Earlier this week, the first trailer for "Star Trek Beyond" arrived, and reaction was split into two camps: enthusiastic approval from those who enjoyed the trailer’s lighter tone and blockbuster appeal, and others who thought whatever was being advertised didn’t look like a "Star Trek" movie. And surprisingly, the film’s co-writer and star Simon Pegg falls in the latter camp.
HeyUGuys asked Pegg about the trailer while he was on the "Star Wars: The Force Awakens" red carpet, and his reply was quite candid. “It was very action-packed. I find that it’s the job of the marketing people to say ‘everybody come and see this film, it’s full of action and fun,’ when there’s a lot more to it than that," Pegg said. "I didn’t love it, because I know there’s a lot more to the film. There’s a lot more of what I would call ‘Star Trek stuff.’ ”
READ MORE: The Best & Worst Of Star Trek Into Darkness
That certainly gives hope to folks like me, who are looking for the franchise to get some its identity back, particularly after "Star Trek Into Darkness." And regarding that film, J.J. Abrams has been quite candid recently about his own failings as such.
“I take full responsibility for this —I was encouraging the writers in certain directions, and we were working on the script and putting it together. But by the time we started shooting, and this was literally at the very beginning of the shoot, there were certain things I was unsure of,” he told Buzzfeed. In particular, Abrams feels he didn’t properly develop a new angle for the key relationship between Kirk and Spock, and when it comes to Khan, he tries to explain his reason for keeping the villain secret prior to the release of the film.
“At the end of the day, while I agree with Damon Lindelof that withholding the Khan thing ended up seeming like we were lying to people," Abrams explained, "I was trying to preserve the fun for the audience, and not just tell them something that the characters don’t learn for 45 minutes into the movie, so the audience wouldn’t be so ahead of it.” But despite all of the issues, Abrams adds, “I would never say that I don’t think that the movie ended up working. But I feel like it didn’t work as well as it could have, had I made some better decisions before we started shooting.”
Perhaps that’s why, in pushing ahead with "Star Trek Beyond," Justin Lin and co. are more or less politely ignoring what happened in ‘Darkness.’
"We pick the crew up about two and a half years after ‘Into Darkness.’ There were many iterations where we did go and explore [Carol Marcus], but we figured it was two and a half years… It was something we talked about and worked on, but in the presentation of this film it didn’t quite fit in. It’s there with the transporter and everything [laughs]," he told Birth Movies Death, adding that the magic blood and interstellar beaming nonsense won’t be acknowledged either.
"Star Trek Beyond" opens on July 22, 2016.