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.
unless, of course, Avery Brooks reprises his role and recites Ezekiel 25:17 and has a phaser with Bad Motherfucker etched on it.
Literally laughed out loud!
That’s something about Tarantino I did not know
Edited my post with a link to the video/interview if you’re interested.
When you came to space dock here, did you notice a sign out in front of my station that said “Dead Romulan Storage”?
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
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.
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 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.
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.
If he really wanted to do it he could do a sci-fi movie without it being attached to Trek and it would still make a billion dollars.
I like Tarantino movies and I like Star Trek, but they don’t need to mix
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!
Unless…?
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!
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.
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.
Counterpoint: with some subject matter, you don’t need nuance or subtext. Hence why IB remains, in my opinion, his greatest work. It’s one of the few subjects where you don’t need nuance so the good technical aspects of his filmmaking doesn’t just wash out in all the blood and gore. All you have to do is cook up a story in the Trek universe where his filmmaking style would be an asset (hint: have the story revolve around killing fascists), don’t give him complete control, and make him work in tandem with Star Trek old hands like Brannon Braga or Jonathan Frakes and I honestly think you’d end up with something good.
Personally, I think Star Trek is good enough that it deserves more and more interesting film treatments than it’s gotten. Tarantino Trek would upset a lot of people just because it wasn’t an anodyne feel-good PG movie, but if it was good, we could end up with other, better directors doing even more interesting things with Trek.
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.
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.
A team of section 31 assassins armed with katanas are beamed aboard the enemy starship with orders to take out the top leadership?
