Anyone seen Star Trek Beyond yet?

Just got back from it. I didn't hate it. It is better than Into darkness for a number of reasons, though Into Darkness might be a better made movie. It's a bit of a mixed bag for me.


I actually really liked the first ten to fifteen minutes or so (minus the first minute). They took some time to set up Kirk and Spock's internal struggles. There's a big space station that's a major element to the movie and we actually get long sequence where they just show it off while the Enterprise docks. Not as long as the ones in TMP but it was nice... The station however reminded me in many ways of the Citadel in Mass Effect... So there's some story reasons why this station and it's scale kind of bugged me but that wasn't a big deal. But the station had some nifty defense systems as well as it's own local security and such. They put some thought into the workings of the station and it great to see them bother spending the time to give us a sense of exactly what goes on there.

There's some issues with space geography... things in space (and there's really not that much time spent in actual space) seem done more because they look cool. They completely gloss over how long it would take the ships to travel between the station and the other main location in the film.

The attempts at humor sometimes worked (the best ones were from Bones) but mostly they just felt a bit out of place. At times, like in the first minute I mentioned above, the laughs aren't earned. It just comes off goofy... slapstick for slapstick's sake.

The use of 20th century music wasn't soooo bad when it first happens in the movie, but when they do it again later in the movie with a different song it was pretty cringe inducing. If you've seen the first trailer, then you know which song. That part nearly ruins the movie for me.


The movie takes place '3 years into their 5 year mission.' Kirk is struggling with figuring out where he fits in in Star Fleet. I actually liked that they tied this in to the main villain's story.

The final timelapse sequence of the Enterprise A's construction was nice. I really liked that bit.

There's a bit of a subplot with Spock struggling with how to deal with the death of old-spock, it worked nicely as a tribute to Nimoy. They even work in a photo of the whole original series cast on the bridge in their movie uniforms. I also liked that the end credits started with the original Theme song from the show as well.

There's a scene where the main character sit around and plot to rescue their friends. It's a scene you've seen in every movie ever where people plane to break in/out of somewhere... complete with table with improvised props on it to represent the location.

The destruction of the enterprise happens fairly early on. Sure it's happened lots in the other trek series, but really it's only the first time for new trek. As it goes down they do go for broke with shifting gravity and such so those scenes were kind of cool. I wasn't crazy about the alien menace but it does have an explanation that makes it a lot better, but won't find out till nearly 3/4 of the way through the film.

I might have more to say when I get more time to process it. It's also 1 AM...
 
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I must say after "into darkness", a movie I consider to be the worst of the movies, I had very little expectations for this one.

After watching it I was quite happy about the direction they have taken. I liked the beginning a lot....don't want to give spoilers here. Lets just say its more Trek the way I like it.

It was a good mix of Trek, action and just fun. I hope that they will go further in this direction and I won't mind if Lin and Pegg keep the show running.

I won't go into details what I liked till more people have seen it. From my experiance spoiler tags hardly keep people from reading the spoilers ^_^
So would I recommend watching it? Yes I do.


PS: Why do I have the feeling that in one part of the film the CGI Crew had way to much fun?
 
I really liked Beyond a lot it is on par with the reboot to me. For the record I also really liked into darkness even though the kahn angle was dumb, but cumberbatch is such a good actor to me it worked. Simon pegg wrote a great script with a lot of good on the nose star trek humor. He was smart for pairing bones and spock for much of the movie. Also I really like the female alien lead in the movie and hope they bring her back in future movies.

The stuff that didnt work for me was the direction. Justin lin does a fine job as far as composing shots, but he has way too many quick cuts and the action set pieces go on way too long sometimes. It does sometimes feel like fast and the furious in space, which gets boring to me. Overall I give it an 8.5/10 one of the best blockbusters this summer although that is not saying much. For the record my favorite movie this yr so far was the Nice guys which nobody saw.
 
I gotta say I was blown away. Just got home from it. This is more crazy action than i normally want in my star trek stuff but somehow they nailed it. And the comedy is solid gold in this one! Definitely entertaining for sure.
 
I enjoyed it. Getting Orci away from the script was a huge improvement and Pegg's writing was enjoyable. Unlike Into Darkness, the in-jokes were subtle... well more so anyway. The opening scenes with McCoy and Kirk in the lounge was gold... really Karl Urban kinda stole the show in my opinion; all in all it felt like star trek unlike the previous two which felt more like low rent star wars knock offs. The script tried to expand the characters rather than make them cardboard cutouts. Bittersweet in a way since Anton Yelchin passed.

They addressed one of my bigger gripes by adding in transitions so the movie didn't feel like Earth to Vulcan in five minutes. and unlike some I liked the new warp effect, thought it was an interesting take on it anyway. my only issue thus far is that with all the action, Lin and company missed an opportunity to flesh out Krall. So Idris Elba's skills were slightly wasted. I would've gladly changed five minutes of slam-bang action fueled by the Beastie Boys for a few minutes of understanding a bit more f his motivations, especially since they're kind of contradictory. overall though this is my favorite of the reboots. I think it gets an 8/10 in my book
 
I enjoyed it. Getting Orci away from the script was a huge improvement and Pegg's writing was enjoyable. Unlike Into Darkness, the in-jokes were subtle... well more so anyway. The opening scenes with McCoy and Kirk in the lounge was gold... really Karl Urban kinda stole the show in my opinion; all in all it felt like star trek unlike the previous two which felt more like low rent star wars knock offs. The script tried to expand the characters rather than make them cardboard cutouts. Bittersweet in a way since Anton Yelchin passed.

They addressed one of my bigger gripes by adding in transitions so the movie didn't feel like Earth to Vulcan in five minutes. and unlike some I liked the new warp effect, thought it was an interesting take on it anyway. my only issue thus far is that with all the action, Lin and company missed an opportunity to flesh out Krall. So Idris Elba's skills were slightly wasted. I would've gladly changed five minutes of slam-bang action fueled by the Beastie Boys for a few minutes of understanding a bit more f his motivations, especially since they're kind of contradictory. overall though this is my favorite of the reboots. I think it gets an 8/10 in my book
Yeah. Too much action for my liking for Star Trek but somehow this one really won me over with the humor. Bones was a absolute gold lol.
 
I had a lot of fun seeing this movie, and it really was the first of the three "reboot" movies that made me feel like I was actually watching "Star Trek" the whole time and not action movies that were paying lip service to the franchise. There had been brief flashes of familiar characters before, but this time I felt like the roles were truly being played to their fullest. I mean that as no disrespect to the actors - you have to work with the script you are given. Unlike ST09, which was pushing together people who don't know each other, and Into Darkness, which attempted to generate conflict among the crew, Beyond has the camaraderie so essential to the original series. The banter between Zachary Quinto and Karl Urban wouldn't sound weird coming from Leonard Nimoy and DeForest Kelley. Chris Pine is finally playing Captain Kirk, a dedicated officer who still has a bit of a rebel streak. And he has managed to do so without becoming a parody of William Shatner.

The other thing I really liked about this move was that the Enterprise was allowed to star in it. The ship has always been a character as much as the humans aboard her, and I felt that ST09 and ID mainly used the ship as a vessel (pun intended) to move behind scenes. Granted, as you see in the trailors, she gets her ass kicked, but there are several scenes at the beginning that treat the ship with the same reverence seen in the TOS movies from the 80s. And without giving too much away, I will say that a few tweaks make me like the Enterprise of this film series even better by the end of the movie.

To those who complain it wasn't cerebral enough, I counter that the only movie that ever really tried to be was The Motion Picture, and it flopped both with critics and with Star Trek fans because you can't take a script for an hour long episode and turn it into a two and a half hour movie without filler (I love the Enterprise refit from that film, but a 15 minute establishing shot of her in spacedock is a little much). The rest of the movies have been action-adventures in space, just mainly without the effects budget we've seen from the recent films. Star Trek IV also was on the cerebral side, but it had the one time contemporary setting and the whales message, which drew in a larger, more contemporary audience at the time (Trivia: This is the only Star Trek movie where nobody is killed on-screen. Unknown if the massive disruptions from the whale probe caused deaths on Earth).

This film has the spirit of Trek. I hope it does really well both domestically and overseas. Paramount has already confirmed another film, and maybe if they do a better job marketing it than they did Beyond, even more of us can reap the benefits.

On another note - what do you all think of the concept design for the ship from the new series, Star Trek: Discovery?

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To those who complain it wasn't cerebral enough, I counter that the only movie that ever really tried to be was The Motion Picture, and it flopped both with critics and with Star Trek fans because you can't take a script for an hour long episode and turn it into a two and a half hour movie without filler (I love the Enterprise refit from that film, but a 15 minute establishing shot of her in spacedock is a little much). The rest of the movies have been action-adventures in space, just mainly without the effects budget we've seen from the recent films. Star Trek IV also was on the cerebral side, but it had the one time contemporary setting and the whales message, which drew in a larger, more contemporary audience at the time (Trivia: This is the only Star Trek movie where nobody is killed on-screen. Unknown if the massive disruptions from the whale probe caused deaths on Earth).

Star Trek 4 also made a concerted effort to up the comedy aspect of the film which is also part of why it did better at the box office than most of the other Trek movies up to that point. Most of the movies have struggled with how do you stay true to the show but still work as a movie

On another note - what do you all think of the concept design for the ship from the new series, Star Trek: Discovery?

P6SMhju.png


It's not my favorite design. It actually seems to be an unused concept from one of the reboot ideas of Rodenberry from between the end of TOS and TMP (Ralph McQuarrie's concept art from the unproduced Star Trek: Planet of the Titans movie - http://ca.ign.com/articles/2016/07/...-a-design-by-star-wars-legend-ralph-mcquarrie ) but the producers have been quick to point out that it's also not the final design for the new show. http://trekmovie.com/2016/07/24/exc...overy-producers-on-ships-design-shows-themes/
 
Oh. Nerd question. In the original Star Trek was that enterprise capable of saucer separation? I was wondering that when i watched the new one.
 
Original Series? Nope. It was a feature introduced for the Enterprise D in the next generation series. At least on screen.

In novels saucer separation ages back to the original Star Trek.
 
Original Series? Nope. It was a feature introduced for the Enterprise D in the next generation series. At least on screen.

In novels saucer separation ages back to the original Star Trek.
Gotcha. Thanks for the info. : )
Watching the ending of the tng series right now. "All good things 1&2". No matter how many times I've seen this one it blows me away everytime.
 
Oh. Nerd question. In the original Star Trek was that enterprise capable of saucer separation? I was wondering that when i watched the new one.

Actually, yes. Scotty considers doing it to the Enterprise during the episode "The Apple", but it isn't needed and it's never depicted on screen.
 
Actually, yes. Scotty considers doing it to the Enterprise during the episode "The Apple", but it isn't needed and it's never depicted on screen.
That makes me happy. For a second I thought they were totally making crap up in the movie. I knew someone here would have the answer lol.
 
I recall my dad telling me about how the saucer could separate before TNG started; it was a sort of well-known 'fan fact' in the 70s. (I think it may show up in the original series bible?) The fact that the Enterprise was too large to be constructed on Earth was a similar bit of popular lore, though the new movies certainly ignored that!

Remember, though, that the Kelvin timeline Enterprise isn't supposed to be identical to the original ship, though. The idea is that the Federation in the new timeline was heavily impacted by the encounter with Nero's future technology, causing them to build larger, more militaristic starships.
 
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