Many movie trailers have been released recently and one of them was for Star Trek Beyond. It had one of the most polarizing receptions from the new trailers as many fans felt it didn’t feel like “Star Trek”.
From what we gather from the debut Star Trek Beyond trailer, it feels more like a hybrid between The Fast and the Furious and Guardians of the Galaxy. It has a mix of fast-paced action and humor, but nothing about exploration.
A little spoiler will follow about Into Darkness, but that film ended on a positive note. The USS Enterprise was fixed and they promised the team would be travelling the Universe exploring new planets and such. However, the new film looks like it’s doing the opposite thing.
The new film shows that the USS Enterprise has crashed landed on an alien planet and Captain Kirk and the rest of the crew are stranded. Instead of travelling to numerous planets, they are stuck on one planet for the majority of the film from the looks of things.
The other things that has divided fans is that the trailer is full of explosions and action. Like mentioned before, the trailer feels like it wants to appeal to the mainstream audience. In doing so, this has made actual Star Trek fans feel alienated.
One of the scenes annoying fans is Captain Kirk riding on a motorcycle like a motorcross rider. There’s nothing futuristic or science fiction about a person riding on a motorcycle. This is more something you would more in a normal action movie set on Earth.
Podcaster John Rocha said it best when he was discussing the movie in a new video uploaded by Screen Junkies. He said it would have been better to do something more intelligent, a little more deeper and something more exploratory. He also made a point that the trailer does not show any space battles since they’re all stuck on a planet.
The only reason I personally feel Paramount Pictures is advertising the movie to mainstream audiences is to obviously get more money. The 2009 reboot made $385.7 million while Into Darkness made $467.4 million in 2013. An $82 million increase is okay, but not a huge leap.
When you look at those numbers, Into Darkness didn’t really attract that many new fans to the franchise. The 2009 movie was received really well, yet not many new fans bothered to go and see the sequel. Marvel’s Guardians of the Galaxy on the other hand made $773.3 million at the Box Office and this is a movie based on an relatively unknown comic book.
However, Star Trek is a really hard franchise to market as it has a stigma for being too “nerdy”. This is a problem that Star Wars doesn’t suffer as that franchise appeals to every demographic. Paramount Pictures might be in a lose-lose situation.
If they appeal to the mainstream audience, they lose the hardcore Star Trek fan base. If they try and appeal to the hardcore fans, this might scare away the mainstream audience.
Do you like the look of Star Trek Beyond so far or do you feel it’s less Star Trek and more Fast and Furious?
