Film Discussion - 2016

15I STAR TREK: BEYOND I Film Discussion

I've got to say, 2016 has not ben a bad year for franchises. With the exception of Batman V Superman, which was panned by critics, and X-men: Apocalypse, which slipped disappointingly into obscurity, the franchise movies this year had done really well. We've had Civil War, Finding Dory and many other sequels that did not disappoint at all. For me though, the biggest surprise of them all had to be the third installment in the Star Trek franchise. Despite having absolutely no hope for the movie to be anything beyond mindless entertainment, the movie did turn out to be genuinely good.

The keyword here is fun – not the kind of fun where you sit back and let your hormones run wild with the explosions and cheesy lines. No, we're talking about the kind of fun where you're invested in a story that has good characters and a well-progressed plot.

This movie once again follows Captain Kirk and the crew of the Starship enterprise on their adventures across the final frontiers. In this movie, a terrifying swarm of bee-like space armada attacks the ship. The crew becomes stranded on an unknown planet where some of them are held captive by their attackers. The villain of the movie, played effectively by Idris Elba, hunts down the rest of the crew.

The first few scenes of the movie immediately sucked me in.

From the start, the movie exhibits a sense of fun and adventure in a scene where Kirk has to negotiate peace between two species. The scene is played for laughs and it shows the sharp sense of humor the film has.

And then the movie starts going into some pretty deep themes. Kirk actually says one of my favorite quote from the movie right in the beginning – "It's hard to stay grounded when even gravity is artificial."

Somehow the scriptwriters are able to capture the sense of loneliness and uncertainty of life in space. This ties in perfectly to Kirk's character development. Soon after, we get some development with Spock's characters too – something tragic happens. This couples with the fact that 90% of his species is gone are heavy weights for Spock to carry.

Character developments such as these are important for me. If an action sequence is to mean anything, I must care about the characters onscreen. I must believe that they are real. The only way for me to se that they are real is if they exhibit personality and emotion. The characters of the Starship enterprise are not dealt with as deeply as Kirk or Spock but there are scenes that emphasize the fact that they are human. There is a scene where Sulu is seen walking with his spouse and his girl – that's only a couple of seconds but it is so important. After that scene, the audience will now care if he lives or die. We get scenes of the crew fooling around, trying to catch some aliens jumping around in the ship – these scenes are not only comedic but because they portray the crew as simple everyday people, they create an anchor of emotions. We, the viewers, now feel a connection with these people.

So when the bee armada attacks the ship, the action sequence, although not anything special, seems to feel tenser, more suspenseful. I was genuinely anxious about the crew; I was worried if they were going to make it out alive.

The movie then sort of splits up into different stories.

My favorite group in the entire cast has to be the pairing between Spock and Bone. They have to survive together and they don't get along. It makes for some really funny moments as well as some dramatic moments. Some of the lines that they speak to each other are downright profound.

I guess the credit is really for the writers of the movie. When Spock says "Fear of death is illogical," Bone gives a perfect response to that: "Fear of death is what keeps us alive."

Of the three Star Trek movies we've had so far, this is by far the most well written.

Justin Lin also surprised me. I was skeptical that someone who did a B-movie franchise like Fast and Furious could tackle and all-out sci-fi like Star Trek. But he did it really well! The direction is really tight, when a new character is introduced, the movie doesn't dwell too much on her. The plot advances efficiently. The pacing is really good. When a scene is supposed to convey exposition, it's done well. When a scene is supposed to express emotion, Lin use visuals to minimize the time taken and to prevent lingering.

The only problem I may have is that the villain could've been explored a little more. But Idris Elba did really well and I am satisfied with the result.

The movie knows what it is. I would compare this movie to Kung Fu Panda 3. Both movies are very self-aware and use tight storytelling and writing to entertain its audience while not negating the development of the characters. This is the first new Trek film that actually feels like a really nice episode of a TV show. This is good because there is something quite worrying happening with some franchises these days. The best example is Star Trek before this movie, and the Bond franchise. Every movie tries to be the big one or the emotional crux of the franchise. This leads to every movie trying to be big and forgetting to be simply entertaining. This is not the case with Beyond. The movie has a cool villain but he's not the ultimate baddy. It explores the character but doesn't go all-out with them. It's a cool episode that I can always watch. The movie definitely gives me hope the franchise will continue.