The first official trailer for Star Trek Beyond, the third installment of the rebooted Trek franchise, is expected to be attached to Star Wars: The Force Awakens … like so many other trailers. However, you can see it early, with a few catches A clean copy of the film trailer hit the Web, and it gives us a fantastic look at the new images from Justin Lin’s sequel. Check it out now!
Paramount released this new clip after a Web site leaked it – in German (which wasn’t really helping anyone). The footage gives fans the tone and energetic vibe of the new sequel, which fits with what J.J. Abrams went after in his initial Star Trek. Remember that scene of young James T. Kirk stealing a car and running it off the side of a cliff, as law-enforcement agents chased him down? That’s what this feels like. Setting the action to the Beastie Boys’ "Sabotage" gives the on-screen action that jolt of adrenaline that has marked the Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto-led Star Trek movies (though purists might have a hard time marrying this with their traditional, staid Trek canon). And it gives us the first real look at the main villain.
First, let’s get in to the action. It looks, in the trailer, like the Enterprise encounters a major asteroid field. The ship is badly damaged, and the crew (we see Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Bones, Scotty, etc.) seems scattered to various points. Scotty (Simon Pegg) exits an escape pod. Spock and McCoy stare down enemy craft – until the Vulcan beams himself out of trouble.
The second half of the trailer, though, is a full-blown, pedal-to-the-metal sprint through explosions and action set pieces that match a little closer to Justin Lin’s Fast & Furious days than to anything we have seen in Star Trek before. Kirk (at least, I think it was Kirk) is jumping motorcycles. An alien with bleached-white skin and warrior tattoos is kicking all sorts of ass. That’s likely Sofia Boutella, who burst on the scene earlier this year in Kingsman: The Secret Srvice. And I’m wondering, is this our first look at Idris Elba in make up as the mysterious villain he has been hired to play?
So, what do you think of our first look at Justin Lin’s Star Trek Beyond? As you know, it’s the first Trek not directed by J.J. Abrams, who left the chair to helm Star Wars. But it has Abrams’ hand-picked Star Trek cast, working off of a story co-written by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung. The full movie opens in theaters on July 22, 2016. Are you on board?
