Blu-ray Review Star Trek Beyond Blu-ray Review (1 Viewer)

[Neil Middlemiss]

Neil; You changed the image above from the TMP refit Enterprise to the JJprise!

I did. There was apparently an issue with the first cast picture I used, and the image was changed to a cool shot of the Enterprise, but from the wrong timeline (as you correctly noted) so I found another ship shot that I liked from the right timeline

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Watched STAR TREK BEYOND or the first time in 3D Blu-ray Atmos.

Fairly decent Star Trek film. Far better than the second film (which was a remake of Khan), but for me, a bit too long despite some pretty damn good action sequences.

The 3D was no big shakes. While, at times, it added spaciousness to the ship or planet environments, it felt mostly flat for most of the film. I really don't see how 3D added anything spectacular to this viewing.

The Dolby Atmos was very good. The sound team did some nice overhead mixing that I was able to pick out during the presentation.

In all, a favorable Star Trek film.

 

[Nelson Au]

I watched the 2D blu-ray last night. I did have a look at the 3D disc for the first 15 minutes. I was saying in another thread about this blu-ray that my eyes don't always work for 3D. Though I did see some depth, it wasn't a real eye popper as Ron said. ( I'll have a look at more scenes though, I'm curious. . ).

I also wasn't having any issues with the presentation being dark as some have commented on. I think it's not an overly brightly lit movie in particular scenes so it wasn't a distraction to me.

I thought this was the best of the three films as it felt the most like TOS. But it was also a TOS film homage in some ways as the TOS film series was made during the TNG era. So I noticed it was more a team effort. Not that it wasn't during the series, it's just that during the TOS film era, we see the supporting cast used more then during the series. I also had a crazy thought that this film sort of felt like The Doomsday Machine in terms of a situation where Kirk has to get the wrecked Constellation (Franklin in the film ) to move again and use it stop the menace from wrecking havoc in innocent people in its path.

One thing though, I noticed that this iteration of Spock never deals with his outsider, alienated aspect Nimoy Spock does. It's really more surface as far as I can see so far. Not as deep a characterization. I know he's still a younger version still growing into being what Spock became. But it felt like something was missing. It wasn't terrible, and Quinto is trying. Urban is good as McCoy, but I still think they wrote his part with too much of what McCoy sometimes would say or do. It was a bit of an exaggeration. I feel that Pine's Kirk has small flashes of classic Kirk. But he felt like he still isn't all here yet. His Lack of enthusiasm for the mission felt wrong, but I can see it's was the screen writers way to make the character see that he loves his mission and his role as part of this crew.

Since this was the second time seeing the film since seeing it once at the cinema, I noticed the Enterprise A is actually a new design. In looking at it on the blu-ray, it does feel less clown like and more like the TOS version in the proportion of the engines and how they are spread out more then too close like the 2009 version. Though as a designer myself, I find that the more they tweak the design in each film, the more it's about design for design sake. The design just doesn't feel like it's trying to solve a problem. Jeffries original TOS design had reasons for doing it the way it was done and is still a beauty. The Motion Picture version took it to another level to feel more real. I'll be curious how the design looks in the next film when we get to really see it. It does feel less about style and more purpose designed. Of course none of these ship designs going back to TOS are anything real. It's all speculative and conceptual.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Watched the film for the first time today. (2D presentation) Pretty enjoyable Trek film, all an all. I definitely enjoyed it more than the second film, but once again we see an SF franchise film that features the 'big bad' that must be stopped. A little silly at times, but not distractingly so. A little bit tough seeing Chekov in the film and being reminded of Anton Yelchin's untimely passing, but what can you do?

Pretty much in agreement with Nelson's observations on the crew and the design of the Enterprise. (BTW, Good observation about the episode The Doomsday Machine.) The ST: TOS design has the advantage of being what I grew up with, but I do find myself preferring the cleaner lines of Jefferies' vision vs. latter designs that feel like they were influenced by Star Wars (in terms of surface detail which seems to feature more nooks and crannies, etc.)

I am kind of getting tired of the megalomaniac who must be stopped as the plot device in contemporary blockbusters (all three Star Trek films and almost all of the Marvel franchise films immediately come to mind.) Just seems to be part and parcel of the genre these days.

One thing kind of confused me, but maybe I missed the plot element / dialog pertaining to this situation in the film. I'll spoilerize it for anyone who hasn't seen the film...

Spoiler

Jayla uses projectors to hide the location / existence of the Franklin. We later find out that Krall was the captain of the Franklin. It seems like he would be aware of its existence and location. Did he forget, or simply not care at this point? Otherwise, how could Jayla's house remain secret?

- Walter.

 

[Jonathan Perregaux]

I just saw this for the first time. I "enjoyed" much of it, but as the majority of this outing was awash in artificial excitement galore, I stand by my provisional quotation marks. Whatever Star Trek once represented ("The Corbomite Maneuver," "Let That Be Your Last Battlefield," "Charlie X" etc.) is now long-gone.

Later in the film, as I felt the grip of mediocrity slowly squeezing my brain into a premature stroke, I was finally taken out by a burst of Beastie Boys music. I was left sucking my thumb in a Mr. Spock bath robe.

Whatever direction they go with the next one, where Jim Kirk meets his dead father Thor, I am now quite sure it will be the stupidest shit ever put on film.

I'll give it the Lt. Frank Drebin summation: "It's like eating a spoonful of Drano; sure, it'll clean you out, but it'll leave you hollow inside."

 

[dpippel]

I also watched this for the first time a few days ago, and while I enjoyed it overall it could have been much better. Another Enterprise destruction tale? Come on! IMO anyone who bitched and moaned about the rehash of Khan Into Darkness brought us should be just as outraged that the producers of Beyond were so bereft of original thought that they resorted to killing the old girl - AGAIN. What I did like was the character interaction, the Yorktown station, Krall's technology, and Kaylah. Could have done without the motorcycle bit all together, and the whole backstory of Krall and his two cohorts was lame. The Enterprise crew is in year three of their five year mission to "boldly go", new worlds and new civilizations and all, and THIS is what they find as an antagonist? Lazy IMO. Still, despite the faults I find that there's something strangely compelling about the Kelvin timeline and its characters, and I like all three films well enough. The scores are *excellent* too.

I watched the 2D Blu-ray and unlike some others, I found that on my ISF-calibrated 55" Panny plasma/Oppo BDP-103 setup many of the effects and space shots had lousy black levels. They looked grayish and washed out, not dark at all. Other scenes in the film looked just fine. Very strange.

 

[Walter Kittel]

Come on! IMO anyone who bitched and moaned about the rehash of Khan Into Darkness brought us should be just as outraged that the producers of Beyond were so bereft of original thought that they resorted to killing the old girl - AGAIN.

Yeah, I didn't really think about it too much during the film, but you raise a valid point. Destroying the big E provides an opportunity for some spectacle, plus they get to roll out a new design every so often. (Think of the merchandising opportunities and the sales of new model kits to the fans. )

- Walter.

 

[trevanian]

Yeah, I didn't really think about it too much during the film, but you raise a valid point. Destroying the big E provides an opportunity for some spectacle, plus they get to roll out a new design every so often. (Think of the merchandising opportunities and the sales of new model kits to the fans. )

- Walter.

If this were the 1970s, I'd agree, but modelkits are far from a going concern marketing-wise. Plus the marketing on BEYOND was almost nonexistent (not even a tie-in novel, and the only making-of is something from the UK that isn't even out yet), so again par isn't really exploiting this resource in the ways you'd think obvious.

I think this was a very valid way to kill the ship, to spend a lot of time on it and make you feel it, piece by piece, as opposed to ST3, where you have a self-destruct that doesn't blow up everything for miles but instead conveniently just fizzle-pops (when we've heard for years that when a starship goes, it goes big, hopefully taking LOTS of nearby combatants with it.)

 

[Walter Kittel]

My tongue was firmly in my cheek when I made the reference to marketing, but I suppose my post didn't really express that well.

- Walter.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Here is an issue I had with the film....

Spoiler: Ambassador Spock

Confusing about the death of Ambassador Spock and the affect it has on young Spock. It's not Spock's father who died. It's future Spock himself who died. That's a tough pill to swallow knowing your own death. Somehow that's not reflected in the reactions given.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Jayla uses projectors to hide the location / existence of the Franklin. We later find out that Krall was the captain of the Franklin. It seems like he would be aware of its existence and location. Did he forget, or simply not care at this point? Otherwise, how could Jayla's house remain secret?

As far as Krall is concerned, the ship is there but is useless - there's no way for him to use it for escape on their initial crashing. (Scotty points out that he probably can't get the ship to launch, and it's probably years of Jaylah attempting repairs and Scotty's engineering knowledge that's about a hundred years more advanced than the Franklin that makes launching it possible.) And Krall's mission also changes - he's not interested in mere escape, he's looking for the biological weapon that he can use against the federation as a whole.

But Jaylah doesn't know that the Franklin once belonged to Krall, and probably assumes it belonged to one of his victims. Since she's kept her whereabouts and the ship hidden, Krall probably never imagines that she'd be there, and if he knew, he wouldn't care because she's just squatting in a worthless wreck as far as he's concerned.

 

[Osato]

Beyond will be $10 at target in stores on Black Friday...
Not sure if the exclusive version will also be that price. I doubt it though.
Hoping the price is matched by Amazon as I really don't want to go out shopping on thanksgiving day.

https://www.blackfriday.fm/adscan/target/black-friday

 

[Jeff Cooper]

The two questions that stuck out to me when watching it were:

1) How did Kirk and co. get out of the way of the saucer section flipping over on them on the planet so quickly when they went to retrieve the artifact at night?

2) What happened to Scotty when he crashed the torpedo on the planet. One shot we see him dangling off the cliff by one hand while the torpedo crashes down 1,000 ft below, the next time we see him, he's rummaging through the torpedo wreckage. Sure the inference is there, but it's a bit of a stretch.

 

[Dave Moritz]

I really enjoyed this movie as I have the first two reboot and most of the original Trek movies. I purchased this movie as soon as the 4K UHD Blu-ray came out. So far I have all three Trek reboot films on 4K UHD and am looking forward to owning the original movies in 4K as well. I don't have to worry about double dipping on the original movies from 1080p blu-ray because I was not able to get them yet so my upgrade would be from DVD's to 4K UHD if and when they are released.

Very nice review.

 

[Tino]

Here is an issue I had with the film....

Spoiler: Ambassador Spock

Confusing about the death of Ambassador Spock and the affect it has on young Spock. It's not Spock's father who died. It's future Spock himself who died. That's a tough pill to swallow knowing your own death. Somehow that's not reflected in the reactions given.

Ron

SPOILER

It's prime Spock that dies. So the young Spock doesn't know his own death, just the death of alternate universe/timeline Spock.

 

[Lou Sytsma]

Picked up some used Blurays and Star Trek Beyond was one of them. This one really does capture the spirit of the original series and I really enjoyed my rewatch. BTW, I watched the 3D version on my PSVR headset and the 3D was excellent.

 

[Osato]

Picked up some used Blurays and Star Trek Beyond was one of them. This one really does capture the spirit of the original series and I really enjoyed my rewatch. BTW, I watched the 3D version on my PSVR headset and the 3D was excellent.

I keep meaning to watch beyond again.
I liked it in the theater and watched it when it came out in blu ray.

For some reason I haven’t watched it since then though.
It just isn’t one that jumps out for me to watch again.

I do like the film and the story. It was great to see the crew stranded a bit and having to figure their way out of it

 

[Jason_V]

For some reason I haven’t watched it since then though.
It just isn’t one that jumps out for me to watch again.

I rewatched Beyond at the end of last year. It's a perfectly fine movie, but it just feels...small..compared to the 2009 version. Beyond reminds me of Insurrection in that way. It's a smaller, more personal story in a lot of ways. I'm not sure if this story, though, needed to be a Big Summer Movie.

 

[Osato]

I rewatched Beyond at the end of last year. It's a perfectly fine movie, but it just feels...small..compared to the 2009 version. Beyond reminds me of Insurrection in that way. It's a smaller, more personal story in a lot of ways. I'm not sure if this story, though, needed to be a Big Summer Movie.

Thanks. I need to give it a watch.

I actually like insurrection too. Not a fan of nemesis though. I also didn’t care for into darkness.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I think Beyond is pretty great and held up well when I watched it again last year. It’s a great standalone story too for when you just feel like a little bit of Trek without wanting to revisit an entire group of films.

Still think that third act battle on the station goes on too long and that the film would work even better if it was a little leaner, but it doesn’t bother me enough to stop me from watching it. It just feels like the movie goes on ten minutes longer than it’s story content.