Star Trek: Noah Hawley's Movie Will Question Humanity's Role in the Federation

Noah Hawley's Star Trek movie will introduce a brand new Starfleet crew the universe, but it will examine ideas as old as the Star Trek franchise itself. Hawley is out promoting the latest season of his Fargo television series. During a conversation with Entertainment Weekly, he opened up about his on-hold Star Trek movie. Hawley says it will question how our present society grew into the United Federation of Planets' ideals, examining humanity's role in the origin of the utopian interstellar society introduced in Star Trek 54 years ago. Hawley's new film will also challenge that utopia's continued existence, though he remains coy about that threat's nature.

"I can't say much about it except it's an argument for why humanity should prevail and why we should come together and unite, which I think is important – to look at the United Federation of Planets and remember at some point Earth is what we are now and then we invented warp technology and met extraterrestrial life and everybody came together," Hawley says. "But how? How did we get from where we are now to where they are then? And what happens if that utopian reality is challenged? There are times of challenge and war when we have to prove our values all over again. Maybe there's a time in the Federation where this ideal is challenged and it won't survive on its own. It needs to be saved."

In the interview where he confirmed the film will have a new cast, Hawley also confirmed that the film will link back to existing Star Trek canon in a meaningful way. "We're not doing Kirk and we're not doing Picard," he said. "It's a start from scratch that then allows us to do what we did with 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."

In that interview, Hawley confirmed that his film had gotten as far as hiring designers before being placed "in stasis" for the time being. However, he did not specify whether that was due to the story being about a pandemic, as reports suggested.

Hawley's is one of three potential Star Trek movies in the works. One involves time travel and Captain Kirk's father. Another comes from an idea by Quentin Tarantino and is inspired by the gangster-themed Star Trek episode "A Piece of the Action."

Source: comicbook.com