Out on the press tour for his latest film Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, Quentin Tarantino has been fielding a number of questions about his next movie, which – if the filmmaker is to be believed – could be his tenth and final outing as a director.
One project Tarantino has on his slate is his R-rated Star Trek movie, and during an interview with Deadline, the director has spoken about his plans for the classic sci-fi franchise, and how he’d be looking put stamp his signature style on the potential film.
“I just don’t think it’s that big of a deal but if I’m going to do it, then I’m going to do it my way. If you’ve seen my nine movies, you kind of know my way is an R-rated way and a way that is without certain restrictions. So that goes part and parcel. I think it would be more controversial if I said I’m going to do a PG movie and it’s going to fit exactly in the universe. It’s not me. What the fuckk am I doing? I mean I didn’t even do that when I did that CSI episode. As long as Paramount likes the idea and the script they almost got nothing to lose right now when it comes to Star Trek. Deadpool showed that you can rethink these things, do them in a different way. So really, even before JJ Abrams knew what the idea was, his feeling was, if it wants to be an R rating, fine. If it wants to be The Wild Bunch in space, fine.
“I get annoyed at Simon Pegg. He doesn’t know anything about what’s going on and he keeps making all these comments as if he knows about stuff. One of the comments he said, he’s like ‘Well, look, it’s not going to be Pulp Fiction in space.’ Yes, it is! [laughs hard]. If I do it, that’s exactly what it’ll be. It’ll be Pulp Fiction in space! That Pulp Fiction-y aspect, when I read the script, I felt, I have never read a science fiction movie that has this shit in it, ever. There’s no science fiction movie that has this in it. And they said, I know, that’s why we want to make it. It’s, at the very least, unique in that regard… There is a gangster element to what we’re doing with the Star Trek thing that works out pretty good.”
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Meanwhile, in a separate interview with Cinema Blend, Tarantino admitted that – should he decide to direct – Star Trek could offer a “loophole” to his ten-film plan, although he believes that if he does it, he should commit to it fully as his final feature.
“I guess I do have a loophole, [if] the idea was to throw a loophole into it. Which would be [to go], ‘Uhhh, I guess Star Trek doesn’t count. I can do Star Trek … but naturally I would end on an original.’ But the idea of doing 10 isn’t to come up with a loophole. I actually think, if I was going to do Star Trek, I should commit to it. It’s my last movie. There should be nothing left handed about it. I don’t know if I’m going to do that, but that might happen.
There also is another thought process going on where it’s like, yes, [my last movie] could be original. On the other hand, maybe that could show a different career I could’ve had. Whereas maybe [Once Upon a Time in Hollywood] is my last original – I’m not saying this is the case – but maybe this is my last original, and Star Trek or any other thing, a book or something like this, is the career I could have had if I wasn’t just writing everything all the time. Writing always originals. Maybe I could have had a different career if I looked for other people’s scripts, or if I wanted to find a book to be inspired by, and do an adaptation of. That would’ve been a different career. And maybe that could be fun to explore on the 10th [movie]. I don’t know. I mean, I’m making all this up as I go along, but those are two different ways I could look at it.”
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Are you interested in Tarantino’s Star Trek project, and would you be satisfied if he decided to bring the curtain down on his directing career with it, rather than an original film? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below or tweet us @FlickeringMyth…
Originally published July 19, 2019. Updated July 20, 2019.
