Star Trek's Next Movie Is Going Darker With an All New Crew, and the Timeline Is More Confusing Than Ever

Star Trek's next movie is going darker, it is moving further into the future, and it is introducing an entirely new group of characters. The move further into the future is confirmed, but somehow the directors have managed to make the timeline question more confusing while trying to explain it.

There are things in this interview that sound promising, and there are things that make me want to reach across the table and take the pitch meeting away from everybody in the room. My real worry, after everything this franchise has been through, is whether Hollywood is finally ready to tell a new Trek story, or whether it still thinks the way to fix Trek is to make it less like Trek. A lot of that comes down to what they mean by darker.

Daley and Goldstein call their Star Trek screenplay their darkest yet

John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein are developing the new movie. According to TrekMovie's report on their interview with Empire, Daley describes his screenplay as their darkest yet. I honestly do not know what he is measuring that against. Is the darkest Trek movie Wrath of Khan, or something else?

He also explains that character humor will still have a place. The pair say we are getting unfamiliar characters in a later setting outside the Kelvin timeline, but their exchange leaves the exact relationship to established continuity really unclear. I will come back to that below.

An all new crew is the strongest part of this approach

I want to be fair to these two. They worked on Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, and one of the best things about that movie was that it actually liked its characters. It let them be funny, vulnerable, capable and occasionally complete idiots without making the whole world feel like a joke. If you are putting a new crew on a starship, making me enjoy spending time with that crew is a good place to start.

Honestly, new characters is the strongest part of this whole plan. I love Kirk, Spock and Picard, but this franchise cannot spend the rest of its existence checking under the couch cushions for one more untold story about somebody we met decades ago. "Eventually, somebody has to walk onto a bridge and become the reason that we all come back."

That is how The Next Generation earned its place, and it is how Deep Space Nine earned its place. They gave us people whose names did not automatically mean anything to us, and then they did the work. Picard was not beloved because somebody announced another famous captain. We watched him become Picard, and we watched Sisko become Sisko. A new movie has the opportunity to do that, and I would much rather see it try than spend two hours pointing at familiar things.

Star Trek has already been dark, so the darkness needs something to push against

This is where I need more information. Star Trek has already gone dark, and very dark at times. The Borg turning people into machinery against their will is pretty dark. Picard being forced to help destroy his own fleet is dark. Sisko helping cover up a murder to pull the Romulans into a war is dark. We do not need somebody to discover that space can be dangerous. Anybody who beamed down with Kirk wearing a red shirt could have told you that.

What made those stories work was watching people struggle with something that challenged their values. Picard's humanity mattered because the Borg tried to take it away from him. Sisko's choices mattered because we understood the principles he was compromising. The darkness had something to push against. So if your version of Starfleet starts out cynical, dishonest and morally empty, where exactly is the tension? You have not challenged the ideal. You removed it before the story even started.

That is my worry whenever a new Trek project leads with how different or how dark it is going to be. Maybe that means a serious story with real consequences, which would be great. Maybe it means characters facing an impossible situation and finding a way through, which would also be great. But sometimes it means everybody is miserable, the institutions are rotten, and hope is treated like something embarrassing. I get enough of that opening my phone in the morning. I do not need to buy movie tickets and popcorn to digest it in a theater.

Crimson Tide and Training Day as influences could work if the science fiction creates the dilemma

The filmmakers have also discussed Crimson Tide and Training Day as influences, and that is interesting. Put a starship crew under pressure, create a conflict over authority, and force those people to decide whether following an order is the same thing as doing the right thing. There is absolutely a Trek movie in there. Picture a captain and an officer who both believe they are protecting the Federation, but disagree about what protecting it actually requires. I would watch that.

What I do not want is a familiar thriller with the names changed and a transporter added. The science fiction should create the dilemma. Encountering another civilization should complicate the answer, and Starfleet's responsibilities need to matter, otherwise why are we even in this universe? Give me a problem that becomes more interesting because these people are explorers, because they have rules, and because they are supposed to care about lives on the other side.

The timeline answer is still unclear, and I would rather move forward in the established universe

The timeline comments are where the internet really started running. The interview does not give a clean answer about whether this is another alternate continuity, so I am not going to declare that the prime timeline has been erased. We do not have enough to say that. What we have is an awkward exchange that needs a clear explanation, and I hope they provide one, because "fans should not need a congressional hearing" to figure out where this movie is taking place.

Personally, I prefer moving forward within the established universe. Give us some distance from the familiar crews and let the new characters breathe. You can acknowledge history without turning it into a nostalgia bait movie. A Federation with a past feels more substantial than one rebuilt from scratch. There is also something exciting about finding out what comes next: what the Federation learned, and what problems earlier generations encountered.

But moving forward does not automatically have to mean everything collapsed. That is the easy button answer: the Federation fell apart, Starfleet lost its way, everybody stopped trusting everybody. Okay, what else have you got? Show me a future where people made progress and still have difficult work ahead. Progress creates problems too, and a larger Federation would have far more competing needs. I hope these two see that opportunity. A darker movie could make Trek's optimism feel stronger if the characters have to earn it, in a situation where cooperation looks dangerous and mercy has a cost. I want the moment where the crew realizes something, where a detail we overlooked changes the entire situation.

Humor should reveal the crew without turning it into a comedy

I am glad they are talking about people finding levity under pressure, because that is believable. A crew that has worked together should have its own rhythm, its own little frustrations, and people who know exactly when somebody needs to be brought back down to earth. There needs to be some comedy in there, and it should help us understand the relationships.

Just do not make it a comedy. At the same time, do not make it so dark that it is just two hours of that. You can mix it, and I think the best ones know how to blend darkness with levity.

I am keeping my excitement at the screenplay stage

After their interview, I am honestly more confused than I was before. The good news is that the Trek movie is being worked on, and I am cautiously interested. They stated it is all new characters, not connected to legacy characters. A different point in time than we have seen before is cool, because a later setting gives them space. The tension could work, but I need more.

After so many proposed Trek movies, "I'm going to keep my excitement at the screenplay stage until we actually get beyond this screenplay stage." Get the story right, give us a crew worth following, then show me why this needed to be Star Trek. What I want is simple: send me into a frightening part of the universe with people who make me believe humanity belongs out there. Let them disagree, get angry, argue and be afraid. Let them face something they cannot punch their way through, then let them demonstrate why Starfleet's ideals were worth carrying into that situation in the first place.

Does a darker Trek movie with a completely new crew sound like the fresh start the franchise needs, and would you rather see it move forward in the prime timeline or are you open to yet another continuity?