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Trailer Trashin’: The Enterprise Crew Returns in the Second Star Trek Beyond Trailer

Timothy Monforton

Hello again, dear readers, and I hope you all had an enjoyable Memorial Day weekend. We’re in June now, and the summer movie season is chugging along with the release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows this weekend. This week’s Trailer Trashin’ column examines the new trailer for another big summer release, Star Trek Beyond.

Premise: The crew of the USS Enterprise, halfway into their five-year mission, is attacked by a seemingly unstoppable wave of unknown aliens, forcing them to abandon ship. Stranded on an unknown planet and with no apparent means of rescue, the crew finds themselves in conflict with a new ruthless enemy who has a hatred of the Federation and everything it stands for.

My take: To put it nicely, when the first trailer for Star Trek Beyond was released in December of last year, it was met with a largely negative response. Many criticized the teaser for focusing too much on action and for using the song “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys. Coming off the disappointment of Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), longtime Trek fans had no reason to expect much from the new film. Fortunately, this new trailer is a big improvement, and I’m certainly looking forward to Star Trek Beyond.

The biggest strength of the rebooted Star Trek films has been the casting, and all the members of the Enterprise crew are back for this third film. It looks like Karl Urban as “Bones” McCoy and Simon Pegg as Scotty might have more to do this time around, which I certainly hope is the case. Idris Elba plays Krall, our alien villain. Elba has already had a great year with Zootopia and The Jungle Book, and he looks intimidating as hell in that creature makeup. Sofia Boutella, best known as Gazelle in Kingsmen: The Secret Service (2015) plays Jaylah, the female alien who appears to join forces with our heroes. And I believe that the woman whose voice we hear starting at 0:30 is Shohreh Aghdashloo, who plays the High Command of the Federation.

Of course, this trailer spends a lot of time selling the action of the film. While I have to roll my eyes a bit at the fact that the Enterprise is getting destroyed again, stranding the crew on an alien planet is at least something that’s different from the previous two films. I like the look of Krall’s soldiers and their ships. And the new ship the crew ends up with, which is called the USS Franklin according to some reports, is pretty cool. Above all, this trailer shows a sense of fun that the series needed to get back after Into Darkness was such a dour slog of a movie.

While I don’t think this will be what every Trek fan wants to see, it looks like a big step up from Into Darkness and a fun way to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of this franchise. At this point, I definitely want to see Star Trek Beyond when it opens in late July.

ANTICIPATION: Will this be good? I’m counting on it.

Release Date: July 22nd, 2016

Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella, Joe Taslim, Lydia Wilson, Harpreet Sandhu, Deep Roy, and Shohreh Aghdashloo
Director: Justin Lin
Writers: Simon Pegg, Doug Jung, Roberto Orci, John D. Payne, and Patrick McKay, based on Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry

Timothy Monforton

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