Tag Archives: Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Movies

Star Trek Beyond (2016) a (mildly) belated review

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.

Movies

Star Trek Beyond (2016)…some musings

When the original “new” Star Trek movie arrived in 2009, I was both hopeful and, paradoxically, doubtful it could successfully reboot the original Star Trek series/movies.

You see, the original Star Trek series hold a very special place in my heart.  While Steven Spielberg’s Duel was the first movie I recall seeing start to end and understanding as a story told in full, the original Star Trek was the first TV series I recall gravitating to and loving, along with Get Smart, back in my very early years (both series were in reruns by the time I watched them, so I was a second generation fan of both).

I recall my elation at learning of, then my disappointment with the release, of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.  On the one hand, it was there was an undeniable thrill in seeing the original cast and crew I loved so much back together again…yet on the other hand the movie’s story was muddy even as the effects were for the most part great and the cast seemed constrained by the focus on the boring “newcomers” presented in the movie.  It was later revealed the movie was released in an incredible rush and, with the advent and money to be made on special edition DVDs, director Robert Wise was allowed to return to the film and “fix” it to the way he originally wanted it.  The director’s cut of Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a far better experience, IMHO, than the theatrical or “expanded” edition and its too bad the new effects were made before the advent of HD and, thus, we have no HD version of the director’s cut…for now.

And then along came Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.

While critics -and many fans- weren’t all that enamored of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the film nonetheless made a lot of money.  Enough to justify the studios green lighting a sequel film, later re-titled Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

To put it kindly, this film single-handedly gave the entire Star Trek universe new lease on life.  Thanks to its critical and box-office success, we were treated (and sometimes punished!) with a string of Star Trek movies and new series, including Star Trek: The Next Generation, Deep Space 9, Star Trek Voyager, and Enterprise.

With that much material, it isn’t too surprising the quality eventually started to vary considerably.  I hated the first season of Star Trek: The Next Generation and, in general, didn’t like the series quite as much as so many others…yet I’d be lying if there weren’t episodes here and there -many to be sure- that floored me.  So much so that early on into the production and release of this series and when I heard they were looking for new writers, I sent out not one but TWO complete scripts for their consideration…the first script, which came back to me after a very long time and looked very well read and even had food particles (!) stuck within its pages, I suspect had a strong impression on the folks at STTNG.  Not strong enough to buy the script mind you, yet I suspect (and its nothing more than a suspicion) someone liked it enough to appropriate some of its material in the plot of one of the show’s episodes…but that’s a story for another time.

After a few years, however, the wheels of the series/movies were slowly grinding to a halt.  The original series cast got too old to continue starring in these “action” type films and, with the passing of DeForest Kelley, it was obvious there would not be another Star Trek feature with the originals.

So the original cast movies gave way to the Next Generation cast as that TV series ended its run.  But with the exception of the very first movie solely featuring that NG cast, First Contact (Generations featured both original and NG characters together), the movies that followed were, IMHO, quite dreadful.

Soon the movies stopped and so too did the various TV series and suddenly there was a Star Trek vacuum.

As much of a fan of the original series as I was, I was fine with this.  Sometimes, too much is…too much.

So fast forward to 2009 and J. J. Abrams’ reboots Star Trek with a new, young cast though he does -wisely, IMHO- include Leonard Nimoy in the proceedings.

I didn’t like the film all that much as I felt it tried a little too hard to crib other well worn Star Trek story ideas (that movie’s villain, in particular, felt like a pale re-working of Khan, which Mr. Abrams’ would do again, this time more directly, in the next film), but I did like the new cast and thought there was potential.

When Star Trek: Into Darkness appeared, I enjoyed the film when I was watching it in the theater but, afterwards, it proved to be one of those films that curdled the more you thought about it.  I haven’t rewatched it since first seeing it and I fear if I do, my opinion will be considerably more negative.

Which, in a very long winded way, brings us to Star Trek Beyond, the third feature in this “new” Star Trek universe and the first in which Mr. Abrams is not the director.  The first trailer for the film was nearly universally panned.  The next was a little better and here we have some more stuff…

Have to admit, after a turbulent first trailer, this material is a far better selling point for this new film, though I’m not a terribly big Rhianna fan and therefore her mini-interview does little to pull me for or against what’s here.

So, I’m game to see this.

I truly hope this movie wows me more than the previous two “new” ST films and takes me back to a time when ST was THE best sci-fi around.

As with so many things…we will see.