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Movie Review:  Star Trek Beyond (in memory of Anton Yelchin!)

I reviewed Star Trek Into Darkness back in May 2013, and although I gave it an 8/10, as a Trek fan, it didn’t live up to my wants and needs as a long term Trek fan!  But reading through that review, I don’t know if I’d give it 8/10 now, but anyway, I did, so it stays and let’s look at Star Trek Beyond!

 

The USS Enterprise crew explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a new ruthless enemy who puts them and everything the Federation stands for to the test.

 

Star Trek Beyond

 

Let’s kick off with the Memorial for Anton Yelchin though, and this film has a LOT of Chekov in it and it feels great for it!  He plays Chekov brilliantly in Beyond, younger than in teh original series and rather a ladies man aswell, one scene on the Enterprise, as Kirk is doing a captain’s Log (monologue) we see Chekov being kicked out of a young ladies cabin, bare chested and top in hand and throughout the film, you get the sense he is rather the ladies man, more so than even Walter Koenig Original Series portrayal of Chekov.

 

He is a highlight throughout this film, he was fantastic to watch and he will be missed.   I sincerely hope they DON’T recast Chekov and give him a great send off!

 

Star Trek Beyond Chekov

 

Right, let’s get into the review, and just as I did with Into Darkness in 2013, let’s look at the good and the bad…

 

As with Into Darkness, and 2009’s Star Trek, this film looks gorgeous.

Simon Pegg has done a great job on this script, I was invested nearly completely from the beginning and it was a character showcase from beginning to end!

The characters have a banter and friendship that comes across easily on screen and in some ways, is more solid than in the original series.

Where as Into Darkness bought Section 31 into the reboot universe, this one brings the Enterprise series in, with NX class ships shown off and even the Enterprise uniform blue jumpsuits (a personal fave of mine).

 

 

Now the bad points…

To be honest, most of my points that niggled me in Into Darkness still stand…

but let’s reiterate them again…

Why is the interior of the Enterprise like a huge power factory now, instead of the clean small rooms we are used to from the original series and the TNG series like TNG, DS9 and Voyager.  The rebooted Enterprise warp core is fecking huge and looks like a turbine, not the sleek, throbbing beast we are used to from the old universe.

Why is the Engineering deck so fricking huge?  Yes the warp core is 7 decks high, but why is it in the middle of a refinery?

The shuttlebay, why does it look like an aircraft hanger (which in theory it should) and not like the clean bay from the original universe?

The outside of the Enterprise, I don’t like it, I’m sorry, I really don’t…   I know this is a new alternate universe, but why change the design, even subtely?  Bring it upto date yes, but the DS9 episode, “Trials and Tribbleations” proved that a CGI’d original series Enterprise looked fantastic, the Constellation class Enterprise, considering it was designed and built in the 60’s is a beautiful design, why is the reboot version looking like a whale?!?

 

Physics…   Throughout ALL the series and movies, we’ve heard that going to warp IN a solar system is bad…   but both of the reboots have done this, all the ships going to warp in earth Orbit…

 

Star Trek Beyond trailer 2 USS Enterprise entering Starbase Yorktown

 

ok, lets get into the story then…

 

“SPOILER ALERT”

 

Star Trek Beyond Kirk

 

The film kicks off as Star Trek should, with a captains log, but this is a captain that knows he shouldn’t be in the centre seat.  Kirk (Chris Pine) knows he’s there too early, he knows he joined starfleet on a dare (unlike Kirk prime (William Shatner) who joined following his dad into service), he has a crew, MUCH younger than they were in the prime universe and in a way, it shows.  They are much more hot headed, more impulsive and get into scrapes a lot easier than Captain pike or even, Kirk Prime would have been.

 

Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) are having relationship issues and everyone knows it. Leadign to a very real, very human crisis of concience for Spock after the passing of Spock Prime (Leonard Nimoy) and a beautiful quiet memorial to him.

 

Star Trek Beyond Spock and Bones

 

McCoy (Karl Urban) is the father figure on the ship, giving sage advice aswell as being the bar tender.  What really gets be in Karl Urbans portayal of Bones is actually the closest to the prime universes Bones (DeForest Kelley), as he was already older and more experienced, not only as an officer, but as a practiced Doctor.  In fact, karl Urban holds a lot of this film together, plot twists always revolvoe around his character to one degree or another, from McCoy and Spock being stranded together while Spock is injured, to McCoy and Spock leading a raid to free the Enterprise crew and keeping Kirk from doing something stupid (like quitting starfleet) or out of his depth and really enjoying flying an alien fighter jet. This may have something to do with reports that Urban, as he had little to do in Into Darkness, nearly didn’t return to the film, but he was a main plot part all teh way through.

 

Star Trek Beyond Chekov and Sulu

 

There was also a big upset in the news about Sulu (John Cho) being openly gay in the film.  Now I actulaly really liked the way this was portrayed, we also know fromt eh prime universe that he has a daughter, adopted or otherwise, who grows up to join starfleet and end up as the helmsman of the Enterprise B in Generations…  “It wouldn’t be the Enterprise, without a Sulu at the helm!” Kirk prime exclaims.  But the very simple scene where Sulu meets his boyfriend/husband is beautiful, a nice simple cuddle and walking off with their daughter to spend time together on Sulu’s shore leave was not only tastefully done, but actually made sense.  A lovely little flash later in the film that i really liked was Sulu having a photo of his daughter on the helm, I dunno if that would be ok, but apparenlty Kirk is fine with it.

 

Ok, there are LOADS of new characters in this film, but lets just go over the main bad guy and the main good guy thats not a member of the crew…

 

Star Trek Beyond Krall

 

First up (and HUGE SPOILER WARNING!!!), Krall (Idris Elba) turns out to be a brilliant throw back to the Enterprise era of Star Trek and is actually a NX class starship captain who was classed as MIA and has been living off the life energy of other species while he builds an army to destroy the Federation for abandoning him and his crew?   Ok, I might feel that way too in his situation, but he’s a SOLDIER, he knew the risks, especially as a MACO captain pressed into the role of an NX class starship captain.   Krall (really Captain Balthazar M. Edison of the U.S.S. Franklin, NX-236 and one of the first Warp 4 starships before the launch of the Enterprise NX-01 Warp 5 starship) seemed to have come to the conclusion that Earth Space Forces (later starfleet’s) ideas of peaceful exploration over conquering other races was a sign of weakness that needed to be destroyed.  A strange reaction, but it’s the centre point for the film, although it’s never REALLy explained how he got his regenerative powers or the technology his army are using, which urked me a little.

 

Star Trek Beyond Scotty and Jaylah

 

Next we have Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) and alien who’s parents were killed by Krall, allowing her to escape.  After escaping him, she finds the derelict Franklin and make it her home on the planet, scavenging parts from other crashed ships Kralls forces destroy in orbit.  She finds Simon Pegg’s Scotty in his escape pod (well, hollowed out photon torpedo) and saves him from other scavengers.  She’s a great character, but you never really feel like you know where she learned to fight or how she learned to make all the tech she has, even from the scrap.  thanks to the music library ont eh franklin she has an appreciation for good music, which also makes a cheesy moment near the end of the film and gets an amused smile from Chris Pines Kirk, but yeah, I never really felt overly invested in her character, hopefully she’ll be back in the next one though, maybe as a love interest for Scotty.

 

Star Trek Beyond Bridge Crew

 

Ok, the script for Beyond was written by Scotty actor Simon Pegg, and it sometimes comes across cliched and almost a little rushed in places.  I enjoyed the film as an action film and romp, but I don’t feel liek this new crew could live upto a series as long as most series are now.  Of course we have Discovery coming early in 2017 and we know Star Trek “4” is coming, maybe in 2018/9, ut although this IS Trek, it’s not the Gene Rodenberry Star Trek I grew up loving, it’s still mising the exploration and especially the science that we love from the series…  and this is bourne out by the larger than needed refinery looking engineering decks, rather than the clean original series or functional TNG/Voyager starship engineering decks.  It’s a workable film and I’ll happily add it to my movie collection, but it doesn’t excite me like the series and original movies, but this is certainly the best of the three reboots!

 

One thing I did love and bought a slight tear to my eye though, was a scene of Spock going through Spock Prime’s personal items and the main one being a photo of the original cast, one that I actually have on my desktop, so I’ll share it here too to finish this review off…

 

star_trek_original_cast

 

A bold 8 out of 10, but i could take it or leave it, rather than rewatching religiously

 

~Lone

 

 


August 4th, 2016 by Lonesamurai
This entry was posted on Thursday, August 4th, 2016 at 15:03 and is filed under General, Movie Review, Technology. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

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