Because you asked: some thoughts on Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek Beyond
This poster, though, is fantastic.

I was asked on my Tumblr thing what I thought about it, because I didn’t like the trailer at all (I said something like “I just saw this trailer for a generic sci-fi action movie, but everyone was wearing a Starfleet uniform.”)

Before I get into Beyond, some context: I’m the guy who worked on TNG, but was a massive TOS fan growing up (and still is). When I watch Star Trek movies, I don’t watch them as someone who actually went to Starfleet Academy (class of 2389 REPRESENT!) but as someone who loves Star Trek and cosplayed as Spock before he knew what cosplay was. So, that said, to recap: I loved the first rebooted Trek movie. It had its flaws, but none of them were big enough to upset me, so I give it 4 out of 5 jars of Red Matter. I really enjoyed Into Darkness when I was in the theater, but the more I thought about it after, the more it fell apart until I now have to give it 2 out of 5 tribbles-on-a-stick.

Star Trek movies are always going to have a hard time with fans of the series, because when we think about Star Trek, we think about 79 episodes of the original series, or our favorite 30 episodes of TNG, or the last season of DS9. We take something that’s been spread out over days of on-screen time, spread out across years of releases, and then compare all that character development and nuance and series of individual moments with something that has to be a fully-told and completely self-contained story in 90 or 120 minutes, and it has to be accessible (as defined by risk-averse studio goons) to as wide an audience as possible. So I think it’s unfair and unreasonable to directly compare the film installments of a long-running TV series to that series. I won’t do that with Star Trek Beyond. I’ll just compare it to the two previous installments in this series.

Without holding Beyond next to the hundreds of episodes of Star Trek we can watch on TV, and just looking at it as part of this current film trilogy: I was really disappointed by it. Unlike Into Darkness, which was a lot of fun for me in the theater but fell apart upon reflection, Beyond just fell apart while I was watching it. You can read more if you’d like to know some of my reasons. There are spoilers.

Let me start out by saying that I enjoyed a lot of it, before I completely turned on the movie and checked out. The first act is great, and so were parts of the second act. I loved the relationship between Spock and McCoy, I thought the swarm of whatever those ships were was really, really cool, and the Dyson Sphere starbase thing looked amazing. All the performances were solid, and the effects look great.

But with just a few very small cosmetic changes, the story could have been any generic sci-fi action movie produced in the last 20 years.

I really didn’t like that there was this amazing female character (who could keep a fucking STARSHIP HIDDEN for years while she survived on a hostile planet) who turned into The Girl For Kirk To Save the instant the boys showed up.

Someone who read this post in its original form on Medium also observed that Uhura was reduced to Spock’s girlfriend in this movie, and all the amazing stuff she’s capable of doing just sort of … vanished.

I hated hated hated hated the whole Sabotage thing. Instead of laughing and enjoying “is that classical music?” I just rolled my eyes, because by that point, I had turned on the movie.

The whole film was massively overdirected. The camera moves were indulgent and distracting, totally unnecessary, more than one time to establish the ship being on its side, and disoriented me the rest of the time.

There were, like, three? climaxes in the thing and by the final one I just didn’t care and wanted it to be over.

When we got to the message about strength through unity, it felt tacked on and preachy and unearned.

Do we really have to keep destroying the Enterprise?

I could go on, but I’d probably get into nitpicky stuff. Maybe I’m outside the demo now, and it’s not the movie’s fault that it didn’t deliver what I wanted. I know that a huge number of my friends who saw it loved it, and felt like it was the most “Star Trek-y” of the new films. I couldn’t disagree me. I think that if it was a generic sci-fi action movie, it would have been fine (I still hate the way a strong, competent, ass-kicking female character becomes the damsel in distress when the boys show up, though). But it’s supposed to be a Star Trek movie, and just like we have expectations for a Star Wars movie or even a Fast and Furious movie, I think movies should fulfill the promise of their premise.

Beyond was a Fast and Furious movie in space, and that’s not what I wanted to see. I give it 1 out of 5 motorcycles that are on the bridge of a starship for no logical reason, and still work after not being used for an incredibly long time for even less logical reasons.

125 thoughts on “Because you asked: some thoughts on Star Trek Beyond”

    2. Seeing the B5 reference pretty much made my night. I was trying to convince a coworker to watch the show. Now I really need to dig out my DVDs

    3. You’re awesome. B5 was one of the best discoveries I’ve ever made – never having seen it much before randomly buying the first season. Once a show has been out this long, you can pretty much avoid any spoilers, so I got to enjoy it as if for the first time! What a storyline! RIP Jerry Doyle. No anchovies? No bagna cauda!

  2. I wholly disagree with your opinion but gotta admit you made some respectable points.

    The thing about the kickass girl getting saved, I don’t think those were the intentions behind the scene. The crux of it was that she wasn’t sure if she could trust anybody or belong with that group, so when instead of abondoning her they came back for her it was “poetic justice”. Also it’s a huge ensemble cast with lots going on, you can’t be THAT miffed that ahura didn’t do much. I mean Ahura had some great moments where she went toe to toe with the villain and was a kind of leadership figure among the prisoners.

    I thought it was quite enjoyable and didn’t take itself too seriously.

    1. I don’t get it. Wil spelled “Uhura” correctly in his post, which I have to assume you read, considering that you’re commenting on it. As such, why are you now misspelling her name as “Ahura”?

      1. Agreed. I was literally SCREAMING at my computer as I read that comment “It’s Uhura! Uhura! Who is this Ahura person? WhyohWhyohWhyfortheLoveofGodwouldYouSpellitAhura?” etc.

  3. I love your opinion on “The Girl For Kirk To Save”. I feel like that’s a problem for a lot of movies and TV these days. Even shows I love suffer from this problem, as it’s so common it’s almost strange to see it NOT happen. It’s not just disappointing, but insulting to women. Don’t get me wrong, it’s fine now and then, but when it happens EVERY time it just feels like we’re teaching an entire generation of young girls that this is what they should grow up to be.

    I suppose that’s a little off topic. I haven’t seen the movie yet, but many reviews I’ve heard have been quite similar to yours.

  4. Excellent review and overall agree. I would give it maybe one and a half motorcycles, but for some very personal (Star Trek related) reasons that go back to short stories written in the early 80s. You know, back when I was cosplaying Spock on a regular basis…

  5. Also if Scotty can repair a broken down spaceship I’m sure a rusty motorcycle from the 1900s won’t be too complicated

    1. Having not seen it, your major complaints about treatment of female characters are my top sci fi pet peeves, so guessing I’ll agree with you.

    2. Did… Did u really just say that? XD 1900s? I might have to call an ambulance from laughter at this post..

  6. I’m old enough to have watched some of TOS when they weren’t reruns (probably the last season when I was 6 or 7). Overall, I like the reboot, particularly the first one. I saw Beyond and basically enjoyed it because I like the familiarity of the characters. Was some of it for lack of a better word, ridiculous? Of course. I thought the same thing about the hidden starship; and how many Enterprises have bit the dust already?
    Despite that, when I go to a Star Trek film, I’m also not looking for a something on the level of a Ghandi or some other epic.
    I think the worst part was that someone who sees Beyond, and isn’t a big Trek fan wouldn’t understand the interplay between the main characters, and they would be rather bored by the whole affair.

    1. The reboot was made to collect those “not already a fan”s, so I don’t think Beyond will lose any “not yet a fan” audience. If I’m a future fan of a franchise, I’m not starting in the middle. I’m starting at any one of the START points (in the case of Trek, that would be TOS Episode 1, TNG Episode 1, DS9 Ep 1, etc., or Star Trek the Motion Sickness, or the Reboot). Same way I became a fan of BSG, Doctor Who, Buffy. Tune in at the BEGINNING (or the reboot’s beginning, as the case may be).

      1. I started Who with Eccleston’s first episode. Now I’ve gone back to watch the original run.

        I’ve been watching Trek since I was a boy. I believe a person could start on the first Trek reboot movie and start from there. Than go back and watch the original run. Of course, what a person defines as original may be different. I would prefer myself to start with Enterprise and go with in universe order.

  8. Got to say I disagree overall. I had a lot of fun in the theater, and felt like this movie actually had some of the spirit of TOS and movies like The Voyage Home. Having said that, two different people see two different movies every time. I can see your perspective on these points, and I respect that. Always appreciate seeing a differing opinion.

    1. Totally agree. I really enjoyed STB and I’m as big a ST as they come. I’ve never understood the negativity regarding any of the movies or series. The two exceptions are ST V (which is not that bad in parts) and ST: Nemesis.

  9. I’m not sure I agree she’s a damsel in distress. If this was a male character who kicked ass the whole film and then learned that the enterprise crew was family it would have been a cathartic experience.

  10. Great review. I miss the progressive messages that set Trek apart from other SF. I also think there’s too much gratuitous violence in the modern films and not enough emphasis on negotiation and understanding.

    I’d just like to add that I am sick of the blue-orange color grading in modern films. This film deliberately panders to the trend by having the entire production design color scheme in almost exclusively blues and oranges. (some people call this amber-teal, I don’t like to attribute that much intellectual complexity to it) The best moment of the film was just seconds before the end credits when they used what appeared to be real Hubble images featuring real reds, pinks, purples, yellows, greens, etc. If you don’t know what I am talking about, see this:

    https://priceonomics.com/why-every-movie-looks-sort-of-orange-and-blue/

    Once seen, it cannot be unseen. And those blue rocks on the alien planet, sigh….

      1. If it is a visible light image colour image it’s 3 images shot though seperate RGB filters, each image is assign a colour channel and you get a full true colour image, with better chroma resolution and no demosaicing artifacts compared to a colour sensor with a bayer matrix. they do of course have other filters as well specialized images.

        1. Thank you both for the clarification. I just scroll through images on NASA’s website occasionally to admire them. I wasn’t aware of the processes used to get them there.

  11. I understand and want to judge them against Trek films, and not Trek TV, but it’s so hard because somehow what makes Star Trek Star Trek isn’t carrying over. I didn’t bother to see Beyond because the last two were such letdowns. I remember watching the scene in Into Darkness where Uhura steps up to the Klingons and I was so excited because I thought, “Oh, here’s a real Star Trek moment! She’ll get to use her language skills and cultural knowledge to unexpectedly save the day with diplomacy!” and . . . guess that only works if Picard does it.

    1. YES! Thank you for mentioning the loss of Anton; he was a remarkable actor and his absence will be sorely felt. Such sad news!

      1. I enjoyed the movie overall, but when they informed Spock of Spock Prime’s passing, I was weeping buckets. And again whenever there was a pivotal Checkov scene (that I knew we’d never get again). And again at the end credits for both Nimoy and Yelchin.

        Yes, Wil makes excellent points. I’ve not yet re-watched it (as I know I will, once available on Blu-Ray), so my movie-going experience was at least three out of five bottles of Very Old Whiskey (or was it Scotch?)

          1. I hope you can at least appreciate the humor of you screaming at someone for misspelling Uhura then realizing that you can’t spell, either.

          2. I can’t reply to Mickey, so I’ll reply to myself. Yes. Thank you. That is pretty damn funny. But in my defense, Wil hadn’t already mentioned Yelchin’s character, and I was too lazy in the mo’ to open a new tab to Google it. But yes, thank you, Mickey.

  13. Totally unrelated but; 9 years ago tonight, at PAX, between concerts, I met one of my heroes. I was quite drunk (embarissingly so), but Wil, you were incredibly graceful and generous speaking with me and my friend, and for that I can not thank you enough. A true gentleman.

  15. Absolutely fair review, Wil. I enjoyed it more than Into Darkness but you highlight some serious flaws. I have more hope that the next TV series will restore the glory of Trek than this film series ever will, as grateful as I am for it giving us Leonard Nimoy as Spock one (well, two) last time(s). And of course we have Star Trek Continues, which I would love to see your comments on.

  16. Hmm. As a movie I give it 3/5. As ST… well I dont think ST works as a movie. Look at the original Wrath of Khan, widely considered to be one of the best ST movies… if you didn’t know Khan from the series, did it make sense? I don’t know that any of the movies work unless you know the series and one of the issues this set of new movies has is that there IS no series with these characters. We have no context for them, their motivations and their world aside from what we’ve seen in ~6 hours.

    The problem with Beyond for me was that they hired Lin as director. He’s a quick cut, action, ‘cinemetic’ director. Visually fun if you like that style but as you noted, mostly not needed and distracting here.

  17. Wow. Thank you Wil for your no BS input here. I haven’t seen this film yet but fully expect to enjoy it. Regardless. I’ve been watching this series since 1966 and don’t expect to dislike it since! I admire you and your thoughts!! ❤️

  18. It was Fonzie and Rock & Roll save the universe from the crotchety old guy that can’t even remember where he parked his car. About the only thing that was missing was a Trump for Galactic Overlord poster on his front yard. This was the first of the reboots that i have seen. Uhura did stuff in the other films? A star fleet officer turns over the device everyone is looking for with very little prodding? (I shan’t get into the oft repeated We will break this DIRE OBJECT into multiple pieces and scatter them instead of destroying one of them that several movies have used)

    1. I did enjoy the interplay between the characters quite a bit. It was the plot that did not connect with me.

  19. This was basically our thoughts as well. One of the reasons I love Star Trek’s universe is that the universe makes plausible sense. We accept the universal translator as a thing, partially because today we have that sort of tech. It follows that given enough ‘machine training’ and the accomplishments of talented linguists (HOSHI!!!), alien languages might be decipherable…

    What fell flat was the notion of Trek, period. The characters came through alright, but as soon as everyone landed on a planet in an escape pod with no phasers, emergency communicators, or first-aid kits (seriously?!?!) I kind of tuned out.

  20. Wil, my wife and I just this last night. Typically, I will not see a movie in the theatre unless its really worth seeing. 83% on rotten tomatoes, I was hopeful, but holy cow, you and must have had a mind meld becuase I agreed with your review 1000%.
    Awesome alien chick, sudden scared/helpful…blah.
    The twist that the alien antagonist was really a human? Meh.
    And yes the rock music used to destroy the alien armada – pretty sure we saw that in the original Independence Day.
    Also, I know they transmitted the “music/frequency/noise” they acted like they were actually piping the music outside the Enterprise, no?
    No sound in space, guys.
    SMH

  21. Thank you.

    I thought I was the only one who was really unsettled and rather pissy about Beyond. I personally felt it was a mishmash of ST4 Voyage Home, STTNG Nemesis, about 20/30 episodes of TOS, STTNG, DS9 rolled into a badly written plot where Chris pine (NOT Kirk) was a hero????????? THE F?

    Oh and let’s not talk about The 2016 movie poster, oh,ahem the 1979 movie poster.

    The amazing woman who was worried that they were hurting her house and created invisibility shields after her entire family was killed ? whateves. Just a chick who needs to be saved.
    Uhura? Whateves, get a motorcycle. WTF?

    As a literal life-long ST fan (born 8/19/66;mom watched it w/ me in my bassinet) in all iterations,
    It felt like a It dealt wonderfully w/Leonard Nimoy’s death, but that was it.

    So when does Vin Diesel show up in the next “Star Trek: the fast and the furious”?………..

    Thank you again

  22. The only true Trek being made today is FanFic. The movies are going increasingly in the direction of car-chase-in-space, and the new series is supposedly being developed as a vehicle for a: “Strong woman of color”. Both of those extreme views make me want to bang my head into a wall. Star Trek was never about the laser-tag, or social-worker Edith Keeler wouldn’t have been the center of the greatest TOS episode ever made, and Star Trek was never about SJW or Kirk would have kept his shirt on more.

    Star Trek was about standing up for the right thing in a society that was way beyond all the petty crap we worry about today. Star Trek was to be an example of what we could be, not self-righteous preaching about what we currently are not. Star Trek was about no one caring whether you were tall, short, young, old, black, white, blue, green, female, male, bi, straight, 4-dimensional, or a quadruped with a transparent skull. No one gave a F. as long as you were a good person to have around in a tight spot. Benjamin Sisko was one of the greatest captains and they didn’t design DS9 based on sex or race. Richard Dean Anderson & James Earl Jones also read for the captain’s role and Avery Brooks won the part. When you can beat out Jack O’Neil and Darth Frikkin Vadar, you know you owned the table-read like a boss. Lol. The point being, that Star Trek isn’t about “shock & awe in space”, or the current state of social responsibility, it’s about when we evolve to a society blind to irrelevant sociological BS and start facing the really big problems that humanity is currently too immature to see, much less solve. Mucking about with pointless laser-fights and making casting decisions based on race and sex are both decidedly beneath Star Trek and will lead to a short run.

    If I had ‘Gates/Rockefeller’ money, I’d buy the rights to Star Trek and start funding fanfic in a big way. Step one – throw a big wad of money at Vic Mignogna with no strings attached and give him full creative control to finish the “Five Year Mission”. IMHO, he’s the closest thing to Gene R. today.

  23. This film felt like there was a better story there that was dispensed with for more action scenes. Kirk also doesn’t always have to chase the guy at the end. Three movies into this ‘reboot’ and we still don’t have more involved story with any of the traditional alien adversaries of TOS. Not even an ultra-powerful demigod Q type that they used to encounter quite frequently. I think the generic sci fi action movie is exactly what Paramount wants.

  24. There is a tendency in the rebooted Trek movies, (happened twice in three movies), to cast great actors as the villain and criminally under use them. Idris Elba’s character makes no sense at all. He’s waited hundreds of years to get a bio weapon so he can take out one space station? While he has a swarm of ships that could do the same job anyway? Why? And if the missing piece had been thrown into space, why did he think there was ever a chance that it would be found? And that’s not how you deactivate a doomsday weapon anyway. We don’t render nukes safe by throwing away the launch keys, do we?
    His motivation also makes no sense. What would destroying the space station achieve? The destruction of the Federation? It’s appears nothing more than petty revenge despite his rhetoric.

    I think a much better storyline would have involved a sort of dark version of Voyager; the Franklin returns, heavily modified, the remaining crew’s lives extended, but almost unrecognisable, bent on destroying the star base, the furthest outpost of the Federation.
    Why? Because they have trekked Beyond, they have seen what is out there, and this base is far enough out, it’s acting like a beacon to Them. It has to be destroyed and Federation expansion stopped.
    Because They can hear you.

  25. Ugh, I thought it was atrocious.

    I like the play between the characters, but I felt the dialog was unintersting. There were so many one liners that may have had me squeezing out a single ‘ha!’ but straight back to the monotony that was Pegg’s writing. Then there was the scene with Kirk riding around on the bike for infinity minutes…

    Sabotage was one of the only things I liked about the movie, not because of the song, but because it was a throw back to start of the first movie reboot – when Kirk is young and reckless and throws the car over the edge of the cliff.

  27. My only problem with your review was that you gave the Reboot 4 stars, when it in no way was any better or less flawed than this film. This film at least had more of TOS character interplay than the previous ones, though the bad guy and how he became so powerful and how he was a threat to all the Federation was just mind numbingly dumb and ill thought out. Also, she didn’t need Kirk to save her, she needed Kirk to help her, just like we’ve seen hero’s or heroic sidekicks need in countless other films where they’ve been kickass before that point. It’s a without a doubt a lazy trope, but it wasn’t just aimed at her being female needing Kirk’s help. I thought it was just as lame when Spock needed Uhura’s help in the 2nd film.

  28. I tend to agree with respect to the generic feel of the movie, but I did think it was acted very well, and it did knit together solidly. And yes, that was some sophisticated cloaking device down there! I would really like to see a Star Trek episode type movie next, one akind to the Best of Both Worlds, or way of the Warrior, an action packed space fight, some clever tactical fight too that keeps us on the edge of our seats. But that’s just me. All of this on the planet stuff is a little boring if I’m honest

  29. Facetious Comment #1: Can’t wait to see the DVD deleted scenes. I heard that Wesley Crusher showed up for the wedding scene between Kirk and the latest chick he banged … into. 😛

    Facetious Comment #2: Motorcycle on the bridge of a starship? Red Dwarf did it first!

    Facetious Comment #3: At least it didn’t have lens flares. Must have run out of batteries for their torches.

    Facetious Comment #4: I absolutely hated Josie and the Pussycats in Outer Space, but the Devilins in Outer Space … I guess I’ll watch it again, one day.

    Even ST5 was a better movie.

  30. You didn’t mention the fact that the swarm ships were a direct ripoff of a Voyager episode called “The Swarm”..

  31. Let’s see, Uhura reduced to Spock’s girl friend? Really? What movie were you watching? Uhura really shines in this film unlike the last 2. She gets into a fight and kicks some serious butt. And she is the one that basically how to stop the swarm, and is the one that figures out who Krall really was.

    And the Girl for Kirk to save? It seemed more like she was the one saving everyone else. She was totally holding her own, and it was refreshing.

    I was quite impressed how everyone had their own moment to shine, Except maybe the late Anton Yelchin, he seemed under utilized which was a shame.

    The ‘Sabotage’ scene actually gave me goosebumps, and it was like a fun roller coaster ride. I have never been a huge Beastie Boys fan. And I wasn’t keen on them going back to using our era music in ST, but at least it always had context (unlike that crap intro for Enterprise).

    I will agree on the whole Enterprise destruction thing has been used to death and frankly I am sick of seeing it happen. But at least they still made use of what was left it cool ways.

    All in all this is most fun I had at a ST film since First Contact.

    As for Into Darkness, Meh, now that film I really disliked.

  32. I have not seen Beyond. In no hurry. Was not impressed with the previous two. I figure I’ll get around to it in a few months or so. The bloom is so off that rose.

    I increasingly find myself watching “TV” (whatever the fawk that term even means anymore), and damn few new movies. The golden age of long form series which we are currently basking in makes every already flavorless film seem even emptier.

    I treasure Star Trek and will always adore it, but honestly the last Trek I enjoyed was First Contact and that’s two freaking decades ago. So, so many films are just shamelessly dumb and shallow. And as some of these flawless and eternal TV series head toward greater precision, risk, and depth, and films become generic gruel for international audiences, the contrast becomes brutally stark.

    Star Trek is like Starbucks. It’s predictable, necessary, and known. But never delightful, never surprising, and a more than a little sad. I have zero hope and zero interest in the new series. Any little second or third rate experiment that Netflix cares to toss out is guaranteed to give me much greater joy.

    1. True true, Spud. The bar for video entertainment keeps lowering to appeal to an increasingly large and obtuse audience. Mike Judge was right, we will eventually see: “Ow, My Balls” in syndication. Netflix does a decent job – another option is acorn-dot-tv which is sort of a Brit micro-Netflix. Now to be sure, the Brits have bad TV too, but also some wonderful stuff. Consider it a new pool in which to fish. Also, I’ve started to read more books & audiobooks. Donna Leon’s Inspector Brunetti series and Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire series scratch that “extended story arc that doesn’t make you want to facepalm” itch. 😉

  33. Star Trek Beyond entertained me. While I understand the story’s flaws, tropes and “borrowed” material, I still came away without feeling my movie time and money had been wasted. Other commentators have said it better than I can. We all see a slightly different movie as we all have slightly (or more?) different brains and past experiences. Glad that this is a safe space where we can all voice our opinions without fear of condemnation.

  34. I agree with you this was a film with many flaws, a huge plot hole that bothered me was that Krall apparently forgot all about the Franklin, did I miss the mind wipe ? This was his command wasn’t it? When it disappeared wouldn’t he have noticed? Then Scottie the miracle worker fixed an old wreck that the original crew couldn’t fix in decades in about 5 minutes. I had to turn my brain completely off and just enjoy the whizbang effects.

  36. It’s finally left the theaters here and although I have been a huge Star Trek since the original series was on TV, I’m glad that I didn’t see this show. If attempting to normalize the lgbt lifestyle is the direction that you’ve chosen, I will be seeing far fewer movies in the future.

    1. Good one. You allowed the LGBT hype to keep you from seeing it, rather than making your own judgments. I noticed the reveal, in the moment, and actually silently cheered for the non-closeted character, but then promptly forgot UNTIL NOW that it was even part of the storyline. Honestly, I had to Google the question JUST NOW, because I didn’t remember what you were referencing. The only “normalization” of the “lgbt lifestyle” in the film is to indicate that lgbt folks are, in fact, NORMAL.

    2. If you don’t like the “LGBT lifestyle”… don’t have one. It’s pretty easy not to be gay if you’re not gay.

  37. 100% agree with you on this one. Incredible disappointment and terrible representation of the Star Trek universe. So very poorly written and directed.

  38. The entire plot of the movie was ridiculous. “Hey we’re Starfleet, and this random person in an unidentified ship needs us to venture into an uncharted area of space where communications will be blacked out! Okay guys, here’s the plan, we’re going to do zero recon, and then we’re going to send our best ship into the nebula with absolutely no backup! And Kirk, space is a lonely place, don’t be afraid! Also, have fun! This is a totally safe plan and reflects our centuries of space dominance! Also, there is a motorcycle, it works perfectly and has gas, from earth! Totally cool, bro! Also, don’t worry, yet again, the enemy shoots like Star Troopers from Star Wars, nothing to worry about, well, I mean, your ship got destroyed nearly instantaneously, but the guys on the ground with guns can’t shoot for shit! Enjoy!”

    1. Vince would you rather them just have not made the movie at all? I mean considering this is the first of the new movies that was not a remake of a previous accoplishment (considering into darkness had the same scene in it with spock and kirk just switched) and had all new content. Dont you think that they did a good job considering they had nothing to go off of at all with the whole new timeline and stuff? Honestly i loved all three of the movies and am really just happy the ammount of lense flares were extremely reduced.

  39. I enjoyed it, but I do agree with a lot of your points. For me the cast makes the film. I think the weakest aspect was Krall was not all that interesting and the motorcycle scene was a little silly. I thought Jaylah held her own until the end though. Some of the other cast members needed to be rescued as well.

    I think Krall didn’t realize the Franklin had any potential to be fixed so he disregarded it. He wouldn’t have thought they could take off from the planet as pointed out in the film they’re not meant to take off from the surface.

    I agree – I think of these films separately. I really don’t think they should continue as much I enjoy the cast one of them is gone and they have a decent trilogy to go out on.

  40. It was a movie without a story. Overdirected. Love getting a ping & then reading what’s in your mind (is this technology overhead satellites & electronics way cool & rad? Or not?) & today trying to do it with ‘help’ from my cat. My cat Krrittter got too excited by the movie poster in your latest post.

    My cat says evil should be pounced on & people & objects should pounced on & repeatedly bounced on for practice. However pacing is important in life & in films. And so right about how girl kitties & girl humans need to be kicking with front & back feet & biting & fighting when appropriate if not literally, figuratively. Kirk is not the randy boy cat he thinks he is so says Krritter.

    Human typing now: I saw Dark Matter last night. I liked seeing your character. The show was good. My opinion & a penny is worth about a penny but that is my opinion. Thanks for taking time to do these posts. Enjoy the good bits of this day. Best wishes to you & yours (And to other commenters & readers too). It is a gloriously beautiful day & world we are priviliged to be in today.

    Eastlyn & Krritter
    Monticello Mississippi

  41. Star Trek (2009) – It was pretty good, and a fantastic way to reboot the series by changing the timeline.

    Star Trek Into Darkness – Was a pretty good movie, but a terrible Star Trek movie. The Enterprise is under water? Or in the atmosphere for that matter? And they cured death. Really, no one can die in the Trek Universerse anymore. Plus the rip off of Wrath of Khan. Re-making the best Trek movie will not necessarily make your movie good too.

    Star Trek Beyond – The rip-off of Wrath of Khan continues with Kirk being all emo celebrating his birthday with McCoy. I did enjoy the opening scene with Kirk negotiation with the aliens, and in the back of my head I was thinking, “This could be pretty good”. But, that was short lived. Another movie where writers don’t understand Trek Tech (pattern enhancers are TNG, not TOS).

    A broke down spaceship that needs to accelerate to a specific speed before the jets can fire? Good thing it just happen to crash on top of a 3000 meter mountain and would have plenty of space. The bigger question was why Krall hadn’t ransacked the ship for parts or technology. Did he forget where he crashed?

    And the story. The Federation is up to no good, yet again, and an Captain that sucks the life force out of people (didn’t I see that in Warcraft?) wants his revenge on a brand new space station that didn’t even exist when he crashed.

    It was better than “Transfer to manual” Insurrection.

    I think a Deadpool is in order for the next Star Trek movie. Here’s $58 million, make a Star Trek movie.

  42. I haven’t seen Beyond yet (I really don’t like movie theatres), but I feel like Will is confirming my basic problem with ST movies: Star Trek simply works better as TV. Television allows for development of characters and situations in a way movies don’t, simply by giving more time to tell more stories, and especially “small” stories about people as much as about events. Movies, by their nature, require a different kind of storytelling. And that’s not a knock on Star Wars – while I prefer Star Trek (and B5, and the reimagined BSG) to Star Wars, I can appreciate it (well, parts 4 and up) for what it is: damn good, fun space opera. But the medium doesn’t lend itself to the kind of Trek stories I prefer.

  43. “Someone who read this post in its original form on Medium also observed that Uhura was reduced to Spock’s girlfriend in this movie, and all the amazing stuff she’s capable of doing just sort of … vanished.”

    What amazing stuff is it you speak of? Uhura was reduced to Spock’s girlfriend alright, but that started back in the ’09 film. This Uhura is a whiny, needy, manipulative b–ch. The only good thing this Uhura accomplished, was to speak fluent Klingon, without seeming like a caricature of a Communications Officer (Trek VI). Their important mission to Quonos in Into Darkness, was interrupted by her need to whine some more about her emotionless Vulcan boyfriend.

  44. Hear hear!! A small part of me dies with every new blog or review I see saying how great this movie was. Chekov is a wiz kid genius (guess I should say was? wails). Uhura speaks dozens of alien languages (and all their dialects), Sulu is a badass who can kill you with a freaking fold up sword. Kirk is capable of way more balsy cool stuff than just riding a motorcycle in circles. We love these characters, and the universe they live in. Fast and Furious lost me after movie #1, no offense to the fans. It’s just not Star Trek. Shrugs Nobody in this movie did anything special, and the only cool things about this universe were the tiny school-of-fish ships and the rad space station. Just like you said. Most generic Star Trek production ever. The more everyone raves about it the more I hate it. Thank you Wil Wheaton. Thank you.

    1. It’s the internet. There are words on the screen that I disagree with. Let’s dance.

      I vehemently disagree with the views in Wil Wheaton’s article and many of the subsequent posts. Not only do I think that Star Trek Beyond is one of the best genre films of the year so far, I think history will reveal it to be one of the best Trek stories of all-time. It was truly great! (And I have reasons!)

      Let’s take a look at the charges against my client:

      “But with just a few very small cosmetic changes, the story could have been any generic sci-fi action movie produced in the last 20 years.”

      Yes, of course, this movie was just like all those other techno-utopianist movies, the ones that show that humanity is not a shit-ball on the verge of annihilation, the ones that feature a majestic, pluralistic society where people of not just different races but different alien species can live in harmony in a mind-blowing ANTI-DEATH STAR; all those generic sci-fi action movies where the lead is coping with an identity crisis fueled by job burn-out, the ones that offer up the questions regarding the ideal state of human flourishing, and whether that state is conflict and struggle, all those movies where there’s crew/family that is part of an organization that’s purpose is the betterment of the universe, where all the people are competent and likable. All those movies. All those generic movies like that that we’re all so tired of.

      Name one.

      Go ahead, name just one. I’ll be right back, I’m just going to go grab a soda while you think of one. And remember, movies in your imagination don’t count.

      Okay, I’m back. How’d we do?

      If you were able to name one, that’s actually one more than I did. I think the only thing that might have been generic about Star Trek Beyond is that it’s worldview was generically Star Trek (i.e., techno-utopianism), which is A) rare as heck in today’s entertainment marketplace, and B) exactly what I want from Star Trek property. And Star Trek Beyond presented these values in ways we’d never seen before. When was the last time you saw anything like the Yorktown?

      “I really didn’t like that there was this amazing female character (who could keep a fucking STARSHIP HIDDEN for years while she survived on a hostile planet) who turned into The Girl For Kirk To Save the instant the boys showed up.”

      That was your takeaway from this character?? You’re right, she did survive alone on a hostile planet, cloaked a ship, saved Scotty from three alien thugs, captured Kirk and Chekov, picked off the drones inside the mining camp, fought and triumphed in hand-to-hand with “action heavy” who killed her father, only to be given an assist by Kirk after she took a leap of faith off the building to transport out. On the balance, this character was 99% agency, and to reduce the scene (and by inference, the character) to a cheap damsel-in-distress scenario is, I’m sorry, lousy. (Apologies for the harsh language. You’ve driven me to it.)

      “Someone who read this post in its original form on Medium also observed that Uhura was reduced to Spock’s girlfriend in this movie, and all the amazing stuff she’s capable of doing just sort of … vanished.”

      Okay, wait — did we actually see the same movie? Did you see the part where she was instrumental in devising the plan to jam the drones? Or even earlier, do you remember the part where she fought through the bad guys, and then sacrificed herself to disengage the saucer section? Why did Krall keep using her as his audience? Did it have something to do with the fact that she was the only one that seemed to reach his conscience?

      “The whole film was massively overdirected. The camera moves were indulgent and distracting, totally unnecessary, more than one time to establish the ship being on its side, and disoriented me the rest of the time.”

      All right, look grandpa: Space allows for movement in all 3 dimensions, and unless you want to cheat and pretend that space would orient everything the same way it would in a gravity environment (see: Star Wars), that disorientation you’re talking about is a more authentic presentation of the environment where things are taking place. Moreover, for a lot of us, it’s fun. I truly enjoyed having fun with the space and showing me things in ways I hadn’t seen before.

      “There were, like, three? climaxes in the thing and by the final one I just didn’t care and wanted it to be over.”

      Yes, three climaxes — four if you want to count the “jump start” of the Franklin, five if you want to count the collision with the Franklin — and I thought the climaxes were all earned. I don’t mind having a little action in my sci-fi adventure, and the challenges that generated this action were all real within the context of the story. I knew these characters, I liked these characters, I had a clear understanding of what the stakes were. I cared each time the given situation was brought to a head.

      “When we got to the message about strength through unity, it felt tacked on and preachy and unearned.”

      So if we’re old school Star Trek fans, and we’re going to hold the story to the same standards of the original show that we enjoy so much, we have to be fair and admit that in many instances, Star Trek can tack-on a preachy message. On the other hand, Krall made it abundantly clear that he wanted to piss on Federation values, so I think talking about unity in this situation was apropos and thematically consistent with the rest of the movie. I will admit that they could have fleshed out the themes further, and I think Krall was one meaty monologue to Uhura away from it, but what we got was about on the level of what we’d have gotten from the original series; I can only let myself get so disappointed.

      “Do we really have to keep destroying the Enterprise?”

      Fair enough, and this was something that REALLY turned me off from the trailer. But like with the motorcycle and the Beastie Boys, in the context of the movie, it worked like a mofo. I think there was definitely a valuable beat in Kirk’s character arc when he watched his ship careening down to the planet (And the shot with his reflection in the glass of his escape pod when he watched this beautiful/awful spectacle unfold in front of him was wonderful.)

      So to sum up, your grievances have no power here!, and if you want to admit to having watched the movie while coping with a horrendous hangover that clouded your judgement, I will allow it.

      Seriously, I understand that people can have different opinions on things, and for those of you who did not like Beyond, that’s fine, I get it. I’m just here to say “Counterpoint: I think it’s good!”

  45. “this amazing female character (who could keep a fucking STARSHIP HIDDEN for years while she survived on a hostile planet)”

    …but then it turned out that she was “keeping it hidden” from people who could not possibly have been unaware of its existence or exact location, which robbed her of even that accomplishment, too.

  46. I can understand and even agree with some of your complaints. My biggest complaint is the overall plot. The villain in every reboot has been from the past. I thought “beyond” meant something different I guess.

  47. I aggree will… I just wish you would have been happy about the much needed lack of lense flares. 😂 Please correct me if im wrong though i might have missed one or two during a bathroom break….

  49. the first 20-30 minutes were GREAT. Like amazing. but then the whole movie fell apart..so yeah you are right.

  50. On September 8th, BBC America is going to have a Star Trek marathon of the first two seasons for the Anniversary of the show. If you get that channel on your cable system, it will be great to watch those beginning shows.

    As to the movie, I enjoyed the interplay between the characters the most, though some of the scenes were exciting to watch.

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