Star Trek Beyond **SPOILERS FROM POST 566 ONWARD**

ZeitgeistGlee

http://www.trekbbs.com/threads/how-realistic-was-scottys-accent.234259/

About as good as the usual North American take on a celtic accent it seems.

Coonut Butter

So is this actually a Star Trek movie or Space Action Adventure?

techdiver

Saw this last night and whilst I enjoyed it, I get the feeling it is very forgettable. Idris Elba is wasted in the role and the trailers deceive as to his "proper involvement". I often wonder why he takes so many roles where he is wasted (Thor, Star Trek).

Uhura

working out who he was was ridiculous also. "Oh look, there is some guy on the video from the Franklin, that must be Krall....".

Hated the cinematography. Overly dark and too much shaky cam, very distracting.

On the good side, the main cast were good as ever, with Urban standing out for me. I liked the tribute towards the end also.

A decent popcorn flick, but no more 3/5.

pixelburp

Coonut Butter wrote: »

So is this actually a Star Trek movie or Space Action Adventure?

Both; arguably the most overt attempt at a 'Star Trek movie' to date was either the very first, 'The Motion Picture' or 'Insurrection'. Opinions my vary, but by all accounts both were pretty terrible films. They were definitely the ideal of Star Trek the TV show transplanted to the silver screen, but as films they were excruciating.

'Star Trek Beyond' on the hand felt like a fairly successful marriage of both the Star Trek template of tropes AND the demands of the modern Hollywood blockbuster. Neither aspect overwhelmed the other.

Face it, both the franchise and Hollywood in general are far different beasts to those of the early 1980s and anyone hoping / expecting another 'Wrath of Khan' will only find disappointment.

FunLover18

techdiver wrote: »

Uhura

working out who he was was ridiculous also. "Oh look, there is some guy on the video from the Franklin, that must be Krall....".

I know these movies are always full of plot holes but this is one I find difficult to ignore. How the **** did she recognise him!? I presume there's a cut scene that explains it or

did she get a glimpse of him when he was draining the life from those two crew members

ZeitgeistGlee

FunLover18 wrote: »

I know these movies are always full of plot holes but this is one I find difficult to ignore. How the **** did she recognise him!? I presume there's a cut scene that explains it or

did she get a glimpse of him when he was draining the life from those two crew members

His accent, more specifically the way he pronounces "frontier" apparently.

It is hamfisted as all hell though.

squonk

I 100% agree the plot was pants. Elba was completely wasted but I think he went in looking to collect a paycheck so, good for him. Who here would turn down great money for hardly breaking a sweat!

It's a pretty forgettable film for sure, but I went in wanting to see if they could finally pull of a Star Trek movie as a Star Trek fan and I think they achieved that. As a Space Romp it works as well, there's plenty of action and lots of crashes and explosions. There's no escaping that the plot is pretty dumb and underdeveloped. That doesn't make Star Trek Beyond the only movie guilty of that. Batman V Superman and a bunch of other Marvel movies have been just as guilty.

Agent Coulson

They need to not use Simon Pegg again he co wrote it and gave himself and his sh1t accent too much of a prominent role in the whole film.

AMKC

FunLover18 wrote: »

I know these movies are always full of plot holes but this is one I find difficult to ignore. How the **** did she recognise him!? I presume there's a cut scene that explains it or

did she get a glimpse of him when he was draining the life from those two crew members

Maybe she recognized the way he walked or the sound of his voice or even his hands. She had spent a bit of time with him after all.

Am sure the answer will come out eventually even if its one they make up after the film.

AMKC

Agent Coulson wrote: »

They need to not use Simon Pegg again he co wrote it and gave himself and his sh1t accent too much of a prominent role in the whole film.

I think I would prefer Simon Pegg and Doug to write the next film than the writers that wrote the other two films. Would have been interesting to see what and how these two would have wrote Star Trek 09. We might have gotten a much better film then one thats so forgetful.

Avatar MIA

Agent Coulson wrote: »

They need to not use Simon Pegg again he co wrote it and gave himself and his sh1t accent too much of a prominent role in the whole film.

Now now lassie, don't get upset, lassie.

I'm Scottish don't you know, because I use the word lassie a lot, so I do, lassie.

Avatar MIA

pixelburp wrote: »

and anyone hoping / expecting another 'Wrath of Khan' will only find disappointment.

Wasn't this story a massive rip off of that movie. The stranded turning into super strong bitter anarchists

And don't tell me anyone didn't see that coming, once they mentioned

No, they would all have died a hundred years ago

:pac:

I was waiting for Kirk to shout

KRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRUL

Sad Professor

My biggest issue with this and the previous two movies is that that they are basically standalone adventures with very little carryover. The central threats and character dilemmas of all three movies are essentially same. Watch the 3 trailers back to back and you'll see what I mean. Boy Captain Kirk struggling with his daddy issues; Spock struggling with his human/vulcan sides; some crazy villain-of-the-week feels wronged and wants to destroy the Earth/Earth-like space station; the Enterprise comes to the rescue and gets almost/completely blown up, etc, etc.

The original Star Trek films had many flaws, but there wasn't a formula that they were following. ST1, 2, 3 and 4 are all very different movies which found different dilemmas for the characters to grapple with and everything wasn't wrapped up in a bow at the end of every film. When Spock died in II he wasn't instantly resurrected; when the ship was destroyed they weren't immediately given a new, identical looking one. This was a problem with the TNG movies as well and I think is the reason those films ended up feeling like extended episodes of the series: as high as they tried to raise the stakes and the drama in each film, we always knew the reset button would be pushed and the status quo restored in time for the next movie.

BlitzKrieg

My sister is a bigger trekkie then me and while she agreed me Beyond was a fine film, she did raise a point that I honestly cant disagree with that is the reason why she feels the new treks dont feel (keyword) like genuine star trek films.


And thats none of them have really done *aliens* the same way as pretty much every trek film and series prior to them (for better or worse).


She sent me this clip and said this was what all the new trek films were missing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6VhSm6G7cVk

In the new trek films you can put the aliens into 3 catagories any 1 or 2 of these is fine in a movie, but I dont think with the exception of Spock we ever have anything but 1 of these 3 types in the movie:

1. Set pieces: Aliens that feel tailored for a set piece, the alien feels designed for a joke or a visual set piece or some other essentially mechanical nature of the script, there's no character and beyond what they are required for in that scene no thought put into the race or creature:

examples: The opening of Beyond, the big red monster that chases kirk in 09. Scotty's assistant in both 09 and Beyond, The Klingons and primative species in Into Darkness and the bug alien soldiers serving Krull and the member of kirk's crew in beyond with the head crab head thing who's whole role in the film was she was a funky head crab thing.

2. Background exotica: Similar to the set pieces, but designed less for a set piece but to fill out a scene and make it look more exotic with odd and unique aliens scattered in among crowds, audiences and crews, primarily the federation.

3. Human in alien clothing: This is probably the biggest issue, there are outside of spock quite a few alien characters who are essentially humans but they look like aliens

examples: Green skinned girl kirk is boning in 09, Nero and his entire crew in 09, twins with tails in into darkness and Jayla in Beyond.


The third one is probably the most damning as thats kind of what star trek has always tended to avoid with alien characters. It's why characters like Spock, Worf, Odo and Data (though he's not an alien) have been so endearing because they start at a very non human place and through the series bridged the gap to a human understanding while still not.

its sort of the template to a star trek alien, introduce a character and a trait of their species that tends to influence their character's personality and behaviour but keep a firm line between whats character and whats a species trait, but dont lose either and its a sign that the good writers and characters are the ones that walk that line in fleshing out not just themselves but also their race.

And outside Spock thats not happened anywhere in the new films.

Its also not a series only trait. Good or Bad almost all the prior star trek films have either introduced new characters of new races or expanded on existing races in new ways or with new characters. It may not be the big plot but there is always a little bit of fleshing out one of the big alien races or going a bit further into detail about a race beyond good/bad kill/save it.

1. We got the Deltan race.
2. We got a small chunk of plotting on Vulcans
3. We got a lot of plotting on Klingons (pretty much defined Klingons for TNG)
4. More plotting on Vulcans (+aliens that talk to whales)
5. A chunk of plotting on Vulcans, Romulans and Klingons (a mess kind of like the film)
6. A lot of plotting on Klingons
7. pseudo drug tripping alien energy wave beam bull****
8. A lot of plotting on the Borg
9. Whole film is built around a new species introduced
10. A lot of plotting on Romulans

Then

star trek 09: destroyed Vulcan homeworld, barely spent a minute screentime on the aftermath (most dialogue spoken was old spock talking about setting up a new homeworld and young spock saying he is an endangered species). Every other alien was either background, getting busy with kirk or human in disguise

Star Trek into darkness: Went to Klingon Homeworld, barely spent a minute with klingons before killing them all in a big gunfight. Only other aliens were either a set piece or background or getting busy with kirk.

On Into Darkness, one of the things missing I felt is that the militarisation of Star Fleet was justified by the destruction of Vulcan but we only ever saw humans talking about that, I mean it almost screams for a vulcan starfleet's officer input, one might argue if one's planet got destroyed then its only logical that steps are taken to ensure your new homeworld is secure.

Star trek Beyond: New Aliens introduced are mindless drones controlled by mutated humans, every other alien is either a set piece or human in disguise.

SarahBM

I think it was the voice she recognized. She is a xenolingustic specialist after all.

Bacchus

I thought it was very obvious how the expert in the study and understanding of languages, dialects and basically having an awesome ear for everything recognised the way the Franklin captain spoke and therefore did a double take on it.

ZeitgeistGlee

BlitzKrieg wrote: »

[A Good Read]

The Quark/Garak scene is a really good summation of the problems with New Trek, everything is too human-centric.

The Federation is supposed to be this grand hegemony of various Alpha/Beta Quadrant powers and yet all we ever see are Humans (and the occasional Vulcan so Spock can have another of his "child of two worlds" crises before ultimately picking humanity again). My biggest complaint about Quinto's Spock is he's too human compared to Nemoy's. Even his make-up looks pretty much just human + pointed ears, instead of having the green tinge to show his copper blood.

Obviously Vulcans are space elves now so them being less prevalent makes some degree of sense (even if they always manage to show-up) but there should still be Andorians/Tellarites/etc floating around in equal-ish numbers. When something that isn't human does show up, they're used, as you said as a set piece. It would've been a very minor thing to swap Shohreh Aghdashloo's and Greg Grunberg's characters species from human to something alien but recognisable to Trekkies and it wouldn't have made any difference to the scenes purposes.

FunLover18

Bacchus wrote:

I thought it was very obvious how the expert in the study and understanding of languages, dialects and basically having an awesome ear for everything recognised the way the Franklin captain spoke and therefore did a double take on it.

I completely forgot that was her field of expertise, was it mentioned in the film? I genuinely can't remember. If it was his voice she recognized than the camera should have focused on her face as she listened rather than video as she kept rewinding, it gave the impression she was recognising something visual that the audience should also spot. But at least that's solved now.

Mickeroo

FunLover18 wrote: »

I completely forgot that was her field of expertise, was it mentioned in the film? I genuinely can't remember. If it was his voice she recognized than the camera should have focused on her face as she listened rather than video as she kept rewinding, it gave the impression she was recognising something visual that the audience should also spot. But at least that's solved now.

I thought it was pretty clear it was the voice as you could hear it changing to sound more like Krall as she messed around with the vid.

FunLover18

Mickeroo wrote:

I thought it was pretty clear it was the voice as you could hear it changing to sound more like Krall as she messed around with the vid.

I'll have to watch it again but I was definitely confused at the time.

For those interested the Empire Soiler Special went up yesterday. Their interviews are usually pretty insightful.

Bacchus

FunLover18 wrote: »

I completely forgot that was her field of expertise, was it mentioned in the film? I genuinely can't remember. If it was his voice she recognized than the camera should have focused on her face as she listened rather than video as she kept rewinding, it gave the impression she was recognising something visual that the audience should also spot. But at least that's solved now.

It's not a failing of the movie (the third in this series, 9th featuring the character and 3 seasons of the character) that they don't do a role call of each characters skill set. It wasn't explicitly said in this movie but was in the first entry of this trilogy.

As I said, I thought it was very obvious and a great use of her skilz to reveal the twist.

AMKC

FunLover18 wrote: »

I completely forgot that was her field of expertise, was it mentioned in the film? I genuinely can't remember. If it was his voice she recognized than the camera should have focused on her face as she listened rather than video as she kept rewinding, it gave the impression she was recognising something visual that the audience should also spot. But at least that's solved now.

In the first film of this series of films when Kirk is trying to chat her up in the bar is when she mentions it.

I absolutely loved how the universal translator worked in this movie!

Inquitus

Went to a 3D Imax to watch this as I am in the states on my own for the weekend due to work, worst of the new breed of movies by far, it was terrible, bad plot, stupid in a lot of ways, very disappointed.

Avatar MIA

Inquitus wrote: »

Went to a 3D Imax to watch this as I am in the states on my own for the weekend due to work, worst of the new breed of movies by far, it was terrible, bad plot, stupid in a lot of ways, very disappointed.

VHF being used in the vacuum of space to instantly destroy millions of ships. :pac:

SarahBM

SarahBM wrote: »

I think it was the voice she recognized. She is a xenolingustic specialist after all.

Jesus Christ, are people actually complaining about this.

Avatar MIA

Avatar MIA wrote: »

VHF being used in the vacuum of space to instantly destroy millions of ships. :pac:

I'm sorry but what has a vacuum to do with VHF signals at all?

Avatar MIA

Deleted User wrote: »

I'm sorry but what has a vacuum to do with VHF signals at all?

Sound waves don't travel in space.

Mickeroo

Avatar MIA wrote: »

Sound waves don't travel in space.

I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong, but a vhf uses radio waves rather than sound waves to transmit its signal. Radio waves are electromagnetic radiation and can travel easily through a vacuum.

Memnoch

Dull as dishwater. No real coherence to the story. Another boring summer blockbuster. Independence Day, ghostbusters and now trek. Not a single good tentpole so far.