After the first embarrassing trailer that fans grilled Paramount studios for, it looks like the powers that be have heard the cries and have started to take Star Trek seriously. This new trailer offers a lot to dig into, and appears more somber, serious and character driven. Not something the Beastie Boys would be invited to (love the Beastie Boys, don’t get me wrong). Kirk can like Beastie Boys as a character choice is something I agree with, but Beastie Boys and Star Trek do NOT belong together.
This trailer while clearly more stern is still action packed. Visually, it’s got pop, dazzling action, and something a Trekkie has never seen before – what the Enterprise looks like going at light speed. It's got many of the same shots expanded from the last trailer, but don't let that fool you. This trailer gives us character insights and more of a hint to the film's overall story. The trope of the ship being destroyed looks like it made it past the reshoots, but overall this trailer offers up much more in terms of plot, characters and emotional depth.
Kirk, as it appears to be, is concerned about what kind of legacy he will leave behind. He is not his father, even though he joined Star Fleet to see if he could live up to his father’s name. Bones tells Kirk he’s been living in his father’s shadow long enough, and that it’s time to find out who Jim is. Who will he be? Will he be a great captain or will he be lost in space as a forgotten explorer? That seems to be what this trailer suggests. The most telling line spoken in the trailer says, “It isn’t uncommon, you know, it’s easy to get lost in the vastness of space. There’s only yourself, your ship, your crew.”
This movie is about one thing in particular: survival. Captain Kirk is without his ship, and his crew is scattered. Idris Elba is almost unrecognizable but the film is amping up how evil and aggressive he is. We see new attackers in hi-tech outfits invade the ship after the swarm we’ve seen from the last film tear holes into the Enterprise. Is Idris Elba their leader? Who is alien with martial arts skills (Sofia Boutella) who knows why everyone is here? People are being rounded up, so it could be some kind of labor camp. The latest trailer gives us more sympathy for the crew, but not much in terms of the actual story.
It could be incredibly brief, but the fact that Bones and Spock are arguing about what it means to be human makes me incredibly happy. Their relationship is some of the best moments of old Trek, and to see it come back makes this rabid Trekkie go wild. Heated discussions likely in the midst of battle is overheard between Chris Pine and Idris Elba underscoring humanities strengths and weaknesses. This is the content many will pay to see, and is certainly what I will.
One last note: I am absolutely tired of these movies being stuck in the prequel category. There have been two movies so far, and neither of them have projected these characters forward into actually exploring space instead of just been given a mission to accomplish and a world ending villain to defeat. In this apologetic re-write of a trailer, one can only hope if Star Trek can truly go “beyond” its mistakes and send the franchise gloriously into the great unknown. One can only hope.
