Final STAR TREK BEYOND Trailer AND Official Synopsis for STAR TREK 4 Confirms Return of Chris Hemsworth!

It is a great day (and week) indeed, fellow Trek fans! Not only was the final, “short and oh-so-sweet” trailer released for this Friday’s Star Trek Beyond, but Paramount also treated us to the official plot synopsis for the yet-to-be-dated  “new” Star Trek 4!

First, the final trailer for Star Trek Beyond:

Exciting, no? There’s nothing wrong  with a few explosions! I’m pumped for Thursday (and will have a review up no later than Friday afternoon, hopefully Thursday night)!

(By the way… is that the Gorn in that one scene?!? Those four legged Aliens look like the version of the Gorn used in the PS3 Star Trek game…)

Not excited yet? Well… I have some even more fascinating news directly from Paramount Pictures.

Remember George Kirk (Chris Hemsworth), Jim’s (Chris Pine) dad who died in the 1st (incredible) scene that opened J.J. Abram’s original 2009 reboot/sequel, Star Trek? Well, here’s what Paramount has planned for the now officially confirmed, Star Trek 4!

In the next installment of the epic space adventure, Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk will cross paths with a man he never had a chance to meet, but whose legacy has haunted him since the day he was born: his father. Chris Hemsworth, who appeared in 2009’s Star Trek, will return to the space saga as George Kirk to star alongside Pine.

Wow! What a spectacular move! 

What’s better than one Chris? Two! And the same can be said about two Kirks!

This news really does open very interesting territory for Star Trek 4 to explore. Not uncharted territory, per say, as time travel is nothing new to Star Trek Canon (it was even used to set up the new “Kelvin” timeline in the 2009 film), but fun none-the-less. George Kirk was a short role for Hemsworth and came before he was even cast as Thor, but it did leave quite an impression on me. The scene in which George has to pilot the U.S.S. Kelvin into a collision with Nero’s Romulan Vessel in an effort to save his wife and son, is perhaps my favorite in the entire franchise. Shot expertly by Abrams completed by Michael Giacchino’s heart-wrenching score, it’s hard to find a more touching scene in Sci-Fi.

Now father and son will be reunited in Star Trek 4! Will it be time travel? More alternate dimensions (“Mirror Mirror?”)? Is it all an alien ploy to defeat the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise? Will father and son get along? Will they clash? Because I would love to watch Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth fight!What’s most interesting about this official synopsis is that it comes in advance of the 3rd film, this week’s Star Trek Beyond. In fact, this sort of thing is nearly unheard of. Studios may promise sequels before they know if their current film is a success, but they almost never give you a plot this far from release. Ghostbusters (2016) is a good example of this; a sequel has been announced, but we haven’t been told the plot. Hell, they don’t give you the plot to Iron Man 3 when Iron Man 2 is released, and Marvel plans their films farther out than most!

So the question arises: why now? Was this announcement made to further promote Star Trek Beyond? Is Star Trek 4 planned out this far in advance to serve as a “Part 2” to Star Trek Beyond?

After all, the earlier trailers for Beyond have made it clear that Kirk’s emotional arc in this film involves becoming his own man and escaping the long shadow his father, a Hero of the Federation, has cast.  Will Beyond end on a cliffhanger, somehow blasting Kirk, Spock, Bones and the rest through a Black Hole to the past? Or is it merely an arc the writing team has had planned since the inception of Star Trek Beyond?I guess it will take a few years to find out all these answers. But,in the meantime, we have a new Trek film coming this week and the idea of two Kirks to salivate over!

Star Trek 4 will be written by newbies  J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay (an uncredited writer on Star Trek Beyond according to IMDB) and produced by Lindsey Weber and J.J. Abrams. No word yet if either Abrams or Justin Lin will return to direct.

Live Long and Prosper!