I've been thinking a lot about the trailer for the upcoming Star Trek movie. (It's hard not to - it's plastered all over the few time slots and channels that I watch.) Mostly what I think is, "Why?"
Allow me to summarize the trailer:
"Hi, I'm James Kirk! KABOOOOOM!!! I'm Doctor McCoy! BLAM!!! I'm Mr. Spock! KAPOWIEEEE, ZOOM! [brief clip of sexy scene between Kirk and unknown female; we note again that Starfleet uniform includes boxer shorts] PEW PEW PEW!!!"
The trailer is laughably transparent. This is Star Trek shown through the diffracting prism of big budget action movies like "Pearl Harbor" and "Armageddon." The trailer promises us that things will be blown up, and that our favorite characters will perform bizarre and unlikely stunts. Also, that Kirk will sex up some lady.
Something that gets lost in the translation is that a low budget show is forced to rely primarily on characters and dialogue to carry the story. It may surprise a lot of people in Hollywood to learn that people like characters and dialogue. No one watches "House" for the cool special effects. People don't endlessly re-rent "Blackadder" for the awesome visuals. And if anyone remembers a special effect from the original Star Trek series, it's not in a good way.
I'm not prepared to say that the new movie will cheapen our memories and experience of the original series. I refuse to pass judgment on a movie that I haven't seen yet. But I wonder if it will try very hard to do what the original series did best? Or will it just be characters with familiar names running through effects that were added in post-production?
