Star Trek Beyond

It's so nice that there is Star Trek in my life again. The new film Star Trek Beyond is the third film in the reboot, which goes where no one has gone before, because it puts Star Trek into the multiverse for the first time. Also, just released at Comic-Con this weekend was the first teaser trailer for the new Star Trek TV series, Discovery, starting next year. I have been very happy with the Star Trek reboot. The first film re-introduced us to the original Classic Star Trek characters, living in a universe with a timeline that has been altered somewhat due to some Romulans and a wormhole.  I loved it. The second film, Star Trek into Darkness, was a clever reworking of The Wrath of Khan where the classic Spock/Kirk death scene is reversed. I particularly love the Spock/Uhura relationship which has been created in the multiverse. The new/old characters played by new actors have all been enjoyable. But I get the most joy out of Karl Urban's portrayal of Bones McCoy. He is perfect. In fact, he may be better than DeForest Kelley. 

The new film is Star Trek Beyond. (A few mild spoilers follow) The Enterprise is three years into its five year mission to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before. Anyway, Kirk (Chris Pine) has a birthday coming up and is wondering what the point of it all is. He has even applied for a desk job. This setup reminds me of the beginning of the original Wrath of Khan when Kirk has already taken a desk job and Spock gives him a copy of A Tale of Two Cities for his birthday. He also gets some Romulan Ale from Bones. In the new Star Trek Beyond, Bones and Kirk enjoy some whiskey liberated from Chekov's (Anton Yelchin) locker. The rest of the crew is doing ok except that Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Uhura (Zoe Saldana) are having serious relationship problems. And as you may know, there is a revelation about Sulu (John Cho) that George Takei wasn't that happy about. 

Anyway, Kirk's reveries are disturbed by a distress signal, and, yes, as usual, the Enterprise is the only ship in the quadrant available for the rescue mission. As you may expect the mission does not go as planned, and if you have seen the trailers, the Enterprise gets destroyed and the crew is stranded on an alien planet. This may have happened once or twice before. And I can announce (spoiler alert) that there is a Saucer Separation. Haven't seen one of those in a long, long time. Lots of ships have crashed on this planet thanks to the evil villain of this movie, Krall (Idris Elba). The crew are aided by a nice new alien character, Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), who has been stranded so long on this planet that she has built her own starship out of Lego. Ok, just kidding about the Lego. She likes Scotty (Simon Pegg) and I think the feeling is mutual. Jaylah is a fun character and there's some indication that she might be in the next film. Then again, there was no sign or mention of Carol Marcus in Star Trek Beyond so maybe not. 

Idris Elba is pretty much unrecognizable as Krall for most of the movie, and is not nearly as fun as Benedict Cumberbatch was as Khan in the last movie. The Beastie Boys are instrumental in defeating Krall. Who knew that they would still be popular in the 23rd century. You may remember that young Kirk was playing the Beastie Boys on the radio when he drove his stolen car off the cliff in the first movie.

The first two new Star Trek movies were directed by J. J. Abrams who was mainly responsible for the reboot. He remains as a producer on Star Trek Beyond but the movie is directed by Justin Lin, who also directed many of the Fast & Furious movies. There are no cars in this one, but a motorcycle does figure in the plot. Star Trek Beyond is very entertaining and moves right along. It continues the nice plot and character development of the new multiverse Star Trek. The writing is good with some very nice lines, written by Simon Pegg (Scotty) and Doug Jung. My favorite is when Krall says, "This is where the frontier pushes back!" 

Anyway, what's not to like in Star Trek Beyond, except for feeling a bit verklempt every time Chekov is on the screen. I am a lifelong Trekkie. It is now 50 years since the original, now classic, Star Trek first aired with me watching. It's great that Star Trek has been reborn in this way.