Star Trek Just Delivered the R-Rated Movie Quentin Tarantino Never Got to Make

For years, it has been reported that Quentin Tarantino has expressed interest in making a Star Trek movie, and now, the franchise has just dropped a story that feels like it was designed to get the filmmaker's attention, with the release of Star Trek: Red Shirts #1, the debut of a new series from IDW Publishing.

Star Trek: Red Shirts #1, written by Christopher Cantwell, with art by Megan Levens, kicks off with some Tarantino-esque violence, before sending its all-Red Shirt team on a dangerous away mission few, if any, should be expected to survive.

"Attrition will continue," one character states in the issue, after the team suffers its first losses, suggesting a bloodbath in the making.

"Red Shirts" Is The Star Trek Equivalent Of A Tarantino Film, Promising Bloodshed, Bleak Humor, And More

Star Trek: Red Shirts #1, Written By Christopher Cantwell; Art By Megan Levens; Available Now From IDW Publishing

Red Shirts #1 opens with a rookie Red Shirt being mauled by a Mugato, immediately setting a precedent for gore that readers expect the series to uphold moving forward. Surprisingly, the rookie, Ensign Miller, is one of the "lucky" few who survive such a botched away mission, though he's left with gnarly scars to prove it.

Later in the issue, two freshly-introduced characters are seemingly summarily dispatched at the very start of their mission, in familiar Red Shirt fashion. This moment, in particular, has a strong Tarantino vibe, as it comes across in a darkly comedic way. The surviving members of the away team, after all, are thoroughly unsurprised that "Duntley and Meng are gone."

The mission itself, meanwhile, finds the team being sent down to a remote planet in an attempt to lure out and capture a spy; by the end of the issue, it is clear that Starfleet has gotten these characters in over their heads. In this regard, it also feels like a plot tailor-made for Tarantino as a director.

Fans will have to keep up with Red Shirts moving forward to find out how it follows through on the first issue's exciting set-up, but as far as the premise goes, it is thoroughly in the vein of a Quentin Tarantino story, from its violent content, to its tone.

Tarantino Almost Adapted A Classic "Star Trek" Episode Into A Movie, But "Red Shirts" Would Be Better

The Filmmaker's Proposed "A Piece Of The Action" Never Materialized

Of course, for those who don't know, Quentin Tarantino is a huge Trek fan, so the chance to put his stamp on Red Shirt lore might be enticing enough as it is. Tarantino apparently even produced a script for his Star Trek movie a few years ago, though it would have been radically different from Red Shirts.

Reportedly, the script was an adaptation of Star Trek: The Original Series episode "A Piece of the Action," in which the Enterprise crew encounter aliens who have modeled their civilization after Prohibition-era Chicago, making it a world full of gangsters. Naturally, anyone familiar with Tarantino's creative sensibilities will get why a remake of this story would appeal to him.

Yet it seems as though Paramount, who holds the rights to the Trek franchise, was less keen on a feature-length version of "A Piece of the Action," a story which takes its heroes out of space, away from the final frontier, and instead thrusts them into the center of a period crime drama.

If the studio had its way, it would likely greatly prefer that Tarantino make a Star Trek movie like Red Shirts. A story that could contain all the classic elements associated with Tarantino's ouvre, while still being recognizably Trek. Appropriately, in its debut issue, Red Shirts has already demonstrated Tarantino's influence.

"Red Shirts" Takes Trek's Biggest Trope And Turns It Into Serious Business

The Most Dangerous Gig In Starfleet

Red Shirts, by definition, are throwaway characters. The entire raison d’etre of Red Shirts is to elevate the danger in Trek episodes, without actually endangering the franchise’s main characters. On a narrative level, the deaths of Red Shirts are supposed to raise the stakes of Trek storytelling. Except, of course, over the years, this purpose has morphed into a trope.

So, turning them into the protagonists of a story is a novel idea that the Trek franchise left on the table far too long. It takes the trope and reminds readers that for the Red Shirts themselves, it is a tragedy. It makes every Red Shirt moving forward more of a real character, and in turn makes the Trek galaxy more deeply immersive.

And that, as much as the stylistic and story beats of Red Shirts #1, is what makes the idea of a Tarantino adaptation seem so tantalizing. Red Shirts is finally taking Star Trek up on the darkest implications of a career in Starfleet, and it is already giving Inglourious Basterds vibes, with the parallels to the filmmaker’s style expected to continue.

Though the chances of Tarantino Trek film might seem slim now, the same could have been said before his "A Piece of the Action" pitch and so the possibility shouldn't be entirely ruled out. Especially not when Red Shirts now serves as proof of concept for what the perfect Quentin Tarantino take on Star Trek could look like.