Star Trek Beyond

50 years it has been, since the U.S.S. Enterprise, NCC-1701, embarked on her first journey into the unknown. 5 TV-Shows, 13 Movies, and a cult following that knows no equal. And this year, for the 50th anniversary, we can join the crew around Captain James T. Kirk and Commander Spock once again, as they face a viscous adversary in the uncharted depths of space. The Enterprise is on currently on her 966th day of their five year deep space mission. And even though the crew has been making a number of new discoveries and allies along the way, life on the ship has in many ways become a, at least sometimes, tedious routine. Nevertheless, the crew is working closer together than ever, in some cases many even a little too close. After a failed diplomatic mission, in which Kirk was acting as a negotiator between two rival species, the Captain decides that it is time to break the monotony of life in space and orders to set course on Yorktown station, the Federation’s most advanced star base.

As the ship docks at the station, Spock receives troubling news, his older counterpart, Ambassador Spock died, a moment the filmmakers use to pay tribute to Leonard Nimoy who played the role of Spock in the original series and who passed away last year. Not long after the arrival on Yorktown, the station receives a distress call from an unknown ship. Kirk and his crew set out to a nearby nebula to assist in the search and rescue, but upon arrival they are immediately attacked by a swarm of hundreds of thousands of small ships. Krall, the ruthless commander of these forces is on the hunt for an ancient artefact, a weapon of such power, that it’s creators divided it into two pieces that were launched to the stars, for that they would be lost forever in the vastness of space. And one of these pieces is on board the Enterprise. In the aftermath of the attack, Kirk and his crew have gather everything they have, with all odds stacked against them.

And this is the point where this movie gets awesome!
With the main cast of crew members separated after Krall’s first attack, some unlikely constellations are formed as the crew crash lands on an alien world. Spock and Dr. McCoy managed to escape on an enemy ship and went down on the planet below, Scottie put himself in a torpedo to safely leave the engineering bay and meets a young, alien woman who has once been Krall’s prisoner, while Kirk and Chekov use the escape-pods to leave the bridge with the woman who initially called for their help back on Yorktown. And I’ve got to say, nothing has been more delightful in this movie, than McCoy and an injured Spock, together and alone in some of the greatest and funniest conversations in the franchises history. And this is a theme throughout the whole movie, the personal bonds that this crew has amongst each other as family, and the value and strength of unity in a time of crisis. The usually cold hearted Spock and misanthropic McCoy opening up, a previously rather insecure Checkov who really steps up, and (even though there’s nothing new there) a still incredibly witty Scotty (played by the hilarious Simon Pegg, who also wrote the screenplay). It is a return to form. And it easily manages to pack the movie with references for fans of the franchise without alienating (no pun intended) newcomers to Star Trek. It’s a shame that it took them 3 movies in this new series to finally make a movie that incapsulates more of the core of Star Trek.
But better late than never. And a new movie has already been announced before the films release. I’m just glad that my excitement paid off.

With this, live long and prosper.
To Leonard Nimoy and Anton Yelchin.

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Beitragsbild: Kevin Wendlandt
Fotos: Paramount