Star Trek Beyond / YMMV

Adorkable: Jaylah. She's an action girl through and through, but she also has a very endearing and honest personality, qualifying her for maybe even Badass Adorable. Heck, it's all in the final battle: She enthusiastically picks out the Beastie Boys as their radio jammer!
Alternate Character Interpretation: Krall gets a bit of this. Is he an irredeemable, warmongering Blood Knight who couldn't be bothered to change his ways when he was reassigned around the time the Federation was formed or does he count as a Tragic Villain because of this? This is even discussed In-Universe between Paris and Kirk.
Angst? What Angst?: Kirk is rather nonchalant about Ambassador Spock's death. This is strange because Kirk seemed to have the deepest bond with him in the first movie and even shared a Mind Meld with him. Admittedly he found out about it offscreen, so it's possible he did grieve and we just didn't see it. But when Spock and even McCoy express more emotion over it than he does, it's a little jarring. On the other hand, with the number of death reports Kirk had to fill out for the crew of the Enterprise, he may be just a little bit numb with the wash of tragedy.
Award Snub: Let's just say that Trekkies were not happy when this movie lost the Academy Award for Best Makeup to, of all films, the incredibly Base Breaking Suicide Squad (2016). Best summed up in this meme.◊
Awesome Music:
- Aside from Beastie Boys's "Sabotage", there's Michael Giacchino's "Night on the Yorktown", a beautiful track that compliments the introduction of the Yorktown Starbase and its wonderful visuals.
- Rihanna's Sledgehammer is a chilly electropop song that plays during the closing credits.
Broken Base: Sulu being revealed to be gay. While many fans are naturally ecstatic at the franchise getting its first explicitly gay character after numerous false starts over its run, others (including Sulu's original actor George Takei himself) deride it as a gimmick based on Takei's sexuality and an affront to Gene Roddenberry's original concept for the character,^note and say if the crew really wanted to include a gay character, it should have been someone new. Some also believe that revealing that Sulu had been gay the whole time implies that he was in the closet for the entirety of the original series. Simon Pegg tried using Word of God to say that Cho's Sulu's sexual orientation is different from Takei's Sulu,^note but this has its own problems. Then there's people who just think it was a mistake to make a big thing of it (for the record, the movie itself doesn't: Sulu's husband is visible for twenty seconds total and could easily be mistaken for a platonic family member taking only the film itself as evidence). That is problematic as well in that it looks like the studio did it in a way that wouldn't offend anyone that might find it offensive, barely different than what Roddenberry was allowed. They could have shown what was shown in this film back in the 60s TV show.
Character Rerailment:
- Thanks in part to the three years spent out in space, Kirk is more competent overall and more humble than he was in the previous two movies, bringing him more in line with Prime Kirk. He also has similar angst (feeling like he's just the Enterprise), but goes off in a different direction, Prime Kirk never getting out of Married to the Job, Reboot Kirk initially wanting to move on as he's Seen It All.
- Karl Urban was considering leaving after two movies, not having much to do as Bones except complain at everything. Luckily they remembered that the original McCoy also gave advice and had fun in his snark for this one.
Contested Sequel: Though not to the same degree as the 2009 entry or especially Into Darkness, but for all the fans who deemed Beyond a Surprisingly Improved Sequel that hails closer to the original series' tone, there are at least some disgruntled Trek fans who deem it not different enough from its two predecessors while still having too much action to count as Star Trek in the first place.
Critical Dissonance: Critical reception for Beyond has been good but not as strong as the previous two films, with an 83% on Rotten Tomatoes (tied with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home) and a 68 on Metacritic (in comparison to Star Trek (2009) and Into Darkness, which hold a 94% and 87% on the former and an 81 and 72 on the latter). Fan opinion, on the other hand, has been much more enthusiastic, even going so far as to say that Beyond is the closest the series has come to capturing the tone and ideas of The Original Series than the previous two films.
Cry for the Devil: It is easy to feel this way toward Krall/Balthazar Edison. The man, trained from the ground up as a soldier, fights for United Earth and humanity against both the Xindi and the Romulans back in the day, ensuring that the former two not only survive in either conflict but outright win. Then all of a sudden the Federation is formed and everything Edison believed in/fought for either changes or no longer exists, up to and including soldiers and war being treated as "obsolete"^note. And to make matters worse, the Federation, in their usual anti-militarism, doesn't even place Balthazar in a role that would make use of his skills and experience, but instead dumps him on a starship^note and expects him to play explorer like everyone else, something Edison never wished to be. And that's all before the Franklin crash lands on a distant, unexplored planet, leaving her crew stranded, with the Federation then promptly giving them up for dead. All that taken in, it's no wonder Edison and his crew turned to hate the Federation and all it stood for, even if their means of taking the fight back to it were unnecessarily extreme.
Ensemble Dark Horse: For obvious reasons, Jaylah is a big hit. So much so in fact that there is rather high demand for her to become a permanent member of the Enterprise's crew, such as becoming the head of security or taking over Chekov's slot as navigator.
Fanfic Fuel: Since the Franklin was lost before the timeline split, there may be a Prime universe version of Krall out there.
Genius Bonus: Then naming of the two Federation ships featured in this film. The Enterprise was named after the aircraft carrier Enterprise, which was launched shortly before the original series was filmed, the most advanced carrier in the world and the first powered by nuclear reactors. However, the USS Franklin was also a real ship that suffered horrendous damage in WWII yet refused to sink and ended up sailing again. Thus, for any history buffs in the audience, the fate of the Franklin is foreshadowed.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- When Kirk and Bones hold a little impromptu birthday celebration and memorial for Kirk's father, Bones pours a third glass of scotch. While in the film it's meant to be a a memorial to Kirk's father, fans could also easily interpret as an unintentional memorial to Anton Yelchin, Chekov's actor who died in a car accident before the film was released. What also makes this hit harder is that Bones found the scotch in Chekov's locker.
- Pops up again at the end; Kirk makes a toast to fallen friends, and the cut to the crowd around him has Chekov right in the center.
- Admiral Marcus's case in Into Darkness was that the Federation, in its present state, was ill-prepared to fight against a brutal, war-oriented race such as the Klingon Empire. In Beyond, the original defense measures that were setup in Enterprise to fight the Xindi and the Romulans, up to and including MACO, are shown to have been removed/disbanded, with the Federation adopting the same anti-militaristic "war is obsolete" stance that nearly led United Earth (and humanity et al) to its destruction. Needless to say, a lot fans feel that Marcus's point continues to be made beyond the grave.
- Kirk and Chekov kill Kalara by activating the thrusters, flipping the saucer section on top of her. Anton Yelchin was killed when his car rolled on an incline, pinning him to a fence.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- To disguise the reveal that he was Khan in Star Trek Into Darkness, John Harrison was advertised as a Starfleet agent who felt betrayed by the Federation, gained powers, and decided to wipe them out. Cut to Beyond and that's what Krall is revealed to be. And Krall's motives were disguised in another case of Never Trust a Trailer.
- In Guardians of the Galaxy (2014), Zoë Saldana (who plays Lieutenant Nyota Uhura in this movie) plays Gamora. There is a scene where Gamora is offered Peter's Walkman and after listening to part of a song, proclaims loudly, "The melody is pleasant!" In Star Trek Beyond, Jaylah is listening to music on her spaceship and tells Scotty, "I like the beats and the shouting!" While the parallel was probably unintentional, it's quite sweet.
- Scotty beams Spock and Bones away separately so that there's no chance of them splicing together, a decision Bones wholeheartedly agrees with. In the original films, this exact scenario plays out as part of Spock's resurrection.
- Yorktown station is just like the station of Elysium, and Captain Robau turned up as Elysium's president.
It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: After Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, The Undiscovered Country, Generations, Nemesis and Into Darkness, are we really going through this "the Enterprise gets wrecked/destroyed" thing again? Indeed, one of the most common criticisms of the film by reviewers, even the ones who liked it, is that it's too formulaic and doesn't tread much new ground. This is, however, seen as a positive by some viewers, since the movie does embrace the original series in a way that the previous two movies did not. The fact that Enterprise goes out fighting her heart out against impossible odds (compared to Search for Spock and Generations) was also praised.^note
Memetic Mutation: The reaction to the debut trailer has spawned a meme showing a disturbed McCoy with the phrase "I knew I should have kept the Gruddamn helmet on!"
Narm:
- The climax involves blasting music at the swarm to make its ships explode. Then again, for some, the way the whole scene is shot makes it absolutely epic.
- Krall draining the life from two bound, screaming Enterprise crew mates—terrifying. Krall doing it while they're hanging upside down for no particular reason—rather ridiculous.
Narm Charm:
- The lyrics for the film theme song, "Sledgehammer", are more than a little cliched and silly—but Rihanna makes them work.
- The way Krall speaks in the last part of the movie, when he's been returned to an almost human form. He can barely enunciate, and there is almost as much spit as there are words. It should be hard to take seriously, but thanks to Idris Elba's powerful performance, coupled with the fact that Krall is a Tragic Villain who has lost his humanity, it works perfectly.
- The aforementioned climax where the crew literally use The Power of Rock to destroy the swarm. Is it ridiculous? Absolutely. Still, it's totally in character for this version of Kirk (who's been established as a Beastie Boys fan since the first film)and Pine completely sells it in the moment. It's clear the film knows damn well how silly the moment is and is invoking MST3K Mantra to the audience, and combined with the way the scene is shot and the funny character dialogue during it it's surprisingly effective.
Realism-Induced Horror: The main villain featured here seems to be a supervillain at first glance, but it turns out they are none other than Balthazar Edison. What makes Balthazar tragic and hit close to home is that he became disillusioned with the Federation and its democratic ideals and wanted to topple the Federation with a military coup d'état using the superior technology he exploited, much like has happened throughout Earth's history even without such a technological advantage.
Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: With all the nostalgic call backs and meaningful references to it, this film has made a few fans appreciate Star Trek: Enterprise a lot more than when it first came out.
Rooting for the Empire: Not nearly as much as it had been for Admiral Marcus in the last movie, but after learning Krall's/Edison's past, it's hard not to root for him taking the fight to the Federation (at least until you realize he's out to commit genocide). Part of this is, once again, rooted in the Federation's anti-militarism, namely their disbanding MACO^note and forcing Edison, then a MACO Major and a veteran of two interstellar wars against humanity, into the role of a starship captain. Needless to say, a lot of fans were quite displeased with either point.
Special Effects Failure: While the special effects have generally been praised, some critics have pointed out that the quality of the CGI used for the bike riding scene doesn't quite match up to the rest of the film.
Star Trek Movie Curse: The film is held up as further "evidence" that the "curse" has seemingly been inverted in the 21st Century. After the Contested Sequel that was Into Darkness, Beyond turned out to be an Surprisingly Improved Sequel, receiving widespread praise from both fans and critics.
Status Quo Is God: Over the course of the film, Spock and Uhura attempt to end their relationship, Kirk becomes bored of his role as captain and envisions retirement as vice-admiral with Spock to replace him, the Enterprise is destroyed, and the meaning of the Federation and itsintentions are questioned, as well as all the good it allegedly brings. By the end of the movie, Spock and Uhura are together again, Kirk doesn't want to retire anymore nor promote Spock to Captain, the Enterprise is rebuilt as the Enterprise-A and the Federation's role is no longer debated, nor does it have to adapt in light of new events.
Surprisingly Improved Sequel: After the divided fan response on the first two Kelvin Timeline films, Star Trek Beyond is largely regarded as easily the best of the Kelvin series so far, and by some to even be one of the best Star Trek films ever made. No silly stuff like the magic blood or interstellar transporters (with the possible exception of the Power of Rock scene depending on whom you ask), just great double act moments between Bones and Spock, good Character Development for all concerned, and few obvious scale issues, Series Continuity Errors, or Plot Holes. Kirk in particular acts much more mature and professional in this film, making him more like his prime counterpart and less like the reckless Idiot Hero of the previous films.
Tainted by the Preview: While the last two films were divisive for featuring more action-heavy elements, the trailer for Beyond pushed the Actionized Sequel elements up to eleven, complete with a Beastie Boys song serving as the trailer music and a motorcycle chase scene. This has wound up turning off several fans who feel that the producers are marketing it as if it followed The Fast and the Furious formula and slapping the Star Trek name onto it. How bad was it? Simon Pegg himself openly stated in an interview that it did a terrible job representing the film (and director Justin Lin backed the sentiment), and begged the fans not to make snap judgments. The next trailer was better received, and the film ended up pleasing (most) fans; unfortunately, the film ended up a Box Office Bomb, indicating that the damage caused by the initial trailer may have been too much to overcome.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: The idea behind Krall is interesting, but for most of the film he's giving vague aphorisms about his philosophy. Once Kirk does figure out who he is and confronts him about it he's able to spend a matter of seconds giving a Motive Rant. Considering he's played by Idris Elba this seems like a horrible missed opportunity, especially when you compare him to a villain like Khan, whom we get to know so well.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
- Krall's weapon. We know that one species had it and offered part of it to another species as part of peace talks. We don't know why it exists, who created it, for what conflict, what makes it special, if it has any non-militaristic uses, or what the ethical issues with its existence are. Previous Trek films and shows dealt with all of these issues when the crew faced past super weapons. Here, we just have "the weapon."
- Many fans have also wondered just what the point of using the weapon within in the context of this film even was considering that he had more than enough power with his bee-ships and stolen data to overrun the Federation with or without it. It would have worked a lot better if Krall was working on his own with a little more than a couple of goons to his name.
Visual Effects of Awesome:
- The "gravitational lensing" effect of the Enterprise at warp, which has never been seen before.
- The introduction of Starbase Yorktown could give The Citadel a run for its money.
Win Back the Crowd:
- After the poor showing of the first trailer, which was nothing but ridiculous action scenes, the second trailer brought about a much more warmer response, especially when it teased the film's callback to Star Trek: Enterprise.
- On a larger note, the writers and director are hoping to win back the Star Trek fans who were turned off by the previous two J. J. Abrams movies, which many dismissed as being too generic, too action-heavy (or worse, too Star Wars-y).

YMMV / Star Trek Beyond

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