I approach ‘Star Trek Beyond with mixed feelings. I have stated before that while I am incredibly grateful that JJ Abrams was able to breathe new life into a franchise that has been around all my life, I still think the reboot lost some of the meaning of what Star Trek is supposed to be about. Growing up, there were Star Wars fans and there were Star Trek fans. There was some overlap of fandom by the über geeks, but for the most part, everyone staked out their camps and reveled in their respective franchises. Star Wars was for the adventurous space swashbuckling crowd whereas Star Trek appealed to the explorers. Start Trek was an exercise in philosophical and political analysis of the human race through science fiction. It showed us what our full potential could become. In other words, there was more nuance and the stories stimulated more intellectual curiosity than its’ Star Wars counter part. The JJ Abrams reboot embraced the action side, but still dragged us diehard loyalists into 21st century thrill based filmmaking. When it was announce that Justin Lin would take over as Director of the 3rd outing in Star Trek Beyond, visions of Fast and Furious mocked my nightmares (The action film Justin Lin is most famous for).
While my fears were not completely unfounded, Star Trek beyond turns out to be a fun film even though it drifts further away from its’ source vision. The action is fast and furious (that phrasing was intentional), but the characters we know and love provide us an exciting space romp that is worth the price of admission. This time around it puts us smack dab in the middle of the 5 year mission from the original TV show. Deep space isolation is affecting everyone and the Enterprise docks at the Federation’s newest and most advanced Starbase for some R&R and reflection. I will say that Justin Lin’s vision of space travel and immense future constructions are awe inspiring. I tip the hat when deserved. Chris Pine returns as Captain James T Kirk and gives us a portrayal of a man who questions his purpose. Very different than the Kirk we know and a welcome look deeper into the psyche of the legend.
Each of the crew’s lives are more deeply explored on the space station, but not gratuitously, just glimpses. A fun and gratifying tribute to the original Sulu, George Takei, where it is revealed that the character is gay as well. We get glimpses of Sulu's family life which we would not have been able to see during the 1960’s. We see Spock (Zachary Quinto) attempt to come to grips with the death of the older version of himself. Surprisingly poignant for something that could have been handled ham-fistedly. Of course, in an action movie, calm is just the respite before the storm and what a hurricane it is. The crew of the Enterprise is devastated by the attack of a hostile force and the survivors are stranded on a savage and hostile planet. One can tell that Simon Pegg had a hand in writing this film as his character ‘Scotty’ has a larger role than normal. No worries, Pegg’s comic relief is always welcome and he is always the clutch player who usually saves the day anyway.
Idris Elba is unrecognizable as the malevolent lead villain Krall. Other than destruction of everything, his intentions are not clear at first. All we know is that he is the bad guy and he has to be stopped. I feel an actor as gifted as Elba was wasted playing such a generic villain, but still he gave it his all which you have to respect. And as always, there has to be the hot alien chick who kicks butt. This time played by Sofia Boutella as the resourceful Jaylah. And since Simon Pegg wrote the script, most of the chemistry scenes are between Scotty and her.
In no way do I want to take away from the visual beauty of this film. Half the battle in making quality science fiction is the aesthetics. That being said, I felt the film overly relied on our baser action genre tendencies using cliches and cliffhangers as opposed to developing the mind boundary expanders Star Trek was created to be. Hey, I understand as much as anyone that one must modernize and change with the times, but my love of the original series is so strong that my nostalgia was left unsatiated. Justin Lin tried to make up for it with several call backs to the original series, especially one scene that inserted the picture of the original crew into the storyline, but the end result was still more action than substance.
If you are a Trekkie, go see it. Have fun and be thankful that another generation is enjoying characters that have been around for 50 years. Happy Anniversary Star Trek. Here’s hoping you have 50 more.
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