SPOILERS AHEAD! PROCEED WITH CAUTION!!
Star Trek Beyond was awesome in its entirety. The movie, set in the third year of the five-year mission for the Enterprise, Captain Kirk did the movie doing his captain’s log where we discover that he felt that life became mundane and he does not know what he was doing anymore. The journey was long and arduous. The Enterprise had to have a pit-stop at the newest facility of the Federation—Yorktown, which kind of looked like a snow globe in space as Bones pointed out. The crew disembarked and the two major things that happened—Kirk applied for the position of Vice-Admiral of Yorktown and Ambassador Spock died (as Leonard Nimoy passed away), prompting Zachary Quinto’s Spock to wait to take his place as ambassador on New Vulcan.
The crew quickly received a mission—to fly through uncharted space to rescue a crew. The mission quickly went spectacularly wrong. The Enterprise was utterly destroyed, the crew kidnapped (or killed) by the bad guy of the movie, Krall and the remaining members of the crew lost on a hostile planet. A new character, Jaylah, introduced herself by saving Scotty. Jaylah made her home, after she escaped Krall’s clutches, on the USS Franklin, one of the earlier Federation ships. Kirk, Spock, Bones, Chekov, Scotty and Jaylah rescue the crew but only to learn that Krall had a super powerful ancient weapon of mass destruction and headed straight for Yorktown.
The epic showdown of Krall verses the Enterprise crew was amazingly done. Naturally, Kirk and his crew were victorious and saved the Yorktown colony. Spock and Kirk, without telling the other they were going to leave, decided to stay on and the Enterprise mission extended more than five years. There was a lot of other stuff that happened but this is basically the whole idea of the movie.
Jaylah was awesome. I am so glad that she did not become a romantic interest for anyone, because I think she was a teenager, or at least young enough for any kind of romance to be gross. I like the bond that she had with Scotty, who was definitely fond of her. She was smart, cunning and fierce. She had been alone for so long, she forgot what it was like to have people who cared about her and vice versa. Jaylah needs to be in the next movie, after she graduates from Star Fleet Academy.
Uhura had her moments to shine. During the initial attack, Kirk was going to his whole self-sacrificing thing again, but Uhura beat him to the punch. She did what was necessary to help the others and got captured. Then, when Kirk and the rescue crew were there, she saved Spock, who had been earlier injured. She stared into the eyes of Krall and never backed down in what and who she believed.
USS Franklin flying again was amazing. The old ship was Jaylah’s home and she was very protective of it. After the rescue mission and the fact that she was not left, she told Scotty and Kirk to make her home fly again. The crew managed to rig the ship to working capacity. Sulu’s pilot skills were very much put to the test as they needed to get the ship airborne.
Chekov had his moments to shine. He helped Kirk throughout the movie. He had the captain’s back while they tried to search the remains of the Enterprise. He was instrumental in assisting Sulu getting the USS Franklin in the sky. Whoever replaces Anton Yelchin is going to have his work cut out for him.
During the crew rescue, Jayla became separated from everyone else, fighting the creature that killed her father. Kirk was not going to leave her behind, of course. He had an old motorcycle that he was using to distract the baddies and he did a fantastic maneuver to get them both beamed to USS Franklin in a spectacular display.
The swarm killed by ‘classical’ music of the Beastie Boys was epic and cool.
Bones and Spock, together, stole the show. The two are so different—Bones has his anger issues and Spock tries the whole calm and collected thing of the Vulcans. The two stranded together, while Spock was hurt and insisting that Bones leave him was good. The banter between them was fun, especially during the final fight when Bones was flying one of the swarm vehicles and Spock was back-seat (front-seat) driving.
Spock and Kirk’s correlating stories proved themselves as individuals, but that they are best as a team was important. The fact that neither character told the other that they were thinking of leaving while they ultimately decided to stay was a good way to deal with it. Spock did not have friends and so having his relationship with Uhura, his soul-mate (in a platonic way) friendship with Kirk and his bantering friendship with Bones was really resonating with me.
There are a few things that was mildly annoying, though it’s probably me being nitpicky.
Unfortunately, The USS Enterprise destroyed again by another bad guy proving that in every movie it’s destroyed or badly damaged. Honestly, how many times are we going to see the precious ship destroyed? It is no longer a shock factor about it. The writers need to come up with something new.
In addition, Uhura and Spock romance played out. It was okay in the first movie and superfluous in the second movie. I think I like them better as close friends; I think that it can work just as good. I think it was unnecessary to the movie as a whole, except to give Spock some more stuff to brood on.
How does Kirk not know who he is by now? The first movie had him become a Star Fleet Captain, in his own right. The second movie had Kirk come to terms about who he is and accept that his crew is his family and he would, did, die for them. I understand that three years in deep space, locked in a metal container with the same people, can definitely be trying, but being a Captain and being on the Enterprise is where he belongs.
However, the positives outweighed the negatives. Star Trek Beyond is totally worth seeing. I really enjoyed it. Kirk is a crazy guy but the rest of the crew is just as crazy for following him. It had its moments of humor, but moments of thought. The overall message of the movie was peace and that the impossible was possible. The next Star Trek movie will have to strive to beat the third instalment.
Have you seen Star Trek Beyond yet? What did you make of it? Sound off in the comments or send us your thoughts on Twitter! Live long and prosper!
