The makers of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” had once submitted a script for “Star Trek 4” with Marvel star Chris Hemsworth. Now they reveal details about the story!
The hiccups of “Star Trek 4” go on and on! A sequel was supposed to be released after “Star Trek Beyond,” but that turned out to be particularly complicated. At one time, even the makers of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” were supposed to write the script. The film failed because of the actors’ fees. Now the “Lord of the Rings” makers are revealing their “Star Trek” storyline!
- “Star Trek 4” was supposed to bring back Chris Hemsworth as George Kirk from “Star Trek (2009),” the father of James T. Kirk (Chris Pine).
- The script for the flick was written by “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” showrunners JD Payne and Patrick McKay.
- In 2018, however, the idea of bringing Hemsworth and Pine together was scrapped as the film fell through due to fee negotiations.
New films from the “Star Trek” universe are not under a good star. “Star Trek 4” has been in production for so long now and there are always new ideas about how to continue after “Star Trek Beyond.” One of the discarded ideas came from the “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” makers and was supposed to bring back Chris Hemsworth as Jim Kirk’s father, George.
The goal was for “Thor” star Chris Hemsworth to meet Chris Pine. In the end, the film reportedly fell through due to negotiations with the film’s two stars. The fee demands reportedly exceeded the budget. Now JD Payne and Patrick McKay, the “Rings of Power” showrunners, have spoken about their “Star Trek 4” script.
Chris Hemsworth had already played the role of George Kirk in “Star Trek (2009).” As the father of Chris Pine’s Kirk, of course, a trick had to be found to age the two roles so that neither Hemsworth’s nor Pine’s age would have to be adjusted.
The “Rings of Power” creators used an episode of the series “Starship Enterprise – The Next Century” as a template for their idea, in which Scotty (James Doohan) was trapped in the pattern buffer of a transporter, so he comes back nearly a hundred years later without having aged a day.
Our concept was, ‘What if George Kirk, just before the USS Kelvin collides with the giant mining ship, tried to beam onto his wife’s shuttle to join her and their son, Jim, who had just been born?’ And what if the spacecraft hadn’t completely exploded – what if some space debris had been left behind?’
JD Payne
The story for the shelved “Star Trek” movie continues, “Remember when you’re composing a text message, you’ve finished it, but you haven’t hit ‘send.’ Then on the other side, the other person sees three dots, so you can tell a message is being written.”
“It’s as if the transporter uploaded and stored [George Kirk’s] pattern in the pattern buffer, but couldn’t ‘spit’ it back out on the other side. So it’s a backed up copy of him in the computer,” reveals Patrick McKay in an interview with US magazine Esquire.
Patrick McKay adds, “The adventure would be Chris Pine and his Enterprise crew investigating the wreckage of the ship where his father died because a new and mysterious villain is on the loose. On the ship, they stumble upon the pattern of his father. They beam him out and [George] doesn’t even know how much time has passed and that he’s standing in front of his son. The adventure starts here!”
Describing “Star Trek 4” as a “father-son space adventure,” McKay says, “Think of ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade’ in space. We were really very euphoric. We had a new villain and a cool ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ sci-fi idea at the core.”
Sadly, we’ll probably never get to see their film. But surely Paramount will continue to work on new ideas to reunite Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho and Simon Pegg aboard the Enterprise. Until then, you can check out numerous new “Star Trek” series releases!
