Anghus Houvouras on the trailer for Star Trek Beyond…
First impressions. They’re so important, especially in the world of blockbuster cinema where the marketplace is saturated with high budgeted fare looking to snap its fingers and gain your attention for a fleeting moment. It’s been awhile since the wretched Star Trek Beyond trailer first hit the internet like a sack full of used diapers to the side of our head. It was late December. Everyone is basking in the warm glow of Star Wars and getting excited over new trailers for Batman v Superman and Independence Day: Resurgence.
SEE ALSO: Watch the trailer for Star Trek Beyond
Then, appearing from nowhere like a crew of Redshirts beamed in from transporter, the Star Trek Beyond trailer appeared. And like a crew of Redshirts it was quickly proven inept and slaughtered. People scoffed, members of the Trek family balked, and creative people associated with the film tried to do damage control.
I had the misfortune of watching the trailer again at the movies. It really is rotten. Terrible on almost every level. A cringe-worthy piece of marketing that never should have seen the light of day. Yet, the question remains:
Is Star Trek Beyond the worst teaser trailer ever?
For my money, it most certainly is. And here’s why.
1. A Complete disconnect between franchise and content
J.J. Abrams brought Star Trek back with a bang. 2009’s Star Trek was an entertaining confection that managed to feel reverent to the source material while bringing the characters into a more action oriented, less cerebral space. There was a nice balance between the old and the new. Even though much of the science and philosophy had been abandoned for phaser fights and melodrama, no one felt insulted by what they saw.
Star Trek Into Darkness was a far messier affair that became unbalanced. Heavy on fan service, low on logic, and bereft of plot Into Darkness tried making the film an outright action blockbuster and ended up being a marginally entertaining mess. The Beyond trailer seems to indicate that any attempts at adding a cerebral element to the series have been brutally murdered by a studio that wants to turn this whole enterprise into Fast & Furious in Space.
2. For a movie about the future, it feels really out of date.
Sabotage? Seriously? I understand it’s a callback to the Beastie Boys that young Kirk listened to in the first Star Trek, but I can’t think of a piece of music that feels less apt for a franchise. A movie about deep space exploration in the future scored to a 20 year old shotgun blast of a song.
3. Warp Speed Action
To help sell Star Trek as an action franchise, this trailer moves at a ridiculous pace. As if cut together by a Meth addict two hits away from an overdose. There’s a sick feeling for frantic forward momentum that turns this trailer into a headache inducing pile of nonsense. It’s like the marketing equivalent of two red bulls with a cocaine chaser.
4. Captain Kirk at the X-Games
There are several atrocious moments in the trailer. None of them as pandering or awful as the scantily clad Alice Eve shot shoehorned into the Into Darkness trailer, but watching Captain Kirk pulls an off world Xander Cage manuever is right up there. I eagerly await the explanation as to how a working 20th century era dirt bike made it into unexplored space, but I might be expecting too much from a series that has devolved into interplanetary transwarp-ing and magic resurrection blood.
The real sin here is that final shot where Kirk leaps through the air to save a falling ally as both are beamed onto a transport pad and saved. A tired and beat down Kirk mutters:
“Let’s never do that again.”
Groan. Mega Groan. So bad.
5. It’s as bland as a pan of gelatin served by the bastard spawn of Hayden Christensen & Megan Fox
The most glaring flaw to this trailer is how generic it is. This could be the 90 second teaser for any franchise. It’s a bland, flavorless mess. There’s nothing of distinction featured in the trailer, and that is marketing suicide.
Teasers are supposed to entice you. They are supposed to make you want to see more.
Can anyone say that about the Star Trek Beyond trailer?
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker and the co-host of Across the Pondcast. Follow him on Twitter.
https://youtu.be/0aIsNl6XwEk?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published February 4, 2016. Updated November 29, 2022.
