Star Trek Beyon quick review

Star Trek Beyond first impressions review
by Aaltomies

Take notice that these are the first impressions after seeing the movie in theatres, thus there is bias of awe.

The nuTrek never had it easy. Rebooting an existing franchise is never easy, but Paramount opted to keep both options available, which they seem to have taken into heart with the upcoming unnamed Star Trek series in 2017. The 2009 Star Trek was more or less a direct action piece with familiar faces tacked on in a plot that had holes size of a wormhole… which were explained in the novelization and comic. Star Trek into Darkness at first seemed to be better, but turned out to be a passionless remake of Wrath of Kahn with none of its strengths and each and every flaw you could point at. As my friend said, these movies had a lot of Star and very little of the Trek.
Calling Star Trek Beyond the most Star Trek movie of the nuTrek might sound like something that should be self-evident, but we are talking about a franchise that is globally recognized as part of our heritage, not just for Americas. Star Trek Voyager and Enterprise were shows that essentially killed the franchise for a short while. Doing Star Trek right is hard with all the legacy on its back. But Star Trek Beyond has the Trek heart, and sadly, Paramount had to cut the original script and make it more about the action.

The weakest part of the movie is that it has no pause. Its non-stop action from start to end with only few minutes of downtime, but even that time is usually a set-up for another action piece. The action is overall well done, but the amount of it just numbs you eventually, except when it levels to character level. The camera work is sadly what you expect from a 2010’s movie, with shakycam and lot of twirling around. To be fair, some of the twirling is genuinely impressive, especially in the space station Yorktown.

But where the movie shines is where the characters are. For the first time these actors have a script that doesn’t treat them or their characters as your run-of-the-mill caricatures of the crew. Chris Pine’s Kirk feels like James T. Kirk for the first time, albeit with a past that never really let him go. Kirk is flawed and shows it, but stands up to the challenge and ideas he has. He is more reserved and, dare I say, experienced than what he was in the previous two movies. There is cockiness and high self-esteem, but it’s not childish anymore. The same applies for the rest of the cast, and even characters that we never met before gains some emotional attachment. Spock’s and Bones’ interactions with each other, while rather wild in this one, is very much true to their characters. Sulu and Chekov both shine in their own right, with Sulu showing the most stuff to be a Captain in the future, while Chekov being Chekov in every sense of the name. Scotty has a lot of screentime, and his interaction with Jaylah, the white skinned alien with black stripes on her face, is probably one the best interactions Scotty had outside the TNG episode Relics.

Whereas Into Darkness fell flat straight down in its execution, Beyond doesn’t exactly deliver with its initial set-up. Destroying the Enterprise is one thing, but doing it two-times in a row is a step too far. On one hand it’s a generic and overdirected action piece that makes your head spin and ache. On the other hand, the characters are spot on. The message of the movie is repetition from previous ones as well, and some of the concepts would’ve worked better on television during multiple episodes.

Special mention for Pegg putting so much Trek history in there. The ship you see in the trailers that looks like an NX-class really is a piece of shit NX-Class ship. Even certain family trees are set up, and it seemed I was the only in the audience who got most of them. Oh well.

It’s not Wrath of Kahn, The Voyage Home or The Undiscovered Country. However, it is not Insurrection, Nemesis or TMP either, and unlike Generations, it respects the characters. Perhaps what I’m getting with all this is this; despite it being an action vehicle that gave me a headache, mostly because it was a 3D showin, I found hope in the characters. For the first time since Shatner and Nimoy portrayed Kirk and Spock, I could see them on the silver screen.
I hope that Star Trek 4 will allow Pegg to have a more Star Trek script. The bits that were in the original outshine the inserted action, even when they are drown in CG lightshow and explosions.