Chris Pine Suggests ‘Star Trek 4’ Should Have “Less S#!t Exploding”

This Monday was the 8th anniversary of the release of Star Trek Beyond. Paramount has spent the last eight years (on and off) attempting to get a fourth movie featuring the Kelvin Universe crew into theaters and Chris Pine and Simon Pegg are once again talking about how they feel about it.

Pine talks Trek film metrics

Paramount has set their next Star Trek film to be an “Untitled Star Trek Origin Movie” with a new cast, but they are still in development on that fourth entry for the Kelvin franchise. Recently star Chris Pine has become more publicly frustrated with the slow progress on making  “Star Trek 4” a reality, recently lamenting yet another screenwriter was hired in March. In the past, he has also chastised Paramount for setting expectations (and budgets) too high. He expanded on these thoughts at ACE Superhero Comic in San Antonio. The Captain Kirk actor told the crowd (via PopVerse):

“I think what we’ve found is that we’ve captured an audience with the Trek Universe that may not have come to us, but generally speaking it’s the diehards. I think we should make films that appeal to people who want to see the film. I’m sick of trying to please people who don’t want to see what we do….We’re at a place where to make a film, you make it for like $500 million. That’s half a billion dollars to make these films that you like. For it to be considered successful and everyone to be paid back, you have to make extraordinary amounts of money. The metrics of it don’t seem to make much sense to me. I think we just make a much smaller film that’s more story-driven, more character-based, there’s less shit exploding, and maybe do it that way.”

The actor also expressed his appreciation for Trek fans saying how the “fanbase has always been very kind to me,” adding that there are of course “trolls” out there but things in general, “people really liked [Star Trek].”

Scotty, Jaylah, and Kirk in Star Trek Beyond

Simone Pegg as Scotty, Sofia Boutella as Jaylah, and Chris Pine as Kirk in Star Trek Beyond

Pegg ready to reunite, but Anton will be missed

Simon Pegg is also out and about talking Trek, as a guest on this week’s episode of The Sackhoff Show. Host (and Battlestar Galactica and Star Wars star) Katee Sackhoff mentioned how she really “loved” the three Kelvin Star Trek films and Pegg expressed how they have been a great experience for him, noting how for the last one he had a unique perspective:

“Yeah, that was such fun. And I love doing those movies, particularly the last one [Beyond] because I got to co-write that. That was hard, but I look back on it now as it being incredibly gratifying and really fun. It was fun because I got to be a cast member and a writer, because I got to be this kind of interface between the actors and the script. We always talk through stuff before, and there were varying levels of who wanted to talk about shit… On one end you had Anton [Yelchin], God love him, and John Cho, who was like “Yeah, fine, Okay, Sulu is bisexual, great, let’s go for it.” … And Zoe [Saldaña], she was great, she’s so laid back… With Chris [Pine], Karl [Urban], Zach [Quinto] there would be a lot of talk. It was fine, they weren’t ever difficult about. They realized they had an opportunity to interact with a writer.”

Pegg went on to talk about how he is still hoping to play Scotty again, but noted how it will be difficult for all the actors after the passing of Anton Yelchin:

“Yeah, I’d love to do more. Obviously, it’s been been forever tainted because we lost Anton. That was a really hard thing for everyone involved… If we do come back, if there is an opportunity to come back, I’d love to because it’s a group of guys I dearly, dearly love and don’t get to see very often. It would be good to get back together.”

The Star Trek Beyond cast and director Justin Lin at the UK Premiere on July 12, 2016 in London, England

The next Star Trek feature film expected to come out of Paramount is the “Untitled Star Trek Origin Story” which Paramount recently confirmed as part of its 2025/2026 slate. This movie would have a new cast. Earlier this year, Paramount and producer J.J. Abrams had tapped Andor‘s Toby Haynes to direct, based on a script from Seth Grahame-Smith (The Lego Batman Movie). Paramount is also reportedly talking to producer Simon Kinberg about shepherding the film franchise, starting with that origin movie. This next Star Trek movie was mentioned during the Paramount Global shareholder meeting in June with co-CEO Brian Robbins saying it is “coming soon,” and touting Trek as one of the company’s “billion dollar brands.”


Find more news and analysis on upcoming Star Trek feature films.

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Not a fan of the Kelvin films, and (at least until BEYOND) not keen on Chris Pine’s take on Kirk. Nevertheless, he talks great sense here. If they make another, I hope someone at Paramount is listening.

I’d argue in ST 2009 and Into Darkness Pine was channeling Han Solo (his own words) and not Jim Kirk. But in Beyond he did a pretty great Kirk performance without doing a characture of Shatner.

I don’t disagree with a single thing Pine said. Many of us was saying that very thing back in 2013/2014 when STID underperformed. Instead they doubled down on Beyond with its ridiculous budget, blew chunks and here we are today.

It was a noble and ambitious idea to make Trek a big tent pole blockbuster IP but overall the experiment failed. And they know it failed because they are so afraid of just putting another movie out there now literally 8 years later.

And look just going to say it but if Pine had this attitude back in 2018 when he and Hemsworth refused to lower their asking price and the movie ultimately got shelved maybe we would’ve had another movie today. And if that did Okish enough we could either be on a fifth movie now or maybe a spin off of some kind. Maybe both.

I assume the only reason they are going with the origin story idea first because it’s just inherently much cheaper when you don’t have to pay your stars 7 figures out the gate unless a big star will be attached to it.

But Star Trek is not Marvel, Star Wars, Fast and Furious, DC, Pixar, Transformers, Harry Potter and on and on. It’s Star Trek, ie a middle tier franchise. All those have made billion dollar movies. Some $2 billion. A few multiple times. No Star Trek film has made half half a billion yet.

Star Trek should be made for A. The fans in mind first and foremost and B. A budget under $150 million. Maybe around $100 million. That’s how much the last two Bad Boys movies got made for and they are considered hits with another movie on the way. And yes they also made.more money than Beyond did with half its budget.

That’s where these movies should be living. Save the $200 million CGI fest for the next Avenger movies, Star Wars episode 10 or Inside Out 3.

Then maybe then we will actually get another Kelvin movie before the original movie celebrates its 20th anniversary (thats literally in just 5 years). Maybe…

I disagree with about Beyond. It was actually the better of the 3 films and most Trek like. Pine matured in his performance as well. There were great character moments and the story was well written. You have to understand that sequel films depend on the reception of the last one. STID was a horrible film. And that left a bad taste in fan’s mouths. The “success” of STID was due to the first film. People went to see it because if that but left disappointed. And, in turn, didn’t show up for Beyond.

No I’m talking about the BOX OFFICE only, not the actual movie which was not not only MY favorite movie out of the three but to this day the only I saw twice in IMAX. It has nothing to do with my feelings on the movie. In fact the opposite.

But I have been bringing this up for 8 years now and time to bring it up again. The reason why both O9 and STID did much better than Beyond is A. Those movies had the attention of the new fans and B. They had strong holdovers week to week. With those movies had less than a 50% drop in their second and third weekends in America. Now guess how much Beyond dropped in its second and third weekends? About 60%. That’s bad. The ONLY other movie that had higher drops than Beyond was Nemesis; officially the only other bomb in the franchise.

What does that say? Either A. The word of mouth was not as strong or B. Basically the hard-core cared about seeing it and very little else.

And that correlates directly with the audience scores themselves. I been hearing for 10 years now how ‘much fans hated STID and probably true with a lot of them. But here is the thing STID is very very popular with NEW audiences.

I know people hate when I bring up the pesky online polls (he’s using actual data HOW DARE HE????) but your view of both STID and BEY goes completely against what new fans thought of those movies.

On RT, the audience score for Beyond is 80% which is good. Discovery would love to have an 80% score lol. But STID has a 90% score and just 1% behind the first movie. Again NOT the critics scores but the audience scores.

IMDB basically the same gap between both movies. Beyond has a 7.0 which again is good. But STID has a 7.7 score and only 2 points down from the original.

So again what does that tell you? And if you took tune to read the reviews it’s obvious what demographic hated/loved these movies. Without a doubt STID was a huge hit for newer fans while Beyond was more meh. It’s the opposite with most old fans like us.

So it’s much more complicated than what you’re saying but this been the narrative for a decade now. Again I’m on your side and Beyond ranks around 5 or 6 in movie order. STID around a 10 or 11. But we’re not the majority either.

And I always try to leave my personal view out of it, hence how I correctly predicted Discovery and Prodigy were probably the first to get canceled.

With Beyond many things happened but the biggest two seems to be the movie didn’t grab the newer fans like the first two did and it looked too Trek-y. And most had just moved on by then. And then yes as you stated a lot of the old fans didn’t like STID and by default less went to see Beyond.

But it’s not one thing and I been saying all of this since 2016. STID is a decent hit but it needed to be $40 million less or made at least $50 more to be considered a bonified hit with the other big boys.

Beyond was just too late and not enough old or new fans cared anymore and no it’s not all of STID fault either. The movie just didn’t grab enough people as much as us old nerds liked it.

8 years down the track, it’s gotta be cheaper to do effects in 2.2:1 ratio since all the shows are doing it now. Surely a well written story with effects from CBS Digital would be a real option these days.

I mean you would think but I have no idea. I have no clue how much a CGI shot cost, how long it takes to render and the costs into that, etc. I am very much in the dark why and how these movies cost the GDP of South Africa when you throw in an insane amount of FX shots in them.

But this is what I DO know, the only reason we haven’t gotten another story is M-O-N-E-Y! That’s all it is, nothing else. It has nothing to do with the story, can they line up Zachery Quinto schedule, who should direct it. blah blah blah none of that matters.

This is the same company that has produced seven Transformers movies in 15 years. S-E-V-E-N!!!

And these are some of the worst reviewed movies in our lifetimes. Just for reference, the first one had a 57% score on RT. Not AWFUL until you realize it’s the highest rated movie minus Bumblebee, the only one with a great rating of 90%. But the others…wow.

Revenge of the Fallen: 20%
Dark of the Moon: 35%
Age of Extinction: 18%
The Last Knight: 16%
Bumblebee: 90% (Heeeey!!)
Rise of the Beast: 52% (welcome back)

It doesn’t remotely matter. Paramount will take anything Micheal and his Monkey writers came up with in the 3 weeks they wrote a script because it’s going to make money. Period

I have never heard the words ‘development hell’ on any of those movies. The two main stars were both replaced and forgotten about by the fourth one because no one cares. They want to see the robots fight. That’s it. And they will watch it again and again and again. Paramount has spent upwards of $250 million on each movie, no one has ever blinked on what they cost when you’re averaging $800 million a movie and not the $360 million average a Kelvin movie has pulled in.

Yeah they are not as popular these days (see above) but Paramount is going to keep making them anyway because several of them still made over a billion dollars.. They have an animated movie coming out this summer and a live action GI Joe crossover movie out in 2026…both starring Chris Hemsworth. You can not make this up.

Meanwhile we get an ‘update ‘ from Pine or Peg or Quinto or Saldana every few months or so letting us know they still really really want to do another Star Trek movie someday. They heard someone is working on a new script again and there is another director no one has talked to, but it’s maybe really kind of happening this time so fingers crossed?

They have zero faith in the franchise. Zero! Because it has never made any real money. That’s all it is and I don’t blame them but it’s partly their fault in the first place.

😂😂😂😂😂

This says it all. Paramount would release a TMNT/Star Trek crossover movie starring Vin Diseal and Seth Rogan if they thought it would make money.

Star Trek fans wants people like Quentin Tarantino, James Cameron or Christopher Nolan to make a movie and Paramount want people like the Fast and Furious guy to make it because those movies are brainless but very profitable. For some reason Trek can’t be thoughtful like other serious sci fi movies but just a roller coaster ride because they want Star Trek to be ‘cool’ and not nerdy to attract the teenagers who will never look at Star Trek as ‘cool’.

And they tried to turn it into Star Wars and Marvel until the really clever teenagers figured out “Wait I can just watch the real things instead” and eventually bailed on it.

Pine is right, trying to chase people who don’t care about Star Trek is about as successful as trying to get cats to watch an opera…they just don’t care. Sure Star Trek has made plenty of fans over the years but it’s a long term process like watching the shows and slowly being invested in that universe. After you watch a few adventures of Picard, Janeway, Kirk and the others you start to appreciate how awesome Star Trek is (minus Code of Honor, Spocks Brain and Spirit Folk).

But making empty pew pew pew popcorn films gets some to watch but it’s just the shiny new toy most will forget about quickly and move on as we saw.

What sets something apart from mindless franchises like Transformers is people just want the spectacle. You check your brain on Cybertron and enjoy the ride. As you said Paramount doesn’t care. If they could make the Star Trek films just as brainless and it made real money we would’ve had 7 of those by now too.

They can’t think of a way to crack it outside the old nerds and I’m not sure they ever will. And making $200 movies is certainly not the answer anymore either.

Yeah exactly. Of course studios want to make quality films if for no other reason it gets more people interested to watch it but as we seen time and time again it’s not a mandate either if enough people are watching something and responsive to it.

I will give them credit with Star Trek and that they did go out their way to make quality films (even if people disagree on how qualitythey are). But that’s clearly not the hang up with these movies either, they just think the next one can flop, regardless how good it is.

But ultimately studios are there to make money and if Star Trek was doing that even if it got the same ratings as the Transformers movies they would be more today. And I will also say it is probably deflating when a studio does put out a quality product and does all the right things but no one cares.That happens all the time as well, especially for smaller films.

But with Star Trek it’s not about a script issue or a director issue or casting, it’s simply money why these movies continue to be DOA.

And once they asked Pine to take less money then it was clear they had lost faith in the franchise. And that still seems to be the case today.

Yep my friend this says it all. Star Trek, brought to you by the studio behind the Transformers franchise. Paramount thinks its audences are stupid and need mindless movies. and JJ Abrams delivered exactly that.

the 2009 film and STID did give the worldwide box office for the franchise a boost, but it was short lived.

Agreed

I agree that the Kelvin movies are responsible for revitalizing the franchise post it’s Nemesis/Enterprise death. Heck I remember friends of mine they grew up making fun of me for being a Trekkie suddenly wanting to see a Star Trek movie. I literally dropped my jaw when they said that to me lol.

But IMHO the quality in terms of CGI and such was def there so it looked pretty but the script and story quality ranged from Star Wars copy cat to racist to just plain dumb. To this day even the word “Kelvin” leaves a sour taste in my mouth.

As I mentioned, one of the reasons that Beyond did poorly was due to the being a follow up to STID which was a horrible film in every sense.
It also did poorly and had a drop week after week was a untimely release in a crowded summer in which it was surrounded by other films like Ghostbusters, Jason Bourne and Suicide Squad. Hard to compete against that.
It has a RT fresh score of 86% which is very good compared to 80% for Deadpool and Wolverine.
And I agree with you. It was by far the best of the 3 movies. I have watched it countless times. I haven’t with the other 2. STID, I watched only once.

those 2016 summer movies underperfomed too (expect Suicide Squad), especially the Ghostbusters remake which was a disaster!. along with others like Independance Day 2 (was expected to be as big as Jurassic World), XMen Apocalypse (coming after the biggest Xmen blockbuster Days of Future Past) , TMNT2 (after the first was a 500m hit) , Warcraft (expected to be LOTR big), Alice in WL 2 (the first did 1b), and Tarzan (from the Harry Potter director), really it was only Captain America 3 and Batman v Superman (in march) that hit big that summer. Star Trek Beyond was considered one of the sequel/reboot misfires of the summer lumped in with the rest as a underperforming bomb.

and i dont think STID can be held completly responsible for Beyonds failure, first of all it had the biggest Trek movie box office (unadjusted), and second alot of moviegoers actually loved the movie and thought it was a kick ass space action movie, yeah some fans hated it bc it dared to remake TWOK but really that was just a small vocal minority (like that LasVegas poll at the time voting it worst Trek film lol).

Beyond’s true failure lay with the dreadful initial trailer (that played in front of the generational event of The Force Awakens)that bumped up the Fast&Furious element , (the second trailer was better), the seemingly ‘trekkieness’ of the movie with alot of reviewers saying it was a great ‘star trek’ movie to which average moviegoers then thought ‘pass’ (the previous two films were more geared toward appealing to general moviegoers not so much Trek fans), there was no big iconic villian like time travelling Romulans or Khan, or much in the way to hook the audience like there was with ST09/ID, also Star Wars had returned since ID and had stolen Treks director (and there was the new space saga of Guardians of the Galaxy) making Trek seem less an event,. and there was general apathy in promoting the movie (i guess you cant blame the studio too much as they probably didnt want to promote it as a nerdy star trek film and that it was an ancient franchise with celebrating the 50th anniversary)

‘Beyond’ also badly handled its use of Mr Elba as villain, wrapped up in alien make up.

They didn’t just use him badly his character as a villain made no sense. And just like ST 2009 before it absolutely no one was surprised at the “big” villain reveal. It is yet another example of Paramount thinking Trekkies are stupid or something.

Thats another issue tho. I love Star Trek to death and always will but come on Trek as a franchise has no business trying to be a summer blockbuster experiment. Heck Trek in Theaters is a stretch even in their regular scheduled holiday season launches.

Certain original Trek films were summer releases and did very well though, ST II, III and V (ok maybe not so much V lol..after that Trek stayed away from summer until 2009)

“As I mentioned, one of the reasons that Beyond did poorly was due to the being a follow up to STID which was a horrible film in every sense.”

Again though, there is just no real proof of that. I know that’s the talking point in the fandom but based on actual data, STID is a more popular film overall at least with new and casual fans. Yes there is a lot of shouting of how horrible the movie was on Trek boards like these but for general audiences most seem to have loved it.

But that’s why I say it’s probably not that black or white. And people seem to forget Beyond itself was suffering awful PR that had zip to do with STID.

I always believed that first awful teaser trailer did way more damage than STID did. People hated it so much that both Lin and Peg came out and said the trailer didn’t represent the actual movie but the damage was done. And then it didn’t help they didn’t produce another trailer until 6 months later. And one that never got the number of views on YouTube as the first one did.

But I will agree the movie did poorer because it was also in a more crowded field but that obviously had nothing to do with STID either right? So you admit there was indeed other factors.

But look I know how these things go, you made up your mind it was STID that was Beyond’s biggest downfall and nothing else will convince you otherwise.

The irony is I remember having this exact same argument with that other famous space franchise when fans were saying Solo flopped because of how much fans hated The Last Jedi (remember that?). I was saying back then too sure maybe it’s a factor but highly doubtful it was the main one because like Beyond itself that movie still had it’s own PR and marketing issues that was around before TLJ even came out.

But that stayed the talking point and why some people to this day cite why the movie failed even though fans generally liked it but not because most fans was just never that interested in a Solo prequel movie among other things.

And of course I was proven right in the end when the film that was actually the direct follow up to TLJ with TROS still made a billion dollars. And that movie had its own problems as well as we all know. Yeah it certainly made less money than TLJ but still a big hit.

Beyond had about a dozen reasons why the movie probably failed and yes STID was also a factor but no I don’t remotely believe a big factor either. In fact I bet every person here including you who hated STID still saw Beyond in the theaters.

Again Beyond had its own issues even if STID never existed.

I dunno. I still feel STID was a success for the same reason Beyond was a fail. ST 2009 was a huge movie in trek terms and absollutely revitalized the franchse. Audiences were expecting more of the same with STID and not only did they not get it, Paramount lost all credibility. After that Beyond didn’t stand a chance.

STID is still my favorite Trek movie. Hands down, it’s A Number One.

Oh and you pointed out Beyond had an 86% RT score which is good but you oddly left out the fact that STID has an 84% RT score which is also good and just two points behind Beyond, correct?

No offense but this why I get frustrated trying to have meaningful discussions on these boards at times because people just want to present the data that makes their argument stronger but ignore the parts that doesn’t.

Another guy who was banned did that all the time here to the eyeroll of many people including me and a reason I decided to just stop engaging with him because it was just no point to have one sided tiresome conversations like that again and again.

Now I’m not saying you are doing this on purpose but dude you obviously read the post where I literally cited that STID not only had high audience scores on both RT and IMDB but both higher than Beyond’s, so explain that?

But you completely ignored that but cited the Beyond RT movie score as ‘proof’ that Beyond was a good movie although STID is basically the same freaking score.

Do you not get why this is feeling like a waste of time for me? Some would at least try to excuse why certain scores are so low or high. The one I get for Discovery all the time is review bombing. But oddly enough fans cite STID as having just as bad of a reputation as Discovery supposedly has but yet it still has a 89% audience score…11 years later. Oddly enough no one feels the need to review bomb that movie even though it’s been dubbed as one the worst Trek movies in some circles like Discovery is dubbed one of the worst Trek shows.

(For the record I originally stated it was a 90% score which it was a year ago last timeI checked…but obviously has fallen a point since).

And let me state again I too think STID is a bad movie but I’m not talking about MY personal feelings, but the general consensus of the audience and they clearly disagree with us.

But that’s why it’s frustrating to have a real conversation at times because people just want to argue things on how they personally feel about something.

I didn’t mention STID score because it was lower. That was the point.

All I am saying is that Beyond was a far better movie than ID. They had amazing character moments. All of them.

ID was a rehash and a poorly written and executed one. Maybe it had more non trek fans going to see it because of Cumberbatch but I am pretty sure if the movie was better, Beyond would have done better. With sequels, if the movies get progressively worse, the box office will go down. Not to mention the over saturated market of other films it had to compete with.

I found Beyond to be better written and better acted than the previous films. Paramount never marketed the movie properly. In fact, the marketing for the entire JJ films was piss-poor. They just didn’t bother.

Point is, I found that Beyond is an under rated film and doesn’t deserve the thrashing it gets. People should go rewatch the JJ films again and see it through new eyes.

“I didn’t mention STID score because it was lower. That was the point.”

By TWO POINTS bro, .c’mon. You’re acting like it’s 30% or something and that’s obviously not true. I’m going to say it again this movie has been around for 11 years now and STILL has both high critic and audience score ratings.

And once again you completely avoided the actual audience scores and why it’s frustrating to even try and debate it.

As for the rest of your post, yeah I’m not arguing with your personal thoughts on the movie itself and agree with most of it. But again, this the problem and you’re using your personal opinion about the movie as a consensus when the overwhelming view of the movie outside Trek circles is actually quite positive. If you never saw WOK/Space Seed or don’t care about either you may just have a different view of the movie and my guess where the majority of the positive reviews stem from.

Anyway I like you and like talking to you but these discussions are a waste of time because you dismiss everything that goes against your argument. And no one has EVER proven Beyond failed due to STID. Never. It’s a talking point, but repeating it over and over again doesn’t make it true without some tangible evidence.

Yes I believe SOME people didn’t watch it over that movie but the overwhelming majority just didn’t seem to care about it either way.

I’ve always made the point the biggest problem Beyond had is that it had no hook. It just felt like a generic Star Trek movie and giving us the same formalic villain trope who wanted to take down the Federation for vengeance…again.

And the one hook it could’ve had was market it as part of the 50th anniversary and they completely ignored it which sadly tells you what they think of Star Trek and its legacy.

STID was def a reason why but Paramount was too. I mean it was Trek’s 50th anniversary for crying out loud and they did nothing to advertize this movie. But even without the anniversary they still should have supported it. They didn’t. Everything about this movie’s launch screamed “we made it but we know it will bomb so whatever”

Yep!

The lack of marketing really said it all. And they knew the movie was in trouble when they had that event ar Paramount studios with Chris Pine and I think with Justin Lin or JJ Abrams talking up the movie with an interviewer. It was done because they knew there was not enough excitement or engagement around it like the previous two.

I was saying the movie was in trouble for months before it opened. Everything about it just felt off. And it was clearly rushed just to get it into theaters for the 50th anniversary…but tyen never bothered to advertise it as such. 🙄

I honestly thought the movie was going to be a complete dumpster fire and was going to be this series version of Nemesis or even The Final Frontier (especially after that first trailer) but I was pleasantly surprised that it didn’t suck. But again maybe I remember useless stuff like this way too long lol, but at the time a lot of fans honestly thought the movie was just going to blow. There was no real excitement for it on the level of the first two movies. Sure you can certainly blame some of that on STID as well but many people thought the movie itself was just going to be bad or looked boring and a lot of them simply stayed home.

As I said this movie had so many reasons why it bombed, lack of fan engagement and PR was another big one.

I remember a friend who was a casual trekkie (liked ST09/ID, he was a bigger fan in the 90s collecting stuff, books vhs etc but had sort of lost touch with it until 2009) he texted me saying he’d seen the new Trek trailer in front of SW:TFA and thought it looked awful, the tone, rock song, bike stunts, and it proudly proclaiming it was from the Fast&Furious director lolz, and how disgraceful that they put out such a crappy trailer for Trek at a time when even Trek fans were excited for the new SW!

That Guardians/Fast Furious teaser was literally the only promotion there was for MONTHS ..even a HALF YEAR as it came out attached to TFA in Dec and the main trailer wasn’t out until near the film release following summer, when you think of all the millions who saw TFA and saw that trailer before.. My god bones, the damage willve been HUGE , the opposite to if it had an amazing looking trailer, for example had it been the Orci ST3, showing Cranston as the villain (when he was a pretty big deal) wanting to reverse the timeline, the whole timelines/trek universe under threat, callbacks to ST09 the one even non fans loved (showing bana? narada? hints of Nimoy? who’d died earlier that year), alice eve (looking hot again), and ending on Shatner Kirk stepping onto the bridge (a’la Han Solo ‘chewie, we’re home’) I think even SW fans would’ve been pretty excited for that!

i just cannot forgivethat the film makes this Kirk look a fool for engaging the swarm despite spock advising him not to, which leads to the destruction of the enterprise and loss of many crew members.

The 2008 movie made him look far worse. A buffoon with an adolescent mind. Beyond gave him the maturity. And the film felt more like Trek than the other two.

3 years into the 5 year mission and still making foolish mistakes, not listening to his first officer so losing his ship and costing lives of crew personnel

Kirk had no business being Captain in the 2008 film. His promotion was more ridculous than Wesley Crusher’s

Yep.

And Wesley was actually smart and highly intelligent. Kirk came off like any off like any other guy.

But how is that any different in STID when Kirk did some of the most idiotic things like setting his starship underwater on a PRE WARP planet and shocked when the aliens spotted something the size of a mega church coming out of the water?

Let’s be honest, this Kirk isn’t exactly a Rhodes Scholar. The biggest irony of these movies and why I don’t love them is the first movie tried to set up Kirk as this strategic thinker and cunning officer that Starfleet was supposedly so impressed with his skills they promoted him to captain when the guy haven’t even finished school yet and still a very immature guy.

And the next two movies made clear why it was probably a good idea to have him finish school first before giving him the keys to their flagship.

I still for the life of me can’t figure out why didn’t Kirk just have the crew evacuate the ship with shuttles or escape pods once they reached Earth and literally near the moon’s orbit instead of waiting to be pummeled again? Or why not send one to Earth for help once Scotty knocked out Vengeance power? Instead he oddly decided to do a space jump with Khan to get to the Vengeance (still a ridiculous name) when he could’ve evacuated the crew and send for help at the same time within minutes. And could’ve saved many lives.

This was a Kirk that wasn’t always working on all thrusters.

What really drives me nuts is that the whole cadet to captain thing didn’t need to happen at all. There is SUCH an easy work around. Lets not forget that Savvik was a Leutenant when she RETURNED to the Academy for command school training. Kirk could have been the same and still had his little 90210 adventures with Uhura how would have actually been just a cadet.

Even though I generally liked the first movie that will always be the biggest and most ridiculous aspect of it for many fans out there.

And I agree they could’ve just had Kirk a little more experienced and already a hot shot in the Academy and at least a LT or something. And maybe by the second movie he becomes captain.

But JJ Abrams wanted his Luke Skywalker hero’s journey and Kirk is this guy who starts off with nothing who becomes almost this mythic figure in the end. It works great for Star Wars but it doesn’t work for Star Trek at all.

Luke WAS special and we learn later why he is so gifted but that’s a very different approach than Kirk who is just another officer in Starfleet. Certainly smart and ambitious but he still had to work his way up like everyone in the Academy.

Instead it just felt like cheap and lazy story telling because it didn’t ring true to how things work in the Star Trek universe.

I swear in the Kelvin-verse it’s like the Enterprise comes off of an assembly line like a Toyota or something. “Oh Kirk you little scamp! Ya lost another one, huh? Ok, here are the keys to the Enterprise A.”

Kirk lost the enterprise in ‘search’ and had to go on trial and be exonerated before he got the E-A as a replacement in ‘home’

at least STID had benedict as a lure for some, which led to a bigger box office at the time.
‘beyond’ just was not good enough and threw away having idris elba as the villain, which could have been a boon for its box office.

I don’t see how Elba was thrown away as the villain. Why? Because he was in make up? A good actor will always be able to emote in make up or not. And I think he did a fine job at it. Cumberbatch was just plain awful in STID. Overacting every scene. Eye rollingly painful.

The make up smothered his performance , better he was seen as human from the start.

Have him a rogue captain like garth or tracey using alien tech.

Smothered his performance? Far from it! He was able to emote through the prosthetics. The sign of a true actor.

“if Pine had this attitude back in 2018 when he and Hemsworth refused to lower their asking price and the movie ultimately got shelved maybe we would’ve had another movie today.”

If you’re picking on Pine’s insistence on a big payday, go bark up another tree. In 2018 he was a very in-demand star, and he’d been paid relative peanuts on the first film, and wanted to get what he felt he deserved for his work — especially given the starpower he suddenly found himself with after Wonder Woman. Also remember that in 2018 it was reported that Pine was asked to take a pay cut – not just to lower his asking price (https://www.themarysue.com/hemsworth-pine-star-trek-4/).

Sure, you can want your cast to be so passionate that they’ll be willing to work for less, but when the studio is grasping at straws to lower costs — even as they are pulling in record profits (https://www.macrotrends.net/stocks/charts/PARA/paramount-global/revenue) — an actor should stand their ground and demand a fair payday.

I’m sorry you didn’t get your precious little Star Trek 4, but as long as we live in this miserable capitalist hellhole then he was absolutely right to walk away.

“Miserable capitalist hellhole” meaning that an employee (and a unionized one, at that) insists on getting paid what he’s worth. The horror.

Have you ever lived in a post-communist country?

You’re brazenly misinterpreted what I said, so thanks about that.

As for my living situation, I’m not sure what communism has to do with it. But please do go back to discussing your little movie and let those of us who actually have both real-world and professional experience in economics and social theory deal with those issues.

RedShorts is trying to share the pain with us and gain strength from the sharing.

I’ve been to a post-communist country. It was a field of empty holes. Hellholes. Quite miserable in fact. The pain ran deep.

A. What is with the insults?

B. I completely supported Pine when he and Hemsworth decided to walk when they were offered less. I’m on record saying that here at the time and numerous posts of me saying that in fact. They had every right to walk away. However…

C. You can’t say studio should just make a cheaper film but then expect every cost on it lowered except your salary especially when thats usually the highest proponent on a lot of films and we know the TOS and TNG movies became infamous for that.

D. Actors do in fact take pay cuts ALL the time when they want to get a project made bad enough. It’s not a new thing and it was reported the other cast members in fact did agree to take a salary cut to get the film made. Tom Cruise, literally the biggest star in the world, lowered his salary to get the fourth Mission Impossible made because he knew the studio wouldn’t make it with his current salary and his other movies weren’t making that much as before. He decided on a back end deal instead which worked out great for him in the end. Now I’m not suggesting that for these movies because they never made enough to really achieve that.

But it’s also why they continued making MI films and Srar Trek completely stalled.

E. Yes studios can make a ton of money and why they were paying Robert Downey tens of millions to play Iron Man because those movies were making hand over fist for Disney so they didn’t care. Did you not see my rant about the Transformer movies? Yes we fully agree when a property is pulling in record highs then sure everyone should be paid accordingly.

The problem is Star Trek was never one of those properties. If Beyound made over $500 million, basically the minimum of what they expect with these crazy budgets to make then none of this would’ve been an issue. But it flopped right? So the company had to reassess the next one because they knew it could flop as well and hence 8 years without a movie.

F. Actually I always thought the George Kirk returns angle was a bad idea for a film and it was obvious they were just doing it to capitalize on Hemsworth new found stardom (again thanks to Marvel since the majority of his non Marvel films have all flopped including the latest Mad Max movie). But it was clear most fans themselves never seen remotely excited for this idea and I thought that movie could bomb just as much as Beyond did so was completely fine when they shelved it. I had zero issues with that and didn’t shed a tear. ;)

I’ll go even farther and say if we NEVER get another Kelvin movie I’m fine with that too since I never loved them to begin with. And I been saying since 2018 maybe this was a sign it was time they just go another way entirely which they kind of tried with other ideas (and currently is again with the Starfleet prequel movie) but these movies oddly just keep hanging on lol.

TLDR: I had no issues with Pine not taking a pay cut and supported him over it; I’m only stating what he’s stating himself here and that these movies have ballooned to a ridiculous level for a movie property that never should’ve cost what they did given the lower ROI they bring in when compared to other films in the same range. If you’re trying to make a cheaper film to justify its existence then sacrifices have to be made across the board. If not, fine, but then it’s not a shock why the movie hasn’t been made. Right?

And I think 6 years and no films later Pine has finally recognized that too.

“And look just going to say it but if Pine had this attitude back in 2018 when he and Hemsworth refused to lower their asking price and the movie ultimately got shelved maybe we would’ve had another movie today. And if that did Okish enough we could either be on a fifth movie now or maybe a spin off of some kind. Maybe both.”

You’re probably not wrong, but also now that we’ve gotten more detail on what that was I’m kinda glad it didn’t happen. George’s death at the beginning of 09 is such a powerful, heroic opening, and do undo it in a ripoff of Relics would have been dumb and would have caused the opening of 09 which is so well done to lose some of its power and meaning. Also I mean, he clearly died in the explosion on-screen, to retcon it that he got himself into the transporter buffer would just be silly.

Also I think, IIRC, that part of the issue was there was already a deal in place for Pine and Paramount was trying to go back and lower it. Like anyone getting a job offer and then having the offered salary be lowered after already agreeing to the original offer, he’s entitled to fight them on it.

Agreed with everything you said, especially that I was actually fine it was canceled because I was never sold on the premise itself. Lots of people weren’t for the reasons you stated and that obviously included Paramount themselves and why they wanted the pay cut. They knew it was risky even when they had a bigger star like Hemsworth onboard. But it all felt a bit desperate.

I completely get and understand Pines side of it but I understand the studios too. End of the day they are putting up all the risk and when it fails people get fired or put the studio at a smaller standing. That’s why Paramount is in the position it’s in today, they spent billions on things that didn’t quite pay off and it hurt them.

But as I said in my OP I saw this coming as far back as 2013. It was very obvious these movies weren’t going to be the big hits they were expecting and could’ve changed course then and made a smaller movie. Instead they just threw a lot of money at it thinking it was going to work out…until it didn’t. And 8 years later why this property is in the state it’s in today.

If Beyond at least broke even then it may have all worked out. I think what a lot of people don’t realize or just forgot was that Beyond was the studios biggest and most expensive movie that year. They had high expectations for it and especially when their other movies were underperforming. They were expecting that movie to be big enough to recoup the losses their smaller movies did. But once it flopped as well they had no choice but to rethink things in the future which included just not doing the next film at all if it was just too costly which ultimately happened.

Paramount may as well have stuck with Orci’s Days of Shatner Past version of ST3, less budget (150m) and mightve even made more box office!

But post Guardians and the impending return of Star Wars they got in a panic so much they pulled the plug on it , hired pegg & lin and got the most boring silly nonsensical nerdiest Trek movie since Insurrection!

Dude it’s always funny reading your posts about Beyond because clearly you’re not a fan lol. Most old fans, including me, seem to think Beyond was the best of the three but you seem to have an utter hate for the movie.

And obviously that’s fine and even I agree it’s a bit slow and probably could’ve used a bigger hook to get more casual fans to care about it. I think once that first lousy trailer was shown that most people hated the movie was doomed.

As for Orci I would love someday we get the full picture over that fallout but he’s clearly not talking. But I guess he got the last laugh in the end when they dismissed his movie for one that failed.

I’m an old Trek fan and you’re right I do not like Beyond, mainly bc it took away the exciting sounding Orci ST3, I think a full orci ST3 wouldve been an absolute blast for fans and moviegoers,

Yeah I always said at least Orci idea had a much bigger hook and could’ve gotten more people interested. I’m not convinced it would be a major hit but probably bigger than Beyond at least.

And what’s more sad is Orcis career seemed to have dried up after that. Since then he’s produced or writtrn very little. But it’s proof fame is fleeting. Even JJ Abrams doesn’t have the clout he has anymore and few fans seem to care he has any connection to Star Trek these days.

Abrams dug his own grave when he made the show rounds for ST09, saying he was never a fan of TOS, and that he didn’t understand it, insisting on making a heros journey/destiny movie about Kirk. Then we learned that he wanted to wipe away original series merchandizing and replace it with NuTrek merch, and CBS was like, hell no. Then he forgot about Star Trek and went an ruined Star Wars.

Completely agree with this. Abrams never cared about Star Trek and it showed. He wanted to turn it into Star Wars and just did whatever he wanted with it. That’s why we got white Khan in Star Trek Into Dumbness.

It’s still hilarious that people originally thought Abrams was some huge Trek nerd who cared about canon or basic rules of the universe. When you have starships sitting under water…just because.. proves what a total h-a-c-k this guy was and helped put the nail in the coffin of the series.

Yeah it’s still pretty ironic Abrams originally got so much praise to work on Star Trek when the guy never even watched it. And again that’s fine everyone from Nick Meyer to Rick Berman had never seen an episode of Star Trek until they started working on it.

The difference is once they got the job they got immersed in it and started watching the show and obviously Berman had Roddenberry there himself so he was learning from the creator. And TNG wasn’t TOS so they were inventing new characters and mythology.

With Abrams I think he just relied on Orci and Kurtzman to make it as Trek-y as possible and relied on their scripts, again which is fine.

I think the problem came when Abrams didn’t take into account like how important some of those IP elements were for the long term audience and brushed them aside to appeal to new audiences, British Khan being the biggest standout. I’m pretty sure SOMEONE said the original Khan was supposed to be Indian and he probably just waved it off. The nerds can go stuff it.

But I really don’t think he took into account just how iconic that character was to the fanbsse and thought just using the name alone was enough. Sure new fans didn’t care but a decade later who is even talking about these movies? We are obviously and that’s the issue. When the newbies have moved on to the next shiny toy these things will still stay in the spotlight in the fanbsse itself forever and how long that appeal lasts will naturally depend on how its perceived. He is obviously getting a bigger dose of that with the reception of the Star Wars sequels today.

And I’m not just talking about how good a movie or show is but how much justice it does to sticking to the logic and canon of those peoperties; and it’s safe to say they both were very rocky thanks to some of Abrams bizarre choices and frankly lazy story telling. Both STID and TROS are littered with too many story conviences, plotholes. bizzare character choices and elements that goes completely against established canon to make them fit in the plot better.

Orci’s ST3 wouldve at least directly tied into one of the most popular Trek movies (ST09) and popular themes of the movies for audiences (timetravel) and been about what the main core appeal of the kelvin movies are/were – that of it being an alternate universe to the ‘prime’ universe. (even ID was showing an alt universe version of TWOK). In many ways orci’s ST3 sounded like it was going to be something of an ‘all roads led here’ conclusion, the consequences of a new timeline being created and how not trying to correct it in the traditional star trek way would lead others to try to do so (not that I believe the kelvin timeline would’ve been erased/set back to prime by the end) and bringing back the main star of Star Trek Shatner kirk (after being teased in ST09). Whereas Beyond threw all that silly ‘trekkie’ stuff away to concentrate on more basic ‘revenge and explosions’ in a complete standalone tale unconnected to any alt/prime universe stuff, bar the last 5minutes of Quinto finding the Star Trek V photo (the best part)

The Abrams/Orci/Kurtzman team reminded me at the time of Bryan Singer and his two X2/Superman writers , like they were the new kids on the block in scifi/fantasy blockbuster moviedom taking over from those guys in the late 00s/10s. Idk who a new team like that is these days. Obviously kurtzman went on to be pretty much the new Rick Berman which is pretty crazy when it seemed Orci was the main/biggest star trek dude.and Abrams tried to become the new Spielberg..

Abrams does seem to have disappeared after Star Wars 9 , I wonder if its bc that was considered such a disaster in terms of it kind of botching Star Wars’ ‘Endgame’ (making half of Ep7’s 2b when traditionally the final SW eps do near the same box office as the first )..then again it wasn’t really his fault having to course correct after Last Jedi split the fanbase to the bone, but then it was him who took on the responsibility of ‘sticking the landing’ (I did kind of like Ep9 and thought it was superior to TLJ which is really the one that unbalanced the trilogy, but then that was Rian Johnsons intention)

RoS sucks

Id say it was 2nd best of the new trilogy. Last Jedi last of course but I have to admit I still found it very interesting a first time watch..

I actually enjoyed Beyond and it was what I was hoping for the second film. All I wanted to see was a new, original Star Trek story with the original characters. “Into Darkness” was a reimagining of both Space Speed and Wrath of Khan and it didn’t really work.

What Pine said about films where “there’s less sh*t exploding” is something he had mentioned some years back, that Star Trek films didn’t need massive budgets or action, just a solid story. As for the trades reporting that Hemsworth and Pine wanted more money, that sounds like a classic studio leak. Can’t get your act together on a project? Blame creative differences or an actor who wants too much cash. They were only able to use the money thing once. After the Hemsworth movie fell apart, there were no excuses given for why every other Kelvin project fell apart.

When it comes to Star Trek, Paramount repeatedly announces films, puts them into development but never actually greenlight them. We’re seeing that play out again.

Ya know the funny thing is about Beyond? They could have made the same movie at it’s heart with like 1/2 the budget if they just ignored all the CGI for the internal planet starbase thing. It would have been like the exact same movie.

Not sure the films cost all of $500m (more like $250 m for something on an MCU scale). Getting future new fans in seats when Trek wasn’t on TV was one goal of making the films less fan-focused. Just having Benedict Cumberbatch in “Darkness” did more in that respect than any extra explosions might have done.

#makestartrekboringagain

I agree with Chris 100%. They should do an allegorical science fiction story with a mystery to solve. Please, come up with an original story worthy of a final sendoff for this crew. I want to be excited for Star Trek again.

I wish they would adapt the prime directive novel. That would be awesome!

You’re getting Khan’s secret brother in law who plans to eradicate stars to seek his vengeance against the Federation and YOU WILL LIKE IT!!!!!

Lol!

OMG JJ verse the franchise that just won’t die! 😀🙄

Pine is going to be talking about being in another movie until he’s sixty. Crazy it’s now officially been 8 years since Beyond came out.

I still remember sitting in that theater on a Saturday night with maybe 40 other people thinking ‘wow this movie is going to tank!’ I actually liked it too. The only one I liked.

But you had your time and we got glorious stories of one dimensional villains out for vengeance to destroy the Federation far too much. JJ verse was just something to keep fans happy until the glorious Prime universe returned and we got all our favorite characters back in a universe that’s not completely ridiculous (OK Threshold still happened but we like to pretend it didn’t).

I don’t mind seeing Fratboy Kirk again jumping off a mountain or something but it’s probably never going to happen.

RIP JJ verse: 2009-2016. And say hello to the Great Koala. 🐨

we need another ‘voyage home’, problem solving and not just ‘pew pew’!

Yes. 1000%. And even though it’s going on a decade, this cast is close enough to pull off a similar story.

Meh….if JJ has anything to do with it we will probably get an amalgamation of The French Connection and Driving Miss Daisy as a Star Trek film…..because the man can’t tell an original story.

Personally, this is the movie I want to see. I love this cast, especially after Beyond — which in its quieter moments demonstrated just how good the series could be as a more thoughtful, character-driven drama.

But I also want to see the cast earn what they deserve, I don’t want the studio to lowball these folks, as some seem to be recommending (let’s take advantage of talent so the billion-dollar studio can make a few more million and the executives can buy another yacht for making a flop!).

If the studio doesn’t want to pay them, and they are unwilling to produce a lower-budget, smaller-scale movie, then just close the door on this era of the movie franchise (which I for one enjoyed) and stick to television where it’s thriving.

“If the studio doesn’t want to pay them, and they are unwilling to produce a lower-budget, smaller-scale movie, then just close the door on this era of the movie franchise (which I for one enjoyed) and stick to television where it’s thriving.”

100% agree. To be honest I’m not even sure why they are even still bothering to make it since it’s very obvious they can’t make one cheap enough or that it will underperform regardless.

And I really like the cast too but they obviously aren’t hurting for work either so maybe it’s time to just move on.

Good take, agreed.

He’s not wrong. Casual fans watch the movies for the explosions. Trek fans watch for the banter in between the explosions. Tough needle to thread for the studio, but at some point, you have to have the courage to say what the franchise is not, and then chart a reasonable path forward.

“Casual fans watch the movies for the explosions”

It’s worth questioning this; neither Oppenheimer nor Barbie had explosions as their centerpiece. Top Gun did, of course.

Hmm, agreed on Barbie but… Oppenheimer? I would say that had THE explosion as its centerpiece. ;-)

What is being said is most people look at the Star Trek movies as an action franchise first and doing something different may put off many of those people who expect explosions and fighting.

Yeah of course people can watch stuff like Oppenheimer because that comes with different expectations. But if you go to see a Fast and Furious movie and it’s mostly just the characters sitting around ponticating on their missions instead of blowing things up you’re going to lose that audience fast.

it not pontification if it a ST tv show or movie, as the characters will talk about big issues or debate how to solve the big problems.

and then may shot to stun/kill or fire torpedoes.

These movies have been billed as action movies for decades now and certainly since the Kelvin movies.

There is more to some of them for sure but the general audience looks at them as flashy action movies because that’s how Paramount has marketed them.

And I’m OK with that because they need to get butts in the seats and that’s alwaysthe easiest way. .

that formula is not working any more after 45 years and it looking old hat compared to recent SF films that are not just ‘pew pew’.

the movies need to take a leaf out of the variety of stories told in the tv shows as well as the problem-solving aspects of ‘voyage home’, the most popular of the OS films.

I don’t know if Paramount would agree with you though because the Kelvin movies do have the largest box office by a lightyear. Yes there are a lot of other reasons but the reality is audiences did respond to the first two films and those were heavier on the action than Beyond was.

Personally I agree with you yes they can obviously make different type of movies and the two biggest non Kelvin movies were TMP and TVH. And we cam all agree TMP isn’t an action film lol. Again other reasons for it but audiences turned out for them.

But for whatever reason Paramount has decided these movies are firmly action movies. TG1701 made a great point in a response to me saying after Orci left fans wanted a bonafied science fiction or prestigious director to take over only to get Justin Lin who was of course big for making the Fast and Furious movies. Now most people agree Lin did a good job and while Beyond had tons of action as said it was less of it when compared to the first two and had more character scenes. But the movie still followed the same action movie trope of the villain looking for revenge instead of something weightier or more sci fi.

But the reality is he was probably mostly hired to market to the kids that the next movie was going to be more fast and furious so should check it out.

Now to be fair the two dozen directors they brought on since weren’t known for being action directors and you had people like Noah Hawley and Matt Shakman who was known for at least more intelligent fare working on these movies before those were canceled or dropped. We obviously don’t know what they were going to ultimately do but maybe we would’ve got more thoughtful movies. But my guess is they would still be action based movies maybe just toned down.

I just don’t see Paramount making a big budget version of ‘The Inner Light’ or ‘Measure of a Man’ either. High sci fi concept stories like those will always be relegated to TV and probably why Trek fits better in that medium.

They haven’t given an audience a chance to decide if a less ‘pew pew’ more thoughtful ST movie could be more appealing

I just wanna see a movie come out that I actually like…I don’t care if it’s full of explosions or not, as long as it does focus more on characters and the story comes second. Action is always fun in Hollywood blockbusters but not if it’s gonna cost half a billion dollars.

A movie like this can be made for far cheaper, and still be exciting and have a decent amount of action in it. For some reason they go full on Michael Bay’s Transformers with the stuff…like the swarm in the last movie that wrecked the ship and stuff like that that’s impossible to film without expensive CGI. A little bit of that kind of stuff is fine, but don’t lose track of the bigger picture which is making a story that’s interesting. I actually found “Into Darkness” the best out of the last three movies. I realize I’m probably a minority here, but I wasn’t that impressed with “Beyond.” I wanted to be too…because out of all of the last three movies, it was the most Trek of them all. They were in deep space, they were exploring…it was during the five year mission etc. etc…I did enjoy Idris Alba’s performance and I liked the stuff with Scotty and that girl who’s name escapes me that was white and had black lines on her face…lol…anyway…but it wasn’t that good. I didn’t feel like it delivered anything very original and in a lot of ways it was just a rehash of the other two. Sprall or Krall or whatever his name was was just out for revenge on the Federation…just like Khan and Nero. It just wasn’t original enough for my taste.

Don’t get me wrong….I think Star Trek movies need villains more so than the episodes do…but there are other ways to do it. I mean I’m not saying that the villain should be as boring as V’Ger or someone like that, but it would be nice to see a villain who had different motives. More than that, it’d be nice to see more development between the Trek trinity. (Kirk, Bones & Spock)

It appears to be that Pine wants what the Trekkies want! Paramount: LISTEN TO CHRIS PINE!

Maybe Pine shouldn’t have demanded more pay and we would have had a 4th film by now. Doubt it will get made at this point. 8 years since the last film.

In echoing what most have already said, yes, I think Pine makes excellent sense here. Star Trek has always been a franchise does better with a lower budget; the original series being the best example.

Star Trek is not a Marvel-level franchise despite Paramount thinking it is. The studio seems to want to try and force that onto Star Trek and that’s just not what the franchise is.

Action/adventure is good, just not the pew-pew bang, shields down the Enterprise is crippled in 5 seconds Star Wars “fighting” we see in the new movies. A part of this is brought on by TNG/DS9 which wrecked Star Trek fighting by making it all Star Wars style with fighters lasting 10 seconds rushing at each other like it’s Braveheart.
These are supposed to be capital starships with hundreds of people doing damage control, shields, electronic warfare, etc. You can transport boarding parties when the shields are down. You can beam mines. Tractor beams.
Instead we get them flying around like fighters lasting 20 seconds in combat TNG style.
You compare that to the finale of Star Trek II TWOK or Balance of Terror. Those are two big power starships that can take a beating and keep going. Strategy at play. Drama. “Engine room, we need warp speed or we’re all dead!”
Master and Commander is a better Star Trek movie than anything since Star Trek VI. That ship was “out there”, a capital ship had to represent the entire country, the crew has to work together, etc.
Into Darkness wrecked the Kelvin reboot for sure. You had the ultimate villain in Kahn and instead he is just a poor dude trying to save his family from evil GWB firing drones across the galaxy. Ugh.
The USS Enterprise, flagship of the fleet lasts what, 10 seconds in combat? Ugh.
What should have been… a Starfleet Command panicking after the loss of Vulcan finds a ship of genetically engineered strategists. They put them to work coming up with a plan to prevent an expected Romulan-Klingon invasion the crippled Federation won’t be able to repel.
Only when Kirk realizes his orders aren’t making sense on the frontier does he begin to unravel the fleet is being manipulated by Kahn who is working with the Romulans and Klingons to prepare not only for taking power on Earth, but the entire galaxy!

“The USS Enterprise, flagship of the fleet lasts what, 10 seconds in combat?”

I mean, there are very serious arguments being made that real-life aircraft carriers are obsolete in the era of drone warfare, and that in a (hopefully hypothetical) war between the US and China, they’d be as vulnerable as Pine’s Enterprise was to the swarm.

How about more of the problem solving done in ‘voyage home’?

Problem solving? The fast/loose approach to altering history, like w/ transparent aluminum guy, is just plain appalling with the likelihood of creating a bigger problem. Vonda McIntyre worked overtime trying to get her novelization to put a reasonable spin on the film’s material, but clearly nobody on the production gave a crap.

At least they worked the problem instead of ‘pew pew’.

have had my fill of villains in these movies.
we need another ‘voyage home’ stat.

Hahaha. I love his unfiltered opinion and totally agree with it. Less Shhhh exploding indeed.

I always like what Pine has to say. And he’s absolutely right: make Trek for fans who love it, not for the mindless masses!

It’d be funny if they greenlit ST4 at like a respectable 120m ..but then due to various script problems and endless reshoots, it goes all ‘Motion Picture’ and the budget wormholes out of control , , ends up costing close to 300m.. Star Treks Dial of Destiny!

I will take this opportunity to say I would be very excited to see another Kelvin film, but significantly less excited for an “untitled origin story.” There are so many different eras of Trek on streaming right now, I don’t see what’s to be gained by planting a flag in yet another one. I honestly don’t understand their thinking on this. There’s still a lot of general good will out there for Kirk, Spock & co, why not capitalize on that?

Pine is right. It’s not the explosions. It’s the character banter in between. Make it witty, clever, and fun and you don’t need half a billion dollars to make it a hit.

Chris Pine gets it. Star Trek in its best moments is about deep questions and how the characters find their answers. Many people find that boring. But who cares? There’s already enough mindless action out there. Make a movie that’s beautiful inside and out.

we have seen recent SF films like ‘gravity’, ‘interstellar’ and ‘the martian’ ask big questions and have characters find the answers as well as become blockbusters.

any new ST film needs to do the same.

The next great Star Trek script he reads will be the first great Star Trek script he reads. That “Chris Hemsworth survived in the pattern buffer” ST4 idea with Klingon Michonne (written by the guys doing the <s> wildly popular </s> LotR show> was a sad excuse for a movie.

Thank God that movie was never made and those two bozos never got the chance to ruin the franchise like they’re doing with LOTR…

Yeah it sounded pretty bad all around and why I don’t think Paramount had any regrets it was shelved.

And I always said it was also clear Hemsworth star power never translated beyond playing Thor and he’s been in multiple IPs since and they all bombed including the latest Mad Max movie.

I think that’s why Paramount wanted him to take a pay cut because they probably knew by then his presence in the movie would be negligible box office wise.

I’m ready for a mature Trek adventure with this cast. Maybe Paramount hasn’t noticed but there has been a resurgence in thoughtful intelligent sci fi.

and pine will take a pay cut to make this smaller trek film??

I agree whole-heartedly, and STOP blowing up the Enterprise.

Terrific discussion all-around; I agree with what Chris says and looks like the majority of the comments concur about the state of the ST movie franchise.

Since no one has mentioned him, how about the late Harve Bennet — sometimes called the man who saved Star Trek. ST:TMP was made for over 40M which was Ludacris in 1979 dollars — then came Nicholas Meyer and Harve Bennet and Jack Sowards who made Wrath of Khan — generally considered the best of the Trek films — for about 12M. The story was excellent, the special effects had their proper place in the film and didn’t overwhelm the story — it all worked.

I’m hardcore Star Trek fan since 82, and I saw Beyond only twice in the theater — it’s not memorable. It’s good, yeah, but it’s not great. Too much popcorn, too much boom, yet another villain who wants revenge for not a very good reason. Khan worked because it was deeply personal. I can’t remember the name of the villain in Beyond.

I don’t believe any Star Trek film will ever do the box office of a Star Wars film, or a larger character Marvel film — I think Trek is still niche. So — Make a film with a great story that the Star Trek fans will enjoy — and this is key — see more than once and want to own for home viewing. The film will make money and keep the fans wanting more.

We have plenty of popcorn tentpoles like furious and Transformers — Trek can be more than that. And can be made for much less money.

Pine’s comments are the smartest ones I have heard from anyone in Kelvin Trek. He is absolutely right. TMP cost so much more than TWOK but which had the greater impact? Story is everything.