Around 2017, Quentin Tarantino pitched an idea to J. J. Abrams, floating the idea of directing his own Star Trek movie. Reportedly, Tarantino’s film would have been set on a gangster planet, not unlike the one seen in The Original Series episode “A Piece of the Action,” and likely would have not used the Kelvin crew.

In 2019, Legion and Fargo creator Noah Hawley began working on a Star Trek movie. Initially, Hawley planned to direct the two Kirks movie with Hemsworth and Pine, but he soon moved onto an original idea. This later film would have featured a new cast and crew, dealing with an outbreak of an alien disease.

Since then, both Tarantino and Hawley have moved on, the former to his tenth and (reportedly) final movie The Film Critic and the latter to an Alien tv series for Hulu.

For Quinto, the continued delays in production have given him a healthy perspective on the whole process. “I don’t know if and when it will happen,” he declared. “And if coalesces again and we come back and we’re able to do it, wonderful. If not, we had a great run.”

Even if we never see a fourth movie, we know that somewhere, Kirk and crew have gone back out there again, continuing to boldly go where no one in the Kelvin Universe has gone before.