Skip to main content

Digital Trends may earn a commission when you buy through links on our site. Why trust us?

The crew assembles (with some fresh footage) in latest ‘Star Trek Beyond’ TV teaser

The latest preview for Star Trek Beyond puts the focus on how well the crew of the U.S.S. Enterprise operates together, but it’s also jam-packed with new footage from the highly anticipated follow-up to 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness.

Titled Unity, the 30-second television spot features James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), Leonard “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban), Spock (Zachary Quinto), and the rest of the crew pondering their ability to work together while we’re treated to scenes of the cosmic destruction and disarray that await them in Star Trek Beyond. It’s a nice juxtaposition that teases some of the wild action in director Justin Lin’s first foray into the Star Trek universe.

Directed by Lin from a script penned by franchise actor Simon Pegg (Spaced) and Doug Jung (Banshee), Star Trek Beyond brings back Pine, Urban, and Quinto from the previous films, as well as Pegg (as Montgomery “Scotty” Scott), Zoe Saldana (as Nyota Uhura), recently deceased actor Anton Yelchin (as Pavel Chekov), and John Cho (as Hikaru Sulu). Newcomers to the cast this time around include Luther star Idris Elba as Krall, Kingsman: The Secret Service actor Sofia Boutella Jaylah, and The Raid actor Joe Taslim in an unidentified role.

J.J. Abrams, who directed the first two films in the rebooted franchise, serves as a producer on Star Trek Beyond.

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the Star Trek franchise, which debuted on television September 8, 1966. A new Star Trek television series will premiere next year, with Hannibal creator Bryan Fuller serving as the series’ showrunner. The new series will reportedly tell a different kind of Star Trek story with one continuous story arc throughout its 13 episodes, but it is not expected to directly tie-in with the film franchise.

Star Trek Beyond is scheduled to hit theaters July 22.

Editors' Recommendations

Rick Marshall
A veteran journalist with more than two decades of experience covering local and national news, arts and entertainment, and…
How do I get into Star Trek? A guide to how to watch the beloved sci-fi franchise
The cast of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

Few science fiction franchises have made as enormous a cultural impact as Star Trek. Trek’s language and visual iconography, from “warp speed” to your phone’s built-in “live long and prosper” emoji, are ubiquitous even to people who have never seen the show. It’s the original organized “geek culture” fandom, and the birthplace of fan fiction and cosplay as we know it. The stigma of Trekkies as unwashed, socially awkward outcasts has dissipated as sci-fi and comics culture has gone mainstream, but Star Trek itself can still be intimidating to outsiders due to its massive scale and dense mythology of more than 800 episodes and films.
Though it’s possible to explore the Star Trek universe on your own, it is best navigated with the aid of a guide. And, if you don’t happen to have a Trekkie in your life to chart your course with you (which they absolutely love to do), we’re here to offer three options as to how to get started, depending on how you like to digest stories.

Course No. 1: The sampler platter

Read more
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2, episode 1 release date, time, channel, and plot
Rebecca Romijn, Anson Mount, and Ethan Peck walk in the hallway of the USS Enterprise in a scene from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds.

Paramount+ is the USS Enterprise for Trekkies, as the streaming service continues to produce entertaining and well-received Star Trek programs. There are multiple Star Trek TV shows to choose from that span a variety of genres. Star Trek: Lower Decks is an animated comedy for adults, Star Trek: Prodigy is geared toward families, and Star Trek: Discovery and Star Trek: Picard are dramas. Star Trek: Strange New Worlds falls into the drama category, but it's a throwback to the original Star Trek and a treat for all fans.

Created by Akiva Goldsman, Alex Kurtzman, and Jenny Lume, Star Trek: Strange New Worlds follows the adventures of Captain Christopher Pike (Anson Mount) and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise as they traverse to new worlds within the galaxy. The series takes place ten years before Star Trek: The Original Series. After a critically-acclaimed first season in 2022, Strange New Worlds returns for its second season this summer. Below is information about the release date, time, channel, and plot for the first episode of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2.
When does episode 1 of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds season 2 release?

Read more
Star Trek vs. Star Wars: which one is better in 2023?
Diego Luna walks through a scrapyard of ships in a scene from Andor.

For as long as both entities have existed, fans of science fiction and fantasy have debated the merits of Star Trek and Star Wars. But for most of the 45 years that the two franchises have overlapped, Star Trek and Star Wars haven’t actually had much in common, apart from their cosmic setting. Star Trek is an aspirational sci-fi series set in humanity’s future, while Star Wars is a bombastic fantasy adventure that takes place in a far-off galaxy. One has primarily lived on weekly television, while the other has broken big-screen box office numbers.
However, in recent years, both Star Trek and Star Wars have become tentpoles for their parent companies’ subscription streaming services, Paramount+ and Disney+, respectively, each pumping out a steady stream of content in an ever-widening array of formats. This has led them to encroach further into each other’s territory than ever before. Star Trek vs. Star Wars is no longer an apples-to-oranges comparison — they are directly competing products, sharing some of the same ambitions and struggling against the same environmental forces.
We will likely never settle on which space franchise is the greatest of all time, but we can take a moment to ask: Which is better right now?

Star Trek and Star Wars have both leaned heavily into fan service

Read more