Star Trek reboot, Kelvin timeline, movie series cancelled

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Star Trek reboot, Kelvin timeline, movie series cancelled

10 November 2025

Tatiana Siegel, Brent Lang, and Matt Donnelly, writing for Variety:

The hope is to have a fresh “Star Trek” movie, though the studio has moved on from the idea of bringing back Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and the rest of the ensemble from the J.J. Abrams reboot.

The news probably comes as no surprise to Star Trek fans who were nonetheless hopeful of a fourth film in the Kelvin timeline series, which kicked off with Star Trek in 2009, directed by J.J. Abrams.

There are likely numerous reasons for the apparent cancellation, with poor box office takings for 2016’s Star Trek Beyond, the last film in the series, being among them. The tragic death, also in 2016, of Anton Yelchin, who portrayed Pavel Chekov, a key character, might have been a factor as well.

The decision to not make any more instalments in the Kelvin series is not thought to be the end of the Star Trek stories however, and it is believed producers are considering other film and TV ideas.

Reading the Variety article reminded me the first of the rebootedTrek movies had its world premier at the Sydney Opera House, in 2009. While many of the cast and production crew were present, some sixteen-hundred “tastemakers” were also invited to the screening.

As a moniker for influencers, tastemakers didn’t last long, but many of those present would have been conveying their impressions of the new film through their blogs, and possibly Twitter.

How times change, regardless of which timeline you are on.

The Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival, 3-5 October 2025

20 September 2025

A large blue spacecraft hovers above a futuristic cityscape of Sydney, Australia, with tall buildings and structures. The background features a large, bright yellow sphere, possibly the Moon, with a gradient sky transitioning from orange to red.

Running since 2020 I believe, this year’s Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival is on from Friday 3 October until Sunday 5 October 2025, at Event Cinemas, on George Street, in Sydney’s CBD. Eleven features will be screened, with many having their Australian premieres.

One title, The Eagle Obsession, trailer, a documentary directed by American filmmaker Jeffrey Morris, will have its international premiere at the festival.

Also known as The Eagle has Landed, the film explores travel to the Moon, both actual and imagined. William Shatner is among those appearing in the film, along with Barbara Bain and Nick Tate, who starred in 1970’s sci-fi TV series, Space 1999. Now I get the eagle reference…

The Sydney Science Fiction Film Festival Awards ceremony also takes place on the closing evening.

The spectacular banner for this year’s festival, as seen above, which is a futuristic representation of the skyline of Sydney’s CBD — spot the iconic Westfield Tower towards the left — was created by Australian filmmaker and artist Joshua Reed.

Where no Star Trek syndication royalties have gone: to William Shatner

12 September 2025

William Shatner, the Canadian actor perhaps best known for portraying Captain Kirk, in the original series (TOS) of sci-fi TV series, Star Trek, claims to have not been paid a penny for the shows that screened in syndication. After the show’s original run, between 1966 to 1969, after which the series was cancelled, some TV stations began broadcasting re-runs.

It seems incredible to think that Star Trek might not have become the cultural phenomenon it is today (that is, numerous movies and spin-off shows), if not for those re-runs during the 1970’s, which ignited broader interest in the story.

I imagine none of the other (original) Star Trek cast members received any residual fees either. It seems no one gave any thought, at the time, to the notion of TV shows being re-screened after their original run concluded. Perhaps though cast members received compensation in kind, when negotiating their fees to appear in the later series of movies.

In an interview with Entertainment Tonight, Shatner also said he’d only ever seen a small number of the original TV shows, and none of the spin-offs. Of course the point can be made that there’s no use watching the shows since you were in them, and presumably know what happens.

But the experience of participating in a broadcast production, be it a TV show or a movie, is a world removed from viewing same. This is something Keir Dullea, who portrayed astronaut David Bowman, in 2001: A Space Odyssey, touched on at a special screening of the film, in Sydney, in 2006.

Dullea said all he could see — particularity during the close-up scenes where his character appeared to directly face the audience — were cameras, and production crew and equipment.

As a result, he said he didn’t get a true sense of the story until watching the finished product. This despite being right in the middle of proceeding at times. It can’t have been much different for Shatner. But we’re talking Captain Kirk here, someone whose perspective is a little different…

Mind blown: are these the best science-fiction/fantasy books of the twenty-first century?

25 August 2025

Singapore based Australian blogger, and science-fiction writer Skribe, recently asked his Mastodon followers to name one sci-fi/fantasy novel, written this century, that has blown their minds. From those suggestions, he drew up this list of seven titles:

A Memory Called Empire by Arkady Martine, published in 2020
Anathem by Neal Stephenson, published in 2010
Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, published in 2013
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky, published in 2015
Piranesi by Susanna Clarke, published in 2020
Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir, published in 2021
The Fifth Season by N.K. Jemisin, published in 2015

In a since closed poll asking people to vote for the title they considered the best, I went for Piranesi. Mainly because it was the only novel from the list that I’d read, but also because British author Susanna Clarke’s tome compelled me to write at length about it afterwards.

Long story short, Piranesi is about someone of the same name, who finds themselves mostly alone in a house of epic proportions. It can literally take days to move from one part of the multi-level structure, to another. The house itself is a character in its own right, and as I read through the story, I almost felt as if I was there with Piranesi, so vivid was Clarke’s description of the sprawling abode.

War of the Worlds 2025, with Ice Cube, scores ZERO on Rotten Tomatoes

8 August 2025

Jesse Hassenger, writing for The Guardian:

The real question is how audiences have made it through an unconvincing cheapie like War of the Worlds — a sci-fi epic that seems to take place in real time yet features a vast and coordinated worldwide mobilization of multiple armed forces — without shutting it off in disgust (it boasts a rare 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes).

Check out the trailer. The 2025 adaptation of the H. G. Wells novel — published as a book in 1898 — directed by American filmmaker Rich Lee, had been sitting in the store room since production wrapped five years ago.

War of the Worlds’ zero percent score on review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, is in sharp contrast to the one-hundred percent score achieved by 2022’s The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent. At least for a time.

I only learned a few years ago Wells’ novel has an Australian connection, being written as a protest against the treatment of Indigenous/First Nations people in Tasmania, at the hands of British colonisers. In a bid to sway public opinion, Wells portrayed a terrifying invasion of England by powerful extra-terrestrials, to help people comprehend the atrocities taking place in Australia.

Temporal Boom by J M Voss wins 2024 Aurealis Best Science Fiction novel award

7 May 2025

Melbourne based sci-fi and speculative fiction author J M Voss was named winner of the 2024 Aurealis Best Science Fiction novel award, on Sunday 4 May 2025, with her novel Temporal Boom. The novel’s premise is intriguing to say the least:

Thirty years ago, the world ended. Not everyone, however, got the memo…

The nation formerly known as Australia struggles on, its red lands stalked by eleven beings of strange and anomalous power. Known as the Portents, their very existence defies all science. A trail of brutal and inexplicable deaths follow those who encounter them.

Quinn Kelly got too close to a Portent once and survived, although not unchanged. When Quinn begins to display an affinity for Time, there are many who would stop at nothing to use her for their own ends.

Quinn, however, would much rather use her preternatural powers to start a punk band — and there is no man, woman, nor overzealous cyborg detective on Earth who can stop her…

The Aurealis Awards, which recognise original Australian speculative fiction published in the previous calendar year, is also celebrating the thirtieth anniversary of their founding in 1995. Thirty years, that’s quite an achievement.

Han Solo shoots first: original 1977 Star Wars print to screen in London

17 April 2025

The British Film Institute (BFI) has kept a copy of the 1977 print of Star Wars in their archive, which will screen as part of Film on Film festival, in the British capital, taking place from Thursday 12 June until Sunday 15 June 2025. I have the feeling tickets will sell quickly.

After making changes to the original edition, Star Wars creator George Lucas dismissed the concerns of fans in 2004, berating them for liking “half a completed film”.

Numerous alterations were made to A New Hope, and the other two titles in the original trilogy series, but the most contentious saw Greedo, a bounty hunter, firing his weapon first at Han Solo during their confrontation at the Mos Eisley Cantina. Viewers of the 1977 print will recall it was Solo who shot first. The edit went on to spawn the Alderaan shot first meme.

Unification, a short Star Trek film, in memory of Leonard Nimoy

20 November 2024

To mark the thirtieth anniversary of the 1994 release of Star Trek Generations, comes Unification, which kind of picks ups after the conclusion of Generations.

But it’s also a whirlwind jaunt through The Original Series (TOS) universe. There’s a cameo by Gary Lockwood, of 2001: A Space Odyssey, who featured in Where No Man Has Gone Before, the third episode of the first TV series of Star Trek, made in 1966. Robin Curtis, who portrayed Saavik in 1984’s The Search for Spock, also appears.

If, like me, you were wondering how it all came together, Trekmovie has a great explainer about Unification’s production:

The characters from Star Trek history were brought to life through live-action performances, including Sam Witwer as young James T. Kirk and Lawrence Selleck as Spock. According to OTOY, they were filmed in costume, performing as Kirk and Spock on set, aided by “both physical and digital prosthetics resulting in period-accurate portrayals matching the appearance of the characters as they originally appeared in TV and film at the time.” William Shatner and Susan Bay Nimoy, widow of the late Leonard Nimoy, served as executive producers on the production.

Might this be Star Trek Seven, in TOS universe?

Star Bores: A Few Cope, as fourth Star Wars trilogy announced

11 November 2024

For years I was excited by the prospect of a Star Wars sequel trilogy. This, long before what became episodes seven through nine, were even announced. I used to burn the midnight oil reading fan-written Star Wars EU plots and stories, that were published on various Star Wars forums and wikis.

But all three films, when they were eventually released, were underwhelming. The Last Jedi, the only one I remotely liked, seemed to be hated by just about everyone else. But I think the Disney produced sequel trilogy, made after series creator George Lucas had sold Disney the franchise, was hamstrung by the expectations of EU storylines, some of which were decades old by that stage.

Of course, the EU stories were not canon, or official, and differed considerably — to say the least — from Lucas’ vision of a third trilogy. Nonetheless, they prominently featured many of the Star Wars characters we knew and loved, as they struggled to build the New Republic. When the first sequel trilogy film, The Force Awakens (the very title was a portent of things to come…) arrived, we all expected to see the old gang back together again. Luke, Leia, Han Solo, Chewbecca, R2D2, C3PO, plus other hangers-on, who’d joined in as the original trilogy progressed.

Instead we had a confusing array of new characters, Han Solo wearing the same bloody clothes from twenty-years earlier, and director J.J. Abrams, borrowing heavily from Episode Four, A New Hope. I thought to myself: I have a bad feeling about this. Abrams that is, having seen him in action in the re-booted Star Trek films. I knew it was over there the moment Star Trek villain Khan (re)entered the frame in Star Trek into Darkness.

Now a fourth trilogy is apparently in the works. Where this story goes, or who exactly is involved, remains to be seen at this stage. Naturally the Star Wars name will get people along to the cinema to see whatever eventuates, but I wonder what interest this new trilogy will have to early Star Wars fans.

Despite the cameo appearances by the likes of Luke, Leia, Han Solo, et el, episodes seven to nine, did not feel like Star Wars stories. They were a galaxy removed from the earlier instalments, and the magic of the Lucas made films, present even in the prequel trilogy, was nowhere to be found.

But we can live in hope. Dare I say: new hope. After all, Disney has access to some great writing talent, perhaps something amazing is on the way. Until then, may the fourth trilogy be with you…

Gravitational waves may reveal presence of warp drive starships

13 September 2024

Gravitational waves have been helping scientists and astronomers answer some of the big questions of the universe. But gravitational waves may be able to do something else: detect the presence of vessels with Star Trek like warp drive engines, as they move through the cosmos.

One problem with the warp drive space-time is that it doesn’t naturally give gravitational waves unless it starts or stops. Our idea was to study what would happen when a warp drive stopped, particularly in the case of something going wrong. Suppose the warp drive containment field collapsed (a staple storyline in sci-fi); presumably there would be an explosive release of both the exotic matter and gravitational waves. This is something we can, and did, simulate using numerical relativity.

I imagine a cloaking device wouldn’t be much help, if a vessel was trying to move about unnoticed. The gravitational waves generated by the ship’s warp drive would pretty much render it visible.

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