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Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

On the eve of retirement, Kirk and McCoy are charged with assassinating the Klingon High Chancellor and imprisoned. The Enterprise crew must help them escape to thwart a conspiracy aimed at ... Read all On the eve of retirement, Kirk and McCoy are charged with assassinating the Klingon High Chancellor and imprisoned. The Enterprise crew must help them escape to thwart a conspiracy aimed at sabotaging the last best hope for peace. On the eve of retirement, Kirk and McCoy are charged with assassinating the Klingon High Chancellor and imprisoned. The Enterprise crew must help them escape to thwart a conspiracy aimed at sabotaging the last best hope for peace.

• Nicholas Meyer
• Gene Roddenberry
• Leonard Nimoy
• Lawrence Konner
• William Shatner
• DeForest Kelley
• 252 User reviews
• 86 Critic reviews
• 65 Metascore
• 2 wins & 9 nominations total

• Lt. Valeris

• Excelsior Communications Officer

• Admiral Cartwright

• Chief in Command

• Federation President

• (as Rosana DeSoto)

• Chancellor Gorkon

• Klingon Ambassador

• Klingon Defense Attorney
• All cast & crew
• Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

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Did you know

• Trivia Michael Dorn plays Colonel Worf, the grandfather of his regular character Lieutenant Worf on Star Trek: The Next Generation (1987) .
• Goofs When the shock wave from the Praxis explosion is first detected by one of the Excelsior's Bridge Officers, he informs Captain Sulu that the wave is approaching on the port side. At this point we see an exterior view of the Excelsior as the shock wave hits the ship from the starboard side.

[last lines]

[Kirk's final Captain's Log]

Captain James T. Kirk : Captain's Log, stardate 9529.1. This is the final cruise of the Starship Enterprise under my command. This ship and her history will shortly become the care of another crew. To them and their posterity will we commit our future. They will continue the voyages we have begun, and journey to all the undiscovered countries, boldly going where no man... where no *one* has gone before.

• Crazy credits At the beginning of the end credits, the signature of each of the principal cast members is written one by one as a final send-off for their characters.
• Alternate versions The Blu-ray release from 2009 is the first home media release to include the 110 minute theatrical version instead of the 113 minute special edition seen on all previous DVD, laserdisc, and VHS releases. The Blu-ray is also the first release to present the movie in its proper 2.40:1 aspect ratio instead of the opened up 2.00:1 ratio seen on previous releases.
• Connections Edited into Star Trek: Generations (1994)
• Soundtracks Theme From Star Trek TV Series Music by Alexander Courage

User reviews 252

• Mar 31, 2000
• How long is Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country? Powered by Alexa
• What is 'The Undiscovered Country' about?
• Who returns from previous "Star Trek" movies?
• In what year does this film take place?
• December 6, 1991 (United States)
• United States
• Startrek.com
• Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country
• Knik Glacier, Chugach State Park, Anchorage, Alaska, USA
• Paramount Pictures
• See more company credits at IMDbPro
• $30,000,000 (estimated)
• $74,888,996
• $18,162,837
• Dec 8, 1991
• $96,888,996

Technical specs

• Runtime 1 hour 50 minutes
• Dolby Stereo
• Dolby Surround 7.1

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At the end their signatures are written large across the screen: William Shatner , Leonard Nimoy , DeForest Kelley and the others who have been playing the crew of the Starship Enterprise for the past 25 years. The implication is that the original voyage of “ Star Trek ” has come to an end--that the characters and players of the first television series and the six “Star Trek” movies will now go where no “Star Trek” actor has gone before, into retirement, and that if there is another “Star Trek” movie it will star, perhaps, the cast of TV’s “Star Trek” The Next Generation.”

I am not so sure, however. This sixth “Star Trek” film has so much more life and interest than the dreary “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” that perhaps it will tempt Paramount into still another story for Captain Kirk and his crew (perhaps a training voyage for the new generation?). “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country” begins, as so many “Star Trek” stories do, with a story set in the future but parallel to contemporary developments. In this case, as the Klingon empire begins to self-destruct after a Chernoble-type explosion on one of its moons, the obvious reference is to the disintegration of the Russian empire.

As the Klingons sue for peace, the Enterprise is assigned to go out to the edges of Federation space and negotiate with them. Captain Kirk is bitterly reluctant; he doesn’t believe the Klingons can be trusted, ever. But Mr. Spock informs him of an alleged ancient Vulcan proverb: “Only Nixon can go to China.”

There are a lot of lines like that in the script by Nicholas Meyer and Denny Martin Flinn, and a lot of lines by Shakespeare, too, who supplies not only the movie’s subtitle but also many references from “Hamlet” and elsewhere (“He is better in the original Klingon,” one of the enemy snorts.) At one point two of the supporting actors, the distinguished Shakespearians David Warner and Christopher Plummer , seem to be trading familiar quotations instead of dialog, but the strange thing is, it’s effective; in its pop-culture way, “Star Trek” has taken on a kind of epic quality over the years, and such references help establish the notion that the story really does take place in a future that remembers the past.

If the dialog is from Shakespeare, the plot seems borrowed more from an old British country house mystery; one or more disloyal members of the Enterprise crew fire on a Klingon star cruiser and then port themselves on board to murder those who have come to ask for peace. Through plot complications that would have made Agatha Christie proud, the clues to the identify of the killers depend on bloody boots and bootprints, and figuring out who was where, and when.

“Star Trek” has always been more allegory than science fiction. There is a kind of integrity, indeed, in the deliberately low-tech sets; the movies have always remained true to the klutzy art direction of the TV series, and in a post-”2001” and “Star Wars” age the bridge of the Enterprise still looks as if it were made out of old Captain Video props and a 1950s housewares show.

It doesn’t matter, because the movies aren’t really based on sets, or even much on action; they’re about ideas and relationships and here we see the old friendships of the Enterprise tested, and hear new versions of the same old jokes about how Vulcans don’t understand jokes. It’s entertaining, and reassuring.

Why on earth (or anywhere else) would Paramount want to retire this crew, which is as familiar and comforting as old family friends, and which does its job with the effortless grace of long familiarity? In Shakespeare, the “undiscovered country” is death. And elsewhere trhe bard refers to one who dies as being like an actor who goes off to “study a long silence.” I don’t know if that will work here. I doubt frankly that the crew of the Enterprise can stop talking long enough to die.

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)

113 minutes

Walter Koenig as Chekov

Nichelle Nichols as Commander Uhura

Leonard Nimoy as Mr. Spock

William Shatner as Capt.Kirk

• Nicholas Meyer

Produced by

• Ralph Winter
• Steven-Charles Jaffe

Photographed by

• Hiro Narita
• Ronald Roose
• Cliff Eidelman

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How 'Star Trek VI' Said Goodbye to Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock and the Original Enterprise Crew (Flashback)

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Following the emotional climax of Avengers: Endgame in 2019, the movie's credits paid tribute to the franchise's core ensemble, by way of taking a cue from the finale of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country . While Marvel Studios' head honcho,  Kevin Feige , had already revealed himself to be a Trekkie  by this point, the presence of these signatures displayed one of Star Trek 's most sentimental influences on the MCU.

In both films, one by one, each actor receives an animation of their autograph on-screen. Behind these cinematic yearbook signatures, there's more than one meaning to be found. In addition to honoring the cast's performances and commemorating their contributions to a worldwide phenomenon, the autographs sought to bring closure and signal to the fandoms that this was the last time these characters would be together on screen. In that farewell spirit, the sense of finality helped ease the transition into each franchise's new chapter, be it another phase or next generation . 

ET spoke with the TOS (the original series) cast in 1991 about their final mission after 25 years of warping across the galaxy with each other. And one guest star expressed her excitement for working with a longstanding crush. “I saw the series in the '60s. I loved it. I thought Spock was the sexiest thing on television,” Kim Cattrall told ET at the time. “I thought he was wonderful. I loved his look, his intelligence [and the] little humor in those eyebrows.”

But what’s going on with the title? To begin with, "the undiscovered country" derives from Act III, Scene I of Hamlet , adjacent to one of Shakespeare's more enduring quotes, "To be or not to be..."

In its original context, the phrase, in short, means death. But for one character in Star Trek VI , "the undiscovered country" is invoked to refer to the concepts of future and change (and, presumably, how both ideas can seem just as scary as death itself). 

In fact, nothing could be clearer from the first few minutes of The Undiscovered Country that the TOS crew is in a state of transition. Lt. Sulu ( George Takei ) is now Captain Sulu after taking the conn of the Excelsior. Meanwhile, his former crew mates aboard the Enterprise-A are getting ready to embark on the strange new world of retirement and having their tightknit group disbanded. But before they go, Mr. Spock ( Leonard Nimoy ) ropes his old pals into helping facilitate that aforementioned future. Specifically, peace between the Federation and one of its longest adversaries. As Spock explains, the Klingon Empire is on the verge of collapsing in the next half-century and instead of relishing the misfortune of their perennial foes, he instead recognizes the opportunity for harmony -- or at least the trailhead for it. 

As Nimoy saw it, the present was catching up with the future as he and his fellow writers were developing the movie’s story. “A lot was changing in the world. The Berlin Wall had just come down. We're watching television and seeing these amazing events in Eastern Europe,” he explained to ET leading up to the film’s release. “Pieces [of concrete were] being chipped away, symbolizing the breakdown of that whole idea of that order of the world. ‘Us versus them.’”

“The best of Star Trek rips its stories from the headlines... and dramatizes that as though it were happening in the future,” William Shatner , aka Captain Kirk, told ET in 1991. “The best of science fiction is taking a human theme and just putting it in a different environment.”

There was another reason this thematic direction was selected at the time. Elsewhere in the Star Trek canon, a Klingon was seen as a respected member aboard the Enterprise-D on TNG ( The Next Generation ). Michael Dorn’s performance as Worf portrayed the alien species as competent and intelligent beings within their gung-ho, Bat'leth at the ready personas. As Nimoy pointed out, the TOS era had previously reduced Klingons to two-dimensional, black hat antagonists. “The Klingons were always our evil empire and it was time to maybe examine the possibility of beginning to come to grips with that,” he said.

But not everyone immediately adopts Spock’s enlightened new perspective. After 25 years of tense run-ins -- everything from space battles to bar fights -- the crew has whiplash from this sudden change in direction on Starfleet's moral compass. The most vocal is Kirk, who also cites the murder of his son at the hands of a Klingon (portrayed in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock ) while speaking out against the proposition. 

While TOS was and continues to be heralded for its diverse representation on-screen, the Enterprise crew's final outing forced them to confront their own capacity for prejudice. “It's our distinction and, of course, righteous indignation,” Nichelle Nichols , aka Lt. Uhura, told ET in 1991. “But it is a prejudice and [ The Undiscovered Country ] was an opportunity for people to face that.”

And that they did, with the TOS ensemble literally coming face to face with Klingons in a very tense -- and very funny -- dinner scene made up of officers from both regimes. The occasion is also where Spock's counterpart on the Klingon end, Chancellor Gorkon (David Werner), utters the titular Shakespearean phrase as everyone toasts with their very potent, and very illegal, Romulan ale. But just as soon as headway is made, the initiative is blasted two steps back after the Enterprise, by all appearances, fires on the ship carrying their Klingon dinner guests. Aghast, confused and terrified that their chance for peace was gone forever, Kirk and Bones (DeForest Kelley) transport over to the Klingon ship to help. 

Unfortunately, Gorkon was mortally wounded and the good Starfleet doctor is unable to save him. For DeKelley, the emotional sequence wasn’t his average day of filming Star Trek . “I was very concerned about the scene with Werner and [Shatner] and I on the Klingon ship,” he revealed to ET in 1991. “It was a very difficult scene to do. It's the kind of scene that you worry about before you do it.”

Already standing on their turf, Kirk and Bones are arrested on the spot by Gorkon's chief of staff, General Chang ( Christopher Plummer ), charged with orchestrating the chaos and fatalities that unfolded. To no one’s surprise, they're found guilty and sent to a labor camp on the freezing planet Rura Penthe, where they meet fellow inmate and shapeshifter Martia ( Iman ). And in an instance of putting all nuances aside, the worlds of TOS and TNG implicitly collide with Dorn portraying Worf’s grandfather, who acts as Kirk and Bones’ defense attorney in the court proceedings.

Back on the Enterprise, Spock and company are deep into investigating who set them up. Meanwhile, Kirk and Bones attempt to escape their chilly imprisonment, leading the former to face off against his most existential foe to date: himself -- or Martia transformed to look like him, anyway. As the old chums are about to be assassinated by prison guards, they're beamed off the planet and onto the Enterprise at the last second.

After being rescued, they discover Spock's protege, another Vulcan, Lt. Valeris (Cattrall), played a role in the sabotage. It's a devastating reveal, as fans previously witnessed Spock express an unusual amount of affection for the up-and-coming Starfleet officer. And the emotional connection was just as real for both actors behind the scenes, according to Cattrall, who received a Vulcan history lesson from the iconic actor while helping her prepare for the role. “Leonard and I met and instantly there was energy. There was a report between the two of us, and we had a lot of telephone conversations back and forth at the end of the day,” she recalled. 

Cattrall added, “I would sit and watch Leonard in the rehearsals and would almost physically mimic what he would do, because he is the grand guru of being Vulcan.”

Following one of the most violent mind melds ever portrayed in Star Trek between Spock and Valeris, the true puppet master behind the sabotage is revealed to be Chang, who is defeated via space battle at the hands of both the Enterprise and the Sulu-helmed Excelsior. With time very much of the essence, both crews make haste toward Khitomer, where the official peace summit is transpiring -- and where one of the last remaining conspirators is getting ready to murder the Federation President (Kurtwood Smith). 

After Kirk and company thwart the assassination attempt, their last directive from Starfleet is to return the Enterprise to Earth. No more five-year missions or (on the clock) Gorn fights. But in a final display of his trademark anti-by-the-book leadership, James T. allows the crew one last joyride around the galaxy. 

With a quarter of a century having passed since TOS first debuted, the cast endured a multitude of feelings knowing this would be their final outing together. “I think there's a certain amount of denial going on. Nobody is really prepared,” Walter Koenig, aka Commander Chekov, told ET days before the movie was released on Dec. 6, 1991. 

“I said, 'Geez. This is the final one of these [films],' every day,” Shatner recalled of filming the movie, adding, “I was very much aware of the nostalgia of the moments involved.”

Three years before reprising Captain Kirk one last time in Star Trek: Generations , Shatner revealed there was never any secret to playing the iconic role. “I don't know what Kirk is. I play the role with certain pillars of knowledge,” he explained. “He's brave. He's kind. He's interested. That kind of thing. And he's amused at life. Things don't knock him off balance. He finds them interesting and that's, I guess, the character.”

The Undiscovered Country  also provided an opportunity for the cast to reflect on instigating and then cultivating an unprecedented fan phenomenon. “[ Star Trek ] is so special and people want to know the real reason why. And nobody knows,” James Doohan, aka Chief Engineer Scotty, told ET at the time. “I use the word ‘magic.’ Star Trek has some kind of magic to it. Nothing else answers the question. Great scripts. Great idea in the first place. Great casting. Wonderful acting. It's not good enough for 25 years and two series.”

Of course, the movie felt even more like a goodbye when the Star Trek universe suffered the loss of its creator less than two months before its release. Gene Roddenberry died at the age of 70 in October 1991 after suffering a blood clot (which also followed a long illness). A dedication title card to the prolific TV writer and producer appears at the beginning of the film.

“I loved Gene very much. He was my friend for over 30 years,” Nichols expressed. “He always had this dream, and he was determined to realize it, of having men and women of all colors, races and even an alien intelligent life form... working in peaceful harmony with one another on an equal basis. This is the legacy that Roddenberry has given us. One of hope. One of adventure. One of nobility. One of great expectation. And he did it all without violating the first law of show business and that's to entertain. That's a hell of an accomplishment.”

“If Gene was trying to say any one very simple, specific thing it was that humanity has an interesting and vital future,” Nimoy said. “And I think that 's what we've been saying with these films. And I think this film says that as well.”

Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is streaming on Paramount+.

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Star Trek: Picard finale post-credits scene explained: Showrunner confirms big things to come

Showrunner Terry Matalas says Ed Speleers is gonna be a busy man after Picard.

Warning: Spoilers from Star Trek: Picard 's series finale are discussed in this article.

There might be another Star Trek series coming our way — or at the very least, another home for Ed Speleers ' Jack Crusher.

The series finale of Star Trek: Picard , which dropped on Paramount+ Thursday, came with a post-credits scene that teases big things ahead for the character. Showrunner Terry Matalas confirms in an interview with EW, "Jack's got a lot to do, let me tell you."

He wouldn't tell us exactly what, of course, but the producer — who has guided the Patrick Stewart -led spin-off to break into the Nielsen Top 10 ratings for the first time with season 3 — confirms his story isn't over.

After Jean-Luc Picard (Stewart) and Beverly Crusher ( Gates McFadden ) save their son from the Borg Queen with help from their longtime comrades, the finale episode jumps forward a year to see where these characters ended up. Among the reveals is the U.S.S. Titan, which has been rechristened as the Enterprise-G in recognition of Picard and his crew's efforts.

Seven of Nine ( Jeri Ryan ) has been promoted to captain, with Raffi (Michelle Hurd) as her No. 1. A few members of the Titan join them, including Sidney La Forge (Ashlei Sharpe Chestnut). Jack is now Ensign Jack Crusher, as he was placed on an accelerated track by Starfleet.

The post-credits scene cuts to Jack in his quarters on the Enterprise-G. He settles into his room when Q (John de Lancie) makes a surprise appearance.

"Young mortal, you have much ahead of you," he tells Jack.

"You told my father that humanity's trial was over," the young Crusher replies.

"It is... for him," he clarifies. "But I'm here today because of you. You see, yours, Jack, has just begun."

Matalas had the idea for this moment deep into season 2 when he was mapping out the trajectory of season 3. "Once I had the genesis of this idea and I knew it would be about Picard's son, I had envisioned a post-credit sequence in which you passed the torch to [him]."

He points to "Encounter at Farpoint," the first episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation season 1. "The first major interaction is Q and Picard," he says. "Where better to end than at the beginning?"

A Star Trek: Legacy series has been rumored for some time, with a few of the Picard actors teasing how season 3 leaves the door open to continue that story with the next generation of characters. Alex Kurtzman , who's been shepherding the new golden age of Trek, had even teased during San Diego Comic-Con last year that fans should expect more shows with female leads. So, perhaps, we're getting a Seven of Nine series for Ryan, with Jack as part of her crew.

The only new Trek titles that have been formally announced so far are Star Trek: Starfleet Academy , which Matalas says is part of a different timeline than Picard ; and Star Trek: Section 31 , the event movie starring Michelle Yeoh as Emperor Philippa Georgiou from Star Trek: Discovery .

Matalas won't disclose what the plans are for Speleers as Jack moving forward, only that he knows what they are. "Oh yes. I do [know]," he says. "Oh yes."

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Related content:

• Michelle Yeoh's Star Trek: Discovery spin-off is now a Section 31 movie event
• Star Trek: Starfleet Academy series will beam up a new generation of cadets
• Star Trek: Picard 's latest Next Generation cameo was all about 'doing a paranoia thriller'

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Star Trek: Picard Finale Post-Credits Scene Explained

Contains spoilers for "Star Trek: Picard," Season 3, Episode 10, "The Last Generation" 

Now that "Star Trek: Picard" is over, the series has bid farewell to 36 years of Patrick Stewart as the iconic Captain Jean-Luc Picard, while setting the stage for his legacy to continue through Jack Crusher. Played by a delightfully energetic Ed Speleers , Jack is the son Jean-Luc never knew he had, born of Picard's romantic involvement with Beverly Crusher  (Gates McFadden). Furthermore, he's revealed over the course of "Picard" Season 3 to be carrying the burden of some strange and dark abilities.

In a post-credits scene at the very end of the "Picard" finale, Jack is settling into his quarters aboard the USS Enterprise (formerly the USS Titan) when a visitor arrives. This turns out to be none other than the immortal, powerful trickster known as Q (John de Lancie). "Picard" fans will remember that Q was behind the events of Season 2, and was presumed dead after using the last of his powers to send Picard and his crew back to their own time. Here, he urges Jack not to think so linearly, telling the young ensign, "Young mortal, you have much ahead of you." Jack points out that Q promised Picard that humanity's trials were over, to which the demigod replies, "It is, for him. But I'm here today because of you. You see, yours, Jack, has just begun."

It seems clear that this post-credits scene is setting the stage for a TV show or movie focused on Jack, and who better to give him his first challenge than his father's old frenemy?

Q has big plans for Jack Crusher in the Picard post-credits scene

Ed Speleers has already hinted at a Jack Crusher spin-off, but this "Star Trek: Picard" post-credits scene appears to confirm that such a project is in the works. In an interview with Cinema Blend in February, Speleers revealed that he's spoken to showrunner Terry Matalas about Jack's future, saying, "He's got a lot of ideas about it. I'm not gonna lie because I'm proud of the fact that Terry and I discussed this almost every day for the last eighteen months, what could happen." The actor also noted, "There are definitely more stories to be told if we're given the opportunity to tell them. And I know that Terry has bucketloads of ideas."

It appears Jack's first challenge as the heir to Jean-Luc Picard's legacy will be facing off against the dastardly Q. This is a fitting rite of passage for Crusher since the inaugural episode of "Star Trek: The Next Generation" introduces Captain Picard to viewers by pitting him against Q in its "Encounter at Farpoint" storyline. Therein, Q acts as judge and jury for the human race, reminding Picard of humanity's crimes and history of violence. The final episode of "The Next Generation," titled "All Good Things," bookends the series with Q's involvement once again.

Will Jack face similar judgment, or will his trial by Q be of a different nature entirely? That's the mystery posed by the "Picard" finale's post-credits scene, and one to which fans likely won't have an answer until we see Jack again.

The Picard post-credits scene contradicts recent news about a Picard spin-off

Showrunner Terry Matalas first revealed that he has a concept for a "Star Trek: Picard" spinoff titled "Star Trek: Legacy" in a March 23, 2023 Tweet . However, he told Screen Rant a few weeks later — days prior to the "Picard" finale's premiere — that Paramount had yet to greenlight this project. Rather, he was merely sharing that he has ideas, should the company express interest.

Of course, the "Picard" finale's post-credits scene seems to contradict this claim. After all, would Paramount allow such a blatant cliffhanger without at least some sort of plan in place to pay it off?

Matalas, in fact, further contradicted this supposed lack of plans for "Star Trek: Legacy" in a brief Entertainment Weekly interview about how "Picard" ends. "Jack's got a lot to do, let me tell you," he told EW, reinforcing the idea floated in the "Picard" post-credits scene that Jack Crusher's conflict with Q will soon become the focus of a brand new "Star Trek" project. For now, fans will simply have to wait for more news about the continuation of Jack's story.

Star Trek's Starfleet Academy Series Has Cast Academy Award Winner Holly Hunter As Its First Actor, And I'm Jazzed About Her Role

We finally have an actor officially attached!

When Star Trek: Discovery concludes at the end of the month, there will only be two Star Trek TV shows airing to Paramount+ subscribers , there will only be two shows in the franchise left on the platform: Strange New Worlds and Lower Decks , the latter of which is also set to end . But not to worry, as Starfleet Academy is on the slate of upcoming Star Trek TV shows , and today brings word that Holly Hunter is the first actor to be cast in the project. Better yet, we know who she’ll be playing, and I’m jazzed about her role.

As officially announced by Paramount+, Hunter, who won an Academy Award for her performance in 1993’s The Piano , will star in Starfleet Academy as the captain and chancellor of the title institution. Her character wasn’t named, but needless to say she’ll be spending plenty of time with the young group of Starfleet cadets who are in training to become officers. I'm looking forward to seeing how she does playing this kind of authority figure, and hopefully one who's sympathetic enough rather than too strict. Co-showrunners Alex Kurtzman and Noga Landau had this to say about Hunter’s casting:

It feels like we’ve spent our entire lives watching Holly Hunter be a stone-cold genius. To have her extraordinary authenticity, fearlessness, sense of humor, and across the board brilliance leading the charge on STARFLEET ACADEMY is a gift to all of us, and to the enduring legacy of STAR TREK.

Although Starfleet Academy , which was first reported in 2021 , arguably marks Holly Hunter’s first big foray into the sci-fi realm, she’s certainly no stranger to performing in genre fare. Superhero fans know her well for voicing Elastigirl in the Incredibles movies and for playing Senator Finch in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice . Hunter also scored Oscar nominations for her work in Broadcast News , The Firm and Thirteen , and her other notable credits include O Brother, Where Art Thou? , The Big Sick and the short-lived TV show Mr. Mayor .

While no specific plot details for Starfleet Academy have been released yet, the premise has teased that in the midst of the central students studying and forming friendships, rivalries and romantic relationships, they’ll have to contend with “a new enemy that threatens both the Academy and the Federation itself.” It’s also been confirmed that the show will take place in the 32nd century, i.e. the same time period that Star Trek: Discovery has been set in since Season 3.

As such, it’s possible that Mary Wiseman, who plays Sylvia Tilly in Discovery , could appear in Starfleet Academy , if not join Holly Hunter as one of the series regulars. After all, Tilly has been an instructor at Starfleet Academy since Discovery Season 4, so it’d be strange if viewers didn’t run into her. However, when CinemaBlend presented Wiseman with a hypothetical return to Star Trek through this upcoming show, she wouldn’t confirm or deny anything.

CinemaBlend will continue passing along casting updates and other key information concerning Starfleet Academy , including when it will premiere. Look through our 2024 TV schedule to learn what shows are currently airing or arriving soon.

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Connoisseur of Marvel, DC, Star Wars, John Wick, MonsterVerse and Doctor Who lore, Adam is a Senior Content Producer at CinemaBlend. He started working for the site back in late 2014 writing exclusively comic book movie and TV-related articles, and along with branching out into other genres, he also made the jump to editing. Along with his writing and editing duties, as well as interviewing creative talent from time to time, he also oversees the assignment of movie-related features. He graduated from the University of Oregon with a degree in Journalism, and he’s been sourced numerous times on Wikipedia. He's aware he looks like Harry Potter and Clark Kent.

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Furiosa: a mad max saga's post-credits scene explained.

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Mad Max Movies In Order

Furiosa’s mad max cameo explained, furiosa: a mad max saga ending explained.

Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga!

• Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga includes a post-credits scene setting up the future of the franchise, a first for the Mad Max movies.
• Early credits of Furiosa replay key scenes from Mad Max: Fury Road, bridging the gap between the two modern Mad Max movies.
• Furiosa's post-credits scene shows the Nux's bird bobblehead from Fury Road, potentially teasing a sequel or prequel about Nicholas Hoult's character.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga includes a post-credits scene that could help set up the future of the Mad Max franchise. Releasing after Mad Max: Fury Road , the fifth installment of George Miller's post-apocalyptic action series takes place 15 years prior and explores the origin story of Charlize Theron's Furiosa, now played by Anya Taylor-Joy. The prequel highlights her battle against Dementus and history with Immortan Joe. This allows Furiosa 's ending to lead directly up to the beginning of Mad Max: Fury Road .

Although end-credits scenes have long been a popular tactic for filmmakers to tease the futures of popular franchises, Mad Max avoided utilizing them during the first four movies. That has now changed, as Furiosa does include a post-credits scene , marking the franchise's first. Anyone who watches Furisoa and sticks through different parts of the credits is treated to multiple different surprises. Through the connections to the franchise's past and future, Furiosa 's after-credits become a reminder of what has already happened, what will happen, and what could happen.

There are multiple Mad Max movies that span several decades, and that creates different viewing options based on release and chronological orders.

Furiosa's Credits Include Mad Max: Fury Road Footage

Important scenes are replayed.

The early portions of Furiosa 's credits are used as a chance to replay key scenes from Mad Max: Fury Road . George Miller's 2015 action blockbuster is directly set up by the film's conclusion, including Furiosa 's Mad Max cameo . Since there is not much room to continue Anya Taylor-Joy's journey as Furiosa then, it is practical to have footage from Mad Max: Fury Road play. This allows the early credits to serve as a reminder of the prior film's excellence and what Furiosa's life looks like shortly after the prequel's resolution.

By playing a montage of Mad Max: Fury Road scenes during Furiosa 's credits, the movie successfully bridges the two modern Mad Max movies. Anya Taylor-Joy's version of the character directly leads to Charlize Theron's time as the Imperator. This could be an indication that Anya Taylor-Joy will not return as Furiosa for any future films. That would be a challenging proposition based on the franchise timeline regardless of the credits scene, but the Fury Road scenes make it feel as though the torch has been passed back to Theron . That perhaps could come into play after the film's credits scene.

Furiosa's Post-Credits Scene Connects To Nux In Mad Max: Fury Road

Nux's bird bobble head is shown.

The actual Furiosa post-credits scene is fairly minimal, as the movie ends on a shot of Nux's bird bobblehead from Mad Max: Fury Road . Nux has a custom-made bird bobblehead fitted in his vehicle at the beginning of the movie, but it is lost forever long before Mad Max: Fury Road 's ending . This is because Nux's car is destroyed in the giant sandstorm, and the bobblehead is inside it when the crash happens.

This is the last time Nux's bird bobblehead is shown before its return in Furiosa 's end-credits scene. The footage shows the recognizable bobblehead shaking from inside the car as the storm swirls outside . It is unclear if this is meant to take place before, during, or after Fury Road in the Mad Max timeline . Since that detail is unconfirmed, all that is known is that George Miller decided to end Furiosa on a single shot of a figure meant to remind audiences of Nicolas Hoult's character.

What Mad Max Movie Furiosa's Post-Credits Scene Sets Up

Is a fury road sequel on the way.

The purpose of post-credits scenes is typically to tease a future installment, which raises questions about what George Miller is setting up with Furiosa 's end-credits scene. Having Nux's bird skull bobblehead be the last thing viewers see is an intriguing choice. The figure is directly connected to the events of Mad Max: Fury Road and is lost to the Wasteland as far as audiences know. This opens the door for the credits scene to set up the delayed movie Mad Max: The Wasteland and perhaps have Max stumble across the wreckage.

There is also the possibility that Furiosa 's after-credits shot is meant to tease a Nux-centric movie . After making a prequel about Furiosa, the next step for the franchise could be exploring Nux's origins and life as one of Immortan Joe's War Boys before encountering Furiosa, Max, and the Wives. This could mean having the bird bobblehead be shown again to explain why this became a signature piece of his car. Since Nux was originally intended to be a younger character before Hoult's casting and Fury Road 's delays, a Nux spinoff could incorporate pieces of his story Miller already conceived.

Since the Furisoa post-credits scene lacks clarity in terms of following usual franchise setup tactics, the future of the series remains a bit unclear. Miller has confirmed that a script exists for another Mad Max: Fury Road prequel about Max's life in the year leading up to the film and his cameo in Furiosa . It is possible that Nux or his bird bobblehead could factor into that story in some fashion and make sense of the tease. Maybe Nux will even be revealed to be alive in a Mad Max: Fury Road follow-up instead.

Furiosa: A Mad Max Saga

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X-Men Producer Simon Kinberg Reportedly In Talks To Oversee Star Trek Feature Films

| May 21, 2024 | By: Anthony Pascale 143 comments so far

There is big news coming from Hollywood, with a potential new producer shepherding the future of the Star Trek franchise on the big screen.

The start of the Kinberg Trek era?

This morning, The Hollywood Reporter is confirming an initial report from Puck that Paramount is in talks with British-born filmmaker Simon Kinberg to produce the next Star Trek feature film, as well as becoming the “steward” of the film franchise moving forward. Kinberg is best known for writing and/or producing several films in the X-Men franchise, starting with 2006’s X-Men: The Last Stand , and also directing 2019’s Dark Phoenix . He has primarily worked on genre films, including writing the 2008 movie Jumper . Kinberg produced the first two Deadpool movies and 2015’s The Martian , which garnered him a Best Picture Oscar nomination. Kinberg has also acted as executive producer on a number of television projects, including two X-Men shows ( The Gifted and Legion ), Star Wars Rebels , the Paramount+ Twilight Zone reboot, and this year’s Apple TV+ series Sugar .

Kinberg’s first Trek project would be the previously announced “ Untitled Star Trek Origin Story ” which Paramount recently confirmed as part of its 2025/2026 slate. Earlier this year, Paramount and producer J.J. Abrams had tapped Andor ‘s Toby Haynes to direct, based on a script from Seth Grahame-Smith ( The Lego Batman Movie ).

This would be Kinberg’s first step into taking a larger role in the Trek film franchise. According to Puck, “Paramount sees Kinberg as a franchise shepherd à la Alex Kurtzman for Trek TV projects, even though J.J. Abrams remains as a producer.” The reports indicate that Paramount may be looking to start a new era for the film franchise after almost a decade away from the big screen.

A direct sequel to 2016’s Star Trek Beyond remains in the works, but that film is expected to arrive after Haynes’ prequel, which is expected to have a new cast. The “Star Trek 4” Beyond sequel has been in development for almost a decade, going through multiple permutations, with a new screenwriter brought on in March for a new script, much to the chagrin of star Chris Pine .

Origin movie is about first contact?

The Puck and THR stories differ on Paramount’s release goal for the “Untitled Star Trek Origin Story,” with THR saying the studio hopes to get the film into theaters by next year and Puck reporting they are targeting 2026, the 60th anniversary of the franchise. There are also new details from THR about the Haynes’ origin movie:

The project is said to be set decades before the events of the 2009 movie that was directed J.J. Abrams, likely around modern times. It is said to involve the creation of the Starfleet and humankind’s first contact with alien life.

The creation of Starfleet and the events of humanity’s first contact with alien life, specifically Vulcans, is well established in franchise lore and explored in the 1996 film Star Trek: First Contact as well as the Star Trek: Enterprise television series. Both Puck and THR use the term “reboot” as well. Of course, the three J.J. Abrams-produced films are set in an alternate parallel “Kelvin” universe, which was also portrayed as a reboot of the film franchise. It’s possible that the Haynes’ movie could establish yet another Star Terk canon universe.

Zefram Cochrane greets the Vulcan visitor to Earth in Star Trek: First Contact (Paramount Pictures)

Of course, all of this development around the Star Terk feature films is happening while Paramount Global is in corporate turmoil . A change in management could see a change in strategy when it comes to Paramount franchises. In the short term, all financing is more challenging for Paramount Pictures, with the company laden by debt. Skydance, who have co-produced the recent Star Trek feature films, is still in talks to take over all of Paramount Global. Beyond that, they still have the option to partner with Paramount on the upcoming Star Trek movies, as they have for the last two.

This is a developing story and TrekMovie will provide updates as they arrive.

Find more news and analysis on  upcoming Star Trek feature films .

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So we’ll be up to four Trek universes if you count the Mirror? That’s a lot to keep track of. I guess they’re letting the original universe die of it’s own massive weight and officially say SNW is part of the latest reboot universe?

Four? LOL. There have been MANY more than four. We’ve seen an antimatter universe, a backward-time universe, and a TON of parallel universes–dozens at this point.

Okay, I should have said four main universes, or four heavily featured universes. I apologize.

If SNW is a reboot, then so is Picard since they showed a hologram of the SNW Enterprise in Starfleet HQ.

None of the streaming shows from the current era are reboots.

ENT, the USS Franklin, SNW, DSC, and PIC are all a part of the same tangent timeline created by First Contact. Lots of evidence out there to support it.

Discovery actually showed when the new “Burnham” timeline was created. Her mother appeared to Spock as the Red Angel to get his help to change history by saving Michael from being eaten by a creature when she ran away from home on Vulcan.

I don’t know if I believe that though. And why can’t they just put this new movie im the prime universe or even the Kelvin universe?

I think people are getting hung up on the alien life part. I don’t think it will be new aliens and it will still be the Vulcans that makes first contact as it’s always been. The press release just sounds like it was written to be as general as possible for non fans, that’s all.

It sounds like the movie will take place between First Contact and Enterprise. If so what’s the point of rebooting it?

Stop whining, good lord. This anger over an arbitrary dividing line between “old” or “new” is obnoxious.

Trek fans love to whine. It’s pretty pathetic.

Boooo. Not only has this guy been part of some BAD films, the story sounds boring and has been done. Thank you, next.

He’s been a part of some good ones, too. Is just kicking sand around a knee jerk reaction, or is there an actual point you’d like to make?

The 4 films Kinberg has written or co-written since Days of Future Past have an average Rotten Tomato score of 25% . We can call a spade a spade. A declining studio is nabbing a declining talent for a moribund movie franchise.

Cool story bro

How is that not Enterprise, though? Hopefully it will respect that series’ canon.

They won’t respect it like they haven’t respected most of the old shows canon. SNW might as well just be in another universe now in relation to how badly it aligns TOS and Discovery was so bad they moved it 900 years into the future because it didn’t feel like it was even in the 23rd century. STID couldn’t even get Khan right and sideline the Eugenics war completely. This will probably be as bad as those.

They will just continue to do what they want and just ignore canon.

EXACTLY what I said as I was reading this article. We have seen all this before

I dont see the point in going backwards, although I said that when ENTERPRISE was announced and that show finally ended up being as strong as anything that came before it (IMO), but we can not go back to that time frame again surely.

If they want to go back to this period just give us a 5th season of Enterprise??

It’s still ironic all the crap Enterprise got back in the day and it’s now easily the prequel show the most faithful to Star Trek canon. Discovery and SNW basically only followed canon when it suits them basically (and I really like SNW).

And I agree if you’re going to give us yet ANOTHER prequel no one was asking for them just do something more Enterprise related? That’s something some fans wants to see and been begging for for years now, me included.

And the Romulan War is just sitting there. That’s something fans always wanted (which we know season 5 of Enterprise was leading into) and would be a strong hook to get people interested. Why they don’t go this very obvious direction is beyond me.

The Romulan War would require finesse and imagination to pull off. The humans of the time aren’t allowed to ever see the enemy’s face or know the most important thing about them. How do those battle scenes work, exactly, without being constrained and repetitive.

The Vulcans…might know. Spock sure figured out the connection between the Romulan Commander and Vulcans with suspicious speed. Just because he had pointy ears? Can’t there be more than 2 pointy eared species in the galaxy?

Anyway the point is, it would take some effort to make a series work and to make a movie work, with the backstory that would need to be explained to the general audience, would be even more of a pain. The people running Star Trek now just don’t want to do the work. They want to spew out some lazy crap and expect us to cheer. A Romulan War series could be great, in the hands of competent people.

The whole “Nobody Ever Saw A Romulan” thing could be explained away as Section 31 hiding that Romulans and Vulcans had common ancestry from a young Starfleet that would no doubt be suspicious of non-human species in the aftermath of the Xindi Attack on Earth. The Earth/Vulcan/Andorian and Tellarite proto-Federation was dicey at first and the reveal of the warlike Romulan’s ancestry could certainly have ended the Federation before it even began.

All of this. All.of.this!

I don’t really believe they would’ve ever done that. I’m more than sure as they have done countless times now they would just run around it and then after it’s over sat it has to ‘classified’, they can’t tell the public they know what the Romulans look like for reasons,, everybody nods in agreement, the end.

Also SNW has had two time travel episodes where both Pike and La’an both know what the Romulans look like. Oddly enough neither has run into Starfleet to report this stunning development. I guess due to the Temporal Prime Directive blah blah.

But we agree they don’t want to do the work nor would they. But if someone one day decides they really want to do a Romulan war, see above.

It sounds like it will probably be when Starfleet was first being conceived. It may take place after Zefram Cochrane builds out the first warp engines on a massive scale with the help from the Vulcans and the first ships are now being produced. If so that will still be decades before even that show. Is there a date when Starfleet was officially established? My guess is early 22nd century.

If true, who will remotely care about this outside of hardcore Star Trek fans is beyond me though. This sounds like something I really hate about prequels and just filling into stuff we already know.

Enough with the canon, okay? Virtually the entirety of Trek doesn’t respect canon.

That’s not remotely true and you know it. Most shows bend over backwards to respect canon. Yes stuff obviously gets retcon from time to time or producers are human and make mistakes at times but that’s not the same thing as just ignoring it or not caring about it either.

That’s really insulting to all the writers and producers who painstakingly gone out their way to make these shows as canon as possible for decades now. Watch any scene from Trials and Tribblelations and tell me the people who made it didn’t respect canon.

And the current shows that go out of their way to a crazy level to respect it the most are the actually animated shows LDS and PRO. They have both done an amazing job trying in to canon. I can’t think of anything that either show has gotten anything wrong on.

I will say Picard has also done a pretty good job with it as well. Outside of maybe tiny instances I can’t think of anything that was so flagrantly out of bounds, can you?

The only shows where canon has been a complete mess is with both DIS and SNW. And surprise, surprise both the prequel based shows. 🙄

Which should tell you time and time again that maybe if you can’t simply make a prequel show or movie that’s more consistent with the time period it’s set in then maybe you shouldn’t keep making prequels?

One of the reasons I’m so impressed with Prodigy is just how faithful they have been to canon.

It’s very astounding how much they have adhered to not just Voyager canon but the franchise as a whole. I say that because this is a show made for kids who doesn’t know squat about Star Trek and yet they went out their way to make it almost a weekly lesson about the in and out about Star Trek history and aliens. I actually learned a few new things lol.

They treat that universe with the utmost respect which sadly the bigger and more popular shows like SNW and Discovery failed on IMO.

So I fully agree to say that people don’t respect canon is false. Lots of people do and they do their homework diligently. But as you say some are simply human and mistakes are made. That’s OK, I will always applaud the attempt they are at least trying.

I think prequels are harder to get it right because there is just too much story they have to contened with and while I love TOS it’s just too outdated. I don’t fault anyone from making visual changes and I’m OK with how they did it with SNW for instance while Discovery was just insulting. They didn’t even try. None of it looked like Star Trek, at least not the Star Trek I knew.

But being in the 32nd century it all fits fine now. Why they just didn’t have it take place post Nemesis from the start I’ll never know? But the fact they moved it there actually does tell they ultimately respected canon because they knew the show just didn’t belong in that time period and removed it. They should be applauded for that but it’s not the canon issues I had problems with alone, far from it, but I will digress here. 😊

Agreed. And I wasn’t trying to give Phil a hard time and he knows I sorta like him but that’s just not true. Not in the least. The people who work on these shows and movies, as far back as TNG has always strived to make canon fit but of course there will always be issues making it fit 100% of the time because it’s still just fiction and other factors will always come into play.

Berman got so much slack because fans thought he didn’t care about canon when it came to TOS but looking back on it now there was a very committed effort to make it all fit as much as possible both narratively and visually. Yes some things people questioned or they didn’t do enough of in some cases but as you said there was always the attempt. That was obvious. But yes it’s still subjective but they were always trying. And when you have so many episodes, seasons, movies etc it naturally gets harder and harder.

But the overwhelming majority fits fine. They have retcon many things over the decades but again out of just trying to tell new and interesting stories. A good example of that is what happened with Seven of Nine and the Borg.

They knew Seven’s backstory didn’t line up with when the Federation first originally encountered the Borg but thought her backstory was more important and just came right out and said that. And guess what they never got any flack for it because they were just honest about it and people understand they are just trying to make the best TV show possible.

Then of course later they retcon the Borg again on Enterprise and fans were livid lol. Just a slap in the face to their very existence. But they came out and said yeah we know how it doesn’t really fit but it’s explained in the story how it all fits via First Contact. People watched and realized yeah it works. No one remotely cares about those retcons today because they understood they weren’t just changing it to change it they were just trying to tell new stories but still tried to adhere to it as much as possible.

And yes most of the new shows are actually trying, really trying. And I’ll actually defend Discovery a bit here and will say I don’t think they were ever trying to ignore or disrespect canon. Not at all. I think the problem was, and I will die on this hill, is that Bryan Fuller just wanted to reboot the show completely. Just start anew in his image. But TPTB knew how much crap fans gave the Kelvin movies and wanted to make clear the new show took place in the prime universe. But Fuller probably wanted it in a new universe and the compromise became just reboot the show but still emphasize it was in the prime universe and we saw how well that went down lol

Now solely my theory, I could be wrong. But again you actually said it and ONCE they heard the complaints they did everything they could to make it fit into canon even removing the show completely and put it in another period because the Fuller stuff just didn’t work. It’s still a mess story wise lol but no canon complaints anymore.

Now there are obviously times when it’s obvious people DON’T care about canon at all, ie British Khan in STID, but those are more the exceptions.And again it’s not to say the Kelvin movies didn’t care at all, they cared plenty, but they prioritized what was more important in terms of telling its stories and just by being in another universe. And I think they had a director who got how important it was to the old fans but he always made clear his movies was prioritized to new fans first and we got what we got but they still tried regardless.

But trust me we’ll never see a white Khan again lol.

And it’s also why I knew the Tarantino movie was DOA because it was clear he also didn’t care and despite what people think about Paramount they knew that would’ve been a disaster and why they didn’t persue it even if they could use his name on it.

Star Trek is not a historical period piece so any prequels like dsc and snw do not need to be made to match the visual look of tos from that was made on a shoestring budget for spfx and vfx and had to work with the limitations of the mid to late 60’s which they did not have enough foresight to see that current computer and other tech might evolve way faster and way more advanced within only hand full of decades

as for the 3 examples of the 60’s sets being remade in part for 3 different berman era shows there was limitations again for the first two both in having to match up to existing footage and early cg not being able to handle a digital replacement and even by then in the real world computer tech and other tech had moved into the digital age no longer had transistors and other stuff that analog tech relied on to run with

And the 3rd they had to shoot the with reduced lighting and weird angles cause of how bad the 60’s sets looked with mid 2000’s hd cameras and other production tools so if the 60’s set designs did not hold up with mid 2000’s level hd and lighting then it would never have held up visually with current hd cameras and lighting

No one ever said the prequels had to look exactly like TOS, simply some version of it, that’s all. Discovery completely ignored that direction and why it got the crap it did and sorry but RIGHTLY so.

Why say something is a prequel and say your show exists in the same universe if you just decide to ignore everything in it? Like what’s the point? That’s why I think Fuller never intended it to be a straight prequel and it was just going to be a very loose interpretation of the prime universe basically.

SNW doesn’t actually fit in visually that much either, certainly not the interior of that Enterprise minus the bridge. But at least it looks like a possible updated version of what TOS would look like today if it was made in the 2020s. That’s all most people wanted. What most of us whined about with Discovery. You would be nuts to drag out bare bones sets with the feel of a 60s looking sci fi aesthetic. No one was ever asking for that. Ok maybe somebody was lol, but they were in the vast minority.

And the old TOS sets on TNG, DS9 and ENT looked amazing (and someone told me DS9 just inserted the actors into a lot of the old footage although some sets were created). Only people like us who spend way too much time on this stuff would notice any differences at all. The very fact they went that direction and put in so much work to make it feel so authentic to the original is exactly the proof how much canon meant to them and did in fact respect it.

All that said I have no problem the SNW version of Enterprise has essentially replaced the look of the original in the modern era and why no one cared that Book and Burnham was on the SNW version of the ISS Enterprise this season. Most fans do in fact understand these are just TV shows and that some things can’t just be recreated from 60 years ago.

I’m still astonished they completely recreated the Enterprise D bridge in Picard. These are people who truly value what came before, especially when no one is forcing them to even do it.

“But at least it looks like a possible updated version of what TOS would look like today if it was made in the 2020s. That’s all most people wanted.”

I agree with that; most people don’t want a literal re-use of cardboard sets and 50-year old FX technology. But they want the general aesthetic to be recognizable and respected. The analogy I use is to consider TOS art direction to be a fuzzy low-res photo, and as technology evolves we are simply able to achieve higher resolution and see fuller details not apparent earlier. Same image, just in better focus, that’s what I tell myself.

No, what the shows make the effort is on continuity. Yes, the shows writers have done a great job with continuity over the decades.

Just one example: Back in the good old days of starship flying, it took time to fire up a warp drive. Ye canna violate the laws of physics (yes, you can, Trek does it all the time). Enter the funky party virus from The Naked Time, and it turns out you can, quickly, with a little time travel thrown in for good measure. So, several decades of episodes later, starships (apparently) start up cold, they haven’t been time travelings, and in Picard Season 3, along comes the Titan-A, and what do you know, it takes time to fire up the warp drive again. Becaue we needed the dramatic pause, apparently.

Continuity isn’t sacred, either. If you haven’t caught the last Delta Flyers podcast, McNeil, Wang, and Shimerman spent most of the podcast shreading the continuity in that one episode they were reviewing. They wern’t wrong, and that’s my opinion as someone who adores DS9.

Between respect for the continuity of the Trek universe, and resonable suspension of disbelief, all Trek is very watchable and communicates its message well. So when I see someone heave a digital sigh about more canon violations as though someone was taking a s**t on a crucifix, it’s just a bunch of melodrama. The casual fan doesn’t care at all, and for the serious fan, that’s just spending way too much time examining the brushstrokes instead of enjoying the painting.

Ok I get your point now and fair enough. But I still think for the most part the people making the shows cares or always try as much as possible. Or at least when people whine a lot about it lol. But of course there will be changes here and there because it is a 60 year old show and yeah it’s hard to keep everything that consistent.

The Klingons are the best example. They were obviously changed in the movies from what they looked like in TOS. I’m sure some people had an issue with it originally but people got used to the idea and that became their basic look and basically followed it when the new shows started. Yeah there are minor differences here and there but no one but hardcore fans noticed or cared but the look stayed consistent for decades.

And then came Discovery lol. However you feel about them personally the fact is they just felt so inherently different from anything we seen before and it bothered a lot of people. It was so bad they not only went back to the basic look of them in the later shows Discovery seems like it is scared to even show them again lol. So obviously they cared or they could’ve just doubled down on it. They didn’t.

But as I said on this thread my belief is Fuller just wanted to reboot the show in general. But same time if you say said show takes place in the same universe and time period of other said shows, in this case the show that started it all it should have SOME resemblance to that show. Discovery felt like it belonged in another time period and frankly universe. So why have it there then?

And I think what bothers people is when you tell them it’s all supposed to be the SAME canon when people have freaking eyes. Stop treating your audience like idiots. Just tell them why something was changed or just highlight it in the story and most people will get off your back about it. But when you present British Khan in your movie and LITERALLY pretend it’s supposed to be the same Khan we saw in Space Seed then you just insulted your audience and you lost them at the same time. Same with the Gorn in SNW. They want to pretend it’s the same ones from Arena. Why keep doing this?

That’s when people get upset about it. But most fans are actually reasonable. They understand things get changed for multiple reasons and OK with that. But don’t treat them like they are in the third grade either.

But again my argument is still the same as it’s always been. If you don’t want to follow 60 year old canon, F-I-N-E, then just put it in another universe or make clear it’s a reboot and do whatever you want. I and others have said this a hundred times now. Yes Trek is old and TOS is waaay outdated, so maybe it’s time to just redo it from top to bottom and start anew.

But no one wants to do that either so here we are. But as said maybe it’s just a mandate from the studio itself and the fear will stop caring about it. If so give your fanbase a little more credit. If you can still watch a show that jumped a thousand years into the future literally just to avoid canon I think people are OK with just saying other new stuff just exists in a different universe completely.

If someone were to film a new movie set during the civil war, the “canon” would be that Northern troops wore blue uniforms and Southern troops wore gray uniforms. A filmmaker might complain that being restrained by those blue and gray precedents would irreparably limit his ability to tell new, exciting stories, but I personally think such a claim would be ridiculous. Still, if he felt it essential to his creative integrity, he could disregard the fusty old looks and dress Grant’s and Lee’s armies in pink and chartreuse respectively. But then the film would definitely be considered an alternate history, wouldn’t it?

Isn’t it thus with the way Klingons look, and other Trek details?

The difference being the Civil War was real. It’s history so we’re just following facts or real events and so you would literally be altering history based on your premise.

Star Trek and Klingons are fictional so basically Klingons are whatever a writer says they are.And that can change with every production. And the fact is they DID change from the original show into the movies.

The difference was Klingons were only in a handful of episodes in TOS so it wasn’t that big of a deal. And Roddenberry always saw them as more exotic just didn’t have the budget to do more with them on the show. I imagine that was for most of the aliens.

But from the movies on Klingons stayed basically the same design for 30+ years and that design carried into literally over a hundred episodes and movies and two main Klingon characters Worf and B”Elanna carried it through on various shows and now iconic characters.

Imagine making the Vulcans blue with pink hair and Ferengi type ears now and that’s how Spock should look who is probably the most iconic character in the franchise and that’s what we’re talking about.

So that makes it trickier. If you change the basic alien design that means those very old characters would in theory have to change too and part of the problem.

So I get your point obviously but really goes to Trek being a very old property that has followed the same continuity for decades now. The fact it has never been rebooted like other properties after a certain period is why it’s hard to change anything.

Comic book stories are much older than Trek but they change up things every decade. That’s why there are so many versions of Superman even if the character looks and stays inherently the same. Those fans don’t have the same issue and expect changes eventually.

If there was multiple versions of Star Trek after 60 years none of it would probably be a big deal today.

But they have basically kept Star Trek through one direction, a few altered variations but still on the same track. And why it’s hard to do anything too drastically different now. Discovery learned that the hard way lol.

I can’t believe that some people still believe that Klingons are fictional.

Haha, this made me laugh.

And yes I listened to that Delta Flyers episode. They were talking about The Siege, the third episode and last episode of the three part series in season 2. And yeah I fully agreed with them as well and DS9 is my favorite show. It was funny how Shimerman almost sounded downright offended about it lol.

And look I obviously don’t pretend I don’t have my hang ups about canon and continuity issues but I don’t let them take away from my enjoyment of the show or movie IF I like them. I have said many times I have an issue with how SNW treats its canon or continuity at times but I don’t let that get in the way of how I rate the show overall. And I just tell myself it’s just in another timeline from TOS which it basically is now after last season.

But why they don’t just say it’s another timeline and save themselves the headache from the start I will never know. Do they think people will stop watching it?

What is “canon,” but merely continuity codified?

Don’t count on them respecting canon. They don’t care. They don’t care about the shows canon except what they can steal and claim as their own. I know this is harsh and many others may not agree, but it’s what I have seen so far in post Nemesis movies and shows.

Gene did not care about canon even back during tos and definitely not when developing tng during tos and later tng he told writers to ignore canon if it got in the way of the story you want to tell and while developing tng gene decanonized a bunch of tos cause either it would not work with the story he wanted to tell with tng or cause he no longer viewed stuff in the same way as he did back during tos

Roddenberry very much cared about canon when making TNG. I wish people stopped this talking point. He simply wanted to update the universe a bit since it was 20 years later and not rely on TOS to carry the show but to tell new stories.

But not a single event or character from TOS was ever directly contradicted on TNG. I remember asking you to give me three examples on another thread and you couldn’t name one specific.

And oddly enough he avoided giving Spock an adopted sister out of nowhere nor pretended a Khan descendant actually served on the Enterprise either. Everything that happened to those characters and ship never changed.

Roddenberry telling people to ignore canon if a good story came out of it has been happening on every show since TNG. They just call them retcons. 😉

But if Roddenberry didn’t care about canon at all he could’ve just said TNG takes place in a different universe or timeline and not care about it at all, correct ? I think a lot of TOS fans probably would’ve preferred it at the time lol. The very fact he didn’t do that or frankly ANYONE has done that yet (minutes the Kelvin movies) seems to suggest they do in fact care about canon.

Or why keep attaching all your stories to it?

non of the new shows breaks canon Most haters and gatekeepers of new shows that get to bogged down by the minutia constantly mix continuity up with canon visual stuff and the minutia of details are continuity which is where retcon term is connected to when updating or modifying continuity not canon and canon is the foundation the everything is built look at canon as the foundation of a house sits on and continuity is the house and when retcons happen it is the same as remodeling and additions to the house so the new shows are still part of the same prime universe aka the foundation but the new shows but are responsible for updates/additions and remodeling of the continuity of minutia that flesh out the prime universe

NuTrek has broken canon many times over. How is meeting the Gorn multiple times by the same ship and characters over five years before they actually met them in Arena is not breaking canon?

How does Chapel know who T’Pring is before even knowing she exists in Amonk Time not breaking canon?

How is a Klingon War even happening on Discovery when Kirk said in TOS they only had skirmishes with them prior not breaking canon?

How is Starfleet officially working directly with Section 31 when both Enterprise and DS9 said they were a complete secret in the Federation not breaking canon?

How does Discovery having some mushroom drive that can zip them anywhere in the galaxy when no other ship had this technology a hundred years later not breaking canon?

How is Spock and Chapel having a relationship on SNW when in TOS Spock never even had feelings for her not breaking canon?

How come Burnham was a mutineer when Spock literally said in TOS Starfleet never had a mutineer up to that time not breaking canon?

Why does Chapel not have her fiance yet when in TOS the reason she even joined the Enterprise was to find him after he went missing not breaking canon?

And canon is both what is said onscreen and what is shown onscreen. I understand some things just become out of date and so you make changes. I don’t think anyone is against that. But these shows have gone far beyond that in how they present certain events and characters. If you just want to ignore prior history and interactions then put them in another universe. Problem solved.

And can you please add periods to your sentences. That was very hard to read.

All that is continuity not canon

Ok I misunderstood you. My apologies. I always thought canon was both what you saw onscreen and basic continuity. I was obviously wrong.

But that said there are still lots of changes visually as I pointed out with Discovery. It didn’t even look like it belonged in the same universe and why I don’t care about NuTrek much.

LOL yeah I think there is some confusion too. I know people here are mostly discussing visual canon but I also think in terms of story continuity that’s a bigger issue too obviously.

But yeah if I’m wrong I learned something today as well.

Well I think the Discovery Klingons beg to differ lol

Look here is the thing. I don’t disagree with you that much. We’re not that far off because as I said I think the new people running it DOES care about canon and where I disagree with others here who says they don’t.

It’s literally why they put the Kelvin movies in another timeline or universe because that actually SHOWS you care about canon by respecting what came before and just doing your own thing. That’s why people who kept insisting they were ‘overwriting’ the prime universe were plain wrong. The only reason they went that direction was to tell people the universe WASN’T being changed. It’s exactly why they didn’t just treat it like a prequel and just did what they wanted; which they could’ve done.

You’ve already heard my peace over Discovery. But Picard, Lower Decks and Prodigy have all tried to adhere to canon as much as much as possible. LDS on an insane level lol. But of course it’s easier when it’s animated and you don’t have to worry about building things from the ground up.

So we don’t really disagree that much. But people will see it differently. For some if you change ANYTHING it’s a slap in the face to everything holy. But most won’t be bothered as long as you give it SOME explanation like the Klingons for example. When you do something like that and give it zero explanations for a species that is so iconic even non fans knows them then you’re going to ruffle some feathers.

But once again the fact they changed them to their traditional look proves they in fact do care and wants to get it right.

Discovery just went too far off the reservation for some. But as I said if they just came out and said ‘yeah we’re rebooting the show and it looks different because it’s supposed to look different’ then most people would’ve accepted that. Maybe many would’ve balked at first but most would’ve came around. But they constantly treat fans like they are in elementary school and tell them their eyes are deceiving them and it’s really supposed to be the same as you always saw .. just different.

This is where you really start to insult fans instead of treating them like adults.

In two years it’ll be 10 years since the release of Star Trek Beyond, which will be the same span of time between the cancellation of Star Trek The Original Series in 1969 and the release of Star Trek The Motion Picture in 1979.

Those reboot movies were a failed experiment.

That was mostly their fault. How you run something with at least decent potential so fast into the ground is, sorry, beyond me.

They bungled it so badly after a pretty strong start. I bet Bob Orci is laughing manically somewhere for the last eight years now.

Probably what they are aiming for Beyond-ST4 now, the same time difference between end of TOS-TMP.

The question is, do they go for TMP style grey pyjamas or TWOK style military Santa uniforms?

They made three of them. That is not really a failure.

I think he just means turning Star Trek into a big tent pole franchise like Mission Impossible or Transformers. That’s ultimately the experiment that failed regardless how people feel about the movies themselves.

They basically spent the same as those franchises and never made anywhere close to what those made. And probably why they been stuck in limbo ever since.

The Transformer and MI movie have both stumbled lately but they are still going steam ahead with making them. There has been a total of six movies made between them since 2016 and zero Star Trek movies made.

That says a lot.

ST movies still don’t have a big enough worldwide appeal at the box office.

Obviously I’m not the one you need to tell that to lol.

I said it as far back as 2013 that it was obvious these movies were not going to be the Marvel size hits they expected and it was time to make the third film both a smaller budget and more intimate film. And the cast were already contacted so the salaries weren’t going to be out of control.

I kept saying based on how STID performed the next one would probably do even less, not more because it was obvious the domestic BO had slowed down and while internationally it did better it was mostly just thanks to China and that was still a very small bump box office wise in a HIGHLY unpredictable market. So they should scale back at least a little. Nothing too drastic but around $140 million or so.

Instead they did the opposite of that and made another jumbo size movie with a nearly $200 million and it blew up in their face.

There used to be one guy here suggesting to make yet ANOTHER $200 million movie which was even more absurd and just tells you people don’t understand BO like they think they do. These movies never should’ve been more than $150 million because none of them, NONE, made any real profit in the theaters.

And if Beyond was made for $140 million the movie would’ve made a profit and we probably would’ve had another one long ago.

And now even that is probably too much when you see bigger IPs struggling to make the money they once did. I don’t think the next movie will do anything more than $300-350 million tops. And that may be too generous.

I mean lets be honest, Trek was never gonna make a billion dollar box office. That desire from the producers was short-sighted and wrong. From the beginning they needed to understand this. Trek has always been a niche franchise when compared with other bigger franchises and tends to be a bit more smarter than stuff they do with Michael Bay’s Transformers films or Cruise’s Mission Impossible. They overestimated the box office potential of Trek and it cost them in the end.

I understand every product is supposed to make as much money as possible in a capitalist society but most products do in fact have a limit of some kind.

Star Trek has always been profitable but it rarely exceeded over a certain amount of money and a much lower threshold. They did actually push the reboot movies into more money than they ever made but at what cost? We got three big budget glossy movies I probably watched all of them maybe twice at most. But we also only got three movies in the last fifteen years and counting because they over spent on them and now too afraid to make anymore because they never made the money as hoped. They made them in seven years which is OK but we have waited even longer for the next one that still hasn’t arrived.

Compare that to the TOS movie era that gave us six movies in twelve years or the TNG movie era that gave us four movies in eight years. We basically had ten Trek movies for over twenty years in their run. That’s very impressive.

Now it’s dried up like the Mohave desert. Big flashy but shallow over budget movies isn’t worth it if it means it kills off the franchise for what can literally be over a decade the minute one of them fails spectacularly as the last one did.

They failed because they were too busy trying to turn it into Star Wars for teenagers instead of trying to make a halfway coherent story with thoughtful Trek messages.

When all your stories starts with angry villains who just wants to destroy planets and your main characters are running or jumping off things every twenty minutes you’re really just trying to make bloated action movies with Star Trek in the title basically and very little else.

At some point the fans got bored and moved on.

“Star Wars for teenagers”… Star wars already is for teenagers

Ha great point!

And why it’s so much more popular than Star Trek sadly.

I still remember watching First Contact in the theaters on opening night in 1996. When that Vulcan stepped out of the ship and took his hood off, revealing his Vulcan-ness while Goldsmith’s score swelled, I was profoundly affected. Yeah, it was a cheap writing device, but it got me. As a life long Star Trek fan, it just hit me right in the feels. For the first alien species humans meet to be the Vulcans made a whole lot of sense, even if it was a little cheesey. And the fact it helped to shepherd in a new era of humanity along with the inventor of warp drive was really the beginning of Star Trek.

Now there is a new Star Trek movie coming out that will show “humankind’s first contact with alien life” seems it will retcon or totally dismiss that monumental scene. Bummer. I am glad I still have the Blu Ray.

I wouldn’t read too much into the marking copy. Those guys don’t know anything about Star Trek. They are just given a brief summary of the idea and get all the details wrong (at best).

To me it sounds like this “origin” story will cover the years post-First Contact leading up to ENT season 1. Going from actual first contact with the Vulcans to humanity’s first “dealings” with alien life and the creation of Starfleet (which already existed in ENT season 1, though it was pre-Federation Starfleet).

That was always my favorite unexplored idea from ENT – that season 1 would have originally been entirely on Earth and about the creation of the first starship/starship crew/the idea of what a Starfleet ship and mission should be, and that they ship wouldn’t launch until the season 1 finale (or thereabouts). I thought that was an intriguing idea, until the suits deep-sixed it in favor of getting into space in episode 1 and instead just giving us another TNG clone with just antiquated-sounding technology but with most of the setting being largely like any later-set series. A missed opportunity.

Yeah, you are probably right. That was my knee-jerk reaction. In the article, they refer to “the Starfleet.” It seems weird to put the “the” in front of Starfleet, so it shows their ignorance about the franchise.

The Inglorious Treksperts have been saying for a year now that the next Star Trek movie will be about the Romulan Wars and other pre-UFP stuff. This seems to track with that.

I wonder if they will have Zephram Cochrane as a main character.

This sounds as exciting as a new Star Trek series set in a Starfleet shipyard on lunch break.

well it is called “STAR TREK” after all….

Yeah. Do you remember the 1st pr announcement on st I’d? It speaks of the villain “”detonating the fleet”. Still waiting on that …

I was envisioning some cheap dodge, like an alien blob lands on earth and wreaks havoc years before first contact with Vulcans. If the alien isn;t intelligent or from a civilization, mayyyybeee they can get away with it but I don’t want that and anyway what does that have to do with founding Starfleet, which the Vulcans must have been involved in.

Star Terk aye?

i’ll believe it when i’m sitting in the theater and the sony logo pops up…

and they throw the word reboot out so much it’s literally lost it’s meaning…

have they ever had anyone in charge of the movie side of the franchise? it’s been like 50 years of “hey you take a shot at this”…

and this guy’s list of movies is not exactly screaming wow… with so many talented directors or producers who love trek they go with a guy who made the worst x men movies? his credits are a lot of big budget (a few good some bad) mostly unremarkable movies.

Sony deal is dead so is the Apollo deal and so is the wb/discovery deal which for those 3 I can say that is a good thing especially the Apollo deal nothing good would come out of them getting it and if wb got it would be the end of trek as it has been as zaslov would either choose to do a full reboot and Start fresh then after a couple new movies and shows he would then reboot it again in a different way or he would just lock the franchise away and take a tax write off and now the skydance deal is on hold for the time being so paramount and cbsViacom are going it alone

I think the closest Trek got to having anyone in charge of the movie side was Harve Bennett in the 80s. And he was smart, he lowered the budgets of the movies and even got TV people working on them. We need another smart producer like Bennett. I don’t think Kinberg is that guy.

To be fair Harve Bennett didn’t decide to make the movies cheaper, the studio did. And they picked Bennett because he was a was a TV guy and therefore knew how to make movies cheaper and faster.

I still remember a quote he said when he was asked to make TWOK and one of the executives joked about TMP ‘Can you make a movie that’s $30 million dollars cheaper?” and he laughed.

Jesus Christ… Just stop with the prequels and reboots. Continue the story in the Picard era or the Discovery era. Smh

Thank you. Why do they keep making prequels when most fans are asking for the opposite?

Who was asking for a Starfleet origin story???? When has that ever even been a thing lol? They are utterly clueless.

COMPLETELY agree 100%

It doesn’t seem like it will be recognizable Star Trek. Pre-Starfleet sounds really boring to me.

Maybe they’ll make it more interesting by inserting something like a . . . a temporal cold war or something. That would be neat, wouldn’t it?

Don’t love the idea of rebooting a well made universe, does Star Wars do this to tell stories on its timeline? Hope this is all just speculation.

Star Wars continues on. They dont recon CONSTANTLY like Star Trek.

They’ve got the bug too, with Acolyte and (erk don’t blame me for this name) Jedi Prime. It’s a contest to see whose franchise can get screwed up worst fastest.

This is not exciting news….. Boldly going where we’ve gone before.

Star Trek: Days of Future Past. Oddly enough it really does fit.

Pretty much my feeling as well. This could be the first film in the franchise where I wait till it hits the small screen to see it. Time will tell.

So it’s prequel to Enterprise then? That’s something fans have been really begging for and to know how Starfleet started… not. 🙄

Enough with prequels and reboots already. This sounds as exciting as watching Vulcans meditating.

Paramount has been totally clueless with the movies and just throwing random ideas up in the air over and over again.

I’m glad it’s not anymore of the ridiculous and insipid Kelvin movies but even those sound better than this. Maybe whoever ends up buying the studio will actually come up with real ideas what to do with the franchise because this isn’t it

What a get! They’ve ran through every hot name and now they have to settle for the mercenary. Also, what a concept! The future is yesterday! No, not that yesterday. Before that!

Simon Kinberg, you must be joking? Is someone determined to ruin Star Trek

Shari Redstone is secretly the Borg Queen.

There is no way a movie is coming next year lol. The idea feels ludicrous seeing how long it took the Kelvin movies to get made.

It obviously wouldn’t be a summer film since that’s basically a year away now and they don’t even sound like they are in preproduction. It will probably be 2026…or 2027…or maybe 2028. Really who knows because I don’t think really Paramount does either.

The post first contact story just sounds like something most people doesn’t remotely care about. This sounds like something you do as a Paramount+ streaming movie and not some big theatrical film. But it’s probably going to be pretty cheap. I really can’t imagine spending anything over $100 million for this idea that’s only going to attract mostly hardcore fans.

But we’ll see I guess.

And here I was thinking it isn’t meant to be for hardcore fans at all. They want to reboot it and are going to the beginning to do it.

But who cares about the early days of Starfleet except Star Trek fans?

Do you see a mass audience really intrigued with the first warp ship heading into space with brand new characters? And I keep hearing from fans a Star Trek movie only works on a bigger level if you bring in known or legacy characters like Kirk or Picard or forget about it. I don’t personally believe that but I don’t know if this is the right approach either.

I’m actually glad it will finally be a movie with brand new characters finally, but still don’t see it grabbing anyone but older fans.

Now maybe the story itself will be action packed and they will get a big enough name actor to lead it and give it a bigger hook.

But when even STAR TREK FANS sound pretty hon hum on the concept as we’re seeing I don’t think new fans will be anymore enticed by it.

Fans are clamoring for the Romulan Wars but it’s a no-go for the general public. What do you mean, the characters are fighting an enemy and they can’t see their faces. And they’re really like the Vulcans but nobody knows that? When are they going to find out? Never? Why do we have to wait for Kirk and Spock! Aren’t they dead now?

I don’t think the general public cares either way. Honestly it’s a big shrug no matter what they do. Most will just decide depending on how fun the trailer looks. When and where a movie takes place makes no difference to non fans. Ask me do I care when and where Dr. Who takes place? Since I never seen it the answer is the same, I don’t.

I get the idea they may want to start fresh with new characters and build up a new story to get new audiences involved but wasn’t that the entire point with the Kelvin movies? They even moved it to a new universe so new fans don’t have to feel like they needed to know any backstory and start fresh. And with the oldest and most iconic characters in the franchise.

Look how well that turned out.

I don’t envy Paramount. They know they have a very well known IP, but one they been having problems expanding from its admittedly aging fanbase. But they have been trying literally since Enterprise. None of it has worked on a massive level. Yes the Kelvin movies have easily been the most successful but even they gave up on the idea its created anew legions of fans because it hasn’t. They realize that after the merchandising failed after the first film and the hype died after the second one.

So honestly I don’t know what they can do at this point? There are five new Star Trek shows on now, a few really popular. But I dare anyone to tell me if they know someone whose never seen Star Trek before are watching any of them? Based on my own experience anyway the answer is no one is.

At this point, I don’t think another movie is going to suddenly turn things around on that end. They been trying for 20 years now and yet I bet everyone reading this or posting has all been watching it since the 90s the latest.

It’s always been very ironic to me this site was literally created for the Kelvin movies but all this time the overwhelming majority of posters was never new fans to the franchise but just mostly old fans even in its early days when the hype was huge.

It just a microcosm of the fanbase and how loyal and committed old fans always are but always been harder to attract new ones beyond the peripheral.

Next Gen finally hit its pop culture peak midway through season 4 after it had long-since committed to doing what it wanted to do and do it very well. And it had a lot of interesting visual elements to go along with it. I am sorry to sound so old, but the new stuff is largely rehashing the same characters and setups along with the same music and visual language.

The movie franchise needs **imagination** and a commitment to the core premise of humanism & exploration, not a focus on making sure it looks, sounds, and feels like something else that has been successful (which is inarguably the corporate edict with the property along with being JJ & AK’s entire bag: riffing on other people’s original ideas).

That might be what’s going on here. They just think Star Trek should be reset from the beginning and we show the leap from NASA to the Enterprise, or whatever. Enterprise: Good Version .

You are so right. What Star Trek has lost since 2009 is any real human curiosity or people truly trying to understand the unknown. It’s all mostly just trying to take down the next villain.

Discovery season 2 was the perfect example of that. It started as a sense of real exploration and mystery only for it to end up trying to take down the crazy robot who wants to wipe out all life in the galaxy. It’s like both Abrams and Kurtzman can’t pivot to anything else. It’s the same set up nearly every time. I hear Discovery is better this season and there is a sense of wonder and people’s place in the universe.

But based on some of the the reviews I seen anyway once again it has fallen to the same old trap and they are trying to stop the Breen who wants to use some device as a weapon to wipe out their enemies. Why I don’t miss this show.

Why is this always the same tired option they go to? I understand old Trek featured lots of villains trying to take down the Federation too but it wasn’t instilled in every story line either. There was actual stories about just trying to understand other people. Stories about the dangers of technology and science that didn’t always have a villain hiding behind it. Stories about characters having internal conflict but not with induced melodrama and constant crying.

The Star Trek today just misses the boat on so many of these things. I really loved Picard season 3 but it still was just more bad people running around trying to destroy the galaxy. But it at least felt like real adults working through a crisis again and not the emotionally stunted children we gotten in the new shows and movies.

I just miss stories like The Inner Light, City on the Edge of Forever, The Visitor, Twilight, Far Beyond the Stars, Darmok, Similitude, Duet, Timeless, Amonk Time or I Borg.

NuTrek just feels more superficial for some reason even when it tries to go deeper.

Let me just ask one simple question: Does anyone here really think that modern Star Trek can do something like Star Trek The Voyage Home where the plot is basically a search for whales? I think the answer is obvious. (I wish it could)

That’s actually an intriguing question and I also think the answer is no. It’s a shame because it at least showed the films could be a little more dynamic back then.

Now it’s the exact same premise in every movie and the same ridiculous high stakes. It’s gotten so boring and predictable.

Sorry, don’t want to go backwards….boring

My fear is that it’s Starship Troopers without getting the joke.

Star Trek: Dark Phoenix

There is literally no point making it for the cinema few will go see it the franchise is dead theatrically…Kelvin Cast Beyond sequel however would be worth making otherwise keep it on streaming!

Yes but that bombed… hence why still no Kelvin movie today.

It’s very simple, if Beyond at least broke even, we probably would’ve got another years ago instead of the development hell they have turned into.

So they are probably going a much cheaper way now and probably easier to get investors onboard.

I like Kinberg, even though I had problems with the Xmen films The Last Stand and Dark Phoenix. Two tries and he just couldn’t nail the Dark Phoenix story. : (

I really really wish they’d just drop this whole prequel film and go on to just do the ST4 for the Kelvin films. I want to see that cast again. I thought they were great and I enjoyed all 3 Abrams films (despite some qualms with Into Darkness).

My only real guess is it simply comes down to money. The Kelvin cast is now way more expensive to make a movie with and it’s probably too hard to make a lower budget film in general but keep the same level of spectacle as before. Again they obviously keep trying but this was all made clear back in 2018 when they refused to pay Pine and Hemsworth the original pay they were promised when they thought Beyond was going to be a bigger hit

At the time most people thought it was just going to be a small bump in the road and the movie would get back on track.

Six years and about five failed attempts later and look where we are?

The reality is Paramount probably has no faith in this franchise anymore. None. That was made clear back in 2018 and it obviously still very true today. But same time it’s still one of their biggest and well known IPs so they keep trying to do something, ANYTHING with it. And we seen the same pathetic results.

I don’t have any faith this movie will get made either. I mean you have to be nuts to take them at their word these days lol. Many think all of this is just to tell the next buyers they have something in development they never actually plan to make.

But IF this one gets made my guess is because it will probably cost half of what another Kelvin movie would cost with young freah faced actors and a story on a much smaller scale and FX.

I would be shocked if this movie costs anymore than $100 million. It could be even cheaper.

Wow was it that long ago when that movie got cancelled? It sounded like an awful idea anyway and I really like Chris Hemsworth.

But if Paramount really wanted another Star Trek movie they would’ve made one long ago.

I don’t believe this movie will happen either but if it does probably because it will be much cheaper as you said. The studio is in bad shape, making another Star Trek movie is a recipe for disaster if the next one performs as badly as the last one did.

Yeah time flies lol. And I remember people saying at the time this will blow over fast, Chris Hemsworth apparently really really really needed the money so that guy will buckle fast.

Yeah not quite. But as I said it really spoke to a bigger issue, one I don’t think has changed at all and that they no longer had any real faith in this franchise. I don’t think a few million dollars difference is what stopped the movie from happening. It was probably always a big question mark if the movie could really succeed or not.

Again I don’t blame them for having doubts where to go next. They are spending hundreds of millions of dollars and years on these movies and when the last one failed as it did it will naturally give you pause.

I just didn’t realize it would be an 8+ year pause lol.

I have to wonder who this new movie is for. I’m finding it hard to believe you can get existing fans excited for this premiss. It’s been done. Why revisit it?

Kinberg ran the X-Men movies into the ground. He sounds like a horrible choice to oversee Trek movies based on that evidence.

However, given the rate at which Trek movies die after being announced, this may not actually be anything to worry about…

Humanity’s first contact with aliens and the establishment of Starfleet? Mmm, sounds familiar. Wait, that’s right, there was the very good and commercially successful movie Star Trek:First Contact that covered a lot of this. Not to mention the underrated TV series Star Trek:Enterprise that explored this, too. Of ALL the stories to be told in the Star Trek universe, why re-tell this one? Will they cover the time between First Contact and Enterprise, maybe? Or, why not something entirely different? Romulan War anybody? With the Daedalus class? That could be early story of Starfleet. Or maybe the Lost Years between the end of TOS and the first motion picture? Just why do they think the well-told first contact story needs a reboot? Why is everything a reboot? How about a new story?

Yes both First Contact and Enterprise covered this ground literally over 20 years ago already. Why do we need to go back to it?

And if you must go backwards for the fifth time why not go to a period fans actually want to see like the Romulan War as you brought up. That’s actually a part of history that matters. And that could be a way to finish Enterprise and show how the Federation was formed. But that makes too much sense I guess.

Bring back some of the Enterprise characters and recast if you have to. As much as I love Scott Bakula I would be OK if they recast Archer if they wanted that character as part of the Romulan war since he’s in his seventies now. Om

But how many people out there has said they wanted a story about how Starfleet formed??? Who has been asking for that in the last twenty years?

The Romulan War would have to be a series and aimed at the core fanbase because the general public would be annoyed and frustrated at a war story where the good guys are never allowed to see the bad guys’ faces or know the most important thing about them. They’d have to remain a cypher thru the whole thing.

Creative writers could make this work but are there any on the Star Trek staff anymore?

That’s true about not being able to see the bad guy’s faces. It could be told from each side’s perspective without either side seeing each other, but that can be a tough sell to the Studio. It’s a difficult way to tell the story.

Ech, hack. However the saving grace is that unlike Star Wars fans, Star Trek fans reward big-screen drivel with financial failure. So bring on the next box office disaster.

When first heard Enterprise was coming out always thought the pilot should be Earth warping around in Phoenix class ships trying to pick up a distress signal from Cochrane only to instead find a Vulcan science ship in distress. The logical Vulcans choose not to save the crew captured by a automated Vegan Tyranny outpost, a race that once destroyed all life on achieving warp drive which disappeared in the last thousand years. Vulcan high command logically chooses not to mount a rescue given the superior technology of the output and that mission could lead to a Tyranny outpost back to destroying all sentient races in the region Earth however feels it is their duty to mount a rescue (it’s the human thing to do) and they go for it with the primitive Bonhomme Richard. An outcast Vulcan science officer who has family on the science vessel chooses to join the mission to study the outcome. My thought is that the rescue would be a success though the Bonhomme Richard would be lost (the humans would use their quickly crippled ship as a decoy for boarding the construct with spacesuits). The Vulcans would find worth in these primitive humans leading to more cooperation and as a thank you for rescuing the science crew the Vulcans would allow humanity to keep the starship (the first Enterprise ring ship). I think this would make an awesome movie and into to Trek.

Please not Kinberg. Please?

Slight tangent, is the Twilight Zone reboot worth checking out? I saw only the first freebie episode and it didn’t do anything for me. Did it get better?

I watched a few episodes and found none of them particularly worthwhile. I gave up after sampling those episodes.

Okay, thanks. That’s a shame. I had high hopes for that one.

I just checked Paramount+ and it looks like they have removed the new Twilight Zone. I’m not sure where else it can be seen.

They wished it into the cornfield.

This is an absolutely ridiculous report.

Ok one thing I don’t really understand. If this movie happens is this just supposed to be a one off thing or will this be a new series of movies and maybe it lead up to when the NX-01 launches although that’s probably too far away..

If it’s just one movie I really just don’t see the point?

I’m more than sure if this one succeeds the plan is to make more of them.

I think right now they are just keeping expectations low for OBVIOUS reasons lol. But Star Trek has always just announced one movie at a time. It’s never been something like Star Wars or Marvel where they announced a trilogy or as a set of movies. It never been big enough to make any long term announcements but the plan is always to make more if the last one succeeded.

And if this isn’t another troll job then they may have some ideas where the story will go in this time period; but yeah that’s probably getting a bit too ambitious for Paramount lol

Yes that makes total sense. And what’s the point of announcing multiple movies when they have trouble making even one movie these days so you’re right it’s smart to just take it one at a time.

I guess I gotten used to all these big comic book and Star Wars announcements

Yeah unfortunately Star Trek is not Star Wars in that way at least. But as we also seen prematurely announcing movies is just a PR disaster when you just constantly cancel them after the fact as what happened with Star Wars and all the Obi Wan and Yoda movies got shelved.

While Star Trek has annoyingly cancelled movies for years Star Wars has actually cancelled more of them overall. They now have three films in development but yeah we’ll see.

I still don’t understand why not wait until you’re 100% sure you are going to make something before you announce it because it would’ve saved us 8 years of frustrations so far lol.

Is it a rite of passage that these writer-producers can only be given the keys to controlling Star Trek after they fail spectacularly at directing a big budget feature film? Paramount executives saw “The Mummy” and “Dark Phoenix” and said, “Perfect, we’ll take them As Is!”

On a more serious note, like Kurtzman, Kinberg has his notable achievements amongst the misses. Star Wars: Rebels ended up being pretty spectacular, as did X-Men: Days of Future Past.. As a producer, his track record is quite decent, as a writer it’s more mixed.

Transformers Prime is easily his best work. Sooo good. Made no sense what happened with Into Darkness; hard to believe same person.

So basically they went from potentially a guy like Tarantino, to Kinberg? That’s like wanting a Ferrari but ended up getting a Volkswagen Beetle. I don’t know if he is the right pick for this. His X-men films don’t inspire me with confidence, although some of his tv shows are better. I also don’t like them throwing around the “reboot” word. Whenever this word is used, huge drastic changes usually come with it. Lets hope if they do this, they at least try to keep the Star Trek heart of it.

The concept for a Star Trek movie is literally the opening monologue to TOS and TNG. Scientists in space exploring and encountering the unknown. Throw in some humanism and run with that concept.

The only movie to actually do that was TMP. And that film was a smash hit at the box office.

And that movie actually made me a fan of the franchise in the first place. It was the first time in my life where I could truly see an exploration of the unknown on the big screen as a spectacle with awesome visuals and it made my imagination go into overdrive.

And no other shows have approached the popularity of TOS and TNG. However, to expand the franchise, they are forced to water down the concept to avoid repeating themselves. STIV didn;t have much space travel, or the Enterprise, but they had the original cast.

ST is becoming Dr. Who

How so? I haven’t been keeping up on Doctor Who, so I am not sure what your comparison is.

Absolutely ridiculous – I am so bloody sick of Star Trek reboots and prequels. I hope this doesn’t happen at all. Oh and Dark Phoenix was terrible, too. Awful, awful news. I bet 99% of the fandom do not want this garbage.

you sound like doomcluck and midnightsludge and the other fandom menace youtubers and other internet hatters and gatekeepers who think they are the majority and try and speek for the fandom when they are a very vocal minority like the maga nutjobs here in the us and these fandom mence gatekeepers and haters do not represent the majority of any fandom

I don’t understand why most of the comments on every post on new trek productions are toxic haters and gatekeepers repeating that same crap the fandom menace YouTubers like doomcluck and midnightsludge and mecharandomidiot and stevefarts89 all spew from their mouths on YouTube for the past 7 years and all of their gatekeeping hate has been lies debunked by real fans that are not blinded by nostalgia and have a open mind and know that things change and evolve and can accept it

Yeah, it’s particularly strange when we have so little information here. This seems like an interesting era in Trek history to explore. It could be good…or not. We’ll find out! It seems like some fans are creating a bad movie in their heads and then getting mad about it.

Many just hate prequels in general and I’m one of them. But yes it could be good and interesting so I’m remaining open minded for now.

And I actually hope the story is back in the 22nd century and helps expands on Enterprise.

But it’s basically a prequel to Enterprise essentially no matter what.

Well said, Tiger2.

I guess for three reasons. A. Most fans just hates it’s another prequel in general while others seem to think it’s another reboot like the Kelvin movies (I don’t think it is personally). But yes most fans want to keep going forward, not all of them but yes most.

Now although I agree with that generally, I am curious on the angle and excited we could finally be going back to the 22nd century. And frankly I’m just happy we will finally get a Trek movie with brand new characters and DOESN’T involve more TOS or TNG characters for once. So I’m staying open minded but yeah would’ve preferred a movie in the 25th century or something with new characters.

B. Others have doubts over the new producer. I’m pretty neutral about it personally. Yeah I didn’t like some of the stuff he’s done but liked other stuff so have to wait and see. However…

C. I think many just doesn’t believe it’s even happening and can you blame them lol. I don’t really think this will amount to much like the last 12 announcements but I will be happy to be proven wrong.

Mate, people like you are why franchises are failing. Why settle for poor, half-arsed output? Plus, blinded by nostalgia? That’s what another bloody prequel would be! Is this really you, Kurtzman? Kinberg? Q forbid fans don’t want endless rehashes and reboots.

We want the prime franchise TO MOVE FORWARD. The 25th Century is there to be explored! New crews, new stories, new everything! It’s not hard to comprehend. Though, you definitely sound like a Paramount plant.

i am not paid by cbsviacom or paramount. i also don’t get nostaligic over anthing that is not under my control or does not have a familiuar connection to me plus my first trek series was enteprise i was still a little kid when it came out and did not know about any other trek shows or films till 2009 when local walmart had the dvd complete series of tng,ds9 and voyager in the clearance section for 20 dollars a series box set and the 4 tng films on dvd in the 5 dollar dvd bin i am more of a general sci-fi fan i am not loyal to just one sc-fi franchise i like star trek ,star wars ,b5,andromeda,modern doctor who,the 3 stargate series ,EUReKA,warehouse13 and modern lost in space i also like both five-0 series and the 2016-2021 macgyver series,ncis los Angelas,ncis new orleans, ncis hawaii , also like most of the scooby doo series and the pokemon anime and gilligan’s island and mchale’s navy and hogan’s heroes and the M*A*S*H tv series and original knight rider i like the pirates of the caribean movies and the fast and furious movies

If we take the logline’s meaning literally, it says NOTHING about space travel.

A possible interpretation would be that the movie will be set entirely on Earth and deal solely with the creation of Starfleet as United Earth’s military and exploration agency, and how humans react to Vulcans settling up on their planet.

It could take place any time between 2063 (First Contact) and 2151 (Enterprise).

It could show how the Vulcans helped Earth dig itself out from the wreckage of World War III. How the United Earth came into existence.

Space travel is not entirely necessary.

It’s, essentially, the exploration of a strange new world and a new civilization from the point of view of the Vulcans. To them, EARTH IS THE ALIEN WORLD!

But what about UESPA?

Star Trek: The Next Generation Season 2 Ending, Explained

Quick links, how does star trek: the next generation season 2 end, star trek: the next generation season 2's biggest story arcs, what do fans think of star trek: the next generation season 2's ending.

• Despite having a shortened run of episodes, Star Trek: The Next Generation 's second season ended with Star Trek 's first clip show.
• 'Shades of Gray' features Commander Riker battling an alien infection with his memories, and is regarded as one of the worst episodes in Star Trek history.
• It's a strange way to end a year that introduced storylines that would last for decades and revealed the series' major alien threat, the Borg.

Fans are used to Star Trek seasons ending on a high, but it took a while for the franchise to set the template. The Original Series didn’t end any of its three years on a particularly strong note, which carried through to Star Trek: The Next Generation . TNG ’s second year was hit by the 1988 Writers Guild of America strike, an exodus of writers, and despite being reduced to 22 episodes, it was short of budget at the year’s end. While it would only be a year until TNG set the bar for Star Trek season cliffhangers with The Best of Both Worlds , the second year ended with a bottle episode.

Even today, beyond the syndication model that shipped TNG out to networks and effectively blocked story arcs, the bottle episode format is famous. The budget-saving format that used reduced cast, sets, and footage from previous episodes has been parodied in shows like Community and Teen Titans Go! Still, it’s pretty uncommon at the end of a series. TNG ’s second-year finale, which sees Commander Riker contract an alien infection, has the odd distinction of not just ending the year weakly but with what’s regarded as one of the worst episodes of all time.

6 Coolest Weapons From Star Trek: The Next Generation, Ranked

Star Trek: The Next Generation introduced plenty of sci-fi weapons that kept audiences fascinated and kept the action high.

Season Two ended with Star Trek ’s first clip show. In ‘Shades of Gray,’ fans catch up with the USS Enterprise as it carries out the first geological survey of a jungle planet, and Riker has already picked up an injured. As the transporter's useful biofilters can’t screen out the unidentified microbes in Riker’s signal, Dr. Pulaski beams down before clearing him for sickbay. As Riker says in the episode:

Im surprised they dont happen more often after all, we are exploring the unknown.

As Riker’s leg goes numb, Pulaski confirms that a microorganism with elements of bacteria and virus is spreading through the commander’s body. She warns that it's fused to his nervous system at a molecular level and could kill him if it reaches his brain. Geordi La Forge and Data head to the planet to find the culprit, a predatory vine that strikes at animal life with giant thorns. An ever-entertaining patient, Riker has one-to-ones with Picard and then Troi, proclaiming, “I haven’t given up” before he falls into a coma.

Star Trek: The Next Generation - The Best Riker Episodes

Riker has appeared in multiple Star Trek projects, but his episodes on Star Trek: The Next Generation are the most definitive.

Pulaski keeps Riker’s brain stimulated with electrical impulses, triggering memories (clips) from previous stories until she discovers that different memories can stop the infection. After a clip from ‘The Last Outpost’ shows Riker lost on an ominous alien planet, ‘Encounter at Farpoint’ has him meeting Data for the first time, and ‘The Dauphin,’ oddly recounts his coaching of Wesley Crusher as he roleplays some comedy roleplaying with Guinan. Inspired, Pulaski stimulates Riker’s romantic memories, much to the discomfort of Troi, who’s reading her Imzadi’s emotions.

A clip from ‘The Icarus Factor" recalls Riker saying goodbye to Troi before being led away for some pleasure in the paradise of ‘Justice" and practices his Humphrey Bogart patter with self-aware hologram Minuet in ‘11001001’. As Troi bristles at the “erotic memories,” he seduces Beata, the leader of an alien world in ‘Angel One’ and is then seduced by Brenna Odell aboard the Enterprise in ‘Up the Long Ladder.’ When Pulaski deduces that passionate memories are doubling the organism’s growth rate, she stimulates Riker’s brain endorphins to induce darker memories, much to Troi and the audience’s relief.

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The first memory is Tasha Yar’s pointless death in ‘Skin of Evil,' followed by the demise of Troi’s child in the bizarre Season Two opener ‘The Child.’ Riker stands up to the second officer aboard the Klingon Bird of Prey Pagh in ‘A Matter of Honor,’ before parasite-infected Admiral Quinn soundly beats him in ‘Conspiracy.’ When Riker only has half an hour to live, Pulaski is forced to stimulate even darker memories.

Quick-fire clips show Riker being tortured in ‘Symbiosis,’ attacked by Ferengi in ‘The Last Outpost,’ and dragged into the malevolent oil slick Armus ‘Skin of Evil.’ After setting the Enterprise self-destruct in ‘11001001’ and narrowly helping Klingons escape the exploding vessel Batris in ‘Heart of Glory,’ the iconic phasering of Commander Remmick’s head in ‘Conspiracy’ eradicates the infection. The episode quickly wraps up with the awake Riker demonstrating his marvelous sense of humor as the Enterprise soars away from the planet that almost killed him.

Star Trek: William Riker's Best Quotes

William Riker has delivered several memorable lines throughout the Star Trek franchise's history. These are some of the best.

The finale of season one left fan expectations high. It signaled the Romulans' in-universe return with a new look and powerful addition to their fleet in the D'deridex warbird. However, creator Gene Roddenberry opposed too many appearances by the alien race, and they only appeared once in the second year.

There were no massive storylines in the second year of TNG , which is typical of its syndicated release, but there were notable first appearances. Big introductions included Professor James Moriarty in 'Elementary, Dear Data,' most recently seen again in Star Trek: Picard . Lwaxana Troi, played by Majel Barrett-Roddenberry, provided her first comic relief before subsequent appearances in TNG and Deep Space Nine .

Star Trek: 5 Important Moments In The Borg's History

The Borg is a frightening alien race from Star Trek, and these are just a few of the most important moments in their history

Most notable was the first onscreen appearance of the Borg. The eerie episode ‘Q Who’ saw the mischievous Q propel the Enterprise thousands of light years into the Delta Quadrant for Starfleet's first engagement with the Collective . This paved the way for the Borg to become the definitive TNG threat on the small and big screen and play a significant role in Star Trek: Voyager .

Other episodes provided threads for major stories that would be picked up and explored in later series. A notable example is ‘The Measure of a Man,’ which explored Data’s rights of self-determination and would form a significant part of Star Trek: Picard decades later. The finale, ‘Shades of Gray,’ wouldn’t prove so influential.

Star Trek: Data's Best Quotes

Data is one of the best characters from Star Trek: The Next Generation and his quotes showcase that despite being an android, he's extremely human.

The clip show that ends TNG’s shortest season has struggled to conjure up much love. In fact, ‘Shades of Gray’ fails on almost every level. Fans and critics have cited multiple genre shows that have handled clip shows far better, including many examples in Stargate SG1 . Other episodes of Star Trek are considered to have handled the threat of alien infection far better. They include Star Trek: Voyager ‘Resolutions’ and ‘Operation -- Annihilate! Which closed the first season of the Original Series .

The writer of ‘Shades of Gray,’ and Season Two showrunner Maurice Hurley didn’t have kind words for the story in Captains' Logs: The Unauthorized Complete Trek Voyages . He called it “Terrible, just terrible, and a way to save some money,” and a few other choice words. It was Hurley’s final episode of Star Trek , just as it was for Diana Muldaur as Dr. Katherine Pulaski. Both departures went relatively unnoticed.

Star Trek: Who Was Dr. Pulaski, And Why Did Fans Hate Her?

Exploring the backlash to this character from The Next Generation, and whether or not it was justified.

On Reddit, ‘Shades of Gray’ is central to a lively and colorful debate about the worst episodes of Star Trek . While there are several contenders in Star Trek ’s hundreds of episodes, the TNG Season Two finale is undoubtedly up there and will likely remain. As Riker says in the episode:

This bug is persistent, Ill admit that.

At the very least, the Season Two finale is considered boring . While the episode insists that facing death is an ultimate test of character, ‘Shades of Gray’ falls foul of many pitfalls that come with clip shows. For one, the meta potential of clips from episodes showing events from an audience’s point of view doesn’t work as a character’s memory, even when they are stimulated to fight infection.

It remains incredible that the second year of TNG ended with a clip show and a clear indication of the tumultuous couple of years the series overcame to become a legendary TV show. As the cliche goes, it’s always darkest before dawn. Apparently, that's even true in space. The vast improvement seen in TNG Season Three and the cliffhangers the show would pioneer a year later owe a lot to ‘Shades of Gray.’

Star Trek: The Next Generation

Release Date September 28, 1987

Genres Sci-Fi

Cast Michael Dorn, LeVar Burton, Brent Spiner, Wil Wheaton, Jonathan Frakes, Patrick Stewart, Marina Sirtis, Whoopi Goldberg, Gates McFadden, Denise Crosby

Creator Gene Roddenberry

Number of Episodes 178

‘Return of the Jedi’ Originally Had a Much Darker Alternate Ending

Not only would it have changed the beloved franchise, but everything that followed would have been different.

The Big Picture

• The original planned ending for Return of the Jedi was much darker, with Han Solo dying and Luke Skywalker turning to the Dark Side.
• George Lucas changed the ending because he wanted all the main characters to survive, which would, by extension, boost toy sales.
• The happy ending of Return of the Jedi is better for the Star Wars franchise, as it aligns with the story's theme of hope and allows for the expansion of the timeline in future films and series.

Few film series are as revered as Star Wars , in particular, the original trilogy. The story of the Rebels defeating the Empire in a galaxy far, far away captured the hearts of the audience, inspiring many more stories in the world, but it could have gone very differently. The alternate ending planned for Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi was much darker than what fans remember. Initially, it wasn't called Return of the Jedi , but Revenge of the Jedi , instantly giving it a more ominous feel. Had the original ending been used, not only would it have changed the third installment of the beloved franchise, but everything that followed would have been different.

Return of the Jedi ends as the Rebels celebrate their victory on Endor with the adorable Ewoks . With the destruction of the Empire, the galaxy can find peace. Luke ( Mark Hamill ) reunites with his friends, and Han ( Harrison Ford ) and Leia ( Carrie Fisher ) finally begin their relationship. After his return to the light, Vader ( James Earl Jones ), once again Anakin Skywalker ( Hayden Christensen ), finds peace as a Force Ghost . This event ushers in a new era for the Star Wars galaxy, which the franchise still explores today, but the original ending would have changed all of that. Fortunately, the happy ending was chosen over these shocking twists, allowing for peace in the galaxy — if only for a time.

Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi

After rescuing Han Solo from Jabba the Hutt, the Rebels attempt to destroy the second Death Star, while Luke struggles to help Darth Vader back from the dark side.

'Return of the Jedi's Alternate Ending Killed Off Han Solo

Ford's Han Solo is unquestioningly one of the film's most memorable characters. His rogue-like charm and sarcasm endeared audiences to him instantly, which is why fans were so shocked in Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens when Han is killed by his son, Kylo Ren ( Adam Driver ) . However, that event could have happened much earlier. In the alternate ending for Return of the Jedi, Han Solo would have died.

Per an interview with the Los Angeles Times , Gary Kurtz , who produced both Star Wars: Episode IV – A New Hope and Star Wars: Episode 5 – The Empire Strikes Back , spoke about the original ending to Return of the Jedi that he outlined with series creator George Lucas , describing it as "bittersweet and poignant." In this version, Han, who begins the film as Jabba the Hutt 's captive, is rescued, only to die midway through as the heroes raid an Imperial base.

Clearly, this story was changed, but the reasoning is unexpected. Han Solo dying would make for a tragic turn that could easily make the franchise darker and less suited to a family audience, but the decision wasn't focused on ratings, nor did Lucas decide Han's death was wrong for the story. Instead, he pivoted from the idea of Han's death because of the very tangible effect it might have on toy sales. Kurtz explained that for their first two Star Wars films , merchandise contributed to more of the profit than the film itself, which is why they played a part in impacting this crucial decision. Though Han Solo's ultimate survival contributed to the happy ending, it was not the only change made to Return of the Jedi .

Luke Skywalker Went Dark in the Alternate Ending of 'Return of the Jedi'

The Star Wars franchise focuses heavily on the battle between light and dark, specifically pertaining to the Force. The constant struggle between the Jedi and the Sith is present throughout Star Wars, even when a story is set in a more distant time, like the upcoming series The Acolyte . However, rarely does the Dark Side win. The original trilogy set these expectations as Vader returns to the Light Side , sacrificing himself to protect Luke. However, Lucas' original plan would have drastically changed this. Transcripts from a meeting between George Lucas and his co-writer Lawrence Kasdan reveal that Luke Skywalker also had a dark ending planned, literally. Lucas suggested that after Vader's death, Luke would don the helmet, becoming Vader himself, and leave to fight the rebels he once supported. Kasdan supported this ending, though, at some point, the pair changed their minds as it would alienate their younger audience members.

When telling of the ending he helped plan, Kurtz described Luke's end as being "like Clint Eastwood in the spaghetti westerns " as he walks off alone and embittered. Though not blatantly joining the Dark Side, even this is a darker ending for Luke than his farewell to his father and former Masters during the victory celebrations. Luke walking off alone doesn't seem to have the same ending as his fall to the Dark Side, but the progression of the plan is unclear. This could have been before the dark version or the first attempt at softening Luke's story. Either way, Leia was left alone in the wake of Han's death, with a tattered Rebel force that she struggled to hold together. Luke joining the Dark Side would be a stark change in the tone of the film, leaving a depressing end to the trilogy that would have set a different trajectory for the entire franchise.

'Return of the Jedi' Is Better With a Happy Ending

Though the film ends in a convenient victory for the Rebels, who were vastly outnumbered and out-funded, Return of the Jedi 's conclusion is better as it is. Though the dark concept is intriguing, it would change what Star Wars is. At its heart, Star Wars is a story of hope. Even the more tragic stories further this narrative. While Star Wars: Episode III – Revenge of the Sith ends with the Jedi hero, Anakin Skywalker becoming Vader, the survival of infant Luke and Leia and the known end to Vader's story make it less depressing than Return of the Jedi 's original ending. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story is another prime example of this. Though the heroes sacrifice themselves, their mission leads to the Rebel's victory, making the dark ending still oddly hopeful. Certainly, these examples have the benefit of being prequels. However, the concept is the same. With Han dying and Luke becoming Vader, the alternate ending offers no glimpse of hope for the next chapter of the story , which would have ended the trilogy on a low note.

Star Wars is the phenomenon it is today because people latched on to the story, but with a dark ending like was originally intended, it would not have struck the same cords in people's hearts and be more of a fad instead of reaching lasting fame. Even if it were still popular, the story would be different. Recent years have shown the expansion of the Star Wars timeline, especially concerning the time after Return of the Jedi . With the sequel trilogy continuing Luke, Han, and Leia's stories, much of them would not be possible with a different ending to the original trilogy. Likewise, The Mandalorian and even Ahsoka explore the New Republic era, showing the issues as the galaxy moves from war to a new government founded by the former Rebels, a nuanced approach that wouldn't work without the Rebel victory.

Though the Force Ghosts at the Ewok celebration is not a universally adored ending, it is an improvement from Return of the Jedi 's original concept. While many films benefit from dark twists at the end, Star Wars is not one of them. The marketing towards a family audience and the focus on hope do not lend the series to such an ending. The alternate ending is intriguing, but not as an end to the trilogy when continuing the story at all was uncertain. In the end, Lucas made the right choice by abandoning his original plan in favor of a happy ending.

Star Wars: Episode VI - Return of the Jedi is available to watch on Disney+ in the U.S.

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William shatner willing to return to ‘star trek’ as de-aged captain kirk.

The 93-year-old actor says he's down to return as James T. Kirk for a new movie, and has an idea about how to make it work.

By James Hibberd

James Hibberd

Writer-at-Large

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“Mr. Scott, set the de-ager for 40 years!”

William Shatner says he’s down to play Captain James T. Kirk in a movie again, and has an idea for how it might work.

The 93-year-old sci-fi legend told the Canadian Press that he’d be willing to return to the Starship Enterprise under certain conditions.

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Shatner suggested he could play a younger version of his iconic character, thanks to a company he’s working with that specializes in de-aging technology that “takes years off your face, so that in a film you can look 10, 20, 30, 50 years younger than you are.”

While Kirk was, of course, killed off in the 1994 film Star Trek: Generations (photo above), Shatner suggested that Kirk’s body and brain might have been frozen for posterity, and then he could be revived years later.

“‘We’ve got Captain Kirk’s brain frozen here,'” he mused. “There’s a scenario. ‘Let’s see if we can bring back a little bit of this, a little salt, a little pepper [in his hair]. Oh, look at that. Here comes Captain Kirk!'”

The prospect of this happening seems rather unlikely, of course. But filmmakers have been getting rather bold with de-aging technology, so it’s hardly impossible that a future Trek film might take Shatner up on his offer and at least try for a de-aged Kirk flashback or cameo of some kind.

Shatner was doing this interview to promote his biographical documentary You Can Call Me Bill , which is being released On Demand.

The actor famously journeyed into space in 2021 as a member of Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin craft, becoming the oldest person to ever go into orbit.

Shatner has managed to remain quite sharp, energetic and hearty despite his years. The actor credits both genetic luck and taking care of himself.

“I eat well, I exercise, I ride horses a lot,” he said. “My wife cooks noninflammatory foods extremely well.”

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Marvel’s New ‘X-Men’ Movie Lands ‘Hunger Games’ Screenwriter Michael Lesslie

By Adam B. Vary

Adam B. Vary

Senior Entertainment Writer

• Marvel Sets Vision Series for 2026 With Paul Bettany, ‘Star Trek: Picard’ EP Terry Matalas as Showrunner (EXCLUSIVE) 2 days ago
• Marvel’s New ‘X-Men’ Movie Lands ‘Hunger Games’ Screenwriter Michael Lesslie 2 days ago
• Simon Kinberg in Talks to Produce ‘Star Trek’ Prequel Film 3 days ago

The X-Men are one step closer to joining the Marvel Cinematic Universe with their own movie.

Screenwriter Michael Lesslie (“The Hunger Games: The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes”) is in talks with Marvel Studios to write the first “X-Men” movie since the mutant superhero franchise was acquired by Disney in its purchase of 21st Century Fox in 2019.

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The British-born Lesslie started his career in 2007, adapting the 1994 film “Swimming With Sharks” as a play, which debuted in London’s West End. He adapted Shakepeare’s “Macbeth” for director Justin Kurzel’s 2015 feature starring Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard, and then worked again with all three for 2016’s “Assassin’s Creed.” He executive produced and co-wrote the 2018 BBC/AMC limited series “The Little Drummer Girl,” an adaptation of the John le Carré novel directed by Park Chan-wook and starring Michael Shannon, Alexander Skarsgard and Florence Pugh.

Lesslie most recently produced and wrote a feature film adaption of “Hamlet” starring Riz Ahmed, Joe Alwyn, Morfydd Clark and Timothy Spall and directed by Aneil Karia (“Top Boy”), and he co-wrote the upcoming “Now You See Me 3.”

Deadline first reported the news.

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