2016 was supposed to be a very big year for the Star Trek franchise.  Fifty years before, in 1966, the original series premiered.  Since the first appearance of that series, which limped to three seasons yet somehow, miraculously, found life after death in syndication, we’ve had numerous movies, TV shows, and still more movies, this time featuring the Next Generation cast before reverting to the original series but with a twist.

The twist was that the “original series” and her characters existed in an alternate time.  While you still had Captain Kirk, Mr. Spock, and Dr. McCoy, their “universe” was altered in time and this allowed for a new, young cast to take over for the original cast and try to chart their own path in the franchise.

I didn’t like the first movie featuring this new cast, 2009’s Star Trek, though I give everyone involved in the project an “A” for effort.  The new cast were remarkably good taking over the very familiar roles but the story…it just didn’t do it for me.  There were simply too many echoes to 1982’s magnificent Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.

Still, I was impressed with this new young cast and hoped that despite my reservations, this new version of Star Trek would work.

In 2013 Star Trek Into Darkness, the second feature starring this new cast, was released.  While watching the film I enjoyed myself and thought it was far better than the first film but the good feelings turned out to be transitory.  The moment the movie was over and I started to think about what I just saw, plot holes and silly elements became only too obvious.  Star Trek Into Darkness, like Skyfall, proved to be one of those experiences you enjoy while watching the movie for the first time but if you spend even a second thinking about it afterwards your enjoyment rapidly sours.

Fast forward three years and we’re in 2016 and the third Star Trek film featuring the new cast, Star Trek Beyond, was announced and then…

…nothing.  Not even, it seemed, a peep.

The summer movie season was taken up with internet arguments regarding DC movies and Marvel movies and the silliness tied into the new Ghostbusters film.  All the while, Star Trek Beyond became a ghost.  An abandoned work.

Some people openly wondered if the film was a disaster and Paramount Studios realized it and was trying to bury the film.

It certainly seemed so.

And then, a trailer was released and actor/co-writer Simon Pegg expressed his disappointment of it and urged fans to “hang in there”, that the film was much better than this trailer made it out to be.  Incredibly, Paramount would subsequently release a trailer that proved even worse as it gave away a key plot element of the movie’s plot.  Once more Simon Pegg was forced to express his feelings about the movie’s trailer, this time urging them not to see it or any trailers that should follow.

I can only imagine how unhappy Mr. Pegg must have been with this, the third film in the franchise and the first to feature his actual (co)writing and the way Paramount seemed determined to botch the whole damn thing.

Star Trek Beyond was released on July 22, 2016 and while it did decent enough business, it appeared not to recoup its budget, never a good sign.  While the film received positive reviews and good word of mouth, the Keystone Cops routine Paramount engaged in before the movie’s release appeared to have dampened the excitement the film should have had.  Conversely, it is possible people were never all that attached to this new iteration of Star Trek and maybe this particular franchise was suffering from diminishing gains.

Regardless, as a Star Trek fan I wanted to see the film.  Unfortunately for me, the movie was in and out of theaters in a flash and became yet another of those films I’d have to wait to see when it reached home theaters and video.

That day finally came and yesterday I got the chance to watch it.

I’ll be blunt: Star Trek Beyond is easily the best of the “new” Star Trek movies and also the one that most captures the original series.  There is plenty of plot here and the excitement builds as the movie moves along before reaching a very exciting climax.

What more could you ask for?

Well, there are a few nits to pick…

A big part of the reason I’ve had a hard time warming up to the new Star Trek is that I’ve found the new actors, as good as they are, never “gel” into the extended family we had with the original actors.  Despite plenty of behind the scenes rumors/gossip of how little the actors of the original Star Trek got along with certain other actors in the cast (most of these rumors boil down to William Shatner being an incredibly difficult person to work with), the fact of the matter was that those original actors were spectacularly good at rising above whatever tensions existed behind the scenes and creating a genuine sense of being an extended family.

When (SPOILERS!) Spock dies at the end of The Wrath of Khan, the acting of everyone, particularly William Shatner, drilled home the agony of loss and, in an abrupt -and dare I say logical- gear shift, the hope for the future.  Spock’s death, as sad as it was to the characters, meant they would live.  His death was a noble sacrifice and the crew/actors conveyed their conflicting emotions incredibly well.

Compare that to Star Trek Into Darkness which was a thinly veiled remake of The Wrath of Khan.  There, surprise!, Captain Kirk “dies” and it is Spock who grieves for his death but the emotions feel hollow.  In these actors I never got a sense of them being a family and therefore whatever sadness was expressed felt…phony.

This is rectified to a great degree in Star Trek Beyond, which pushes the characters front and center and them interact to a greater degree with each other than they did in the previous two movies.  Every one of them shines and therefore we feel more engaged with not only them but the story, even if they still have a long way to go to give us the same sense of family the original cast offered.

Regardless, it is a big step forward.

As good as that was, however, the plot of the film could have used some tightening.  The main villain and his plan are presented in a rather sloppy way.  Further, after a big action sequence that winds up separating all the characters, they seem to bump into each other awfully quickly after being stranded on a large and rocky planet.  It was like they landed within two or three miles from each other.

Still, this is nitpicking.

The film builds up the tension and stakes and makes us care for the characters and their fate.  While the villain winds up not being as well defined as I would have hoped, his plan is truly evil and he has to be stopped.

As I said before, the film builds up the excitement and shines brightest in its climax.  Had someone explained the climax to me beforehand -and mentioned the music dragged in from the first movie as a key piece of that climax- I would have rolled my eyes into my head so fast they would have caught fire…yet in the movie it works exactly as it should, being both hilarious and thrilling at the same time.

Despite Paramount’s best/most inept efforts and some nits I have to pick, Star Trek Beyond, as I stated before, is easily the best of the three “new” Star Trek films.  If you’re a fan of the original or new Star Trek series yet haven’t seen this film yet, by all means give it a look.

Recommended.