Okay, the first trailer for this movie was a mess and did not say Star Trek to me at all. This trailer is much better. It feels like the Trek vibe, some focus on Kirk that makes sense. I think action in these flicks is good, particularly if it has a point, if it's action grounded in a reality that action must be taken. So I actually think this trailer is a serious win, BUT......the trailer and the movie if these things remain, has two fails, one minor but annoying and the other just really problematic as hell to me.
Fail 1 - minor, more annoying than it should be, and that is the villain looks just like G'Kar, the Narn diplomat in the Babylon 5 series. Was instantly my first thought when I saw him. That is a fail and how the character designers miss that the villain looks like a ripoff of that is beyond me. I'm going to spend the whole movie feeling like the Federation is facing off against the Narn. it will be an irritant the whole film, like a fly buzzing around that you can't shoo away.
FAIL 2 - All caps because this is the big one. WHY FOR THE LOVE OF GOD ARE WE GETTING ANOTHER TREK FILM WHERE THE ENTERPRISE IS DESTROYED!!!
The ship is a character in Trek as pivotal and key as Kirk himself. It's like the unnamed member of the team -Kirk, Spock, Bones, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov, Enterprise. And we now have in multiple movies, this key member of the team getting killed off and not only killed off, but getting taken out in ways that give her no opportunity to even demonstrate her mettle, to give as good as she gets and to go down hard, go down fighting and bloody up the other son of a bitch on the way out. They keep killing this character, but they never give her death any meaning!
You sacrifice key characters for impact in a story, but this particular plot device of the Enterprise being destroyed merely to allow the crew to then be forced to operate in other ways is becoming a regular thing. It's treating Enterprise like Lois in BVS, having her get in trouble just so Superman can save her. But Enterprise doesn't even get saved, it just gets wasted to be resurrected for the next film, so she can be beaten to death again.
This is the huge and seemingly repeating fail for me with this Trek and the one before it. You can't keep killing this key member of the team and treating the Enterprise like a throwaway plot gimmick.
These new movies need to figure out some balance between the interplay of the human characters and giving the Enterprise an opportunity to shine in some serious ship to ship combat where everything is on the line. But you just can't keep throwing away the Enterprise every movie. It's not iconic, full on Trek without the goddamned Enterprise!
