Hear Me Out: Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto should return for ‘Star Trek 4’
The Star Trek franchise has hit a standstill on the big screen, but the new merger of production houses could change that, where instead of beaming in new actors as the next Enterprise crew, they should bring back the stars who revitalised it.
Although there have been years of speculation on the form a potential new Star Trek film would take, now that David Ellison’s Skydance is in control of Paramount Pictures, the future of the franchise has been made a priority by putting all his intention into getting a new Star Trek movie out sooner rather than later.
It’s worth remembering that ten years have passed between the cancellation of the original Star Trek series and the return of William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy for Star Trek: The Motion Picture, so seeing a slightly older crew who have already had a few adventures under their belts would make for a more layered viewing experience than the introduction of a new gang of faces, which could feel derivative of previous shows and films.
Following the end of the Next Generation in 2002, the series was rebooted in 2009 under the watchful eye of JJ Abrams with Star Trek in the Kelvin Timeline, and he did the impossible by making the series feel fresh without disrespecting its past and embracing the entire ensemble more than their predecessors, which saw background players like Scotty and Uhura got more to do thanks to the terrific performances from Simon Pegg and Zoe Saldaña, respectively.
Moreover, 2016’s Star Trek Beyond ended with the promise that Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk, Zachary Quinto’s Spock, and the rest of the crew would be setting out on an adventure to explore the further reaches of space, bringing the characters to a point that saw them resemble the beginning of the original series, but with more depth. Given just how strong the chemistry was between these iterations of the characters, a returning cast would allow to take advantage of this ending, and fulfil the original’s premise.
An additional sequel would also give Zachary Quinto the opportunity to play a conflicted version of Spock, as Beyond dealt with the real-life death of Leonard Nimoy by killing off his onscreen character of Ambassador Spock, who had served as a mentor from a different universe.
Without the guidance of Ambassador Spock, seeing Quinto’s nuanced embodiment of Spock’s complex dual identity of human and Vulcan venture into an unknown future will serve to strengthen his emotional arc, while similarly, Pine’s Kirk, who has matured into a grounded version of the character in Beyond from his beginnings as a hedonistic scoundrel, serves to honour Shatner’s legendary performance in the original.
Although the quality has been consistent across the three Kelvin films, in terms of adverseries and fulfilling their Star Trek legacy, despite the best efforts by Eric Bana, Benedict Cumberbatch, and Idris Elba, none of their characters were on the level of Ricardo Montalban’s Khan in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan or Alice Krige as The Borg Queen in Star Trek: First Contact, and hence, this version of the crew deserves the chance have their heroism on display and nothing does that better than facing up against a great antagonist.
Given that Pine has become a bigger star, Saldaña has won an Oscar, and the Kelvin Timeline films have become streaming hits, a proper fourth film with the reboot cast might be a hit for Paramount, allowing Star Trek to once again have the opportunity to live long and prosper.
