‘Star Trek,’ the Original Space Force, Set for Return to Movie Theaters

Paramount announced that it will release the long-delayed fourth movie in its rebooted "Star Trek" movie series on Dec. 22, 2023. J.J. Abrams will return as producer for the film, which continues the series headlined by Chris Pine as Capt. James T. Kirk.

"Star Trek" launched as an NBC television series in 1966 and has since grown to a massive web of spinoff movie and television series, books and animated shows. The Paramount+ streaming service is home to the five "Star Trek" shows currently in production, as well as hosting the massive back catalog of earlier shows and movies.

Space Force (the military branch, not the Netflix show) was launched by the U.S. government in 2019 to protect and defend American interests in the interplanetary realm. Both the Space Force logo and its uniforms have been compared to the Starfleet branding in the "Star Trek" universe.

Is that a coincidence? Probably not. "Star Trek" has long been the model of a benevolent interplanetary military organization that resorts to force only when called on to defend itself. Original recipe "Star Trek" was a pro-military counterpoint during the height of the Vietnam War protests, and it has influenced generations of men and women to serve.

Before the USS Enterprise can take flight, there's a potential problem on the movie front. Apparently, none of the actors from the previous movies knew the announcement was coming, and no one has made a deal to appear in the film. That means that Pine, Zachary Quinto (Spock), Simon Pegg (Scotty), Zoe Saldaña (Uhura) and John Cho (Sulu) have all the leverage, and their representatives should be able to make some amazing deals, since fans expect to see them all return.

Unfortunately, the new film won't feature Pavel Chekov. Actor Anton Yelchin died in 2016 when his Jeep Cherokee slipped out of park and pinned him to a brick gate post in Los Angeles. Yelchin's family sued and eventually settled with the car manufacturer, which had just issued a recall based on this issue when the accident occurred.

There are more potential roadblocks. The script isn't complete and the studio has yet to approve a budget. Abrams says the movie will be shooting "before the end of the year," but there are a ton of moving parts that have to line up for the movie to meet some very tight deadlines.

Of course, Paramount may be willing to throw money at this problem to get it solved. There have been several failed attempts to make a fourth movie in this series, including a version based on a script by Quentin Tarantino and another idea from Noah Hawley, the creator of the "Fargo" and "Legion" television series.

The last idea standing is the one set to go into production. Abrams won't direct this time and has brought on Matt Shakman, who directed all episodes of the Marvel series "Wandavision" and previously worked on "Game of Thrones," "Succession" and 43 episodes of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia."

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