The Star Trek mythos has crossed the border into religious-experience territory, which is to say, it has becomes so big and so complex that it can mean completely different things to different people, and no one interpretation is incorrect anymore, no matter how different from Gene Roddenberry's original vision.
For myself, when at its finest, Star Trek has always been about hope, bravery and friendship.
These are the virtues most prominently on display in this trailer for JJ Abrams' reboot (but still a sequel and a prequel) Star Trek. But they're not the only thing this trailer is about.
Abrams gives us a new angle on the Star Trek mythos, something long-imagined but never-before-seen. Abrams gives us, as Joseph Campbell has termed it, the call to adventure. The moment when the heroes' life is forever changed.
What Campbell doesn't mention as much, but Abrams brilliantly infuses into his story is that this call to adventure is also a chance for the hero to reach out and grasp his potential, an incredibly strong core that every viewer can connect to, for haven't we all wondered what we're meant to do and who we're meant to be? Whether this was our path?
As one of the characters says to a young James Kirk at the open of the trailer, "Your father was captain of a starship for twelve minutes. He saved 800 lives, including yours. I dare you to do better." If that isn't a call to action and a clear line-of-sight to one's potential, I just don't know what is.
In addition to making for a powerful story, it also is a clever marketing device, for any life-long fan of Star Trek will tell you that while the characters and universe are carved in stone, the origin story has never been told. Suddenly we have the same old Trek with a brand new hook. I mean, it worked for Bond and Batman. Why not for Kirk and Spock?
A group called 'Two Steps From Hell' provides a track called 'Freedom Fighters' which serves as the powerful background music, once again driving home the notions of bravery, hope, friendship, and self-worth.
Pacing and energy are kept up by slick cutting and smooth transitions from action to character, with nice breaks for dialogue.
If the trailer has a fault, I would actually declare it a fault of director JJ Abrams, who despite being one of the smartest men in the business, is still developing his eye as a film director, and in doing so, has failed to produce a great money shot. Some have come close, such as the shot from Mission Impossible-3 (Abrams' feature debut) where a camera-bound Tom Cruise was knocked off his feet and into a car window by an explosion on a bridge behind him.
Abrams shoots action with great energy and is wise enough to stage and frame those sequences the same way he does his character moments, but despite the energy, there is some missing refinement. One only look at an action scene composed by James Cameron to appreciate this distinction -- some of his best examples being the Los Angeles River chase from Terminator 2 (which concludes with a great money shot of John and the Terminator on a motorcycle driving away from an exploding truck) or the bridge chase in True Lies (which ends with another great money shot of Arnold Schwarzenegger clinging to Jamie Lee Curtis from the bottom of a helicopter while her vehicle falls from the bridge into the ocean beneath her).
Regardless of this one minor gripe, the trailer works incredibly well on me, hitting everything that has ever moved me about Star Trek and promising me an adventure that I can't wait to go on.
Boldly, of course.
Until next time.
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