[Stormy]

[[[SPOILER FREE REVIEW]]]

Beyond brings the franchise back to its roots while boldly going where no Trek movie has gone before
By Stormy

I admit to betraying my hometown theater and sneaking off to the Mall of Georgia to catch Star Trek: Beyond in IMAX 3D. IMAX is not cheap, so there are not many movies I will hand over the extra money for ($18 for an IMAX ticket compared to $7.50 for a ticket at The Historic Elbert Theater.)
I saw the first Star Trek reboot movie and Avatar in IMAX 3D and I also saw one of the Spider-Man movies there as well. But this isn’t about IMAX. It’s about Star Trek: Beyond, so let’s get back to the review.
In doing so, I must say a word about the first two reboot movies- Star Trek and Star Trek: Into Darkness. I am a pretty big fan of the first one but loathed the second one due to J.J. Abram’s disastrous handling of the Kahn storyline. We’ll just leave it with that.
In my humble opinion, Star Trek: Beyond goes back to what Gene Roddenberry wanted the franchise to be, in more ways than one.
This movie is, for the most, part true to the original characters. To any Trekkie/Trekkor or simply fan, this is a very important detail. We must be able to believe these actors are the same characters originally created by William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, George Takai, Nichelle Nichols and Walter Keonig.
I must say for the most part Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, John Cho, Zoe Saldana and Anton Yelchin do exactly that.
Of course, this isn’t really news since all seven have been in all three of the reboot movies, but it’s still worth saying again.
Of course, it does no good to have “heroes” if we do not have equally captivating villains. Beyond should once again be applauded for introducing bold, formidable villains as well as interesting new species/allies to the Trek canon.
Idris Elba commands attention as Krall while Sofia Boutella adds punch and humor to the role of Jaylah.
Since we already had a solid foundation with the cast and the newest additions proved to be up to the task as well, the next biggest piece would be the plot. As briefly mentioned above, a series can go from boon to bust in one short movie. Trek fans are passionate and it doesn’t really take a lot to have them demanding heads roll over things not nearly as bad as the Into Darkness plot.
Beyond, however, is well-written, paced well to keep the viewer’s attention and in the Roddenberry style, prods the viewer to do a little soul-searching as well.
As one would expect, the movie pays respect regarding the passing of Star Trek’s legendary Vulcan, Leonard Nimoy, aka “Ambassador Spock” (Nimoy’s iteration of the character who appeared briefly in the first movie). In doing so, they manage to give a nod to the entire original cast as well.
So, was this a perfect Star Trek movie? The answer would have to be “no.”
Director Justin Lin used way too many rotating screens (at least in the IMAX version- not sure about the regular screen) and at times the action was so fast it was somewhat blurry. Both effects missed the mark pretty badly, doing more harm than good as far as quality of the movie.
As you can clearly see, I shied away from giving any real spoilers that might cause your movie experience to be less than it should be. I did however, want those who intended to go to the theater and shell out hard-earned money for a ticket to know whether this movie was worth what they would spend. In my opinion, Star Trek: Beyond is worth “Beyond” whatever you had to pay for the ticket, even an IMAX ticket.

[Deltron]

I enjoyed it a lot. I loved the uniforms and the intro. I agree with you with the action sequences being blurry, but I think that was intentional to keep some things vague. Great story, not disappointed. But I still have lots of questions and things to point out. I'll wait a couple of weeks until the majority have watched it. Might go see it again in the meantime

[Gillion]

The movie's been out for 2 weeks now and this is the only thread about it in the Fleet? Common guys
Anyway, I have to say I disagree with your assessment. While I did enjoy the movie, it didnt feel very "Treky" to me, and it was really predictable. Im going to have a bit more Spoilers than the previous two posts so before I do I'll just say its absolutely worth a watch, but dont pay more than you have to. I wouldnt recommend IMAX, or paying extra for a theater with comfy seats like I did.

On to Spoilers, as I mentioned, the plot is totally predictable. Seemingly worthless item that main characters find is actually all powerful super weapon that main villain wants. Main villain has weapons vastly supoerior to main characters and all hope seems lost until Deus Ex Machina device is found. Also, the villain felt too much like Kahn to have in a movie right after Into Darkness, a soldier who's bitter because he was discarded during a time he couldnt adapt to. Also, I dont know what problems you had with Kahn. Every time he was in screen he just, commanded attention. He was very meticulous and it always looked like he was in total control of every situation right until the end. Where as Krall was just your typical bad guy, resorting to violence at every turn, and killing people just to prove a point.

To me, something is "Trek" when there's an underlying lesson to be learned. Like in The Journey Home when we're told to stop hunting animals to extinction, because one day a giant whale probe might appear. They sort of had that in Beyond at the very end when you found out why Krall was doing what he was doing, but then they blasted him into space before the message could really sink in. Like I said, I did enjoy it, but only because I like to see a corny, rock music battle scene in Star Trek every now and again, but in terms of quality, I think the first two films were better. And I didnt even mention all the lore they botched, like everything they got wrong about the NX program.

[Danska101]

I finally saw the film yesterday, and I have to broadly agree with Gillion.

The plot was nothing special. Bad guy #582 is angry because he feels betrayed/abandoned/let down etc. wants revenge and to prove that, because people let him down, everyone must be basically awful. In fact, that's giving him sightly more motivation than the film did. He would have at least been intimidating if he hadn't spent the first half of the film with an open mouthed gormless expression that made him look like he had absolutely no idea what he was doing there. A complete waste of Idris Elba.

Structurally, I felt the film was a bit of a mess. The plot was there, and the characters got from one thing to another sort of logically(ish), but somehow the film just felt disjointed and a bit broken. I can't quite put my finger on why.

Some of the characters were good. McCoy, as always, was brilliant, and I enjoyed Scotty. Kirk continues to be entirely different from TOS Kirk (though that's not a bad thing in my book, so don't take that as a complaint!) and Spock was just...bad. All through the films, someone has decided that 'emotionless' means spouting weird, awkward sounding phrases with long words that attempt (and fail) to dance around any form of emotive language. Go back and watch Spock in the series or original films, he does not speak like that. Either that or Leonord Nimoy had a way of making it seem so natural that you didn't notice. Zachary Quinto does not, with his attempt at emotionlessness veering from "look at all my suppressed anger" to "awkward first year on their first day of school". Uhura continuing to be pasted into a love...thing with Spock because she's the only main female character continues to disappoint me, especially given how downright unlikable this version of Spock is. Sulu and Chekov were great. Not much more to say on that.

I've read a number of things saying that Simon Pegg wanted to make a much more Trekky film, but wasn't allowed. This really shows. The bare bones of an interesting exploration of the Federation and what it means are there, but are so overlaid with action, humour and explosions that it becomes little more than lip service. It was nice to see the values of the Federation being remembered for once, but it's sad they weren't allowed to explore it in any great detail.

The references and throwbacks were a lot better this time around, being subtle nods rather than the in-your-face 'REMEMBER THIS FROM WRATH OF KHAN' bits present in the previous two films.

And then there's the visuals. Absolutely beautiful. I loved how the planet looked a lot like a classic era planet, but updated in a way that makes it look really modern and good. The space scenes were stunning, I love the new warp effect (which actually shows them warping space - nice touch!) and it was just a stunning film overall. Couple that with the excellent soundtrack, so perfectly cut and interwoven into the piece, and you have a real spectacle on your hands. The way they destroyed the Enterprise was amazing, and actually made me feel sad for a ship I really don't care about that much.

Overall I enjoyed the film, if less than the original, but miles more than Into Darkness. It's nice to see some elements of actual Trek appearing for once, though they were spread very thin. The visuals and soundtrack were stunning, some characters were good some were bad and the film seemed like a bit of a mess. I'd still recommend seeing it if you're a Trek fan, though (which, if you're on this site, seems likely)!

...this went on a lot longer than I expected and now I really need to get to work. *runs off*