Star Trek Beyond (2016)

[Professor Bear]

Am I failing to remember the relevant bits of the film, or was this also the first NuTrek to rein in the objectification of women that stood out so badly in the previous flicks?

[Richard]

I thought this was a great film with a great script. The relationship between Spock and McCoy was handled very well, better than in the last films. Yorktown was amazing. Jaylah was a brilliant character and I hope we see her again. I liked the homage to the original cast at the end. I'm not sure how Krall was able to change his appearance at the end, but I was enjoying it all too much to really care. (And it might have been explained but I just missed it.)

I liked the use of Sabotage, and I think it's the obvious choice -- the name of the song is exactly the reason why they were playing the song in the first place, and it's a homage to the first film (i.e. the 2009 one). And it's a cool song.

I loved the timelapse bit showing the new Enterprise being built.

I'd be more than happy for Simon Pegg to write the next one.

I do wonder whether some of the people who have posted above were determined not to enjoy this film, and to pick faults with it, before they even went to see it?

[Mister Pops]

I do wonder whether some of the people who have posted above were determined not to enjoy this film, and to pick faults with it, before they even went to see it?

So....you've never met a Trekkie?

[TordelBack]

I thought this was a great film with a great script. The relationship between Spock and McCoy was handled very well, better than in the last films. Yorktown was amazing. Jaylah was a brilliant character and I hope we see her again. I liked the homage to the original cast at the end. I'm not sure how Krall was able to change his appearance at the end, but I was enjoying it all too much to really care. (And it might have been explained but I just missed it.)

I liked the use of Sabotage, and I think it's the obvious choice -- the name of the song is exactly the reason why they were playing the song in the first place, and it's a homage to the first film (i.e. the 2009 one). And it's a cool song.

Yes to all of the above!  I thought Sabotage worked especially well because it built on the mythos of this series, rather than the preceeding 40 years - something this movie excels at (for example, Keenser getting his own 'pet' alien, a great new character in Jaylah (tragically well placed to be Chekov's replacement).  It was also a funny and rather joyous sequence - it was impossible not to root for the survival of the marvel that is Yorktown, surely one of the greatest Trek creations to date.  In fact, this film gives us all the great SF spectacle that ST(2009) had replaced with brewery vats and breezeblock research outposts.

At the same time the thoughtful use of unloved Enterprise really sold the idea of the alternate timeline having a shared past with the old one. 

The Krall explanation was a bit of a stretch, but all the answers are in the film, if hidden in a rapid exposition dump.  Even his revenge scheme makes a sort of sense, when the extreme vulnerability of his swarm is revealed: something he must have known.  The bit I couldn't really figure is who all the other baddies actually were.  Biological drones that Krall mentions? Leftovers from the original aliens? Other prisoners using the same anti-ageing tech?

As Bear says, there is none of the awful cringe-inducing Victoria's Secret crap from the previous two, and in fact the only hint of romance was the sweet and rather subtle Spock/Uhuru stuff, which at this stage feels earned rather than imposed.

A day on I'm actually dying to see this again.  Made me wish that STiD had never happened.

[PsychoGoatee]

Am I failing to remember the relevant bits of the film, or was this also the first NuTrek to rein in the objectification of women that stood out so badly in the previous flicks?

It lacks the fun sexuality seen in the first two films, yep. Not that it's necessary for every story, but Kirk being in bed with catgirl aliens right off the bat is something my friends reference as fun. I think it fit the characterization, and I wouldn't call it a demonized "objectification" personally, but we all have different lines on things.

And the second one had Alice Eve in her underwear, but it also has a close-up of naked wet Benedict Cumberbatch in the shower. Anyways, I personally don't find those things offensive. And the writing for characters of either gender has generally been fine.

As for being determined not to like this movie, I thought it was okay. I go in with an open mind, I really liked the 2009 one, this one to me was a bit ho-hum.

[Tiplodocus]

Am I failing to remember the relevant bits of the film, or was this also the first NuTrek to rein in the objectification of women that stood out so badly in the previous flicks?

Given the amount of gratuitous booty shots you tend to get in a Fast and Furious film, this was actually one thing that worried me (even though I do like my films "breasty").  But yeah, happilly absent.

[dweezil2]

Am I failing to remember the relevant bits of the film, or was this also the first NuTrek to rein in the objectification of women that stood out so badly in the previous flicks?

Given the amount of gratuitous booty shots you tend to get in a Fast and Furious film, this was actually one thing that worried me (even though I do like my films "breasty").  But yeah, happilly absent.

If it's breasts your after, you can't beat Ricardo Montalban's in Wrath Of Khan!!!!! 

[TordelBack]

Khan's second-in-command character is even more boobilicious.

The Carol Marcus underwear scene is one of the most embarrassingly awful things in an embarrassingly awful movie. That this film eschews similar and instead has awesome vistas of starbasrs and oddly solid nebulae is greatly to its credit.

[COMMANDO FORCES]

It's a bit like when we see Ripley in her flimsy vest and tiny space panties in the Alien films. Ruined it for me

[TordelBack]

It's a bit like when we see Ripley in her flimsy vest and tiny space panties in the Alien films. Ruined it for me

Heh!  Really nothing like that titillating scene with the strong central character of an 18s movie from 40 years ago, but nice riposte all the same!

[Professor Bear]

Aliens was ruined for me when Ripley incorrectly brandished a marine-issue Armat M41A Pulse Rifle in a tropical M-class atmospheric environment.  Destroyed my illusion of realism, that did.

There's a knuckle-bitingly bad deleted scene from the 2009 Star Trek that is notable for two reasons:
1 - it was fully shot, soundmixed, edited, and SFX were added, so at no point did anyone think there was a problem with it until after post production, and
2 - it is notably hard to find online compared to other deleted scenes, almost as if Paramount made a point of deleting videos of it from the web, but not other scenes from the same film.
It was available on the first blu-ray of the movie, though: in the scene, the green lady Kirk was sexing earlier in the movie was killed along with everyone else on the Saratoga, and afterwards he sees a green lady in the corridor of the Enterprise and starts talking to her as if she was the green lady that's dead.  So basically, the writers and director of Trek saw no problems with a scene where Kirk can't tell people apart if they're a different colour, but when you start thinking about what this says about how Kirk as a character views women, it just becomes more and more disturbing.

[JamesC]

I really enjoyed this. Weirdly, I was feeling pretty unsatisfied with it for at least the first 20mins/half hour. It just didn't feel like Trek to me. I was a bit underwhelmed when the Enterprise died too - it didn't feel like this version of the ship had earned any emotional attachment either from the crew or the audience.
Once they hit the planet though, things seemed to click and the rest of the film was really enjoyable.
Part of me was hoping that the resurrected old ship would get a hasty re-fit and they'd use it for the next film. I guess that wouldn't have made much sense though.

[Stan]

Yes to all of the above!  I thought Sabotage worked especially well because it built on the mythos of this series, rather than the preceeding 40 years - something this movie excels at (for example, Keenser getting his own 'pet' alien, a great new character in Jaylah (tragically well placed to be Chekov's replacement).  It was also a funny and rather joyous sequence - it was impossible not to root for the survival of the marvel that is Yorktown, surely one of the greatest Trek creations to date.  In fact, this film gives us all the great SF spectacle that ST(2009) had replaced with brewery vats and breezeblock research outposts.

At the same time the thoughtful use of unloved Enterprise really sold the idea of the alternate timeline having a shared past with the old one.

I hadn't considered that regarding Jaylah but it's a nice little back up option if they can't really figure out another way to include her. It'd feel a little odd seeing her in a crew uniform though.

Probably my favourite part about Yorktown is how it looked like a starship fish tank in places. Good idea, whoever that was.

And as one of the few people who was actually disappointed with ST: Enterprise's cancellation, I love how they made use of that series rather than just try to milk the TOS period. They barely even messed with the prime universe either.

[Andy B]

This was more fun than I expected: some nice 60s style fighting-in-a-quarry, and great Spock / McCoy double act (Karl Urban in particular has nailed it as Bones).

Just one complaint - and I know this is a really geeky one - the Yorktown. It was just too much: technologically far, far in advance of anything we've seen the Federation build in any timeline. They must have started building it before the Enterprise was even launched... How?

So that was jarring. Felt like it was in the wrong film. Cool design, though - a bit like I imagine a Culture GSV might look...

[TordelBack]

Just one complaint - and I know this is a really geeky one - the Yorktown. It was just too much: technologically far, far in advance of anything we've seen the Federation build in any timeline. They must have started building it before the Enterprise was even launched... How?

So that was jarring. Felt like it was in the wrong film.

Gotta disagree.

Real world justification: ST is set in the future. It's about the wonders of space exploration. In order to generate that sense of wonder in 2016, you can't just use the space station from Trouble with Tribbles, or even DS9. To capture the ST feel it has to be fresh and mind-blowing: Yorktown is. Your reference to the Culture's GSVs is spot on. That's what this type of Starbase is. Impressive, eh? One of my big beefs about the first two films was that the interiors of almost everything looked like 20th C industrial mixed with an Apple store: Beyond gives us the futuristic imagery I crave.

In universe explanation: technology has been hugely affected by the Kelvin incident, and the future tech it revealed. The Enterprise herself is over twice the length of the original, in and around the size of the TNG Enterprise-D. The ridiculous Vengeance from Into Darkness dwarfs even that, by far the biggest Starfleet vessel we've ever seen. The loss of Vulcan and most of Starfleet 4 years earlier may have shaken people's sense of security of even the founder planets, and made emigration to the frontier seem less daunting, as well as increasing Starfleet' funding massively.

But mainly the wow factor.