Menu
Star Trek: Beyond is a Star Trek story
It has been pointed out to me recently that a lot of people that would call themselves Star Trek fans have not seen Star Trek: Beyond. The reason given is often that they were put off by the dumpster fire that was Into Darkness or that the ads for Beyond are so underwhelming or offputting.
Firstly, I completely understand both arguments. Into Darkness is about the worst Star Trek movie imaginable. It's dumb, lazy and it treats the audience like idiots. Basic things in the film don't line up or make sense and it's basically just a tangentially connected series of pretty action set-pieces, as directed by a man with no sense of space or scale. 09 had many of the same problems, but didn't draw attention to them as much. Into Darkness lived in its plotholes. It made sure you knew that a whole sequence made no fucking sense.
And the ads for Beyond did nothing to convince the viewer that they weren't in for the same shit again. It's honestly criminal how misrepresentative of Beyond the ads for it were. They presented yet another dumb action adventure that had nothing to say about the characters it was portraying beyond "hey, remember Spock and Kirk?"
Firstly, I completely understand both arguments. Into Darkness is about the worst Star Trek movie imaginable. It's dumb, lazy and it treats the audience like idiots. Basic things in the film don't line up or make sense and it's basically just a tangentially connected series of pretty action set-pieces, as directed by a man with no sense of space or scale. 09 had many of the same problems, but didn't draw attention to them as much. Into Darkness lived in its plotholes. It made sure you knew that a whole sequence made no fucking sense.
And the ads for Beyond did nothing to convince the viewer that they weren't in for the same shit again. It's honestly criminal how misrepresentative of Beyond the ads for it were. They presented yet another dumb action adventure that had nothing to say about the characters it was portraying beyond "hey, remember Spock and Kirk?"
In truth, Star Trek: Beyond is the first Star Tek film in quite some time. It really does feel like a good 2-parter episode in the way its structured. All of the characters have something interesting to do. Most of them grow in a significant way by the end of the film. Dumb things that didn't make sense in the previous 2 Kelvinverse films actually work here, because they're embraced as a conceit of the series. The fact that the obligatory "Sabotage" sequence not only worked but stood out as a clever solution to a problem speaks volumes to the quality of writing on show here.
It's likely a case of Simon Pegg getting the idea of Star Trek better than Abrams. Jung and Lin brought the same pace that the previous 2 films had had, while making the scenes flow together in a way that made sense. The actors all got the space they needed to give thoughtful performances, rather than breathy cliches. While the film does have problems (the antagonist is pretty lame and the bad guys are yet another dark, menacing villain species) it is assuredly in the best tradition of Star Trek.
So if you haven't watched it, I implore you to do so. This is the sort of story telling we should encourage in a potential Star Trek renaissance. The sort of stories where our main characters are changed by the end. The sort of stories where a joke or 2 make sense.
It's likely a case of Simon Pegg getting the idea of Star Trek better than Abrams. Jung and Lin brought the same pace that the previous 2 films had had, while making the scenes flow together in a way that made sense. The actors all got the space they needed to give thoughtful performances, rather than breathy cliches. While the film does have problems (the antagonist is pretty lame and the bad guys are yet another dark, menacing villain species) it is assuredly in the best tradition of Star Trek.
So if you haven't watched it, I implore you to do so. This is the sort of story telling we should encourage in a potential Star Trek renaissance. The sort of stories where our main characters are changed by the end. The sort of stories where a joke or 2 make sense.