chris hemsworth star trek into darkness

Film Review: ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’

J.J. Abrams sets his filmmaking to 'stun' with a sequel in every respect equal or even superior to its splendid 2009 predecessor

By Scott Foundas

Scott Foundas

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J.J. Abrams sets his filmmaking to “stun” for “ Star Trek Into Darkness,” a sequel in every respect equal or even superior to its splendid 2009 predecessor, which lovingly and cleverly rebooted Gene Roddenberry ’s long-running space opera following the black hole of 2002’s “Star Trek Nemesis.” Markedly grander in scale, although never at the expense of its richly human (and half-human) characters, “Into Darkness” may not boldly go where no “Trek” adventure has gone before, but getting there is such a well-crafted, immensely pleasurable ride that it would be positively Vulcan to nitpick. Global box office cume should easily warp past the prior pic’s $385 million for this sturdy Paramount tentpole, which opens overseas May 9 before beaming down Stateside one week later.

Abrams, whose last pic was the lyrical “E.T.”/“Close Encounters” homage “Super 8,” here tips his hat to the “Indiana Jones” series, opening with a thrilling setpiece that finds Kirk ( Chris Pine ) and Bones (the sly, loose-limbed Karl Urban ) on the run from a tribe of very angry natives on the planet Nibiru. The natives, decked out in head-to-toe clay body paint, shimmer like human ceramics as they chase the Starfleet officers through a crimson forest, the lush colors of returning d.p. Dan Mindel all but searing the screen. Meanwhile, Spock ( Zachary Quinto ) toils away nearby, attempting to insert a high-tech ice cube into the raging volcano that threatens to destroy Nibiru and its inhabitants — a dangerous mission that quickly goes awry, building to a classic “Trek” standoff between stubborn Vulcan logic and impulsive human emotion.

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The Enterprise crew has scarcely recovered from that one when, back on Earth, a terror bombing lays waste to a top-secret Starfleet intelligence facility and brings to the fore a new galactic baddie: a rogue Starfleet officer named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) who claims credit for the attack and, after an equally brazen follow-up, hightails it deep into Klingon-controlled space. The hawkish Adm. Marcus ( Peter Weller ) dispatches the Enterprise in hot pursuit, with this familiar-sounding objective: Shoot first, ask questions later, and avoid starting a war with the locals. Welcome to “Star Trek Into Zero Dark Thirty.”

Only, this John Harrison is a slippery sort who, when given the chance, claims not to be the villain at all, but rather a pawn in someone else’s deadlier scheme. And for much of its running time, “ Star Trek Into Darkness ” makes a good guessing game out of whether this mysterious stranger with the glacial glare and bones seemingly made of steel is friend, foe or — like the “old Spock” of Abrams’ first “Trek” — a little bit of history repeating. It hardly matters, because whatever Cumberbatch is playing, he’s wonderful to watch, infusing the movie with the kind of exotic grandeur Eric Bana’s wan Romulan henchman (arguably the weakest link in the 2009 film) largely lacked. Also making her maiden “Trek” voyage is the lovely Alice Eve as an ambitious science officer who lies her way on to the Enterprise deck and makes goo-goo eyes with the good Captain. She is not, it turns out, the ship’s only stowaway.

Having previously established an alternate “Trek” timeline in which all the events of prior series and movies still happened, but aren’t necessarily doomed to recur, Abrams and returning writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (now joined by “Lost” co-creator Damon Lindelof) here take that idea and run with it, invoking prior “Trek” lore when it suits them, freely branching off into new directions when it doesn’t. (Hell, there’s even some trouble with a tribble.) It’s a tricky business, balancing reverence with reinvention, but like the young Kirk, Abrams seems altogether more comfortable in the captain’s chair this time — not just in the large-scale action scenes, but particularly in the quieter ones, where you can sense his real investment in these characters and his confident touch with actors.

SEE ALSO: ‘Star Trek’ Premieres in London (Photos)

The film builds particularly well on the burgeoning Kirk-Spock friendship, with Pine showing reserves of vulnerability and doubt beneath his cocksure exterior, while Quinto adds gravitas to Spock’s eternal inner conflict — and his deepening romance with Lt. Uhura ( Zoe Saldana ). But make no mistake: The action, when it comes, is superbly executed, whether it’s giant vessels making mincemeat of one another, or the simpler excitements of old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat and foot chases through crowded promenades.

The best, even-numbered films in the original “Trek” film franchise were shaped by the guiding intelligence of writer-director Nicholas Meyer , who laced the Starfleet jargon with high-toned literary references and a gently self-mocking sense of humor. Abrams, too, manages to keep the mood buoyant even when the fate of the universe is hanging in the balance, more than earning his tears when he finally decides to milk them. But if Meyer’s primary references were Shakespeare, Dickens and Conan Doyle, Abrams’ are Spielberg, John Hughes and Cameron Crowe. In defiance of the self-congratulatory snark that has become de rigueur in Hollywood franchise fare, he brings a shimmering pop romanticism to “Trek’s” stalwart ideals of friendship, heroism and self-sacrifice. There’s something bold about that, indeed.

“Into Darkness” is a beautifully modulated and sustained piece of work across the board, with visual effects that seamlessly meld live-action and computer-animated elements, given further texture by old-fashioned celluloid lensing (with 65mm Imax used for key action scenes). Post-production 3D conversion by Stereo D ranks among the best of its kind. The Enterprise has rarely looked sleeker than it does on production designer Scott Chambliss ‘ sets. Adding the cherry to the top of this cinematic sundae, composer Michael Giacchino ‘s soaring score once again revives Alexander Courage’s immortal Trek theme for the closing credits.

Movie Stills:

Paramount Pictures

Reviewed at AMC Loews 34th Street, May 2, 2013. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 132 MIN.

• Production: A Paramount release presented with Skydance Productions of a Bad Robot production. Produced by J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk, Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci. Executive producers, Jeffrey Chernov, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Paul Schwake. Co-producers, Tommy Gormley, Tommy Harper, Ben Rosenblatt, Michelle Rejwan.
• Crew: Directed by J.J. Abrams. Screenplay, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, based on “Star Trek” created by Gene Roddenberry. Camera (Deluxe color, Panavision widescreen/35mm/Imax, 3D), Dan Mindel; editors, Maryann Brandon, Mary Jo Markey; music, Michael Giacchino; production designer, Scott Chambliss; supervising art director, Ramsey Avery; art directors, Kasra Farahani, Michael E. Goldman, Andrew E.W. Murdock, Harry E. Otto, Lauren Polizzi; set decorator, Karen Manthey; costume designer, Michael Kaplan; sound (Dolby Atmos/Datasat), Peter J. Devlin; sound designer, Ben Burtt; supervising sound editors, Burtt, Matthew Wood; re-recording mixers, Will Files, James Bolt; visual effects supervisor, Roger Guyett; ILM visual effects co-supervisor, Patrick Tubach; ILM visual effects producer, Luke O’Byrne; visual effects, Industrial Light & Magic, Pixomondo, Kelvin Optical, Atomic Fiction; stunt coordinator, John Stoneham Jr.; assistant director, Tommy Gormley; second unit director, Guyett; second unit camera, Bruce McCleery; casting, April Webster, Alyssa Weisberg.
• With: John Cho, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Peter Weller, Anton Yelchin, Leonard Nimoy.

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Star Trek Into Darkness: The sequel that took the Kelvinverse wildly off course

Ten years ago a promising franchise lost its way with a Wrath of Khan tribute act.

Any franchise entering its fifth decade is bound to have had a few ups and downs along the way. Star Trek's midlife crisis landed in the '00s.

Nemesis , the tenth Trek movie, had brought the film series to a stuttering halt, consigning the old odd numbers bad, even numbers good theory to history (check out our Star Trek movies, ranked worst to best article to see what we mean). On the small screen, meanwhile, the premature cancellation of Enterprise had brought 18 continuous years of storytelling on the final frontier to an end. A wilderness period to rival Doctor Who 's absence between 1989 and 2005 could easily have been on the cards.

Luckily, it took less than a year for J.J. Abrams (fresh off the success of Lost and Mission: Impossible III) to accept the brief of resurrecting an ailing saga. And, much like Nicholas Meyer did on The Wrath of Khan, he brought the eye of a non-fan to a franchise that had become somewhat set in its ways.

Given his subsequent relocation to a famous galaxy far, far away, it may be appropriate that Abrams' formula for the movie was to Star Wars it up. Star Trek (as it was economically branded) prioritized box-office friendly spectacle over the more cerebral corners of sci-fi. At the same time, it pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of telling an origin story for Kirk, Spock, and Bones, while also keeping their fates a mystery. This unlikely Schrödinger's canon scenario was achieved by creating an entirely new continuity (the so-called Kelvin timeline ) via the ingenious combination of a post-Next Generation Spock, a vengeful Romulan commander, and the noble sacrifice of Captain Kirk's Dad, George.

Star Trek was exciting, emotional, and entertaining, and – as long as you looked past the odd narrative inconsistency – largely faithful to existing canon. It also broadened the franchise's appeal beyond the traditional fanbase, and subsequently became the highest grossing movie in the series by several light years.

Four years later, Star Trek into Darkness arrived on a warp bubble of hype and anticipation, but Wikipedia controversy created by the absent colon in the title was just the tip of the iceberg. Abrams' follow-up undid everything its predecessor got right and sent the Kelvinverse spinning wildly off course.

Into Darkness started off promisingly enough: Spock in danger, the Enterprise hidden underwater, and an audacious mission to save a primitive civilization from a volcanic eruption. This spectacular violation of the Prime Directive prompted a brief demotion for Kirk, until a series of terrorist attacks left his mentor, Christopher Pike, dead, and Starfleet on a defensive footing.

From here, the movie never recovered. Darker sequels have become something of a Hollywood cliché, but this was a particularly unnecessary swerve away from the fun adventure vibe of the first movie. With Kirk and the crew forced into an Apocalypse Now-style manhunt to track down fugitive assassin John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), Into Darkness squandered the easy chemistry the cast had established first time out. Chris Pine's Kirk suffered more than most, as the pressure of command robbed him of the rogue-ish charm that made him the MVP of the first film.

But – with the possible exception of Carol Marcus's gratuitous shuttlecraft striptease – Into Darkness 's biggest crime was its obsession with places Star Trek has boldly gone before. Indeed, after the massive narrative hoops the first film jumped through to make this Kelvin timeline a blank slate, this was something of a wasted opportunity.

Fan service is now so baked into the DNA of Star Trek and Star Wars that you could forgive the presence of Marcus (mother of Kirk's son in the original timeline) and the references to Harry Mudd and Christine Chapel. However, the Enterprise's detour to apprehend Harrison on the Klingon homeworld only made sense as an excuse to reintroduce the franchise's most famous alien bad guys.

And did anyone ever really believe that John Harrison was the aggressor's real name? Despite multiple protests to the contrary from cast and crew, his true identity – he was Khan Noonien Singh all along! – ranked among the worst-kept secrets in sci-fi. The subterfuge wasn't even worth the effort because this new version was Khan in name only.

Crucially, Into Darkness forgot that it was the rage that simmered during 15 years of exile that turned Khan into such a memorable antagonist in The Wrath of Khan. For all his genetically engineered superior intellect, Khan 2.0 was only a big deal because we already knew he was. That's probably why Leonard Nimoy's Spock Prime showed up to tell newbies that Khan Noonien Singh is the most dangerous adversary the Enterprise ever faced – a moment every bit as clunky as Palpatine telling the pre-teen Anakin Skywalker he'll watch his career with great interest.

But the true nadir of Star Trek into Darkness came in a final act that morphed into a weird cover version of The Wrath of Khan. As dialogue was recycled verbatim and Kirk (rather than Spock) sacrificed himself to save the Enterprise from certain doom, the sequence's biggest achievement was reminding you of the brilliance of the original. The over-played grief of Spock – a man who could barely stand to be in the same room as Kirk just a few hours earlier – couldn't get close to the impact of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy's touching farewell in The Wrath of Khan.

These missteps didn't do the movie any harm at the box office, where it made significantly more money worldwide than Star Trek. In most regards, however, the Kelvin timeline never really recovered.

With Abrams otherwise engaged on The Force Awakens, Fast & Furious regular Justin Lin took the helm for 2016's Star Trek Beyond. They made a noble attempt to explore new territory (albeit while destroying the Enterprise… again), but it was definitely one to file under fun but forgettable.

In the years since, Paramount have repeatedly tried to get the cast back together for a fourth time – most notably for a story that would reunite Kirk with his late dad, George (Thor's Chris Hemsworth) – but for the time being the Kelvin-verse seems stuck in limbo. And with the tragic death of Anton Yelchin , who played Chekov in the Kelvinverse movies, a full reunion is sadly off the cards for good.

But, does Star Trek even need movie theaters anymore? With four existing shows on the Paramount Plus roster and another – Starfleet Academy – on the way, the TV branch of the franchise is in better health than ever. Plus, with the Michelle Yeoh-starring Section 31 movie also coming to the streaming platform in the near future, it seems that the newly launched Enterprise-A may be stuck in Spacedock forever.

That's a shame, because the rebooted original series crew were denied the opportunity to live up to their massive potential. How different things could have been had Into Darkness captured the imagination like its predecessor…

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Richard's love affair with outer space started when he saw the original "Star Wars" on TV aged four, and he spent much of the ’90s watching "Star Trek”, "Babylon 5” and “The X-Files" with his mum. After studying physics at university, he became a journalist, swapped science fact for science fiction, and hit the jackpot when he joined the team at SFX, the UK's biggest sci-fi and fantasy magazine. He liked it so much he stayed there for 12 years, four of them as editor. 

He's since gone freelance and passes his time writing about "Star Wars", "Star Trek" and superheroes for the likes of SFX, Total Film, TechRadar and GamesRadar+. He has met five Doctors, two Starfleet captains and one Luke Skywalker, and once sat in the cockpit of "Red Dwarf"'s Starbug.  

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George Kirk

• View history

Lieutenant George Samuel Kirk, Sr. was a Human Starfleet officer in the early 23rd century . He was the son of Tiberius Kirk , husband to Winona Kirk , and father of Starfleet officers James T. Kirk and George Samuel Kirk . ( TOS : " Where No Man Has Gone Before ", " Operation -- Annihilate! "; Star Trek )

He and Winona had four grandchildren : three from their son George Jr., and one from their son James. ( TOS : " What Are Little Girls Made Of? "; Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ) A fifth grandchild, also James's, died in utero. ( TOS : " The Paradise Syndrome ")

• 1 Early life
• 2 Starfleet career
• 3.1.1 James T. Kirk
• 3.1.2 George Samuel Kirk
• 4 Alternate timeline and realities
• 5.1 Background information
• 5.2 Apocrypha
• 5.3 External link

Early life [ ]

When George Kirk was a kid, he owned a PX70 motorcycle . According to an alternate version of his son James , Kirk often put Winona on the back of the vehicle and it drove her nuts. ( Star Trek Beyond )

Sometime later, Kirk and Winona married and had two children, George Samuel and James . ( TOS : " Where No Man Has Gone Before ", " Operation -- Annihilate! "; Star Trek )

Starfleet career [ ]

Kirk joined Starfleet because he truly believed in the humanitarian and exploratory ideals of the Federation. By 2233 , at the age of twenty-nine, Kirk was serving as first officer aboard the USS Kelvin under Captain Richard Robau . His wife was also aboard the ship and was pregnant with his son James Kirk at the time. ( Star Trek ; Star Trek Beyond )

George Kirk raised his son James in Iowa , before moving to the Tarsus IV colony sometime before 2246 . ( SNW : " A Quality of Mercy "; TOS : " The Conscience of the King ")

At some point between 2229 and 2233 , he became the youngest Starfleet officer to achieve the position of first officer, a record that was broken in 2259 by his younger son, James at the age of 26. ( SNW : " Lost in Translation ")

Relationships [ ]

During his time with Starfleet, he barely had time to see his family.

James T. Kirk [ ]

When James was young, he would often wonder why his Dad would choose to help total strangers rather than make the effort to be with his sons; the young James came to believe it was something important. ( SNW : " Lost in Translation ") This provided him with the inspiration to join Starfleet. George lived at least long enough to see his son become captain of the USS Enterprise in 2265 . ( Star Trek ; VOY : " Q2 ")

George Samuel Kirk [ ]

While he was the elder son and had been named after George (though he did not use the name), Sam felt his father held "old-fashioned" views on what made a fulfilled life and successful career, which were reflected more by James, who followed in his father's footsteps as a command officer in Starfleet than Sam, who became a scientist. ( SNW : " Lost in Translation ")

Alternate timeline and realities [ ]

In an alternate 2266 , created after Christopher Pike prevented the death of several Starfleet cadets and his own exposure to delta radiation , James Kirk mentioned his father to Pike, who in this timeline was still captain of the Enterprise . ( SNW : " A Quality of Mercy ")

Appendices [ ]

Background information [ ].

George Kirk, specifically the alternate reality version of the character, was played by Chris Hemsworth . This footage of George Kirk was set immediately after the split in the timeline , allowing an insight into what the prime- universe version of the character was like, as George Kirk has never appeared in canon aside from that.

Although George Kirk wasn't canonically referred to until the series of alternate reality films (released from 2009 onwards), there were several early attempts to refer to him. For instance, in the first draft story outline for TOS : " The Conscience of the King " (dated 13 April 1966 ), James Kirk's father was depicted as having led a research expedition on a planet colony, twenty-five years prior to the events of that story, at which time Dr. Leighton had been his assistant. After the colony was brutally taken over by an army of marauders (which was led by a revolutionary leader named Kodos ), they tried to force Kirk's father to defect to their side. He refused, rejecting a medallion that bore the symbol of the marauders, who consequently executed him, while his son, James Kirk, was watching.

At this early stage in the development of "The Conscience of the King", the murder of Kirk's father was key to the episode's backstory, though he wasn't actually named in the story outline. The decision to drop the idea of his murder was made by the series' writing staff, rather than by the writer of the episode, Barry Trivers (as evidenced by a memo dated 15 April 1966). The change was made because the TOS writing staff believed that having the victim be James Kirk's father would tie them "to an aspect of Kirk's close family past, creating something which may hem us in later."

George Kirk was also mentioned in the unfilmed Star Trek: The First Adventure script as having died when his craft, the Bonaventure , disappeared during an experimental dilithium -fueled warp jump. Montgomery Scott worked with him on the project.

In the script of Star Trek , George Kirk was referred to as a thirty-two-year-old as of 2233, suggesting he was born in 2201 . The script also described him as having an "all-American face." [1] On the other hand, in Star Trek Beyond , James Kirk muses that, upon reaching thirty, he'll be a year older than his father when he died, making George twenty-nine at the beginning of 2233, with a corresponding birth year of 2203 or 2204 .

As director of the film Star Trek , J.J. Abrams specifically asked for Chris Hemsworth to portray George Kirk, though the actor had only begun working in America a few months beforehand. He received notification of the role one day after he returned to Los Angeles following a couple of months of filming in Chicago. " I had a phone call from my manager saying that I needed to drive across right away to Paramount Studios and meet J.J. Abrams in his office to do the scene, " Hemsworth explained. " I cancelled what I was doing, drove over there, did the scene in his office at his desk and he said, 'Fantastic – we have to work together. You start next week.' And that was it! " Although Abrams didn't share much information with the performer at that time, Hemsworth did use a genuine scene from the movie for his audition. He had very little time to prepare for the role, though there wasn't a lot he could do to ready himself for the part anyway. ( Star Trek Magazine  issue 145 , p. 91)

Since this character had never appeared before, Abrams and Hemsworth were free to collaborate on the portrayal of George Kirk. " On set we discussed how we wanted to play it, " remembered Hemsworth. " J.J. had very specific ideas about what we wanted to achieve, but he's also the kind of director that gives you the freedom to try other things and put your own interpretation on it. It was more a case of taking the scenes that we had, and finding the truth in what was being said, then just playing that and trusting in the overall picture J.J. was creating and that the writers had done for us. " ( Star Trek Magazine  issue 145 , p. 91)

Constructing a backstory for his own character, Hemsworth came to the opinion that George Kirk is " someone who has quite a strong sense of justice. He's that old-fashioned kind of good guy: he has strong morals and puts other people before himself. But he was also played as someone in his mid-20s. He's still quite young, so I think a lot of who he is was ingrained, maybe through his upbringing. I feel like he had a pretty strong sense of character, and especially to be put in the position he is at such a young age says a lot about who he is. " ( Star Trek Magazine  issue 145 , pp. 91-92)

In many ways, Chris Hemsworth was relieved that, because there wasn't much rehearsal time, he didn't have long to consider what he was letting himself in for by playing James Kirk's father. " That was funny, " he remarked. " In a really good way, I was thankful for not having enough time to think about it, because the turnaround from the audition to when I was shooting was so quick. I didn't have too much time to think about the pressure that was built around it. But afterward, the more I heard about it, I started hoping I did an okay job! [....] There were a couple of times when I was sitting there on set, and I thought that it doesn't get any bigger than this, in terms of money, expertise and everything that's put into making a film. And I wondered what I was doing there! But [...] it was mind-blowing and exciting. " Also, Hemsworth found that his confidence regarding his performance was boosted by Abrams. ( Star Trek Magazine  issue 145 , p. 92)

He may have a brother, since James T. Kirk said he was staying at his uncle 's farm in Idaho in Star Trek Generations . It was never made clear which of his parents had a sibling though, or if he was just using the term for a long time family friend. In Star Trek , an uncle Frank was cut from the script and reworked into Winona's new husband heard in the film.

Apocrypha [ ]

The cover of Final Frontier , including an illustration of George Kirk

The name "George" for James Kirk's father first originated in Vonda N. McIntyre 's TOS novel Enterprise: The First Adventure , which gives his full name as "George Samuel Kirk, Senior". The novel Collision Course calls him "George Joseph Kirk", while the comic book story " Captain James T. Kirk: Psycho-File " calls him "Benjamin Kirk". Star Trek II: Biographies calls him "Eugene Claudius Kirk".

Intel 's Star Trek tie-in website gave his serial number as SA-733-9624-AM.

George Kirk was seen as the first officer of the USS Enterprise under Captain Robert April in the novel Final Frontier . In the novel, Kirk was the one responsible for convincing Captain April (who had been charged with naming the as-yet-unnamed ship) to name the ship Enterprise . The cover art for the book contained a picture of him.

Additionally, Kirk played a major role in the novel Best Destiny , where he was once again shown as first officer under Captain Robert April. He plays a more direct role in sixteen-year-old James Kirk's life, and is upset with him for his rebellious behavior.

In the Crucible trilogy, written by David R. George III , George Kirk was described as having died when his son, James, was a young boy, with no mention of the elder Kirk's career in Starfleet.

IDW Publishing 's comic Keenser's Story depicts George Kirk as having been present for first contact with the Roylans ( β ) (Keenser's species). After Keenser helps them fix their shuttle, he accompanies George on the ride back to the Kelvin , with the intention of going to Starfleet Academy.

Issue 17 of the Star Trek: Boldly Go series depicts a George Kirk who never served on the Kelvin . He is shown in command of the USS Enterprise with Sulu as his helmsman, while attacking a squad of warbirds. The followup issue showed George inviting James out on a a ride on his motorcycle.

The novel The Autobiography of James T. Kirk lists George's birthday as December 13, 2206 . According to this novel, his mother was named Brunhilde Ann Milano and was a nurse on Starbase 8. George served aboard the USS Los Angeles before being promoted to first officer of the USS Kelvin .

External link [ ]

• George Samuel Kirk, Sr. at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works

Chris Hemsworth

Chris Hemsworth is known for portraying Marvel comic book hero Thor in the film series of the same name, and for his starring roles in 'Snow White and the Huntsman' and 'Rush.'

Who Is Chris Hemsworth?

Born on August 11, 1983, Australian heartthrob Chris Hemsworth has made quite a name for himself by swinging his hammer as Marvel comic book character Thor, starring in several films under that title and in related features like The Avengers. The Melbourne native and married dad has also earned leading roles in Snow White and the Huntsman , Rush and In the Heart of the Sea , while showing his comedic chops in reboots of Vacation and Ghostbusters .

Quick Facts

FULL NAME: Christopher Hemsworth BORN: August 11, 1983 BIRTHPLACE: Melbourne, Austrailia SPOUSE: Elsa Pataky (m. 2010) ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Leo

Early Life and Brothers

Hemsworth followed in the footsteps of other famous Aussies like Heath Ledger , Isla Fisher, Simon Baker and Naomi Watts by becoming a regular on the soap opera Home and Away . In 2007, after three seasons of playing character Kim Hyde, he headed stateside to continue his entertainment career.

It didn't take long for the actor to make it onto the American silver screen when he appeared in J.J. Abrams' 2009 remake of Star Trek . His part as Captain James T. Kirk's dad may have been small, but it was enough of a performance to lead to a huge Hollywood opportunity.

Hemsworth auditioned for the lead in the superhero film Thor . He went up against some stiff competition, including younger brother Liam. But director Kenneth Brannagh chose the older Hemsworth to play the Norse god in the 2011 flick opposite Oscar-winners Natalie Portman and Anthony Hopkins . This box-office success elevated Hemsworth to A-List status.

'The Avengers' and Marvel Sequels

The following year, he became Thor once more in The Avengers . Hemsworth suited up as the Norse god for a third time in 2013's Thor: The Dark World , and he went on reprise this popular character in Avengers: Age of Ultron (2015), Thor Ragnarok (2017), Avengers: Infinity War (2018) and Avengers: Endgame (2019).

'Snow White and the Huntsman,' 'Rush,' 'In the Heart of the Sea'

An ability to bring in big movie crowds, especially female fans, helped the handsome actor land other leading roles besides his work as Thor. He starred in Snow White and the Huntsman (2012), with Kristen Stewart , and later returned to the role in The Huntsman: Winter's War (2016). In between, Hemsworth appeared in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) and worked with iconic director Ron Howard for Rush (2013), a real-life car racing story. The actor teamed up with Howard again for the shipwreck tale In the Heart of the Sea (2015).

'Vacation,' 'Ghostbusters,' 'Men In Black: International'

Hemsworth has also landed prominent roles in reboots of popular '80s films: In 2015, he played the brother-in-law of Ed Helms ' Rusty Griswold in Vacation , and the following year, he served as the team's secretary in Ghostbusters . In early 2018, Hemsworth played a U.S. Army captain in the war drama 12 Strong . He then co-starred in the 2019 sci-fi sequel Men In Black: International , with Ragnarok colleague Tessa Thompson , before headlining the action thriller Extraction in 2020.

Wife and Family

Hemsworth's talent agent, William Ward, not only helped his client score primo parts, but it's also through that connection that he met his wife — Spanish actress Elsa Pataky, known for her roles in Snakes on a Plane and Fast Five . The two shared the same representation. Three months after going public with their romance, the 27-year-old married his 34-year-old fiancée on Christmas weekend in 2010 in Australia.

Two years later, the couple welcomed their baby girl, India, into the world. Hemsworth immediately vowed to teach his daughter to surf — just as soon as she could walk. In an interview with Yahoo , Hemsworth said, "Having a baby has made everything else less important, and it's just wonderful." The couple added to their growing family with the arrival of twin boys, Tristan and Sasha, in 2014.

Fact Check: We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us !

• As a kid, you run around the house pretending to be a superhero, and now to be doing it as a job, I feel very lucky.
• Having a baby has made everything else less important, and it's just wonderful.

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Remember the Scrapped Star Trek 4 With Chris Hemsworth? Here's What It Was About.

The Rings of Power showrunners dished on their scrapped script, which they called " Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in space."

Now, we don't blame you if you somehow forgot that a Hollywood-sized Star Trek franchise existed until as recently as 2016. (You know, a lot has happened since then.) We're talking about Star Trek , Star Trek Into Darkness , and Star Trek Beyond , which served as a reintroduction to the USS Enterprise crew, starring Chris Pine as James T. Kirk. The films had varying levels of success, both critically and financially, but the franchise did enough to briefly greenlight a fourth film. Back in 2018, plans fell through for Star Trek 4 to see the return of Chris Hemsworth as Kirk's father, whom he previously played in 2009's Star Trek . Last we heard of the film, director Matt Shakman left the project, going on to take up Fantastic Four duties. Even Pine seems in the dark .

Now, in an interview with Esquire for the Rings of Power finale , Payne and McKay opened up about their vision of the movie—and it's a doozy. We'll let you read the whole thing for yourself:

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.

PM: 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.

Pretty exciting stuff, isn't it? Chris Pine, Matt Shakman, hell, even William Shatner—if you're reading this, can we get this film made? Please and thank you.

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Chris Hemsworth Will Return as George Kirk in Star Trek 4

Chris Hemsworth is set to return as George Kirk, who will cross paths with his son, Chris Pine's James Tiberius Kirk in Star Trek 4.

Paramount Pictures, Skydance and Bad Robot today announced that the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise will return to the big screen for another voyage in Star Trek 4 . In the next installment of the epic space adventure, Chris Pine 's Captain Kirk will cross paths with a man he never had a chance to meet, but whose legacy has haunted him since the day he was born: his father. Chris Hemsworth , who appeared in 2009's Star Trek , will return to the space saga as George Kirk to star alongside Pine.

The remaining cast, including Zachary Quinto , Zoe Saldana , Simon Pegg , John Cho and Karl Urban m is expected to return. J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay will write the screenplay for this new Star Trek sequel. J.J. Abrams and Lindsey Weber will produce through Bad Robot Productions. David Ellison and Dana Goldberg of Skydance will executive produce.

Star Trek , the first film in Paramount 's rebooted franchise based on Star Trek , created by Gene Roddenberry , earned more than $380 million worldwide in 2009. The second installment, Star Trek Into Darkness earned more than $460 million worldwide when it opened in May 2013. The series' third film, Star Trek Beyond , is directed by Justin Lin ( Fast & Furious franchise) and opens in theaters on July 22, 2016.

Hemsworth is currently starring in Ghostbusters alongside Melissa McCarthy , Kristin Wiig and Kate McKinnon , and filming Thor: Ragnarok and Avengers: Infinity War - Part 1 back to back. He is repped by CAA and ROAR. Paramount hasn't confirmed if director Justin Lin will return to the helm for Star Trek 4 , but hopefuly we'll have some more updates soon, including a possible release date.

The 2009 Star Trek movie actually marked the feature film debut of Chris Hemsworth , who had previously been best known for playing Kim Hyde on the Australian TV series Home and Away . Since his character George Kirk died in the opening moments of Star Trek , we don't know for sure how Captain Kirk will reunite with his father, but hopefully we'll have more details soon. It also isn't known how Anton Yelchin's death will be handled in future sequels, if Pavel Chekov will be written out of te franchise, or if another actor will be recast.

Is Chris Hemsworth Returning for ‘Star Trek 4’? J.J. Abrams Teases Next Sequel

While Star Trek Beyond opens in theaters next week, talk is already turning to the next installment in the rebooted franchise. After helming 2009’s Star Trek and the sequel Star Trek Into Darkness , J.J. Abrams found himself busy with Star Wars: The Force Awakens and stepped back to a producer role for Beyond , with Fast & Furious 6  helmer  Justin Lin coming onboard as the franchise's new director. As Abrams continues to be involved with the franchise, he was in attendance at the recent press conference for the film, which Collider’s own Christina Radish was covering. And when asked if they’ve already thought about ideas for Star Trek 4 , Abrams responded enthusiastically:

“Yes, and there’s something that hopefully we’re figuratively minutes away from talking about. The answer is 100% yes, and it’s incredibly exciting.”

It’s not uncommon for studios to start work on sequels before the imminent film is released, but the Trek franchise has been a curious case. The 2009 reboot was a commercial success as was Into Darkness , but neither film hit the heights of other blockbuster franchises like Fast & Furious or Star Wars , and with a new Star Trek TV series coming to CBS in early 2017, many wondered if the film franchise would continue beyond Star Trek Beyond or if Paramount would take a “wait and see” approach with the box office. However, early reactions to the film have been mighty positive , and audiences seem primed for a good blockbuster at last after a pretty disappointing summer overall.

Given Abrams’ excitement, one can imagines they’ve got an interesting idea in place for Star Trek 4 , and indeed reporter Scott Mantz tweeted today that such an idea exists: Chris Hemsworth will reportedly be returning to the franchise after playing George Kirk— Chris Pine ’s father—in the 2009 film’s fantastic prologue, re-joining the series for Star Trek 4 .

So yeah, that would be kind of huge, and given that Abrams' 2009 film brought time travel to the table in a big way, pretty damn fitting. Hemsworth was just starting his film career in 2009 but is now a bona fide movie star, so bringing him into the Trek ensemble—especially in such a character-rich way given James Kirk’s struggles to get out from under the shadow of his father—would be mighty exciting.

It’s possible Abrams and Co. will officially announce this casting next week during the film’s Comic-Con premiere, so stay tuned. Star Trek Beyond opens in theaters on July 22nd.

Screen Rant

Chris hemsworth would return for star trek movie sequel with chris pine.

Though he lost the main role of Kirk to Chris Pine, Hemsworth's role in Star Trek marked a career-defining moment for the Australian actor.

Chris Hemsworth recalls the Star Trek film that united him and Chris Pine and says he would be more than willing to return for a sequel if asked. Though Hemsworth is now most known for playing Thor in the MCU, his first film role was actually in 2009’s Star Trek . Hemsworth played George Kirk, father to Pine’s James T. Kirk (more famously Captain Kirk) in the J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek . The 2009 Star Trek film inspired a highly-acclaimed series of Star Trek films. Abrams went on to direct 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness which was followed by 2016’s Justin Lin-directed Star Trek Beyond . 

Though Hemsworth did not act in Into Darkness or Beyond, Star Trek quickly launched a career for him. Before Star Trek , the Australian actor had only appeared in smaller television roles. Shortly after Star Trek , he was cast in Thor , launching him into the Marvel Universe. Hemsworth’s role as Thor has taken up a significant portion of his film career to date. He will soon reprise the role again in the much-anticipated Thor: Love and Thunder . 

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Over a decade after Star Trek hit theaters, Hemsworth fondly recalls the script that brought him and Pine together. In a recent interview with Vanity Fair , Hemsworth recalls being summoned into Abrams’ office for another audition for Star Trek after he had auditioned for the lead role of Kirk a year before. Hemsworth claims that he did not know what role he was auditioning for at first, nor did he anticipate the massive film the new Star Trek would become . Hemsworth also expressed the enthusiasm he would have to shoot another Star Trek film with Pine after original plans for a movie with the two fell through. Check out what he had to say below: 

“There was talk about me doing the film with Chris Pine at one point, the script was sort of put together and then it fell apart. If J.J. Abrams called me tomorrow and said, ‘Chris Pine and I want to do it,’ I’d probably say ‘Yeah, let’s go for it.’”

Hemsworth’s enthusiasm toward this abandoned script should come as no surprise. In the interview, the actor fondly reminisces about his Star Trek role, noting the “ honesty and purity ” and “ spontaneity ” of actors’ early careers, including his own. Certainly, this energy gained even more weight when taking on a role in such an iconic franchise after being cast in much smaller parts. 

Star Trek was clearly a career-defining moment for Hemsworth. The extent to which that Star Trek audition and script influenced his acting future is abundantly clear in his filmography, for he went on to feature in not only Thor but The Cabin in the Woods , Snow White and the Huntsman , and Rush . Star Trek launched Hemsworth not only into steady acting work but into large-scale blockbuster films from the inception of his film career. It makes sense that the actor would be more than willing to return for a sequel. With the first Star Trek movie playing with time travel, it's more than possible that Kirk and his father could unite on screen at some point in the future. But beyond just a list of his films, the extant excitement and gratitude towards Star Trek is palpable in this interview. 

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Source: Vanity Fair

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Chris Hemsworth Explains How His ‘Star Trek 4’ Project Fizzled Out In 2018

| November 26, 2022 | By: TrekMovie.com Staff 155 comments so far

In 2018, Paramount Pictures was ready to move forward with a follow-up to 2016’s Star Trek Beyond that would bring back Chris Hemsworth from the 2009 Star Trek movie as George Kirk, teaming up with his son, Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine). A script was written (by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay), a director was hired (S.J. Clarkson), and production was set to start in early 2019 for a likely summer 2020 release. However, deals with Hemsworth and Chris Pine could not get renegotiated and the project was shelved, leading Paramount to move on to several other attempts to bring Trek back to the big screen, most recently with some Marvel vets on a project that was recently removed from Paramount’s 2023 release calendar.

Last month, the screenwriters for the 2020 Star Trek 4 project revealed details of the story , including how Hemsworth’s George Kirk would have been moved forward in time to team up with Pine’s James T. Kirk via the transporter buffer (ala Scotty in “Relics”). Now the Thor actor is talking more about why he thinks his Star Trek project fell apart.

Chris Hemsworth as George Kirk in 2009’s Star Trek

On the latest Happy Sad Confused podcast, host Josh Horowitz lamented how he was never going to see the Star Trek 4 movie with Hemsworth. The actor noted that this was due to “a few reasons” and then assessed how the project never came together, focusing not on salary negotiations but on the script:

It wasn’t what I sort of where I was thinking it would have been or could have been. I thought there would be, ‘Okay, cool, let’s figure that out and keep going.’ And then I think everyone got busy and so on.

Hemsworth added that time has worked against the idea of reviving the role he shot 15 years ago:

It would be weird now to flash back to your father and “why is he so much older than the first time when he died?”

But when Horowitz talked about how much he liked Hemsworth’s role in the 2009 movie, the actor seemed open to the idea of returning, saying, “We could campaign to get it going, though.” In June of this year, Hemsworth stated he was willing to give it another shot :

There was talk about me doing the film with Chris Pine at one point. The script was sort of put together and then it fell apart. And if J.J. Abrams called me tomorrow and said, “Chris Pine and I want to do it,” I’d probably say “Yeah, let’s go for it.”

Chris Hemsworth at the Limitless release event on November 16 (Getty)

The latest Star Trek 4 project did not involve Hemsworth, but with that one pulled off the schedule, who knows what could happen next for the film franchise.

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

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This makes me wonder if some actor, somewhere associated with Trek, would answer “nope, that ship has sailed”, when asked if they’d ever want to revisit the franchise.

Spiner used to say a lot. We all know how that turned out.

I wish he sticked to his guns on that. i hate what Picard did to Data

You hate that the show gave him a touching send off? A weird flex but okay.

A touching send off? Data essentially committed suicide. .

It was still better than the way he went out in Nemesis.

Wasn’t his death in Nemesis a suicide run? He died on his own terms. He lived for 20 years as a consciousness in a computer and decided that wasn’t a life for him, since he wanted to live as close to the human experience as he understood it. He didn’t want to be Terry Schiavo. That doesn’t seem unreasonable.

Personally I felt like there was a lot more nuance involved that diminishing it to simply that.

He said he never wanted to play Data again, not necessarily never want to do Star Trek. But yeah, since he is known for playing Data that would imply he was done with Star Trek. Well obviously they found other ways lol.

Spiner felt he got too old to play an android that isn’t supposed to age. But having Spiner play other characters besides Data started long before the Kurtzman era. So I don’t think he was ever done with Star Trek. He took whatever opportunity came up.

Exactly, which was my point. He never wanted to stop being in Star Trek, he simply felt playing Data himself was feeling unrealistic. But the reality is most main actors only play their main character. I don’t think anyone would’ve accepted Nimoy playing Spock’s secret twin brother after TWOK for instance (the funny thing is that wouldn’t feel so ludicrous today ;)).

Spiner just happened to play other characters while he was playing Data, which included Lore who basically IS Data’s twin brother lol. And so now he’s back. And I’m guessing he excuses Lore for aging since he was made to be more human like from the start.

Are you…mad that the actors apparently had a good time and liked making Star Trek enough to do it again? B/c to me that’s a good thing. The fact that they care whether the quality of script and the focus of the people making it is there is really cool, too. I think people used to be far more reluctant to return to roles back before decent stories that really went somewhere new with the characters were not just on the table, but expected. Whether you like them or not, or it’s a mixed bag for you, these kinds of stories have given actors a reason to WANT to come back. And technology coming a long way has helped, too; when you no longer have to deal with greenscreen and/or super long prosthetic application and removal, returning to SF/F roles suddenly becomes a lot less daunting on the practical level that’s a secondary concern for viewers but may loom large in the memories of actors.

I don’t think they implied they were mad, just that Spiner (and let’s face it Stewart as well) weren’t keen on returning before.

Having said that, Trek has changed. They didn’t want to return to do what they did before as positive an experience as it was. But what they returned to in Trek was not what they left and I think that’s why they returned for more.

Sure, Spinner didn’t want to return so that’s why they manufacture a force-fitted role for him in every season now of Picard…lol. That’s all a load of BS — of course he and his agent let that be known…then they negotiate and then they cut him large checks, and the he ALL OF A SUDDEN he has no freaking problem playing another freaking Soong family member that I don’t think any of us really wanted to see. Because crap like “Fresh Hell” doesn’t pay the bills, and he and his agent know exactly what they are doing here to pick Kurtzman’s pocket year after year. LOL

I’m not mad at all and have commented on plenty of occasions that there’s nothing wrong with an actor taking a paying gig. Shatner is a great case study; he’ll do anything for a check. There’s context here to consider, Hemsworth’s involvement with the franchise was thirteen years ago, and to not put too fine a point on it, Trek hasn’t been a priority with Paramount. There have been five Transformers and MI movies since 2009. Thirty-two Marvel movies. There have been two Trek movies since 2009.Since Nemesis, three Trek movies in twenty years. Any actor seriously wanting to do Trek these days is talking to Alex Kurtzman, not JJ Abrams. And that’s why, when pressed, the Kelvin cast acknowledges either implicitly or explicitly that, yeah, they would if asked, but they’ve also moved on. Someone being blunt about it shouldn’t be unexpected.

Shatner usually says that he would only return if it was a meaningful script and not just a cameo. But more to the point I’m pretty sure that ship has sailed for him

Understanding that meaningful for Shatner just means there are plenty of zeros on the check.

He knows that IF were to board any ship that it crash straight into the old folks home just in time for some Lawrence Welk and reheated oatmeal from the night before. Isn’t old age with a large check and reconstituted funky oatmeal and blueberry muffins sensational?

That would be dumb given EVENTUALLY they will make more movies…and at some point they will at least bring back some, if not all, of the Kelvin actors. For example, 2030 hits, and then it’s exciting and works from a marketing perspective to get a Kelvin reunion movie, or a crossover with Kelvin cast involved — they will all be later in their careers in Starfleet, like TUC was for TOS cast.

Look at almost all of the franchises — they bring the original versions back, even if it’s just for a one-off.

I mean some has said that in past, but things can and do change. I think Nimoy said it about 2 or 3 times and the irony is he nearly ended playing his character the longest out of every TOS actor in the end. George Takei now has the record since he returned to Star Trek this year.

Some like Stewart and Mulgrew in the past has said there would have to be a big enough reason to come back but never completely ruled it out. I think they also thought at some point the franchise would just move on to new things and time periods. NOPE! But never said it would never happen either.

To me, it would be weird to flat out say you would never do a role again, especially if you just genuinely loved it and help give you the career you have. And I remember saying this somewhere, it’s damn if you do, damn if you don’t. If you say you are done with Star Trek for good, some fans will call you ungrateful and that you are now acting like you are too good for it. If you say you want to come back, you’re accursed of just wanting a paycheck. So no matter what someone is going to get on your case about it. And of course this happens in every long term shows and movies.

I do think we won’t see Hemsworth in Star Trek again though, but his circumstances was different. And the idea just sounded very forced. But it’s still Star Trek, maybe he could show up as Prime Universe Kirk and runs into Picard or Janeway. ;D

I don’t think a lot of the DS9 actors would go back, tbh.

Not sure why you would say that since most have said they would love to come back. And two of them recently did with Shimmerman and Visitor in Lower Decks (but yes it’s easier to be a voice actor versus putting on all the make up and costumes again). But they also did a lot of interviews after that episode aired and said they would play those roles again. Shimmerman said it couldn’t be like it was when DS9 was airing because he’s too old to get all that make up done for 25 episodes but certainly like to make appearances at least. Terry Ferrell said last month at a convention she would love to play Dax again.

The only person who doesn’t seem to have a big interest to go back was Avery Brooks and maybe even he has changed his mind, but I don’t think he is waiting by the phone either.

Star Trek VI should have been the last we saw of the TOS cast. Generations despite having enjoyable chemistry between Patrick Stewart and William Shatner, is a bad extended tv episode. Though i really like Malcolm as the villain.

sounds like he wasnt too happy with how he was being brought back..like ‘thats it? the transporter??’ (like most fans when they heard about it the other month)

couldve brought him back any number of ways that couldve been quite interesting and taken into account his aging (timetravel/Yesterdays Kelvin, beamed out by the klingons and held prisoner for years on Rura Penthe, the Mirror universe etc) ..but instead it was.. ‘Relics’?

Yeah, I don’t like the Relics re-hash either… part of the fun of wondering about ST 4 was wondering how they were going to get the two together… and to learn it was just another transporter buffer reincarnation, an idea ripped off from TNG. The Kelvinverse already suffered from a lack of original ideas. Another key problem is it really diminishes his sacrifice in the first movie, which is one thing I quite like in that one.

Chris looks unrecognisable now from his 2009 appearance. In the memorable opening moments of that movie he displayed real charisma and star power. I’m glad this discarded plot never made it to fruition though. It’s entire purpose wasn’t so much to tell a good story, but simply to get box office leverage on the basis of Hemsworth’s name, and we all know it. The fact they even tried to do this suggests there’s not even an attempt to approach storytelling in any meaningful way.

Originally I was open to the idea of him returning if it was done right. Now I’m glad that this never worked out, because from what I read it would have only detracted from the powerful opening of JJ’s first Star Trek.

While the 10 minutes he spent on Star Trek was brilliant, it was also 14 years ago, and I’m really ready to move on.

That’s the irony, everyone did 14 years ago lol. It just seemed like a ploy from Paramount and Abrams to try and get more people to watch the next one, but most Star Trek fans didn’t sound like they were biting their nails to see George Kirk again. It never sounded like a movie anyone was begging to see and probably another reason it died.

The inability of the Bad Robot films to push Trek forward is a major problem, and this just underscores that. Oddly enough, it’s in this particular series’ past, not the franchises’. Although the conceit to get Hemsworth back is itself a rehash of an idea from TNG.

I really thought for all the flaws of the Abrams reboot/Kelvinverse, the casting was flawless. I enjoy the first one, hated Into Darkness, and liked Beyond. I wanted a 4th film BUT the death of Anton Yelchin plus the great work of Strange New Worlds has taken away my interest in seeing another Bad Robot film. Bringing back Hemsworth always felt cheap and would rob Pine’s Kirk of what’s driven him his whole life. Bad Robot seems to be bankrupt of ideas. SNW seems to know what Trek is and how to tell stories in that era.

I’m still down for that cast to get back together on film. I think it can still work.. it’s just hilarious to me how they spent so much time ‘untethering’ this continuity from existing canon, just keep going back to that well. It’s asinine.

I haven’t seen the Lord of the Rings TV show that’s written by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, but everyone I’ve talked with says that the story is quite bad. So I think we’re lucky that their Star Trek script was never filmed!

What? Wow, that surprises me. It’s fantastic.

My brother watched it and thought it was pretty bad too. But of course every one will have a different opinion about something. But I seen a lot of bad reviews to put me off from watching.

Its very good. People just like to complain because it has a female protagonist and black characters.

Considering my brother is black too, I don’t think that was his complaint lol. He didn’t hate it, but he did think the pacing was slow and the story didn’t feel very compelling. But he did say he will give season two a chance. I’ll probably watch it and decide for myself but when you have so many options these days, it’s really hard to watch stuff most people seem ‘meh’ about.

Fair enough. A lot of the complaints are racist and sexist, but obviously some people just don’t like the show. Given that it is a Tolkien adaptation, I think a slow pace is to be expected. Tolkien’s books really take their time to tell their stories. That style obviously isn’t for everybody though.

To be honest, I’ve never been a huge fantasy fan in general. I didn’t start watching GOT until it’s sixth season and only watched the first episode of House of Dragon so far and these are the shows people were raving about.

I did plan to watch LOTR but once the initial reviews started, yeah, less inclined. And when my brother who DOES love fantasy and LOTR (he bought all the extended movie versions) wasn’t big on it, even less so for me. But I will give it a chance at some point, probably after I finally finish House of Dragons lol.

If you watch the first episode of LOTR Rings of Power it will probably be a good guide to whether you would like the whole series or not. For me they did manage to capture the balance of characters, compelling plot, and cinematic grandeur that I liked in the classic LOTR trilogy, and that was missing in the plodding Hobbit movies.

Yeah I will do that eventually. And for the record my brother told me I should still try to watch it and decide for myself, which I literally said I would, he just gave me his opinion lol. I mean if I listen to opinions about Star Trek shows from random anonymous posters on a message board, obviously I’m going to take an opinion of someone I actually know and trust and understands the genre way more than I do. And being brothers we understand each other’s taste very well. And he’s always been more the fantasy guy and me the sci fi guy.

A great example, he went and saw all the Hobbit movies opening day. But I didn’t bother to watch the first one until after it came to cable and after being so disappointed with that one I didn’t bother watching the last two until years later. And we both agreed they were big disappointments. So as said, I’m not a huge fantasy/LOTR guy in general. But I’ll probably give the show a chance eventually. I’m still trying to get through stuff I’m actually excited to watch on my own.

Right now I’m in the middle of For All Mankind which I been wanting to watch since it started and that’s already three seasons old. And so far loving it. My brother would’ve been bored by episode 3 though lol.

It’s just not very compelling. You can know how a story ultimately ends but any prequel has to present a take that manages to expand upon the source material and stand on its own. The story isn’t well executed and despite watching the entire first season I can’t remember the names of any of the characters created specifically for “The Rings of Power” which typically indicates a lack of compelling characters.

Yeah the reaction does sound very mixed. I went to see what the score was on RT. It has an 85% critics rating but a 39% audience rating. That’s definitely a very mixed reaction lol. So in no rush to see it. Maybe will just wait to see how season 2 fares first and then watch both if that season has a better reception overall.

Good point. Also, notice here that some posters here who are negative on it haven’t actually seen it themselves, while the three of us who actually bothered to watch it all liked it. LOL — draw your own conclusions from that.

There is an extraordinary amount of competition for my TV viewing time these days. If a show wants me as a regular viewer, it needs to grab me right out of the gate. Rings failed to do that. So did Game of Thrones Mk.II . I haven’t written them off, I might give them another shot at some point.

OK, I understand that. But the problem with that approach is that some shows take multiple eps of set up to get going and then become outstanding series. Severance, Turn and The Man in the High Castle are other good examples of this.

I gave up after the third episode. I was just so bored. People seem very split on it. Some really do love it while others think it’s an insult to JRR Tolkien himself.

I don’t care that much. I just want to be entertained and yeah so far it’s failing me big time at least. At some point I will try to finish it and maybe will love it by the end. But if you’re forcing yourself to watch something that is only 8 episodes long that’s probably not a great sign lol.

But loved House of Dragon. Was riveted from beginning to end. That’s a show I can recommend anyone to watch, even if they never seen the original show.

I watched every episode and it just didn’t work for me. The anticipation that typically builds to a season finale just wasn’t there.

And for the rest of us not put off by a female protagonist or Black elves and dwarves, it’s just not compelling television. I can’t help but compare it to “Andor” on Disney+. When “The Rings of Power” concluded after building to the season finale, I wasn’t exactly filled with anticipation on how the season was going to end. Wondering who might be Sauron and if that long haired guy is Gandalf was about all that kept moving the show forward.

“Andor”, however, was built in layers and broken down into thirds, with the climax of each third for the protagonist part of a larger story with other storylines that moved forward on their own.

“The Rings of Power” could best be described as a beautifully shot series that was underserved by an underwhelming interpretation of Tolkien’s work while “Andor” can best be described as one of the most compelling series of 2022.

Well, I give you credit and respect for being the first person I personally have conversed with on this who doesn’t like it, but actually watched the entire season. IDIC

I still think that’s a small but very vocal minority of viewers. I’m unfamiliar with the source material specific to the series, so I think that probably helps.

Agreed. Those who don’t like it are the loudest on the internet. Kind of like the same deal with Discovery for Trek…a popular series that has grown the franchise, but a loud minority of core Trek fans can’t stop bitching and moaning about it on web sites and social media, so it creates this perceived group-think effect that makes it seem like the series is not successful/popular to those people who are not paying attention.

You are correct — it’s fantastic.

This is another example of internet fanboy group-think trying to crap on a great show.

LOL — it does seem like most people who have a negative opinion of it have never watched it. And I’ve seen a lot of this online in the same vein where people saying it’s bad haven’t watched it, but mention (I’m exaggerating, but you get the point) that that their friend’s, sister’s, roommate’s, uncle’s dentist watched it and said it was bad, so it must be crap. Give me a freaking break. :-))

I didn’t get past the first episode. The pacing was glacial. Did it get better?

It was a bit of a slog and watching “Andor” kind of spelled out why: While we know how both stories ultimately end, “Andor” stands entirely on its own by exploring a part of the “Star Wars” universe which is virtually unknown while “The Rings of Power” is weighed down by the original source material by utilizing and relying on far too many characters from it.

Well IDIC here as well — I found Andor kind of depressing and devoid of the Star Wars joy I expect from that franchise. I give Andor a resounding “meh”. For all it’s weaknesses, I liked Kenobi a lot more.

I agree that version of Star Trek 4, would have frustrated me if written the way they said. As for LOTR TV show, the last 3 episodes redeem a lot the rest of the series. That is because the first episodes feels political, with a lot of expositions for the rest. It is painful at times.

I thought it was enjoyable. I can’t say I love it, but overall I like it with some quibbles here and there.

I haven’t seen it, because I don’t carry a pile of streaming subscriptions. I understand it’s been well received broadly, with the biggest blowback coming from people who have their MAGA undies in a knot that there are women and people of color prominently featured.

I’m happy this movie never got made. I loved Relics but this story just sounds… BAD. We all saw Kirk get blown up. he didn’t have time to stick himself in a transporter buffer. Nor does he have the technical know how like Scotty did

Same my friend! The idea sounded as dumb as most JJ verse movies! So I’m shocked it didn’t happen. 😁😂

It worked in TNG because it was done in both a creative and logical way. Here it sounded ham fisted and desperate and even Hemsworth knew it.

And it probably would’ve flopped like Beyond did anyway. Hemsworth only makes movies money when he’s playing Thor. He’s usually box office poison when he isn’t.

Like George Kirk himself let JJ verse stay dead.

RIP JJ VERSE: 2009-2016! 😎🖖

I wouldn’t say the Kelvin universe is completely dead, but yes maybe in terms of films. I just think its long past time to come up with a new concept, which they TRIED with Noah Hawley’s idea but that got sunk too.

But I agree about Hemsworth and this movie. I think Paramount wanted to draw out Hemsworth fans who wouldn’t normally watch a Star Trek movie, but most of those fans seem to only be MCU fans because they don’t show up to a lot of his other movies, even with other franchises like Ghostbusters and Men in Black. Both of those bombed with him in those too and he was the main star in MIB. So I don’t think it would’ve been any guarantees. Maybe did better than Beyond but still nothing Paramount wants in terms of big BO. And yes, it could’ve done even worse .

Thankfully we’ll never know.

I do think we will still see Kelvin characters again at some point. There are always crossover possibilities and with so many shows being made maybe there could be a Kelvin spin off show at some point. What I would love is a Kelvin/Lower Decks crossover episode! Now that would be tons of fun lol.

Lol would totally be down for a Lower Decks and Kelvin crossover! That would be fun, especially since LDS keep making jokes about JJ verse every season. McMahan would go nuts with it!

And I like the cast. I never had an issue with them, just being in bad movies and how badly they did Fratboy Kirk and Emo Spock especially.

But I wouldn’t mind seeing a Sulu show’on Paramount+ or something. It could be Sullu now as captain with his husband and daughter living domestic life on a ship balancing his family life and job.

Dude this is funny but I was reading a different article here discussing the latest Kelvin project implosion and me and you discussed a Lower Decks/Kelvin crossover idea over there several months ago lol. I guess we really really want that crossover. ;D

And yes, I would be into a Sulu spin off show. Actually Bob Orci wrote in that same article saying he actually tried to pitch a show idea starring Cho but it went nowhere; probably because CBS wanted only stories based in the Prime universe again. And the two companies were still separated.

But again,who knows after a few years? Even Quinto said he would love to do a spin off Spock TV show. I don’t have an issue with any of these ideas; especially if the movies are dead. I want to see Trek expanded as much as possible (and we keep getting post-Nemesis shows of course).

I don’t actually think we will see the Kelvin characters again. They cost way too much for TV and they don’t pull in enough to justify a Trek movie. The numbers just don’t add up. It was a good idea to try with ST 2009 and Into Darkness but that time is over.

Well of course if they did a TV show, they would cost less lol. And ALL these actors do both TV and movies, none of these actors are HUGE stars minus maybe Zoe Saldana and Simon Pegg. But Karl Urban biggest claim to fame right now is being on a TV show, The Boys. Simon Pegg is doing a TV show for Peacock right now called The Undeclared War which first season came out in August. Both John Cho and Zoe Saldana made TV shows on Netflix recently, although Cho’s show, Cowboy Beebop got cancelled after the first season. Saldana’s show was just a limited series so it only has one season. Zachery Quinto mostly does TV work which is what he is, a TV actor. It’s only Star Trek he’s ever really done any real movie work in. Even Chris Pine did a miniseries on TNT a few years ago which I watched.

I don’t know where people get the idea these guys are so big they can’t do TV work, especially as shown they all do it, most very recently. With the exception of Saldana, they are not HUGE stars. They get a lot of work but most of them are just working actors end of the day. Pine, Pegg and Saldana do a lot of movie work but Saldana is the only huge star out of the bunch. Pegg would be second thanks to Mission Impossible. And Pine a faaaaar distant third. Cho, Quinto and Urban mostly does TV work. When was the last time you saw any of those guys in an actual movie?

Now all that said, yes if they did a Star Trek TV show they would probably get more money than they did in other TV roles, but that’s how it always works obviously. Patrick Stewart is certainly getting tons more playing Captain Picard again than he was getting being in Blunt Talk. But he obviously isn’t getting paid what he was on the TNG films either including all the other TNG actors coming back in third season. But they are all probably getting above anything else they would get on other shows. So I’m pretty sure if most of given the option of doing more Star Trek on TV versus never doing it at all, most would at least consider it.

But of course that is the bigger question is do they or Paramount want to do a Kelvin show? Which at the moment, at least for Paramount, seems to be a no. But who knows in a few years? And everything is just different today. The Obi Wan show was suppose to be a movie, once they were afraid it wasn’t going to be a major hit, they turned it into a TV show and got Ewan McGreggor back for that too. So everything is different today.

It doesn’t even have to be a full on show, just more of a limited series or a one or done which the Obi Wan show supposedly is.

Welp it gets a little complicated these days. With streaming and everything a lot of movie actors have been doing streaming and TV shows so the lines have started to get blurred. I mean even Harrison Ford is about to do a Paramout+ show and I think we can all agree he is a movie star LOL.

I just found out a week ago Harrison Ford was doing a TV show lol. I saw the trailer for it on YouTube. One of the Yellow Stone shows, which I never seen. And yeah he’s a HUGE star even now. He still gets $10+ million in every film and I imagine he probably got 20 or 30 million for the next Indiana Jones movie.

So you’re right, TV and movies have been blurring for awhile now, but streaming has erased it completely at this point. I mean all the MCU movie actors are also in the MCU shows too.

And I also think because there is just less episodes more movie actors are willing to do it. In the old days when you were the star of a show, that used to mean 20 episodes a season. Now that can mean 6-10 tops, so it’s probably easier to commit to that even if you’re still mostly doing films.

Yeah, I mean after COVID it just became a thing I guess? Like there is Tv. there are movies. Streaming is something in between i guess? Like it’s not tv because you pay for it but its not the movies cause you are at home? It… just… different…? and no one knows how to classify it. Even the stars.

Wonder Woman 2 bombed as well. Chris Pine is no draw. WW 84 didn’t even make back its budget. It did far worse than Star Trek Beyond.

You’re not wrong but WW 84 came out in the middle of the pandemic. And it was the first film they decided to release on HBO Max the same day it was released in theaters. My guess is most people, especially people still afraid to go to theaters, just watched it on HBO Max instead. I was one of them. And boy so happy I did because I thought it was soooooo bad lol. I could not tell you how excited I was to watch it. I haven’t seen it since and I still have Max.

I imagine it would’ve at least broke even if it only went to theaters but yeah it’s no way it was going to be close to the hit as the original because the word of mouth killed it.

I’m in a writer’s group and I got thoroughly trashed for saying I enjoyed WW84. I thought it was better because it was at least an attempt to put something not in the middle of a huge, shot-to-death war. I also thought the end of the first WW was terrible.

Well the way they brought back Steve was absolutely ridiculous lol

It might be years, but they will eventually show up in either a reunion movie or a crossover movie. The cast will age and will not always be this expensive, and also in another 8-12 years sentimentality and studio marketing ideas will likely kick in, and they will revisit this crew again.

As Trek fans, we should know better by now to not rule out revisiting old crews, sometimes even decades later.

Yeah, it will happen eventually.

I suppose it’s possible. But this cast is not like any other Trek cast. These aren’t people that got started with Trek like almost every other Trek series minus Scott Bakula. They mostly all had successful careers before this and are not defined by Trek. So I guess we will see.

Sorry to be blunt, but in another 8-12 years a lot of the legacy character actors will be dead. The wasted opportunity now is the reluctance to flesh out new characters, even in universe.

Chris Pine did the TV miniseries I Am The Night for TNT in 2019. Zachary Quinto is currently in American Horror Story on FX. Karl Urban is currently in The Boys on Amazon Prime.

John Cho has been in like 5 different TV shows since 2009 lol. I know because I watched them all minus his last one, Cowboy Bebop. I actually loved Flash Forward, which was an ABC show which came out the same year the first Kelvin movie did and was being produced by Brannon Braga. Unfortunately all the shows he’s been in has only made it to one season minus Sleepy Hollow; but he just did a few episodes of that show and wasn’t starring in it.

And Karl Urban was also in another good sci fi FOX show which got cancelled after one season. It was a JJ Abrams show called Almost Human released in 2013. Sadly it was also shut down way too soon.

Zachary Quinto never stopped doing TV shows. He was still doing Heroes when the first Star Trek movie came out and kept doing more shows when that was finally cancelled through both STID and Beyond. I didn’t know he was in AHS.

I don’t know where this idea came from everyone on that cast are huge A list movie stars? It certainly can’t be due to the Kelvin movies themselves since none of those were actually big films. Zoe Saldana has been in multiple billion dollar films, so at this point she is considered a bonafide star. But most of the other actors were doing TV shows when the movies were still being made as shown. I think Chris Pine decided he wanted to just be a movie actor which obviously makes sense, but I suspect he will eventually do TV shows in the future too if he never cracks the movie star thing he’s been trying for.

I really enjoyed Sawyer’s book Flash Forward , but the TV show was underwhelming. It changed the date of the flash from 20-something years in the future to just a couple, if I recall correctly. And it took way too long to get going (compare that to Lost’s superb pilot). Just another in the long list of failed “shows with a hook” that tried to emulate the success of Lost . I didn’t remember Cho was in it.

Saldana is easily the biggest star in the cast, but even then in Avatar she is basically unrecognizable and the cast doesn’t really matter much anyway (that movie is all about the CGI, the writing and acting are mediocre at best and the Avatar II trailer’s exclusive focus on the CGI suggest more of the same.)

Guardians is really where she’s made her name, I think. Star Trek would be second, but Paramount’s astounding incompetence in making Star Trek 4 has diminished her success here.

Yeah I heard about the book when the show was just starting. But I think because it’s a TV show they had to limit the time interval more to increase the drama. So the first flash forward was a year but then the second was five years. It did lean into the format of LOST a lot lol. It was meant to replace that show as the next big show on that network but yeah didn’t work out that way.

Cho was a big part of the cast. He was another FBI agent on the teem trying to solve the flash forward and was the boyfriend of Gabrielle Union’s character.

I agree about Saldana, she is a big star but of course it’s mostly due to stuff like Marvel and Avatar obviously although like you said Avatar it’s more about the effects. But it also made nearly $3 billion so that probably increases what you earn in future projects no matter what. It’s going to be interesting to see how how Avatar 2 does. Can’t believe its been 13 years lol. That’s probably how long it will be before we get the next Star Trek movie. ;)

We’ve had this conversation before, the Kelvin cast isn’t hurting for work, at all.

Yeah they are doing well and watch a lot of their work. I was only saying none of them A list actors except maybe one.

The bottom line is I think they wanted to move on from the Kelvinverse, but they focus grouped it and determined that the cast was recognizable and liked enough to try to make that happen. Admittedly, I’m open to it because of the cast, myself. Quinto and Pine are much better in the roles than the guys on SNW, but I don’t hate Ethan Peck’s portrayal of Spock. The guy playing Kirk is just… not right for that role.

But that is the irony about it. It’s understandable that people want to see more of them but then they are not confident of the cast to even get another movie funded. That and the fact this is the third attempt to make a movie with them in it. So at some point, you have to say you tried and try something different you think will be more feasible or realistic. That’s the entire issue and where the frustration comes in for fans who want a Kelvin movie or not.

Clearly Paramount is stuck between a rock and a hard plus. They don’t really know where to go with these films, which I been saying a few years now. And it will probably stay that way for at least a few more until they figure it out sadly.

It doesn’t help that it’s been a revolving door at the Executive level. I honestly think it was scheduling of the cast that doomed this most recent false start, but what do I know?

Based on all the interviews with the actors, they never got a concrete offer, one that included a script. They keep saying that they know nothing beyond “Paramount may want to do another movie.” They could be lying, of course, but that sounds like there are bigger problems than just scheduling. Of course, we have been over this time and time again. So it’s kind of pointless to keep discussing it. But this article, which is a complete non-story, already has almost 150 comments so Trekmovie will keep posting these.

No, that was a talking point for awhile, but it went way beyond that. Based on all reports, they never really had a green light to even do a movie because they never had the money to do it. It sounds like they put enough pieces in place to get writers to make a script and hire a director with an opening date and was probably hoping it would be enough to pull in investors to throw money at the project. That was the point of announcing it on shareholders day, to show Paramount had a real plan for one of their bigger but sadly lagging IPs and raise the stock. It was nothing more but a ploy to get investors on board to fund it and it obviously didn’t work. But everyone else from the fans to certainly the actors felt like they just been trolled…hard. Because even naysayers like me thought THIS TIME it was real.

Again, just based on the pieces that’s reported out there. It was probably even more to it than that. But Paramount only pretended they were committed to making a movie. The second it was revealed the cast wasn’t informed of the announcement made clear it was all smoke and mirrors with the hope that maybe something would come out of it later. But since we heard absolutely nothing official beyond that until news came the director moved on, that’s all it was from the start. And then we learn after all of that is that the script they been writing for a year now was still not even finished because it sounded like they didn’t like where the story was going. Or maybe it was just more of a budget issue?

It’s funny, this was suppose to be a new group of executives who were really serious about making a movie and they showed to be the most incompetent with this silly ploy they tried to pull and it failed.

Anyway, it’s hard to make a film when you have no budget, script, cast or director lol. But money sounds to be the biggest culprit.

LOL totally true. I mean nothing against the man himself but what non-marvel movie has he made that was a success? Heck, 2 out of the 3 Thor movies weren’t great. I’m not saying it’s his fault per se but he just hasn’t had that many great roles. I mean him being the guy version of ganine in the Ghostbusters reboot? Like seriously?

Yeah they know Hemsworth is not some big box office draw. Hollywood keep pretending like he is but the only movie I saw him in a theater when he’s not playing Thor was Ghostbusters lol. And my girlfriend wanted to see it. He was OK in it but he’s not Tom Cruise or Will Smith. They actually replaced him with Will Smith in MIB and it bombed hard.

Same thing probably would’ve happened if they made this movie. When not even Star Trek fans cared he was coming back that was already a bad sign for it.

And the last Thor movie was sooooo bad!

Honestly just the Kelvin movies as a whole have fizzled out. It’s just been too long and the Kurtzman tv shows have been doing well as of late. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, the Kelvan movies cost way too much for the little money they bring in.

I totally agree with this. I think the Kelvin movies are done as well. I think Paramount tried one last ditch effort with this latest one but once they couldn’t even get the funding for it, that basically told you everything. ‘

And the thing is most of us knew it wasn’t a real thing once the actors were saying they knew nothing just a few months ago for a movie that should’ve been shooting now.

For me, I have no issues if they make another one, but I always been saying it needs to be MUCH lower than the other movies and that’s probably the issue. They can’t get one low enough to justify spending the money on it because they are obviously afraid it too will bomb.

It’s funny people wanted to argue with me every time I said Beyond bombed. If the movie made money, I don’t think they would still be in the turmoil they are in 6+ years later. If Beyond made at least a half a billion dollars, we probably would’ve had two movies by now or at least the fifth one in development if the fourth did well enough.

And sadly Paramount has no one else but themselves to blame (well OK JJ Abrams as well). They squandered what should’ve been a consistent movie franchise for at least 5-6 films minimum. But they did nothing very creative with them after the first one with boring one note ubervillains and gave them ridiculous budgets trying to be the next Marvel (who does nothing BUT ubervillains) and shot themselves in the foot in the process.

Honestly, and I’m sorry to whom ever I am SURE I will piss off, but JJ is the problem with all of this. 1. he was never a Star Trek fan. 2. He admitted to Quienten Tarentino he never even understood the movies he was directing. 3. he dropped the ball on Star Trek to go on to be involed with Star Wars which is what he always wanted from the beginning. The man wrecked 2 of the biggest sci fi franchises at the same time. I’m sorry I know I’m coming off as pissy but that’s just how it is. I hate that guy.

Yeah Abrams is definitely to blame at some level. I have always said I don’t have an issue with the Kelvin movies in terms of their overall tone and execution. He was trying to draw people in who don’t usually watch Star Trek and I was fine with that. And my thinking was if watching that movie would get someone to try out TOS, TNG or VOY then it’s a plus in my book. And I still defend putting them in an alternate universe. I still think that was a brilliant idea, it’s too bad they have completely dropped it when it went back to TV, but understand why.

But there also reasons why I hope Abrams never gets near a Trek movie again. Because he doesn’t seem to understand or care about it either. That is the biggest irony of it all because when he got the job, everyone treated him like the new messiah of Star Trek. It was so bizarre. It became this talking point he didn’t just understand and love Star Trek, but specifically TOS. That he was a ‘fan’ of it and he was going to do right by the original show.

And while I thought the first movie was more good than bad story wise (and I think that was more due to Orci and Kurtzman than Abrams), STID (which I just mentioned in another post to you below lol) is what told me why I don’t think Abrams should’ve been making these films. Again, I can’t blame everything on him but when you are the one who gives the final decision, that’s how it goes, even if it wasn’t your idea. Same thing with Kurtzman running Trek now. He probably has very little to do with actual involvement story wise, but since he’s the guy at the top, he gets the blame as well as the credit because they are paying him the insane amount of money to turn out quality shows.

And the entire thing over Khan told fans everywhere not only does Abrams not get it in the least…but he doesn’t care he doesn’t get it. I’m going to guess a few people probably said to him Cumberbatch looks and acts nothing like Khan, including some of the writers themselves. And Abrams probably waved it off by saying the new fans don’t know that so it doesn’t matter. And it’s in another universe blah, blah, blah. But I bet if someone suggested changing the looks of anyone in Star Wars just slightly above their original image, those people wouldn’t be working on his movies. You can really see just how much he made his Star Wars fit in with that universe, in tone, style, looks, etc. TFA really felt like a sequel to ANH 30 years later. That’s why SW fans drooled over that movie, at least originally.

But with Star Trek, he just saw it as this outdated looking show that can use some huge updating. And he wasn’t wrong but apple bridges and beer factories standing in for engineering was eye rolling to some people for a reason. And then STID just proved it went beyond set design or turning Kirk into Luke Skywalker. Khan made it clear how tone deaf he was to Star Trek overall. You take probably one of the most iconic characters most fans was begging NOT to put into the next movie and then you #$@% it up so badly, you basically derailed the franchise just two movies in lol.

But again, it goes back to Paramount as well. No one just told the guy no. I think they all saw WOK at least since they were the company that made it even if none of them were around. But they didn’t see it as a big deal probably because like Abrams they only cared about new fans and Cumberbatch was only becoming a bigger star, so the old nerds can stuff it. The new fans won’t know or care and will be the future of the franchise anyway. That’s how arrogance works.

And then Beyond came and lost most of those people too and here we are today. So yeah. It’s nothing wrong to do something new with a franchise, but as Picard once said, the line must be drawn here!

I’m sure if Abrams could do it all over again, he would do things differently…at least I hope so. But it’s too late now.

Yeah see the thing is, when it comes to ST 2009, the alternate universe idea was all bob orci. to this day JJ Abrams still doesn’t get why that even works. That’s EXACTLY what he told Tarantino because Tarantino doesn’t get it either. Both of them are clueless. And no, Tarantino, Chris Pine is NOT William Shatner you dumb ^*%*^%*

No I think he understand how the Kelvin universe works, IIRC he only said he didn’t care if Tarantino (who didn’t understand it) snubbed it for his own thing because he thought most fans hated it anyway.

And again another reason I’m happy Tarantino got nowhere close to this thing either. To me, if you want to do Star Trek then you have to honor it, all of it. Again, imagine Tarantino going up to Kathleen Kennedy and said he thought the SW prequels sucked and he wants to make another prequel movie where Padme joins Anakin to the dark side and they both fight the Jedi or something until Padme is killed and Anakin becomes Vader.

Sure it sounds interesting (well I made it up so it has to be ;)) and I’m guessing all the people who hated the prequels would love to see that version, but it’s no way it would ever get made, because it goes against everything in canon.

I’m not painting people like Abrams or Tarantino as evil or anything but you can’t take a long developed franchise and just do whatever you want without some push back. You still have to play in the parameters. But then that is the beauty of Star Trek, you can create NEW parameters as long as you are clear about that. That’s why TNG was made a century after TOS in the first place.

In Abrams case, he should’ve did a hard reboot on day one instead of his queasy soft reboot idea which only confused people including Tarantino himself.

I know you heard me say this a thousand times, but I just don’t understand why anyone fears doing a reboot? I thought that’s what Taratino wanted to do with his idea, just start fresh. I was into him making a movie when I thought that’s what he was doing. Instead he just wanted to muddy waters more than what Abrams already did lol.

And then it drives me INSANE when fans defend him saying “Tarantino doesn’t care about canon”. A. Sorry for fans like me who DO, that’s not going to win a lot of us over lol and B. He absolutely cares about it, the problem is only the stuff that suits his story and that’s not how canon works.

Well, this is the exact quote I just googled.

‘In an interview, Tarantino revealed that he does not seem to understand what timeline his film would take place in. “ Now, I still don’t quite understand – and J.J. can’t explain it to me, and my editor has tried to explain it to me and I still don’t get it … Something happened in the first movie that kind of wiped the slate clean? I don’t buy that. I don’t like it. I don’t appreciate it. I don’t … fuck that! Alright? I don’t like that,”’

OK I see what you’re saying now. But I think it’s just how Tarantino worded it meaning Abrams probably TRIED to explain it to him but he still didn’t get it. That seem like what he was saying.

And I mean while Abrams wasn’t big on Star Trek, the guy is a sci fi nut in general and has made multiple stories involving time travel, alternate universes, etc like Lost and definitely Fringe. That entire show is about parallel worlds, oddly enough which revolved around Leonard Nimoy’s character in it. My interest over him has certainly gone down over the years, especially after Star Trek and Star Wars, but this is a guy who has made a ton of high concept science fiction shows and movies over the years. The idea for the Kelvin movies is just another day at the office for him.

That is also what is frustrating to me, because his TV shows lean in hard when it comes to these complex concepts, especially Lost (but I know most of that came from Damon Lindelof). But the Kelvin movies they were afraid to go too sciency with it the same way they did a show like Lost even though Lost was huge at the time. If you can get a big audience to watch a twisty show that threw in every strange sci fi trope out there weekly for six seasons; I think you can trust your audience enough to explain what a parallel universe is in a Star Trek movie.

But the Kelvin movies wasn’t really about science. That was just a by product to get Spock in the movie. It was really more about a lot of punching, running and explosions sadly.

Well this is the exact quote I just googled. Except I took out one swear word cause I just got censored for it lol

‘In an interview, Tarantino revealed that he does not seem to understand what timeline his film would take place in. “ Now, I still don’t quite understand – and J.J. can’t explain it to me, and my editor has tried to explain it to me and I still don’t get it … Something happened in the first movie that kind of wiped the slate clean? I don’t buy that. I don’t like it. I don’t appreciate it. I don’t … #### that! Alright? I don’t like that,”’

Actually I think I got what Abrams was saying to Tarantino wrong. I think he told him he didn’t care if Tarantino didn’t get it and can change it because he said most of the fans didn’t get it either.

Again, whose fault is that?????? This is what drives so many of us nuts. Orci would spend countless interviews discussing, even laid out the entire idea of it back on this website in 2008 (I even have the article bookmarked) about it all being a parallel universe, how time travel works according to quantum mechanics, the idea if a different you share the same soul and all of that. But then the movie comes out and it’s explain in about five sentences in the most ambiguous way possible…and never brought up again. If someone simply said Nero came from an alternate universe, one freaking line, no one would’ve been confused in the least after that.

But they were SO afraid that it would be too ‘Trek-y’ for new viewers that they didn’t want to scare them off with too much technobabble or in this case, an actual real scientific theory. Because they were too afraid the concept itself would confuse people so let’s confuse them more by not explaining it at all.

It was the same problem with the Star Wars sequels but in a different way. Because everyone said the prequels were too ‘political’ Abrams decided not to try to bother to explain how the new Republic became so weak in 30 years to the point a new Empire just suddenly showed up out of nowhere. Again, it’s explained in comics and novels, but nowhere in the actual movie that the comics and novels are based on. He just wanted to focus on Jedis, the Death Star and l Darth Vader again. None of that other stuff mattered.

I guess I’m ranting now lol. But its frustrating because Abrams seem to think audience can’t handle a bit of depth outside of “that’s the bad guy and these are the good guys who have to kill him.” And because of that marred what should’ve been two stronger and smarter trilogies in two iconic franchises.

The prequels weren’t that political except for the first one with trade routes and taxation. Which was endlessly mocked. They are all about Palpatine seizing power through his machinations and too subtle on his slow corruption of Anakin because none of it is shown on screen. Lucas left all the real story beats up to Filoni on the cartoon show. Years after the prequel trilogy was finished.

I’m not saying that personally, but others certainly said they were. And it clearly scared off Abrams to even mention any of that in his movie.

And I think Lucas laid it out too clumsy in TPM and why people mocked it. That ended up being the fascinating part about the prequels. How Annakin became Darth Vader was what everyone expected, but the real subtext of the story was how a democracy turns into a fascist state is what gave the prequels something with depth. But again, it was all marred because the story just came off too clunky overall. And there are definitely things about it that don’t completely add up, but at least there were more to it than having Jedi’s fight in every movie.

But then Abrams decided not to bother with any of it at all. At the time I don’t think it was a huge deal because I thought the backstory would slowly get told in the other movies. But looking at the trilogy now, it just feels so lackluster in so many ways because it didn’t add anything new or interesting to the overall mythology. It just did what the OT did and just retold another Rebel vs Empire story with another Luke and Vader dynamic with Rey and Kylo; although this time it made far less sense for that story line to even happen.

Of course what’s more ironic now for everyone who watched Andor, you can’t get anymore political and hard nosed about how the rebel alliance rose in power and the intricate layers of how the Empire operates to stay i power. It’s like if George Orwell made a Star Wars show lol.

The MIB remake was decent, every Ghostbusters since II is bad. Even still would have preferred a 3rd film with Billy, Danny and Ernie. So sick of Disney style passing the torch movies. They started the trend with Disney Star Wars, and i’m sick of it. Stop bringing back franchises and ruining legacy characters or giving us empty fanservice.

Remember our discussion last week where I was suggesting that the transporter created a data file of someone that could be stored just like a replicator? Well, that plot device keeps coming up in Trek, from Relics to SNW and now for this Kelvin potential plot, so I think we have to assume that my interpretation that transporter technology and replicator technology are both branches of the same overall technology tree is correct.

It’s understandable to see others’ perspective: I’m listening to comments about what sone believe about his age now, compared to when they shot ST 2009, being a handicap to continuity; it’s interesting, however there are always Hollywood Methods to get around such details. Then, there exists another facet of “George Kirk” that many have not seemed to have noticed: G Kirk IS STILL ALIVE in the “prime” ST universe. We even saw an alternative timeline in Strange New Worlds’s season one, final episode, where a young James T. Kirk tells Pike that his dad served aboard the USS Kelvin. If that holds water, even at all, and since CBS has reunited with Paramount, it should be possible to bring Chris Hemsworth on SNW as George Kirk in some future storyline. That is something I’d like to see.

I doubt very much that they spend that much to use him only for a cameo in a probable last episode.

Characters are always played by different actors in the Prime and Kelvin realities. It would be weird if George Kirk was the only exception.

Yeah the idea just sounded a bit ridiculous. It really just came off like ‘we got to put Thor in the next movie to sell tickets’. If they did something involving time travel, alternate universe, etc it would at least sound more credible.

To be honest I’m pretty sure money was an issue too, but yes not the only one. And in reality most fans didn’t sound like they were in love with the idea from the beginning. I certainly wasn’t. I would’ve watched no matter what but it was probably a good reason why it didn’t. I just think it’s time to move on from the Kelvin cast, at least in movie form and come up with something new. All these Kelvin projects keep dying off for a reason.

At this point, I just don’t care.

It’s dead Jim.

I know TrekMovie started with the Kelvin momentum, but I feel that at this point we need to move onto another stage of grieving. That is acceptance.

Paramount may still be stuck in bargaining or depression, but the fanbase is mostly at acceptance.

The fanbase has been split on these movies since the first one and I don’t think that ever changed frankly. It only got worse after STID lol. I think Beyond is when most fans actually came around but unfortunately it was too late by then. Most had moved on, both old and new fans. And now here we are talking about the fourth movie they already cancelled four years ago lol. And we are still waiting for ANY movie to arrive, Kelvin or not.

I’m hoping the latest Kelvin project that arrived DOA will finally just tell Paramount to move on already . The fanbase as a whole has lost interest long ago. And it’s even harder now when you have so many TV shows to compete with. And on top of that, thanks to streaming it’s getting harder and harder for movies to make real money at the BO unless they were big franchises to begin with and Star Trek wasn’t. It’s no longer 2009, everything is too different now.

STID was God awful. Speaking as an Indian American it REALLY REALLY REALLY pissed me off that they cast Khan with the whited person on the planet. No one else seems to care, but what if they cased Uhura with a white woman? I bet they would have cared then!

I think plenty of people care though lol. I mean that was the biggest gripe against that movie among other things. Now I’ve always said if they told us this was a DIFFERENT Khan, OK, fine. Still would’ve bothered some people but wanting us to think it was Montalban’s character, just whiter and more British did them NO favors at all. Still the oddest miscasting ever done, at least in Star Trek. You can not be more tone deaf than that, especially when you’re trying to appeal to a fanbase you already know is very fickle to begin with.

You know there are people that tell me that, hey Montaban wasn’t Indian either. And you know what? They are right. But at least he was a person of color. You know what else? George Takei is not the same race as Sulu either. No one ever seems to point that out!

Yes but the point is the character is suppose to be from India even if the actor wasn’t. I mean James Doohan wasn’t Scottish or from Scotland but Scotty was. It was the 60s, casting was simply done very differently back then mostly out of both convenience and not sensitive to cultural issues like we are today. But it’s no way anyone is suppose to believe Cumberbatch’s version is Indian or even suggested that’s where he was from in the movie.

Again, what gets frustrating. You want to pretend it’s the same Khan (even though we have eyes and ears) but yet made his backstory SO vague to the point the guy could’ve just been from anywhere and my guess is that was the point. Vague enough for a newbie to not think that much about it, but all the fans would just know his backstory, so that way no one is (completely) confused depending on who is watching it.

Why bother making him Khan if you were afraid to really use him?

Exactly the point! I mean it was the 60’s! India hadn’t even been a free country for more than a decade or so! Like sheesh! They did they best they could at the time!

Montalban could at least “pass” for Indian, particularly if you do a slight recon and say Khan was of mixed Sikh-Latin American ancestry — which would be quite plausible, since the Augments were (1) a multinational bunch, and (2) the product of genetic engineering.

That could actually explain why Khan was evidently able to appeal to various confessional groups across the subcontinent — obviously the name “Khan” suggests an appeal to Muslims. It also explains why, in “Space Seed,” his costuming suggested a subtle Indian vibe (Nehru collars, etc.) when none of the other Augments dressed particularly distinctively.

The situation would be somewhat like that of Sapamurat Niyazov, the (wacky) first post-Soviet president of Turkmenistan, who nominally hailed from the dominant Teke tribe, but had in fact been orphaned in the 1948 earthquake that destroyed Ashkhabad, which allowed him to position himself as “a child of all Turkmen tribes” (or “Turkmenbashi,” “father of the Turkmen”) and a unifying figure.

Cumberbatch, of course, couldn’t “pass” in the slightest for either Sikh or Latin; the casting was absurd and an insult to a foundational part of Khan’s character. If they really wanted to use him, they could have called him “Joachim” — he did bear a strong resemblance to Khan’s deputy.

Similarly, apart from the ethnic confusion, that Khan was NOT portrayed as genocidal in “Space Seed” — Scotty even said that there were no massacres in Khan’s territory, unlike that of the other Augments.

Like the mis-writing of the Gorn in SNW, it just shows that the NuTrek writers have no understanding of what makes Star Trek tick beyond the most superficial.

I agree completely.

I quite like this take. Homogenization of our cultures is already much more prevalent, and easily justifiable.

I get that. For me, I just felt like even beyond the superficial, they got Khan all wrong. He didn’t come across as the guy Montalban played in any way. Khan was more brute force than calculated tactician. They completely botched the character, as well as the characterization.

I still remembered an article Damon Lindelof gave after the movie came out and he was basically patting himself on the back over Khan. He said something to the effect that they knew putting Khan in the movie was a risk but was happy how right they got him.

I remember reading that thinking what the #$@% are you talking about??? You didn’t even TRY to get Khan right. They didn’t get his appearance, speech, personality or even his full backstory right. It’s just another guy completely with the same name and a similar history, but he’s about as much Khan as Trump is Obama.

It still pains me how tone deaf they were over this character. A character most fans didn’t even want in the movie in the first place.

They got so caught up in the idea of Khan, they forgot to actually write him as Khan. If you’re going to use such an iconic villain, you have to get the essence of the character right, or what’s the point of using him? I could have gotten over the superficial changes.. they can be explained… but not understanding who he is as a character is flat out literary neglect.

Tiger2, I sincerely find it hard to understand how people still have so many words to say on this.

I’d just much rather have a good 2 and a bit hour made-for-streaming and limited theatrical release Trek movie once a year.

Think of all the characters and stories that could be filled in with a one-off. The novels have done this well, and it would allow legacy characters to shine on their own briefly.

I think people still find a lot to say about it out of sheer frustration, anger and outright confusion six years on lol. And of course that Paramount seems to keep trolling people over it. I just remembered when Pine and Hemsworth walked away for this project Paramount pretended they were going to just replace Pine to make the film and obviously that never happened the same way they said they were going to replace Shakman as director in their latest troll session when the last project imploded.

The whole thing has just been so bizarre. People keep talking about it because Paramount keep announcing movies and directors to projects they either don’t have the money or faith in the project they announced. And it’s probably both 100% of the time.

And I fully agree, if you just don’t think the next movie will do that well (and that’s very obvious at this point lol) then just make smaller movies and gear them towards Paramount+ with a limited release. Netflix paid Ryan Johnson $400 million to make 2 Knives Out sequels that will only be in theaters for a month and then hit Netflix. I don’t see why they can’t go with the same idea with a Star Trek movie but with a much tinier budget lol. I think somewhere in the vicinity of $80-90 million is realistic if it’s meant more for streaming but can play for a month in theaters.

And maybe at some point that will happen. I see people on different sites suggesting if the third season of Picard is a huge hit with the entire cast back, then maybe they may try for a cheaper TNG movie. It’s mostly wish fulfillment like most of these things are, but at this point they are probably open to anything. But they may even be too costly to do another movie with.

Yep. I mean Patrick Stewart keeps saying he wants to do a movie. I dunno if that is gonna happen or not but depending on how Picard Season 3 goes I bet that would get more people to go to the theaters than a 4th Kelvin movie would.

If Picard S3 is a good sendoff for the TNG cast, as Terry Malalas tasked himself with when tapped to run S3, then I hope they don’t do anything else.

Rather than a fourth Star Trek movie set in the Kelvin timeline released in theaters, I would much rather see a Deep Space 9 movie, a Voyager movie, and an Enterprise movie with the respective casts from those shows on Paramount+.

In an ideal world, all series would have a final 10-pisode goodbye like Picard season three is doing for TNG.

I would be fine with those too, but most will say those can’t make a lot of money. But I (nor Paramount it seems) think the Kelvin movies can make a lot of money either anymore either.

I think in reality they should just start anew with the movies with a new cast and characters. Put a ‘name’ in the lead if they feel they need some box office draw but do something new but cheaper films in general.

The trick is to find a concept that will get more than just Star Trek fans to care and I don’t know if they really will. They turned the Kelvin movies into Star Wars and newbies still lost interest eventually. Star Trek’s long term future is probably on Paramount+.

Just forget movies, period, and focus on streaming for the next decade. Strengthen the brand.

In all honesty I don’t think most fans would care if the movies were dropped as LONG as they continue bringing in quality shows. We all want a movie, but let’s be honest, no one is losing sleep over it lol. And it’s only in our minds because we keep getting these types of articles discussing what could’ve been, what might be, what was supposed to be, blah, blah, blah.

I’ve been saying if you don’t have a real plan right now, put them on the back burner for a few years until you come up with a new idea that will excite fans again. The Kelvin movies are no longer it.

Indeed. They really were never it. They were flawed from the start. No need to keep adding to it.

DS9 and Voyager both had finales that effectively wrapped things up. An Enterprise movie or miniseries could work though.

I would rather have another Enterprise revival show or mini-series personally. I would take that over another movie or even more DS9 and Voyager; especially because as you said those both got endings.

DS9 and Voyager both had finales that effectively wrapped things up.

Sequel, one season, ten episode, one-offs might be a better term. More like how Picard season one and two were a spin-off of TNG.

A DS9 one-off about Jake Sisko and his half-brother (or is it sister?) who is a quarter Prophet might be well-worth it.

A VOY one-off might show whether or not Harry Kim ever got a little box on his chair…

No one has any interest in this except for some name-hungry Hollywood producer. Let’s be honest. This ship has sailed, sunk and has been excavated. Next!

I really don’t see the need to go forward with the Kelvin-verse or really any movies. It was fine for then. But since Beyond, we have had over 100 episodes in the prime timeline before, during and after the years covered between ST09 and Beyond. Overall Trek is much better suited for television anyway. Every movie has to be around some galactic threat to Earth, the Federation, or the galaxy – and way too many have involved some hokey method of putting the cast back together on that ship in 5-15 minutes for whatever happens. STTMP to ST5 happened because we didn’t have any other Trek at the time. ST09 – Beyond did too.

Yeah that’s the other big elephant in the room, Star Trek just does better on TV in general. And now since we are getting so much of it again, it gives fans less of a reason to pay $15 per person to see another 2 hour movie with an ubervillain promising to take down the Federation for reasons just so they have an excuse to blow up a planet or more ships. Sure they will see it, they will just wait until it comes to Paramount+, Blu Ray or Itunes to see it.

And I think most fans are happier with the shows not just being in the prime timeline again but we are getting post-Nemesis shows (finally) which a lot of fans wanted more than anything. And for people who want a more TOS based show, well now we have SNW for that too. And they made 10 episodes that didn’t require a supervillain trying to blow up Starfleet headquarters or the galaxy and oddly enough fans seem to like it more. That’s the entire problem with movie Trek vs TV Trek. Fans like spectacle but that’s not why most watch Star Trek in the first place. TWOK is still the most popular movie and it only had one explosion at the very end of the film.

Lastly, for a lot of fans it’s no need to rush to the theater when you have Picard, Spock, Janeway, Riker, Kirk, and Seven on your screen every week for $5-10 a month. That’s really all most want anyway.

The Kelvin films were great when that’s literally all the Trek there was and it was nice to do something a little different with the franchise. But I think sadly Star Trek fans want comfort food more than anything and to give them the kind of Star Trek they were getting in the 90s versus Star Wars type spectacle the Abrams movies provided.

Hit the nail on the head for bro!

There were so many reasons why I didn’t care about JJ verse, but the biggest is because Star Trek for me are the 24th century 90s shows. That’s where I fell in love with Trek. I can listen to Picard and Janeway talk the entire episode and wouldn’t complain. I love seeing them work together or have more simpler stories like asking is Data a life or not?

I love big stories too. That’s why I fell in love with DS9 because of the Dominion storyline. But that doesn’t mean every episode had to show some big battle. I loved the stories where they just discussed the politics over the war.

But for fans like me we love Star Trek because it makes us think, at least a little. And I’m not some movie or TV snob. My favorite show growing up was Baywatch lol. I actually love action movies as my favorite genre. I wasn’t a big sci fi fan at all outside of Star Wars until I started watching Star Trek. It didn’t just get me to love that franchise but more science fiction in general. I started reading Isaac Asimov books because I heard he was a Trek fan. And his stories have the same vibe, his short stories especially.

I like most of the new Trek shows today. Discovery has become a badly written tedious weeping bore but I would still take that over JJ verse because it at least tries to be about something, just does a bad job of it IMO.

But SNW, PRO and LDS feels like 90s Star Trek again. They are presenting simpler stories but also a lot of great character stories again like you got on TNG, DS9, VOY and ENT. LDS is a comedy and yet still does a great job honoring Trek values and canon. I thought I was going to hate the show and now it’s my favorite! But it spends a lot time exploring it’s characters and just solving smaller problems. It does everything the 90s show does just with comedy but has so much heart too.

That’s what fans like me love. With the movies there is some of that but it’s really just a lot of running and shooting. The TOS and TNG movies did it better than JJ verse but even those it was mostly just 2-3 characters. Every one got stuff to do but you learned zip about them.

For me Star Trek is about action and ships exploding for sure but the stories I love the most rarely even has a phaser fight in it most of the time and just about people trying to solve a problem through science.

None of the JJ movies solved any of their problems through science outside of using Beatie Boys music to confuse the drones to run into each other in the last one. And when that’s the high bar of science in your movies it tells you a lot. But outside of a few movies many rarely does use science when it always comes to killing a bad guy.

I’m sure if the movie happened it would’ve just been Kirk and Thor kicking some bad guy ass together who wants to wipe out the Federation again. Sure it could’ve been good and fun of course but fans are just so sick of the same crap every movie.

I agreed with everything you said. I think Star Trek works on so many different levels and why its still so popular today. For me personally, that’s why I think Star Trek IS great, because it can be different things. Every new iteration can take it in a different direction. It always tries its best to stay relevant to whatever era it’s in. That’s how it lives long and prospers.

But I also think there is something at its core EVERY show and movie should try and follow. The biggest used to be just about exploration but even DS9 didn’t make that a mandate of its show which at the time really bothered people. But to many that’s what Star Trek is. Star Trek has always been an action show as well at its core, in every show. It’s really funny how some people consider TNG a non-action show. Because you have episodes where people work things out in the conference room instead of a photo torpedo it was considered too ‘talky’. No, it’s an action show too. If things are blowing up, people shooting phasers or Worf is punching someone out every other episode, that makes it an action show.

It simply didn’t rely on it the same way TOS did back in the day. And TOS only relied on it because action shows were the main draw at the time. It had to just to stay on the air. But then if you watch TMP, you wouldn’t know it lol. And that was partly why that movie put people off, it didn’t include one of its core features, action. It took the exploration angle higher than any film has since but it was missing a vital part of what made TOS fun, captain Kirk karate chopping someone lol. Or firing a photon torpedo.

As far as the 90s shows, I think what the spin offs did really well was reframe the shows more character driven than plot driven. Michael Piller was really the one who started that mandate back in third season of TNG and it drove all the other shows that way. DS9 did it the best IMO. Voyager gets dinged over it because it didn’t do it as well as TNG and DS9 did or it didn’t focus on other characters as it should have. But those era of shows tried very hard to tell diverse stories and do it where it mattered to a specific character, not just always the crew as a whole.

But then when we get to the movies, that gets lost easily. You only have two hours to tell a story. When TNG had 26 episodes a year you can focus on whoever you wanted any given week. In a movie, that focus is always the ‘stars’ of the piece and yes it’s usually 2 or 3 main characters and the ‘villain’ of the piece. Like you said, everyone gets something to do and have a few fun scenes but the movie isn’t about them. It doesn’t have the time to be.

And sadly I think the biggest mandate every executive has made with the movies since TMP is that they must be action driven and a villain must be the focal point. Or maybe it was TWOK that taught them that lesson moreso than TMP failing it. Because after that, villains became bigger than life. And with TNG and the Kelvin movies, it became ALL about the villains basically. Generations, FC and Nemesis was all marketed as how evil the villains were (well the Borg makes that clear on appearance alone lol). The Kelvin movies the same. Just like comic book movies, the villains are as equal to the heroes to the point nothing else about the movie matters. The plot is just designed to get them shooting at each other basically and why people like me has grown tired of them.

The irony is while having someone to shoot at has also been a core in Star Trek (and they do provide the ‘action’ part of the series), they never were vital to the franchise in the shows like they are in the movies. But that’s what they think drives attendance so sadly it’s what we will continue to get with them.

This is exactly why the movies just fail for me as a story when you compare them to the shows. It doesn’t mean they are bad, but they are just meant to be spectacle with jokes and cool one liners but very little in the way of themes, story or character development. It’s all there but just superficially.

I asked someone this question on another site before to bring my point home: out of the three JJ films tell me three things we learned about Uhura? Any three things that was either said about her or she mentioned? Even just in passing.

Here is the three I came up with: her first name, she can speak multiple languages and, um, is dating Spock!

Do you see the problem? I point out Uhura specifically because in JJ verse, she is the third lead after Kirk and Spock and the only woman in the main cast. She’s heavily marketed, and has a lot to do, especially the first two movies… unlike the original Uhura who was basically a background character most of the time.

But not here. She is given a big run time in these movies and basically just turned her into the hot girlfriend who can kick ass Mariner style when the time comes for it and really good at her job. That’s it bro. And she’s played by a huge famous actress on top of that.

No actual back story, character arc of any kind or development in any way after three movies. Oh wait she broke up with Spock in the third one… until they get back together again in the final act. Riveting stuff lol. Like I said, she’s just the smart hot girlfriend who can give attitude and nothing else. It’s the same thing in every one of them.

Now take Uhura in SNW! We got an entire back story about her in episode 2. She actually has an arc, does she want to stay in Starfleet or do something else with her life? It’s nothing amazing (and we sort of know the answer lol) but it’s actually developing the character. We know how hard space is for her because they spend time talking about it. They been showing her working in different departments and how smart she really is. We saw her developing a relationship with Hemmer (but I’ll digress on that, oy).

I never cared about Uhura in TOS because she was mostly just there, but her being there was historical in itself so it was something for it’s time at least. But it’s another reason why TOS doesn’t interest me as much.

But there is no excuse for it in JJ verse. But that’s only because those are action movies made for teenagers, they don’t think their core audience cares. She’s there to look pretty, kick butt and make out with Spock basically. Although it’s funny every movie they give her one scene of showing off her linguist skills. Hey, it’s something I guess.

That’s the difference between these movies and the shows. Character development matters at least a little on the shows. The movies only do it with 1 or 2 of the main characters and don’t even try with anyone else, especially empty action movies like these are. And even with the main characters, its all just to tie people over until we get to the next action scene like a Marvel movie does.

Wow great point about Uhura lol. I think she is considered important in those movies but probably more so in presence than actually integral to the story outside her relationship with Spock. It would’ve been nice to learn something about her family, why she joined Starfleet, etc. That would’ve been nice to get in the other movies, but we never got that with any of the characters outside of Kirk and Spock unfortunately. We learned a t-i-n-y bit about Bones (including why he’s called Bones), but yeah pretty shallow on that end of the pool as well.

But it is more proof why Trek excels more on TV and why fans seem to be enjoying SNW more, because it can just develop characters in a way the movies don’t really spend much time doing; at least beyond the main stars (although as you said she is treated as a main star).

I find it somehow embarrassing that a major film company can’t pull off a star trek film for years. All the actors are up to return. The only problem is now that the director jumped off and now everything is canceled? I mean, really?! I’m sure there are TONS of talented directors out there who would die to do a star trek movie!!

No, that’s actually backwards. The director bailed because nothing was happening with the project. That’s why. The actors have been saying for months now they haven’t been told anything about the movie happening or anyone had been signed up. That was already the big red flag, you told everyone the actors were coming back without talking to them first but then AFTER you announce them you still don’t call to get them to sign on to a film you already gave an opening date for?

The real reason it stalled because Anthony Pascale said that the movie couldn’t get funding and they been having trouble coming up with a script. Getting someone to direct it is the easy part…it’s paying for it that seems to be the real problem.

Yes Tiger2, exactly. They don’t have a script or the financing. JJ’s little show a while back was a load of BS.

Yeah Paramount was trying to do a runaround on people in the most bizarre way ever. When Shakman left. Paramount even put out a statement saying they would look for another director, but most of us knew it was just more smoke and mirrors, there was no movie. And when they took it off the schedule a month later, it was a collective groan these people just been wasting everyone’s time for the fifth straight time.

And of course it wasn’t just the actors saying they haven’t been called that was the warning sign, it was also the fact we never got a single piece of news or update by the director or the so-called writers of the movie for an entire year. Not so much as a ‘we’re working on it, it’s going swell’. So it was what the actors were saying combined with what the people involved in the actual process wasn’t saying…which was absolutely nothing.

The irony is when many of us questioned it over and over, we’re told we’re just being cynics or don’t want a movie to happen. And here we are yet again lol.

Yep….

Really? Since Nemesis, they’ve only done three in twenty years. They actually seem pretty good at slow boating these productions.

I’m sure it has nothing to do with those 3 films costing almost a billion dollars to make and not making double or triple what they spent.

Dude that is SO depressing. I never thought it that way but we only had 3 Trek films in the last 20 years?? LOL, WOW!

Looking at the first 20 years of Trek films with TMP from 1979 to 1999, we got 9 movies in that time (along with multiple shows), literally 3 times the amount. It’s TRULY amazing how badly Paramount has squandered this franchise. And what’s sad is it will probably be another 3-5 years before we even see another one.

I’m glad it didn’t get made. What I’d prefer is to drop the JJ Verse, pick a new era and start the movies over with a whole new crew.

Given what little we heard, I’d rather they not. Sounded completely derivative, and if there is something I want from JJ Trek at this point, it’s to forge ahead.

The one thing he might do well is a Superman movie. It could be fun. Less lens flares the better. And even better if it starred Cavill. But he won’t. He would bring verve and energy to a dead franchise. As long as he doesn’t write it.

I loved the original star trek as a kid and couldn’t get enough of it. I didn’t like any of the other ones. These new movies have been a joy to watch as I think each star has brought a special part of themselves to the role. Spock has shown himself to be half human after all. In this last movie I almost lost it when he did a belly laugh. And how about him in a relationship with a woman? I cannot wait for #4. I check all the time for progress when there will be a new movie.

Unfortunately you’re going to still be waiting for quite awhile longer. ;)

And it’s no guarantee it will be with the Kelvin cast. They may just start over with new characters or maybe go back and do another TNG movie (but I don’t see that really happening either).

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Chris hemsworth: george kirk.

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Breaking news, n.y. appeals court overturns harvey weinstein rape conviction, new ‘star trek’ movie to reunite chris pine’s crew.

The film is due out Dec. 22, 2023.

By Borys Kit , Aaron Couch February 15, 2022 2:18pm

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Paramount is getting the Enterprise gang back together. No, not the 1960s series turned film series cast, but rather the cast of the J.J. Abrams relaunch that debuted in 2009 and went on to star in two subsequent movies.

Paramount executive Brian Robbins and producer Abrams made the announcement at Paramount’s investor event Tuesday, although details were not revealed. No deals are in place, but Paramount hopes that returning castmembers will include Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldaña and John Cho, who have starred in three films, beginning with 2009’s Star Trek .

The announcement signals a breakthrough to relaunch Trek on the big screen. The studio has been trying to regroup the cast since at least in 2018, when negotiations with Pine and Chris Hemsworth, who had a small role in Abrams’ 2009 film, fell through . Since then, Paramount has tried to redevelop the project, with creatives such as Quentin Tarantino and Noah Hawley taking stabs at films that did not move forward. Pine also played Captain Kirk in Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) and  Star Trek Beyond (2016), the last big-screen outing.

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William shatner on living boldly throughout acting career: "the future is unheralded", 'star trek: lower decks' to end with season 5.

WandaVision director Matt Shakman is directing the next  Star Trek movie, with Josh Friedman and Cameron Squires rewriting a script from Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet.

In recent years, Trek primarily has lived on the small screen, with numerous streaming shows on Paramount+ including Star Trek Discovery  and  Picard . Executives at Paramount’s investor day noted the company was focused on creating franchises that lived both on the Paramount+ streaming service and on the big screen, with other projects announced including a third  Sonic the Hedgehog  movie as well as a live-action TV spinoff starring Idris Elba’s Knuckles.  Filmmaker John Krasinski also revealed his  A Quiet Place Part III  will arrive in 2025.

The next Trek film is due in theaters Dec. 22, 2023. See an early logo below.

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The 10 best non-Marvel Chris Hemsworth movies, ranked

A ustralian actor Chris Hemsworth is best known as the God of Thunder, Thor, in the expansive Marvel Cinematic Universe, but what does one need to do to be considered for such a legendary role besides getting into Thor-like shape and having the right heritage? The guy has acting chops.

Hemsworth has acted in an array of roles, from comedy to thriller all the way to drama, and of course, more sci-fi . His filmography features more roles than most would expect, and not even all of them are included in this list. However, given that his most prevalent character is Thor, and that accounts for a whopping 8 out of 25 movie roles, I’ve decided to rank his top performances that don’t include the hammer-swinging, emotion-bottling demigod. These Chris Hemsworth movies overall range from subpar to great, but the rankings are based on Hemsworth’s performances alone.

10. 12 Strong (2018)

• Metacritic: 54%
• IMDb: 6.5/10
• Duration: 130m
• Genre: War, Drama, Action, History
• Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Michael Shannon, Michael Peña
• Directed by: Nicolai Fuglsig

A pretty awesome war movie overall, 12 Strong is not exactly Hemsworth’s best role. Based on a true yet pretty unbelievable story, 12 special forces operatives are the first U.S. retaliation after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Obligated to join forces with the Northern Alliance of Afghanistan, the 12 initiate an unlikely and outnumbered assault to destabilize the Taliban’s power center in Mazar-i-Sharif. Hemsworth’s portrayal of Capt. Mitch Nelson is noble and brave — as it should be — but it didn’t seem like a role in which Hemsworth could truly shine. His accent is also inconsistent in this role. But his macho manliness is apparent as ever — it just doesn’t quite convince. In the end, I don’t blame Hemsworth as much as I do the lazily constructed backstory and writing surrounding the main plot, but he could have given the character more depth in the few emotional scenes provided.

Watch on Amazon

9. Men in Black: International (2019)

• Metacritic: 38%
• IMDb: 5.6/10
• Rated: PG-13
• Duration: 115m
• Genre: Comedy, Science Fiction
• Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Tessa Thompson, Rebecca Ferguson
• Directed by: F. Gary Gray

A fun and CGI-driven adventure, Men in Black: International is a somewhat campy tale within the canon of the original, imaginative Men in Black films. We discover that the Men in Black have been operating for a long time all over the world, but now they find a mole in their ranks bent on destroying the organization that polices alien activity on Earth. Hemsworth plays Agent H, a womanizing, socializing, satirizing macho Man in Black. So, basically, he’s Thor, but replace god-like strength and a hammer with fancy toys and chrome laser guns. The script has some good comedy, and Hemsworth plays well with them, but International doesn’t quite live up to the original three films and their snappy young gun/grumpy old veteran dynamic. This movie isn’t just about his character — he’s really the supporting character to Agent M (Tessa Thompson) — but this movie makes me want to see Hemsworth in a vastly different role to see the true range of his performances.

8. In the Heart of the Sea (2015)

• Duration: 122m
• Genre: Thriller, Drama, Adventure, Action, History
• Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Benjamin Walker, Cillian Murphy
• Directed by: Ron Howard

In the Heart of the Sea is a story about survival and the extremes humans can go to when faced with disaster. It takes place in the early 1820s, aboard a whaling ship called the Essex out of Nantucket, Massachusetts. Chris Hemsworth stars as one of the whalers on the ship, Owen Chase, who is a skilled first mate. The Essex is attacked by a giant, enraged sperm whale in a nightmarish encounter, and the damaged ship sinks, leaving the crew adrift in the vast ocean with limited supplies. The survivors face starvation, dehydration, and harsh elements as they desperately try to find land, and they’re pushed to their limits and forced to make unthinkable choices to survive. The film portrays the real-life events that inspired Herman Melville’s classic novel Moby Dick .

7. Vacation (2015)

• Metacritic: 34%
• IMDb: 6.1/10
• Duration: 99m
• Genre: Comedy
• Stars: Ed Helms, Christina Applegate, Skyler Gisondo
• Directed by: John Francis Daley, Jonathan M. Goldstein

A continuation of the classic National Lampoon films, Vacation is an all-out adventure of idiocy and sexual jokes that don’t quite match the originals. Rusty Griswold (Ed Helms) remembers his days of traveling to Walley World with his family as a child. Determined to create memories with his own family as his father did, they drive across the country and run into all sorts of mishaps. Hemsworth shows up in the film — getting maybe 10 minutes of screen time — as an exaggerated personification of his physical traits, which are all referenced or shown in his short cameo. Though he’s not a big part of the movie, Hemsworth has got to be the absolute highlight. Hair coiffed, abs out, evenly tanned, Hemsworth fully dives into the role as the hunky, southern a-hole with hilarious magnificence. The film, overall, is lowbrow and crude, with little to take away, but Vacation does have some great moments if you want to sit for two hours and turn your brain off.

6. Extraction (2020)

• Metacritic: 56%
• IMDb: 6.7/10
• Duration: 116m
• Genre: Drama, Action, Thriller
• Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Randeep Hooda
• Directed by: Sam Hargrave

Overshadowed by needless violence and explosions, Extraction turns the tables and tries to focus more on emotional depth in a less conventional movie. When black-market mercenary Tyler Rake (Hemsworth) is hired to save an imprisoned warlord’s son, the stakes rise exponentially as more and more local gunrunners and traffickers learn of the situation. Playing a rogue agent who has nothing to live for, Hemsworth has a better script from which to work for this role. The emotional narrative in his character’s evolution is a much better opportunity to show his strengths, not just his physicality. His success in fulfilling the vision of veteran stunt coordinator/first-time director Sam Hargrave was mostly what impressed me about Hemsworth’s performance. He also had to do most of the fighting/free-running takes all in one go, back to back.

Watch on Netflix

5. Rush (2013)

• Metacritic: 74%
• IMDb: 8.1/10
• Duration: 123m
• Genre: Drama, Action
• Stars: Chris Hemsworth, Daniel Brühl, Olivia Wilde

A gritty and cutting racing story, Rush is the best Ron Howard sports movie and his only one since Cinderella Man . In the 1970s, James Hunt (Hemsworth) and Niki Lauda (Daniel Brühl) begin their bitter rivalry, pushing each other to obsessive lengths to be the best. The performances in this film are fantastic, both Hemsworth and Brühl shine in their opposition and emotional performances, but Brühl a bit more so. For somebody who was hoping for a bit more subtlety, it was a bit disappointing to see Hemsworth show up in the very first scene shirtless and womanizing, despite the promising writer and director. Though this does play on Hemsworth’s strengths and later ends up working well for the character, I wish it wasn’t so simple as that. I was glad to see later that Hemsworth’s role included a dark period of alcoholism and sadness, leaving him with nothing else but racing, but even that was a bit lacking. Seeing him begin to stretch his arms in a new type of role is exciting, which increases anticipation for the upcoming Hulk Hogan biopic he has been cast in.

4. The Cabin in the Woods (2012)

• Metacritic: 72%
• Duration: 95m
• Genre: Horror, Mystery, Thriller, Comedy
• Stars: Kristen Connolly, Fran Kranz, Chris Hemsworth
• Directed by: Drew Goddard

Seemingly a run-of-the-mill slasher flick, The Cabin in the Woods — brought to you by director/writer Drew Goddard and veteran co-writer Joss Whedon — is a lovely surprise for thriller/dark comedy fans all around. A group of college friends decides to go on vacation out in the deep, dark woods, but something foul is at play when they start to be attacked by supernatural forces. The cast of characters for this film was excellent and truly comedic, however, they stray from their character tropes almost instantly. Hemsworth plays Curt, the hard-headed jock who is dating the popular cheerleader, and he obviously succeeds with ease, as we’ve seen him with a similar demeanor before. Don’t let the letterman jacket fool you, though. Hemsworth is a well-read and educated sociology major and a spirited team leader. His character’s narrative arc is badass and heroic throughout. Hemsworth shows some real depth in his portrayal, especially when you see it from start to finish.

Watch on Hulu

3. Bad Times at the El Royale (2018)

• Metacritic: 60%
• IMDb: 7.1/10
• Duration: 141m
• Genre: Thriller, Drama, Mystery, Crime
• Stars: Jeff Bridges, Cynthia Erivo, Dakota Johnson

From director/writer Drew Goddard comes the twist-happy, storyline pileup, Tarantino-esque mystery film Bad Times at the El Royale, which is bloody, witty, and also somehow a bit confused. Seven complete strangers check into the eerily tidy yet desolate El Royale hotel on the border of Nevada and California, all for their own reasons, which will be revealed in thrilling and bloody fashion. Hemsworth, though not one of those seven strangers, is the highlight of the film in a role I had never expected him to shine in. Without getting too far into spoiler territory, he plays an unsettlingly charming leader of what can only be described as a cult, inspiring his followers to stay with him to any end. In this role, Hemsworth is, of course, very alluring as usual, but with a sort of Woodstock meets Manson family energy. Again, I don’t want to give too much away, but the scene where he dances — button-up fully open revealing his impeccable physique — sensually and terrifyingly to Deep Purple’s Hush is definitely the scene that stood out most in the entire film.

2. Star Trek (2009)

• Metacritic: 82%
• IMDb: 7.9/10
• Duration: 127m
• Genre: Science Fiction, Action, Adventure
• Stars: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana
• Directed by: J.J. Abrams

An unforgettable, exhilarating, and witty revival of the classic sci-fi series , Star Trek is an absolute blast from start to finish. Acting as a stand-alone origin story, we see the beginnings of the Starship Enterprise and its crew, led by its fearless captain, James T. Kirk (Chris Pine). Right from the beginning, audiences are sucked into the action and story as though by a tractor beam from a Borg cube. Most of the instant appeal starts in the opening performance from Hemsworth as Kirk’s father, the proud and honorable Capt. George Kirk, doing what captains do best and sacrificing himself. Though his screen time is short and the rest of the movie is uniformly excellent, his emotional performance connects instantly with the audience. Hemsworth’s turn here says a lot about his potential in any role.

1. Ghostbusters (2016)

• IMDb: 6.9/10
• Duration: 117m
• Genre: Action, Fantasy, Comedy
• Stars: Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon
• Directed by: Paul Feig

Yet again a movie that rehashes an already stellar franchise, Ghostbusters stars a hilarious all-female cast, except for Hemsworth. Attempting to prove that ghosts are real and a threat, a paranormal researcher and a physicist form a team to fight the evils that come to prey on New York City. Composed of such comedians as Kristen Wiig, Melissa McCarthy, Leslie Jones, and the underrated Kate McKinnon, Hemsworth is just the bow on the box that ties the story together. Though not a main character, he takes his direction — flipping the script by being a sexy but stupid male secretary — and gives it an extra boost. His comedic timing and utter lack of common sense are genuinely hilarious and original, making this my favorite of his non-Thor performances. The funniest scene in the movie — where Hemsworth interviews for the secretary job — was 100% improvised. That was shocking and outstanding to discover, making any viewer more excited to see what kind of performance he can come up with next.

The post The 10 best non-Marvel Chris Hemsworth movies, ranked appeared first on The Manual .

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Chris Hemsworth's Transformers One Movie Debuts Its Trailer in Space (Yes, Really!): See the Launch

'Transformers One' is in theaters Sept. 20

Chris Hemsworth and Brian Tyree Henry are taking the launch of their new movie out of this world. 

The animated adventure Transformers One unveiled its first trailer on Thursday, April 18, with a live-streamed countdown and journey into outer space — reaching a peak at 125,000 feet above Earth after an hour — broadcast on Paramount Pictures’ YouTube channel.

"We're really the first movie trailer to be shot up into space?" says Henry in a clip highlighting the launch. Hemsworth adds, "Yeah, the very first one."

The trailer offers glimpses at the story of “how the most iconic characters in the Transformers universe, Orion Pax and D-16, went from brothers-in-arms to become sworn enemies, Optimus Prime and Megatron,” as its official synopsis teases.

Courtesy of Paramount Pictures

Hemsworth, 40, voices Orion Pax while Henry, 42, voices D-16, both bots on the planet Cybertron who are destined to become giant transformer warriors. “With this movie, the sky's the limit," quipped Hemsworth in a clip teasing the space launch . 

Directed by Josh Cooley, Transformers One also features the voices of Scarlett Johansson as Elita-1, Keegan-Michael Key as B-127 a.k.a. Bumblebee, Jon Hamm as Sentinel Prime, and Laurence Fishburne as Alpha Trion.

Paramount Pictures' most recent installment of the franchise based on Hasbro's Transformers toys was 2023's live-action Transformers: Rise of the Beasts .

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Hemsworth takes over as the future leader of the Autobots from iconic voice actor Peter Cullen, whose work has been synonymous with Optimus Prime since the original 1980s animated series.

Producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura told Collider in 2023 that Hemsworth is not “playing, for most of the movie, what we think of as Optimus, Peter Cullen. So it's that transition, and Chris's voice has a timbre that… it’s logical that Peter Cullen would take over that voice.” 

As a voiceover star, Hemsworth has reprised his role as Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe's animated series What If...? Henry, the first Black actor to voice Megatron in the Transformers franchise, was also recently announced as the voice of Smokey the Bear . Johansson, 39, meanwhile, is known for her voiceover work across genres, including in Her, The Jungle Book and the Sing movies. 

Transformers One is in theaters Sept. 20.

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