Making A Dang 'Star Trek' Movie Shouldn't Be This Hard

It's been four long years since Captain Kirk and the Enterprise crew did … whatever it was they did in Star Trek Beyond. And even though there are three (soon to be four) Trek shows currently on TV, the movie franchise is about as stable as a static warp bubble. According to a recent report, there were as many as three possible Star Trek movies in the works, none of which seem to be making any real progress. 

Recently we learned that Fargo and Legion creator Noah Hawley was working on a Star Trek sequel that would jettison the current Star Trek cast in favor of some other, more affordable crewmembers. Yeah, that's not happening anymore. Why not? For one thing, Hawley's script apparently focused on an interstellar pandemic, which currently sounds about as enjoyable as the musical stylings of William Shatner. 

Then there was Quentin Tarantino's potentially R-rated Star Trek movie that, frankly, always seemed more like a future Trivial Pursuit question than an actual thing that would happen. It turns out that Tarantino's Trek was to be about 1930s gangsters, possibly based on the classic series episode "A Piece of the Action" in which the Enterprise visits a planet run by mob-inspired aliens -- presumably because pinstriped suits and fedoras are way cheaper than elaborate prosthetics.  

There were also plans to bring Chris Hemsworth back as Kirk's dad for a time travel story featuring the reboot cast, but that may not happen either. 

Somehow, the folks in charge have forgotten what made the Star Trek franchise such a hit in the first place; not unlike a certain battery-powered rabbit, it kept going. We could depend on Star Trek for its regularity, like the James Bond movies or All-Bran.

Sure, not every entry was grand -- one of them very nearly featured rock monsters and unicorns. But the series kept chugging along regardless. Instead of second, or even third-guessing, themselves, Paramount should just make a goddamn Star Trek movie already. If that means having Chris Pine drop F-bombs while dressed like he's in a high school production of Guys and Dolls, we're here for it.

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Top Image: Paramount Pictures