Star Trek Beyond

The movie opens with Kirk serving as an ambassador.  He stands in the hall of a gargoyle-like race and presents an ancient weapon as a peace offering.  The gargoyles are unimpressed and, despite Kirk's reasonable demeanor, finally go berserk and attack him.  It then becomes clear that the gargoyles are about the size of a Chihuahua.  Kirk is saved from further humiliation when Scotty beams him back to the Enterprise.  If the movie opens by humiliating the character, it can only improve from there, right?  No.  The ancient weapon is filed away in the Enterprise vault to gather dust, or so they thought!

 

Starbase Yorktown is a giant transparent sphere about the size of the Deathstar.  There are struts radiating from the central hub to the sphere, each of these sporting skyscrapers and cityscapes.  Some character called it a giant snow globe while I have also read some say it was a rip off of Inception.  There are huge tunnels that the Enterprise is able to navigate to the central hub of the station and one can see its progress through vast 'lakes' along the city vistas.  Very impressive but it looked impractical.

 

As the crew disembarks and goes on shore leave, we discover that Sulu has a husband.  Yes, as a nod to the openly gay George Takei who originated the role, the makers have decided to have Sulu be gay.  Of course, through all the years he played the character, Takei thought Sulu was hetero.  One wonders if, 40 years hence, there will be a gay Spock; Zachary Quinto is openly gay and it would be a thoughtful and progressive gesture to have the character he played be gay.

 

The Enterprise has hardly arrived when a strange vessel approaches.  There is a single occupant, an alien named Kalara who claims that her ship and crew are stranded on a planet in the nearby nebula.  There is something sketchy about Kalara and her story but Kirk gladly volunteers with no apparent misgivings.  The Enterprise navigates the barely navigable nebula and spots a planet.  Then, out of the planet's shadow comes a ship.  No, it is a swarm of small ships.  Kirk is told immediately that they are not prepared for this kind of fight.  No matter!  Shields up and open fire!  The phasers take out individual ships but the photon torpedoes pass harmlessly through the swarm.  Suddenly, the ship is getting pelted as the swarm crashes into and through the ship.  Shields are down!  Kirk orders warp speed.  Nope, the warp nacelles have been hacked off by blizzards of alien ships.  The alien swarm ships are amazingly tough and their primary mode of attack appears to be collision.  Meanwhile, many of the enemy ships that stuck into the Enterprise like thorns now introduce boarding parties into the Enterprise.  It quickly becomes a slaughter.  Kirk orders that the saucer section separate with some crazy notion that he can salvage part of his ship.  It goes badly and he eventually has to order all hands to abandon ship.  The saucer section crashes into the planet and Enterprise is destroyed.  It is beyond catastrophe.

 

The above paragraph is a demonstration of a tremendously bad captain.  Kirk is beyond failure.  He does not deserve command.  He has never deserved a command in this iteration of the character.  It would be one thing if the ship was disabled by an ion cannon upon approaching the planet and thus had no chance to act but Kirk was warned and held his ground anyway.  He is up against an unknown enemy with unclear capabilities and has the option of retreat.  Retreat!  Get the measure of the enemy and maybe some knowledge of him before engaging.  Maybe interrogate Kalara who should have know about this.  Based upon his actions here, I am surprised it took him this long into the 5 year mission to lose the ship.

 

Kirk manages to arrive on the planet and regroup with Chekov and Kalara.  He immediately confronts her and demands to know why she didn't warn them.  She offers a new story in which she was sent to bring another ship to save her captive crewmates.  Apparently satisfied, he brings her along as they go to the wreckage of the Enterprise to salvage some equipment and maybe use sensors to locate other crewmen.  And finally Kalara shows that she is in league with Krall and Kirk cleverly got her to show herself.  Really?  Only now, far beyond when it might have mattered, do you realize that she was a plant?  Sigh.  Kirk and Chekov then wander the planet in search of other survivors and finally stumble on a trap that leaves them stuck in the blast of a glue bomb.  And Kirk thought the humiliation ended at the start of the movie.  Luckily, the trap was set by Jaylah the friendly alien who had already teamed up with Scotty.

 

Spock and Bones found a different path to the planet's surface and stumble around being buddies.  This was actually kind of fun.  Karl Urban is particularly good at playing Dr. McCoy.  While lost in the wilderness, they do discover that the ancient weapon originated on this planet.  Hmm.

 

Sulu, Uhura, and all the crew extras are held captive by Krall.  His efforts to get the ancient weapon repeatedly foiled, he determines that Kirk must have hidden it among the crew.  He threatens to kill Sulu and Ensign Expendable admits having it.  Yes, to save Sulu, she offered up a weapon that might devastate millions.  As such, Ensign Expendable richly deserved to be the test subject of the weapon.  Yep, it works.  Beyond stupid.

 

Meanwhile, Scotty has joined with Jaylah, a resourceful alien who needs him to fix her 'house.'  Her house proves to be the USS Franklin, a Federation ship that vanished - like Jimmy Hoffa - more than a hundred years ago.  Jaylah has done a magnificent job of restoring it.  She did such a good job that Scotty has the ship ready to fly in just a couple of days.  Not only that, the transporters still work.  Weapons are still operational too.  Um, why is this thing crashed on the planet?  Wow, they sure made starships durable a hundred years ago.  I wonder how quickly Jaylah and Scotty could get the Titanic floating.  Beyond ridiculous.

 

Once Kirk, Chekov, Spock, and Bones find their way to the Franklin, a rescue mission is planned.  Kirk will provide a distraction by riding a motorcycle through the enemy base.  Really?  To make it really effective, he will use a hologram generator to make half a dozen of himself.  The alien drones prove to be excellent shots when shooting holograms but the real Kirk is never touched.  Beyond suspension of disbelief.

 

With the crew rescued and safely aboard the Franklin, it is time to pursue Krall.  The ship is oddly perched on the very edge of a several thousand foot drop.  This precarious location proves quite convenient when it turns out that the ship needs to be traveling fast enough to 'jumpstart' the thrusters.  Simple, let's drive it off the cliff and allow gravity to do its magic.  Sigh.  The Franklin proves its durability since it hits some cliffs and mountains on the way but is still entirely spaceworthy.

Armed with the doomsday weapon, Krall led the swarm fleet into the nebula.  The ship swarm emerged from the nebula and was in range to attack Yorktown.  So, this huge, massive, super expensive new starbase is built on the edge of a nebula with a hostile planet in it and the Federation didn't know.  What sun is shining on the nebula planet?  Same one as for Yorktown?  Must be.  Those swarm ships don't look like they had warp drive.  Whoever mapped this star system needs to be court martialed for incompetence!  On another point, seeing how effective the swarm ships are in ripping through the station's defenses, why did Krall need the disintegrator weapon again?

 

So it turns out that Krall is none other than Balthazar Edison, captain of the Franklin.  When he was stranded on the alien world, he and his few remaining crew discovered the ruins of an ancient mining operation (which included the swarm fleet and its drone pilots).  There was also a device that allowed him to extend his life at the cost of looking alien.  Strangely, Krall appears to have lost track of where he parked the Franklin and he left it almost completely intact, scavenging virtually nothing through the long years.  Heck, even his logs are intact where he blames Starfleet for his fate, as if he thought there were no dangers in space exploration.  But it should be noted that, once again, the enemy is us.  Yes, in Star Trek (2009), Starfleet botched a rescue attempt that brought on a Romulan attack through time.  In Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), Starfleet mistreated Khan and brought on disaster.  In this one, it is a Starfleet officer who felt abandoned.  Yes, it's always us, never them.  Self-loathing in what had been the most optimistic of sci-fi shows.  Beyond sad.

 

Krall manages to get the doomsday weapon to the most ludicrous central air circulation system you ever saw.  It is this transparent aluminum box on top of a skyscraper.  Apparently, this Deathstar sized starbase has a central air system, not hundreds of separate ones that came online as the various parts were built.  No, that would be silly.  We need a system that can introduce a deadly toxin everywhere at once.  And now that Krall is there on this vast base with tens or hundreds of thousands of people on it, only Kirk stands between him and untold thousands dead.  Could we maybe use a transporter to beam Krall away from disaster?  No!  Maybe we have something like police who could respond on vehicles designed to fly in this disorienting station?  No, they are far too busy elsewhere.  It's Kirk or doom!  If Kirk hadn't arrived on this hundred year old starship, the ultra modern station with all its technology would have been destroyed!  Beyond belief.

 

To give the characters a story arc for the movie, it turns out that Kirk is tried of the 'episodic' nature of his five year mission and wants to leave the ship.  He thinks Spock would be an excellent replacement for him.  As it happens, Spock is planning to leave Star Fleet and join the New Vulcan project; someone has to repopulate so that Vulcans don't go extinct with their planet.  Kirk and Spock are unable to reveal these plans to one another, providing a different dynamic to their relationship.

 

As with Into Darkness, the action pieces are fun and exciting but, in retrospect, demonstrate stupidity or foolishness of the characters.  Despite all their advanced technology, or perhaps because of it, these are not very smart people.  In the TV show, Kirk and Spock would play 3D chess.  I doubt these versions of the characters could master checkers.  Maybe tic tac toe is more their speed.

 

It is mindless popcorn fun but has little in common with Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek.

Star Trek in Collapse

Here is an article that delves into the changing morality of Star Trek from the Original Series in the 1960s, through the Next Generation, and up to the recent movie, Star Trek Into Darkness.

I was a huge fan of the original series.  I loved Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, et al.  So when The Next Generation arrived, I was excited.  I watched the premiere and was not thrilled.  I watched that first season and, though I could not effectively explain why, I didn't much like it.  I was politically unaware at the time and the underlying philosophies of both the Original Series and The Next Generation didn't occur to me.

 

In my review of the latest Star Trek movie, I complained about the mindlessness of it but this article gets to the heart of the matter.  It is interesting how Sandefur tracks liberal political ideology in a SciFi TV/movie series.

Star Trek Into Darkness

Our story opens on an alien planet where a figure in a gray robe flees from a temple while the natives chase him, throwing spears on the way. The figure proves to be Captain James T Kirk who had stolen – for reasons never explained – a scroll from said temple thus the ire of the natives. Gee, this almost looks like the opening scene from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Kirk soon joins Dr. McCoy and the pair continues to run for their lives. What was the plan here? Meanwhile, Spock, Sulu, and Uhura are in a shuttle hovering over an active volcano located next to the temple. Spock is lowered into the volcano so he can plant a device to prevent it from erupting and thus wiping out the natives. Well, things don’t work quite as planned. The shuttle engines overheat and the tether to Spock breaks. Was there a plan here? Simple, we just beam Spock to the ship. Where’s the Enterprise? Oh, it is underwater! Kirk and Bones jump off a cliff and swim down to the submerged SPACE ship. Though Scotty was able to beam Sulu and Uhura to safely before the shuttle crashed, he can’t lock onto Spock except by line of sight. The ship’s current position is a real problem, seeing as there is ocean and continent in the way. What genius decided to park the ship in an ocean? Well, since we are in this really stupid position, the only way to save Spock is to break the Prime Directive (note that was the Prime directive, not the secondary or tertiary directive). The ship surfaces to the natives’ astonishment and as it flies over the volcano, Spock is beamed aboard. And there you have the introduction to J. J. Abrams latest travesty in the Star Trek universe.

Knowing that the objective was to prevent the volcano from erupting and wiping out the primitive natives, what might have been a better plan? Maybe setting the anti-volcano device on a several second delay and transporting it from orbit? Oh, but look at all the awesome action we’d miss! As for Kirk stealing the holy scroll, I am still baffled. Why? My best guess is that he was trying to lure the natives away from the impending detonation. Even so, I have no idea why Bones would be there. Is he particularly suited to running from natives? The sad thing is that it gets worse.

Lacking any original ideas, the writers bring back Khan (i.e. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan) as a villain. Khan has magic blood that appears to be a cure for death. Yep, Dr. McCoy synthesizes a serum that revives a dead tribble and maybe a major character that dies in a scene stolen from… Wrath of Khan. I was really annoyed when the last film had Kirk and Scotty beam aboard the Enterprise while it was light years away and traveling at warp speed. This time, we have a personal transportation device that allows the villain to transport himself from Earth to the Klingon home world! Really? Such technology is going to make starships obsolete. Such a technology would massively revolutionize space travel and is far beyond what was possible in Star Trek The Next Generation. As for the starships, warp speed has really gotten impressive. The ship is a short distance from the Klingon home world – which the Klingons seem not to notice – and warps back toward Earth. They have hardly hit warp speed when an enemy ship catches them and blasts the Enterprise. So, where are we? Oh, pretty much in Earth orbit. So the distance from Earth to the Klingon home world is a few minutes at warp speed? Two starships are essentially in Earth orbit and one fires at the other. Earth responds by doing nothing. One of the starships is on a collision course with San Francisco and the response is… nothing. We have all of Earth and the only people who can do anything are the crew of the Enterprise.

Benedict Cumberbatch seems nothing like Khan. First, it is a bit annoying that we have a pasty white fellow playing Khan. But Khan had a combination of charm and menace, a man who would smile warmly while he twisted the knife. Cumberbatch is all menace and brooding.

Scotty goes scouting coordinates that Kirk gave him. He finds a space station there. Amazingly, the space station doesn’t seem to notice him. In a miracle of timing, some ships arrive and enter the space station – Scotty just joins the group and enters unseen. Seriously? This is a military space station and it neither noticed the approach of a shuttle or that the shuttle came aboard. Well, such incompetence probably explains later parts of the film.

So, Scotty is off the ship and Kirk needs a new chief engineer. Let’s see, I have all these engineers down in engineering, one of whom is probably second only to Scotty. So, let’s pick Chekov. Yes, I understand you don’t want to introduce new characters but this still grated.

Spock and Uhura are involved and their relationship is repeatedly brought to the foreground, often with Uhura nagging Spock for his logic and lack of feelings. Umm, you know he’s a Vulcan, right? But, just to prove he’s got feelings, a tear runs down his cheek when a major character dies. Oh, and Kirk cries too when a different character dies. I don’t think William Shatner’s Kirk ever cried, even when those Klingon bastards killed his son. The Spock – Uhura relationship was ill-conceived.

Chris Pine’s Kirk is disappointing. It’s not that I think he should emulate Shatner, but it would be nice if he kept to the character. His Kirk is frantic rather than deliberate, foolhardy rather than brave, and reckless rather than daring. At one point, we see him in bed with two alien women. Really? He has to be convinced not to do something rash on more than one occasion. At another point in the movie, he is faced with the Kobyashi Maru moment where he’s going to lose his ship and crew and his response is… “I’m sorry.” In Wrath of Khan, Kirk repeatedly outmaneuvered Khan but here it is the other way around. Kirk captures him only because he chose to surrender. Kirk survives a spacewalk only because Khan guides him, and Kirk survives secondary villains only because of Khan. Khan plays Kirk the entire time but Kirk blusters as if he is the one in control. Sigh.

The plot is just an opportunity to string together unlikely action sequences. There is an amazing amount of running! It’s all very exciting mindless fun. And that is the biggest problem. Star Trek was never mindless. If anything, the Kirk era of Star Trek was preachy with a morality tale in virtually every episode. Kirk often explained the moral at the end. If there is any moral here, it is that the enemy is us. Yeah. Again with the self-loathing and we made Khan what he is and those chickens have come home to roost. Lovely.

With what J. J. Abrams has done to Star Trek, I am concerned what he plans to do with the other great sci-fi classic, Star Wars. Well, he probably can’t do any worse than Lucas did in Phantom Menace.