Makeup Artist James MacKinnon Discusses STAR TREK 4 Shutdown

James MacKinnon al fresco and in his STAR TREK: PICARD Borg makeup. Images: Paramount / IMATS/Makeup Artist Magazine / James MacKinnon/CBS AllAccess via Stan Winston School of Character Arts.

NOVEMBER 3, 2023 - TrekMovie’s excellent podcast “All Access” recently had a chance to speak to Emmy-winning makeup designer James MacKinnon about his work on the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard. During the chat, MacKinnon changed the subject a little to talk about Star Trek 4 back in 2022.

MacKinnon is a makeup artist who clinched an Emmy Award and served as the head of the makeup department for Star Trek: Discovery, Star Trek: Short Treks, and Star Trek: Picard. In his earlier career, MacKinnon specialized in prosthetic makeup and special effects makeup, contributing to projects like Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (initially uncredited, marking his early foray into the industry), Star Trek: First Contact, and the video game Star Trek: Starfleet Academy (where he received proper credit) under the guidance of his mentor, Michael Westmore. He also worked as a special effects makeup artist on Star Trek (2009), albeit without formal credit.

MacKinnon and his colleague Glenn Hetrick, who both led the makeup department for "Discovery" and "Short Treks," were mentored by Michael Westmore.

MacKinnon earned an Emmy Award nomination in 1997 for his contributions to the Deep Space Nine episode "Apocalypse Rising," shared with the rest of the DS9 makeup team. He continued to receive nominations in 2018 and 2019 for Discovery, ultimately winning in the latter year. In 2020, MacKinnon clinched his second Emmy Award for his work on the inaugural season of Star Trek: Picard.

In addition to his behind-the-scenes work, MacKinnon made cameo appearances in a single episode of Discovery and two episodes of Picard.

Whilst speaking to the guys and girls over at TrekMovie, MacKinnon revealed he is still hopeful of working on some new Star Trek, but on the big screen, revealing he was all ready to work on Star Trek 4:

Maybe the Star Trek feature with Chris Pine comes back in the mix, if they can get that thing written… I was hired for one week, and then I was fired, because that shut down. But maybe that happens again. Well, we’ll see. I don’t know… We were getting ready to start prepping that movie, Star Trek 4.

He confirmed he was hired to work on the most recent Kelvin universe Star Trek which was to be a feature film with Matt Shakman as director, working under producer J.J. Abrams. He explained what happened:

We were supposed to shoot in the middle of [2022] and it was supposed to come out the following year [2023], but I think a script rewrite went in a different direction.

Matt Shakman has dropped out due to scheduling issues amid his jump to Fantastic Four for Marvel. I think we all agree with James MacKinnon when he says he would love to work on the Star Trek movie before retiring:

I think that movie [Star Trek 4] would be the only thing. I don’t know what else I could do. I’m retiring in seven years anyway so I’m going to give my knowledge to these young kids, which is what Mike Westmore did to me when I first started with him back in the day. So it’s my turn to give back and teach the young kids what I can’t take with me and let them ride the wave. When I was younger those were the artists who I wanted to be and now these young kids want to be me. I guess, if that makes sense? Yeah, you can’t take it with you.

Read the full article on ‘Picard’ Makeup Designer Reveals ‘Star Trek 4’ Pre-Production Shut Down In 2022 Over Script Issues and keep an eye on the podcast being released.