Finally caught this in matinee yesterday and I really liked it! Much better than Into Darkness, which I actually kind of liked. Great character work, and while I agree it seemed like a big budget TV episode, it worked really well. Only thing that really bummed me out was the villain, he just made no sense and was a big waste of Idris Elba. All the rest was pretty cool, and I don’t doubt I’ll pick up the blu-ray for my collection. My son is getting close to an age that I can introduce him to Trek (already introduced to Star Wars by way of the Lego games and cartoons) and I want to give him the old Shatner stuff plus the newer films.
So if dirt bikes in a Trek film are objectionable, what do you guys think of… WWF wrestling!? Let’s be honest, it’s the way it always was.
(You can also watch it in 3D VR, because spaceships!!)
I finally got around to watching this last night. To prepare, the night before I pulled up a random classic episode on Netflix. That episode happened to be The Corbomite Maneuver. I had no idea what this movie was about, and it just so happens that Nu-Kirk repeats a line from that old episode in this one
There’s no such thing as ‘the unknown,’ only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.
In the old episode, what follows is the Enterprise facing certain doom, the ship attempting to disengage and refraining from using his weapons until the absolute last moment, a member of the bridge crew having an emotional breakdown, and Kirk demonstrating leadership despite struggling with a seemingly no-win scenario.
In this movie, it’s followed by the Enterprise seeing an attacker, Kirk immediately ordering phaser fire instead of retreating, and the ship getting eviscerated and half the crew dying. In the old series a single death was a tragedy (despite the jokes about red shirts always dying, it doesn’t happen that often). In these movies, first they kill an entire planet, then then in the next one they kill Starfleet Command, and in this one they kill half the Enterprise crew and then later probably a million alien pilots. Kill kill kill, it should be called Death Trek.
Have you ever heard someone in these movies say to set phasers to stun?
I do like these actors and I think they’re doing a wonderful job with the characters. Its the only thing keeping me watching them. The stories and the overall tone of these movies is atrocious. This is not a hopeful future, we just have huger weapons to kill motherfuckers with. I don’t know why Idris Elba was so pissed at the Federation for being soft.
I feel bad for Simon Pegg because I get the feeling he wrote a good script that explored Idris Elba’s motivations, his PTSD from the Romulan wars (which is shouted at the very end during explosions and kung fu wire fighting), and then the studio saw it and was like “Why didn’t you blow up the Enterprise it’s Star Trek 3 we have to do that. Also no one dies wtf. Cut out all this dialogue no one cares about that. Lore lol”.
I don’t think your criticism is unfair but Star Trek, like just about all other sf, is a reflection of its times. The idea of everyone banding together to create a federation for exploration and bringing new civilizations together seems almost quaint these days. I’m impressed Pegg captured as much of the spirit of old Trek that he did, personally.
Aw, crap. I failed to note that particular “see what I did there” moment was a cut/paste from the parallel number.
I gave up on Trek in the movies after the horrible Into Darkness. With the “reboot” Paramount turned it into just another loud, obnoxious action movie series. Now its waiting to see if the CBS series is any good now or be left with going back to watch old episodes and the few good movies made.
You gave up on the Trek movies but you’re going to pay a monthly access fee in the hopes the series is better? I don’t know why they would make the series that much different when the movies are the reason they’re even considering it.
They have stated it is? Its a different company. They are in the original universe not the rebooted one and have said it will take cues from modern TV being a serialized show and not the separate story a week. The showrunner interests me too.
That said unless it gets super reviews I will just probably subscribe for a month after it airs and watch the season.
Yeah, Nesrie, the producer has been making every effort he can diplomatically to stress this isn’t in the movie/Kelvin universe.
Also, I despised Into Darkness and loved Beyond. :)
This has not much to do with the topic at hand, but The Onion’s AV Club has an interesting article ranking the Trek films written by someone with very little experience with the television shows. Sorry about the lack of link, my phone is giving me grief.
I think is the article in question. Looks interesting!
That’s the one, thank you Armando.
Very nice. I agree with most of his observations on all the movies. On the final rankings, the only way they differ from my own rankings is that I don’t like Star Trek: First Contact, so I would rank that a lot lower, and I didn’t mind Star Trek:Nemesis as much either, though I agree with his points about its weaknesses. I don’t know how to feel about Star Trek: Generations being ranked so low. I was surprised at how much I enjoyed it despite it being a pretty flawed movie overall. Still, at the very least I would swap positions of Nemesis and First Contact, and leave the other rankings alone. I just hated what First Contact did to the Borg. At least in Nemesis when Picard is going toe to toe with his clone, I felt a lot of excitement and thrill that wasn’t there for me when they were making up new rules about The Borg Queen and “target these non-essential areas to destroy the borg ships. Thanks Lucutus. We would have never have thought of targeting non-essential areas”.
No they didn’t state this.
I didn’t mean literally in the movie verse, but if the movies are a driving reason behind others thinking a series is even possible, why would they make something completely different. Are you saying if the movies hadn’t been made we all think we’d have a new series?
I am saying just that, because a different company, CBS, owns the TV rights and doesn’t benefit from the movies. And the movies have only been moderately successful. The 50-year history of the franchise is probably a bigger driver of the push to do a new series than the movies.
If the movies were an influencer, they’d be looking for synergies instead of distancing themselves from them.
After Enterprise, I thought the series was dead. And since TNG’s last movie was awful, I thought the movies were dead. It feels like the only reason we have anything at all is there is some success with Reboot. I hope we can support a series and movies. I am fine if they aren’t related to each other too, I just think they’re riding the wave of the movies and it’s pretty risk to dismiss that movie crowd.
Uh yes they have. Fact. Period.
This show has clearly been set up,as not tied to the new movies at all.
But believe what you,want.
I think you are misreading this. You asked me if they have stated this. That was your question. And i replied, no they haven’t stated this. I am actually agreeing with you, no they haven’t stated this… confirming your statement.
Agree with that article that Star Trek Beyond has a lot in common with Star Trek V - in certain respects I like the fact that the move is an attempt to just have a “day in the life” feel of the crew exploring the galaxy, and step away from the heavy drama of the previous installments.
Unfortunately, in both instances, the story isn’t very coherent or intelligent, and at times characters treat situations in an overly trivial way give the stakes, and ultimately they’re movies that are very forgettable and feel like missed opportunities despite a handful of decent character moments. They might be o.k. TV episodes, but feel very thin to fill a 3+ year gap between movie opportunities.
I also found out from that article that I HAVE seen Tom Hardy without a mask on his face. After Dark Knight Rises I harbored the illusion that I’ve never really seen what Tom Hardy looks like and he’ll always be Bain to me, with a mask on his face. And that view funneled nicely into Mad Max Fury Road as well, since he has a mask on his face most of the time.
But I had no idea until I read that article that Tom Hardy is also the actor who played Picard’s clone in Star Trek: Nemesis. He did a really good job in that movie, but he had no mask on his face. He probably had a skull cap to hide his hair though (or maybe he really shaved his head). So maybe I still don’t know what he really looks like. I certainly can’t draw a line between Mad Max and Picard’s clone. Those two characters looked radically different from one another. So Tom Hardy’s real face is thankfully still kind of a mystery for me. Yay! He’s still Bain in my head.