Star Trek Director Doesn’t Want His Movie To Be All About Action

Despite launching a franchise that’s spanned thirteen movies and earned almost $2.3 billion at the box office, action has never been the main focus of Star Trek on the big screen. The long-running sci-fi series has always tended to shine more of a spotlight on big ideas than sheer scale and spectacle, and J.J. Abrams’ rebooted Kelvin timeline came in for criticism from some longtime fans for reinventing the Enterprise crew as the stars of mega budget blockbusters.

The reboots may have been put on hold along with the rest of the in-development projects, but Paramount were quick to deny that they were giving up on Star Trek for good when rumors were making the rounds earlier this week. Meanwhile, we know that Legion and Fargo showrunner Noah Hawley is behind one of those new movies, and he’s already made it clear that his script will feature an all new cast of characters.

Now, in a recent interview, the filmmaker has offered up even more new details on his mystery Star Trek project, and also stated that he has no interest in continuing the action-orientated precedent set by the Kelvin trilogy.

“What I love about Star Trek is that it’s not a war story. It’s not a story in which might makes right. It’s a story about exploration. It’s a story about creative problem solving. My favorite moment in all of Star Trek is in Wrath of Khan when Kirk puts on his reading glasses to lower Khan’s shields. It’s a brief moment that is so exhilarating because he’s using the best tool he has, which is his mind. As much as I like the Chris Pine movies, they were mostly about running from one end of the ship to the other to put out a fire, to stop a thing, and then before he could catch his breath he had to do something else. They’re much more action movies, and what I wanted to get back to was this idea of humanity justifying existence in the universe by showing its best qualities.”

If you include the pitch by Wrath of Khan writer Robert Sallin and Quentin Tarantino’s R-rated effort, then Paramount have four potential Star Trek movies on the horizon. It seems unlikely that they’ll make them all, of course, especially when the small screen arm of the franchise is looking stronger than it has for decades, but Hawley’s version certainly seems to be much further along in the development process than the rest of the prospective slate. Now we’ll just have to wait and see which one actually comes to fruition first.