Star Trek: Beyond

Directed By: Justin Lin

Written By: Doug Jung , Simon Pegg

(WHEE yes thank you! All hail the Pegg!)

In Theaters: Jul 22, 2016 wide

Studio:Paramount Pictures

*3 / 5 Bones*

You know what I hate?...

You’re gonna hate me for it.

...

Zombies.

There, I said it.

It’s not because they seriously skeeze me out. That’s what zombies do - they’re in the uncanny valley. A human mind is supposed to look at sickness, irregular social behaviour, and poor conversation skills and feel innate dread. It’s a defence mechanism, all part of avoiding plague or talking to someone at a party who can only complain about movies.

No, I hate zombies because they’re a part of the post-apocalyptic sci-fi genre. Sure, not all the blame can rest on what’s left of their shoulders, but their popularity is part of an enduring grime and pessimism in so many futuristic blockbusters. I miss me some optimistic Sci-Fi. That’s what I really admired most about the original Star Trek TV series. It dared to say ‘What if…’ and ended it not with ‘...some future circumstance forces us to fight to the death in the smouldering remains of society’ but ‘we actually manage to stop squabbling about stupid Earth things and go explore space and it’s really, really awesome!’

This was grossly missing in Star Trek : Into Darkness. I wrote out a whole list of complaints about that film, which included:

1. Overt sexism
2. No prevalent alien characters (Spock doesn’t count, I want me some cool make-up)
3. Outside of the first few minutes, no interesting alien worlds. We spend the whole time trying to save a boring city like any other city or sitting in a gray spaceship.
4. Stupid character development
5. No real moral, just excuses to hit stuff with fists. Because science hasn't improved on that military marvel that is the fist in over 10,000 years of human society.
6. Not enough banter between characters.
7. Not funny.
8. REALLY Overt Sexism.
9. Beating the bad guy who couldn’t be beaten by beating him harder
10. Grimy, dirty colour palette that looked like every other stupid film in theatres. Because heaven forbid we see nice colours when we’re on an adventure. Colours are for children, after all. Adults like shades of brown and gray.
11. And most of all…
12. STUPID, STUPID, DEPRESSING, STUPID, DULL, SAD SAD SAD GAVE ME HEADACHE ALSO SAW ON DAY DOG DIED.

Shown here is me, standing in the rubble that used to be the screen I saw Into Darkness on. It wasn't good for anything after that, so I fixed it.

So when I saw Beyond, imagine my surprise. It was as if someone saw my review and decided to just remake Into Darkness, only this time fix everything I’d mentioned.

1. An interesting female character in respectable clothes that stayed on and was a main player in the action - arguably the main character.
2. Also, she’s an alien in classic Trek makeup that looks cool.
3. Most of the action happened on an alien world with some cool mountains. Although it wasn’t really that creative and reminded me a bit of the infamous Dragon Ball Z rock quarries…
4. Good character development!
5. Some thought-provoking themes on survival and trust
6. Lots of banter between characters, and new ones! Instead of the played out Spock and Kirk, we’re treated to some amazing sparring between Bones and Spock.
7. Lots of funny, see above.
8. Jaylah had more good scenes where her clothes stayed on and she was an important part of the plot.
9. Beating the bad guy took some thought and luck and not primarily fists. Kirk had to deal with actual emotions about it and there’s a fun scene in zero-gravity.
10. As for palette, I had a hard time seeing shots inside the ship and so did my father, but I’m beginning to suspect the Okotoks Cinema has a brightness problem in general. Star Wars was almost impossible to look at as well. The projectionist needs to do a quick spit and shine.
11. And most of all…
12. FUN FUN, UPLIFTING, SILLY, SERIOUS, HAPPY HAPPY HAPPY I WENT HOME AND PLAYED WITH MY ALIVE DOG.

So this movie couldn’t resurrect my beloved Ginger. I suppose I can let that slide for today because this is finally a Star Trek film worthy of the name. JJ Abrams, bugger off. Someone actually thinks we can have nice Trek films again. That said, Justin Lin...you do realize this was exactly the same movie, just done better, right? I mean, it’s good we can just skip the second one now, but the plot developments, the climax as an identical city is threatened, the opening on an alien world that had little to do with the main plot but has lots of comedic moments...it’s cool you fixed what was broken, but next time, I hope to see something that really does go beyond what came before.

***Note of bias:

• I was a bit disappointed that at no point did they run into Buzz Lightyear. Maybe he’s still stuck somewhere in Infinity.

• Yeah, my dog really did die the day I saw Into Darkness. That probably means I was very biased when seeing it. Shouldn't review anything on a day like that. But it takes a special film to make a day like that even worse, and ID was that movie.

Also, this poster? Thank you. 

It's so nice to have illustrated movie posters again 

instead of Photoshop collages. I missed them.