Simon Pegg on that Mission: Impossible trailer, the 'optimism' of his Star Trek movie

Actor Simon Pegg says that the Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation trailer had one job, and that was to top the Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol trailer. And that meant topping the tallest man-made structure in the world.

Mission: Impossible star Tom Cruise climbed the Burj Khalifa tower sans-stunt double for 2011's Ghost Protocol (though with plenty of safety wires that were removed in post-production), and that meant that there was only one option for Rogue Nation, Pegg explained to Spinoff Online.

The only way he could top climbing the tallest building in the world is to be on something that isn't attached to the ground and higher up, and it was like, "Well, that's a plane." The only thing you can do is an airplane, and he did it [laughs]. And a gaffer tapes him to the side of it and off he went [...] When you watch it in the trailer, when you do it on a working day, it's like, "Wow! That's amazing ... Yeah, OK. Move on. What's next?" Whereas you see in the trailer, it's like, ‘Fuck — that's insane!" So I'm very excited for audiences to see it.

Pegg also answered questions about the future of the Star Trek franchise. While 2009's Star Trek reboot was generally well received, Star Trek Into Darkness took a lot of criticism from fans and viewers for casting a white, British actor to play the canonically (even given the alternate timeline of the new films) West Indian-descended Khan Noonien Singh, as well as including a scene in which the film's hero violated a subordinate crew woman's expressly stated desire for privacy and played it for laughs. To many, these elements stuck out like sore thumbs against the franchise's six decade commitment to depicting a diverse and egalitarian future.

The actor, who is co-writing the screenplay for the as-yet-unnamed sequel to Into Darkness, says he wants to get back to Star Trek's roots.

I think we just want to take it forward with the spirit of the TV show. And it's a story about frontierism and adventure and optimism and fun, and that's where we want to take it, you know. Where no man has gone before — where no one has gone before, sensibly corrected for a slighter more enlightened generation.

That's a statement that is sure to excite Trek fans who feel that J.J. Abrams' adaptations have strayed from the spirit of Star Trek. The film is also likely to have Idris Elba as its villain, though there's no word yet on what sort of villain he'll be.