Thursday 30 June 2016

USS Enterprise and more join Rihanna in Sledgehammer video

We got our first sample of Rihanna's new single Sledgehammer, which is attached to Star Trek Beyond, with the release of the third trailer for the film, and now the full song has been revealed, complete with Star Trek filled music video. We get some especially nice shots of the Enterprise, along with Rihanna summoning swarm ships, levitating rocks, and dancing about on a planet near to Starbase Yorktown:



Here are a few choice stills:









EW have posted an interview with the video's director, Floria Sigismondi, who gave some interesting insights into what was and was not inspired by Star Trek Beyond itself. (Floating rocks?)
We wanted to use some of the elements from the film. I watched the film and gravitated towards some, like the floating rocks. I thought that could help elevate my world and make it otherworldly. We used the broken moon, we used the swarm ships, and we used [Starbase] Yorktown—that’s the big floating thing that looks like a planet but is actually a base where people live.

We tried to incorporate those elements but create a standalone piece where Rihanna is a mystical being on this otherworldly planet. She has her own character not rooted in the film. She’s harnessing her power to manipulate the elements. She is able to conjure light and stars and ultimately transform into the universe itself, becoming the stars and the planets. I love the idea of transcendence. When you listen to the lyrics of the song, she’s this sledgehammer breaking things down. It’s about pushing through your boundaries, and Star Trek is also about exploring the unknown, so I drew from that. I wanted to leave the audience with the feeling of an expansive universe, one we all live in yet know so little about. I wanted to evoke that feeling on a really large scale.
Paramount have also released a video with Rihanna talking about her love of Trek:



And this image of her facial marking from the video:


And a Latvian distributor posted this combination of the Beyond trailer and a promo for the single on Instagram:

A video posted by Uz Kino (@uzkinolv) on




2 comments:

Shadowknight1 said...

Not a bad song. Her alien makeup looks cool. But the shots of the Enterprise are the highlight! Is it just me, or are her bussard collectors red instead of blue? And nice to see confirmation of the Enterprise getting a weapons upgrade.

Ktrek said...

I don't like the song. I hope it's not anywhere in the film and only in the trailer. The visuals are nice though.

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