Star Trek 4 can't work if it moves away from the heavy-action sequences

If and when (or maybe just if) Star Trek 4 finally gets made, it'll likely follow in the same vein as the last three films. With a strong focus on space battles and grand set pieces. It's the format of the movie that they've followed since the first one in 2009. This style and more pop-centric tone help separate it from the other established film timelines.

That timeline of films is of course the main timeline while Star Trek 4 is of the Kelvin Timeline variety. The Kelvin films are grander and bombastic, embrace pop culture more, and have large action sequences. Subtlety is not in its vocabulary. Yet, Chris Pine thinks it should be.

Clearly burnt out from the gimmick of big action scenes in Star Trek, Pine, who plays James T. Kirk, wants fewer explosions and fewer gimmicks and to make a movie more in line with what diehard Star Trek fans want. It's a more cerebral affair. One that tackles grander issues and pits characters against one another.

Pine even went and told a crowd at ACE Superhero Comic in San Antonio (via Popverse) just that recently by saying;

""I think what we’ve found is that we’ve captured an audience with the Trek Universe that may not have come to us, but generally speaking it’s the diehards. I think we should make films that appeal to people who want to see the film...I think we just make a much smaller film that’s more story-driven, more character-based, there’s less shit exploding, and maybe do it that way.”"

Now, as a Star Trek diehard, I love that idea. I think a more complex, more nuanced Star Trek film that pits characters against characters, and ethos' against ethos' is what Star Trek is meant to be. It's what it does best. Pit two opposing ideas against one another. Don't worry about "villains", worry about the cause.

The concept. The drive. Worry about how to make Star Trek characters pop beyond just the flashy and glitzy style that the likes of JJ Abrams have embraced.

Sadly, the same reason why Pine wants to do something like this is why it'll fail. See, the Star Trek film series already has its fandom. It's a fandom within the fandom but it exists. If you try and do a film closer to that of Wrath of Khan or The Undiscovered Country, as opposed to Beyond, you're going to upset the "diehards".

Not the traditional "Star Trek diehards" that Pine references, but the ones supporting the film franchise since 2009. If you take away the elements that make this film franchise what it is, you may not retain the fans who have been showing up to support these films.

After all, the fans who support the films and the long-time fans of the franchise are not a pure circle in the Venn diagram. There is much separation. So there's no guarantee that you'd even make your money back on a film with a smaller budget. Yes, you're not going to win over the mainstream, but you can at least keep the fandom intact, which you already have.