Star Trek: Beyond was going to be about the Klingon and Federation war

Star Trek: Beyond was going to feature a Klingon and Federation war.

Star Trek: Beyond is a film that is met with some mixed reactions. It’s as far away from what an established Star Trek film is expected to be, but it definitely has its supporters. Yet, the premise of the film was radically different than what was originally planned.

In the previous film in the franchise, Star Trek: Into Darkness, a rogue admiral named Alexander Marcus deliberately tried starting a war with the Klingons. A war, Marcus tells James Kirk, that is all but inevitable. Marcus woke up Khan Noonien Singh from his sleep just to help design weapons to combat the Klingons, and eventually used Singh, re-named John Harrison, as a scapegoat.

All of it was supposed to set up a Klingon and Federation war, according to Damon Lindelof. Not only was there supposed to be a war in Star Trek: Beyond, but Benedict Cumberbatch was originally supposed to return as Khan in the follow-up.

Obviously, that never happened, and instead, we got more Beastie Boys and a wasted Idris Elba.

Fans deserved to see the Klingon/Federation conflict

Yes, we know Star Trek: Discovery already showed it, at least parts of it. As it was the first season of Discovery, and in-universe shows are actually mocking how bad it and Picard is, we stand on reason that Beyond would’ve done a much better job.

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The conflict that the Prime Universe gave fans was met with indifference by and large. It told the story, for whatever that’s worth to fans, but their version of events didn’t feel nearly epic enough. So we feel Nick Fury’s comments from The Avengers film may highlight how we feel about the purple Klingons and their story in Discovery.

While we’ve gotten several Trek films featuring Klingons as villains, (Star Trek’s III, VI, and Generations), we’ve never gotten a Star Trek film where the Klingon Empire was villains. A big-budget film, with a desire to do big, bombastic space battles, decided that a full-on Federation and Klingon war wasn’t exciting enough?

Yikes.

The new trilogy was a fine set of movies, and everyone has a right to like or not like whatever they’d like. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. That said, even if you liked some, or all of the films in the Kelvin Universe (I liked the first two), you really can’t deny that they weren’t made for Star Trek fans. They were designed to appeal to a wider audience.

Which explains the huge plots, the big conflicts, and the unbelievable need to make everything bigger and better. Making their decision to skip the Klingon war is baffling.

How could they not think a two-hour film of ships doing space battle stuff wouldn’t be amazing theater?