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We’re well into 2016 now, and on our horizons is Paramount’s third instalment of the alternate universe “Star Trek” saga. With a billed release date of July, we've got seven months to salivate over the possibilities that the third movie will bring - the first of the reboots not directed by J.J. Abrams.
So, will it be a resounding success, or another massive disappointment?
Well, things did not get off to a resounding success, with the original director Roberto Orci having a falling out with Paramount Studios, and promptly walked off the set. Given that Orci wrote a significant part of the original screenplay, the new team of script-writers decided to trash a huge part of what was there before, and take it in a new direction. An interesting decision was to invite Simon Pegg, who plays Montgomery Scott in the reboots, to help write the new script.
The Cast of "Star Trek Beyond"However, what should have been a positive development turned sour when Pegg was quoted as saying that he wanted to make this movie much less “Star Trek-y”, whereas the original script had been far too orientated in that direction. So this news did not go down well with the Star Trek fan community, who had been anticipating a much better film than “Into Darkness”, which had seriously disappointed the fan base.
Excitement was reinstated back in the project when it was announced that Justin Lin would be taking over the direction of the movie from Orci. The much celebrated director of the “Fast and Furious” franchise had nothing but success under his belt in the last decade, and would bring a new life and vision to the movie.
So, you can imagine that it was with much excitement and anticipation that Star Trek fans, old and new alike, watched the released first trailer for “Star Trek Beyond”.
Immediate conclusions are not good, with the music from the first reboot film being used in this trailer. Things appear to move from bad to worse as the trailer moves on, with it clear that the USS Enterprise is destroyed by an unknown space race who look suspiciously like Orcs from the “Lord of the Rings” saga. Another bad taste was the clip that shows Scotty flying out of an escape pod to cling onto a rock face - in a scene that could've been lifted straight from “Fast and Furious”.
The destruction of the Enterprise raised concerns with fans.The conclusions that I can draw from this trailer is that we’re going to be presented with yet another all action packed movie, solely aimed at the CGI action movie audience. Paramount even admitted that they are taking inspiration from the success of “Guardians of the Galaxy” to make this one work. So already, that sets alarm bells ringing that this will be yet another space action flick with no depth or real storyline.
Even Simon Pegg was quoted as being disappointed with the trailer, saying:
“I didn’t love it, because I know there’s a lot more to the film,” Pegg told a reporter from Hey U Guys during a red carpet interview at the London premiere of Star Wars: The Force Awakens. “There’s a lot more story and a lot more character stuff, and a lot more, what I would call ‘Star Trek stuff’”.
Fans have been up in arms about the trailer, saying that it is essentially “Star Trek: Fast and Furious”, with nothing but action scenes, kung-fu fighting aliens, phaser battles and exploding starship.
In mitigating defence of the trailer, the idea of an initial trailer is to set the tone and wet our appetites for what is to come. This trailer is very much like pretty much any of the “Fast and Furious” trailers that we’ve seen, so we shouldn't have been surprised that they decided to showcase the action stuff rather than the dull character development stuff.
Director Justin Lin, keen to defend his trailer, was quoted as saying:
“Well, it's a minute and a half, you know… And again, there were other versions that were much more traditional and I can see where maybe the hardcore fans could probably see that as ‘Oh.’ But with trailers you’re putting a two-hour movie into a minute and a half, and the one thing I wanted to make sure is that it hopefully represents that we are trying to be bold and take risks, whether we are successful or not, I don’t know.”
Even though we've only seen a one and a half minute clip, it's clear to most of us that this will be much the same style of film that we've seen with “Into Darkness”, rather than the gems of our youth. Whilst both films are amazingly technically proficient marvels in their own right, they are aimed at a new generation of “Star Trek” fans, who have grown up with far more action movies than the TV serials that more hard-core fans have devoted their lives to seeing. It could even be a fair comment to make that the most successful of the “Deep Space Nine” series were those that focused on the Dominion Wars. The same is true of “Enterprise” with series 3 focused on the Xindi conflict.
The last thing I will take away from this trailer is that I think we’re going to see yet another fantastic performance from the cast of the film. Their characters are already established, and we've been nervous about how this new crop of actors would portray our legends of Trek. Whilst the jury is still very much out on the overall opinion, I have to say that Karl Urban’s portrayal of Leonard McCoy has been as inspired as we could possibly ask for. I think even Deforest Kelly himself would be pleased with the harsh sarcasm and dower commentary of “Bones” McCoy in the reboots. This third instalment promises much the same, with that fantastic exchange between Spock and McCoy on the planet. If this is a taste of what is to come, I look forward very much to the dialogue.
What do you think of the trailer, and what are your views for “Star Trek Beyond”? Leave a comment in the section below!
WRITTEN BY KERRYMALONE
EDITED BY KERRYMALONE - PETER.MILLER@UFPLANETS.COM
