The answer lies in a two-year-old Nerdist podcast, in which Tarantino spins a few yarns about the kind of Star Trek movie he would make if given the opportunity. First, the director delved into his dislike for J.J. Abrams’ follow-up film Star Trek: Into Darkness, noting the continuity errors in the film and Benedict Cumberbatch’s portrayal of the film’s antagonist, Kahn.
“I think they might have trapped themselves a little bit by the simple fact that they have to use all the crew now. In all the films, they’ve established it so much that you need Uhura, you need Scotty, you need Bones, you need all that stuff going on all the time. Everybody has to be represented in some big story where they all have to deal. I actually think it could be cool because some of those episodes are fantastic and the only thing that limited them was their ’60s budget and their eight-day shooting schedule – and even having said that they did a magnificent job. But you could take some of the great, classic Star Trek episodes and just easily expand them to 90 minutes or more, and really do some amazing, amazing stuff.”
Tarantino went on to name of few of the episodes he had in mind, chief among them being “City on the Edge of Forever,” which sees the Star Trek crew flung back in time after a medical accident sends Doctor Leonard McCoy running from the ship. The crew winds up in 1930s New York and have to figure out a way to escape to their time. Tarantino also singled out the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode “Yesterday’s Enterprise,” which sees the entire crew flung into the past where the United Federation of Planets is at war with the Klingons.
While the podcast interview in question is from 2015, it seems as though Tarantino has given the prospect of making a Star Trek movie quite a bit of thought. Perhaps someday he will be able to put those musings to use and actualy get the greenlight to direct a Star Trek movie.
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