"Star Trek Beyond" PG 13
The star ship Enterprise in the Kelvin timeline approaches a space station made out of a mini puzzle sphere with the spinning center, only it looks many times cooleer than a desk ornament.
It is 2263, in a different five year mission than the 2265-2269 one, where Kirk was never a really junior officer and shot right to Captain, by 2259. The first reboot movie established that he was right out of cadet school and immediately saves the universe, and that was 2258. The second movie was set in 2259.
On approach to the glimmering station with all the snake like city tendrils all inside the plastic outer shell, the crew contemplates new goals.
(Spoilers). The station answers a distress beacon from a nearby nebula, forcing the Enterprise to investigate, where the ship is attacked and scuttled over Altima, a planet much like the barried planets from the classic show.
The stages of this alien world are simplistic and weird. This is not a bad thing. Krall, the main bad guy, appears to be a cross between a Xindi Reptilian and a Domion Jem Hadar and a Borg, and his army appear to act as a Borg hive, but without the sense they can actually turn the crew into borg. They can try, but it tends to kill the prisoners. Krall has captured most of the Enterprise crew.
McCoy and Spock crash land on the planet and must survive even though Spock is hurt, but Spock tells McCoy about his relationship troubles, and that Spock Prime has died.
Then Scotty has found a stranded female in white who has found an ancient crashed ship from the time of Archer, the Franklin, which could have appeared in the 2161 segment at the final episode, but would have been faster than warp 4, as stated in the story.
Kirk and Chekov have crashed and are tyrying to salvage an artifact on the downed saucer section.
Uhura and Sulu are trapped with Krall's baddies on their base, where they eventually find the artifact, and Krall uses it as a weapon on the crew person who had hid it.
The Franklin though manages to be salvageable, and Scotty and Jaylah, arrange for Kirk and crew to be rescued via the transporter, so they can get off the rock and stop Krall from using the alien machine to go off and attack the station.
The action packed movie does not pull any punches, acts as a charming nod, and at the same time gives a Millennia twist to the classic stories. It isn't so much cerebral as thoughtfully made, and clearly Jason Lin and Simon Pegg have their hearts in it. (They're X Genners and Trekkers). The story is actually a tad better than the first one in 2009, which I consider to be Star Trek 11, and the last, Star Trek 12, and this one, Star Trek 13.
Ignoring much of the terrorism parable stuff of the last two, but still using the villain with a super weapon angle, the story works best as an affectionate thrill ride.
It is not completely Star Trek, but it doesn't have to be. Enough of it is to satisfy. You kind of have to see it on the big screen too.
The Beastie Boys song defense doing something like the Minmay Attack even pays homage to Robotech.
Jaylah is clearly inspired of the various anime lady warriors.
The movie even pays respects to Spock as portrayed by Leonard Nimoy, who died in 2015, and to Anton Yeltchin, who was killed after it was just completed.
They have even been paying attention to fan bloggers and reference some ideas from them, and from fan sites, which was cool.
Review by Adam Browne
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