They should adapt one of the more tripper stories from the OG series or a have head-fuck nemesis like Q.
Quote: Star Trek Beyond: 10 things we learned from the trailer
Captain Kirk is still a fan of the Beastie Boys, Idris Elba could do with some skin cream and Bones is having a terrible time
The 2009 film was a masterstroke in pleasing old fans and bringing in new ones, but the follow-up, Star Trek Into Darkness, did just the opposite by being a convoluted bore that plundered the sanctity of 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Written by Simon Pegg (whose Scotty is one of the best things about these new films) and new-to-feature films Doug Jung, Star Trek Beyond seems loaded with pep. But is it too much pep? Director Justin Lin, best known for the Fast and Furious series, knows how to shoot propulsive cinema. This first teaser trailer certainly moves. The hope is that all this cutting edge action and slick humor can blend for a whole feature film.
Some thoughts from the trailer:
Captain Kirk: Beastie Boy.
The first thing we hear is Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, the tune that young Kirk was playing when he drove his uncle’s convertible into a quarry in Iowa. (He also had Body Movin’ playing while involved in a Caitian ménage-a-trois in Star Trek Into Darkness.) It’s a nice touch that Kirk’s such a fan of the late 20th century wisenheimer rappers as they do, of course, mention “a pinch on the neck from Mr Spock” in their tune Intergalactic.
The opening of the trailer cuts together what look likes unconnected lines of dialogue that work as a meta-commentary on the song, but when Kirk says “it’s a good choice” all I can see is that shoulder padding that look like gargantuan epaulettes. The Enterprise’s uniforms have made lots of changes over the years, but none quite so Freddie Mercury as those!
The Enterprise in a spot of bother.
The Enterprise has faced down every sort of enemy imaginable, but this shot shows that we’ve got some strange new worlds ahead. This swarm of ramming enemy vessels chase and smash into the hull of Starfleet’s flagship like a murmuration of sentient spaceships. Oh, we’ve seen living ships before (Gomtuu being the obvious example) but nothing like this.
‘I crashed the car, dad.’
This image shows two striking things. A reflection of Chris Pine’s dreamy eyes, and what appears to be a totaled USS Enterprise. William Shatner’s Kirk blew up the Enterprise in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock when the Klingons boarded, and Star Trek Generations showed a saucer-separated Enterprise-D crash beyond repair on to Veridian III. But we’ve never seen a doomed Enterprise from the POV of an escape pod like this. Ever.
Scotty jumping.
Star Trek Beyond’s trailer has more action than most of what you’ll find in a season of the original series. Here’s Scotty waking up from his escape capsule and jumping out just before it topples over a cliff.
Loner: Bones.
It’s hard to paste together what exactly is going on in this story. (The influence of JJ Abrams, still a producer on Star Trek, can be thanked for this no doubt.) But it looks like our gang with “no ship” and “no crew” are on a hostile planet, with more of those weirdo looking small ships coming to get them. When Spock and Bones are cornered, Bones jokes that at least he won’t die alone, before Spock is beamed away to safety. But to where? And by whom?
BMX Bandit Kirk.
Old school Star Trek fans will need a stiff glass of Saurian brandy after seeing this, but I say that BMX Bandit Kirk is in keeping with the character. Why he’s auditioning for the X-Games amid a bunch of ovoid lamps with cables attached to them remains to be seen. But, Kirk is gonna pop wheelies. Deal with it.
Who the heck are these guys?
At center is the character Sofia Boutella plays, whose name is not yet known, but is believed to be an important figure. Boutella is the French-Algerian dancer who sliced people up with her feet in Kingsman: The Secret Service, so you can expect her to do a lot of leaping around here. She resembles the people seen in the first sequence of Star Trek Into Darkness, the pre-warp civilization on Nibiru. Maybe she’s one of them, but that seems unlikely. Perhaps it’s a related species, like the Vulcans and the Romulans. Or it could be that the film-makers already had the makeup from the last one and didn’t want to buy anything new. Also: who the heck are these other guys? At left – is that an Alternate Reality Ferengi? He does have ridges around the ears. At right – is that a Lurian, like Morn? Kinda looks like him, but, I dunno, Morn was kinda mellow. I don’t see anyone like him getting in a brawl like this.
‘I said get me some Aveeno.’
“This is where it begins, Captain. This is where the frontier pushes back!” So speaks a bad guy and, if what we’ve been told is accurate, the bad guy is played by Idris Elba. Is he … this guy? After Eric Bana’s Nero and Benedict Cumberbatch’s John Harriman/Khan, could the villain of Star Trek Beyond really be a latex-head?
A theory: this guy has a slight reptilian look to him, wouldn’t you say? And if his beef is about “the frontier pushing back”, that would mean he is upset about the expansion of the United Federation of Planets. Now, doesn’t that remind you a little bit of the central premise of the original series episode Arena? Could Idris Elba be playing some sort of Gorn?
Zoe Saldana … having a horrible time
Zoe Saldana … having a horrible time.
Zoe Saldana only had one good scene in Star Trek Into Darkness. Here’s hoping she has more in Star Trek Beyond. This image shows her being tormented by a grey alien, quite possibly showing her clips of her probably forever-shelved Nina Simone biopic.
Kirk reaches out his hand to his new (maybe Nibirun?) friend.
Now we know why Kirk was taking that motorbike jump. With the transporter locked on to him he reaches for his new (maybe Nibirun) friend and pulls him into his beam.
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This is something that never quite flies with me, but does have precedent. The Romulan Commander jumps into Spock’s beam at the end of The Enterprise Incident and Gillain Taylor jumps into Kirk’s arms (who wouldn’t?) at the end of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. I take it on faith that a good Transporter Chief like Scotty or O’Brien could make pattern readjustments on the fly.
Looks like the action in Star Trek Beyond also heads back to Starfleet Academy, and if you go through real slow you’ll see other aliens sprinkled throughout. Yes, I miss the placid Star Trek from days of yore. But I can’t deny this Warp Factor Fun version has launched my phasers.
The Beasty Boys Remix of Khan Trailer -
Q -
(This post was last modified: 12-17-2015 05:56 PM by Dope Man.)
