17 Years Later, Star Trek Officially Abandons Its J.J. Abrams Movie Timeline

Oct 15, 2026 - 22:18

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17 Years Later, Star Trek Officially Abandons Its J.J. Abrams Movie Timeline

Published Oct 15, 2026, 12:56 PM EDT

Collier Jennings is an entertainment journalist with extensive experience. Collier, or "CJ" to his friends and family, is a dedicated fan of genre films - particularly science fiction, fantasy, and comic book adaptations, not to mention all forms of animation. This stems from a close bond with his father, who introduced him to these genres via copies of X-Men comics and reruns of the original Ultraman series. With his near-encyclopedic knowledge and bottomless love of genre, he's tackled a wide variety of articles.

To boldly go into a new era

The Star Trek franchise got a much-needed jolt of life in 2009 when J.J. Abrams rebooted it for the silver screen. The "Kelvin-verse," named after a starship that encountered a time-traveling group of Romulans bent on vengeance, was a major success in many ways. It helped lead to the rebirth of Star Trek on TV, thanks to co-writer and producer Alex Kurtzman. It propelled its cast, including Chris Pine and Zoe Saldaña, to superstardom. Now, a decade after Star Trek Beyond hit theaters, the Kelvin-verse is officially coming to an end.

Recently, Jonathan Goldstein and John Francis Daley (Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves) were tapped to develop a new Star Trek movie. Details about that movie were scarce until Goldstein and Daley expanded on their vision for Trek during an interview with Empire. In that interview, they said that the movie would draw inspiration from Crimson Tide and Training Day and that it's telling an entirely new story:

"No legacy characters, nobody that you’ve met before. A different time, not a different timeline per se, but it’s a little further in the future . . . It’s not the J.J. [Abrams] timeline."

The Kelvin-verse helped revitalize Star Trek

Kirk and Spock in the 2009 Star Trek film

While it makes sense for Goldstein and Daley to take their own approach with their Star Trek movie, it still stings that the Kelvin-verse is effectively being put out to pasture. This series of movies reignited interest in Star Trek and sparked a multimedia push that brought the franchise back to life. The biggest push came from IDW Publishing, which launched a series of Star Trek comics that expanded on the Kelvin-verse. Those comics' success led to more Trek comics exploring every corner of the final frontier.

A fourth Kelvin-verse movie was also in the works for years, with one plot even featuring Chris Pine's Kirk reuniting with his late father, George (played by Chris Hemsworth), through the magic of time travel. But it never came to pass, and Paramount tried to launch a new Trek movie, cycling through several directors before landing on Goldstein and Daley. Though the Kelvin-verse may be at an end, its influence lingers in current shows like Star Trek: Discovery and Strange New Worlds, especially as those series' visuals hew fairly close to the sleeker look J.J. Abrams brought to the Enterprise.

A Star Trek comic gave the Kelvin-verse a proper sendoff

While the Kelvin-verse might not get a new movie, it did get a sendoff in IDW's Star Trek series written by Jackson Lanzing and Collin Kelly. Lanzing and Kelly, alongside a talented team of artists, created the ultimate Star Trek book, featuring Star Trek: Deep Space Nine's Ben Sisko and Starfleet's finest as they take the U.S.S. Theseus on a quest to learn who's murdering godlike beings. Their quest eventually leads them to the villainous android Lore, who triggers a device that tears reality apart. As the Theseus races to escape the destruction, it eventually finds itself in the Kelvin-verse.

This was a surprise Trek fans didn't see coming, yet it's a welcome one. From both crews admiring theirships to the Kelvin-verse crew putting their brains together to help the Theseus crew, Lanzing, Kelly, and artist Angel Hernandez deliver a comic that's a reminder of how influential these movies were. Hopefully, Goldstein and Daley can make the same impact with their Trek movie.