Review

What would happen if somebody went back in time and severely traumatized a significant historical figure, causing them to grow up to be a different person? That's the question this film grapples with in its fresh faced take on Star Trek. James Kirk is a different man now and as a consequence of his paramount importance to the timeline, everything else is profoundly different too. The broader implications of this remain woefully inadequately explored in both a character sense and a timeline sense. The former issue of the inadequate character explorations can be attributed to this film's hyperactive pacing; there is little time to explore what kind of people Kirk and Spock are now that their lives are so different. The latter issue of the status of the original timeline I discuss in more detail in another article, however the short version is based on the evidence presented in the film we can't really conclude one way or the other whether the old timeline still exists or not. It's possible the events of this film exist in an alternate universe like Ent: In a Mirror, Darkly. But it is also possible that this film pressed permanently the biggest, most giant reset button ever pressed on Star Trek, all for nothing but a fun action romp; something that would be unspeakably tragic to the long term health of the franchise.

But regardless of whether or not our beloved timeline has been irreconcilably destroyed, this film by itself is indeed an undeniably fun ride. The action in this film is unparalleled by anything previous, the destruction of Vulcan was horrifyingly touching and compelling, the performances of the new cast (with the glaring exception of Chekov and at times Sulu) were exceptional, and the directing and feel of the storytelling invoked all the best aspects of the dark and gritty universes of Firefly or Battlestar Galactica. The new film is of course not without its annoyances. The score is remarkably repetitive and derivative, much of the action is superfluous, such as the ice monster that attacked Kirk on Delta Vega, and Scotty's alien comrade felt more like the painfully immature comic relief of an Ewok character or Jar Jar Binks from a Star Wars film than something we should expect from Star Trek. What's more, there are a few embarrassing technical and continuity problems (documented above) as well as some painful cliches. For example, why was most of the Federation fleet not available? And isn't it a little convenient that Nero forgot to put up his shields when he attacked Earth, thus allowing our heroes to beam aboard his ship and surprise him?

Some cliches of the film are more deliberate and more enjoyable. There are too many delightful references to previous episodes to list. And while it stretches realism to see Kirk go from cadet to captain in one day, the film's story as a plot device to reassemble the old crew unnaturally early strangely works quite well. It feels like in the face of the trauma they've endured, they've emerged stronger than ever. The characters as well as the franchise has been revitalized by the continuity-contorting events of the story. Having old Spock play a major role was lovely, though as with the murky implications for the timeline, it is not well understood why Spock can't simply go back in time to stop Nero from destroying the Kelvin. Also, Leonard Nimoy's recitation of the "space, the final frontier..." theme was unnecessarily nostalgic and makes the film's ending feel somewhat overwrought. Overall though, this film is enjoyable and establishes the new-old universe quite compellingly. I look forward to the next installment.

Review

The sequel to Star Trek XI's reboot corrects some of the prior film's sins, repeats others, and commits some new ones in the process. The biggest improvement was the hyperactive pace of the previous film being toned down a bit. This gave the film time to flesh out Kirk's and Spock's altered characters a bit more, doing much to set them apart from their counterparts in the original universe. Minor characters get more appropriate things to do too. The acting performances of Sulu and especially Chekov annoyed me last time around, but no longer. Probably the best minor character moment was Scotty objecting to classified weaponry on the Enterprise on the grounds of possible unintended technical consequences. Was he just jealous about the loss of control, or did he sincerely believe his caution to be warranted? Both the writing and the actor leave that open to interpretation, which I liked. The most important improvement from last time around is this film provides more texture for how Kirk went from cadet to fully commissioned officer with the rank of captain in one day. We already knew from the previous film that Admiral Pike made Kirk into a sort of pet, but here we're presented with a much more nuanced take on their relationship, which establishes the idea that Kirk's rapid rise through the ranks has been unconventional, controversial, and difficult for Pike to continue to justify. At the beginning of the film, Pike has had enough and finally resorts to threatening to demote Kirk all the way back to cadet. These scenes do much to establish the credibility that was lacking the previous film's plot, though in my view they don't go quite far enough.

While this film corrected the main issues with the previous film's character writing, it repeats most of the previous film's other missteps. First and foremost, we still have no on-screen evidence one way or the other as to whether this new universe exists apart from the old one or supersedes it. Also Scotty's magic transporter formula continues to defy my suspension of disbelief. As Emory Erickson stated in Ent: Daedalus, if it were possible to reliably beam people from one planetary system to another several light years away, then why have starships? Khan beaming directly from Earth to the Klingon home world was completely absurd. Likewise, the film once again had difficulty accurately portraying the speed of warp drive, with total travel time at warp speed between Earth and the Klingon home world apparently lasting only minutes. And just like the last film, this film is as sloppy with continuity as it is with its future tech. Admiral Marcus' involvement in Section 31 was a pathetic writing blunder compared to the smooth operation that Sloan ran on DS9, as it's stated that Admiral Marcus was motivated solely by the desire to establish a military-industrial complex. As such, there was no reason to tell Kirk about Section 31's existence at all, as Admiral Marcus could have satisfied his objectives without disclosing that detail. Likewise, it seems nobody on the Enterprise had ever cracked open a history book on the Eugenics Wars, or they'd have known precisely who Khan was well before it was necessary for Old Spock to educate his younger self on the matter.

What's worse, this film commits a striking new sin: it's considerably more unoriginal. For starters, the quickly chewed up and forgotten pre-warp civilization's portrayal at the beginning of the film strongly resembled the similar one in Star Trek IX: Insurrection. But more obviously, the vast majority of this film was a blatant rehash of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. While it was nice to see Carol Marcus in a strikingly different role and it was also nice to see the new character of Admiral Marcus overshadow Khan as the main villain for most of the film, those tweaks just weren't enough. The film just couldn't resist peppering itself endlessly with nostalgic references to its predecessor. Some were tasteful and clever, others were painful and tacky. Added together, the story isn't really much more than the sum of its parts: a more action-packed take on Wrath of Khan with a mildly interesting exploration of New Kirk's reckless youth as opposed to the much more interesting exploration of Old Kirk's decaying youth. Most of the film feels as though it's merely going through the motions of what a somewhat hollow but glitzy rehash of Wrath of Khan is supposed to look like. Even the title of the film doesn't seem to serve much of a purpose other than to simply sound cool. But that disappointing lack of depth, heart, and originality is by no means a showstopper. This film, just like the one it follows, is once again an undeniably fun action romp. It's just sad that these fun action romps must continue to come at the unnecessary expense of the intelligent storytelling and thoughtful embrace of the franchise's rich history that the series used to enjoy.

Review

Nearly all action, almost no story. Star Trek Beyond is perhaps the most uninspired and unoriginal Star Trek film ever made, as while Star Trek V: The Final Frontier may have been infinitely worse in just about every way, at least that story was original and certainly not without inspiration; drug induced inspiration perhaps, but inspiration nonetheless. The way in which the bland unoriginality of this film stands out most is with the destruction of the Enterprise. While a somewhat pleasant surprise to see so early in the film, it lacked the emotional resonance of seeing the Enterprise destroyed in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek VII: Generations, despite the clear attempt to be an homage to both. Likewise, the entire character of Krall also seems to be an homage to (or perhaps rip off of) Star Trek IX: Insurrection's main antagonist, as both Krall and Ru'afo attain drug-induced immortality at the expense of others, leading to a disfigured appearance. Like the previous film, too much of this film's story relies on nostalgia for past Star Trek rather than carving out a new, exciting story.

Which is especially a shame, as Krall was the most promisingly original concept for an antagonist that the Kelvin timeline has offered up so far; sadly wasted on mediocre scriptwriting. You'd think a marooned starship captain who is a veteran of the Xindi and Earth-Romulan wars surviving for 100 years using alien technology and developing a deep loathing of the Federation's political philosophy would make for a more compelling villain, but Krall somehow managed to be even more bland than Nero. Chief among the reasons why is he's given almost no screen time with which to articulate his anti-Federation political ideology and as such his motivations seem profoundly half-baked and his evil plan feels laughably impulsive for a person with over a century of wisdom under his belt. "Oh look, a random artifact I can make a bio weapon out of to attack the Federation with! Just what I've been waiting 100 years for!" Really? There were so many ways for a person of his means to use the considerable arsenal at his disposal to wreak havoc on the Federation in more calculatedly effective ways.

Part of the reason why Krall gets so little time to become a compelling villain though is it seems the story's authors felt for some stupid reason that it would be more dramatic if his background wasn't revealed until the end of the film. This, in addition to almost completely destroying the value of such a cool backstory, also creates a series of awkward contradictions to resolve. For instance, why does Krall speak an alien language if he is human? And for that matter why does the distinction of language even matter in the age of the universal translator? Moreover, why is the Yorktown so much more advanced than any starbase seen on other Star Treks? None of those questions rise to the level of continuity errors, but they certainly stretch the limits of fan rationalization.

Likewise, the whole film should leave you wondering what happened to Krall in the prime timeline. Since he was marooned before Nero split the timeline, presumably Krall was dispatched by someone other than Kirk in the prime timeline's version of 2263. Perhaps by Captain Pike and original Spock. If that's how it went down, then since the Enterprise wasn't destroyed during the prime timeline's version of that incident, perhaps Pike prime and Spock prime got more time to learn about Krall's anti-Federation political philosophy before they dispatched him. That sounds like a great idea for a story. Maybe they should've made a movie about that instead.

Overall between the issues with the plot logic, the underdeveloped antagonist, and the film's general blandness, this film leaves much to be desired. Even Kirk complained about it all feeling routine ("episodic") in his captain's log, a joke which applies I think more fittingly than the authors intended. That said, there are some things to praise. The destruction of the Enterprise was visually spectacular for all that it was devoid of comparable emotional resonance to the previous films' takes on it. The parallelism with George Kirk presiding over the doomed Kelvin's evacuation and James Kirk presiding over the doomed Enterprise's evacuation was nice, particularly after framing it around Kirk being now a year older than his father was when he died. And it was nice to see Leonard Nimoy's death worked into the plot with the offscreen death of Spock prime making young Spock question his place in Starfleet. But those details aren't enough to make up for the film's flaws relative to the other Star Trek films. While still a very entertaining film, all but one or two of the preceding twelve Star Trek films were better than this one.