The Star Trek trailer

[Batman]

That car he trashed had to be worth a fortune in the time period he's in.

Not necessarily. Antiques are an extremely weird market.

Plus we don't know it WAS an antique. As has already been mentioned, it might have been a replica.

[Uraniun235]

Oh hey, it's Generic Hollywood Special Effects Extravaganza! How we doin'?

I saw the trailer tonight when I went to see Quantum of Solace.

[Patrick Degan]

I have to say that, overall, I am not impressed.

I well-know it's seemingly unfair to judge an entire movie from it's preview trailer, but that little two or three minute piece of film does give you insight into what the creative people were thinking, and it looks like what they were thinking was: "flashy, hyperkinetic action movie". It just happens to have the trappings of Star Trek on it.

This film will not fail because of its cast. It will fail because it's just another cookie-cutter formula picture. Take away the "new" Enterprise and the uniforms and character names and this could be any space action/adventure movie which appeals to the ADD audience.

It looks very much like Paramount decided to go right down the same pathway that gave the world Star Trek: Nemesis.

How dreary.

[Anguirus]

Well, there was the issue that Nemesis sucked as an action picture and as a Trek picture (and on every other level, simultaneously).

Trek as decently smart action picture is ok by me. Sure, it could suck, but I like a lot of what I'm hearing from the creative team. Plus, it's not like Nimoy needs the money...he turned down appearing in Generations.

"Cautious optimism" is probably a good description.

[The Romulan Republic]

I suspect it will satisfy if one approaches it as a sci-fi action movie, while disappointing deeply as a Trek movie.

I will say that the teaser reminded me of the Lost in Space movie. That is, taking a campy old TV show and turning it into a modern action-fest. Though I'll admit that comparison is probably completely off.

[Samuel]

The Trailer

http://www.flickr.com/photos/sfstreetlight/3030211291/

Apparently 20 or so seconds is missing off the end but eh.

"The video you were looking for has been deleted."

Looks like the authorities are more vigilant now.

[Bounty]

Oh hey, it's Generic Hollywood Special Effects Extravaganza! How we doin'?

Yeah, god forbid a trailer is flashy. Next thing you know they'll try to use it to draw in a crowd.

[La Maupin]

I'm having no problems with Kirk as a 14 or 15 year old stealing a car for a joyride. It's not like a bored kid living in a rural area never did anything stupid or reckless on the way to becoming a responsible adult.

[tezunegari]

I was thinking about Kirks rebelious behaviour at the beginning of the movie and is it know which rank he has at that time?
Both in th bar scene and when joining the Enterprise crew?

Here are some ideas to that topic. Spoiler

He is not really a member of the crew because McCoy had to pull up some strange medical condition Kirk was suffering just to get him aboard. He replaces Spock as acting Captain at one point. And I doubt Spocks first officer or any seasoned bridge officer would have allowed a cadet to take command. So my conclusion is that Kirk has to be at least one rank lower than Spock or the same rank. The question how he got to that rank with behaviour like the one he displayed in the bar (harassing a female officer and challenging a group of security officers/trained soldiers (?) I think and loosing)

[Bounty]

This'll all be obsolete this time the day after tomorrow, but I screencapped a few interesting images from the trailer:
Spoiler

The Enterprise









The new transporter effect:



The bridge and other interiors:

Let me say, that is one huge motherfucker of a shuttle bay.

I was thinking about Kirks rebelious behaviour at the beginning of the movie and is it know which rank he has at that time?

My guess:
Spoiler

Possibility one: They're all cadets save for Pike, and when he gets incapacitated, he appoints Spock as acting captain to get the ship home. This'd be a nice nod to Pike getting irradiated on a training mission, but then again, it's a pretty lame plot to have a crew of newbs save the galaxy.

Possibility two: Same scenario, but Kirk is the only cadet on board. Pike tries to beat some responsibility into him by making him acting second officer to Spock's acting captain, and when Spock loses it, Kirk's "acting" rank holds up. Again, contrived.

[La Maupin]

Keep in mind: This film is not being designed for the "core Star Trek audience." That audience is far too small to sustain a franchise. It's being designed to introduce new people to the Star Trek mythos in under two hours and to do that it needs to be modern, it needs to be aggressively paced, and it needs to aggressively jettison every piece of plot baggage from the old shows that is not explicitly linked to the new film.

In other words, it needs to get people excited about Star Trek again.

[Jim Raynor]

Keep in mind: This film is not being designed for the "core Star Trek audience." That audience is far too small to sustain a franchise. It's being designed to introduce new people to the Star Trek mythos in under two hours and to do that it needs to be modern, it needs to be aggressively paced, and it needs to aggressively jettison every piece of plot baggage from the old shows that is not explicitly linked to the new film.

In other words, it needs to get people excited about Star Trek again.

I agree. I saw the trailer and thought it did a very good job of making Star Trek look cool and exciting again. The fact is that ST has presented itself as very geeky and inaccessible to the general public over the past decade or so. The people want to see a flashy action movie, and if that action movie can be done well with the ST characters then why not? Bringing back Leonard Nimoy as a time-traveling Spock aside, this movie's marketing as a new and thrilling beginning has been pretty good. It remains to be seen whether it can overcome the bad name that ST has gotten over the 90s and early 2000s.

[Uraniun235]

Keep in mind: This film is not being designed for the "core Star Trek audience." That audience is far too small to sustain a franchise. It's being designed to introduce new people to the Star Trek mythos in under two hours and to do that it needs to be modern, it needs to be aggressively paced, and it needs to aggressively jettison every piece of plot baggage from the old shows that is not explicitly linked to the new film.

In other words, it needs to get people excited about Star Trek again.

I don't think anyone here has any illusions about it being designed for Trekkies, nor (at this point) that it is anything but a reboot/"reimagining". What Star Trek films do you think were "designed for the core Star Trek audience"?

(Me, I'd guess 1, 3, 7, maybe 9.)

[Uraniun235]

Oh hey, it's Generic Hollywood Special Effects Extravaganza! How we doin'?

Yeah, god forbid a trailer is flashy. Next thing you know they'll try to use it to draw in a crowd.

fine, jesus

• Kirk as a juvenile delinquent. Okay, stealing a car, running it off a cliff and miraculously surviving because he's that big a badass... whatever. But he ran it off the cliff because he was running from the law, and he's clearly old and intelligent enough to know that you don't run from the law. And he's future starship captain material?
• The voice-over as he rides his bike across the field. "holy crap we totally have to establish that this dude had a destiny, he can't just be this ambitious officer type or anything"
• Scotty and McCoy both sound ridiculous
• Aside from the above, the trailer doesn't really tell you anything about what the story is about, except for the ridiculous "oh hey let's invent a story where all the star trek characters met up and decided to become BFF" plot.

but hey, cool, if "hip twentysomethings have a rad party" is what Star Trek is about from now on, you guys have fun with that

[Manus Celer Dei]

Let me say, that is one huge motherfucker of a shuttle bay.

What? That's not a shuttlebay. You've got a screencap from Battlestar Galactica mixed up in there somehow. It's the Galactica's Viper bay.

[Bounty]

Oh hey, it's Generic Hollywood Special Effects Extravaganza! How we doin'?

Yeah, god forbid a trailer is flashy. Next thing you know they'll try to use it to draw in a crowd.

fine, jesus

• Kirk as a juvenile delinquent. Okay, stealing a car, running it off a cliff and miraculously surviving because he's that big a badass... whatever. But he ran it off the cliff because he was running from the law, and he's clearly old and intelligent enough to know that you don't run from the law. And he's future starship captain material?
• The voice-over as he rides his bike across the field. "holy crap we totally have to establish that this dude had a destiny, he can't just be this ambitious officer type or anything"
• Scotty and McCoy both sound ridiculous
• Aside from the above, the trailer doesn't really tell you anything about what the story is about, except for the ridiculous "oh hey let's invent a story where all the star trek characters met up and decided to become BFF" plot.

but hey, cool, if "hip twentysomethings have a rad party" is what Star Trek is about from now on, you guys have fun with that

Who pissed in your Cheerios?

It's a trailer. It's got 90 seconds to show a 20-year-old pimply-faced teen why he should spend $10 and two hours of his time on this movie. Were you expecting a carefully balanced treatise on the psyche of Kirk? A ponderous exploration of the weight of responsibility?

Jesus indeed.

Not that any of the stuff in the trailer is necessarily from the movie *in that form*. Establishing shot of Kirk driving + voiceover from dialogue later in the movie = we get to savour Uraniun's bitter fantears.

Think back. ST IV trailer: people shooting phasers, soldiers running after Chekov, Scotty shouting about power. ST VI trailer: Splosions, Klingons shooting up the Enterprise, Kirk getting vaped. OH NOES IT IS AN EXAGGERATION OF EVENTS IN THE MOVIE. Holy shitsnickers, is the first trailer you've ever seen? Is this just culture shock or are you honestly playing a butthurt Trekkie?

but hey, cool, if "hip twentysomethings have a rad party" is what Star Trek is about from now on, you guys have fun with that

Nah man, you're welcome. Just like, don't be such a fucking douche downer.

PS I still love you but this is just stupid.

[La Maupin]

Keep in mind: This film is not being designed for the "core Star Trek audience." That audience is far too small to sustain a franchise. It's being designed to introduce new people to the Star Trek mythos in under two hours and to do that it needs to be modern, it needs to be aggressively paced, and it needs to aggressively jettison every piece of plot baggage from the old shows that is not explicitly linked to the new film.

In other words, it needs to get people excited about Star Trek again.

I don't think anyone here has any illusions about it being designed for Trekkies, nor (at this point) that it is anything but a reboot/"reimagining". What Star Trek films do you think were "designed for the core Star Trek audience"?

(Me, I'd guess 1, 3, 7, maybe 9.)

All of them, actually, except 2, 4, 6 and to a lesser extent, First Contact. Not surprisingly, those are the best-remembered of the bunch.

[Patrick Degan]

It's a trailer. It's got 90 seconds to show a 20-year-old pimply-faced teen why he should spend $10 and two hours of his time on this movie. Were you expecting a carefully balanced treatise on the psyche of Kirk? A ponderous exploration of the weight of responsibility?

You can also attract an audience with mystery.

Let's say, for purposes of argument, that Abrams and co. decided to do a big-screen version of "Where No Man Has Gone Before", the second TOS pilot. And let's further assume that the current movie audience for the most part has never seen TOS and so would not automatically know what the story was about. What's the most natural trailer that would establish mystery as the hook to draw in an audience for this picture? The whole scene when the Enterprise encounters the Barrier. You see our intrepid Starfleet crew on the bridge, watching as they approach this phenomena they've never encountered before, Spock reporting sensor readings which are inconsistent with anything known in science, tension building as the ship gets closer, then cut to the shot of the ship plunging toward this huge ribbon of energy ahead. Fade to black with the creepy music still playing and fade-in the titles.

And there you have it: in two minutes, you've established our starship crew, their vessel, and their encounter with the Unknown. What's going to happen to these people? Come to the theatres in May to find out.

And what's the matter with establishing a new mythos with your crew already intact, running their ship on its mission, and developing their characters as part of this crew? You're wasting a good chunk of the movie with a kludged-together origin story which could be far better devoted to rolling right into the action and developing character during the course of the actual main plotline.

[Bounty]

And there you have it: in two minutes, you've established our starship crew, their vessel, and their encounter with the Unknown. What's going to happen to these people? Come to the theatres in May to find out.

Yeah, that'll draw in a crowd. If they'd done a trailer like the one you described we'd all be here bitching about how it's TMP redone. You've just turned away the 18-35 demographic - you know, the one that makes money - by imprinting the idea that Star Trek is about people staring at clouds.

I would have loved to have seen a trailer like that, but I really don't think it would have worked to draw in an audience. And audience of TOS fans, certainly, and those looking for a science-fiction movie with depth will look into it, but the casual movie-going audience, the ones that are needed to recoup the budget and give this reboot any chance of succeeding? Those will stay away in droves.

As for the "origin story" critique... I can see where you are coming from, but at the same time, it doesn't look like they'll be rushing through the motions of getting the team together, instead using it as a way to develop the characters. If they can pull that off - big if - the origin story might just be worth it.

[Thanatos]

Holy shitsnickers, is the first trailer you've ever seen? Is this just culture shock or are you honestly playing a butthurt Trekkie?

The Empire Strikes Back Trailer is a good counterpoint

[Bounty]

Holy shitsnickers, is the first trailer you've ever seen? Is this just culture shock or are you honestly playing a butthurt Trekkie?

The Empire Strikes Back Trailer is a good counterpoint.

... to my point of his? I'm seeing lots of stuff blowing up and not much plot exposition. Looks damn exciting, though.

[Uraniun235]

Think back. ST IV trailer: people shooting phasers, soldiers running after Chekov, Scotty shouting about power. ST VI trailer: Splosions, Klingons shooting up the Enterprise, Kirk getting vaped. OH NOES IT IS AN EXAGGERATION OF EVENTS IN THE MOVIE. Holy shitsnickers, is the first trailer you've ever seen? Is this just culture shock or are you honestly playing a butthurt Trekkie?

Let's look at the trailers you cited:

Star Trek IV trailer

Key points:

- Earth is in trouble
- Kirk and crew have to time travel back to 1986 to save Earth
- Wacky hijinx ensue as the crew tries not to be too conspicuous

Star Trek VI trailer

Key points:

- The Klingon Empire is in big trouble
- There's about to be a peace treaty, but some people are opposed to it
- Kirk and crew are fighting to prevent a war
- Kirk is captured, put on trial, and sent to the gulag by the Klingons
- Action sequences ensue


Both trailers are a hell of a lot more coherent than the XI trailer, and actually tell something about what the movie is going to be about. Do you think that "a story where all the star trek characters met up and decided to become BFF" and "hip twentysomethings have a rad party" are really such grossly unfair characterizations of the XI trailer? If so, please post your own description.


And yeah, I'm a nerdraging butthurt curmudgeon Trekkie. I think that awesome space opera is a dying art and that makes me sad and I lash out at what seems to me like further examples of the bastardization of a genre which once produced my favorite ever movies. But since this is essentially a discussion of preferences, I think I'm permitted to be butthurt in this thread. And now that we've established my motives and perspective, we can move past that point.

If they can pull that off - big if - the origin story might just be worth it.

I disagree, I don't care for origin stories, especially when they're bullshit. Kirk and crew were all BFF since the very beginning? I mean I know it's a reboot and all, but I'm not arguing it's "incorrect" or "contradictory", I just think it's lame.

[Thanatos]

... to my point of his?

To the criticism of this trailer. That it "appeals to the ADD audience".

[Patrick Degan]

And there you have it: in two minutes, you've established our starship crew, their vessel, and their encounter with the Unknown. What's going to happen to these people? Come to the theatres in May to find out.

Yeah, that'll draw in a crowd. If they'd done a trailer like the one you described we'd all be here bitching about how it's TMP redone. You've just turned away the 18-35 demographic - you know, the one that makes money - by imprinting the idea that Star Trek is about people staring at clouds.

Uh huh. Bullshit —according to that sort of logic, this trailer would have been "about people running around dark corridors and walking around on a dark planet, and who'd want to see that?" Funny how that trailer managed to draw in the 18-35 demograpic, however, for that particular film. And what killed TMP was not its trailer but it's agonisingly slow pace and the negative buzz that developed.

I would have loved to have seen a trailer like that, but I really don't think it would have worked to draw in an audience. And audience of TOS fans, certainly, and those looking for a science-fiction movie with depth will look into it, but the casual movie-going audience, the ones that are needed to recoup the budget and give this reboot any chance of succeeding? Those will stay away in droves.

People have been drawn to movies by trailers that are done cleverly. There is no given that it has to be all bang-and-flash to get people to see a SF film.

As for the "origin story" critique... I can see where you are coming from, but at the same time, it doesn't look like they'll be rushing through the motions of getting the team together, instead using it as a way to develop the characters. If they can pull that off - big if - the origin story might just be worth it.

Still a waste of time that could be better devoted to actually getting the main plotline up and running.

[Bounty]

Both trailers are a hell of a lot more coherent than the XI trailer, and actually tell something about what the movie is going to be about.

In retrospect. Can you really piece together the plot with all its intricacies from the Trek VI trailer? Yes, there's a peace treaty, and a trial, and Kirk dies, and there's a massive war between the Federation and the Klingons where Sulu almost dies. Whoops, that never happened, did it? It sure was in the trailer. What clever editing?

Do you think that "a story where all the star trek characters met up and decided to become BFF" and "hip twentysomethings have a rad party" are really such grossly unfair characterizations of the XI trailer? If so, please post your own description.

Yes, they are. I see the trailer and see it's about two conflicting characters struggling with their identity and coming together on a spaceship while a bad guy does evil things. Which is sort of the plot as far as it has been leaked, and certainly no more vague than the VI trailer.

As for the "twentysomethings" bit, that's what the movie is about. You can bitch about the plot, but it's just a tad unfair to blame the trailer for being about the movie it's supposed to be the trailer for.

And yeah, I'm a nerdraging butthurt curmudgeon Trekkie.

And you've got every right to be, because this is a different Trek to what it was in the sixties. For better or worse, I don't know, but neither do you. Dismissing this as nothing more than an origin story where everyone ends up BFF and parties is jumping the gun a bit, don't you think?

I'm not arguing it's "incorrect" or "contradictory", I just think it's lame.

Fair enough.