The first trailer for Star Trek Beyond premiered this week, and — although it didn’t reveal much of the plot — one thing you may have noticed is that the drastically universe-altering effects of Star Trek Into Darkness seem to have disappeared. What effects were those? We’ll let Birth Movies Death sum it up:
Not only did the Federation now have the ability to beam themselves between planets in different parts of the galaxy, ending the need for starships, they had also cured death thanks to the magic blood of Khan and his crew. The human adventure had come to an end, it seemed, as humanity had ascended to the level of immortals who could be essentially omnipresent in the galaxy.
So, will the characters of Star Trek Beyond — which takes place roughly two and a half years after Into Darkness — be aware of this immortality and interstellar beaming? According to new director Justin Lin, LOL NOPE. Well, what he actually told Birth Movies Death was, “Do we address it? No, but we don’t discount it. We don’t sit there and say it doesn’t exist. It’s part of this universe now.”
In other words, like many things on the Star Trek TV series, we’re just going to pretend that episode didn’t happen. And there’s another plotline from Into Darkness that’s going to be ignored in Beyond: the relationship between James T. Kirk and Carol Marcus. Lin says the relationship didn’t fit into their story, and it’s been almost three years, so they left it out. So, in this alternate universe, the future Mrs. Kirk is just another space hottie Kirk has loved and left. At least for now. Some things haven’t changed so much.
(Via Birth Movies Death)