Let’s Overanalyse The Star Trek Into Darkness Trailer
One-minute and sixteen-seconds of fandom with our resident Star Trek expert, Alasdair Duncan.
A new trailer for Star Trek Into Darkness arrived on the Internet over the weekend, and it has everything a fan could want: Action! Adventure! A sinister-looking villain! Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk looking handsome while being berated by his superiors! But what does it all mean? What’s the story about this time, and is Khan really the villain, like people are saying? Movie trailers are only fun if you pick them apart on a minute level, so with that in mind, let’s overanalyse the Star Trek Into Darkness trailer together!
0:09 – Oh wow, could it be the first sighting of lens flare?
0:15 – “Do you have any idea what a pain you are?” Admiral Pike is getting stern with Kirk, because as usual, Kirk’s been a very bad boy. I love it when Pike gives Kirk a good dressing-down. Rrrrrawwwwrrrrr.
0:18 – Lens flare?
0:19 – “The beach is that way!” Oh, Kirk, you silly thing – leave it up to you to forget where the beach is and take a plunge off a cliff! Wait… you also went off a cliff in the last film, right? I guess that was a flashback and you were a little kid then, so it’s totally not the same thing at all. That blue water looks very inviting, too.
0:25 – “Three… Two… One…” Here we see Kirk, looking very serious and wearing a very serious helmet, preparing for what looks to be a dive through space. Superficially, this looks like it could be similar to the scene in the first Abrams film where Kirk and Sulu dive down onto the drill platform in an attempt to save Vulcan, but then, there are jetpacks this time, and Kirk appears to be dodging rubble like he’s in a video game, so it’s totally not the same thing at all.
0:27 – Lens flare!
0:31 – “By now, all of you have heard what happened in London.” What happened in London is probably some kind of fiery CGI ‘splosion, committed by Benedict Cumberbatch’s Khan, the rumoured villain of the piece. What I think may have also happened is that Khan’s fingers brushed against Kirk’s when they were both reaching for the same Cardassian Sunrise in a crowded hotel bar, and they shared an awkward side-long glance that turned into a night when they unexpectedly opened up to one another, sharing painful childhood stories that they had never told anyone, and eventually making love like teenagers.
0:33 – “He’s a fugitive, and I want to take him out.” So yeah, unless this is an epic bit of misdirection, the ‘he’ in this sentence is a pensive-looking Benedict Cumberbatch, making him the bad guy for sure. I’m way, way too excited to see the showdown between his character and Pine’s.
0:37 – “The ship will not fit!” Kirk and Spock became best buds at the end of the last one, but it’s good to see that they’re still engaging in some charged bickering and bantering. Also, the shippers are going to have a fan fiction field day with all this talk of whether or not it’s going to ‘fit’.
0:41 – Lens flare. Look, I’m not going to point out the lens flare anymore, just accept that there’s going to be a lot of it.
0:48 – Yup, Sulu and Uhura are in this one. Hey guys!
0:52 – It’s Spock diving into a volcano!
0:53 – Oh look, it’s Simon Pegg, reacting hilariously to some kind of giant CGI fish! They introduced him right near the end of the last one for a bit of light and effective comic relief, so I guess they’re doing the same again here? Is it too much to ask for the giant fish to be voiced by Nick Frost in some kind of subplot where he and Scotty are affable stoner roommates?
0:58 – “Punch it”. Sploosh.
1:04 – The end of the trailer consists of a lot of action movie-ish stuff – people running down corridors as warning lights flash, dramatic shots of city buildings being destroyed, giant ships coming out of the water. Just in case you forgot that the first film was really rather action-packed, these shots serve as a hint that this instalment probably will be, also. Don’t worry, it seems to say, between this film and the last, the Enterprise didn’t turn into some kind of intergalactic Downton Abbey.
1:10 – “Star Trek Into Darkness, in theatres May 17″. Why can’t it be in cinemas NOW?
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Alasdair Duncan is an author, freelance writer and video game-lover who has had work published in Crikey, The Drum, The Brag, Beat, Rip It Up, The Music Network, Rave Magazine, AXN Cult and Star Observer. Read about his Star Trek & The City Twitter fame right here.