As Star Trek eases out of its TV revival era, winnowing down its number of series to just a handful (Strange New Worlds, the upcoming Starfleet Academy), Paramount has signaled fresh interest in returning the stalwart sci-fi franchise to the big screen. As fans know, it’s been trying to make that move for years now, with stop-and-start progress on a fourth Star Trek movie to continue the “Kelvin timeline” adventures.
Among the many creatives to be associated with the project is Noah Hawley, currently enjoying sci-fi success on TV himself with FX’s Alien: Earth. Back in 2020, Hawley gave a little insight into the film, which was then still active but temporarily on hold (before Hawley inevitably moved on to other projects). Speaking to Variety, he said, “We’re not doing Kirk and we’re not doing Picard. It’s a start from scratch that then allows us to do what we did with [the Hawley-created TV series] Fargo, where for the first three hours you go, ‘Oh, it really has nothing to do with the movie,’ and then you find the money. So you reward the audience with a thing that they love.”
Five years on, Hawley spoke to Men’s Journal and was asked for a bit more detail about his now-scrapped Star Trek vision.
“It was great. And we had sound stages in Australia. We were on the runway, and we were negotiating with actors,” Hawley recalled. “Mostly, what I can say is that it was a really hard loss because we got so close. It was an original story that was not Chris Pine-related, nor was it Captain Kirk-related. I guess the thing that might stick with people is that there was an unboxing of Data, the idea of the android. And that was to become an element in the films.”
He added, “It was an adventure. I love The Wrath of Khan. My favorite moment is when [William] Shatner puts on his reading glasses and lowers Khan’s shields. It costs nothing! But I love that creative problem-solving. They outsmarted their enemies. And that’s my favorite kind of storytelling.”
We may never see a Hawley-crafted Star Trek, but at least you can watch a Hawley-crafted Alien—which does include androids, incidentally—with new Alien: Earth episodes arriving Tuesdays on FX.
Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what’s next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
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