New Trek Trailer (Bootleg)…Finally.

New Trek Trailer (Bootleg)…Finally.

Nov 15

My Twitter pals (holla) know that yesterday I was rabidly scouring the intertubes for a bootleg version of the new Star Trek trailer. At 5 p.m. I finally gave up, and it kinda pissed me off. How could it take a planet full of well-meaning nerds more than 12 hours to upload a shaky cameraphone vid of a highly anticipated trailer?! What’s everyone’s problem, anyway, and why don’t you all understand MY needs? Am I the asshole here? (callback)

Anyway. I found it.

It still looks pretty damn good to me.

Seeing the characters move, and talk, for the first time has stabilized my enthusiasm. It’s not a “Well, this looks cool, but only if…” situation anymore; it’s legitimate excitement.

Yesterday I was chomping at the bit for a glimpse of Nimoy; having seen the trailer, I still chomp, but I understand their reluctance to put him too far front and center on the second trailer for a film designed to break with the old and start fresh. A Nimoy money shot right there at the end, instead of that “The wait is finally over” bit, would have sent me over the edge, and probably other Trekkies too…but then, we’re not the real audience for this, are we?

The new Star Trek is meant to reboot the franchise for a young, new audience by creating a film with a fresh cast that positions the concept as something totally devoid of nostalgia or baggage. This literally isn’t your daddy’s Star Trek.

Can they pull it off? From a quality perspective, they’ve got as good a chance as anyone on the planet of doing it; Abrams’ track record isn’t spotless but he sure does have his geek credentials lined up, and everything he’s said and done with regard to the film has made an enormous amount of sense.

Will people see it and make it a blockbuster hit? That’s the real question. It has less to do with how cool this movie is, and more to do with the mainstream public’s capacity for even caring enough at this point to reach out for a new take on this franchise. Trekkies have been talking about Trek burnout for coming up on a decade; if we were sick of this shit ten years ago, I can only imagine when Joe the Sixpack Plumber’s patience began to wear thin. Sometime after “Best of Both Worlds” would be my guess.

Spacefighting looks cool. Cast looks good. Classy use of original sound effects and music. Brief Kirk/Spock interaction sold me.

I’ll say this much: The new Watchmen trailer was ridiculously badass, but I am way more excited for a new great Trek film than a great Watchmen adaptation. Shit, as a Trekkie, I can’t even get my mind around the idea that there might actually be another legitimately GOOD Star Trek movie in my future. It seems like some giant prank by Paramount, and when we get there next May, we’ll actually be forced through some new round of Rick Berman bullshit, with Spock taking wacky pills so he giggles a lot and an incoherent plot resolved through technobabble.

But that won’t happen, right? RIGHT?!?!?!