Star Trek Beyond
Jul. 23rd, 2016 09:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shallownessStar Trek Beyond AKA the New Start Trek Movie was fine. Not great, but fine. For background, I haven’t been the most wildly excited person about the reboot/new films, that is, I wouldn't count myself a member of that subset of the fandom, although I’ve enjoyed them. I liked this film more as the next instalment of Trek than as a film.
I must be getting old (it’s fine, I fancy Karl Urban the most) but I was often thinking ‘Why is it so dark? What’s going on? Which alien lady with tubular hair is this again? Oh, this bit reminds me of Guardians of the Galaxy, and maybe that was a little more fun. Ghostbusters was definitely more fun. WHY IS IT SO DARK? Is this sucking up to 3D again?’ On the other hand, I was also enjoying the Bones-Spock dynamic, what they had Uhura do and Jaylah, squeaking at the Grunberg and the Admiral being Admiral Paris, and I thought the music and the production design (when I could see it) were good.
But it didn’t help that we had a relatively slow start in which Jim was waxing existential and thinking about breaking up with the Enterprise. Oh, Kirk, no, don’t do that! There was some melancholy as Spock and Uhura seemed to have broken up and then Spock was informed of Ambassador Spock’s death, which was gracefully handled, but the tragic shadow over this film was of course actor Anton Yelchin’s unexpected, untimely death.
Anyways the Enterprise went into a nebula to rescue a ship – and got slowly torn apart, which was symbolically horrible – this is the reboot that blew up Vulan - and confusing in the detail, and, indeed, the action. The crew got separated and we then had about four groups to follow until they reunited.
There were funny bits (but not as many as in GatG), and when shot of adrenaline Jaylah was introduced, I got far more interested than I’d been since Uhura sacrificed herself to save the others and do what Kirk couldn’t. I loved the font of the subtitles for Krall and co, and Elba had great presence and they had good story reasons for keeping him under latex for so long, I suppose, but I kept wondering what Krall’s deal was, and so while he’s an improvement, I still don’t think they’ve found a great villain in these reboots yet.
It was a weird mix of being confused and being two steps ahead of the characters. I wasn’t engaged in the central question of whether unity is stronger than conflict, even though that’s a very Star Trek message and timely. I was more invested in Bones’s dismay at delirious!Spock’s revelations of what had passed between him and Uhura, who did not particularly need rescuing, bless her, and I love that it was her keen ear that made her recognise Krall. Oh, and that the only romantic relationships were established ones (after all the fuss, Sulu’s husband was barely there and they underplayed his worry about what was going on on Yorktown – wasn’t that a ship, not a space station?). Jaylah was adopted into the crew/family and didn’t fall for Kirk’s charms – he was busy finding himself and getting over his daddy issues. And, after Elba’s Krall, all the three main characters were women, one a warrior/builder, one a liar (the simultaneous translation was weird) and one a leader.
I don’t know, it was fitfully engaging (more so when McCoy, Spock, Uhura or Jaylah were onscreen), making me happier as whatever degree of Trekkie that I am than as a movie viewer. And ‘Beyond’ what? ‘Frontier’ was more of a key word in the film.
I must be getting old (it’s fine, I fancy Karl Urban the most) but I was often thinking ‘Why is it so dark? What’s going on? Which alien lady with tubular hair is this again? Oh, this bit reminds me of Guardians of the Galaxy, and maybe that was a little more fun. Ghostbusters was definitely more fun. WHY IS IT SO DARK? Is this sucking up to 3D again?’ On the other hand, I was also enjoying the Bones-Spock dynamic, what they had Uhura do and Jaylah, squeaking at the Grunberg and the Admiral being Admiral Paris, and I thought the music and the production design (when I could see it) were good.
But it didn’t help that we had a relatively slow start in which Jim was waxing existential and thinking about breaking up with the Enterprise. Oh, Kirk, no, don’t do that! There was some melancholy as Spock and Uhura seemed to have broken up and then Spock was informed of Ambassador Spock’s death, which was gracefully handled, but the tragic shadow over this film was of course actor Anton Yelchin’s unexpected, untimely death.
Anyways the Enterprise went into a nebula to rescue a ship – and got slowly torn apart, which was symbolically horrible – this is the reboot that blew up Vulan - and confusing in the detail, and, indeed, the action. The crew got separated and we then had about four groups to follow until they reunited.
There were funny bits (but not as many as in GatG), and when shot of adrenaline Jaylah was introduced, I got far more interested than I’d been since Uhura sacrificed herself to save the others and do what Kirk couldn’t. I loved the font of the subtitles for Krall and co, and Elba had great presence and they had good story reasons for keeping him under latex for so long, I suppose, but I kept wondering what Krall’s deal was, and so while he’s an improvement, I still don’t think they’ve found a great villain in these reboots yet.
It was a weird mix of being confused and being two steps ahead of the characters. I wasn’t engaged in the central question of whether unity is stronger than conflict, even though that’s a very Star Trek message and timely. I was more invested in Bones’s dismay at delirious!Spock’s revelations of what had passed between him and Uhura, who did not particularly need rescuing, bless her, and I love that it was her keen ear that made her recognise Krall. Oh, and that the only romantic relationships were established ones (after all the fuss, Sulu’s husband was barely there and they underplayed his worry about what was going on on Yorktown – wasn’t that a ship, not a space station?). Jaylah was adopted into the crew/family and didn’t fall for Kirk’s charms – he was busy finding himself and getting over his daddy issues. And, after Elba’s Krall, all the three main characters were women, one a warrior/builder, one a liar (the simultaneous translation was weird) and one a leader.
I don’t know, it was fitfully engaging (more so when McCoy, Spock, Uhura or Jaylah were onscreen), making me happier as whatever degree of Trekkie that I am than as a movie viewer. And ‘Beyond’ what? ‘Frontier’ was more of a key word in the film.
