--- title: Rihanna Sledgehammer Music Video for Star Trek Beyond description: Rihanna premieres the music video for Sledgehammer, the theme song of Star Trek Beyond. canonical: https://time.com/4388630/rihanna-sledgehammer-music-video/ author: Ashley Hoffman article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-06-30T14:43:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T07:33:55.747Z og:title: Watch Rihanna's Sledghammer Music Video og:description: There's plenty of trippy visual weirdness. og:url: https://time.com/4388630/rihanna-sledgehammer-music-video/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: TIME og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Watch Rihanna's Sledghammer Music Video twitter:description: There's plenty of trippy visual weirdness. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltde093bcdab65f2d0/6988d9b9bc6cfc69913e2a3c/time-logo.jpg?branch=production --- # Watch a Giant Glowing Rihanna Head in Space in the 'Sledgehammer' Video by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Jun 30, 2016 2:43 PM UTC by [Ashley Hoffman](https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/) ## Ashley Hoffman Jun 30, 2016 2:43 PM UTC Look, Rihanna can move stuff on mountainous space regions! The official music video for “Sledgehammer,” [Rihanna’s](http://time.com/4388125/rihanna-pizza-fans-rain/?iid=sr-link2) _Star Trek Beyond_ theme song is out. Floria Sigismondi directed it using only IMAX cameras for the whole thing (hey, it’s [Bad Gal](http://time.com/4377942/rihanna-cried-on-stage-internet/?iid=sr-link10) manipulating the terrain with her mind powers,) and there’s plenty of trippy visual weirdness. The camera goes as fast as the spaceship, and the landscape cinematography is sufficiently wacky, but it still shares a bit of the film’s DNA. Spoiler alert: she never actually rams a sledgehammer through anything, but she does pop a really cool bubble. In a [promotional video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnS44Vg40WE) for the movie, Rihanna, who says she has been a ride or die _Star Trek_ fan since she was a little girl, explained the vision for the survival song, “it needed to be big and impactful, very emotional, dramatic, and haunting at the same time.” Watch below. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4388630/rihanna-sledgehammer-music-video/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4388630/rihanna-sledgehammer-music-video/"},"headline":"Watch a Giant Glowing Rihanna Head in Space in the 'Sledgehammer' Video","datePublished":"2016-06-30T14:43:30.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T07:33:55.747Z","description":"There's plenty of trippy weirdness","url":"https://time.com/4388630/rihanna-sledgehammer-music-video/","keywords":["Newsfeed","movies","celebrities","Music","Rihanna"],"thumbnailUrl":"","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Ashley Hoffman","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/ashley-hoffman/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4388630/rihanna-sledgehammer-music-video/","name":"Watch a Giant Glowing Rihanna Head in Space in the 'Sledgehammer' Video"}}]}] ```