Why The Star Trek Beyond Trailer Has Us Worried
The trailer for the third installment in the current Star Trek movie franchise is here, and it's packed tight with action, adventure, phaser blasts, and...the Beastie Boys?
While it's true that Star Trek Beyond looks like it'll be a ton of fun (in terms of its ability to induce theater-goers to shovel popcorn into their mouths), it also looks like it's moved even further away from what makes Star Trek, well, Star Trek. Here are the reasons why the trailer for Star Trek Beyond has us worried...
New Uniforms Make The Crew Look Like Janitors
The trailer shows the crew of the Enterprise sporting two different kinds of uniforms: the more action-oriented ones that seem to include biker-style jackets and the more traditional tunics that are solid colors. But the classic elements that were imported from the classic TV show—the stripes, the V-neck collars, all the stuff that gave it that classic Trek look—seems to have been junked in favor of these new blockier outfits. Rather than looking like retro-cool 1960s space-farers, everyone just kinda looks like a custodian, onboard to clean the Enterprise's toilets.
Is Spock On A Different Ship?
We won't know about the plot of Star Trek Beyond for a while, but in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it moment, it appears that Spock is wearing a uniform that doesn't match that of the rest of the Enterprise crew. The patch on his shoulder says "USS Franklin" or something close to that. While it's clear that Spock is a big part of the new movie, it's a bit worrisome that he may start out on a different ship entirely. We're only three movies into this franchise, and Spock's already left the Enterprise behind? That doesn't seem very logical.
The Beastie Boys Are Back
One of the coolest scenes from 2009's Star Trek is when a young James Kirk steals his step-dad's classic car and promptly drives it off a cliff, all to the blaring sounds of the Beastie Boys. It was a hilarious bit of anachronistic characterization that told you everything you needed to know about this new Kirk. But this whole trailer for Star Trek Beyond seems to double down on the Beastie Boys' influence, almost as if it's trying way too hard to scream, "This ain't your father's Star Trek! We're cool this time!" Obviously coolness is great, but this is a franchise with space ships, laser guns, and alien fights. If it can't convince people that it's cool with those elements alone, then it's got problems the Beastie Boys just can't solve.
Too Fast, Too Furious
Justin Lin, the director of the fifth and sixth Fast and the Furious films, stepped in to helm this latest Trek after J.J. Abrams jumped ship to the Star Wars universe and franchise screenwriter and co-producer Roberto Orci got thrown overboard. While Lin's action-oriented pedigree seems like it could make for an exciting Star Trek movie, this trailer sure makes it seem like the only salient detail. For proof, look no further than Captain Kirk doing crazy stunts on a motorcycle. That's a weird style of diplomacy, isn't it?
Too Funny
Despite its stuffy reputation, Star Trek has always been packed to the gills with humor in one form or another. But that humor was never at the expense of the drama that makes Trek so important to so many people. In this trailer, Star Trek Beyond looks like it might as well feature Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan as a pair of mismatched Starfleet Officers. We've got Bones making more jokes and Kirk doing straight up slapstick after getting smashed into a transporter pad. And on that subject...
That's Not How Beaming Works
Okay, yes, obviously using a science fiction transporter on a starship in the future relies on technology and techniques that are pretty much made up. Still, every installment of Star Trek makes using a transporter pretty complicated. You have to lock onto a person, avoid interference so you don't, you know, kill them, and if there are too many variables—like a person falling from a ledge or something—the whole thing might result in a steaming pile of human parts. In the trailer, a falling Kirk grabs the arm of an alien femme fatale, and the two land onto the Enterprise's transporter pad. Based on everything we know about Star Trek, that should've resulted in a bloody mass of quivering biology.
And We're Back On Earth For Some Reason
For the third time in a row, it looks like a major portion of Star Trek takes place on Earth, with lots of Starfleet people running throughout a city amid a disaster of some kind. While Earth is the capital of the United Federation of Planets and plays home to Starfleet's headquarters, it is decidedly not really the ideal place for Star Trek to actually happen. The whole point of Star Trek is that it takes place in space...you know, the final frontier? If a movie franchise about a group of space explorers keeps bringing them back to Earth every single time, the filmmakers are officially doing it wrong.