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Upon (much) reflection, what I feel was lacking with the movie's advertising is something basic. What is the appeal of Star Trek as a franchise? The answer is the characters. It is the same explanation about why there is so much interest about Star Trek 7. People have grown attached to the characters and want to see what has happened with them as well as the world(s) in which they live. What aspect of the story exhibited in those clips identified the crew of the Star Trek Enterprise as old friends we have missed that we should visit again? That is the crucial element of any sequel. Contrast that to the Iron Man 3 trailer that goes out of its way to delineate the precarious position of Tony Stark in the wake of The Avengers incident in Manhattan.

Star Trek Into Darkness attempted to use the Lost/Cloverfield mystery playbook of J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof once again. The reason why this tactic was ineffective is simple. People did not know what Lost and Cloverfield were about from the start. The primary reason Lost failed as a series is that the promise of further mysteries was given in place of answers to the existing puzzles. With innumerable Lost and Cloverfield clones having aired in the interim, the once innovative tactic is now the default style for a lot of television and movie premises. I believe Paramount would have been better served by resisting the temptation to build a mystery. Instead, the marketing should have highlighted a key aspect of the actual movie, the Enterprise family building relationships in a different manner that (some) fans know from the television series. Kirk and Spock are iconic. Why were they not emphasized more when Alice Eve's screaming and underwear shot were italicized in every ad?

Kim Hollis: I agree that there was no reason to be so secretive about the villain in the film. I think they could actually have built a lot of excitement just around that character alone. But I also think that Star Trek suffers from not skewing older. There's been no good way to build excitement among the youth audience, because most of them are going to look at the '60s show and even the non-reboot movies and wonder what all the fuss is about. The characters are using communicators that look like flip phones. There's nothing special or "sci-fi" about that. Matt may be onto something, too, when he notes that the reboot isn't really doing anything new with the story, just sort of re-inventing it in almost a fan-fiction sort of way. It's tough to get non-fans of the series excited about that.

Kim Hollis: With JJ Abrams gone after this film and at least a marginally disappointing debut for the latest Star Trek film, what do you believe is the short-term future for the franchise?

Brett Ballard-Beach: Nemesis killed the franchise. Star Trek revived it with a hit of (lens flare) crack to the system. Into Darkness will do fine when all is said and done. Paramount may be a little overly cautious now that they have tasted sweet sweet global grosses and probably won't do any stretching creativity wise in the short term.

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