Here’s the first trailer for Star Trek Beyond, the third film in the rebooted Star Trek universe. JJ Abrams director of the last two instalments has departed to make some…personal films but remains on board as producer. Stepping up to the plate is Justin Lin, director of the best of the Fast & Furious films (and Tokyo Drift) with a script primarily written by Doug Jung and Simon Pegg.
It would be fair to say that this film has had a somewhat rocky trip to the big screen with the departure of Abrams and then proposed writer/director Roberto Orci after the studio disagreed over the direction of the script he wrote with John D. Payne and Patrick McKay. It was reported that execs ordered a page one rewrite of the script with the new scribes given just six months to come up with something before production began as the film was locked into a release date to celebrate Star Trek’s 50th anniversary.
This teaser doesn’t really do much to allude to Trek’s past and instead feels like a big space adventure more perhaps even invoking Guardians of the Galaxy. The use of Sabotage is of course canonical as one of Kirk’s favourite songs in this timeline, having played it when he stole his stepfather’s antique car when he was just a sprog.
Is that actually the Enterprise being destroyed? It sure appears that way, especially with the crew getting into escape pods and assembling on what seems like an unfriendly planet. Seems like that five year mission didn’t really last five years this time around.
It’s exciting to see the new team attempt something new, and we’ve not seen a film that’s solely based on an away mission since Insurrection and this appears to be a little more action-packed. Many are saying that it doesn’t feel like Star Trek but this is just one trailer designed to appeal to the broadest and dumbest possible audience, more will be revealed in coming weeks. Although arguably the decision to put Star Trek in tiny letters and not really show much of outer space could support that assumption.
Remarkably, information is pretty thin on the ground regarding this production with only a couple of guest cast members known with Idris Elba and Sofia Boutella both playing aliens in heavy make up. Kirk has a new haircut though and everyone has some lovely uniform variations…so that’s nice.
Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho and Anton Yelchin all reprise their roles as the crew of the Enterprise with Alice Eve apparently having been dropped off on a planet somewhere.
Star Trek Beyond arrives in theatres on 22 July 2016
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