Movie: Star Trek Beyond

Star Trek Beyond is the third Star Trek movie in the series reboot featuring the well chosen cast of Chris Pine as Captain James Tiberious Kirk, Karl Urban as Dr. McCoy, Zachary Quinto as Commander Spock, Zoe Saldana as Lieutenant Uhura, John Cho as Sulu, Anton Yelchin as Chekov and Simon Pegg as Engineer Montgomery Scott. This time around the crew is directed by Justin Lin of Fast and Furious 6 fame and the villain facing off against Kirk is Idris Elba who plays Krall.


The movie opens with Captain Kirk on a diplomatic peace mission offers an artifact on behalf of one alien species to another. When the mission fails, Kirk admits in his captain's log that halfway through his five year mission he is tired. Commander Spock is seen placing the artifact, the Abronath, into the ship's archives. The Enterprise arrives at Starbase Yorktown for resupply and shore leave. Kirk speaks with Commodore Paris about his application for Vice Admiral and recommends Commander Spock for the captaincy of the Enterprise. While at Yorktown, a survivor of a ship arrives at the base. The alien, Kalara tells the base that her ship is stranded on a planet called Altamid, just past the nearby nebula and asks the Federation to rescue them. Kirk volunteers the Enterprise for the mission and the crew reassembles and leaves immediately.

However, once through the nebula and approaching the planet, the Enterprise is violently attacked  and quickly overwhelmed by a huge swarm of ships unlike anything they have ever seen before.  The small ships are like spikes which embed themselves into the hull of the Enterprise, releasing the aliens who begin slaughtering the crew. One of those aliens is Krall, who it is revealed is searching for the Abronath.

The ship loses its nacelles and when Scotty reconnects the impulse engines, attempts to limp toward the nebula. However, Krall orders his ships to cut the ship from the engines. As Kirk and the crew battle the aliens Kalara is revealed to have tricked the Federation so as to save her own crew who are also trapped by Krall. In a fight for the Abronath with Krall, Kirk manages to hide the artifact in a shuttle as the saucer section spirals towards the planets surface. The crew of the Enterprise are captured by Krall's men including Lieutenant Uhura and Sulu but Kirk, Chekov and Scotty escape in a pods, while Dr. McCoy and Spock crash land in one of the alien ships.

On the surface of the planet, all of the bridge crew struggle to reunite; Spock is badly injured and is treated by McCoy, Scotty stumbles upon another alien, Jaylah who saves him from Krall's men and Kirk, Chekov and Kalara begin looking for the saucer section of the Enterprise, and Uhura and Sulu try to figure out what Krall is up to.

Jaylah tells Scotty that her ship was taken by Krall and her crew has been taken one by one never to return. She escaped with the help of her father and lives by scavenging on Altamid. She takes Scotty to her "home" which turns out to be the USS Franklin, a Federation ship gone missing over a hundred years ago. Jaylah has rigged a cloaking device that has allowed the ship to be hidden while she tries to repair it. She agrees to help Scotty find his crew mates if he will help her repair the Franklin. At this point Kirk, Chekov and Kalara locate the Enterprise saucer and crawl through the wreckage. Kirk hopes to use the saucer to locate his missing crew, but is attacked by Kalara. Activating the boosters, Kirk cause the saucer to flip, killing Kalara but allowing him and Chekov to narrowly escape.

Meanwhile at the Franklin, one of Jaylah's traps is set off and she and Scotty go to investigate and discover it is Kirk and Chekov. They are released and taken back to the Franklin where Scotty fills them in and Kirk orders Scotty to continue with the repairs. McCoy and Spock, who is still weak from his wound, are located by Krall's men but are saved by Scotty who beams them both aboard the Franklin. Reunited with most of his bridge crew, Kirk decides that they must raid Krall's camp and save the Enterprise crew. Convincing Jaylah to help them, they begin to devise a plan to rescue the crew. What Kirk doesn't yet know is that Krall's plans are much bigger than just capturing the Enterprise.


Discussion

Fans of the Star Trek franchise certainly won't be disappointed with Star Trek Beyond, an intense film with plenty of action, explosions and the usual camaraderie between the crew of the Enterprise. The visual effects were especially stunning in this movie, fortunately overshadowing a mediocre plot. The deadly beauty of the nebula and the detail of the Starbase Yorktown - an artificial home created in space are just some examples of the beautiful special effects in the movie. Especially wonderful are the different camera shots of the starbase, showing it in incredible detail from every angle.  Director Justin Lin is noted for his action sequences and he delivers in Star Trek Beyond. The devastating and fatal attack on the Enterprise was vividly portrayed as Krall's attack ships overwhelmed the starship much in the way bees swarm. The intensity and the horror of the attack in the coldness of space is shown as Krall's ships swirl around the Enterprise, embedding themselves into its hull or slicing through sections to chop the ship apart.


There are lots of references to previous Star Trek movies including one of movie's posters which has a similar layout to that of Star Trek: The Motion Picture released in 1979. The music used to disrupt Krall's drone attack on the Yorktown starbase, Beastie Boy's Sabotage, is also the same song used in the 2009 Star Trek movie when a young James Tiberius Kirk crashes up his father's sports car. There are other throwbacks too - the picture of the 1989 cast of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier which Spock finds among Ambassador Spock's possessions is a tribute to the three deceased members(DeForest Kelly, Leonard Nimoy and James Doohan) of the original TV series and set of movies.

The movie Star Trek Beyond was not without its problems though. One aspect of the story in Star Trek Beyond that was disappointing is the revelation that Krall is actually a human rather than part of a new alien race that Starfleet might have to learn to deal with. Instead he is a rogue pre-Federation captain named Balthazar Edison whose ship, the USS Franklin, crashed on the planet a hundred years ago after being transported there via a worm hole. At that time the planet had already been abandoned by the original aliens who left their technology behind including dormant drones. Using the alien race's technology, Krall gradually morphed into something different, needing to obtain his energy from living beings. But when he is forced to flee on the starbase, he suddenly (and not fully explained) regains his human appearance. Krall is simply another angry villain out to seek vengeance against Starfleet. It would be refreshing to see the next Star Trek movie feature a more diverse alien cast (there were fifty new aliens shown throughout Star Trek Beyond) and an original villain who forces the Federation members to work together to overcome.  Krall's connection as a human and as the captain of the Franklin is unoriginal and led to minor inconsistencies in the storyline. For example, Jaylah has rigged a cloaking device that hides the Franklin from Krall on Altamid, but Krall as former captain of the Franklin would have known where his ship was located and likely would have suspected something was up if it suddenly disappeared.


Science fiction movies often try to portray futuristic concepts in a way that is faithful to the laws of nature. For example The Martian did a good job demonstrating how man might survive on Mars and how the technology to do so might work. However,  Star Trek Beyond sometimes fails in this regard. For example, the portrayal of the nebula, while very beautiful was inaccurate. Nebulae are clouds of gases - hydrogen, helium and ionized gases as well as dust in space. Yet in Star Trek Beyond the nebula near Starbase Yorktown is shown has having huge chunks of rock which collide with one another - definitely not what we have observed about nebulae but definitely creating a suspenseful atmosphere in the film.  In contrast, the portrayal of warp travel aboard the Enterprise was very well done - we see shots of the ship in a sort of bubble as it travels faster than the speed of light and within the ship, the view outside the window is that of blurred stars as one might expect traveling so fast.

In the Star Trek universe it sometimes feels as if the characters have forgotten the technology they have at hand in order to create a more exciting finale. For example, the Starbase Yorktown was located near the nebula which had never been explored. For such a huge base, so far out into deep space, it seems incomprehensible that this would be the situation. It also seems puzzling that there are so few starships at the starbase. When Krall is attempting to poison the starbase and is in the main glass tower, why did neither the crew of the starbase nor the Franklin attempt to beam him out of the tower and into space?

Despite the mediocre plot, Star Trek Beyond is an exciting movie and will definitely appeal to trekkies of all ages. Especially appealing was the new character Jaylah whom I hope appears in any future movies. As a resourceful, strong female character she adds new possibilities to the series, in light of the news that with the unexpected death of Anton Yelchin, the character Chekov will not return. Look forward to a fourth film sometime in the future as most major cast members have been signed.

Movie: Star Trek Into Darkness

"There will always be those who mean to do us harm. To stop them, we risk awakening the same evil within ourselves. Our first instinct is to seek revenge when those we love are taken from us. But that's not who we are... When Christopher Pike first gave me his ship, he had me recite the Captain's Oath. Words I didn't appreciate at the time. But now I see them as a call for us to remember who we once were and who we must be again."

The second installment in the reboot of the Star Trek franchise is thrilling, fast paced, and absolutely terrific if you don't mind the fact that the movie tries to do too much in too little time. Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, and Karl Urban return as James T. Kirk, Spock, and Bones McCoy respectively and they've got a big problem on their hands.

The movie opens with the crew on a mission to the Class M planet, Nibiru, where Kirk and the Enterprise discover a bronze-age civilization on the verge of annihilation due to an imminent volcanic eruption. The Enterprise has been hidden underwater in one of the planet's oceans and Spock, Uhura and Sulu are sent via space shuttle to detonate a cold fusion bomb. However, the mission goes wrong and Spock is trapped within the erupting volcano. Instead of leaving Spock to die, Kirk takes the spaceship out of the ocean in front of  the astonished and frightened Nibiruans, as he goes to rescue Spock, thus breaking the prime directive.

When they return to Earth, Starfleet Command learns of the violation through First Officer Spock's report and Kirk sees his captaincy suspended and he is demoted back to the Academy. Admiral Pike, who is Kirk's mentor takes over command of the Enterprise. 

Meanwhile something sinister is developing in London, England. The Starfleet archives are destroyed by a massive explosion and all of Starfleet's high ranking commanders are ordered to a special meeting. This meeting includes Pike, Kirk, Spock, and Admiral Marcus. While Kirk is questioning the logic of a terrorist attack on the Starfleet archives, he suddenly is aware that all of the most important Starfleet command are in this meeting, making them a certain target. But Kirk is too late to warn anyone as the meeting is attacked by a gunship and Pike is killed. Kirk takes down the gunship, but the unknown attacker escapes.  

 Admiral Marcus takes Kirk into his confidence and tells him the complex bombed in London, was not an archive, but rather a secret installation, called Area 31. The terrorist who masterminded the attack is a rogue Starfleet agent, John Harrison. They learn that Harrison has beamed himself to the Klingon planet of Qo'nos, a place Starfleet cannot go without risking war with the high-strung, war-mongering Klingons.

Marcus gives Kirk permission to go to the edge of the neutral zone, locate Harrison on Qo'nos, and fire seventy-two long range, newly designed missiles at Harrison. Kirk is reinstated as captain of the Enterprise, with Spock as his first officer, along with a newly arrived second Science Officer, Carol Marcus. When the new torpedoes are loaded on board the Enterprise,Chief Engineer Scotty refuses to sign off on them, believing they could be dangerous to the crew since he can't detect what is inside them. After reluctantly accepting his resignation, Kirk assigns Pavel Chekov to engineering.

Meanwhile Spock expresses his doubts to Kirk about killing Harrison, believing that he has at the very least, the right to a trial. Shortly after arriving at the edge of the neutral zone, the Enterprise's warp core is mysteriously disabled. Kirk also comes to the conclusion that it is wrong to kill Harrison and decides instead that they will take a captured Klingon shuttle, land on Qo'nos, and take Harrison and return him to Starfleet to be tried. However, they are quickly detected on the supposedly abandoned sector of Qo'nos and forced to land. Uhura, who speaks Klingon unsuccessfully attempts to negotiate with the Klingons.  As the Klingons prepare to kill them, the Klingon's come under attack and are wiped out almost entirely by John Harrison. He agrees to surrender after he is sent a message by Sulu that unless he submits, they will fire their entire payload of advanced long-range torpedos at his location. When Harrison learns that there are 72 torpedos, he immediately surrenders.


In the Enterprise brig, Harrison tells Kirk that his real name is Khan Noonien Singh and that he was awakened from a 300 year cyrogenic freeze to be used by Admiral Marcus to develop advanced weaponry in a war against the Klingons. He gives Kirk a set of space co-ordinates and tells him to investigate the location. Khan also tells him to open one of the torpedos. Kirk contacts Scotty and convinces him to check out the co-ordinates while McCoy and Dr. Marcus investigate the torpedos.

When they open one of the shielded torpedos on an abandoned planetoid, they discover that it contains a frozen person. Khan tells Kirk that these are his people - genetically altered to be superior in every way to humans and that they left Earth 300 years ago to find a planet to colonize. (Khan of course is referring to the Botany Bay which was supposed to have left Earth in 1996.) Kirk then comes to the realization that the warp core was sabotaged and that the Enterprise is a pawn in a much larger game. The Enterprise's foray into Klingon space was to be the way to draw the Klingons into war by Admiral Marcus.

Meanwhile Scotty has discovered an secret military installation at the co-ordinates provided by Khan. Admiral Marcus suddenly appears at the edge of the neutral zone in the massive USS Vengeance, a ship with advanced weaponry. He demands that Kirk turn over Khan, but Kirk refuses and in an attempt to outrun the larger ship,  the Enterprise manages to jump into warp drive. However, Kirk is unaware that the USS Vengeance has the capability to fire while warping and the Enterprise is now severely disabled only a short distance from Earth.

Kirk must now deal with two villains; the traitorous Admiral Marcus who is attempting to turn Starfleet away from its mission of exploration and into a military entity, and the ruthless Khan whom he knows will murder anyone who stands in his way including all those whom he considers inferior to him and his seventy-two genetically altered super-humans.

Discussion  

From the moment the movie opens, Star Trek launches into warp drive action with the events on Nibiru. Viewers barely have time to recover when there are two terrorist attacks, thus setting the stage for what is a high intensity, heart pounding action movie. This is not the Star Trek fans of the original series and of Enterprise, The Next Generation, and Voyager know. It's more like an action science fiction movie.

Although the acting is superb, the action sequences amazing, and the special effects believable and interesting, the plot was difficult to follow if you didn't know much background about Khan and his people, and their history in another universe with Kirk and Spock. And that was the main flaw in a film of many flaws, that leaves viewers feeling that something was lacking - there wasn't enough of a backstory. The movie skipped over this, giving viewers just enough to follow along, fed on a diet of high-octane action scenes and special effects. The story is a great one, having it's genesis in an episode from the original TV show, entitled "Space Seed". It isn't revealed how Admiral Marcus came to find Khan, only that he is using him for his war plans. We know little about Khan and his group of super-humans.  We aren't given much background on Marcus and why he wants to turn Starfleet from an organization that focuses on exploration, to one that is militarized nor why he gave up the Starfleet ideals he lived by. We aren't told why there are seventy-two cryogenic pods (for those who don't remember, there were originally eighty-four). If this is an alternate reality, we need to know this back story. And maybe Abrams might have made two movies out of the Khan story rather than cramming so much into one movie.

Into Darkness reverses the climax of the Wrath of Khan, with Kirk making the ultimate sacrifice instead of Spock. And like the Wrath of Khan, this sacrifice works in Into Darkness because in both movies, friendship, loyalty and sacrifice are truly what matter. 

The James Kirk of Into Darkness is much different that the Kirk of the first movie. In this alternate reality of Star Trek, Kirk is rebellious and not the bookish cadet he was in the Original Star Trek. He works hard and plays harder and can't follow the rules. And so is removed from his command because Admiral Pike tells him that he doesn't respect the captain's chair. He's gotten to the position of captain unrealistically fast, mainly because he's a risk taker and he's been lucky. But he doesn't deserve to command. "Do you know what a pain you are? You think the rules don't apply to you. There's greatness in you, but there's not an ounce of humility. You think that you can't make mistakes, but there's going to come a moment when you realize you're wrong about that, and you're going to get yourself and everyone under your command killed"  This sequence of events demonstrates that J.J. Abrams and writers Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof and Roberto Orci do not understand the character of James T. Kirk. 

However, gradually Kirk comes to understand that Pike was right and that he's not God's gift to the Starfleet. He is no longer the reckless daredevil without a conscience we saw at the beginning of the first movie; instead he's thoughtfully and apologetically a risk-taker - when he needs to be. "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do! I only know what I CAN do!"

Spock too, is very different in this alternate reality. He chooses to feel anger, pain, fear and loss, something the Spock Prime (in the first movie) suggested he try. The chemistry between Spock and Uhura isn't quite there yet. This is unexplored territory since there never was a relationship between the two in the original series. Instead the original series was replete with instances of Christine Chapel's (who was McCoy's assistant) unrequited love for Mr. Spock. (I suspect Christine Chapel might make an appearance in the next movie since a reference was made to her in this movie.

Benedict Cumberbatch seems miscast in this movie as Khan Noonien Singh who was of East Indian heritage. Nevertheless Cumberbatch gives a phenomenal performance as Khan. a genetically created super-human whose body contains remarkable regenerative abilities - something suggested at the beginning of the movie and utilized at the end. Cumberbatch plays Khan with deadly intensity and a calculating coldness that dominates the entire movie and is in stark contrast to Kirk's human warmth and bravado. But Khan suggests to Kirk that he's no different than Kirk asking him, "My crew is my family, Kirk. Is there anything you would not do for your family?"

There are plenty of themes and references in this movie but the dominant reference is to the US military response to terrorism. The scenes showing the crashing of the USS Vengeance into San Francisco are a reference to the 9/11 tragedy and the Starfleet bombing in London to the London subway terrorist bombing of 2005.

There were plenty of puzzling things in the movie; a tribble when they haven't yet met them, a long distance call across to galaxy to Montgomery Scott in a bar on Earth, the Enterprise able to submerge, the fact that NO other starships come to the aid of the Enterprise, and the use of Khan to save Kirk when there are seventy-two frozen bodies on board that can do the same  - are just a few. 

It's unlikely Gene Rodenberry would be happy with J.J. Abrams approach to Star Trek. It can't be that difficult to make a really good Trek movie because Star Trek is a really great concept. And Space Seed was one of the best stories from the original television series.