Quentin Tarantino’s Uncharted Trek: The Sci-Fi Saga That Almost Was

Quentin Tarantino seems to have given the warp drive a miss for his take on ‘Star Trek,’ fearing it might boldly go where no director wants to end – the final frontier of their career.

Currently immersed in what he claims to be his tenth and curtain-closing film, ‘The Movie Critic,’ Quentin Tarantino had hinted at an R-rated addition to the ‘Star Trek’ universe back in 2019. At the time, Paramount had a trio of ‘Star Trek’ films on its radar for a potential franchise reboot, with Tarantino’s project in the mix.

However, according to screenwriter Mark L. Smith, who collaborated on the script, the starship never left the dock.

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Smith shed some light on the matter, stating, “Quentin and I went back and forth, he was gonna do some stuff on it, and then he started worrying about the number, his kind of unofficial number of films.”

The stumbling block seemed to be the daunting prospect of Star Trek being Tarantino’s cinematic swan song. Smith recounted, “If I can just wrap my head around the idea that Star Trek could be my last movie, the last thing I ever do. Is this how I want to end it? And I think that was the bump he could never get across, so the script is still sitting there on his desk.”

Despite Tarantino’s admiration for the project, Smith doesn’t hold out hope for it materializing. He expressed, “It’s just one of those things that I can’t ever see happening. But it would be the greatest ‘Star Trek’ film, not for my writing, but just for what Tarantino was gonna do with it. It was just a b*lls-out kind of thing.” Drawing a parallel, Smith likened the script to Taika Waititi’s ‘Thor: Ragnarok,’ envisioning a fresh and distinct vibe compared to the established ‘Star Trek’ canon.

As for Tarantino’s imminent tenth venture, it’s poised to delve into the world of a genuine film critic associated with an adult magazine. While the cast remains officially unconfirmed, the grapevine suggests that Paul Walter Hauser, John Travolta, and Samuel L. Jackson are hitching a ride on this project.