It will come as no surprise that I love the Chris Pine and Chris Hemsworth father-son relationship present in Star Trek, the 2009 reboot film from J.J. Abrams. Hemsworth played George Kirk, father to James T. Kirk (Pine), who dies trying to protect his ship in the movie’s opening scene. Which is, as Star Trek fans know, not the canon from the original series, thus giving us the alternate timeline of the Kelvin universe. We got Hemsworth in that first movie and he’s getting ready to die as his son is being born and they’re talking about what to name the baby and that’s pretty much all we got of George Kirk. In fact, the father-son relationship here is defined by the fact that they didn’t get to have one, which hugely impacted James Kirk’s life.
George Kirk’s legacy lived on as he was much-lauded for his work in Starfleet and Jim had to try and be the same kind of hero his father was. While we didn’t see George Kirk in Star Trek Into Darkness or Star Trek Beyond, there was a brief moment in time when we were going to have a fourth film with both Pine and Hemsworth there, and some kind of time-travel shenanigans would have brought them together. Unfortunately, negotiations for that movie fell apart; all hell broke loose and I thought all my dreams were dead and we’d never see the Kelvin gang again. Luckily, Pine is now coming back and seems incredibly excited to be in the captain’s chair. The question is whether or not Hemsworth will also return to the Trekverse. While he previously stated that his reasoning behind not coming back was “I didn’t feel like we landed on a reason to revisit that yet,” it appears that Hemsworth would now be game—if only head Star Trek movie guy J.J. Abrams would pick up the phone, per Gizmodo.
In a Vanity Fair retrospective on his career, Hemsworth broke down how he joined Star Trek in the first place, saying: “I got called into J.J. Abrams’ office … I knew it was for Star Trek but I didn’t know what character or anything. And it was basically based on an audition I had for the lead role [of James T. Kirk] that Chris Pine had played. I don’t know how they sifted through it and thought, ‘oh he looks a bit similar, let’s get him in.’ So [Abrams] came in and he handed me the script and I just read through the scene, and I did something right.”
And Hemsworth went on to talk about the impact that the 2009 Star Trek film had on his career. Because prior to its release, both Hemsworth and Pine were relative unknowns. But the film put them both in the spotlight and it allowed for Hemsworth to get another shot at auditioning for the role of Thor in the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
“The film came out and then it gave me some momentum,” Hemsworth went on, “And I had auditioned for Thor a few times—didn’t get a call back. Then had another opportunity to have another callback. Star Trek had come out, Kenneth Branagh had seen it. I do think it helped in many, many ways. And I think J.J. Abrams and Kenneth had a conversation.” So we may have George Kirk to thank for the Thor that we know and love today.
But what about the new Star Trek movie?
The burning question is whether Hemsworth would still return, now that he is a huge star and extremely busy. It took so long to get Pine back, it feels like pushing my luck to beg for this—and yet Hemsworth himself seems pretty set on returning if the call came in that they wanted him back as George Kirk.
“There was talk about me doing the film with Chris Pine at one point,” Hemsworth said, recounting the Star Trek 4 that never was. “The script was sort of put together and then it fell apart. If J.J. Abrams called me tomorrow and said ‘Chris Pine and I want to do it,’ I’d probably say ‘Yeah, let’s go for it!’” Well, that certainly sounds promising. J.J., we know you have his number.
What this is telling me is that I need to work on the Star Trek team so I can get the ball rolling and get Hemsworth and Pine back together sooner rather than later. I am happy to help facilitate these phone calls.
(via Gizmodo, image: Paramount Pictures)
Published: Jun 15, 2022 05:52 pm