Star Trek Beyond (Post-release)

[CutThumb]

Thats got to be one of the first 4k releases I have seen yet, or have I been living in a cave?
I imagine that xmas globe space station ,the asteroid field (what the hell was Kirk doing taking a starship through that??) and the attack swarms will look spectacular in 4K.
I've never really understood the Trek divisions. I watched the original TV series as a kid with my parents and enjoyed them, both the good, and the very bad episodes. The scripts HAD to be good at character writing because they simply couldn't afford the special effects, and thats always been a problem for the franchise going forward, getting the balance right between the crew interaction and the VFX spectacle as EFX ,post SW jumped dramatically in quality. Lets not forget Star Trek: The Movie got some really heavy stick for being just an effects spectacle and missing out everything that the TV series enjoyed ie the crew banter.
STB got some of that right, more of the old chatter between the key characters and the VFX were great if not bit bonkers, but what I miss badly these days is a good strong story, that either brings something new to the franchise or builds on existing themes. "First Contact" and "Wrath of Khan" did the latter brilliantly. The first JJ managed the new themes well but at the cost of some really daft decisions just to make set pieces work.
STB, if you let yourself think about it is all a rather horribly contrived piece that deliberately writes the story to fit in the VFX sequences, not the other way around. For example, when the Enterprise in "The Search for Spock" went down I really felt it, for Kirk and his crew and for me, I loved that ships design. When it happens again and again all I can think of is "this is getting a bit boring, but at least the effects are getting better!!!" Emotionally it means nothing, which was virtually what I felt with the rest of it. It engages the eyes but not the heart or the mind. And thats true of alot of recent sci fi /fantasy blockbusters.
I enjoyed TNG for everything new it brought to the table, and that had some absoloutely great moments in it. Deep Space Nine was exactly the same, really enjoyable stories and the space battles were often good in that.Voyager ,particularly once they brought the Borg into it was excellent and it was helped by some strong female leads, particularly Captain Janeway, B'Elanna Torres and Seven of Nine. Enterprise was OK but the cast were just not interesting enough to hold my attention.
Things change. I hope the new series returns ST to the fold by getting the characters right first, the stories second, and the VFX last. Not certain about the New Klingon Enterprise, there have been better and stronger designs that I'd have used in prefereance to this, but hey thats just me.

 

[karmajay]

I really enjoyed it. Sorry to the newtrek haters but it seems it is here to stay

 

[SmilingOtter]

OK, I saw it, and didn't hate it. (Much to my surprise.)

It's not perfect - like others have said, it's a lot more action-adventure than something that would make you think, and it's another revenge plot, but I give the Pegg and any other writers credit - they got the characters very right. Urban acts like he's got DeForest Kelley's katra in his head, and Quinto holds his own in their verbal sparring. It's hard for Chris Pine to play Kirk without playing Shatner, but he does fine. Simon Pegg isn't quite James Doohan, but still does well. Sulu/Uhura/Chekov aren't quite as well defined, but everyone contributed to the effort.

I really liked Krall's backstory, though as someone said, having the reveal earlier would probably have been better. I didn't quite get why his appearance changed, especially towards the end, but that's a minor thing.

I liked the Franklin design, and the new Enterprise looks better proportioned to me, at least enough that I don't hate it on sight. (My inner voice is somewhat sore from all the mental cheering I did when the Abramsprise got shredded.)

And while I cannot approve of having Beastie Boys "music" in a Trek movie (much less Public Enemy,) that plot point wasn't nearly as bad as I was fearing. (Plus, they gave me a line of Shakespeare to placate me.)

Of course, near the end, it's a shame Scotty just didn't beam Krall and the weapon into space.

 

[CessnaDriver]

"As for projecting an overall domestic performance, Star Trek Beyond is probably looking at a domestic haul around $180-190 million, a continued decline when compared to the $228.7 million Into Darkness delivered and $257.7 million 2009's Trek took in domestically. However, given Beyond's $185 million budget, all eyes will now turn toward the film's international performance. "

 

[SmilingOtter]

I see that according to IMDB, Greg Grunberg's character is Commodore Finnegan. If that got mentioned in the film, I missed it.

 

[astroboy]

OK, I saw it, and didn't hate it. (Much to my surprise.)

It's not perfect - like others have said, it's a lot more action-adventure than something that would make you think, and it's another revenge plot, but I give the Pegg and any other writers credit - they got the characters very right. Urban acts like he's got DeForest Kelley's katra in his head, and Quinto holds his own in their verbal sparring. It's hard for Chris Pine to play Kirk without playing Shatner, but he does fine. Simon Pegg isn't quite James Doohan, but still does well. Sulu/Uhura/Chekov aren't quite as well defined, but everyone contributed to the effort.

I really liked Krall's backstory, though as someone said, having the reveal earlier would probably have been better. I didn't quite get why his appearance changed, especially towards the end, but that's a minor thing.

I liked the Franklin design, and the new Enterprise looks better proportioned to me, at least enough that I don't hate it on sight. (My inner voice is somewhat sore from all the mental cheering I did when the Abramsprise got shredded.)

And while I cannot approve of having Beastie Boys "music" in a Trek movie (much less Public Enemy,) that plot point wasn't nearly as bad as I was fearing. (Plus, they gave me a line of Shakespeare to placate me.)

Of course, near the end, it's a shame Scotty just didn't beam Krall and the weapon into space.

Your suggestion that Scotty could have beamed the thing into space was dead on. And ultimately, that's the problem with having such a specific fist-fight resolve of these epics. There are a thousand ways the good guys could have won but they needed that stupid set piece at the end. By removing strategy from the plot, the holes arrive in droves.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[darth_myeek]

"As for projecting an overall domestic performance, Star Trek Beyond is probably looking at a domestic haul around $180-190 million, a continued decline when compared to the $228.7 million Into Darkness delivered and $257.7 million 2009's Trek took in domestically. However, given Beyond's $185 million budget, all eyes will now turn toward the film's international performance. "

We have a 105F heat index this week. In fact my garage was 93F at 11pm Eastern. I'm betting weather played a big factor in the numbers.

 

[astroboy]

We have a 105F heat index this week. In fact my garage was 93F at 11pm Eastern. I'm betting weather played a big factor in the numbers.

the entire reason I went on Friday night was to get out of the heat. I did two movies that night

Sent from my Nexus 7 using Tapatalk

 

[Apollo]

If anything the heat should have driven the people to the theatre.

It is following the trend of the box office dropping with each new installment

 

[Riceball]

I went and saw it last night and I enjoyed it, there were some nitpicky moments but overall no major, glaring plot-holes except why the bio-weapon. It was definitely the best of the 3, in my opinion but, like the other 2, it confirms my belief that they should have just called the new movies a reboot and not an alternate timeline because they keep on screwing things up with the whole timeline split. This time it's the Franklin, a ship that pre-dates the Kelvin split yet the ship's aesthetics more match the Kelvin timeline and unless the Franklin is supposed to be much, much older than the Enterprise (NX-01) the uniforms are also incorrect. If done correctly and the Franklin dates from when I think it does then the nacelles should look different and more like the NX-01 and the interior consoles should look similar too. Basically, once again they forget when the timeline actually split and seem to think that the split took place a lot further in the past than it did and they keep on insisting on writing plots, or plot elements, that involve things that take place before the split.

One thing that did leave a bit confused in this movie was Krall. Was it ever explained how he managed to acquire his energy leeching ability and where did he get his troops and ships from? I might have missed the explanation but if I didn't then it was kind of an oversight and something that people like me like knowing, even if it doesn't have any great meaning to the plot.

 

[CutThumb]

No its never explained what happened to him though I assumed the alien tech transformed him over time as you saw when he regenerated himself.

Don't start me on the plot holes!!

Well OK then.

Why did Krall have to reach the ventilation system with an invasion force?
Given the size of bio-weapon he could have simply wandered in on an escape pod or shuttle , or beamed himself in without attracting attention to himself and set it off. Instead he sends a tidal wave of craft against it in a mad blast up? Surely he could have just sneaked instead?
And just where did all the other Krall space craft pilots come from?
Okay I guess he crashed with his crew, but they didn't seem much more than fifty or so.
Alien Rey,sorry Jaylah did say that he has been capturing space ship crew for ages, but if that quantity of ships had gone missing so close to that Nebula surely somebody would have noticed? There were tens of thousands of those craft in that tidal wave swarm at the end?
And a nebula is a thin diffuse gas cloud. What they went through was an asteroid collision of such density only an idiot would have dared to pilot a ship through it and think they could get away without damage ,though I guess I shouldn't tell you the odds.
And guess what blocks most radios waves and communications ? Yeah rocks, so the swarm would have smashed itself to pieces if it were taking single navigational instructions from one point source as soon as it came into contact with that asteroid field .
And how the hell did Krall and the rest of his crew forget they had crashed the Franklin and not even bother to repair it and didn't any of his crew want to go home once they found the alien spaceships on the planet ?
And I was totally hacked off by the variability's of Montgomery Scottys engineering powers which seemed to vary between superhuman genius and sub human levels of stupidity depending on what the script needed him to conviently remember or forget to make the story action packed.
The worst offense ,given that Scotty could beam McCoy and Spock into a fast moving spacecraft was why in the hell could he not beam Krall out of one as he left the planet and either Krall and the bio weapon into space at any time or Kirk back into Yorktown at the end??????
And how the **** did Scotty manage to load himself into the photon torpedo and then into the firing tube???????????
Did the torpedo have a camera on the outside so he could see where the his playstation pad could navigate him????

There were several other things that annoyed me, particularly just how distance and travel in Yorktown seemed to vary so considerably ie It took the Enterprise and the Franklin moving at incredible speeds seemingly ages to reach the centre of Yorktown, but seemingly just seconds for Krall to be ejected into space through the portal. But I guess Justin Lin needed to recreate his runway moment from Fast and Furious 6 again with the space craft.
Like I said I DID enjoy it for what it tried to do by making the character interactions snappier and better, but the story was incredibly stupid at times and made as much sense to me as a concussed a space bee. There IS a difference between analysis and hating a movie. It was fun but it was very dumb at times

 

[Bryancd]

There IS a difference between analysis and hating a movie. It was fun but it was very dumb at times

Yes and let's collectively not let this thread go down the ugly path that the GB16 thread did.

 

[CutThumb]

Agreed.
There are many film reviews this year I haven't commented on at all. Simply because either what I would have to add would add nothing to the argument thats not already been said or would have inflamed the thread further or they are of a genre ie fantasy or superhero, where the rules of how their fictional world operate are so flexible trying to make any sense of them would just be illogical and contradictory. Others I simply have no interest in.
BUT one the main reasons I enjoy much about Star Trek and certainly Star Wars is that that their stories have always seemed to obey the internal mechanics of their universes. There has always been something reasonately honest and faithful about what you can expect to happen with in them , even if those rules bare no resemblance at all to how the "real" world works at all, the principles of the ideas are interesting and entertaining, and the way the characters act within it is consistent.
What I don't like at the moment is how everything within a script is often just chucked out of the window so that some ridiculous over the top action scene can be allowed to happen despite what the characters in the story would be reasonable expected to do. That diminishes my respect for them (or rather the writers) .
And thats happening more frequently. Clever, interesting sci fi is becoming a rarer thing these days the,stories are becoming weaker and less interesting and the general viewing public numbers will diminish, making such films much less likely to get made. Given STBs huge budget, if the box office isn't profitable enough I wonder if a fourth will get made. They become more like the Transformers franchise, nothing but repetitious revenge stories supported only by the VFX.
Certain companies are getting it right by listening, like Marvels brilliant producing team, DC appears to be more aware now ( I thought the Wonder Woman trailer was excellent and the JL looked far more promising than I hoped and I have been praising Suicide Squad for yonks) and of course Star Wars made a very promising start , I cannot tell you how truly excited I am for Rogue One , BUT if the story is weak I am going to say what I think is wrong with it.
But I will always GO AND SEE IT before passing an opinion on it.

 

[glunark]

Why did Krall have to reach the ventilation system with an invasion force?

To overwhelm the defences.

Given the size of bio-weapon he could have simply wandered in on an escape pod or shuttle , or beamed himself in without attracting attention to himself and set it off. Instead he sends a tidal wave of craft against it in a mad blast up? Surely he could have just sneaked instead?

No evidence of Krall having access to transporters

And just where did all the other Krall space craft pilots come from?

His crew, the crews of countless other ships wrecked there in the last hundred years, JayLah's family for example.

And a nebula is a thin diffuse gas cloud. What they went through was an asteroid collision of such density only an idiot would have dared to pilot a ship through it and think they could get away without damage ,though I guess I shouldn't tell you the odds.

Asteroids can't be found inside nebulae? Yes there was a lot of asteroids, but not fast moving and they were able to fly a ship the size of the enterprise through without any problems, real life space probes pass through the asteroid belt and even saturns rings without any trouble.

And guess what blocks most radios waves and communications ? Yeah rocks, so the swarm would have smashed itself to pieces if it were taking single navigational instructions from one point source as soon as it came into contact with that asteroid field

Krall already had some beacons set up for communication, that's why the Franklin had to get close to the attacking ships in order to confuse them.

.

And how the hell did Krall and the rest of his crew forget they had crashed the Franklin and not even bother to repair it and didn't any of his crew want to go home once they found the alien spaceships on the planet ?

I thought it was some kind of virus that affected them all, he was already starting to transform when he made his last transmission, they might have remembered some basic skills, but only Krall seemed to have kept some of his memories, JayLah had the ship cloaked but it must have been laid there for 80 or 90 years without anyone being bothered about it.

The worst offense ,given that Scotty could beam McCoy and Spock into a fast moving spacecraft was why in the hell could he not beam Krall out of one as he left the planet and either Krall and the bio weapon into space at any time or Kirk back into Yorktown at the end??????

Easier for him to beam those two into the closest ship, than try and figure out which of the ten thousand other ones had Krall in, I believe there was too much gravity interference at the end for transport.

And how the **** did Scotty manage to load himself into the photon torpedo and then into the firing tube???????????
Did the torpedo have a camera on the outside so he could see where the his playstation pad could navigate him????

We see torpedos in docking cradles in the last film, and we know there is room for people inside, missiles have cameras in them even now, its not that much of a stretch to assume they still will in 300 years.

There were several other things that annoyed me, particularly just how distance and travel in Yorktown seemed to vary so considerably ie It took the Enterprise and the Franklin moving at incredible speeds seemingly ages to reach the centre of Yorktown, but seemingly just seconds for Krall to be ejected into space through the portal.

Yeah, I got nothing for this one, for the gravity to be the way it was, it would have to be the centre of the station, and by definition, a long way from the vacuum of space.

 

[CutThumb]

To overwhelm the defences..

Pointless if you can just sneak in with a hand held device, set it off on the quiet and get out again. Nobody was aware at that point of the Krall armadas existence or a likely attack so why do it like he did? As it was a bio-weapon it would be better to let it off quietly without destroying the base and then infect subsequent investigating starfleet spacecraft. That's the whole point of biological warfare, it tends to leave the infrastructures untouched, while wiping out the troublesome populace. Terrifying.


Next:
No evidence of Krall having access to transporters

Answer:
Despite having apparently taken tens of thousands of prisoners off many, many spaceships over the century and being intelligent enough to apparently design and set up listening devices that can monitor Starfleet frequencies? Pull the other one.



AND:
His crew, the crews of countless other ships wrecked there in the last hundred years, JayLah's family for example.

(A) Yes, wrecked by travelling through the asteroid field so I thought. The rest of the ships were captured by his alien craft or so I understood where after he then converted their life force into his regeneration for him and his crew. The numbers you saw in the swarm were impossibly huge. There Loads of modern tech on those spacecraft that he doesn't use or demand his prisoners do? .


(Q)Asteroids can't be found inside nebulae? Yes there was a lot of asteroids, but not fast moving and they were able to fly a ship the size of the enterprise through without any problems, real life space probes pass through the asteroid belt and even saturns rings without any trouble.

(A)You don't know much about astronomy. There has never been any space probe that I am aware of that has EVER been intentional flown directly through the rings of Saturn. They have photographed them from a very safe distance. Read up on nebulas and asteroid fields, the one you see in the film is so dense it would have formed a planet or sun, and the planet ,thanks to its gravity field would have been bombarded to hell. Stars still shine through a nebula, though planetary ones are denser.


(Q)Krall already had some beacons set up for communication, that's why the Franklin had to get close to the attacking ships in order to confuse them.

(A)So Kirk could have used the beacons from the planet to jam the signal in order to confuse them rather than chase after them.

(Q) I thought it was some kind of virus that affected them all, he was already starting to transform when he made his last transmission, they might have remembered some basic skills, but only Krall seemed to have kept some of his memories, JayLah had the ship cloaked but it must have been laid there for 80 or 90 years without anyone being bothered about it.

(A) Jaylah was a young woman. So mid twenties.So his ship had been hanging around for along time before she came along and hid it.And yet Kralls ships could find Spock and Bones quickly enough. Like I said Krall was clever enough to use the alien tech, he made his own spacecraft, and the beacons etc but was otherwise and incredibly thick about other things. I just didn't believe it most of the time.

(Q) Easier for him to beam those two into the closest ship, than try and figure out which of the ten thousand other ones had Krall in, I believe there was too much gravity interference at the end for transport.

(A)Kralls was the bigger leadship, there was nothing to stop Scotty beaming him off it as soon as the rest of the swarm was wiped out. Remember that long chase in? Oh I get it, then we wouldn't have had that impressively daft ending. A quick beam here and there would have wiped out the story




(Q)We see torpedos in docking cradles in the last film, and we know there is room for people inside, missiles have cameras in them even now, its not that much of a stretch to assume they still will in 300 years.

(A) SO I repeat how did the torpedo get into the firing tube when Scotty was already in it????? And never in the history of ST has a photon torpedo ever been visually guided by a camera system that I have known or driven remotely from inside. Suddenly Scott has a playstation remote control to do exactly that ? I called that complete and UTTER bullocks...



(Q)Yeah, I got nothing for this one, for the gravity to be the way it was, it would have to be the centre of the station, and by definition, a long way from the vacuum of space


(A) Because the whole attack on the base was completely daft from start to finish, it looked great and it was thrilling and loud and full of fun action BUT it was terribly written.

 

[glunark]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/probe-threads-safely-through-saturns-rings-551703.html

You might want to work on your quote editing skills, and your googling skills.

 

[SmilingOtter]

I reckon he got into the torpedo, then had the system load it, or opened up an access panel in the launch system so that he could get into a pre-loaded torpedo. (Much like McCoy and Spock "operating" on the torpedo in Undiscovered Country.) Once he was inside, he could use his PADD to load and launch it.

 

[astroboy]

I just watched "And the children shall lead" from the TOS last night. It has been considered to be the worst episode of the entire TOS and the Gorgon had a much better plan than Krall

 

[CutThumb]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/probe-threads-safely-through-saturns-rings-551703.html

You might want to work on your quote editing skills, and your googling skills.

The rings of Saturn are very ,very large structures. The gaps between the rings are not like debris strewn asteroid collisions you saw in the film . So they didn't drive a probe through the ring structures, they drove the probe through the nicely wide empty GAPS between the rings. So ,like I said, no space probe HAS so far gone "through" the rings ,its gone through the gaps. From a nice safe and collision free distance.

Though I will admit my quote editing skills are poor .

 

[karmajay]

The ships and stuff were mining droids left behind by the alien race. The 3 survivors must have reprogrammed them to fight as time passed.(Krall says this in his last video)