Spoilers STAR TREK BEYOND - Grading & Discussion

Well, I’ve seen it twice in the theaters now and I have to say I really enjoyed it the first time and enjoyed it even more the second time!

I really appreciated the effort here. I know Simon Pegg and Doug Jong were very rushed to produce this script and that very easily could have resulted in only a “pew-pew” story with cheap fan-boy trek crap thrown in there like we got in STiD. We didn’t get that. It was obvious to me they did their research and this Star Trek fan appreciates the careful attention to detail. I especially appreciate the ‘Enterprise’ references. Thank you Simon! I didn’t leave the theater feeling like I had just got gut-punched as I did after watching STiD.

Lots of characters moments in this one and while the reasoning behind Krall’s going nuts isn’t presented to us very well – I think the reason itself is a valid one and that makes our villain not as “weak” as most critics seem to proclaim. He’s a soldier (M.A.C.O) that was probably put in a position (CO of a Star Ship) that he wasn’t really suited for (just think how many millions of folks throughout all the wars have been put in the same situation). It makes sense that after the Romulan War they would be in need of Star Ship Captains. Then Star Fleet and the Federation forgot him …. stranded him and his crew. Missing in Action (MIA) soldiers, sailors and airmen immediately came to mind for me. I can’t imagine being in that situation and most certainly would be VERY ANGRY at my government for forgetting me. Let alone letting that stew for 100 years or so.

It’s my understanding that about 27 minutes or so was cut from this movie before its release. A more detailed background for Krall and Jayla was in there. (among some other stuff probably) I guess we can thank “final cutters” (whoever that is) for the missing backstory for both these characters.

So…. I loved the opening scene. Kirk offering the movie’s mcguffin to an alien species. (Did we ever get their name?) I know there were probably some that saw it coming, but I wasn’t one of them. Pretty funny Kirk tearing his shirt and all.

Some didn’t like Kirk’s monologue, they say it sounds like Kirk was whining. One reason I wanted to see it again before reviewing was I wanted to keep an eye out for some complaints I’ve read after my first look. I didn’t get the feel he was whining, just the realization that a LONG voyage in space has its hardships, even with all the technology they have. This is an angle we never really got from the TV series. I like that they addressed in in the movie. From one that’s been on my share of deployments in the Navy, I can appreciate the content and tone. It does get monotonous. Kirk thinks it’s time for the crew to stretch their legs and the Yorktown is close so…

Kirk come off as MUCH more reserved and mature now.

We get to see the most beautiful, most scientifically accurate, presentation of a star ship traveling at warp I’ve ever seen. Just majestic! This is right up there with the black hole depiction in ‘Interstellar”! I wish we could have seen more of it.

Kirk and Bones meet and have a few drinks, speaking of birthdays. Kirk’s father and his. Nice little nod to previous trek movies with Bones and Kirk speaking of “old-age” etc. Also, their toast to “good eyes and a full head of hair” was also nice. (see STiD, this is how a little homage is done)

How about the Yorktown! Is that a sight to see or not!! Beautiful! Just loved it and from a distance it does look like a snow globe I’d have to say it’s the most bad ass detailed space station I can remember in SCI-FI, let alone Trek. Just fantastic!

Uhura and Spock break up!!!!! WAAAAAAHOOOOO!!!

We then see Kirk speaking with Commodore Paris (distant relation to Tom?) play by Shohreh Aghdashloo. I think she has a great screen presence (and unique voice). I love her in ‘The Expanse’ as well. I do have a problem with the whole “Vice Admiral” thing. You are promoted; you don’t apply for a promotion. Vice Admiral isn’t a position, it’s a rank) That, and if Kirk accepts, he would be a few ranks senior to her! (if the Commodore position is equal to that of the US Navy and it may not be as we never see her in a uniform). Good lord, he made Captain at light-speed, but this is nuts! But that said, it does play an important part here as we now know that Kirk is seriously considering leaving the Enterprise. It’s not like Trek hasn’t fubar’d ranks before.

While on Yorktown we see Sulu meet up with his husband and daughter. I took sides with Mr. Takei and thought this change was a bad choice and not needed nor desired, but I have to say - it was done perfectly. They showed the relationship and didn’t make a big deal out of it as they shouldn’t have. John Cho didn’t change a bit and still rocked as Sulu. Nicely done.

Then of course we get two elderly Vulcan’s meeting up with Spock and informing him that Spock(prime) has passed away. A choked up moment for me but for more than the obvious reason. I actually felt for our new Spock. Just how the hell would I feel knowing that an older version of me, that I met, had passed away? … a legendary one at that? Pretty tough one I think.

Enter our helpless victim needing assistance. We all could see where this was going (at least that was my initial impression). I like the new take on the Universal Translator” when Kalara was asking for help. Pretty cool. Of course Enterprise is going to help her, but at least this time we didn’t hear “The only ship in the quadrant”!!! This time it was the flag ship had the most sophisticated sensor array. Thank you! I also LOVED the reasoning that Commodore Paris gave to Kirk for her selection. I’m paraphrasing here, but she indicated it wasn’t just the technological superiority that affected her decision, she was choosing the Enterprise because Kirk was there. (she says “you”). More on this later.

Off to save Kalara’s stranded crew. More frellin amazing visuals as the Enterprise navigates the densest asteroid gathering in history albeit inside a nebula. Then our heroes are confronted with something they’ve never seen before. Kirk asks “what is it?” and before you know it the swarms of things are attacking Enterprise. I personally think a few of these scenes were too dark and I really wish they would put away that frakin shaky camera… it makes it so hard to follow the action. It’s already “fast and furious” enough Justin, the additional shaky cam was NOT necessary. The battle ensues, 1701 is getting the crap kicked out of it! … to the point of the nacelles falling off!! Krall and his goons board Enterprise and we then find out that our McGuffin is the prize. Scotty’s hurrying to restore impulse power, and Kirk, listening to his crew, realizes the only way anyone has a change is to separate the saucer. (nod to 1701-D?) This of course is a new capability of our Constitution Class. Not sure how I feel about that. Kirk and Krall brawl, so pretty cool “pew-pew” going on everywhere, then Krall orders his swarm to “break their neck” … the visually epic stuff just doesn’t stop as the swarm gracefully detaches the upper and lower halves of the ship. Man, I’ll tell you what, good ole Enterprise certainly took a beating… and was still ticking! Uhura (I think) determine what Krall is searching for and informs Kirk. Kirk is off to hide our mcguffin. Uhura finishes necessary manual technobabble thing turning and button pushing and sauce separation begins. Once again - visually fantastic. Heroic effort by Captain and crew are unsuccessful and Kirk give the order to abandon ship… the crew is ejecting in the escape pods and being swept up by the swarm. The bad guys want the crew members, not just the Abronath. Kirk give the order to Sulu to abandon ship and makes his way to the bridge (not really sure how ) where he orders the remaining bridge officers “take the Kelvin pods” (obviously a nod ST2009). It was a pretty powerful scene when Kirk was standing on the bridge of his crashing ship as well as the view from Kirk’s pod after it ejects from the saucer section.

These Kelvin pods are pretty nifty… they change the uniform of all the officers that use them Not sure I like the “away” uniforms, but they aren’t all that bad.

Our crew ends up be split up into very interesting pairs. Bones & Spock, Kirk & Chekov, Scotty & Jayla and Uhura & Sulu. Great decision by the writers here. I think the best part of this movie is all the character moments we get because of this and how all of them work together. The entire ensemble is involved, not just Kirk and Spock centric as we primarily saw in the last 2 movies.

Kirk & Chekov: Great pair here. They make their way back to what’s left of Enterprise with Kalara in tow. Kirk by this point has figured out she was part of the plan all along. She tells Kirk she was just trying to save her crew and he doesn’t kill her. Once on Enterprise, Kirk find out that Kalara is really working for Krall, Chekov gets some power working in order to find the crew, the bad guys come and they have to leave. They end up getting stuck in one of Jayla’s traps while trying to find the crew.

Spock & Bones: They crash land on the planet and Spock is impaled. Some lovely banter is exchanged and Bones patches him up (barely). They proceed on foot to find the crew. They have to rest and Spock reveals to Bones that he intends to leave Enterprise and concentrate his efforts on rebuilding the Vulcan race on New Vulcan. Bones has some great lines, one of which refers to Spock choosing to make Vulcan babies instead of remaining with Uhura Bones is also very understanding when Spock tells him that Spock (prime) has passed. Spock actually laughs at one of Bones’ remarks. These two play off each other very well. Carl Urban’s McCoy is still the best casting of the lot. It’s eerie at times how well he channels DeForest Kelley.

Uhura & Sulu: They are captured with the crew and as a result interact with Krall. They escape to a point and find out that Krall has been listening to everything the Federation has been doing along with the Enterprise. They get captured again and learn that Krall uses this ancient technology to suck the lives out of people to replenish him and that’s why he needs captured ship’s crew members. (pretty freaky) They also learn that Krall intends to attack the Yorktown.

Scotty & Jayla: Scotty crashes his torpedo (not a pod) on the surface and meets our guest character Jayla. Love this character and I thought Sofia Boutella’s performance was noteworthy. I didn’t know her from Adam before this movie. We see Jayla’s neat techo-hologram-replication-gadget thingy work it’s wonders and she kicks some alien bad guys butt. They need each other’s help and agree to go to her “home” where Scotty can help her fix things. It just so happens that her home is an abandoned Federation Starship, the USS Franklin (NX-326; a tribute to Nimoy’s birthday (March 26th)) I will say that I thought Scotty’s humor was a tad overdone/forced in this movie… just a little too much. Not bad, but it did catch my eye a couple times. They get some things working, get Kirk and Checkov out of her trap, locate Spock and Bones and beam them back to the Franklin. We learn that Jayla is quite resourceful and smart aside from great to look at and a good fighter.

They figure out how to locate the crew. The amulet Spock gave Uhura contains an element that is unique to old Vulcan and Spock gives the required info to Chekov so they can now find them with the Franklin’s scanners. They figure out they can beam them out 20 at a time with some of Scotty’s magic so they need a plan/diversion. The plan is set and Kirk gets to use the conveniently included motorcycle (homage to Nemesis?) I am now thinking this is going to be pretty bad, but it doesn’t really turn out that way. Kirk uses the motorcycle and Jayla’s holo-gadget thingy and it was is done pretty well. They beam aboard all the crew and we see the Kirk/Jayla beam out we saw in the trailers. It’s orchestrated very well and works IMO.

While all this is going on, Krall has acquired the Abronath from Kirk’s hiding place and after we see it’s gruesome power he’s is off to kill everyone on the Yorktown. He boards his ship and summons the “swarm”. Pretty darn cool visual. Made me think of “Pitch Black”. Kirk and crew prepare to launch the beat up and old Franklin and Uhura figures out that Krall is the Franklin’s Commanding Officer Captain Edison. The Franklin was “built in space” so they need to build up some inertia to fly her out of the atmosphere (I guess, still haven’t really figured that one out) and we get a pretty intense scene and the Franklin is up-up and away heading to the Yorktown.

Krall intercepted and changed Uhura’s effort to warn the Yorktown so all the space ship are heading to the wrong point in space so it’s up to our heroes to save the day and all the lives onboard the Yorktown. (I wouldn’t have it any other way ) Our crew figures out that a VHF signal will disrupt the swarm and of course - enter the Beasty Boys. At this point I’m ready for a huge let down. I just am not confident this will come off well and bracing myself for the worst. But I have to say I found myself smiling and enjoying the Franklin flying around to ‘Sabotage’. Not bad, I was surprisingly pleased with how it all worked together. Fantastic visuals here as well. It’s also funny that the Beasty Boys is now considered “classical music”

The swarm is defeated, but Krall and two other ships have breached the Yorktown. Kirk and company figure out Krall’s plan and are off to thwart him. Again, some incredible visuals here as the Franklin navigates the interior of the Yorktown and stops the invading ships. Quite exciting and enjoyable experience watching it all unfold. Kirk battles Krall in zero G, Krall is eventually stopped and killed by the vacuum of space and his own bio-weapon.

Our heroes have saved the day… and it took all of them to pull it off – the strength of the movie I think.

Kirk once again is conversing with Commodore Paris. She of course thanks him and Kirk says “it wasn’t just me, never was”. Kirk turns down the ADM position to stay with his crew and the Enterprise. Loved it, Kirk is now James T. Kirk as I know/remember him. Huge moment in the movie for me. So glad to see this maturation.

Then we see Spock going through some things he had received form the older Vulcan’s earlier in the movie. He opens a case and included is a picture of the old Enterprise crew. Man, I lost it. …. both times … Spock then realizes his place is on Enterprise.

Of course, Bones throws a birthday party for Kirk which came across as heartfelt and nice. Kirk get Jayla a spot in Star Fleet Academy which I thought was great… knowing that JJ thinks they shouldn’t recast Chekov, I would more than welcome Jalya as an addition to the crew on Enterprise. (if the time works out)

Then we see a rapid construction of the 1701-A and whith dreams of future adventures with this set of heroes. I couldn’t be happier. I believe, I’ll need to slow down the vid on the BLU-RAY when I get it, but I believe the “ample nacelles” on 1701-A are not quite so ample. More in line with the original design.

Could I have written a scathing review of this movie? Certainly. It is not without fault, but I truly do think that Pegg, Dung and Linn had their hearts in the right place and gave us a pretty damn good Star Trek movie for our 50th year celebration. I feel relieved. I left the theater wanting more from these guys, I can’t say the same when I left the theater after STiD. I’ll grade this an “A” (9 out of 10), and put this one just a smooch below ST09 in my rankings. Which in case you are keeping track, puts 2 of the 3 new movies in my top 5 ranking all the trek movies.

 

I don't have much to say that others have not already said, just that I greatly enjoyed Beyond in my second viewing as well.
In my opinion, we now officially have 3 good to great Star Trek movies in a row.

 

I'm noticing how similar Star Trek Beyond is to Star Trek Beyonce.

Muddling just 2 letters.

She should have totally done the sound track because of the word play.

 

They're on an unknown planet trying to find their crewmates; and other hostiles may be in the area. NOT the time to go into a healing trance IF Spock can still function.

 

I'll give you 2 3/4

I will say that I like Rihanna's Sledgehammer. While I enjoyed the vid, because of all the trek stuff, her look in that vid is a head scratcher.

Very true. I had not even thought of the healing trance.

 

Quick correction: The TOS Enterprise always had the ability to saucer-sep, they just didn't have the budget. GR had this either in the Bible or some other reference for the show. The closest thing on a episode was when Kirk told Scotty to jettison the nacelles if he had to, which also never happened. But the option(s) was there.

 

Um . . . you do realize that "muddle along" is not a good thing right? It certainly is not "warp speed".

 

Wow thanks! Been a trek fan for 40 years and did not know that

 

Went and saw it again today. I caught a TNG reference I hadn't previously heard.

When the Enterprise arrives at Yorktown station, we hear a public announcement referring to the USS Stargazer NCC-2893.

 

Also, I just want to mention something about the movie and the fan community in general.

I'll admit, I've confined all my Trek discussion about the movie to here, but I've generally been real happy to see a lot of the fans enjoy this movie. I don't seek out negative reviews or comments - but by extension, I don't seek out positive ones either - and I haven't seen much negativity toward the movie.

Someone tell me I'm crazy.

 

I caught that one.

Here are multiple other ones.

https://www.inverse.com/article/18618-star-trek-beyond-complete-easter-eggs

I'll differ from this one:

[SIZE=4]Bones and Spock Counting on Each Other[/SIZE]
When the crew escapes the Enterprise following its destruction, Spock and Bones are stranded together after Spock is almost mortally wounded. This mirrors other occasions in which Spock and Bones are stuck together, notably, “All Our Yesterdays,” in which the two are transported to an ice age of an alien planet’s past. Spock gets super emotional in both scenarios. Additionally, when Scotty beams up Spock and Bones separately, he jokes about the prospect of accidentally combining them into one person. This references Star Trek III in which we learn Spock did in fact, put his living soul (katra) into Bones for safe-keeping, effectively making them one person for a short time.

The first thing that came to my mind was Tuvix

 

The movie currently has 83% on rotten tomatoes, but the previous two films are ranked higher.

 

Fandango now has movie ratings. With almost 10,000 votes, Star trek Beyond is getting 4.5 stars out of 5.

RAMA

 

"If I may adopt a parlance with which you are familiar, I, too, can confirm your theory to be horse shit."

 

If I remember correctly (and I always do) there's a TOS episode where saucer separation is discussed briefly.

 

I believe it's The Apple (though it's been years since I last saw that one).

 

I've seen it three times now, and loved it each one.

 

Nope.... and I can't find it anywhere else in the TV series or the movies either.

From 'The Apple':
KIRK: Then use your imagination. Tie every ounce of power the ship has into the impulse engines. Discard the warp drive nacelles if you have to, and crack out of there with the main section, but get that ship out of there!

All I can find is that it is mentioned in the comics and it is mentioned in "The Making of Star Trek". So I guess it wasn't really canon until now.

 

My understanding was that the saucer separation wasn't canon.

 

It's a movie that will happily bear repeated viewings. Can't wait for it to come out on Blu-Ray, it will be a nice weekend afternoon "kids are taking a nap so Daddy can watch something other than Little Einsteins" kind of film.