Star Trek Beyond Trailer

In case my various previous articles weren’t enough of an indicator I am a massive and unapologetic Star Trek fan.  I was first introduced to the franchise through the serviceable if not terribly great 2009 reboot movie but since then I’ve made my way through all the films, nearly all the shows (still not done with Enterprise,) Star Trek: Online, and several interesting EU novels.  However, being a fan is a double edged sword because it means I’ve developed a sense of what I want Star Trek to be, a definition informed more by my own personal likes and ideas about the various series rather than strict adherence to canon.  For instance, I think Star Trek should be driven by character drama and emotion above all else but that doesn’t change the fact the original series was predominately informed by setting up occasions for flights of insanity, wrestling, sword fights, and laser battles. 

So going into the trailer for Star Trek Beyond I’m more than a little hesitant to jump on the proclamations of whether this IS or ISN’T Star Trek.  After all, my own definitions of what Star Trek IS have changed significantly over my time as a fan so it’s not like there’s a hard and firm definition and at the same time the question of definition is ultimately secondary to the question of quality.  So, while I will talk about the Trekkiness of this trailer eventually for now my question is; is it any good, to which the answer is a resounding “not really.”

I’m actually a little perplexed as to why this trailer is as unappealing as it is but I think the central reason is that it feels a lot like I’ve been handed a warmed up plate of 2014’s leftovers and expected to be wowed by it because it was different from 2013’s leftovers.  Seriously, this movie seems to have exactly two major points it wants to make, firstly that “this is not Into Darkness,” which I admit is a plus given that Into Darkness was a dour confused mess of a film with a real dearth of creativity of ambition.  The second big point is “this is Guardians of the Galaxy,” which I think is where the trailer is losing me because as much as I like Guardians of the Galaxy I didn’t really want any more of it. 

To be clear I’m not saying I didn’t want a sequel because I’m looking forward to seeing what obscure Marvel Arcana Starlord and friends bumble into when 2017 rolls around but that’s because I’m psyched to see those same characters interact with something new.  In the case of Star Trek Beyond it feels a lot like the very paper thin characters that have been established for the 2009 Star Trek crew are being twisted and reshaped to fit into the mold of retreading the superficial elements of Guardians of the Galaxy without the emphasis on eclectic sense of humor and mostly unrestrained creativity.  That’s why this trailer is so keen to make its showy, anachronistic needle drop in the opening and quickly ditch the Enterprise and slot the crew into monochromatic leather jumpsuits. 

Now that approach has always felt decidedly cheap and small and more in line with a sci-fi TV show than a movie, even for Guardians given that a lot of their roughneck aesthetics felt more culled from Firefly and Farscape than Star Wars or Fifth Element.  However, where Guardians buoyed its production value, scope, and imagination with an emphasis on big, crazy, showy concepts like quasi-mystic cosmic rocks that can destroy planets and a talking raccoon and his ent friend, Star Trek Beyond looks to be going in the opposite direction; smaller, cheaper, slicker and less ambitious.

I’m not sure if the more stripped down visual aesthetic of both the costume and set design is meant as a deliberate homage to the original series, as the basic plot of “ship inoperable so let’s screw around on the planet till the 40 minute mark” is very much an original series mark but it’s really not working for me.  Like with the other stuff this goes back to imagination, scope, and what’s driving the plot more than anything else.  TOS had “trapped on planet” episodes all the time but the planets were populated by giant lizard men, Mugatos, unkillable cowboy sheriffs, or historical figures summoned to fight by rock babies. 

This trailer doesn’t have anything even 1/10^th as imaginative, just a very lame looking repackaging of the Jem’hadar.  Conversely, Next Generation and Voyager had their fair share of slow burn, small scope planet stories but they were informed entirely by character identity and emotion like in Generations.  What we’ve got here is something with the stripped down scale of TNG “let’s discuss ethical views on this planet” story mixed with the pacing and inflated sense of importance of a TOS “let’s fight ancient Greek Gods in space” story.  The last time Star Trek tried this it gave us Insurrection, the objective worst film in the series. 

Now to be clear I’m not saying Star Trek Beyond WILL be this bad, just that the trailer isn’t doing it any favors in terms of the film being presented.  However, to be fair, the movie on display here doesn’t look as bad as Insurrection, mainly because Justin Lin is a much better action director and even at his least he seems to have come up with a handful of interesting stunts to throw together for this trailer sizzle reel.  Given how far out the film is I’m willing to bet we’ll see some more impressive action as time goes buy given that any Star Trek film requires a quite heroic amount of CGI work and that all gets done in post-production but what we do see is pretty cool I certainly admit. 

I like the transporter stunt at the end and the idea of an enemy ship swarm that can puncture the shields and hull of the Enterprise is a pretty cool concept.  Kirk on the motorcycle is a bit of a hard pill to swallow but that’s more about Chris Pine in the role than the stunt itself and mainly that his smug, cocky, alpha-bro affectation has just never sat well in the role of Captain.  One thing that does strike me is that despite spending an entire film giving Carol Marcus a back-story and purpose on the Enterprise she’s nowhere to be seen in this trailer.

I realize this is the big, splashy premiere trailer meant to appeal to the mass audience flocking to Star Wars: Force Awakens this Friday so judging the overall intentions and themes of the final product is a stretch game but something that’s decidedly off-putting about this trailer is how much it falls into the same trap as the last two films in the Star Trek reboot.  Specifically, even more than “this is not Into Darkness” or this is Guardians of the Galaxy,” the message this film is trying to send is “this is not Star Trek,” the same message of the last two films and a pretty backwards place to approach the material from. 

This is the same problem that’s afflicted a lot of modern reboots of classic franchises, the series plagued by an inability or unwillingness to carve out a singular identity beyond riding the coat tails of the most popular recent entry into their particular genre.  It’s the same issue that impacted the Daniel Craig Bond films as they flittered from trend to trend with mixed levels of success. 

Star Trek has always had a touch of the populist and event he derivative in its narrative DNA right down to the start when it was pitched as a blend of the popular westerns for the ‘50s with the burgeoning genre of speculative fiction and pulp sci-fi.  Wrath of Khan was thoroughly informed by the success of Star Wars compared to Star Trek: The Motion Picture’s lack of an audience hence the major emphasis on space fighting and action.  Even in the modern era, the most enduring achievement of the Next Generation years was creating the Star Trek version of Terminators with the Borg. 

What I’m saying is that I’m not inherently opposed to Star Trek trying to evolve to the time and integrate populist elements into its new entries, I’m opposed to that being the film’s only goal or guiding element.  All the examples I mentioned were still contributing some measure of originality whether it was the unfiltered psychedelic imaginings of the original series, the Shakespearean drama of Wrath of Khan, or the philosophy of utopia that has always elevated TNG’s Borg stories.  It’s possible Star Trek Beyond is building up to a much more interesting story, especially given Idris Elba has yet to appear in this trailer and his line about “the frontier pushes back” was decidedly evocative but for right now I don’t see an original vision for Star Trek under all the borrowed identities and populist coat tail chasing.   


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