Quentin Tarantino Almost Made a 'Star Trek' Movie with a 'Pulp Fiction' Vibe

A fourth movie in the rebooted Star Trek franchise will be produced by J. J. Abrams and star Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, according to an announcement this week by Paramount. But Variety remembers how Quentin Tarantino once approached Paramount with his own Star Trek idea with a "Pulp Fiction vibe" in 2017 - and both Paramont and J.J. Abrams loved it.Tarantino ultimately partnered with "The Revenant" screenwriter Mark L. Smith, who was tasked with writing a "Star Trek" film script based on Tarantino's idea while Tarantino was busy finishing post-production and touring the world for "Once Upon a Time in Hollywood." Smith revealed on the "Bulletproof Screenwriting" podcast in April 2021 that J.J. Abrams' production company Bad Robot gave him a call on Tarantino's behalf. "They just called me and said, 'Hey, are you up for it? Do you want to go? Quentin wants to hook up.' And I said, 'Yeah,'" the screenwriter said. "And that was the first day I met Quentin, in the room and he's reading a scene that he wrote and it was this awesome, cool gangster scene, and he's acting it out and back and forth. I told him, I was so mad I didn't record it on my phone. It would be so valuable. It was amazing." Tarantino intended to bring a "Pulp Fiction" vibe to "Star Trek" with an idea that was a largely earthbound story set in a 1930s gangster setting. Tarantino's pitch appeared to take inspiration from "A Piece of the Action," the 17th episode of the second season of "Star Trek: The Original Series." The installment, which aired in 1968, followed the Enterprise crew as they visit a planet with an Earth-like 1920s gangster culture.... According to Smith, Tarantino's "Star Trek" idea was "really wild" and like "its own very cool episode." The plot included "a little time travel stuff going on" and "had a lot of fun" with Chris Pine's Captain Kirk.

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