THAT'S MORE LIKE IT.
As Civil War was bound to be unable to fully live up to expectations after Winter Soldier, Star Trek: Beyond was bound to be better than Into Darkness.
AND IT IS.
Like, okay, it's not a perfect Trek movie, but it has a hell of a lot more genuine Trek DNA than ST:ID did. It's thoughtful in places, and hopeful in places--places that require hope to stand deliberately against despair and destruction--and it presents a vision of the future where people find their purpose and place in the universe and do good things as a result.
And it's FUN. The Bones-and-Spock Show--every moment the two of them share, basically--is a highlight, as is Scotty. I'm mad at whoever decided to put 'Sabotage' in the very first trailer that was released for this movie, because if it hadn't been there, I might not have IMMEDIATELY figured out where they were heading when they started talking about disrupting the "bees" with a radio frequency. (Sheds a new light on why Simon Pegg was so obviously less than impressed with that trailer.)
Justin Lin's action-director use of space was EXCELLENT, and gave me my first ever moment of 3D-inflicted vertigo. (The introduction to Yorktown, with the camera's long, slow swoop around all the Escher-esque architectural twists. Woo, artificial gravity!)
Jaylah was great, if possessed of some predictable character tropes. I hope she comes back in future movies.
"Commodore Paris", eh? (Yay, Shohreh Aghdashloo!) And we have a second reference to Enterprise with the Xindi War, following the reference to Porthos in the first reboot movie. Technically, the Cardassian Sunrise mentioned in the first movie could count as a shoutout to either TNG or DS9, but now that both ENT and VOY have had explicit shoutouts, I'm >:( about the lack of TNG/DS9 references. (Unless I'm forgetting one from ST:ID? It's possible; I tried not to internalise much from that one.)
Naming Edison's lost ship the Franklin was a nice touch.
I LOVED the floating dandelion-jellyfish-hybrid things on the planet. A small touch (visually; probably pretty intensive for the SFX people), but really great for establishing the alienness of the world.
Finally: "In memory of Leonard Nimoy" and "For Anton" ♥
This content is also available at http://serrico.dreamwidth.org/873407.html. Comment here or there, whichever you prefer. (Over there, there are
comments.)
AND IT IS.
Like, okay, it's not a perfect Trek movie, but it has a hell of a lot more genuine Trek DNA than ST:ID did. It's thoughtful in places, and hopeful in places--places that require hope to stand deliberately against despair and destruction--and it presents a vision of the future where people find their purpose and place in the universe and do good things as a result.
And it's FUN. The Bones-and-Spock Show--every moment the two of them share, basically--is a highlight, as is Scotty. I'm mad at whoever decided to put 'Sabotage' in the very first trailer that was released for this movie, because if it hadn't been there, I might not have IMMEDIATELY figured out where they were heading when they started talking about disrupting the "bees" with a radio frequency. (Sheds a new light on why Simon Pegg was so obviously less than impressed with that trailer.)
Justin Lin's action-director use of space was EXCELLENT, and gave me my first ever moment of 3D-inflicted vertigo. (The introduction to Yorktown, with the camera's long, slow swoop around all the Escher-esque architectural twists. Woo, artificial gravity!)
Jaylah was great, if possessed of some predictable character tropes. I hope she comes back in future movies.
"Commodore Paris", eh? (Yay, Shohreh Aghdashloo!) And we have a second reference to Enterprise with the Xindi War, following the reference to Porthos in the first reboot movie. Technically, the Cardassian Sunrise mentioned in the first movie could count as a shoutout to either TNG or DS9, but now that both ENT and VOY have had explicit shoutouts, I'm >:( about the lack of TNG/DS9 references. (Unless I'm forgetting one from ST:ID? It's possible; I tried not to internalise much from that one.)
Naming Edison's lost ship the Franklin was a nice touch.
I LOVED the floating dandelion-jellyfish-hybrid things on the planet. A small touch (visually; probably pretty intensive for the SFX people), but really great for establishing the alienness of the world.
Finally: "In memory of Leonard Nimoy" and "For Anton" ♥
This content is also available at http://serrico.dreamwidth.org/873407.html. Comment here or there, whichever you prefer. (Over there, there are
comments.)