Star Trek: Beyond the 1st Trailer

[Durckad]

8 hours ago, DjourouLoveMe? said:

The anticipation for this film just became much sadder: Anton Yelchin has died in a car accident.

Shit.

da fuq? This year has been a bunch of shit.

RIP Anton. 

[Arch-MaesterPhilip]

I really liked Charlie Bartlett.  

[Corvinus85]

An article from the AP states that Yelchin's vehicle, a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee, has been on recall since April, because the gear box has confused drivers, resulting in precisely what happened in this case. If this is true, some major lawsuit may come Fiat Chrysler's way. 

[Rhom]

2 hours ago, Korvín-Corvinus said:

An article from the AP states that Yelchin's vehicle, a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee, has been on recall since April, because the gear box has confused drivers, resulting in precisely what happened in this case. If this is true, some major lawsuit may come Fiat Chrysler's way. 

I was just reading about that.

Something called a "monostable shifter."   

[red snow]

Such a horrible and pointless way to go. The guy was so young as well with a promising career ahead of him. I hope he gets some good scenes in the new trek film.

[Martini Sigil]

Anton Yelchin's passing is tragic... I don't have the right words...

On a different note...I'm surprised that Carol Marcus was not recast for this movie... there was some mention of the character being "part of the crew" in STiD.... and I thought their intention was to diversify a predominantly male cast... I know its not that important, just thought it was worth mentioning.

[Jon's Queen Consort]

Apparently according to Abrams there are plans for a fourth movie with Chris Hemsworth returning as George Kirk.

[red snow]

3 hours ago, Jon's Queen Consort said:

Apparently according to Abrams there are plans for a fourth movie with Chris Hemsworth returning as George Kirk.

Star Trek - the previous generation?

 

[Jon's Queen Consort]

On 17/7/2016 at 0:11 AM, red snow said:

Star Trek - the previous generation?

Seems like that. From what I read in memory alpha http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Trek_XIV they or at least Kirk will meet George Kirk and he will not just have a dream or a flashback. Furthermore there will not be a recasting for Chekov after Anton Yelchin's death.

Btw because Beyond will be released later in my country I would be grateful if someone could tell me what had happened with Bones.

[Argonath Diver]

After really disliking that first trailer - that made it look like a giant space explosions-and-fistfights shitfest - I am now pretty eager to head out to see this one. The reviews I've skimmed have made the movie sound like it has a TNG feel; the good guys out on a planet far from home, and some clever techno-babble might save the day. 

I wish they'd show Yelchin's face for just a moment in one of the spots. He was one of my favorite young actors, and his death got to me more than many of the tragic losses the entertainment industry has suffered in the last year. I hope Chekhov has a few good scenes. He was absolutely my favorite of the new cast - and I generally like every actor's portrayals. We watched Into Darkness last night, and I enjoyed it more than I remembered. 

 

[red snow]

Just seen it I'll put proper discussion in spoilers but it's almost offensively inoffensive. I think the comparisons to old star trek is in the sense that it feels a bit like a TV plot. Think of the next gen films in terms of quality. Not awful but simply run of the mill. Fine for a weekend social event, I guess.

The film starts pretty well but the initial attack on the enterprise was the highlight of the film and never really got back to that. The twist doesn't really add anything and the space-station while visually interesting becomes rather tiring with twists on gravity again. The characters were ok but it was very inbalanced in terms of servicing the crew (I feel the previous two films did better in that regard). Uhura, Checkov (massive shame given the actor's death) and Sulu do very little. Spock is underused (but maybe there isn't that much to do with him) and it feels like Pegg saved a lot of the fun material for himself. This film convinced me that Chris Pine can't carry a film as the lead - he's not bad but he is easily outshone. Karl Urban is great though and they wisely make good use of him. Elba is surprisingly underwhelming but that's because he has so much prosthetic make-up he's got nothing to act with. They should have done away with it. Jayla was a fun addition to the film though and had some good lines although i kept thinking she was Gamora from GOTG which was made more odd by the fact Zoe Zaldana is in the film

A plus is the comparative lack of logic-defiances although there's still a lot. One that stood out for me was how most of the film showed how the alien ships could cut through federation ships with ease (no explanation why) yet in the third act they suddenly respond to ancient starships like brick walls. To be honest a lot of the alien tech and how it's acquired was a bit vague too.

So for folk who were fine with the next gen run of films should be fine with this. Those who are still eagerly awaiting a great Trek will probably have to wait and hope that the new TV show may deliver.

[Werthead]

My take:

Quote

 

The USS Enterprise is three years into its five-year mission exploring deep space. However, Captain James T. Kirk is feeling boredom settling in. The mission consists of a lot more diplomatic work and less boldly exploring the frontier than he was expecting. Whilst docked at the massive Starbase Yorktown, the Enterprise receives a distress call from the heart of a nearby, mysterious nebula. Kirk sets out, eager to see something new...only to get a lot more than he bargained for.

When J.J. Abrams rebooted Star Trek in 2009, he assembled an absolutely killer cast. Replicating the chemistry of the original crew was a tall order, but he somehow achieved it with the likable - if massively flawed - first reboot film. It was also pretty much the only thing holding together the appalling sequel, Into Darkness, in 2013. The diabolical quality of that movie lowered expectations for this third entry in the new series, especially when it was announced that Simon Pegg would be writing the script and Justin Lin would be directing.

To some degree that was counter-intuitive, given Pegg's geek credentials and his strong writing experience (especially on the Spaced TV series and his collaborations with Edgar Wright). But Pegg's recent writing work has been patchy and Justin Lin is best known for the Fast and Furious franchise, not known for its thoughtful exploration of the unknown. Fans may have been a little too quick to judge there: not only is Lin a massive Star Trek fan from his chilldhood but his F&F movies transitioned quite cleverly from just dumb action movies into actions movies with a strong sense of character interplay, family and heart.

These sensibilities come into full force on Star Trek Beyond. Lin delivers explosions, impressive stunts and some great action set-pieces - and unlike the two previous movies, most of these are well-shot and comprehensible - but he also delivers on bringing the characters together and driving them apart and finding out what makes them tick as individuals and as a group. He is well-served by Simon Pegg's script (helped out by Doug Jung), the writer relishing his chance to finally write an all-out science fiction blockbuster and delivering. Pegg, like Abrams, is known to be a Star Wars fan much more than a Star Trek one, but whilst Abrams ill-advisedly set about trying to turn Trek into Wars, Pegg has actually sat down and worked out what makes Star Trek different and brought those elements into the script. For example, fans were bemused by the near-total lack of any decent Spock/McCoy banter in the Abrams movies but here get an entire, fairly substantial subplot focused on the two characters which works extremely well. Zoe Saldana's Uhura also gets a great (if a little brief) storyline as she gets under the skin of main villain Kraal (Idris Elba under heavy makeup) and tries to find out what makes him tick. Anton Yelchin's Chekov gets a fair few action scenes, so of the main cast it's only John Cho's Sulu that gets short shrift. And even he still gets to command the Enterprise, lead a prison break and is given the most personal stakes in the final showdown (nicely underplayed, as well).

Star Trek Beyond in fact tries to do something that is very clever: it goes for the all-out CG blockbuster stuff but then suddenly reins it in and goes for unexpected restraint. A lengthy (and slightly nonsensical) CGI space battle turns into a low-tech, far more relatable struggle on the surface of a planet. A major CG fest of phasers and spaceships in the finale gives way to that greatest of Star Trek staples: Kirk and the villain facing off with just their fists, but done in a near-zero gravity environment against a dizzying backdrop (if you suffer from strong vertigo, I would advise against seeing this film in 3D). The movie also sacrifices the shining Apple-influenced hallways and bridge of the Enterprise for a more primitive NX-class starship (cue the Star Trek: Enterprise fans cheering, although it's not that one) and brings back a genuine sense of wonder to the graphic design. Starbase Yorktown is a jaw-dropping creation, a multi-sided city floating in what is effectively a snowglobe, evoking not just previous Star Trek designs but also the Citadel of the Mass Effect trilogy.

The film also remembers it's the 50th anniversary year and uses the recent death of Leonard Nimoy to pay homage to that: young Spock learning of the passing of his older, other-dimensional self and then discovering a box of his possessions allows the movie to tip its hat at what came before in a surprisingly effective move which informs Spock's excellent character development throughout the rest of the movie. Zachary Quinto has less to do than in either of Beyond's two predecessors but his character arc is considerably more satisfying, emotional and, as some may say, logical.

New characters are surprisingly thin on the ground. The villain Kraal is well-played by Elba, but for most of the film lacks decent motivation. The finale finally explains who he is and what he wants, and it's a great moment, but comes rather late in the day. Still, Elba's villain satisfies far more than either Benedict Cumberbatch-trying-to-be-Ricardo-Montalban or Eric Bana's way too expositionary and over-explained Nero. Also impressive is Sofia Boutella as Jaylah, a native of the new planet who quickly becomes a key ally of Scotty (and later the rest of the gang). Boutella gives Jaylah just the right mix of badass warrior and slightly overwhelmed local girl, and her fascination with science and engineering plays well into the finale. I hope we see her back in the next film (if there is one; Beyond's opening numbers are looking a bit iffy at the moment). Shohreh Aghdashloo also gets a memorable cameo as a Federation commodore, a pick-up shot to help with exposition and sell Kirk's motivations a bit better. Given it was a late addition to the film, I do wonder if Lin and Pegg had seen her in The Expanse (or, more likely, the trailers) and decided to borrow her authoritative space leader charisma for their movie. In that case, good job.

It's not all a glorious bed of roses, though. There's a fairly obvious plot hole in why Kraal decides to stay on his rubbish planet long after he managed to take control of a swarm of warp-capable spacecraft which could have taken him anywhere he wanted in the galaxy. The Beastie Boys return to the soundtrack for a very well-explained (indeed, somewhat oversold) reason but it still feels out of place, and Star Trek Beyond tries to get a lot of mileage out of a joke that was a toss-off in a 1965 episode of Doctor Who (modern rock music is described as "classical music" by people in the future...BECAUSE THEY ARE IN THE FUTURE!). Kirk also gets to ride a motorbike because, hell, why not?.

But ultimately, Star Trek Beyond (****½) brings a surprising amount of heart to proceedings, doesn't entirely neglect the brain, engages in some great characterisation and team interplay, pays homage to its departed castmembers in a genuinely moving way (a toast to "departed friends" gains tremendous pathos during Anton Yelchin's reaction shot) and features Kirk punching an alien in the face, McCoy and Spock bickering like an old married couple, Scotty pulling off an engineering miracle, Sulu pulling off an insane piloting maneuver, Uhura figuring out how to communicate with an alien species (also: best depiction of the universal translator ever), and Chekov explaining how Russia invented everything, including Scotch. It is, inarguably, the best Star Trek movie in twenty years, since First Contact, and may even (much more arguably) be the best in twenty-five, since The Undiscovered Country. The film is on general release now.

 

More spoilery thoughts:

I was hoping the new

Enterprise would be a bad-ass new design, but it's more or less the same design with some go-faster stripes, and I think an actual sensor dish now. They still call it the Enterprise-A though.

I was disappointed they didn't mention that the NX design had really tough armour to compensate for a lack of shields, which may have helped explain why Kraal's swarmers don't penetrate its hull. However, they do also largely avoid the swarm until they destroy it with the Beastie Boys (I'm not sold on this as a way of removing the threat, but thankfully it's not the actual main threat of the film) so that's not entirely a problem.

 

[RumHam]

11 minutes ago, Werthead said:

cue the Star Trek: Enterprise fans cheering

Wow, what're the odds that both of them would be in the theater when you saw it?

[polishgenius]

I rather liked it: it's probably about as good as the first one, better than STID. Not groundbreaking, and not old-Trek, but continuing the series fine. It did do quite a good job of reigning the scale in a little from the all-consuming catastrophes of the first two while still delivering appropriately king-sized action, I liked that.

 

I was rather impressed with how Lin managed to fit his silly sensibilities into the film without ruining it. The 'Sabotage' moment was daft as hell, and yet I really liked it. It felt more like something from Guardians than Star Trek, but stopped just short of punching me out of it.

In general, although in places there was a little too much shakycam, the action was solid. Opening with the big set-piece is always a risk, but they managed to save enough for the end. Stranding everyone on separate parts of the planet was a good move, because it gave the middle part of the film a structure and focus that the previous two films kind of lacked.
And unlike red snow, I think they did alright with the characters- it's always hard to focus on a whole ensemble, but it was nice at least to get a real focus on Bones, and the others got nice touches. The split-up helped there too.

One that stood out for me was how most of the film showed how the alien ships could cut through federation ships with ease (no explanation why) yet in the third act they suddenly respond to ancient starships like brick walls.

 

Er, they set it up quite specifically and made sure to show that flooding them with the music fucked them up. Whether the interference actually caused them to explode somehow or just meant they could aim properly and started colliding and exploding isn't entirely clear, but that doesn't really matter- it's very definitely the music plan that makes them ineffective. Even the attack on the base- they're piercing shields and buildings until the hq patches the signal through, at which point, wave of fire.

[Corvinus85]

I quite enjoyed it. Full of pace, and the movie was just the right length. Visually the movie was impressive, far more gorgeous than its predecessors. I enjoyed seeing an alien planet that looked alien.

 

I didn't see the twist with Krall coming, and I liked it because, just like

@Werthead mentioned, it gave Krall a clearer purpose. Otherwise the villain would have been thin. The action scenes were well done. People were complaining that the Enterprise gets destroyed yet again, forgetting that both the movies with the old generation, and the ones with the new generation, featured at least one destruction apiece. And the ship did not go down as easily as the trailers suggested.

I liked the inclusion of the NX type ship, and its strong hull plating. And I really enjoyed the "Sabotage" scene. Sure, it had its silliness, but at least they defeated a swarm type enemy without having to kill "the queen" character.

Some of the character moments were pretty good, and I liked the homage they paid to Leonard Nimoy. I have to say I felt sad every time Anton Yelchin came on screen. Too bad they didn't give him a bigger role. The rest all had their shining moments.

I love the look of Yorktown station. Again like @Werthead mentioned, it's a good blend of older Star Trek designs and other sci-fi iconic places, like the Citadel. Having read the novel Seveneves, it also reminded me of the Habitat. The zero gravity point at it center also served to further explore the technology of this Star Trek universe, and it was a hell of a place for the climactic fight scene. And on the subject of visuals, while I hate that they keep changing the way Warp travel looks, this one is by far the best imagining of it I have seen, and I hope they stick with it. Also no planet hopping via teleportation. 

On the ridiculous side, I didn't like the fall scenes, the one with Kirk and Cheko sliding down the saucer, and The Franklin taking a nose dive and then managing to upright itself. That hull... really strong stuff. And Scotty's near perfect landing in a torpedo.

The one plot hole I spotted had to do with the attack on Yorktown. Why couldn't the swarm ship just smash through everything, not just the docking station? Was the shield surrounding the station too strong? They did smash through The Enterprise's shields pretty easily.

[Ramsay B.]

I enjoyed it a lot. I'm not really a Star Trek fan besides the most recent movies and definitely rank this above the last one. A lot of action and just a fun summer movie. One of the ending sequences was kind of weak but it didn't really hurt the movie too much.

 

On June 20, 2016 at 2:53 PM, Corvinus said:

An article from the AP states that Yelchin's vehicle, a 2015 Jeep Grand Cherokee, has been on recall since April, because the gear box has confused drivers, resulting in precisely what happened in this case. If this is true, some major lawsuit may come Fiat Chrysler's way. 

I have a 2014 one and I got a recall notice in the mail a few months ago that stated that they should have a solution to the problem later this year. Basically the shifter always goes back to the same starting point and since it's different I guess people are having a lot of problems with it, but there isn't anything mechanically wrong with it. The recall notice itself was kind of confusing. A horrible tragedy either way and Yelchin was a real talent. He was great in The Green Room.

[red snow]

11 hours ago, polishgenius said:

I rather liked it: it's probably about as good as the first one, better than STID. Not groundbreaking, and not old-Trek, but continuing the series fine. It did do quite a good job of reigning the scale in a little from the all-consuming catastrophes of the first two while still delivering appropriately king-sized action, I liked that.

 

 

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Er, they set it up quite specifically and made sure to show that flooding them with the music fucked them up. Whether the interference actually caused them to explode somehow or just meant they could aim properly and started colliding and exploding isn't entirely clear, but that doesn't really matter- it's very definitely the music plan that makes them ineffective. Even the attack on the base- they're piercing shields and buildings until the hq patches the signal through, at which point, wave of fire.

 

 

That wasn't my issue, i don't think

I got that the music was screwing them up but unless they had sci-magic that allowed them to fly through the enterprise like butter, I couldn't see why they couldn't do the same with the old ship when it splashes out of a pond in the finale. I think Wert's explanation that the older ships have stronger hulls because they didn't have energy shileds makes sense though

Looking at the other reactions I'm guessing the enjoyment depends on how much you want to like Star Trek. All i saw was something mildly entertaining but a bit more "trek" than the last two. But, like Wert says, it's been 20 years since the last great Trek film and it's probably true this is the best in 20 years. More for lack of competition than anything else.

[Liver and Onions]

I wasn't really looking forward to this one, but I'm going to check it out now, probably with my mom (big Star Trek fan). I may have to warn her about some of the spoilers, tho...

[Mexal]

I was wildly entertained. No real complaints at all. It did exactly what I was hoping it'd do.

[Crazydog7]

Of the relaunch movies this is now my favorite.  Yes there are still many little things I find annoying like Scotty's assistant but in its best moments it played like an episode of the original series. 

What really hobbles these films is still the lack of a villain who's motivations make any sense at all.