Will Jayla be the next Chekov?
Perhaps, but they can just as easily develop a character from scratch, or deemphasize the role of the ship’s navigator.
And I noted two Chinese companies among the ones with production logos at the beginning (Alibaba Group and Huahua Media) so if anything, they might introduce a Chinese actor. The Chinese market is huge today.
Did not really care for it. So, this is effectively the third movie in a row where some guy with a badly-explained grudge and a superweapon are stopped by fistfights. Honestly, at this point who would want to be posted to the Enterprise? The ships are apparently death traps.
One joke was that, after the last movie was effectively Wrath of Khan and Search for Spock jammed together, that in this one they’d go look for whales. That might have been an improvement. Besides, presumably the humpbacks are extinct before the divergence point, which means that probe is still incoming.
Heck, at this point I’d take a way-too-early contact with the Borg, or maybe even a run-in with Q. Even the Klingons or way-too-early contact with the Ferengi would at least be something different. Just no more single antagonists with a grudge and a superweapon.
Regarding Chekov, just do what the animated series did since they didn’t have Walter Koening and put in Arex. At least some fans would probably enjoy the reference.
There were Klingons in Into Darkness.
I definitely think Beyond is the strongest of the three new movies so far, but it definitely has its flaws. I saw it a couple days ago after an all-day IMAX marathon of all three movies, so I was a little tired and obviously missed some details. I’m gonna see it again tomorrow probably.
It was more than a little silly that Kirk ended up riding a several-hundred-year-old motorcycle. What are the odds that it would still run after all this time or still have fuel or tires that haven’t rotten away?
There were? I’ll take your word for it, as all I remember is a movie where I would have been better off saving 12 bucks and watching Wrath of Khan on DVD. I guess I’m thinking ripping off Undiscovered Country would be an improvement. Intrigue and politics, not just explosions and fistfights.
Most of the first act consists of Kirk pursuing the fugitive Khan to his secret cave on Qo’noS, where there is a minor incident involving a few dozen Klingon security personnel.
At least get the Blu-ray.
First, that’s not really what I meant about antagonists being Klingons (or any other species I named for that matter.) Second, I already had the DVD before the Blu-Ray was released and I buy very little new physical media these days.
Pretty meh on it, 5/10.
I’ve been reading some good arguments recently about the Marvel style of movies, and how many of them feel designed to be the movie equivalent of comfort food, something that makes you happy when watching it but provides nothing of value lasting afterwards. And that’s pretty much what I feel about this movie - I had fun enough while watching it, for the most part, but there’s nothing thought-provoking or impactful, or even just awesome lines/scenes to stick with the viewer afterwards. It really did feel like Thor 2 except with Star Trek characters instead of Asgardians and dark elves.
The positives: I did like the cast getting split up and getting the chance to interact in different situations. Karl Urban especially knocked it out of the park. I thought the scenes dealing with Ambassador Spock’s death were good. There’s lots of good zingers, and I admit I had a grin on my face during the “Sabotage” scene. And I (jokingly) hate the Beastie Boys. And there was even an Enterprise (the TV show) reference!
Unfortunately that’s pretty much all it has. A lot of the characters are underused (Uhura is basically a plot device). While I liked Jayla and hope she’ll get a chance to return, she admittedly also didn’t do much. The plot happens pretty much just because it has to - Kirk gets his inner monologue about his ennui issues at the start, but then the team is presented with a mission, they go, fall into the bad guy’s trap, and spend the rest of the movie fighting the bad guy for… reasons. Krall’s motivations aren’t explained until the last 15 minutes of the movie… and while I can understand they were trying to make a “twist” I feel it wasn’t worth delaying so long, as it makes him feel two-dimensional. In fact the whole backstory about the planet, the swarm tech, his henchmen (surviving crew members?) and dealing with other aliens like Jayla’s family was all very undercooked and could’ve used a lot more focus.
I’m not overly sensitive to shakey-cam but the action sequences were really hard to follow. The scene with the Enterprise being destroyed was actually pretty well done and would’ve hit hard… if the ship hadn’t already been ravaged or destroyed in every other movie already. So as it stands it just feels like “been there, done that.”
I keep seeing people say this movie is the “most Trek” of the three and I wonder if we’re watching the same movie. I’m hard pressed to say what the theme or message of this movie is, and for Star Trek, that’s a pretty big deal, since the whole point of the series is to serve as a sci-fi allegory for the issues of today. Hell, even the Fast and the Furious movies at least feel like they’ve got that underpinning motivation of “family” running through them. I suppose there’s a few throwaway lines of “unity” throughout but not enough to really feel like a theme. Nothing’s explored in this movie, both in the literal and figurative sense.
The reveal at the end of who the bad guy really was. The idea of a warrior who can’t handle peace and Kirk’s speech in the final fight were all very Trek moments. This was very much an episode of TOS made big.
I agree that there were aspects of this film that were a lot more Trekkish than the Abrams movies. A lot of the credit goes to Simon Pegg who wrote (most of) the script for Beyond.
I’m still kinda exhausted from the IMAX marathon and a busy workweek, but I do have a lot of thoughts about this movie I want to get out at some point. But if you want to listen to some initial reaction and analysis concerning the three movies and how they compare to each other (keeping in mind I was kinda buzzed) it’s now up here.
I liked it just fine. I feel like I got a satisfying Star Trek fix. I liked the first two well enough too (but I’m sick of Cumberbach being on my screen all the time). I enjoyed it more than the latest Star Wars.
I wasn’t clear about how the bad guy became the bad guy. Something about his ship maybe got sucked into some wormhole thing, ended up on the planet and the planet had technology. That’s all I got.
Also, Jayla was okay, but why did the Federation have to adopt her? Her family had been on the planet, her dad died etc. but after she got off the planet, why not just go back to her home planet? Is it gone? I missed it if they explained it.
What was the Enterprise reference?
He got marooned there; the natives had soul-sucking life-extension technology, and he went a bit nuts. The whole exposition of that was rather rushed, and it’s muddiness is one of my main complaints about the film.
IIRC Kraal defeated and/or enslaved her home planet, so she doesn’t have much to go back to.
Kraal was originally a MACO who fought in the Xindi war. When the war’s over and he’s made a Starfleet captain and expected to be a peaceful explorer he kinda doesn’t know how to deal.
In addition to the themes of loss and the perils of exploration mentioned above there was the theme that is out there explicitly in the current events world, put front and center in the contrast between the two conventions:
Krall’s central thesis is “Unity is not your strength.” The Federation in contrast is “inclusion”, “diversity” and even globalization taken to “universalization.” Play it as a metaphor for Trump vs Clinton or for Islamist fundamentalists vs Islamist secularists or as a metaphor about the EU or for globalism in general. It is front and center.
But still a back seat to the characters and some fun silliness.
Didn’t Scotty say something about a big green space hand? I was half expecting Krall to turn out to be Apollo.
So since the Franklin crashed onto Altamid well before Nero disrupted the timeline, does that mean Krall was out there the whole time during TOS and TNG et al? I guess he never found the other piece of the weapon. Or I suppose the Doomsday Machine, Nomad, V’ger, Whale Probe, or the Borg could have made short work of him without the Federation ever knowing about him.
OK, that’s… even more confusing. Saw the first one, but can’t say I remember very much about it.
Is the whole reboot (all the new movies) supposed to be an alternative timeline, or just this latest one? I’m a sucker for SciFi, even bad SciFi, so I’ll probably try and binge-watch all three at some point.
As it was presented in the 2009 Movie, this was is an alternate timeline that was created when Nero, the villain from the first reboot movie, went back in time and destroyed the USS Kelvin which led to a different history up to and including the current movie’s present.
However, if you nitpick, as Trek fans are wont to do (and I include myself in this because it’s fun to nitpick Trek:)), you can find enough differences from before that incident to suggest the entire timeline is different. An interview with Simon Pegg said that he believes the change in history from the first movie rippled both forward and backward in time which doesn’t really make scientific sens but makes some Trek science sense.
The alternate timeline was started in the 2009 movie and all the new movies are in that reality. Old Spock (Nimoy) came through the wormhole to the new reality and is stuck there.
The whole series is an alternate timeline, created during events in the '09 movie.
How did the Franklin get back through the asteroid belt w/o the special nav system that allowed the Enterprise to get through it?