Those of us who know and love Star Trek are fully aware of the enormous wealth of its universe (indeed several parallel universes, and even recently this reimagined timeline that is anathema to some, but acceptable to others including myself). The whole comprises tens of films and hundreds of episodes in many series, and even life-imitates-art aspects like comments made by makers and stars at Conventions years later! This all has the paradoxical effect (also very visible with series like the BBC's Dad's Army) that the version we hold in our imaginations is now always likely to be richer and more meaningful and greater than any individual installment - past or present - that we actually get to see. And that is as true of ST "The Original Series" as it is of Abrams's new offering "Beyond", not least given that many of the Kirk-Spock-Scott-McCoy outings from the 3rd season of the "Original" were weak, and only erased as turkeys from our memory by reappearances of the original cast in great films like STIV and STVI.
All of this is a lengthy if relevant way of building up to the idea that criticism of "Star Trek Beyond" (what a bad title, BTW!) for failing to match standards is inevitable, given that NO individual ST item can fully represent something that has notched up thousands of hours of screen time! Personally, I'm prepared to accept the revamped timeline in order to meet up again with beloved characters. And I don't even find the crossovers between timelines provided (perhaps now for the last time) by Nimoy-Spock and Quinto-Spock annoying. They touch the hearts of those of us who have been faithful to Star Trek for decades. It's also right that Quinto plays it a little differently to (if worse than) Nimoy, Pine likewise compared with Shatner, and Soldana with Nichols. Perhaps Karl Urban's McCoy is closest to the prototype (from DeForest Kelley), and after coming to that conclusion on the basis of three films, I'm not sure it's a good idea.
Anyway, these are characters we somehow know, diverging gradually from the universe we remember, but it's mostly OK and even fun. Scotty in this film resolves into a semi-comic character from Simon Pegg (who also co-wrote the episode), and even that's OK.
But of course a huge aspect of Trek is the way the key characters interact with each other - and with aliens they encounter. Idris Elba as the bad guy here does alright, but far more so in the last 10 minutes of the film than in the whole of the rest. Jaylah the alien played by Sofia Boutella is also moderately interesting in and of herself, and in the way she connects with our heroes. There are also moments here when all key characters seem to contribute to resolving a problem in a way that the Original would never have done, so plus-marks for that.
On the minus side, some dialogue is just plain banal, and we do get rather few of those profound moments so vital to the ST concept. To be fair though, these are NOT absent altogether, so the standard criticism of "dumbing-down" cannot be applied fully here. We do have some interesting and novel McCoy-Spock moments in this film, as well as Sulu-Uhura moments. The fact that Sulu has a male partner back in port is reasonable, and a fitting enough tribute to George Takei (art imitates life in this case). The Spock-Kirk interactions do not give us much that is new, and the idea that Captain and Number 1 both might have had faltering commitment at the same time is surely inconceivable for those of us who know and love those characters!! As others have pointed out, the whole pseudo-military and naval side of ST is vanishingly weak in this film. Clearly this matters less and less to 21st-century viewers, but hurts a bit if you're an old-timer.
Which brings us to the plot of "Beyond", which is neither especially interesting nor especially inspiring (but then that too could be said about many individual ST episodes). Many aspects are implausible (even beyond what we are used to), and not everything seems to gel into a logical and satisfying whole. Like several large-scale (and long) films of recent times, this one rather flies by without quite seeming to have given a full 122 minutes worth of content.
Effects take up quite a lot of that time (too much, of course), and in quality terms they naturally go way, way beyond what we remember from the old days - but also annoyingly so. Things go whizzing by at such speed that we still don't know at the end of a 2-hour film what we have really been seeing! To me that's an inexcusable sacrificing of substance for the sake of style. Likewise, the Bridge on the Enterprise is to a design so ludicrously "busy" that no crew could possibly function in it for 5 days, let alone 5 years! However, very much on the plus side is the boundless imagination that has gone into conceptualising both the Yorktown Space Station and the planet Altamid. These aspects made the film for me, along with certain serious and comedic interactions between the main characters.
Overall, then, this is a mixed bag of a Star Trek film that will doubtless prove quite acceptable to viewers with less historical and emotional Trek baggage. Old-timers may find it more problematical, but will probably (mostly) conclude as I do that better this Trek than no Trek at all. Given my own clear conviction (expressed in other IMDb reviews) that better no new "Independence Day" than the new outing, and better no contemporary "Star Wars" than the latest offering, this may be considered reasonable praise for the makers of "Star Trek Beyond", and for the film itself.
All of this is a lengthy if relevant way of building up to the idea that criticism of "Star Trek Beyond" (what a bad title, BTW!) for failing to match standards is inevitable, given that NO individual ST item can fully represent something that has notched up thousands of hours of screen time! Personally, I'm prepared to accept the revamped timeline in order to meet up again with beloved characters. And I don't even find the crossovers between timelines provided (perhaps now for the last time) by Nimoy-Spock and Quinto-Spock annoying. They touch the hearts of those of us who have been faithful to Star Trek for decades. It's also right that Quinto plays it a little differently to (if worse than) Nimoy, Pine likewise compared with Shatner, and Soldana with Nichols. Perhaps Karl Urban's McCoy is closest to the prototype (from DeForest Kelley), and after coming to that conclusion on the basis of three films, I'm not sure it's a good idea.
Anyway, these are characters we somehow know, diverging gradually from the universe we remember, but it's mostly OK and even fun. Scotty in this film resolves into a semi-comic character from Simon Pegg (who also co-wrote the episode), and even that's OK.
But of course a huge aspect of Trek is the way the key characters interact with each other - and with aliens they encounter. Idris Elba as the bad guy here does alright, but far more so in the last 10 minutes of the film than in the whole of the rest. Jaylah the alien played by Sofia Boutella is also moderately interesting in and of herself, and in the way she connects with our heroes. There are also moments here when all key characters seem to contribute to resolving a problem in a way that the Original would never have done, so plus-marks for that.
On the minus side, some dialogue is just plain banal, and we do get rather few of those profound moments so vital to the ST concept. To be fair though, these are NOT absent altogether, so the standard criticism of "dumbing-down" cannot be applied fully here. We do have some interesting and novel McCoy-Spock moments in this film, as well as Sulu-Uhura moments. The fact that Sulu has a male partner back in port is reasonable, and a fitting enough tribute to George Takei (art imitates life in this case). The Spock-Kirk interactions do not give us much that is new, and the idea that Captain and Number 1 both might have had faltering commitment at the same time is surely inconceivable for those of us who know and love those characters!! As others have pointed out, the whole pseudo-military and naval side of ST is vanishingly weak in this film. Clearly this matters less and less to 21st-century viewers, but hurts a bit if you're an old-timer.
Which brings us to the plot of "Beyond", which is neither especially interesting nor especially inspiring (but then that too could be said about many individual ST episodes). Many aspects are implausible (even beyond what we are used to), and not everything seems to gel into a logical and satisfying whole. Like several large-scale (and long) films of recent times, this one rather flies by without quite seeming to have given a full 122 minutes worth of content.
Effects take up quite a lot of that time (too much, of course), and in quality terms they naturally go way, way beyond what we remember from the old days - but also annoyingly so. Things go whizzing by at such speed that we still don't know at the end of a 2-hour film what we have really been seeing! To me that's an inexcusable sacrificing of substance for the sake of style. Likewise, the Bridge on the Enterprise is to a design so ludicrously "busy" that no crew could possibly function in it for 5 days, let alone 5 years! However, very much on the plus side is the boundless imagination that has gone into conceptualising both the Yorktown Space Station and the planet Altamid. These aspects made the film for me, along with certain serious and comedic interactions between the main characters.
Overall, then, this is a mixed bag of a Star Trek film that will doubtless prove quite acceptable to viewers with less historical and emotional Trek baggage. Old-timers may find it more problematical, but will probably (mostly) conclude as I do that better this Trek than no Trek at all. Given my own clear conviction (expressed in other IMDb reviews) that better no new "Independence Day" than the new outing, and better no contemporary "Star Wars" than the latest offering, this may be considered reasonable praise for the makers of "Star Trek Beyond", and for the film itself.