Could 'Star Trek' Use Deepfake Technology To Bring Back Older Characters?

STAR TREK: PRODIGY’s “Kobayashi” brought back characters whose performers are deceased. Image: Paramount+.

MAY 29, 2023 - Star Trek could use ‘deepfake’ technology to bring back characters. As the technology has improved, some sci fi properties have embraced using “deepfakes” to bring back characters whose original actors have died, but Star Trek isn’t among them. That could change, however.

In an interview with SFX Magazine, reported by GamesRadar, Star Trek: Strange News Worlds co-creator and showrunner Akiva Goldsman discussed the possibility of using CGI in the same way Star Wars has done.

"I would consider it," Goldsman said, noting that he is not alone in that regard. “My friend Terry Matalas [Star Trek: Picard showrunner] is not alone in feeling frustrated with Kirk’s death in canon. It’s why he put his body at Daystrom Station, right?”

Sharp-eyed fans noticed that Kirk’s remains were among the items being kept by Section 31 at the facility in Picard.

Goldsman said there is an allure to using the technology to make changes to Star Trek canon. 

“There are a few things that I would retcon if I could, and digital performers could help that,” he said. “I think in theory, yes.”

Star Trek has used computer magic to play with characters from the past. In the Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Season 5 episode “Trials and Tribble-ations” members of the DS9 crew stop a time-traveling assassination plot to kill James T. Kirk. Producers used 1990s technology to insert the DS9 cast into footage from the 1960s Star Trek episode “The Trouble with Tribbles.” The episode is frequently listed as among the best of the series.

More recently, the Star Trek: Prodigy episode "Kobayashi” featured Spock, Uhura, Scotty, and Odo, all characters whose actors had died. This wasn’t as difficult a feat to achieve, however, as that series is all animated.

Goldsman did concede that figuring out how to use the technology in Star Trek’s ongoing storyline would be a bit of a challenge, adding that if it were to happen, it likely won’t be any time soon.

“It’s a really hard thing to figure out how to do, but none of me opposes it,” he said. “We just don’t have plans for it.”