To Blankly Go

Last week Paramount Pictures released a series of nine character posters for their upcoming film Star Trek Beyond.

They're definitely colorful and striking, and reasonably well designed. That said, after I saw them altogether like this, something about the layout jumped out at me. There's something... missing from the posters. Can you spot what's been left out?

THE TITLE'S MISSING! There's no title on any of the posters! Sure, they're emblazoned with a big, bold BEYOND, which is the subtitle of the film, but nowhere on any of the posters does it say "Star Trek!" What the hell?

Why, it's almost as if Paramount was ashamed of their long-running cash cow of a franchise!

The omission is especially puzzling considering this year marks the 50th Anniversary of the original TV series' premiere. Surely some sort of commemorative Star Trek 50th logo was in order here?

Maybe Paramount thinks these characters are so iconic and instantly recognizable that the posters don't need a title. If so, they're dead wrong. This is only the third time around the block with these particular versions of the characters. Without any context, I seriously doubt the general public is going to know who they're all supposed to be.

OK, so most people would probably recognize the Spock poster because of the Moe haircut and the ears, but what about the Dr. McCoy one? You can't see his blue uniform under all that visual static, so to the average moviegoer, it just looks like a poster of a mildly annoyed Karl Urban staring into the distance. And only the most rabid of fans would be able to identify Anton Yelchin as Chekov.

And what the hell's going on with this Scotty poster? Is that John Hamm as everyone's favorite excitable engineer, or a horribly Photoshopped and virtually unrecognizable Simon Pegg?

There definitely needs to be some sort of identification here. Whoever thought it was a good idea to release nine title-less posters is an idiot and needs demoted to the mailroom.

Buy your tickets and get in line today for Beyond!