimensional Bond villains essentially. They all have these over the top plans to destabilize stars or wipe out planets with black holes but never given any internal conflict or weight to their actions. They are just there to be defeated. That’s fine in a James Bond or comic book movie but we seen Star Trek more layered than this. It’s exactly why we love Trek in the first place. But in the movies you have to make them as stereotypical as possible for some reason.

We all want another movie and get frustrated when another one, as this one did, gets cancelled. But then I think do I REALLY want another movie when at the end of the day it will probably be more of the same thing as the last 5 films stopping a maniac from trying to eradicate an entire civilization? They just don’t seem capable of doing anything else.

To me Soran was an enigma. He was so very desperate to return to the Nexus he didn’t care what he had to do or who had to die to get there. Which sounds awfully extreme to me. He even told Picard “There was a time when I wouldn’t hurt a fly.” That’s an awfully big change in attitude from my point of view. If there was anyone who might reflect and at some point and realize the extent of what they were doing it would seem to be Soran. I probably could have bought it a little better if he didn’t say the “hurt a fly” line and Guinan mentioned that she knew him to have a temper that or something. Just anything to indicate he may be susceptible to taking that action if he were fed a line or have something traumatic happen to him would have made him feel a tad more authentic.

But, but, those darn whales were out to get everyone!!!

LOL!

Well, those aliens were about to destroy all life on Earth because they could no longer hear the whale songs, that somehow managed to travel through the vacuum of space with no mechanical assistance. Ugh… Just writing this reminds me of how badly thought out that entire story was on pretty much every single level possible.

THE VOYAGE HOME is a wonderful movie (push-comes-to-shove, my favorite ST feature film) without even having a villain or, really, a conventional antagonist. The real “enemy” in that film is present day humanity’s short-sightedness and basic stupidity. (And, for the record, I think Luckinbill’s Sybok is a terrific character — it was just unnecessary to make him Spock’s half-brother among the film’s other missteps).

Totally agreed That’s what made TVH unique in that sense.

A lot of TV Trek now does hinge on dastardly villains, but I do agree. One of the better things about Disco season 4 was the attempt to have adversaries who aren’t villains. The movies are petrified of not focusing all of the show’s impetus around defeating a singular villain, and yet TMP and TVH did excellent box office. But TV is where it’s safer for the main characters to simply fight a problem rather than yet another Khan-abe.

Trek is abysmal on TV these days

You don’t like any of the new shows?

SNW is ok and Lower Decks however Disco and Picard are truly terrible

OK fair enough.

What a silly statement.

Trek isn’t on Tv these days.
It’s a streaming show now.

Brilliant

Amen! With Beyond I felt that the relationship between the characters were finally beginning to gel into what would eventually be the point at which the TV series started. Whether or not this relationship would have been further explored by Star Trek writers is questionable. You don’t have to have a super villain to defeat every time in order to establish long standing and close friendships. I’m not a writer by any stretch of the imagination, but by the number of reboots and remakes being done now by the film companies I question if there are any good original script writers with imagination
left.

True. It seems to be getting more and more rare. My take is there is no one thing causing this but a lot of other things. I could list some but I’m sure some readers would misinterpret the list as the only things causing it. So I won’t.

Except….it isn’t.

You said it, the whole premise doesn’t sound like it was based around a great story idea, but simply the desire to get a big name star like Hemsworth back in it to generate extra $$$$ at the box office.

I actually like how they brought him back. I loved it in Relics and it sounds cool here. I mean its way better than the typical time travel stuff right? I mean, you know me, I’m not a Kelvin universe fan but if we had to have another movie I think this would have been as good of one as any. But the same problem exists as always, even more so in this case, the movie would just be too expensive due to the cast.

Ashley E. Miller, one of the hosts of the Inglorious Treksperts, summarized a Trek script that he was briefly hired to write when Roberto Orci was still attached to make a Trek movie.

It would have been about the Kevin Enterprise getting adversarial with the Romulans, until both ships stumble upon a Doomsday Machine and have to work together to stop it.

Does that qualify as not having a villain? It would be more like a Man vs. Nature narrative.

Yeah that actually sounded at least a little different and unique for a film. But it’s still Romulans, they probably would’ve tried to destroy the Enterprise the second the Doomsday Machine was defeated. ;)

How about a movie about the start of a pathway to Klingons joining or at least of Kingons beginning a relationship with the Federation or even a flashback to how the federation and the Klingons became such enemies. A movie which ends with no winners but the potential of hope and the possibility of further sequels leading to an ultimate goal of acceptance if not unity. (could also use Romulans in place of Klingons especially since Kirk in Kelvin timeline has negative history with Romulans). As i said earlier I am no writer but I just think better plots could be written without a super villain being defeated every time.

Sure that could definitely work. And we know stories can be written without crazy villains because most stories in the shows don’t require a villain at all, at least the classic shows.

It just seems to be some kind of mandate from Paramount that the movies needs bad guys all the time because they probably think newbies won’t be interested in watching it unless there is one.Or it’s just easier to market. IDK, but it’s a reason why I’m not losing sleep over not having another movie. They all sadly felt like the same formula for the last 20 years now.

or Q could bring the Kelvian into Jim Kirks time and have them go on a “Test” Journey and if they solve it,Dad gets to stay

I abandoned the Kelvin universe long ago, but I think this is a cool idea. The only problem is that they actually showed George Kirk right up until the collision and there’s no room for him trying to beam over to the shuttle.

Exactly. They basically would’ve had to retcon that scene in some way. But it’s done a lot obviously. Fast and Furious 9 retcon a character’s death a similar way and changed the scene a bit. But Fast and Furious has become more sci fi than Star Trek. ;D

He didn’t get out of the kaka-doodie caaaar!

😂😂😂 I was so thinking that!

Oooooffff… I didn’t think of that.. Maybe the very first scene of the movie would be a very slight recon of that scene by showing it all over again but this time at the last split millisecond they add special effects laying transporter effects over Chris Helmsworth?

As I said in my opening post, which would be placed way on the bottom, someone else would have had to performed the actual transporter operation. I keep trying to think of a way there was another ship nearby that beamed him out but was unable to reassemble him on their end, that also was forced to remain in place and was ignored when the Narada was repaired. Or was the Narada found by the Klingons? In that case the Klingons would have to ignore the vehicle that had the active transporter. Then what happened to the crew? Did the Klingons board the vehicle, kill them and leave the transporter active and the ship intact?

This is just a huge can of worms, IMHO.

This would have devalued the gut wrenching impact of George Kirk’s sacrifice. The opening of ST09 is among the most emotional moments in franchise history and this pilot would waste it.

Stop bringing characters back from the dead. Star Trek is Science Fiction, not Fantasy.

I agree. (And when I saw ST09 in the theater, members of the audience were *crying* at the end of the opening scene.)

That scene was epic both in emotion and scale. Unfortunately it all went down hill from there.

I’m on board with your thought, Kevin. The opening of that film is some of the best Trek we received since the 80’s, imo. Very impactful. So well done, and even before the main theme song started. This idea would have wrecked it. The Kelvin crew is done. Put this to bed.

I don’t think the Kelvin crew is dead. There are still fans of those movies, myself included. Were they the best written scripts, no. I still think that there is a place for them in Star Trek. I do think that the opportunity that they presented was wasted by Paramount and the writers and Abrams. Abram’s loyalties were clearly not with the Star Trek franchise after the first film and I think in my personal opinion that once he realized the financial loss and restrictions of not having a united franchise(TV and films), his interest in the production and success of future films waned.

Agree.

Exactly!

Bringing Spock back from the dead was the best decision Star Trek ever made, even if his death was the best death in hollywood history.

Apple and oranges here, though.

I tend to agree. That opening sequence was quite touching and feels cheap to bring George back from it. I’ve never been a fan of Trek bringing people back from the dead. I loved Spock, as I think most of us did, but I always felt it a dirty trick to bring him back even though I really really liked TUD as a final sendoff. There is a line, however. If a character flatlines and is clinically “dead” for a short time I can still see future tech reviving the person depending on the circumstances. Even in STID McCoy got Kirk into a cryo-tube ASAP. Even though the super blood was a conceit the idea that there was a real chance meant keeping that chance alive by putting Kirk in. But characters who were dead for a substantial length of time… They should stay dead.

But that’s just me.

I was hoping it would be a Mirror Universe incursion, where Kirk comes face to face with his father from the Mirror Universe.

Confederation George Kirk!!!

They’d have to age-up Hemsworth to do that. That’s why time-travel was widely assumed.

Or have the Nexus swallow him up and have 3
Kirks! Lol.

Even when Kirk’s mom is still alive during Beyond, they still wanted to resort to a father/son dynamic even when George has long since been dead. It’s one thing having George and ONLY George be the source of inspiration for Kirk to join Starfleet, but leaving out his Mom is just sad.

This is true. Kirk should have been close to his mother – and that would have been a very inspiring trait to run on.

Kirk, at least Prime Kirk, has never really been a family man. His only true family has been Spock, The Enterprise, and Bones. In that order.

They gave that trait to Spock, for some reason in the KU movie.

Lord, I’m glad they didn’t get the chance to film that. Imagine Scotty’s stroke of transporter genius, which amazed Riker and Geordi 70 years later, just kind of happening by accident in the middle of a huge explosion, transparently so the studio could bring an A-lister onto their failed action movie franchise

Welcome to the Kelvin movies. ;D

I don’t like it here :(

Can I go home

Follow me bro, I got some red matter to get us back. Got it off a Ferengi who says it’s legit. We’ll be out of this dump and back into the sweet ole prime universe soon! 😎

I don’t want to live in a universe where their Khan is white, Risa is just a soggy wet planet famous for Vulcan meditation retreats and Baywatch never existed as a television show. It ain’t right. 🙄

They still had TJ Hooker tho, right?

LOL!!!

I agree George Kirk should not have the genius of Scotty. But they could work so that it was an accidental thing and not something Kirk planned. Sort of how like in ENT the inventor of the Transporter’s son got stuck in an alternate dimension or something due to a transporter accident.

Yeah but so many people are over looking the main problem: the guy wasn’t IN a transporter room lol. Before anything else, you have to (probably in a very convoluted way) explain how he transported himself at all before it can explain how he managed to stay in one for so long.

Even in the 24th century, they don’t have the technology to just beam themselves from any part of the ship. Any beaming is still done via the transporter room a century later. Now if it was the 32nd century, it’s more plausible. ;)

As I said in a couple other posts, the only way it works is for someone else to actually beam in out miliseconds before he is fried. But then you have a can of worms regarding who did it and why did he not re-materialize and how everything remained intact after all the activity in the region.

Of course, but since he was the only left on the ship, then it makes no sense. And obviously no one else was there. That was the point.

Sorry, I thought it was obvious when I said “someone else there” I meant some other ship or something nearby that went unnoticed by the Narada or the Kelvin.

Regarding “Relics,” I’m not sure that I would describe Scotty’s depressed puttering around realizing that he’s more of a burden than helpful in the 24th century as a “cool adventure.”

He got a free shuttle out of it though. That shows real respect and reverence for Scotty.

You think Picard would’ve wasted a good shuttle on Chekhov? Think it through man, think it through.

I always had a little bit of a problem with that. So, we come across a living legend, Montgomery Scott from the famous original Enterprise, and no one from Starfleet wants to sit him down and interview him, welcome him, honor him? And then we literally give him a tiny shuttle and send him off alone? I thought he deserved a heck of a lot of more respect in that episode. And kudos to Levar Burton for playing a very convincing total d*ck.

Right? I mean at least Picard seemed to be a little in ae of him, when he first met him he had a huge smile on his face and shook his hand and was all like “Welcome onboard the Enterprise CAPTAIN Scott!”

Yeah… That bugged me a little. And I felt handing him a shuttle at the end felt odd. Seems they would have gone through the trouble to drop him off wherever he wanted to go. Or to where Starfleet would debrief him or something. And yes, Picard seemed like the only person who thought it was just a little bit cool that they even encountered him. I mean, imagine if James Madison showed up today through some miracle and no one really cared, just shoved him aside like he was just in the way of everything. Hell, it doesn’t even have to be a historical figure. Suppose ANYONE from 200 years ago just appeared. It’s not like we have actual historical witnesses dropping out of the sky everyday. Even in Star Trek.

Actually I think he got short changed lol. You saved the flagship of the federation after being stuck in a transporter for 80 years and no one coming to rescue you. Here’s a shuttle that can’t can’t even fly at warp for the most famous warp engineer in Starfleet history.

I know I’ve been on a bit of a hate streak lately but give me this last one. LOL. you know I LOVE TNG, But I HATED how little respect Geordi showed Scotty in that episode. Like I was 7 when I saw that ep and I still wanted to punch him in the face.

He practically single handedly saved the entire crew of the Enterprise D and the ship from destruction of a pending Supernova when Geordi didn’t have the foresight to see it could be done. I think that qualifies.

Well, that was in the first half of the episode. Then Scotty made himself useful and had a cool adventure with Geordi, who learned the lesson of appreciating old things, which is odd since we saw Geordi building a wooden ship model and playing Watson in earlier episodes. He should’ve been fanboying like crazy when he first met a “relic” like Scotty. But whatever.

Yikes. OK, now I’m glad this didn’t get made. This not at all an original idea, which is disappointing. I’ve always wanted to see the film, but that would have been a terrible jumping-off point for it.

Sounds pretty cool & would have somehow worked with JJ on board behind the scenes! It’s clear now Paramount want an original movie with the Kelvin crew for around half the cost of the previous one yet still want to retain all the trappings & spectacle!

I can picture all of this perfectly, from the masterminds of the Amazon series that is so cheesy even the 30-second spots are maximum cringe.

Agreed, I’ve had no interest in watching that show whatsoever.

Me neither. And I actually WANTED to see The Hobbit movies!

I would’ve enjoyed the father-son Last Crusade vibe, but the Relics transporter trick again? Pretty sure the only reason people could go along with that contrivance was because Scotty was a brilliant engineer. Also, his name in popular culture is closely associated with the transporter. “Beam me up, Scotty!” and so forth, so that helped.

I think I’d rather have seen a wizard be responsible. Or a Trelane. Same thing.

Thank heavens the film was not made. The franchise needs a fresh start — dump Bad Robot, Secret Hideout, and get back to real Star Trek.

I agree but I would just say “Better Star Trek” instead.

Thought George Kirk may have returned via some time travel related reason to do with the red matter/Narada but this is totally not that . Relics? wow. Ok, might’ve been interesting, I guess them revealing the plot/twist means the Hemsworth movie its totally off the table now (ok it was anyway but really is now).

“Chris Pine and the crew of the Enterprise have to seek out the wreckage of the ship that his father died on because of a mystery and a new villain”
wonder if that was adapted from the Orci ST3 (with Hemsworth instead of Shatner) with the villain trying to revert the timeline .. as these writers also worked on that (but obviously Shatner Kirk couldn’t have been brought back in a similar Relics way)

Okay, so the tech idea behind it is pretty dumb, but in a fun way that I wouldn’t mind for the Kelvin films. The *actual* bad thing about it is that it robs those brilliant opening moments of the 2009 film of a lot of its heft. George had to stay behind. Giving him an offscreen half-executed escape plan would be annoying.

But of course, he was literally depicted on screen flying out of the captain’s chair in the explosion that destroyed the Kelvin, so there’s that.

What they should have come up with (too late now) is have Hemsworth play the George Kirk who lived, **from the Prime timeline**. Hemsworth technically was that version of the character in the moments before the film starts, and he looked all of 19 years old in it, so they could just age him up a bit instead of trying to make the characters the same age. I mean, they could still use the transporter conceit, but wouldn’t have to make it fit with the original movie.

Wow this idea sounds as bad as practically every Kelvin movie. So Thor is saved by being thrown in a transporter? Even though he’s several decks away from…a transporter? Sounds about right.

And didn’t we see him fly out his chair as the bridge exploded all around him? Bruh

Okay let me JJ brain storm my way through this one by coming up with some really contrived and lazy plot points that would convince any 12-15 year old it’s actually pretty clever. IE the Kelvin movies target audience!

Ok I got it!!!

Maybe George Kirk was protected by an invisible human shield prototype made by Section 31 that none of us could see (that’s not bad). And maybe he was also carrying a mini transporter device in his pocket once again designed by Section 31 that beamed him into the transporter buffer just seconds before the bridge exploded (yeah that can work).

But wait wait? Why would he have so much secret advanced Section 31 tech though? And why not just beam himself into the shuttle with his wife and baby since it was still within range? OR…do you think he wanted everyone to just think he was dead? Maybe it was all just a ruse? 🤔

But why would he be using Section 31 tech to fake his own…..NOOOOOOOOO!!! 😱😱😱

Looks like we almost had a movie kids! That’s how you JJ your way through hackney storytelling! Learn from the best! 👍

But time to give it up fellas, it’s over. Have to face reality and finally turn the respirator off. It’s been comatose for over six years now even though they tried reviving it 5 times. It’s not happening. Let go people….let go.

RIP JJ VERSE: 2009-2016 😎✌️

Say hello to the Great Koala for us! 🐨

laugh out loud

LMAO! Savage man savage!

Yeah how they would’ve saved George Kirk does sound really contrived. Maybe if we heard the scene in detail it would make more sense. But as said, we saw exactly what happened to the guy. And as others point out, it would’ve just took away that entire moment going forward. No matter how you feel about these movies today, that scene is still one of the most gut wrenching moments in this series if not the franchise in general.

It’s probably a good idea it never happened. And no one even seemed excited over the idea except the people making it. And it was obvious Paramount had no real faith in the movie once they refused to pay Hemsworth and Pine what they wanted because they were afraid the film could be a dud.

Let it go let it go can’t hold it back anymore let it go let it go turn away and slam the door

The scary part is everything you wrote sounds completely reasonable as something Secret Hideout would do.

Have to join the bandwagon and say I am glad it wasn’t made. Definitely feels like the central premise was 1) Bring back Thor to Star Trek 2) ??? 3) Father/son defeat generic villain. 4) Make money! Why not let the SNW writers take a crack at a movie script?

Because they would come up with something way way way worse?

Still sounds far better than Discovery or Picard

Sadly, you are right.

When Star Trek is out of ideas go to Indiana Jones for inspiration. Like the opening to Into Darkness. Like the new season of Disco, and this unmade film. Might as well hire Harrison as a Starfleet admiral.

I like Disco and Picard. But this plot sounds awful. A movie based around the idea to have a star in Star Trek.

Also, that TNG Episode wasn’t that good either…

To be fair Last Crusade is far better than anything JJ abrams has ever done BY FAR. JJ Abrams only makes copy cat movies with bigger budgets and more flashes.

That is true. Last Crusade was quite good. And JJ could never in a million years make anything nearly as good or as fun. He just doesn’t have the directing skills. But to be fair, he is also hampered by the awful scripts he has. Do I need to even bring up Rise of Skywalker?

I totally agreed bring Harrison back.

Or SNW or Lower Decks.

I feel their starting point with this movie was: “how do we get Chris Hemsworth in this movie?” in stead of (what they should’ve done): “what is a great story to tell”. So in that aspect I’m glad they didn’t make it. Besides that, it’s pretty obvious Chris Hemsworth grew older so not sure it would’ve worked.

I’m sure I would’ve liked the movie in the end if they ended up making it but that wouldn’t have been because of that story.

Lately I’ve been contemplating if we even need a movie at this point in time. There’s so much going on with the Trek Universe already, it might be over-kill. Although I’m all happy for now, I kinda, sorta, sometimes feel it already might be too much. Especially concerning all different time zones and looks (uniforms, esthetics, etc.). I think it would be good for Alex Kurtzman and all of the teams to maybe take a short break (say a year) to look back at the last 5 years and evaluate (without being pushed by the studio to make them more money). Because the chance of it all burning out again like it did after Enterprise is still real. Or at least it’s a fear I don’t want to see becoming reality again.

To be clear, there’s no judgement here on the current series really, just some thoughts and concerns.

Watch Ryan George’s “Pitch Meeting” series on YouTube and you’ll understand that “what is a great story to tell” is very rarely the mindset of Hollywood producers.

I’ll have a look. Thanks!

Those can be amazingly funny. His Rise of Skywalker and the original Lion King are two of my favorites.

Not original enough. Too gimmicky. Glad this fell by the wayside.

just curious. Honestly. If this were to be the story. How would you have them meet if it were up to you?

They spent two and a half years on that…?

Somewhere there is a powerful executive who thought this was a good idea and convinced the others to go along with him. Definitely was not a woman, right?

Why doesn’t Trek inspire them to make the best Trek possible? To hire science fiction writers? Adults?!

This reeks of ‘We gotta get Hemsworth back to boost our box office’, and writers had to find a way to make it happen.

Is there any film Hemsworth has been in that doesn’t have Marvel attached to it that actually did well at the box office?

Somewhere there is a powerful executive that thinks Bad Robot can do no wrong despite SO MUCH evidence to the contrary. If I screwed up as much as JJ Abrams has I’m be living on the streets with people spitting in my face as they walk by every day .

Well… Paramount extended the Secret Hideout contract a couple of years ago. Such studio executives don’t seem to be uncommon.

That plot devise seems a little too contrived. I would have preferred to see Kelvin James Kirk meet Prime George Kirk. Actually, Kelvin Enterprise and crew crossing over to the prime universe for an adventure would have been a lot of fun.

…and then they travel into to the future and find “James T. Kirk” aka, William Shatner…the title could be “Star Trek: The Search for Shat”

No??

George Kirk stuck in a transporter buffer on a derelict ship? Might as well do that to bring Shatner back while we’re at it since canon doesn’t matter anymore. Could have been fun but fans would think its a dumb technobabble.

I think my biggest issue is it eschews originality for dipping back into character drama that we really don’t need. Do something original first, THEN figure out how to get Hemsworth back for a cameo or the third act. This sounds like the whole story revolved around George Kirk, and it really shouldn’t.

There’s not much “there” there. I’m still appreciative that Abrams brought Trek back to us and I tolerats some of his canon abuse. But this train has left the track. Someone else might have failed miserably – or they may have generated a decent film every 3 years. JJ was the wrong person.

I did mostly enjoy the KU films myself. And I was happy Trek was brought back. As for canon, the KU did not destroy it at all. They created their own thing. Star Trek ’09 was the very definition of the “soft” reboot. But they did it in a way that didn’t change a thing from the original. On the other hand, Secret Hideout doesn’t give a crap about about that sort of thing.

British Khan?? That’s sort of changing things. ;)

But everything else, agreed. They were able to do what they wanted for the most part although I know the age thing still bothered others.

In reboots, I don’t have problems with changing the ethnicity of characters too much. Some are iconic and should probably not be altered but most should be considered fair game. To me, other things matter a ton more.

Man, that is really weak. If your movie revolves around a gimmick, it better be a tremendously inventive and daring one, an overwhelming one (inspired by an unused Khan line from an early TWOK draft, in which he tells David he must lie, he wants to hear an overwhelming lie.)

My gimmick for bringing Kirk back (this was pre-GEN) on a very special TNG ep was around the time JFK came out, and I based the thing on the idea that there would be decades of spec about Kirk’s death, which I pegged as a very public assassination on New Century’s Eve. Data would be talking about the history of conspiracy theories and eventually solve the matter, as Kirk wasn’t killed, but (using a gimmick that TNG later employed on GAMBIT) beamed away by what looked like a phaser hit (from Maltz, an apparently crazed Klingon who survived TSFS owing to Kirk’s mercy and who later died in custody.) The idea is that Kirk got tucked away as a special Federation secret weapon to use in the future in emergency, but that in keeping him suspended and on ice, the secret was so buried that everybody forgot about him (shakes of T’kon empire guy, I guess.) TNG folks find and revive him, and he helps on adventure, but then asks to be put back under, because, ‘this isn’t my time.’

Basically the gimmick was better than the story, because the interaction with TNG folk just didn’t feel engaging in the outline, and I never took it much further than that.

Wow. Relics. That’s a pretty original non-time travel way to bring George Kirk up to Jim Kirk’s time which is awesome. I’m not a Kelvin Universe fan but if they were to make another movie this sounds like it would have been a cool one to make. But, as I have been saying over and over, these A List actors are just too expensive. Thor and Wonder Woman can afford them. Star Trek can’t.

While I like that a Star Trek sequel actually calls back to earlier movies, this idea is just too contrived and ridiculous even by Star Trek standards.

Y’know, in the end, Kelvin verse just didn’t work out that well creatively. You can like it or not like it, but it really is as simple as that.

I agree with that assessment. I loved Star Trek 2009, and part of it was that they had reincarnated the most primal Trek characters for the 21st century and they could literally tell any story with them.

And what they chose to tell, after a half-decade delay, was a lame remake of Star Trek 6 with Khan jammed in the middle of it.

And then they decided to blow up the Enterprise for the third time and waste the great Idris Elba by making him an incomprehensible lizard-vampire-thing with a vague revenge motive.

The Kelvin-verse was a promising concept that was creatively wrecked.

Now that statement above ALL of the others I totally agree with. I liked the Kelvin movies and thought the cast spot on (except for Scotty) The story is not dead just the imagination of the people in charge of writing. No Star Trek movie will survive or please with poor writing even a TNG or DS0 movie to which you all seem to hold in such high regard. Not everyone was a fan of those TV shows or in the case of TNG, their movies.

I don’t disagree. I was never excited about a TOS reboot in the first place. I just thought in the end it was going to be a big mistake that would anger more fans than excite them because they would probably change too much. And that was before British Khan ever existed lol.

But I did get more intrigued once the whole parallel universe idea was talked about. I thought great, now they can not only do what they want but really get creative with the idea. Mix up the universe a little. Give us some fun and unique stories. Maybe the Cardassians are part of the Federation. Maybe we will get a first contact story dealing with the Organians. Maybe in this universe the Iconians are still around and a direct enemy of the Federation.

They had the chance to really shake things up in a fun and creative ways but end of the day we got a lot of super villain stories trying to take down the Federation and a Space Seed/WOK redux. There was no ‘wonder’ in any of the stories. No real exploration. The sequels were all based around military and war themes and not about science or discovery.

It would’ve been nice to have one of the movies revolve around a new alien species to be based around and I don’t mean just Jayla.

As an indian american you have no idea how much british Khan pisses me off.

Out of genuine curiosity, how do you feel about Ricardo Montalban playing Khan?

It shouldn’t offend anyone. Montalban played the original Khan in the TV series with Shatner. He was still alive to portray Khan for the movie, so to use the words of Spock—It would only seem logical that he(Montalban) should recreate the role of Khan.

In fact in the comic reveals a detail that Harrison and Khan may not be the same person. In the comics Khan told his past during the trial, Marcus changed Khan’s appearance and race,used surgery to give him amnesia and fabricate a new identity for him, so he woke up thinking he was Harrison and worked for a year, but later his memory returned.Also he said that during the war a white man named “John Ericssen” was Khan’s main enemy,it’s the original name of John. Jim told Spock after the trial that he thought Khan might have lied during the trial.JJ had plans for a miniseries about Harrison’s past, and the original plan for the third movie was for Khan and the Enterprise to fight together against the Klingons. They abandoned that plan, so I think the current Harrison Khan story is incomplete.

True.

I don’t disagree. I think their first big mistake was in the sequel. For some goofball reason they felt compelled to do a Khan story. My thought when I heard that rumor was “WHY??????” It’s really a lose-lose proposition. As you said, they had a chance with their complete reboot to do some fun new stuff. Change some things up in a way they couldn’t in the prime universe! (Until Secret Hideout got involved but that’s another story). The KU films reminds me of a real world situation where the new thing was handed something that was nearly an unscrewable pooch and STILL managed to screw the pooch. Well, perhaps not quite as bad as the real world situation but it’s similar.

IDW could make it a comic! Wouldn’t be as much fun though. Have you ever read an article and realized it’s Really long and started scrolling down to see how long it is and went ” Holy crud! ” people really had a lot to say about this! 😳

IDW could do this and the other ST4s as an unlimited never ending series :D

Yeah the loooong comments sections of TM takes alot of my time , too much.

Be glad this didn’t happen.

Honestly, it’s a different universe. I really don’t care what happens there. The only one in that universe I cared about was the REAL Spock and sadly he is no longer with us.

Do you guys need me to rewrite this thing and direct it. I’ve got canon ideas that will restore the timeline… put me in coach!

Sounds like a combo of “Relics” and the story of when the 2nd Will Riker was created when the transporter beam was reflected off the atmosphere back to the planet. My problem is the technology of the Kelvin. In the early Starfleet vessels, beaming from anywhere other than the transporter room simply wasn’t possible, and it was chancy at best in the time of Kirk.
What they should have done, and what would have made a killer premise for the movie was introduce this timeline’s version of the Mirror universe, and then it would have been easy to bring in George Kirk. The three greatest storylines in Trek have been the Edith Keeler episode, Khan, and the Mirror universe

The idea is serviceable, but only just, and its ultimate success or failure would likely hinge entirely on the chemistry between the actors and their characters to make it work. It’s pretty evident to me in terms of the father/son aspect that this scenario likely wouldn’t have played nearly ax well as DS9’s “The Visitor,” just one more bit of proof that Trek just about always works best on television.

The transporter idea sounds pretty hokey, so I’m glad it never happened. I mean, they never intimated that he attempted any such thing in Star Trek (2009).

What I had in mind for bringing back George Kirk had to do with the Borg. We know that Nero’s ship had Borg technology (although maybe only from the comics). The Nero incursion into the past could have led to early contact with the Borg as they detect the technology in the Kelvin wreckage. They show up and resurrect George Kirk’s body to use him as their “Locutus.” James Kirk would then come face-to-face with his father as Locutus of Borg. He would fight to save him, but in the end would have to kill him and watch his father die again at his own hands. Oddly enough, shortly after I had this idea, a similar story played out in the comic’s universe with Captain Terrell from Star Trek II becoming Locutus.

With that said, I don’t even know if I’d want to see that movie either, but it sounds better than this one. Ultimately, I thought Beyond showed a Kirk that had finally moved beyond his father’s death, so bringing back that plot thread seemed like retreading old ground.

Wow. That does sound better. Alot better actually.

an idea on another thread was about Kirk finding out his pops survived and is prisoner on Rura Penthe. He steals the Ent to rescue pops, but twist is he’s near the same age (somehow due to red matter and the portal/wormhole to the 2233 past/Primeverse future is still there – leading to altering the timeline possibilities)

Thanks! I might have liked a movie where Kelvin Kirk really goes toe to toe with the Klingons. The gymnastics to explain why George Kirk hadn’t aged (much) just doesn’t seem worth it.

Yeah I have seen a few ideas about using the Borg in the next story and I like having George Kirk basically be the Locutus in it as you suggested. That’s a fascinating idea that would bring a lot of both internal and external conflict for Kirk. And bringing the Borg in this period would just be so much fun since we never seen how Kirk or this Federation deal with them yet. And having the Borg would’ve put the butts in the seats! That would’ve been a huge hook for the film and definitely got most of the hardcore and casual fans interested in seeing it…certainly more than Beyond. ;)

The transporter thing just doesn’t work. Frankly I just thought they were going to go with the simple (if still far fetched) idea he didn’t actually die in the collision and someone else just came along and found him. That probably would’ve brought a host of problems as well. But I guess the main issue was they didn’t want to age Hemsworth up since he would be at least 30 years older than he was in the first film and why they liked the transporter idea.

But I think it proves it probably wasn’t a good idea to even do it. You can literally do anything you want in Star Trek, but you still have to be able to explain it in some logical way as well. If you can’t and it’s the entire crux of your story, then it’s not a story you should be telling.

Maybe he died but his pattern is still in the Buffer. Is the person they create from his pattern a clone like Tom Riker? That guy wouldn’t be Kirk’s father.

I like the concept of the father being unaware of any passage of time confronting his now adult son. But their idea for how that happened doesn’t fly at all. The biggest problem is we saw George right up to his time of death. It was a touching moment of him talking to his wife about his newborn. Then we actually saw him flying towards exploding. Unless he made it to a transporter in those miliseconds that idea just doesn’t work. Someone else had to perform the actual operation. Not him. The only way this little detail could get overlooked is if the film overall was really good. Looks like we will never know.

Or just introduce him as Sam Kirk who looks just like their Dad?

Setting aside for the moment that we all saw George Kirk get splattered all over the windshield of the Kelvin…. so, the story is James T, off to battle the latest Big Bad, somehow stumbles across a pattern buffer lost in space somewhere and retrieves dad from it. Just how is Lt. Kirk going to handle taking orders from his kid, the Captain? Sorry, it’s convoluted and derivative.

The idea of George suddenly trying to beam himself out contradicts the powerful message of heoric self-sacrifice as well as what we actually saw on the screen. That aside, the idea kind of works, but as they even admit, it’s a lot like how they brought back Scotty in “Relics.” Once is cool, twice is derivative. Trapped in the buffer – been there, done that. (Although most modern moviegoers would never know, as they haven’t seen TNG.)

If you want to preserve George’s intent to sacrifice himself for the rest of the Kelvin’s crew (and his wife and child) I would suggest something like this: The Borg technology which was incorporated into the Narada (Nero’s mining ship) had initiated a transport of the Kelvin’s crew (by then down to just George) just as the Kelvin impacted the Narada – a final retaliatory effort against the Kamakazi-style attack, and stored the pattern to rematerialize for assimilation. The impact of the collision knocked out the process, but left George in transporter stasis. Following the destruction of the Narada years later, the components of that defensive system were among the wreckage that escaped the singularity formed by the detonation of the red matter.

Let the JJ-verse crew find that, revive George AND deal with the Borg technology (tempting to use such power, but discovering that it comes far at too high a cost) – while also facing a threat that demands just that level of power to overcome. IMHO, that would be a movie worth making AND seeing!

It would be above awesome to see hemworth and pine together in this movie! Please make it happen!

DS9 writers wanted to bring back Ensign Seto Jaxa as a Dominion War Prisoner and they ultimately didn’t do it because they felt had her death not been real, it would have lessened the emotional reaction at the end of the TNG episode Lower Decks.

I think George Kirk actually sacrificing himself for his crew and family would have lost some emotional cohesion because we end up finding out “Oh gee whiz he didn’t die after all.”

Star Trek has this outrageous hard on for bringing back dead characters it really is absurd. Lore is just another amazingly bullshit rebirth I never wanted to see.

the Kelvin explosion creates a Singularity and the ship goes into it and pops out 30 years later