Star Trek: Lower Decks should never be made into a film series

Star Trek: Lower Decks wouldn’t work as a film.

Star Trek: Lower Decks remains one of the more divisive series in Trek’s history. While many think it’s a witty, and funny take on the franchise, others believe that the show disrespects Gene Roddenberry’s vision and makes light of the series conflicts that the show tried to bring to light. Star Trek had some humor but it was never a comedy and that has been the case for decades.

So Lower Decks has a lot of detractors, just as they do fans. But the split fandom isn’t the only reason why the show should avoid doing anything more than their traditional 20+ minute episodes. Now, Lower Decks works best as a show. A film is just not needed.

Especially not for the content being created. It just isn’t that grandiose of a story. There are plenty of issues with trying to extend a 20-minute cartoon into a 90+ minute film. Most of which is the fact that not all humor does well across such a large stretch of time.

It’s difficult to do and there are plenty of examples of shows who try and fail. The Simpson’s movie did alright but the story wasn’t great. The Bob’s Burgers film didn’t make back its money. And while that’s just two, those are arguably the two biggest animated shows on television right now.

If they can’t pull it off, how could anyone think Lower Decks could?

Star Trek: Lower Decks’ Mike McMahan wants a movie

Speaking to ComicBook.com, Star Trek: Lower Deck’s showrunner Mike McMahan, and talked about his ideas for a Lower Decks film, saying;

"I have ideas for live-action Lower Decks movies. And I have ideas for brand new, totally original Star Trek movies that don’t tie into anything we’ve seen before. I think Star Trek is an amazing genre to think about. I love the idea of not micro but small-budget Star Trek movies, where you get the bigness of a movie set, but you get to tell a Star Trek story that drives across a moment instead of a thing that has to be dealt with, like a Khan."

A comedic Star Trek film may not work, and after the ups and downs of the last year involving the multiple cancelations, delays, and development hells that the franchise has been plagued with, the last thing Trek needs to do is go all in on some type of animated film, or comedic representation of what Trek really isn’t.