For those that might have been living under a rock for the past 50 years, the collective seven television series and 13 movies based on Star Trek feature a Utopian future, in which humanity has overcome many of the evils and faults of our present-day society, to lead hundreds of species in Starfleet and the United Federation of Planets. If one were to sit down and watch every moment of Star Trek, it would take more than 23 days of your life. At the core of the franchise is a humanist philosophy merged with 1960’s Space Age optimism which believes in our progress as a species. That we, as human beings, are capable of being better through compassion, tolerance, logic, science, and boldly going where no one else has gone before.
Basically, the antithesis of everything that happened in Cleveland last week.
In 2009, J.J. Abrams effectively rebooted the franchise with his Star Trek by creating an alternate timeline where things are a little different. The film enjoyed both popular and critical success, but there is a significant contingent of fans who feel Abrams totally misunderstands the property, basically tried to remake Star Trek into a Star Wars-ish action franchise before moving onto Star Wars, and because of that the movies aren’t "real" Star Trek. Those feelings only grew after Star Trek Into Darkness, which while successful, was met with more criticisms and disappointing reactions.
This time around Justin Lin of Fast & Furious fame has taken over the director’s chair from Abrams, and the writing duties have been transferred from Robert Orci and Alex Kurtzman to Doug Jung and Simon Pegg—who pulls double duty by also playing Scotty. The result is something that feels closer in spirit than both of the two previous Abrams’s movies to being a classic episode of Star Trek, while keeping the frenetic pacing of an action film. And while lip service is paid to the competing philosophies of Star Trek’s position of diversity and unity bringing strength versus a more Trump-ian us against them selfishness, this is still a film centered on a grandiose villain searching for a MacGuffin in order to kill a lot of people, which has been done to death in Trek.
"As you know, one of the joys of Star Trek, for me, has been the variety of our fans. When I go to conventions and I see people of all sizes and shapes and abilities, and when I see people with nerve disorders that can’t really sit properly and so on, I still know what’s in their mind. They are saying, "In a better world, I can do anything. I’ll be there in a better world. In a better world, they will not laugh at me or look down their nose at me."
—Gene Roddenberry
Let me posit an idea. The problem with Star Trek movies is Wrath of Khan.
It is not only a great Star Trek movie, but it should be considered a great film of any genre. It’s an action movie, but it’s also a story which deals with some big ideas about what it means to be human through aging, death, regrets and consequences. And for those reasons, Wrath of Khan is generally regarded as the best movie of the franchise, and every new Star Trek film since has been compared against it.
This also means that almost every Trek movie for at least the past twenty years have used it as a template and borrowed from it, which is why the movies have tended to devolve into one film after another where there has to be a big villain who needs to be stopped in order to prevent “Universal Armageddon.” But, unlike Wrath of Khan, most of the recent Trek films aren’t as good at connecting the action to bigger themes or character growth. And the powers that be seem to have forgotten one of the most successful film outings of the franchise actually had no antagonist, was a comedy and revolved around saving humpback whales.
Star Trek Beyond has many of the elements of the Khan template, and uses many of those elements well. But it also feels all too familiar in some ways.
As Star Trek Beyond begins, Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) and crew are 966 days into their five-year mission. Kirk has started to wonder about the point of exploring the infinite, and the repetitive and “episodic” nature of their voyage. At the same time, Spock (Zachary Quinto) is shaken by news that has implications for the future of the Vulcan people and his relationship with Uhura (Zoe Saldana). Things become much more lively when an unknown species of alien arrives at Starfleet’s newest starbase asking for help. Kirk is tasked with taking the Enterprise into an uncharted, dangerous nebula on a rescue mission. Once on the other side of the nebula, the ship is brutally attacked by the forces of Krall (Idris Elba), leading to the crew being separated and stranded on a planet, far away from any help.
If there’s one thing this movie gets right, and does much, much better than its two immediate predecessors, it’s the characters. And arguably, this is where one can see Simon Pegg’s influence in the script, since his collaborations with Edgar Wright have usually been based around the relationships of “individuals in a collective” confronting extra-normal situations, while trying to find what it means to be an adult and do the adult thing. This is the first movie where I bought Pine’s Kirk as being a leader, instead of an immature tween trying to act like one. Quinto allows his Spock to be much more emotional than Leonard Nimoy did, but his interplay with Karl Urban’s Dr. McCoy is among the best moments of the movie. And Urban nails what makes the McCoy character great just as well as DeForest Kelley ever did.
The situation also allows the other characters to shine. Sulu (John Cho) becomes a bit more three-dimensional with personal stakes in stopping this threat, Uhura is the one who is left to confront Krall for most of the film and defend the Federation’s values, and Chekov (the late Anton Yelchin) is the helpful sidekick who is always reacting with a mix of amazement, excitement, and shock. And the addition of Sofia Boutella as new alien friend/action girl Jaylah lets Scotty (Pegg) be Scotty. Moreover, this is the first of the reboot movies where the crew actually feels like a family, and the Enterprise is treated as just as much a family member when she’s being punctured and ripped apart by Krall’s drones.
However, where Star Trek Beyond fails is in how formulaic and familiar its overall story feels. This is the third movie in a row where a villain who feels someone has wronged him is seeking vengeance. This is the third film in a row where Kirk is unsure of his place in the universe, conflicted, and battling self-doubt. And if one’s preferred version of Star Trek is debates about the fundamentals of human nature, this is the third movie in a row where the plot is more concerned with fist fights and things going boom than contemplating big ideas. The movie does what it does well, but what it does has been done ad nauseam.
There’s nothing wrong with Star Trek being an action movie. And, if we’re being honest, the economics of modern cinema largely dictate the direction of these things. No one is going to budget $200 million for something like Star Trek: The Motion Picture’s two-plus hours of contemplation about believing in and searching for a “creator” without some shooting, fighting, and blowing things up is in there too. There’s no edict anywhere saying Trek has to be one thing or the other. But it would be nice if there could be some variation from time to time. Because, in Star Trek Beyond, the Enterprise crew are a family, but Lin makes them a family in the mold of Fast & Furious, complete with a motorcycle chase too.
It’s a fun movie. And it’s a much better movie than Star Trek Into Darkness. But it’s still its own Star Trek.
From this point forward I’m going to get a little spoiler-y. So if you haven’t seen the movie yet, and don’t want to know important plot details, avoid the bullet points below.
- Trek versus Trump: In Matt Singer’s review of the film for Screen Crush, he sees in it and the franchise overall a direct refutation of Trump-style politics.
Kirk is searching for purpose, and so is Star Trek, which is only fitting in the year of the franchise’s 50th anniversary. Trek was a property borne of the optimism of the late 1960s. Its sincere belief in a brighter future feels wildly out of place in the world of 2016. What’s the point of Star Trek today?
The exuberant Star Trek Beyond makes a convincing argument that the things that make Star Trek seem out of place in modern culture are the very reasons we need it now more than ever. The 1960s were even more tumultuous and racially divided than the 2010s; the diverse Enterprise crew showed what was possible when people of all races, genders, and creeds worked together to achieve common goals. It’s no coincidence that their opponent in Beyond is the embodiment of the nativist fear-mongering dominating this season’s Presidential politics, or that his weapon literally tears people apart. The film’s message of strength in unity couldn’t be timelier.
- Uniforms: This movie introduces new uniforms which mix The Original Series uniforms with the style of The Next Generation's.
- Weird symmetry: Beyond has a lot of Easter eggs which reference common Trek tropes. The fact the movie begins on the 966th day of the Enterprise’s mission is a reference to the debut of the original Star Trek which premiered on NBC in September of 1966, and the starbase name of “Yorktown” is a reference to Roddenberry’s original pitch for Star Trek as taking place aboard the Yorktown before being changed to Enterprise. The movie also makes mention of Kirk’s torn shirts, a giant green hand in space and some of the music cues emulate the classic Star Trek fight music. But it also directly references moments from the previous films. From toasts to absent friends—done both by Shatner’s Kirk in The Search for Spock and Patrick Stewart’s Picard in Star Trek: Nemesis—but also Kirk and McCoy drinking on a birthday, where things are anything but happy. The reboot films also strangely track with the original movies. Kirk gets control of the Enterprise from another officer in the first film, Khan shows up and causes a death in both second films, and the Enterprise is destroyed and Spock —in this case Ambassador Spock (Nimoy)—is dead in the third films.
- Stardate 2263.2: According to the updated stardate system for the Kelvin Timeline, the stardate indicates the actual year of the Gregorian Calendar, with the number after the decimal indicating the number of days into the year. So Beyond begins with Kirk giving a Captain’s log dated as 2263.2, or presumably January 2, 2263. Being three years into the crew’s five year voyage differs with The Original Series in that there Kirk doesn’t assume command of the Enterprise and begin the five year mission until 2265.
- Sulu is gay: Star Trek Beyond made some news by revealing Sulu is gay. While over the years some of the characters have been depicted or interpreted as bisexual, this is the first time in the franchise’s five-decade history that a major canon character was revealed as explicitly gay. This news was met with some dissension by George Takei, who portrayed Sulu in The Original Series. Takei is an LGBTQ activist and his objections were not to the idea of having a gay character in Star Trek, but that the conception of the character created by Roddenberry and acted by him was not of a gay man. And if the purpose is to make a point about diversity, then according to Takei a new character should be created to make that point. However, Sulu being gay is not treated as a big deal within Beyond. It’s just a small moment which doesn’t define the character, but is only an aspect of who he is, and raises the stakes of the consequences if Kirk and company fail, since his significant other and daughter will be among Krall’s victims
Simon Pegg: I have huge love and respect for George Takei, his heart, courage and humour are an inspiration … However, with regards to his thoughts on our Sulu, I must respectfully disagree with him … He’s right, it is unfortunate, it’s unfortunate that the screen version of the most inclusive, tolerant universe in science fiction hasn’t featured an LGBT character until now. We could have introduced a new gay character, but he or she would have been primarily defined by their sexuality, seen as the ‘gay character’, rather than simply for who they are, and isn’t that tokenism?
- Is the Kelvin Timeline an alternate universe?: This is pretty deep down the Star Trek geek hole, but doesn't this movie imply the "Kelvin Timeline" is not an alternate timeline, but an alternate universe? The big twist of Star Trek Beyond is the reveal that Krall (Elba) is actually human and has become a sort of “space vampire” through found alien technology. Formerly Captain Balthazar Edison of the USS Franklin, Krall/Edison has been alive since before the creation of the Federation and was a member of the M.A.C.O., with Edison blaming the Federation and its values for what happened to him and his crew. Krall/Edison name drops the Xindi and the Earth-Romulan War, and the USS Franklin (NX-326) is introduced as one of the first of the "Warp 4 capable" ships created by Starfleet in the 2160s. But Star Trek: Enterprise takes place in the 2150s, and the NX-01 is the first of Starfleet's "Warp 5 capable" ships. So it doesn’t exactly fit.
- Sabotage: Was it really goofy to have the villain’s death wave of drones defeated by having a bunch of technobabble and broadcasting a Beastie Boys track? Yes, it was. Was I smiling and giggling during that entire sequence? Yes, I did.
- The family portrait: The image Spock (Quinto) finds in Ambassador Spock’s (Nimoy) belongings is a publicity still taken for Star Trek V: The Final Frontier.
- We’ll always have Paris: The commander of the Yorktown starbase is played by Shohreh Aghdashloo and named “Commodore Paris.” Presumably, she is meant to be an ancestor of Tom Paris from Star Trek: Voyager.
- Star Trek IV: Not much is known about where the reboot series will go next, but J.J. Abrams has indicated a fourth film will involve the return of Chris Hemsworth as George Kirk, the father of Pine’s Captain Kirk.
- Discovery: Over the weekend, CBS released more info about the next Star Trek TV series. Named Star Trek: Discovery and produced by Hannibal and Pushing Daisies creator, as well as former Star Trek: Voyager and Star Trek: Deep Space Nine writer, Bryan Fuller, the series will NOT be connected to the current film series and will be set in the original “Prime” timeline of William Shatner’s and Leonard Nimoy’s Kirk and Spock. The Discovery’s design seems to be based on Ralph McQuarrie’s proposed 1970’s redesign of the Enterprise for a Star Trek movie that was to be named Planet of the Titans.