Summary
- At a recent fan convention, Star Trek: Discovery series lead, Sonequa Martin-Green, talked about what in the series moved her the most.
- Like Deep Space Nine or Enterprise, Discovery was a series that had to fight for its place in the Star Trek legacy.
- As Discovery prepares for its final season, Martin-Green’s understanding of what Star Trek is all about makes her a perfect choice to lead a future movie.
It was a long road from the cancelation of Star Trek: Enterprise in 2005 to the launch of Star Trek: Discovery in 2017. The universe created by Gene Roddenberry vanished from small screens for 12 years. As the flagship series for Paramount’s streaming network embarks on its final season, Sonequa Martin-Green’s Michael Burnham’s next stop should be a Star Trek movie. Discovery is part of a storied Star Trek tradition, specifically that when it launched, Trekkies and Trekkers were not pleased. Nearly a half-century prior, fans picketed NBC to save Star Trek, then tried to have The Animated Series canceled, because they didn’t want a cartoon.
In fairness to fans, Discovery was even more of a departure from the “franchise formula” than Deep Space Nine was when it launched 30 years ago. However, primarily through the character of Michael Burnham, the Star Trek ideal became something achievable rather than something characters were born with. She wasn’t the first Starfleet hero to make mistakes, but hers came with costs no others had to pay. The first season shaped her character, and when the show jumped to the 32nd Century, Burnham and the crew of the USS Discovery were the Starfleet ideal, personified. Season 5 was not intended to be the final outing, which means there is storytelling room for Michael Burnham and the Discovery crew to get their own movie, on streaming or in theaters.
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After a long hiatus, Star Trek: Discovery will return in early 2024, and Sonequa Martin-Green and showrunner Michelle Paradise were at Brazil’s CCXP to promote the show. Martin-Green did a panel with Collider’s Maggie Lovitt, in which she reflected on the series, the character and carrying on the legacy of Star Trek: TOS‘s Nichelle Nichols. From her inspiring performance to her activism after the series, Martin-Green understands that the responsibilities of being a Star Trek captain don’t vanish when the lights go dark, and the set is torn down.
More rarely it seems, her time on Star Trek has made Martin-Green more of a fan of the universe and its ethos. As Martin-Green said:
“[O]ne of the things that touched me, was this sacrificial lifestyle, and living a life of true honor. …[B]eing in a position where, no matter what happens at any moment of any day you’re down to die for anyone, whether you know them or not, whether they’re in front of you or not. …[The Discovery crew] sacrificed everything for a future they couldn’t see, and so I really broke that down toward the end of the series and just allowed that to change me.”
Those who bailed out before Discovery’s Season 1 twist may believe it’s the “dark” Star Trek, but that’s not entirely true. They do face emotionally heavy threats, sometimes with great cost, but the notion of sacrificing themselves to save lives runs throughout the series. Critics love to mention that Michael Burnham helped start the Federation-Klingon War, which was inevitable both narratively and because of canon. Yet, they never seem to remember that she not only ended it, she helped Starfleet get its soul back.
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Star Trek: Discovery made history for being the first series to cast a Black woman in the lead role. Yet, it was different from other iterations in a more fundamental way. Discovery was the first Star Trek show where the captain wasn’t the lead. Nichols’ role was historic because it was the first time in her career she wasn’t playing “a Black role.” She wanted to leave after the first season, and no less than Martin Luther King, Jr. convinced her to stay. Michael Burnham is the evolution of that casting, because she becomes captain, and she’s not perfect, like Uhura.
Of course, Michael Burnham shares some DNA with none other than James T. Kirk, too. She disobeyed orders more than once, making the kind of command decisions Kirk had to make in order to “turn death into a fighting chance to live.” What drove Michael Burnham, from the pilot onward, was the desire to save people’s lives. Unlike Kirk and his commendation for cheating the Kobayashi Maru test, Burnham didn’t get to break the rules and keep her rank. But she was never motivated by ambition, only the needs of the many.
While characters like Uhura and Kirk are people fans look up to, Michael Burnham is more relatable. Fans got to see Uhura come into her own in the Star Trek films and Kirk reflect on life after the five-year mission. Michael Burnham also deserves that stage of her Starfleet career. A woman out of time yet right where she’s supposed to be, a feature film featuring the Discovery crew shouldn’t take 10 years to materialize. During the panel, it was revealed there were extra scenes shot to wrap up the series. While it will surely be satisfying, it won’t be the characters’ ending.
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As Disney discovered with Elemental, yesterday’s box office “flop” is tomorrow’s streaming “hit.” Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania failed to turn a profit at the box office, but it’s still the 10th highest-grossing movie of 2023. The budget is the problem, and if Star Trek can do anything, it’s stretch a budget. The Season 3 finale episodes of Star Trek: Picard played in select theaters before their debut on Paramount+, and they looked amazing on screen by all accounts. Instead of a multi-hundred-million-dollar movie, Paramount could make Star Trek movies for a fraction of the cost.
If the rumors were true, a Discovery episode in 2017 cost about $8.5 million on the high end. Even if Paramount doubled that budget for what’s essentially two episodes, that’s still a $34 million science-fiction movie. Barring Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the other five Star Trek movies were a success because they brought a TV approach to their production and storytelling. Discovery directors, along with Picard and Strange New Worlds, are already making cinematic, feature-worthy episodes each week anyway.
Setting aside the story left to tell for Michael Burnham and her Starfleet pals, it’s a win-win for Paramount. Fans of Discovery will show up for the film, probably more than once. Similarly, casual fans interested in a “new” Star Trek might also discover the characters that way. Whether it was a limited or full release, a Star Trek: Discovery movie would just draw more people to Paramount+ and the series. Everyone loves a big Mission: Impossible movie, but Paramount can never go wrong betting on Star Trek.
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When Paramount rebooted Gene Roddenberry’s universe in 2009’s Star Trek, the goal was to turn it into Star Wars. Specifically, they wanted a space franchise with movies every three years that make hundreds of millions of dollars. This was a losing game according to one of the film’s stars. “[Star Trek movies] make maybe $500 million at the most, and to make one now, on the scale they’ve set themselves, is $200 million. You have to make three times that to make a profit,” Simon Pegg said in 2020.
From the Burn to the Dark Matter Anomaly, Discovery has tackled larger galactic threats than any of the movies before or since. Yet, the magic of the series — like with Star Trek: The Original Series — is the characters and their relationships. A straightforward, science fiction adventure is all this cast and crew would need to deliver a film that wouldn’t face such steep financial benchmarks. Star Trek movies always need a TV series as a lead-in, yet they also have to serve as an introduction to new audiences. The crew of the USS Discovery could tell that kind of story.
Sonequa Martin-Green had an unenviable task when she was cast as Michael Burnham. She had to anchor a new series with a character tied to Star Trek‘s most beloved figure. She also had to make a lot of mistakes on her journey to the captain’s chair. The success of Discovery over five seasons is due, in part, to her ability to do that in a way that felt like Star Trek to skeptical fans. Discovery also welcomed new fans, which is what needs to happen if Star Trek wants another 60 years of cultural relevance. With the end of the series, Michael Burnham and the USS Discovery crew can deliver.
Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 debuts on Paramount+ in April 2024.
Star Trek: Discovery
Ten years before Kirk, Spock, and the Enterprise, the USS Discovery discovers new worlds and lifeforms as one Starfleet officer learns to understand all things alien.
- Release Date
- September 24, 2017
- Cast
- Sonequa Martin-Green , Doug Jones , Anthony Rapp , Emily Coutts , Mary Wiseman , Oyin Oladejo
- Main Genre
- Sci-Fi
- Genres
- Sci-Fi , Action , Adventure , Drama
- Rating
- TV-14
- Seasons
- 5
