The ‘Kelvin-verse’ is history. Where do the Star Trek movies go from here?
One of the new Paramount ownership’s first acts has been to end the Chris Pine/Zachary Quinto series of Trek movies. But surely they can’t stop making them forever?There have been...
By Ben Child · The Guardian Culture
One of the new Paramount ownership’s first acts has been to end the Chris Pine/Zachary Quinto series of Trek movies. But surely they can’t stop making them forever? There have been many Star Treks over the decades. First up we had a 1960s morality play performed on cardboard sets; then it became a billion-dollar movie saga about space diplomacy. More recently we’ve been gifted an ever-expanding collection of streaming spinoffs, each one more determined than the last to prove itself the true keeper of the sacred flame. Now we have a franchise that no longer has any idea what to do with itself. According to Variety , its producer Paramount has shelved the most recent film trilogy, known unofficially as the “Kelvin-verse”, that starred Chris Pine as Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock. What comes next is anyone’s guess. Perhaps the more pertinent question here might be whether this grand old sci-fi saga is now really suited for the big screen at all. The recent films – 2009’s Star Trek , 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness , and 2016’s Star Trek Beyond – won critical plaudits, yet were also criticised by fans for trying to turn a utopian thought experiment about empathy, cooperation and the perils of militarism into a knockabout space opera. Continue reading...