The Star Trek universe is a big place, filled with ideas for books, video games, and movies. The big-screen portion of the franchise has been going on, with some hiccups, since the very first Star Trek movie was released in 1970. Another full-length feature is in the works for 2023, courtesy of J.J. Abrams, that's set in the Kelvin Universe timeline.
There's no point in trying to guess what the next Star Trek movie is going to be about since the plot of each modern film is generally the same. There;s a good guy gone bad, a MacGuffin, and a whole lot of solar flares. However, if the writers wanted to return to a more traditional form of writing that was more like the older movies that had storylines and plots, maybe they would look something like these.
7 The Gamesters Of Triskelion
It's hard to ignore that the most popular Star Trek movie in history lifted its story from a dropped thread in an old ToS episode, "Space Seed." If it worked for Wrath of Khan, why not have a look at the original series and see what other stories were left unfinished?
A popular episode that's become iconic in the minds of Star Trek fans, even those that aren't familiar with the franchise will recognize some of the current memes as scenes from "The Gamesters of Triskelion." Kirk and his shipmates freed a whole planet of slaves and left them to their own devices, but they had a bright future. A movie could return to Triskelion and see what developments took place.
6 A Space Station
It never bodes well if the Enterprise has to blow up at some point in the story, especially in the first act, but what if the writers ignore that completely and put Star Trek on a space station instead? The last Kelvin timeline movie did something like this before falling back on the same tired formula, so why couldn't the whole movie take place on one?
If this sounds like Deep Space Nine, that's part of the point. This was an innovative, \more reality-based series that still had some of that old optimism, but also took the trials and dangers of living and working in space seriously. Since TNG has been done so often, maybe it's time to move on to another series if the showrunners need ideas.
5 Anything With Benjamin Sisko
Speaking of Deep Space Nine, there were so many great characters on the show, and several of them could be candidates for a movie that focuses on a single character. Benjamin Sisko was one of the most complex characters on television at one point, never mind one of the most compelling people anywhere in the Star Trek franchise.
Sisko was the major player in some big events in the Star Trek timeline and was the focus of some of the best stories in the series. "Emissay," the pilot episode that introduces the character in relation to The Next Generation universe, is a fan and critic favorite. Even a reprisal of one of those episodes instead of a totally fresh script would probably work.
4 The Fate of Kes
Voyager was a series with a more narrow focus than other Star Trek shows. The characters were more focused on getting home, and surviving while they did so, than exploring new life and new civilizations. There were still a few storylines worth considering, and one could follow the fate of Kes.
Kes was a character that began to develop strange, powerful, and eventually terrifying psychic powers. Eventually, she morphed into a being of pure light and left the ship, and although she returned in a later episode, it was a confusing and unsatisfying conclusion. A movie that detailed what really happened would give viewers a more satisfying conclusion to her story.
3 The Organians
Speaking of mysterious psychic abilities and all-powerful beings, maybe a Star Trek movie could return to Organia, a planet that appeared once in a classic episode called "Errand of Mercy." These clever aliens even had Spock fooled, and their intervention in what was about to become an intergalactic war is one of the most important events in the galaxy's history.
The Organians were in disguise for most of the episode, revealing themselves only in a plot twist at the end. Viewers learned a bit about them, but there's still a lot that a creative scriptwriter could use for a whole new story for a full-length movie.
2 The Rise Of Christopher Pike
Captain Pike used to be an obscure but of trivia, but in contemporary Trek lore he's become a familiar character. Not only was he featured in Star Trek (2009), but he's also in two recently released TV series, Discovery and Strange New Worlds.
Most viewers are familiar with his status as the Captain of the Enterprise in the pre-Kirk days and his role in the original pilot episode, "The Cage," which aired in 1965. Prior to this history, however, there's not much known about Pike, and he was already an experienced Captain by then. He went to the Academy with Kirk's father, according to a tidbit of information from the Kelvin universe timeline, which could be an interesting place to start.
1 The Life And Times Of Geordi La Forge
Few people know that Geordi La Forge was connected to several different Star Trek shows and appeared in the movies. He's one of the few that has interacted with almost every other famous character, even Scotti, for those that remember the TNG episode, "Relics."
A movie focused on the early career of La Forge when he worked on the USS Hood with Riker, or his later years in a command position, could easily fill a movie. La Forge was always a popular character that resonated with fans, and plenty of them would be interested in watching a movie about his adventures.