Quentin Tarantino Would Rather Direct Star Trek Over Star Wars

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Legendary director Quentin Tarantino says that if given a choice he would rather make a Star Trek movie than take on the task of crafting a film in the Star Wars universe. Tarantino’s next for-real project has not been officially announced but he is reported to be developing a story based on the Charles Manson murders and is pursuing big stars like Jennifer Lawrence, Margot Robbie and Brad Pitt.


Speculating about possible Tarantino projects has provided fans with almost as much entertainment as his actual movies, and there have been lots and lots of proposed Tarantino dream movies and TV series over the years, including a few the filmmaker seemed to be seriously pursuing at one point or another. The list of legendary would-be Tarantino projects includes an adaptation of the first James Bond novel Casino Royale (which eventually was done by Martin Campbell), as well as The Man From U.N.C.L.E. (later taken up by Guy Ritchie), a remake of Less Than Zero and an adaptation of Len Deighton’s The Berlin Game.


In an epidode of the Nerdist podcast from 2015 that recently popped up again on the internet (via TrekNews.net), Tarantino tackles another speculative question that has sparked fan curiosity: would he ever consider jumping aboard one of the big sci-fi franchises like Star Wars? When asked about his Star Wars thoughts, Tarantino admits that if given a choice he’d prefer to go the Star Trek route rather than travel to the galaxy far, far away:

 

The answer is I’d be more inclined to do a Star Trek kind of thing rather than Star Wars. And I like Star Wars and everything.



Tarantino says that he’s a big fan of the original Star Trek series and particularly original Captain Kirk William Shatner. He then veers into a dissection of J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movies, saying he liked the 2009 reboot but was not a fan of the sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness. The casting of Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan bothered Tarantino in particular (so don’t look for Tarantino to be casting Cumberbatch in any of his future movies).


Tarantino then talks about some OS and TNG episodes he admired, singling out the classic OS installment “City On The Edge Of Forever” as well as the TNG episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise.” Tarantino thinks the way to go with future Trek movies would be to take some of the classic episodes, particularly the ones involving time-travel, and simply expand them to 90 minutes. With modern-day effects, Tarantino believes those well-written old episodes could really come to life.


It seems that Tarantino has some very specific ideas about what he’d like to do with Star Trek, so maybe Paramount should consider giving the director a call. Tarantino isn’t widely known for being a for-hire director but he has occasionally taken on such jobs, most notably way back in the day when he directed an episode of the TV series ER. As for Star Wars, it doesn’t seem like Lucasfilm should bother trying to set up any meetings with Tarantino…not that they would ever consider working with an auteur of Tarantino’s stature and creative independence. After watching what happened to Lord and Miller and Colin Trevorrow, Tarantino is probably even more disinclined to consider working for Kathleen Kennedy on Star Wars.