The Star Trek film franchise is back and going for a very different tone than the last installment. Justin Lin, who is best known for his work in The Fast and Furious franchise, is taking over the captain’s chair of directing from J. J. Abrams (who still has a producer’s credit). While Abrams is dealing with “a galaxy far far away”, Lin is bringing a more fun tone to Starfleet with the help from a screenplay by Scotty himself, Simon Pegg. The last movie in the franchise, Star Trek: Into Darkness, borrowed heavily from the second Star Trek movie, Wrath of Khan. Given the reboot’s major change in ending between the two films, this installment will not the “The Search for Kirk.”
Along with Lin directing and Pegg writing and acting, the rest of the previous cast has returned. The film stars Chris Pine as Captain James T. Kirk, Zachary Quinto as Spock, and Zoe Saldana as Nyota Uhura. Karl Urban also returns as Leonard “Bones” McCoy, Simon Pegg as as Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, Anton Yelchin as Pavel Chekov and John Cho as Hikaru Sulu. Idris Elba and Sofia Boutella will also be joining the cast in as of now unknown roles.
This new trailer does not give away many spoilers for the movie but it would seem that Lin may be taking some hints from his work with The Fast and Furious. The focus of the plot involves the U.S.S. Enterprise being destroyed or incapacitated, leaving the crew stranded. The majority of the trailer seems to be on a new planet which is a nice change to more of the “to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations” part of the Starfleet mission statement. In fact, as a voice over in the trailer put it, “the frontier is pushing back.” The crew may have discovered some people who would rather stay hidden.
A shot from the trailer of the Enterprise being attacked.
The whole movie appears to push the reboot franchise in a different direction. Notably, this installment looks to rely less on places and people from the original series. As mentioned previously, Into Darkness borrowed from the original second Star Trek movie, The Wrath of Khan. The crew of the Enterprise seems to have found a species of aliens new to the Star Trek series, unlike the first two movies whose villains (Romulans, Vulcans, and Khan himself) were all very familiar to Trekkies around the world.
This installment looks to rely less on places and people from the original series.
The new film also has a bit of it’s own humor. Instead of referencing the series from the 60’s this trailer references the first reboot film by playing the Beastie Boys song “Sabotage” which was used the first time the world was introduced to the new Kirk.
This trailer will officially debut in theaters with Abrams new film Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. Star Trek: Beyond will come out on July 22, 2016 as part of the celebration of the 50th anniversary of Star Trek. A new untitled Star Trek TV series was also announced on November 2 and will be premiering in 2017.
The YouTube version of the trailer is embedded below:
