Star Trek 4 should focus on a smaller story, more personal story
By Chad Porto
The new Star Trek film should tone down the action in favor of a stronger script.
The new Star Trek film is a little over two years out and could feature the return of the Kevlin Timeline crew of Chris Pine (Captain Kirk), Zachary Quinto (Spock), Zoey Saldana (Uhura), Karl Urban (Dr. McCoy), Simon Pegg (Scotty), John Cho (Sulu) and hopefully some of the rest of the previous crew members to help ease the pain of losing Anton Yelchin (Chekov) in 2016.
While the cast returning is still in limbo, though Pine did say he’s open to returning, the crew is taking shape. So far the writing staff includes Geneva Robertson-Dworet and Lindsey Beer, with Matt Shakman serving as the director of the film.
So that takes us to what the film should be about. The first film dealt with Star Trek’s version of Star War’s New Hope Hope; where a world-destroying ship was stopped by a tiny and small vessel. The sequel was just a remake of Wrath of Khan and while I personally enjoyed it, I’m among a small portion who did. The third film had a great idea but it ended up being a generic science fiction film with “Star Trek” slapped on it instead.
The fourth film of the new Star Trek universe should be less bombastic
Instead of world-ending machines or a swarm of space bugs or a vengeful Khan, the fourth film should really lean back on what fans want from Star Trek; debate. Even in First Contact, there was debate about what to do. There was discourse and dialogue where the actors were allowed to do just that; act.
The cast for the new Star Trek films is filled with A-list talent. Yet, most of the stuff they’re given is emotionally flat or designed to be funny. They haven’t really had any real chance to flex their acting muscles while working on these projects.
So set up some type of Romulan and Klingon war (or whatever) that the crew of the Enterprise has to resolve. Sure, it can end in a firefight like Star Trek films tend to always do, but make it feel earned. Don’t just throw in some hack-ass classic song into the film and go “see, that was the surprise!”
We’re done with the stunts and the 80s music. We’ve seen what doesn’t work with this franchise, so stop trying to give Star Trek fans the Star Wars menu. We don’t want that menu, if we did, we’d be watching Star Wars.
Give us some philosophy and not just that Disney philosophy they tried to shoehorn in the new trilogy, but some real-world philosophy. Something that makes fans think about the notion of right or wrong, About the decision to stay out of a fight or inject yourself.
What it means to be Starfleet.
Give us the big questions like, “should you kill your own men if they’re being infected by the Borg?” Let’s bring back the heavier subject matter and stop trying to use Deus ex Tribbles to solve the problem with your scripts.