I lifted my boycott on the “new” Star Trek after a good friend top me I didn’t need to see the previous turd…Star Trek Into Explosions to understand Beyond. This shouldn’t be a surprise, the franchise has gone with shallowness and characters that no one really gives a crap about. However, I wanted to show my support for Simon Pegg being the co-writer. I think all his contributions were paved over by director Justin Lin whose past work is primarily those awful Fast and Furious flicks. Thus, it was one of his movies with space stuff on it.
Beyond proves that Star Trek works best as a TV show with episodic adventures and not a movie franchise like Star Wars. Pine remains blah as Captain Kirk, Quinto’s Spock and Urban’s McCoy continue to be great yet their screen time is cut back as the story is divided into four sets of characters trying to solve the ho hum crisis.
The crisis? The Enterprise has to go check out some unknown nebula which is oddly full of asteroids to investigate what’s beyond the stellar landmark. As the trailers show and I’m not spoiling anything, the ship is destroyed in the process and the crew scattered as the escape pods land on the habitable world below. I guess they went this way because the famous starship was also destroyed in Star Trek III. Since Lin’s background is car-chase movies, the solution entails punching, motorcycle stunts and overused Beastie Boys “music.” I thought JJ Abrams’ vision of the 23rd Century was already awful due to the crew drinking Budweiser, Lin makes it even worse. Seeing Chinese investors (Alibaba) being one of a few production companies also shows how far Paramount has sunk.
Alamo Extras: Some guys playing an online Star Trek game; people thinking their shower is a transporter (an ad for the French subway); ads plugging the communicator pin, the show’s encyclopedia and an overpriced pen; commercial selling the original Mego dolls; clips from the ST:NG VCR game; painfully awful fan films; clip from Muppet Babies; clip from the Star Trek cartoon; James Doohan plugging collector plates; Shatner doing a commercial for a grocery store; Nimoy shilling for a beeper company; ad for the Mego Star Trek communicator station; the awful “Star Trekkin” song; commercial for ST:NG action figures; Patrick Stewart promoting his one-man A Christmas Carol stage performance; George Takei promoting Milwaukee’s bus system; Pizza Hut ad with Klingons dining there; Hick Trek; Mego ad for the superphaser game.