Star Trek Beyond (2016)

[Batman's Superior Cousin]

Seeing the Midnight Premiere this Wednesday!!!

[blackmocco]

Trying to stay positive but that dirt bike is haunting me every time I see it...

[TordelBack]

Aye, dirt bike is very off-putting, and the absence of Our Karl from the poster moreso, but the more I see of the rest, the more I like. Also, I'm morally obliged to give Pegg the benefit of the doubt.

[blackmocco]

Well, I'm horrified to report I mostly enjoyed it. It has no brain, relies on action set-pieces when it gets itself into trouble and I have to confess, the villain made no sense to me in any way, shape or form. Didn't understand anything about what he was trying to do, why he wanted to do it or why he looked the way he did. Anyone want to help me out here, much appreciated.

In saying all that, it's got some heart. It gets the Kirk/Spock/Bones trifecta just right, even if this Kirk is a whiny little fucker compared to Shatner's. Jaylah is a great addition, I thought. The movie looks great. There's some great real pulpy science fiction imagery which I loved and this might be the first of the Abramsverse movies where I finally started to really appreciate the new Enterprise design. I think Lin has a better grasp on which angles to make it look good.

Yeah, the motorbike is there, although a little less jarring once the context is explained. Not as unforgivable as the use of Sabotage, yet fucking again. This time in completely ludicrous fashion. I guess no-one creates music in the 23rd century.

All in all, I enjoyed it, with the caveat that it's big, loud and dumb but it gets more right than wrong in terms of a Star Trek movie. Cast are great, particularly our boy Karl who finally gets plenty to do in this one.

[dweezil2]

I think all those very valid criticisms resulted in me enjoying the film a lot less than you blackmocco.

And yes, Krall's motivation failed to ring true or make much sense either and was rather too reminiscent of Khan's in Into Darkness.

I still prefered it to the pointless rehash of Into Darkness.

Once again, Urban was the best thing in these reboots.

[blackmocco]

I think all those very valid criticisms resulted in me enjoying the film a lot less than you blackmocco.

And yes, Krall's motivation failed to ring true or make much sense either and was rather too reminiscent of Khan's in Into Darkness.

I still prefered it to the pointless rehash of Into Darkness.

Once again, Urban was the best thing in these reboots.

Yeah, the only way was up after the last one. Perhaps going in with the lowest of expectations helped me get through this one. I'm not pretending it's the greatest. I'm in no hurry to see it again but it at least felt like a real sequel to the 09 one and it entertained me enough for the two hours, despite some glaring problems.

[SIP]

Just back from seeing it.  Thought it was great fun and i really enjoyed it. As a 40 year Trek fan it made me smile many times. It's lightweight and action centric but that's not a criticism as I was entertained throughout.

[Professor Bear]

I will lend my critical weight to the expressed opinion above that Beyond is nowhere near as shit as Into Darkness.
I liked the Enterprise references, but thought that Peter Mensah's character should have been the basis for Kraal: a guy with experience with space mining technology and form for space-racism and giant superweapons is basically Mensah's character from that Enterprise two-parter.

[Bad City Blue]

Fun without being in any way awesome.

Nice script (apart from the baddie) and I agree Jaylah was a great character.

Into Darkness was pants because after taking a whole movie to say "Hey! We're an alternate timeline and can do what we want" they then went ahead and botched the Khan story completely. That movie should have been all about the Klingons

[Theblazeuk]

It occurs to me that they could do a nice send off for Anton in the next movie. I mean dozens (hundreds?) of funerals happen off-screen, the next movie could start with or at least reference/show something like that for Chekov. I would prefer not a heroic sacrifice or anything so grandiose, just an SF version of the kind of tragic accident that occurred in real life.

[Professor Bear]

I assumed the whiskey scene at the start of the film where Kirk and McCoy pour a third glass for the absent Checkov was a homage to Yelchin.

[Theblazeuk]

I suppose I actually mean a send-off for Chekov which can be an homage to Yelchin as well, given they are (rightly imo) not going to recast the role.

[blackmocco]

I assumed the whiskey scene at the start of the film where Kirk and McCoy pour a third glass for the absent Checkov was a homage to Yelchin.

I assumed the third glass was intended for Kirk's absent father...? But it works as a Yelchin tribute too.

[Stan]

Well, I'm horrified to report I mostly enjoyed it. It has no brain, relies on action set-pieces when it gets itself into trouble and I have to confess, the villain made no sense to me in any way, shape or form. Didn't understand anything about what he was trying to do, why he wanted to do it or why he looked the way he did. Anyone want to help me out here, much appreciated.

Krall's motivation does seem a bit muddled. The only thing I could think of concerning this was the old quote "Adversity makes men, and prosperity makes monsters". Clearly this doesn't generally apply to the Star Trek universe since it's quite an optimistic one. Only in the mirror universe do you really catch a glimpse of what may have happened had they fallen to decadence and tyranny. Though they did almost sleepwalk into it with Peter Weller's vision for the Federation in the last film. Krall has obviously twisted this idea in his selfish, psychopathic head because he couldn't move on from his life as a warrior crafting the Federation out of the dirt.

I assume they deliberately played on this theme with Kirk's side story. He felt his forebears had done so much of the work that he contemplated a desk job as Vice Admiral. You can see how these people could slip into an idle decadence and become vulnerable to a malevolent take over (see Weller again).

As for Krall's appearance, I'm as confused by that as anyone else. He seemed to be draining the life force of other living creatures to take on his new appearance. Maybe the aliens who previously lived on the planet originally looked completely different to Krall's alien form but used their technology to make themselves 'better'. Or something. I think that's something they really should've been clearer on.

Overall though, it was pretty much what I hoped for after seeing the first (somewhat disappointing) trailer. Just calm things down a little after Into Darkness. Don't try to be too clever. It's a fun little away mission on a strange new world but with all the benefits of modern production values(TM). The only things that bothered me were a couple of CGI issues. The first appearance of Kirk and Jaylah on the space bike made it look like they were floating rather than properly attached to the ground. It sounds like a small thing but it was very jarring, like something you'd expect from a video game. I was also unimpressed by the CGI henchman. Though I suppose you could argue that it made them feel more alien.

Oh, and the humour fell a bit flat in places. The one thing I'd usually trust Pegg on.

I LOVE JAYLAH.

This film also shows the right way to reference previous iterations of Star Trek without falling into the trap of mining specific plot lines or characters. It also helps if you're a fan of Enterprise in this particular instance.

Now let's start a petition to get Into Darkness removed from canon. It wouldn't actually affect the Kelvinverse in any way (that I can think of).

[blackmocco]

It's interesting that this version of Kirk doesn't have the same bravado or optimism as the classic version. He's paralyzed here with the "no-win scenario" that Shatner's Kirk would have battled his way through. Pine's really not much of a Captain. Broody and whiny and full of doubts and hesitation. But in saying that, this is the first time I felt comfortable enough writing that off as an alternate/Elseworlds version of the character.

As for Krall, yeah, I just think everything about him was handled pretty clumsily. Maybe a bad edit, a weak script, something. He just never felt properly explained throughout.

And yeah, I'm willing to edit out STID and just jump straight into this one.