"This is where the frontier pushes back."
Hello everyone!
Back after my week-long break, and I'm feeling quite happy with how everything turned out. I settled what needed settling, finished some of the things that had been bugging me for a while, and also managed to get a good, big chunk of my fanfiction written, as well. And with 'big chunk' I mean roughly 110 Word pages, which I suppose in a standard reading format would be around 220-230? Somewhere around there, but I still need to finish up.
I kind of left it for another time, though, as it's all about the funerals and leave-takings and whatnot, and I didn't want to end on a super sad note!
So today I'm back with a movie review of a movie I'd seen a while back but never actually got to writing a review about. They had a thing here on TV where they aired Star Trek first, then it was Star Trek: Into Darkness, and then I decided why not round it all up and finish with the latest of the lot, Star Trek Beyond?
After all, I'd seen the trailers and LOVED it.
I didn't love the finished product any less, either.
Star Trek Beyond starts us off in the middle of where we ended at the time of Into Darkness, when the poor Enterprise got a rehaul after the fight against Khan and was sent on a five-year mission into Deep Space.
Like, no other humans around, deep space I mean.
Somewhere in the middle, or a little into two thirds of the trip, Captain James T. Kirk and his crew are on a peacekeeping mission between two alien nations, with our captain delivering a piece of a weapon from one side of the argument to the other, and ending with a whole lot of little alien lions (I can't think of a better way to describe them than as a cross between lions and the wild beasts that pulled Grond in Lord of the Rings) trying to tear him up like that monster book in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.
Poor Kirk, another shirt ruined.
He is also contemplating life, his father, his future, as his birthday draws near, one where he will be older than his father ever got to be (if we recall, in this version of events George Kirk ends up dead on the day James is born), and what he'll do with himself.
See, space can get a bit repetitive, and Kirk is losing himself in the mundane doings, which is why he applied for Vice Admiral.
Luckily, they're scheduled for a stop at Yorktown, which, according to our beloved Dr. McCoy aka Bones, looks just about the same as a snow globe in space.
But everyone pretty much jumps from the ship to mingle with some actual people, and we get to see an interesting moment between Uhura and Spock, where she wants to return a necklace he had given her (something he adamantly refuses) and we get the idea that the two have parted ways for some reason or another.
Cue me, as fangirl, going OH HECK NO.
I digress.
Spock gets word that Spock Prime has passed on, as this is a living tribute to Leonard Nimoy who has, in fact, passed beyond.
Meanwhile, while our heroes are enjoying the comfort of a city, a distress call comes in from an unidentified ship, and Kirk & Co are soon enlisted for help, as the captain says her ship is stranded on a planet beyond the nebula, which only the Enterprise can get through because of its superior navigational system.
This they do ... and end up under attack by what looks like a swarm of space pods, leaving Kirk with no choice but to have everyone abandon ship, himself included.
But not before we get to meet the movie's big bad, Krall, who is on the hunt for just that piece of weapon Kirk was seen handling at the beginning of the movie (at which point I remember that as Spock was cataloguing the thing, the screen on the Enterprise flickered for a moment, indicating something happening in the background).
Kirk foils Krall, but the Enterprise crashes onto this unknown planet, with everyone scattered about in escape pods (or, in the case of Spock and McCoy, an alien space ... motor? The way Bones has to ride that thing, I'd say motorbike), and most of the crew captured by Krall.
At this point, the story is a bit scattered as we follow each individual or pairing, and they're all pretty unique, actually: unlike in previous movies, there are some new developments here.
Kirk and Chekov go with the alien captain to try and reach the crew from the Enterprise, during which they discover their 'ally' is actually working for Krall, and they end up smashing her into a pancake when they flip the Enterprice saucer with the thrusters.
Also, Chekov pointing out that Kirk shooting at what's virtually a big bomb in exasperated panic was one of the highlights of the movie. Who cares if it's round or square as long as it goes boom, right?!
Spock and Bones have crash-landed, and Spock is dangerously close to actually dying, what with a big wad of metal sticking out next to his heart. Bones performs very rudamentary surgery, inciting our beloved Vulcan to coin the phrase 'horseshit' while he's at it. The two have a heart-to-heart where Spock admits he's debating leaving Starfleet and continuing Spock Prime's work on New Vulcan, which obviously Uhura is unhappy about since it would include making little baby Vulcans with someone other than her.
Elsewhere, Uhura and Sulu, who are with the captive crew, make a futile attempt at sending an SOS signal back to Yorktown, not that it works since Krall intercepted and changed the coordinates.
Also, they learn this bad guy can suck the life right out of any living being, pulling it into himself.
Ew, anyone?
Lastly, Scotty has crash landed all on his own, and would have perished all on his own at the hands of scavengers, too, if not for a white-skinned alien, Jayla, who saves him and, upon seeing his Starfleet insignia, invites him back to her 'house', which is actually a starship that everyone thought had gone missing way, way back.
One by one, the survivors manage to get together and hatch a plan to rescue the crew from Krall, who at this time has recovered the piece of weapon he needed, and activated a bioweapon which can pretty much wipe out anything and anyone if used correctly.
So, with Kirk on a motorcycle, his team tagging along, everyone does what they do best - which is pretty much making all hell break loose while saving the rest of those dear to them.
Now though, they need to hustle over to Yorktown before Krall infiltrates it, kills everyone in it, and goes further into civilisation with his bioweapon.
This includes, but is not limited to, getting a starship that was never meant to take off from a planet to fly from a planet, and nearly dying in the process of dropping down a sheer mountainface while on said planet.
Luckily, we have a skilled crew in this movie, and we're off to Yorktown! Spock and Bones (to the doctor's everlasting irritation) again hop a ride along the spacebike and figure out they need to disrupt the frequency so the swarm of spacepods will break apart.
Jayla supplies the 'beat and shouting', very heavy music, which ends up oblitering everyone but Krall.
Krall actually gets into Yorktown, and Kirk hustles after him, because, newsflash: Krall is actually captain of the Starfleet ship which the Enterprise crew used to get off the planet, but the original crew got stranded on the wrong side of the nebula and their SOS signals were never tracked, so Starfleet never found them, while they thought they'd been abandoned to their fate. Krall is now pissed off at the Federation and wants to go back to how things were when neighbour fought neighbour, something Kirk will do anything to prevent.
In his own words: better to die defending millions than to live with killing them.
He ends up ejecting Krall and the bioweapon into space, but almost ends there himself. Luckily, Bones had at that point not figured out how to land his spacebike, and so he and Spock rescue their captain for a happily ever after.
To conclude, Kirk decides to turn down the position of Vice Admiral of the Fleet which he had applied for in the beginning to get out of space, and Spock decides to stay with Starfleet. Kirk instead pulls strings to get Jayla accepted into Starfleet Academy, and then our crew gather around for a birthday bash for Kirk while they look out at a new starship which is being constructed.
Its name?
"Space. The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds. To seek out new life, and new civilisations. To boldly go, where no one has gone before."
xx
*images and video not mine
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