New Star Trek Beyond TV spots will sate your hunger for unseen footage, even if they’re unlikely to change your mind about Star Trek Beyond.
Following a general dissatisfaction with the reboot “Abramsverse” and a messy pre-production that saw Star Trek 3 lose its original writer and director (thanks be to the Pah-Wraiths), the first trailer for Star Trek Beyond was derided as too action-oriented. While director Justin Lin had proven himself exceptional with ensemble casts and well-drawn characters, many felt he only had Fast and Furious action to bring to a series in need of thoughtful retrospection. The trailer provided plenty of evidence for this judgment.
While subsequent trailers found more positive receptions, one enduring image has dogged Star Trek Beyond ’s efforts to earn the support of fans: that goddamn dirt bike.
This goddamn dirt bike:
New Star Trek Motocross... I mean Beyond International poster. Nothing says #StarTrekBeyond like a dirt bike! pic.twitter.com/JzvrRDSwOW
— John Flickinger (@theFLICKpick) May 24, 2016
It’s become the symbol for everything wrong with the rebooted Star Trek series and taken as evidence that Beyond doesn’t understand what makes Trek tick:
Lucas turned Star Wars into Star Trek (trade missions! Senate intrigue!) Now Star Trek is what? Transformers? Kirk on a dirt bike wth?
— Christian Olsen (@cfolsendc) June 28, 2016
Captain Kirk is riding a dirt bike on the new Star Trek poster. That is about the shittiest thing I can imagine. pic.twitter.com/NnOaUCRJIh
— Chris (@pantster) May 25, 2016
Now a new TV spot reveals that it’s worse than everyone thought — Krall’s planet has a fleet of dirt bikes! Look for ‘em at 0:20 of the new Star Trek Beyond commercial:
I counted seven dirt bikes, but there are probably even more. It looks like we’re getting Endor’s speeder bike chase, except with Captain Kirk and some 20th century technology inexplicably relevant on a 23rd century alien world.
There’s still hope for Star Trek Beyond. Lin seems committed to getting Star Trek right, and his blockbuster record proves he’s adept at transplanting heart into cynical studio products. Plus, Beyond has a script co-written by Simon Pegg, who had a hand in writing nerd-friendly stuff like Spaced, Shaun of the Dead, Hot Fuzz and The World’s End (which ended a sci-fi action movie with a long, Douglas Adams-y conversation… gutsy move).
It’s still possible July 22 will see the premiere of a Star Trek movie both fans and mainstream audiences can enjoy. But when it comes to obvious symbols of increasing blockbuster-ification, it’s hard to top that stupid dirt bike and its newly revealed dirt bike friends.
