I enjoy the Tarantino films, but I don’t want them anywhere near Star Trek.
I really dislike what’s happening with ST lately; what was in my childhood a hopeful message for how much humanity could achieve when we finally get our shit together, is now just another action movie / drama template. Government bad, corruption everywhere, war for the sake of war, etc.
I’m certain Tarantino would double down on that and I just don’t want it.
Government bad, corruption everywhere, war for the sake of war, etc.
I’m certain Tarantino would double down on that and I just don’t want it.
Tarantino is kind of a bellwether for the mostly apolitical right-wing (but non-fascist) middle-class majority of the US population, the movie "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood" convinced me of that. It also convinced me that Tarantino himself has lost the plot, or actually never really had it. He reminds me a bit of Beavis and Butthead, kind of just watching movies and TV all the time, sorting everything into the binary categories "cool" or "sucks", except he actually goes out and makes films that glorify all he thinks is "cool" which happens to be a cross-section of all media that glorifies violence and toxic masculinity.
So he likes Star Trek. Congratulations Tarantino, your "geek" bona-fides are authentic, but like the rest of the right-wing (non-fascist) middle-class majority, you really have no fucking clue and don't care about the political origins of Star Trek and are just itching to erase them so you can make it into another "cool" movie that glorifies violence and toxic masculinity. You can fuck right off, Tarantino.
You should check out Strange New Worlds then, it's a return to episodic form
I kinda feel like I just don’t have the heart for ST anymore. Picard was the final nail in the coffin, I am all out of trust for the modern generation of writers.
I’ll just watch TNG through every couple of years and be happy in my bubble.
Have you tried strange new worlds?
Also Lower Decks is incredible. A Star Trek show that makes fun of itself and the franchise but is still narratively driven and... entertaining.
I call it the Omniman/Homelander distinction
That is to say, is the deconstructing work made by someone who gets the message of the work being deconstructed or not.
Omniman is a complex look at the stated origin of Superman being sent to earth, and the paternalistic nature of what exactly Jor'El wished for Clark to do with the benefits of Earth's environment, and also a look at how even despite that, Superman would have been capable of learning to be a true hero without that guiding hand of a human upbringing, and that some of his spark isn't nature or nurture but just that drop of empathy it takes to make someone see helping others as worth it for its own sake.
Homelander is a wankfest about how bad superhero comics are written by a guy who wrote an entire series about how he believes everyone secretly wants to be a murder rapist and is just "brainwashed by societal bullshit" to not acknowledge it.
Yeah, I prefer the positive role models & society present in 90's trek. You don't get that much in nutrek.
You must have hated DS9.
I see TNG with mostly 2D characters where the Federation and its ideals are the main driving force of the plots. When they deviate from that is when you get bad episodes (cough Sub Rosa cough). The characters had to shed some of their depth and become idealized for message to shine through.
On DS9, you have a gritty view of a frontier without the influence of the Federation. The evolution of the characters and how they react to the changing reality around them is the center stage, and for that you need 3D, flawed characters to build development arcs upon.
Then on DSC you have perfect 2D characters in a corrupt world and the show is about Michael Burnham but she's also perfect and I can't see what message they're trying to send.
I think DS9 set a precedent that was bad for the franchise, but I don’t hate it; the show felt like it understood its roots. I took DS9 as a way to explore how federation values addressed a galaxy not quite there yet.
It didn’t diminish the hopeful future by saying that “actually the federation is evil" it just said “listen, we still have work to do”.
Watching Cisco wrestle internally with reconciling who he knew he was supposed to be while the galaxy tested that was at least interesting on an intellectual level.
I think that bit of nuance got lost though, so I do kinda wish it had never happened.
FWIW, I recall an interview with Tarantino on YouTube somewhere in which Trek came up, and he was asked to name one of his favourite episodes.
To my surprise he named Yesterdays enterprise. He genuinely seemed to love it and remembered a lot of details about the plot. The other he mentioned is city on the edge of forever.
So while many might react to the idea of an R rated Tarantino Trek film negatively, I’d be quietly optimistic that he has good taste in Trek and would have a good core of a premise and story. I suspect he’d also handle the characters well, knowing how to balance campiness, seriousness and comedy.
EDIT: Found the interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyD7CFnFH3A
It's from 2015. Go to 3.47 for the relevant section. Interestingly, rewatching it, the prompt of the conversation was "what Star Wars movie would you like to do" and Tarantino responds with he'd rather do a Trek film.
And to further my point, he's main point is that so many good episodes from Trek, especially the original series, could be made into movies.
City on the Edge of Forever is the best TOS episode in my opinion, and surpasses 90% or more of all Star Trek across all the series.
It’s good to know he knows his Star Trek. But I still wouldn’t want a Tarantino Trek movie — unless, of course, Avery Brooks reprises his role and recites Ezekiel 25:17 and has a phaser with Bad Motherfucker etched on it. That’s a Trek movie I’d watch.
Pure marketing piffle.
Paramount would never let a Hard R Trek get made. Not only is it the completely wrong tone for Trek (even if you rate the JJ Abrams movies) but it would seriously harm ticket sales as kids and young teens would be prohibited from going to the theater to see it. Imagine Kirk and Spock sitting around, smoking weed, talking about their favorite obscure 2200s films while holding knives to each other's nutsacks.
They only started talking about Tarantino directing a Star Trek movie in order to build hype for the new Trek shows that are of dubious quality.
I also don't think Captain Picard needs to drop the N-word while gazing at alien feet tbh
When you came to space dock here, did you notice a sign out in front of my station that said "Dead Romulan Storage"?
Man, now I'll never find out how many times Samuel L Jackson can be called the n-word on the bridge of the Enterprise...
Tarantino movies do tend to feature the hard r pretty prominently.
Romulan?
Jesus, man, Omulan please.
I feel like in the best case it would have been a catastrophe that somehow manages to fall together in a way that actually works, and in the worst case it would have just been bad to the point of being offensively bad, appealing to neither regular filmgoers whole also pissing off established fans.
... But it also feels like giving a chainsaw to a bear: You know whatever's gonna happen you're not gonna like, but also you kinda want to do it just to see what it is.
Your last analogy made me snort my 3 sleeping partners (human canine and feline) awake.
Also spot on. But I really don't want to see it. But I'm sure I'd be entertained by reading about the result.
Don't you mean feet out? Preferably, women's feet. Covered in oil?
Quentin's pitch: "So there's an entire species where they're all feet. And Kirk says the n-word. Like, a lot."
I love Tarantino but I would hate to see his star trek. His balls hard R star wars movie on the other hand would be the best film in the series.
I understand hesitancy for an R-rated Star Trek movie, and I also understand that Tarantino's style isn't for everyone, but that said- he always puts a lot of effort in to crafting a good story, and there's always a ton of attention detail. His movies are never shallow pandering cash grabs like certain other directors who will remain nameless here.
So while a Tarantino Trek movie sounds very weird on the surface, I think he's far and away earned the benefit of the doubt when it comes to making any movie at this point and I would welcome his perspective.
Not that it's ever gonna happen, of course. But if we do ever see a new movie, I would far prefer an auteur over a plug-n-play disneyfied cash grab like we see with the MCU, Star Wars, and basically any other pop culture franchise.
It would have been like the mirror mirror episode only with more of Uhuras feet.
I still maintain that a Quentin Tarantino Trek likely would have been the greatest Trek film ever made (not a high bar though). Come on, imagine Inglourious Basterds set during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor. But the rights holders have always been Trek's biggest enemy because for the most part they just want to make something safe that will get people viewing, when what's great about Trek is how expansive the universe is and how much room there is to tell stories of every kind. Literature about the far future, whose entire point is how expansive and diverse that far future could be, shouldn't be so stylistically narrow that people get their knickers in a twist when Picard swears. But since it is, we can never have something as good or even just interesting as Quentin Tarantino Trek.
No. The story would revolve around an intergalactic war started over a teenage girl's feet.
I didn't say give him full artistic freedom!
I don't think it would be, galaxy quest set a pretty damn high bar.
Imagine Inglourious Basterds set during the Cardassian occupation of Bajor
Damnit Jim, I hate that you said this because I know I'll never get it!
I like star trek, and I like R-movies. I don't know if they will mix well.
For anyone interested, Tarantino spoke ad lib about the idea of making a Trek film back in 2015. I mentioned this in another comment here but didn't have the link to the interview.
The interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyD7CFnFH3A
Go to 3:47 for the relevant section. Interestingly, rewatching it, the prompt of the conversation was "what Star Wars movie would you like to do" and Tarantino responds with he'd rather do a Trek film.
He's main point is that so many good episodes from Trek, especially the original series, could be made into movies, and cites specifically City on the Edge of Forever and Yesterday's Enterprise, which certainly indicate that he has some good Trek Taste.
A team of section 31 assassins armed with katanas are beamed aboard the enemy starship with orders to take out the top leadership?
I'm a big Qentin Tarantino fan, but I never felt he was right for Star Trek. Not his type of movie IMO. But what the fuck do I know.
I just left a comment with more detail elsewhere, but at this point I think he's earned the benefit of the doubt. Tarantino-Trek sounds like a weird combo, but based on his spotless track record, I would be surprised if he somehow managed made a stinker.
I love Tarantino films; major fan. But I don't think he's capable of nuance or subtext, both of which are heavily used in the franchise. I would also abhor a "hard R" Star Trek film. It would be right up there with the Kelvin films. There's no way in hell the fan base would allow something like that to be canonized. The only alternative I could see is if it involved time travel and all of the "hard R"s were from humans from the past.
Star Trek itself often has nuance that's about as subtle as being hit in the face with a brick. Need I remind everyone about Let That Be Your Last Battlefield, TOS S3E15.
I think when they say "hard R" here, they mean a strong R rating for the film, not the other hard R for which Tarantino is known.
Either talk about the plot, set a production date or stop writing these nothing articles.
I mean, no duh Tarantino would do a Trek movie that has lots of blood. To be familiar with his name is to know that's his style. Just tired of years teasing how great something WOULD'VE BEEN but not saying why.
So, set on Qo'noS?
As a longtime Trek fan, I’m certainly in favor of it. There’s plenty of things to work with; things implied but never really shown. Which is why I also liked more recent Trek projects like Strange New Worlds and Picard. They have a bit more grit to them.
Tarantino’s trek would not have been for everyone… but it certainly would’ve been a massive hit. Even if you hate his other work, you can’t help but be intrigued.
I mean, of course it was going to be R-rated, Quent doesn’t exactly make family-friendly pics.
But also, why is everyone always trying to make Star Trek edgier these days?
All I know is that I would really have wanted to see it.
I'm guessing it would have really leaned into the colonial pulp fiction aspect of the original series.
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