One of the several new high-profile trailers to be released in the past several days was our first look at Justin Lin's STAR TREK BEYOND. As a life-long Star Trek fan, this was my most anticipated trailer of the week, but unfortunately I was left underwhelmed. Perhaps it was the Beastie Boys soundtrack (I'm not a fan, sorry), but it didn't feel like Star Trek to me; however, as Justin Lin reminds us, this is only a minute and thirty seconds of a two hour movie. After the release of the STAR TREK BEYOND trailer, Justin Lin sat down with a group of reporters and discussed the new trailer, Idris Elba's villain, and pushing the Star Trek franchise further.
Justin Lin on Idris Elba's villain, who goes by the name of Krall:
He’s a character that has a very distinct philosophy that’s very different than…I think it’s great being a fan and a lot of times I watch Utopia, East San Francisco, and I always feel like, “Oh wow.” When you’re building this movie, you’re like, “So they don’t have money. How do they live? How do they compete?” And those are things that I think his character in a way has a very distinct and valid point of view. His character is really challenging the way of The Federation’s philosophy and there’s just a lot of things that I think when I was growing up I wanted to see.
On the origins of the title:
It came from my initial conversation with J.J. He kinda tracked me down and we’re talking and I didn’t know what to expect. I thought maybe he’s offering to go shoot a script that existed, and he said, “No, it’s yours. Go and be bold, and just take it. Be bold and make it what you think you would do to Star Trek,” and the more we talked about it the more we kept saying, “Well, let’s keep pushing, let’s keep pushing,” and that’s when Simon kinda said, “Well, it should be Star Trek Beyond,” and it was his idea and it kinda came from all our conversations and then we looked at each other and like, “Oh! That sounds like the title of this film.”
On how Krall might challenge the philosophy of the Federation:
What would happen if you’re going on a five-year journey and you’re trying to also not only explore but also maybe introduce other people to this way of thinking? What would that mean? What are the consequences to that? Spreading a philosophy that you believe in, that you think is great, are there gonna be any other points of views that are going to counter you? It’s easy to preach what The Federation is about and how you’re supposed to act, but what happens when that gets stripped away? Who are you? That’s something that I was excited to explore.
On using the Beastie Boys in the trailer:
It’s in the DNA of this canon it was in the ’09 Trek, and I think…For me it was not… I wanted to make sure, I mean, we went through different iterations of the teaser and I wanted to make sure that whatever we did here it’s using all the elements that’s in the film. So it’s been a part of this Kirk’s journey, so I felt like it was very organic in ultimately the finished film.
On hoping STAR TREK BEYOND pushes the franchise further while also keeping the plot and characters true:
I felt like the recipe was to do the two things that I love about Trek: To push it further, introduce new species and hopefully new adventures, but at the same time the core thing I love about Trek is it’s about the characters, and about reexamining humanity and the Federation.
STAR TREK BEYOND warps into theaters on July 22, 2016.