You probably assume the best Star Trek movies always feature the crew bravely exploring unseen parts of the galaxy. But while that’s technically the franchise’s whole deal, the most financially successful Trek movies prove that sometimes the most compelling approach to a Trek blockbuster is for Starfleet to boldly stay on Earth.
While a mysterious new Trek “Origin Story” movie is in the works at Paramount Pictures, a rumor has emerged that suggests the movie will mostly take place on Earth. You may think that’s a strange move for a franchise about trekking through the stars, but the truth is that Star Trek has often found success by keeping things close to home.
While The Original Series never returned to its contemporary 23rd-century Earth, it did visit past versions of Earth several times, from two dips into the 1960s in “Tomorrow is Yesterday” and “Assignment: Earth” to the famous and much-beloved jaunt to 1930 in “City on the Edge of Forever.” The Next Generation and Deep Space Nine also found success with Earth-based Trek stories, including TNG fan-favorite episodes like “Family” and “Time’s Arrow,” and two of DS9’s best episodes, “Far Beyond the Stars” (set in 1953) and the then-futuristic “Past Tense,” which occurs in a dystopian 2024.
Some of the most popular Trek films also brought various Starfleet crews back down to Earth. Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home takes place completely in and around Earth, while 1996’s First Contact sends Picard and the Enterprise crew back to 21st-century Earth.
Even if this “Origin Story” movie doesn’t take place on Earth, we know that the next major live-action Star Trek series, Starfleet Academy, almost certainly will. As reported by Variety earlier this year, one of the sets for Starfleet Academy is among the biggest ever built for a Trek show, with “a sprawling, two-story structure that will include a mess hall, amphitheater, trees, catwalks, multiple classrooms and a striking view of the Golden Gate Bridge in a single, contiguous space.”
By all accounts, the 32nd-century-based Starfleet Academy will depict Starfleet Academy on Earth, specifically in San Francisco. After announcing Holly Hunter as the lead and Paul Giamatti as the villain, the rest of the younger cast has been revealed at a rapid-fire pace, including Kerrice Brooks, Bella Shepard, George Hawkins, Karim Diané, and Zoë Steiner, all playing cadets.
Presumably, if San Francisco is central to the narrative, these people will all be living on Earth. So on both TV and possibly the big screen, the Star Trek franchise's next frontier is terra firma.
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