Look, the news is hardly ever “normal” anymore. If we all got a CNN alert in the middle of the night that militarized guppies had taken over the southern tip of Florida, it probably wouldn’t even warrant sitting up in bed. That said, hearing that Quentin Tarantino has reportedly successfully pitched a new Star Trek movie that J.J. Abrams might produce is still a record-skip, halt-the-dancefloor moment. And yet, here we are, with Deadline reporting that the two are assembling a writers’ room to work out a script for Tarantino’s brainchild, proving once again that like a teen goth, 2017 will never stop looking for new ways to shock.
But give it a little bit of thought, and the collaboration might turn out to be a stellar idea. Tarantino knows from nerd, and he likes to make things from the 1960s cool all over again. Win-win. Details of his pitch or what his Trek story might be are still under wraps, but if Paramount is really going to go all-in on a QT ST there are a few things this movie is gonna have to have.
No one is saying we need surf rock or K-Billy’s Super Sounds of the ‘70s in space, but considering the soundtrack to the last Star Trek movie had the Beastie Boys and a bunch of stuff no one remembers, it’s time to up the ante. Get Quentin in a room with Giorgio Moroder and see if he can pull some futuristic Ennio Morricone jams out of him. Maybe a little Spockabilly?
No disrespect to LeVar Burton, I just really want to see Sam Jackson in a visor, TBH.
The stuntwoman and actress came to prominence on the hood of a car in Tarantino’s Death Proof. More recently she was Cate Blanchett’s stunt double on Thor: Ragnarok. But when she’s not risking her life for the sake of a movie, she’s emanating quietly badass charm—she’d make a helluva ship captain. She’s been a Tarantino muse for a while now (she also showed up briefly in The Hateful Eight), it’s time she got another high-profile gig. (The same goes for Bell’s Kill Bill counterpart Uma Thurman, but she might be busy helping take down Harvey Weinstein.)
OK, maybe it doesn’t have to be Klingon, but Tarantino is known for doing big bloody shootouts and while setting your phasers to “stun” can keep things from escalating—and keep it PG-13—maybe it’s time things got a little more heated, Tarantino style. It doesn't even have to be Klingons—when's the last time a Trek movie caught up with the Cardassians?
Hear me out: Gene Roddenberry’s vision was always to show diversity with Trek. Recently, this extended to the movie-verse when Star Trek Beyond revealed that Sulu (John Cho) had a male partner, but it was the briefest of scenes. Meanwhile, the closest Tarantino has come to LGBTQ representation in a movie is Zed in Pulp Fiction, which is ... well, it's not a great look. It’s time he did better. There’s already a gay couple prominently featured in Star Trek: Discovery on CBS All Access. It’s time.
Because, come on. Tribbles. They don’t do or say much, but they reproduce faster than bunnies and if they slowly start to take over some world or spaceship they could be a serious problem. And in the hands of Tarantino, surely there would be an epithet for them that would be oft-repeated, sensitivity be damned.
