Update: Paramount released the English version of the trailer:
Star Trek: Beyond’s trailer makes it look like a Fast & Furious movie
Alex Abad-Santos is a senior correspondent who explains what society obsesses over, from Marvel and movies to fitness and skin care. He came to Vox in 2014. Prior to that, he worked at The Atlantic.
Original post:
On Monday, someone (presumably in Germany) managed to leak the trailer for Star Trek: Beyond, the third movie in the rebooted franchise. It was rumored to be released later this week and attached to Star Wars: The Force Awakens. The trailer is dubbed in German and is set to the song “Sabotage” by the Beastie Boys (a callback to the first movie). But that’s just the beginning; the whole thing feels like an odd prank.
Why does the leaked trailer contain a motorcycle that is not a space motorcycle? Why does it feel like an extended Mountain Dew commercial? Why is there a chase scene in space? Why won’t this Beastie Boys song end? Where are my lens flares? Does the German market feel a deep connection to “Sabotage”?
It’s enough to make you wonder if the trailer is fake, or some strange German satire. And that’s certainly plausible, because it sure makes the film seem out of step with the first two movies.
One possible explanation, aside from the inexplicable nature of what makes something cool in Germany, is that Justin Lin, director of Fast & Furious, Fast & Furious 6, and The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, has taken over for J.J. Abrams, who directed the first two films. That could explain the tone of the trailer (the chase scenes, Scotty hanging off the side of a mountain, the motorcycle), compared with Abrams’s style.
As a refresher, here is the more brooding trailer to Star Trek: Into Darkness. It looks and sounds very different from the leaked trailer for Beyond:
Meanwhile, here’s the trailer for the first Star Trek film:
Granted, the leaked trailer was produced for a different market; it may be tweaked before it’s released to American audiences. And Star Trek: Beyond could still be an awesome movie. But it doesn’t seem as if it’ll be anything like the two that preceded it.
Star Trek: Beyond hits theaters on July 22, 2016.
