The Star Trek Movies Can Survive Without Chris Pine

Modern Star Trek without Chris Pine is like the Federation without the Enterprise — empty, flat and directionless. Captain James T. Kirk has been an integral part of the franchise since day one of its JJ Abrams reinvention, a role only Pine filled since William Shatner's last round in the part in 1994's Star Trek Generations.

Sadly, it seems Pine is no longer attached to the part; the studio recently lost the Wonder Woman actor and his onscreen father Chris Hemsworth in a series of pay disputes, and will likely not return unless those issues are resolved.

Hemsworth's character is already dead, so his loss doesn't pose as much of a problem, but Pine's certainly does. If Spock is the brains behind the Enterprise, Kirk is the heart and soul of the starship, then how can the franchise possibly hope to continue without its captain? In the original series, movies and animated show, Jim Kirk and his crew spent many stardates going on adventures together, allowing other characters to be built to roles that might have dealt with this sort of loss. Pine's Kirk, however, has only been in three movies, and losing him at this stage in the Kelvin timeline is premature. His James Kirk still has a long way to go, and Zachary Quinto's Spock likely cannot possibly hold the fort, and the fandom, on his own.

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In theory, however, moving on without Chris Pine is possible. Star Trek has persisted without Kirk before, and even flourished for decades without its decorated hero. Assuming Kirk isn't recast, there are other ways the franchise could survive.

Limit The Scope

Most Star Trek films are larger than life, often involving the entire known universe. Everyone's fates hang in the balance, and it's up to the Enterprise to keep the peace and restore status quo. In Kirk's absence, this would be tricky to pull off. Inevitably, writers would have to explain where he is, what he is doing, and why he isn't jumping in to help save the day. The first two Abrams-era films involved the greater portion of the known universe, and if the studio decides to retain Spock (basically Kirk's other half) and tell a storyline of this magnitude, the resulting film would feel mismatched, awkward and imbalanced, its holes too difficult to plug.

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However, the reboots could take a page from Gene Roddenberry's original Trek and create something more compressed and episodic, involving a lot less people and requiring only a handful of characters to take the lead. This way, Kirk's absence could be more easily justified. Perhaps the Enterprise is sent on a covert mission involving only Spock and a portion of the crew. They could even be on a different starship, while Kirk remains on the Enterprise. Think Rogue One, Fantastic Beasts, and Ant-Man and The Wasp. Side-stories and spinoffs. Any event that could exist on the periphery, or occur during in-betweens, would probably work.

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Change In Leadership

Jim Kirk was not the first person to lead the Enterprise, nor was he the last. The Iowa native has had several successors, but none as esteemed or beloved as Captain Jean-Luc Picard, commanding officer of Enterprise-D and Enterprise-E. Stewart originated the role for The Next Generation in 1987 and is, in fact, coming back in a followup chronicling the next chapter in Picard's life.

News of Stewart's return was announced amid Pine and Hemsworth's growing issues with Paramount. Coincidence or intentional, the timing couldn't be better. There is no confirmation on whether the loss is even final, or how the studio might be moving forward without Pine, but focusing on Picard could be a good first step, even if it's a Picard not played by Stewart.

Original timeline Kirk was presumed lost in the Nexus around the time Picard was a student at Starfleet Academy. With Chris Pine's involvement in the franchise currently in jeopardy, this would be a good time as any to pronounce his "death" and introduce a young Picard still learning the ropes, similar to Pine's Kirk in 2009's Star Trek. The part would have to be recast, of course, to match what would have been the character's age at the time, not unlike how Stewart's X-Men character Professor X is portrayed by James McAvoy in that franchise.

Of course, Kirk isn't the only senior officer on the Enterprise. Not counting Spock and Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott, Helmsman Hikaru Sulu eventually rises through the ranks in the original series and becomes captain of his own starship, the USS Excelsior. Suffice it to say, any high-ranking officer could eventually command the Enterprise, and there are plenty of suitable candidates; the trick is getting there with Kirk already gone.

Trek Out Of Time

When it comes to cinematic sci-fi, there are few stories as flexible as the Star Trek franchise. It can exist on virtually any level and in any timeline, featuring life before The Original Series (Discovery) or a universe set centuries after (The Next Generation and Voyager). It could involve the whole universe, a few planets, or just a space station (Deep Space Nine). Anything is fair game.

Star Trek 4 could aim for something similar. The film could exist in the far reaches of the future, or, like Discovery, focus on the past, either before or after the destruction of the USS Kelvin. Theoretically, Jim Kirk wouldn't be around in either scenario, being either dead, nonexistent, or simply unavailable. If the studio is searching for an easy way out, this would be it. There would be no more need for explanations, only different characters.

The one problem is that Kirk's father George would have made the perfect replacement. The character has added significance in the Kelvin timeline, and is well-liked by fans. But without Chris Hemsworth, a film about his early years would be unlikely to work. A little too late, unfortunately.

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Time Travel... Again

The "Yesteryear" episode from Star Trek: The Animated Series featured a prominent Enterprise death — namely, Spock's, years before The Wrath of Khan. Kirk and Spock had gone into the Guardian of Forever to revisit the birth of the Orion civilization, and upon exiting, discovered history had changed. Spock is no longer the first officer of the Enterprise, having been mauled to death at age 7 during the Vulcans' annual kahs-wan maturity test. In the original timeline, Spock's cousin Selek saves him from the Le-matya beast, but in this case, he doesn't show up. It was later revealed that Spock himself was Selek — he had pretended to be his own cousin — and it had been his jump into the Guardian (and subsequent absence from the test) that inevitably caused his own death.

To compensate for losing Pine, the upcoming film could craft a loosely derivative tale focusing on young Kirk's untimely demise rather than Spock's. In "Yesteryear," Spock successfully reversed his own tragedy, but this would be impossible in a Kirk version without Chris Pine. An alternative would be to send Spock, or a few of the others, into the Guardian to fix history, resulting in a timeline where Kirk looks a little less like Pine.

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Losing Pine is not ideal. He was the perfect post-Shatner Kirk, and a great loss not just for Paramount, but for fans. The options presented here are only bare substitutes, good for buying time, nothing more. Hopefully, in between films, Pine and Hemsworth sign back on and all existing pay issues are settled.

Star Trek: Beyond should not be anyone's final frontier. The Kelvin timeline only recently began work on Enterprise-A and there is much more to see beyond Yorktown, Vulcan, Earth, Kronos, Romulus, and Altamid. We should not be seeing the last of Chris Pine after only three movies. His Kirk is going to need more than three films to boldly go where no man's ever gone before.

Directed by Justin Lin, Star Trek: Beyond is currently available on Digital HD, DVD, and Blu-ray. The film stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, and Idris Elba.