Is The Star Trek :Kelvin Timeline Dead?

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Did anyone discuss this here when this news broke and I just missed it?

What do you think? Is the Kelvin Timeline dead? Will they re-cast Kirk?

You can't really recast Kirk without recasting everyone else, so if Pine won't do it, then I think a reboot would be on the agenda.

The simple fact is: Star Trek: Beyond, while a decent, entertaining movie, was kindof a dud at the box office. It may be time for fresh blood in this series.

I say, jump ahead to the TNG era of the Kelvin universe.
Have McAvoy be Picard, and go from there.
Have Karl Urban in old age makeup, and have Bones pass the torch all over again.

I agree...let's reboot TNG.

Much as I like McAvoy as young PStew in X-Men, I think we should dispense with that as a basis for casting, and capture the spirit of the characters in the new cast.

I'd like Ralph Fiennes as Picard.

In this age of the billion dollar blockbuster, does Star Trek even have a place in the movie theaters? What was the highest grossing Trek movie? First Contact? Did it crack $500M? If the TOS crew can't do it, can the TNG crew?

Why not a real Frenchman?

I vote for Jean Reno.

While I have much man-love for Jean Reno, no, he wouldn't be at all appropriate.

Despite the character's name, backstory, etc. Picard will inevitably be British because he's defined in large part by Patrick Stewart.

According to box office mojo and adjusted figures, JJTrek tops the grosses. Followed closely by TMP, with TVH, ID, and TWOK making a distinct second tier.

I'd also point out that Fiennes *actually is* a Brit with a French name.

I came across this a little while back. Star Teek doesn’t have to be a billion franchise, it just needs to be as good as Transformers money wise.

I could see a Kirk has gone missing movie, but you’d still have to have him show up around halfway through the movie and would have to be Pine still.

It wasn't the cast that killed that movie as much as Paramount's lazy ass marketing there was Ghostbusters and Suicide Squad that were both released within a week on either side of that movie and Paramount did nothing to stand out.

Granted, no one predicted the wank behind Ghostbusters or how hard that would take, but Suicide Squad pulled in decent numbers. I know there was still least two people here, on a Trek spin-off board, who didn't even know the movie was even out till looking up something else.

That said, now that we've got another Trek series on TV online....eh. Don't need to survive for the movies.

Uh, isn't Transformers a multi-billion dollar franchise?

I sorta agree, but I'll say this: Beyond was a little too...confined. Parochial. It didn't feel like something that would have great appeal to anyone but fans. The better Trek movies have...something...that makes them bigger than just episodes of a sci-fi/fantasy series, that they're about more than what the literal text of the movie is about.

TMP is about overcoming our own human weaknesses, and defining our own sense of purpose. No, it wasn't a huge hit, but this film is the most cinematic of the series.
TWOK is about confronting the mistakes and missteps from one's past.
TSFS is about...getting Spock back.
TVH is about saving the world from its own short-sightedness.
TSFS is about...a guy hijacking the Enterprise to go meet God. It *could* have been about something grander, but it ultimately isn't.
TUC is about our inability to accept that the world has changed and to embrace its new opportunities.
GEN is about...a scientist using a WMD to return to paradise. Yes, there's a bit of Picard's regrets over life, but it's not part of the essence of the plot. Picard has no reason to feel any differently at the end than he does at the beginning.
FC is about the destructiveness of revenge. It's not the deepest of themes, but it drives the plot and propels much of the drama.
INS is about...stopping one group of aliens from stealing a world's resource from a small group of other aliens. There's dialog about forced relocations and such, but it's really not about that.
NEM is about...a Picard clone trying to destroy the Earth. It *could* be about the way our lives could turn out given different circumstances, but it's ultimately not.

The JJverse movies are more action-oriented and have less of a universal message. But they do excel at being action movies.

Yes, the promotion was weak, too.

And Star Trek should not be that. Yes, there should be action. But ultimately, Trek is about the human condition and a sense of wonder, not splodey things and space battles.

I agree.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuut...


I understand that these movies have to bring in big audiences to justify their production costs. I'm hopeful for something that combines the human condition and slodey things.

(For the record, I've really liked the JJTrek, even though I recognize its relative lack of depth.)

I don’t see where one movie cracked a billion.

I used to really love it when there weer Star Trek films every two years (or so), but frankly I enjoy Star Trek as a television medium much more than a film medium, in retrospect.

I guess we're using different terms. The franchise at a whole is over $4 billion, and the average per film is over $700 million. That's VERY successful compared to Star Trek, the latest incarnations of which haven't topped $500 million worldwide.

Edit: And Dark of the Moon and Age of Extinction both topped $1 billion worldwide.

I do want to see the cast get another crack at ST, after they turned the corner with Beyond.

I thought the conversation between Picard and Riker bottled up the meaning quite well.
GEN is about the passage of time, and age, and death, and how we face it.
Soran selfishly and greedily blew up planets to get into the nexus to escape time.
Kirk thought he wanted to retire before he goes into the nexus, then he thinks he wants the nexus, then he realizes he'd rather be an adventurer to his dying gasp.
Picard embraces reality, and time, and sees it as a voyage.
And Data just cries.

Yes, there is a bit of a theme in there. Picard's time in the Nexus can be seen as a "don't waste your time dreaming about what could've been" lesson. But it's incidental to the conflict with Soran, which makes it incidental to the plot.

You know what would've made for a better story? If Picard HAD succumbed to the reality inside the Nexus, if he did fall into living in a fantasy...and it was KIRK who had to pull HIM out of it, to convince him to get back into the real world and solve the situation.

Imagine Family Man Picard hanging out with the wife and kiddies, having forgotten all about the loss of his brother and nephew in the real world (they're there with him now!) and unconcerned about the crew of the Enterprise, or the population on Viridian IV. Kirk shows up...and he's looking for a way out. Kirk's desire to escape has caused the Nexus--it fulfills your wishes, right?--to bring him to Picard. And Kirk has to give a great Kirk speech to snap him out of it. Hmmm.


On a related note, I wonder. Dr. Soran makes it back into the Nexus when it sweeps past Viridan III and scoops up him and Picard. Does Picard's subsequent time-travelling undo that? Or is there still some version of Dr. Soran happily living his dream existance in the Nexus somewhere?

none of the incarnations have come close to topping a half billion (adj).
only TMP an 09 broke the 300mil mark, domestically.

Same. I enjoy ST09, and STID, but Beyond was awesome (IMO), and I want to see the crew continue that theme.

Yes, I know. I was pointing that out. FF said Star Trek didn't have to do billions of dollars, it only had to do Transformers-level business. I was pointing out that the Transformers franchise IS a billion dollar franchise, as a couple of the more successful entries have grossed over $1 billion worldwide. The average worldwide gross for a Transformers film exceeds the highest gross of any Star Trek film. Sadly, Transformers is a MUCH more successful film franchise than Star Trek.

The economic fact as I see it: Star Trek either needs to do better at the box office, or it needs to get less expensive to produce. The studio isn't going to produce expensive films that do Beyond-level business ($343 million worldwide gross on a $185 million production budget [according to Box Office Mojo] and probably half that again on marketing).

STID is my favorite of the lot. STB is probably my least favorite.

I was hair splitting over "latest" incarnations... while they may not be to some segments of fandom's taste, they've all been among the best grosses-presumably without repeat sales that would've padded 80s films. Hell, if anything modern film grosses are handicapped by alternate viewing sources.

Well, yes, it's all relative. But Star Trek does relatively poorly for what should be a flagship franchise.

To put it in perspective: Suicide Squad and Ant-Man--weaker/lesser superhero flicks--routinely outperform Star Trek's best box office results. Even Solo--widely regarded as an absolute dud in the Star Wars world--made considerably more than Beyond.

Compared to franchises like Star Wars, Marvel, Bond, Fast and Furious, Transformers, Fantastic Beasts, Jurassic World, etc., Star Trek hardly registers.

Certainly, I want the films to be profitable and continue. It's a question of whether they become even more blockbuster-y or they downsize a little. Not sure what the right answer is, though I know the studio would prefer bigger bucks.

If Interstellar can be made and be successful, a good, cerebral, action packed Star Trek movie can be made and be successful. With the right director and writer. Beyond was a good step in the right direction.

It's certainly not everyone's cup of tea. When ST09 premiered, I loved it. The first 10 minutes were some of the finest Trek ever produced on screen. When STID came out, I loved it even more, and wondered what could top it. For me, Beyond beat it (by a nudge), because we finally got the interplay between Spock and McCoy I'd been waiting to see. Also, Jaylah helped.

Agreed. Trek can be fun, exciting, AND cerebral, while showing financial success. It can be done.