Abrams, what are you up to?!
The new trailer for Star Trek: Discovery premiered at Comic-Con, and there’s a lot of good stuff going on. It looks like First Officer Michael Burnham, played by Sonequa Martin-Green, will really be taken through the ringer – she’s even accused of “help[ing] to start a war” – and Martin-Green has the perfect expressiveness and sincerity to be the viewer’s lens into this world. I’d definitely watch this woman run through the universe.
At the panel, it was also revealed that Burnham is Spock’s adopted sister, taken in by Sarek and Amanda after her parents were killed. Given the trailer’s voiceover – “All life is born from chaos; the world doesn’t always adhere to logic” – and quotes like, “Change is the essential process of all existence,” it looks like Martin-Green will have to deal with a world that doesn’t always match up to Vulcan ideals of logic and rationality. While I wonder about the necessity of connecting Martin-Green to Spock in such a direct way, I do think her Vulcan-adoptee past could be a cool character element.
However, this trailer is also quite…splodey. We don’t see nearly as many new, alien worlds as we see careening and burning spaceships – and while it’s obviously okay to reinvent a series for its reboot, all the explosions and interstellar warfare made it feel less Star Trek and more Battlestar Galactica.
Plus, they didn’t give Michelle Yeoh’s Captain Georgiou much to do in this trailer. Give me more Yeoh!
Obviously, I’m still going to watch it – first, for the experience of seeing two women of color leading and learning their way through the Trek universe; and second, because the first look trailer seemed much more explore-y. But I don’t quite know what to expect from this series after this SDCC trailer. I guess I’ll find out on September 24, 2017.
(Via io9; image via screengrab)
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