Writers Patrick McKay and J.D. Payne shared their could-have-been Star Trek 4 story that featured Chris Hemsworth’s return as George Kirk. The story told about an interesting way Hemsworth’s Kirk could have worked with Chris Pine’s James T. Kirk. Their enthusiasm still shows despite that the concept did not come true.
In their interview with Esquire which featured mainly their work on Lord of the Rings: Rings of Power, they shared the abandoned Star Trek 4 script. Their idea to somehow bring George Kirk back into the story and get to see his son captured much interest. Now, after everything that has happened, the idea remains a ‘what if’ concept. An episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation called Relics inspired the writers of a way to bring George Kirk back.
In their story, they toyed with the idea of what if Gerge Kirk tried to beam himself to his wife’s shuttle where James had just been born. Payne explains:
What if right before the Kelvin impacted with that huge mining ship, George Kirk had tried to beam himself over to his wife’s shuttle where his son, Jim Kirk, had just been born? And what if the ship hadn’t completely exploded—what if it left some space junk?
Dropped Star Trek Plot With Chris Hemsworth As George Kirk
Image: Netflix
The concept plays with the possibility that Captain G. Kirk could have teleported halfway but not get fully “sent”. In Payne’s description:
Think about when you send a text message and you’ve typed it out, but you haven’t quite hit send. On the other side, they see those three little dots that someone has typed. It’s like the transporter had absorbed his pattern up into the pattern buffer, but hadn’t spit him out on the other side. It was actually a saved copy of him that was in the computer.
McKay continued the story’s premise explaining how Captain J. Kirk would happen to release George from the device. The crew would happen to beam him out and he would not be aware of all of the time that has passed. His description:
…the adventure is that Chris Pine and the crew of the Enterprise have to seek out the wreckage of the ship that his father died on because of a mystery and a new villain. In the ship, they stumble across his father’s pattern. They beam him out and he has no idea that no time has passed at all, and that he’s looking at his son. Then the adventure goes from there.
Dropped Star Trek Plot With Chris Hemsworth As George Kirk
Image: Paramount
How they go about showing George get to transport himself at the precise moment in the first movie will be up to the imagination now. Given the fantastical way Star Trek has boldly gone where no man has gone before, the concept is right up its alley. Besides, they have accomplished this idea in the series as mentioned in the interview. It would have been a nod to the episode as well aside from opening so many possibilities.
Can you imagine this encounter? The writers described it as the Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade in space.
