Ask JKM a Question: Star Trek Beyond trailer?

A reader, Jason, writes:

“John, we have not had your reaction to the first Star Trek: Beyond (2016) trailer yet.

What do you think?”

Jason, we’re just a month or so out from the new movie at this point. My thoughts on the first trailer?

The trailer doesn’t look very promising.

I know it went out with Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015) last December, and thus had to highlight, apparently, action, action, action.

But still…the trailer isn’t good.

Star Trek fans aren’t really interested in people falling of cliffs, or jumping motorcycles.  Those elements look generic and underwhelming.

Also, in this universe – If I’m reading the footage right -- the Enterprise is destroyed during Kirk’s legendary five year mission? 

Fans swallowed the destruction of Vulcan already, now the franchise is taking Kirk’s primary claim to fame -- bringing the starship and crew home whole from such a mission -- away from the character?

I know it’s an alternate universe, but still. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was so respectful to canon, almost reverential. But Star Trek can’t be?

Actually, a legitimate area for criticism in the new Trek involves the Enterprise.  The franchise is about the voyages of this particular ship. Thus far, Kirk hasn’t displayed his “prime’ universe love of the Enterprise in any significant way.  The audience hasn’t really created a bond with the ship, either.

And now we’re losing it.

Losing the Enterprise in The Search for Spock (1984), after nearly twenty years, was a gut punch. Same with the Enterprise D in 1994, after seven seasons of TV voyaging.  But losing this Enterprise in our third adventure with it just can’t have the same emotional impact. Especially because we haven’t seen this Kirk saying things like “never…lose you,” to his ship.

Unless this is all a shell-game, and the Enterprise gets rebuilt in the movie, as the prime- universe Enterprise.

Even if that does happen, this will be the third Star Trek movie to destroy the Enterprise. I think what fans hunger for more than anything is a new idea, a new concept, in the franchise.  The movies need to boldly go, not just rehash past glories.  I criticized Star Wars: The Force Awakens for hauling out the old attack-on-a-space-station trope (and doing it so poorly…), and so I have to be honest here.  It looks like, from the trailer, the Enterprise gets destroyed.  Again. That’s another trope that doesn’t need a revisit.

Can Star Trek: Beyond possibly be great?

Certainly. The trailer is less than two minutes in length, and we’re just seeing the big, colorful, presumably crowd-pleasing strokes.

Hopefully the movie is also going to feature an important social commentary that tells us something about our world.  Hopefully, the new villain will be a memorable one.  Hopefully, all the character interaction and humor we want from this crew will be right there, on screen.

But truth be told, the trailer isn’t good.

It showcases Star Trek as a generic action movie franchise, and that’s precisely the wrong note to hit on the eve of the franchise’s fiftieth anniversary.

Don’t forget to ask me your questions at Muirbusiness@yahoo.com