With a fourth Star Trek movie on the way, what will happen to Anton Yelchin’s Pavel Chekov? JJ Abrams recently addressed the status of the character, the Toronto Sun reports.
In June, Yelchin died in a freak car accident at the age of 27. He played the USS Enterprise navigator in 2009’s Star Trek, Star Trek Into Darkness, and the upcoming Star Trek Beyond.
When asked if Chekov will be recast for upcoming Star Trek movies, Abrams said absolutely not:
I would say there’s no replacing him. There’s no recasting. I can’t possibly imagine that, and I think Anton deserves better.”
He added that he doesn’t know yet if the character will be killed off or not:
I have thought about it, we’re working on it, and it’s too early to talk about it.”
Star Trek Beyond hits theaters this Friday, July 22nd.
What do you think? Are you a fan of JJ Abrams’ Star Trek movies? How do you think they should handle the Chekov character?
They should do what they did with Wesley’s character, send him to school/re-training or a sabbatical. Since in the world of Star Trek, Chekov didn’t die during his reign on the Enterprise.
It’s an alternate timeline. Nothing from the prime timeline is binding. See also: Vulcan, Kirk’s Dad, Pike’s fate, Khan, etc.
It seems that an off-camera transfer to the Reliant would be a nice way to do it, one that has precedent, and presumably will end better than it did for the Reliant in Wrath of Khan.