Star Trek Beyond is about to hit theaters as the franchise celebrates its 5oth anniversary. Early reviews have been extremely positive and Paramount seems confident of the film’s box office prospects. That must be why they officially announced the film’s sequel today.
Star Trek 4 (start thinking up subtitles) doesn’t have a release date yet, but the big hook of the story has already been revealed: James Kirk will be teaming up with the father he never knew, George. Yes, that means Chris Pine will be galavanting around the cosmos with Thor himself, Chris Hemsworth. Star Trek 4 will give us two hunky Chrises for the price of one! If Chris Pratt and Chris Evans also show up, this movie will break the internet.
There’s a lot to ponder about this news. Besides Nero‘s arrival in 2009’s Star Trek, the rebooted team hasn’t dealt with time travel yet. Time travel shenanigans are a staple of the Star Trek universe, so it’s exciting to know that the new team will get to play with a classic Trek concept.
Also, bringing back George Kirk certainly feels like a proper way to thematically close the loop on this newest iteration of the property. He was one of the first characters we ever saw in the Kelvinverse alternate reality and having him return would be a heartwarming bookend to the series. Plus, it means we’ll get to see George disagree with how Kirk decides to run his ship, and that will allow from some compelling character conflict that the new Trek films have somewhat been lacking.
If nothing else, it’ll be great to have Hemsworth as part of the gang. He’s currently one of the best parts of the new Ghostbusters film, and his charm and charisma will be heartily welcomed aboard the bridge of the USS Enterprise.
No director has been announced yet but expect Justin Lin to be courted if Star Trek Beyond performs as well as Paramount believes it will. Patrick McKay and John D. Payne will handle the screenwriting duties after having uncredited roles on Star Trek Beyond‘s script (they wrote the first draft). If Star Trek Beyond is as good as reports say it is, maybe they’ll let Simon Pegg and Doug Jung take a crack at the story.
Regardless, it feels good to be excited about Star Trek again. After the dismal misfire that was Star Trek Into Darkness, it seems like the franchise is back on course. With that said, go see Star Trek Beyond this weekend!
