Star Trek Beyond (2016) (1 Viewer)

[Adam Lenhardt]

Simon Pegg on the decision to destroy the Enterprise:

“I hated the idea at first,” said Pegg. “I swear, I was shouting at [Justin Lin], ‘You can’t do that! You can’t destroy the Enterprise!’

My problem was, if you think it’s something new, well we’ve seen it before. It happened in The Search for Spock, it happened in Generations. But, Justin was very very determined, and as we spoke about it, I realized what he was doing brilliantly was he was not only taking out a main character, but he was removing the physical connective tissue between the crew to see what happens when you take away the thing that physically bonds them together. If you take away that thing that necessitates them being a unit, do they dissipate or do they come back together? That was the genius of [destroying the Enterprise]. You wait and see if they come back together as this family, which is essentially what they are. When I realized, I backed down immediately and said ‘yeah, you’re right’.”​

 

[Josh Steinberg]

My biggest issue with them destroying the Enterprise - and I concede this may be silly - is that it seems that these new movies are being a little too cutesy about paralleling aspects of the original movies:

Star Trek: The Motion Picture & Star Trek (2009) - threat comes in the form of a cloud in space
Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan & Star Trek Into Darkness - Khan
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock & Star Trek Beyond - Enterprise destroyed
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home & announced next new Star Trek movie - time travel

If they make a reboot 5, will the Enterprise be in search of a god? If they make a reboot 6, will it be about peace with Klingons? It just seems a little too predictable. So that was more of my complaint, that it seems like they're cherrypicking specific beats to remake instead of doing their own thing, which is what I thought was the whole idea behind an "alternate" universe - we don't have to see the same situations again.

As the Enterprise was falling apart, the first time I saw the movie, I thought, "maybe it won't actually be destroyed destroyed - maybe the pieces are detached and in the end, Starfleet will come and put the thing back together" - and then the saucer crashed and that was that. I agree that it was effective for the story they were telling, and I get what they were going for. I'm not sure that it was necessary. Now that I've seen the movie, I'm a lot less upset about the idea than I was when I saw the trailer.

I'm thinking about seeing it again tonight - it's the movie's last weekend in IMAX 3D. Suicide Squad takes over IMAX screens starting Thursday at 6pm, so if you're interested in seeing it in IMAX, better hurry!

 

[AshJW]

If they make a reboot 6, will it be about peace with Klingons?

Klingons? What Klingons?
How can they make peace with a race that's not even shown in the Kelvin timeline?!
All the adventures and disputes with the Klingons we all know from the TOS series didn't happened yet in this universe.

Or were they in the 2nd movie? Maybe I didn't recognized them. Or I just forget about it/them, 'cause I just seen this once.

 

[TravisR]

Klingons? What Klingons?
How can they make peace with a race that's not even shown in the Kelvin timeline?!
All the adventures and disputes with the Klingons we all know from the TOS series didn't happened yet in this universe.

Or were they in the 2nd movie? Maybe I didn't recognized them. Or I just forget about it/them, 'cause I just seen this once.

Yeah, they're in the second one. Kirk, Spock and Uhura get into a minor shootout with a group of Klingons when Khan is hiding out on their planet.

 

[AshJW]

Ah, ok. Thanks. Maybe I should revisit it.

But that little shootout is no reason to talk about peace. I wouldn't even call it a war.

 

[Sean Bryan]

Klingons? What Klingons?
How can they make peace with a race that's not even shown in the Kelvin timeline?!
All the adventures and disputes with the Klingons we all know from the TOS series didn't happened yet in this universe.

Or were they in the 2nd movie? Maybe I didn't recognized them. Or I just forget about it/them, 'cause I just seen this once.

They were in Into Darkness. The plot of the movie focused on Khan and Marcus, but it was established that the Federation was already having issues with the Klingons, and they were the focus of a significant set piece.

Admiral Marcus even stated that not only was all out war with the Klingons inevitable but that he felt it had already begun. It was his main motivation for having used Khan the way he did to beef up the Federation's military might.

 

[AshJW]

Oh dear, I really need to revisit Into Darkness. I have no recall whatsoever about that.

 

[Tino]

Best of the three imo. [emoji3]

 

[Jonathan Perregaux]

You can just beam straight to Kronos from Earth now, so much for neutral zones and border patrols.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

They were in Into Darkness. The plot of the movie focused on Khan and Marcus, but it was established that the Federation was already having issues with the Klingons, and they were the focus of a significant set piece.

Admiral Marcus even stated that not only was all out war with the Klingons inevitable but that he felt it had already begun. It was his main motivation for having used Khan the way he did to beef up the Federation's military might.

Not only that, but they are also mentioned in Star Trek '09 - after George Kirk sacrifices himself and the Kelvin to disable Nero's ship (the Narada), the Romulans are captured by the Klingons and held at a prison planet there for about twenty years. (You can even see the prison escape on the deleted scenes.) So the Klingons definitely exist in this version of Star Trek.

 

[George_W_K]

Only $6,750,000 on the second Friday? Seems a pretty significant drop to me. Maybe all of the reports of dark showings has scared people away. It certainly took some of my enjoyment away.

 

[Tino]

More like heavy competition from Jason Bourne which has the same demographic. It was expected to drop 55% in its second weekend. Looks like it may be closer to 60.

 

[George_W_K]

Well, if they expected 55%, 5% extra doesn't seem as bad.

I need to see Star Trek a second time so I can finalize my opinion on it. I'm hoping tomorrow and then Bourne next week.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

Only $6,750,000 on the second Friday? Seems a pretty significant drop to me. Maybe all of the reports of dark showings has scared people away. It certainly took some of my enjoyment away.

I doubt it - I don't think any of the major reviews criticized the film for being dark, and I've seen it three times now and it didn't appear to dark to me either. I haven't heard any widespread reporting of the film being dark, just a few comments here from people here - the most likely explanation is that they went to one of the many theaters that turns down their bulbs under the mistaken belief that it will prolong the bulb life and thus save them money on replacement bulbs. (Unfortunately, this doesn't even make the bulbs last longer, as has been proven - it's a total fallacy.)

The movie will likely cross $100 million by the end of the weekend - this isn't a shot at you in any way but more of a comment on how entertainment magazines have turned openings into horse races - it's a shame we're living in a time where making $100 million in two weeks isn't considered impressive.

I think the decline in grosses compared the previous movie has several factors: the absurdly long four year delay between Star Trek '09 and Star Trek Into Darkness killed a lot of franchise momentum, and the almost as long three-plus year delay between Into Darkness and Beyond didn't help anything. In addition to the delay between the first movie and the second, the second movie wasn't as popular as the first - people liked it, but I don't think it wowed them in the way the first reboot did. The first reboot, for the first time in my lifetime, made Trek seem open and accessible to everyone, including people who never imagined they'd even be willing to see a Star Trek anything. I think the second movie was more off-putting to people who enjoyed the first but wouldn't consider themselves Trekkers. And the marketing has been terrible. The first teaser trailer was so abysmal that even the movie's director and co-writer took to the internet to complain that it was not representative of the movie they were making. But instead of pulling the ill-advised teaser and quickly replacing it with something else, Paramount let it play over and over despite the complaints of the filmmakers, and then didn't put anything else out for about five months. Their second trailer was significantly better, but it may have been too little, too late. I don't want to overestimate the damage it could have done, but that awful first teaser was attached to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which was the biggest box office success in years, possibly decades - no one had seen anything quite like that as far as attendance in a long, long time. And there should be a decent crossover audience between the two, especially with the more modern sensibilities of the reboot Trek, and with Trek and TFA sharing a common talent in J.J. Abrams. I saw The Force Awakens about six times in theaters, mostly in sold out showings, and every time that Beyond trailer came on, it just died with the audience.

The biggest factor, though, is probably the release of Jason Bourne this weekend - there's a lot of overlap between the audiences. It also doesn't help that nowadays, movies generally get one week on the biggest and best screens, and then are shuttled off to smaller screens with lesser quality projection, fewer screenings and less convenient times. Even though I live in a city that has huge numbers of theaters, each of which has huge numbers of screens within, I often feel that if I don't see a movie in its first weekend, my best chance to see it is gone.

 

[Tino]

I've seen it twice ( IMAX 3D and Dolby Cinema) and there were no dark issues at all.

 

[Tino]

Box office update from boxofficeguru;

With another action sequel entering the marketplace distracting adult men, Star Trek Beyond tumbled out of first place falling 60% to an estimated $24M. The sophomore drop was exactly in line with past number one hits this summer like the Captain America and Ninja Turtles sequels. Beyond has grossed $105.7M through its second weekend and may end its mission with about $150-160M falling behind its two predecessors which each did over $225M.

Overseas, Star Trek Beyond took in an estimated $13M this weekend from 40 markets with the U.K. being the only one to reach a double digit cume so far. Seven of the top 11 markets have yet to open with many waiting until after the Summer Olympics. The international cume of $54.8M puts the third Trek at $160.5M worldwide.

 

[George_W_K]

Saw it in IMAX 3D today. Much better experience than the RPX showing. I could actually tell what was going on. As a result I was able to concentrate on the movie and enjoy it.

Not sure where I'd rank it yet amongst the new Treks, but I enjoyed it a lot and I'll be owning this in the future.

 

[Greg.K]

Definitely my favorite of the new Trek franchise. I didn't really like the fact that they destroyed the Enterprise (been there, seen that). There are other ways they could have handled that.. On the other hand, I never really liked this version of the E, and the new 1701-A looks a lot better from the brief look we got.

The Yorktown station was pretty trippy. Loved the design of it.

 

[trevanian]

The Yorktown station was pretty trippy. Loved the design of it.

Sean Hargreaves, the concept art guy responsible for all the Starfleet / Federation stuff in BEYOND, is putting up his work at his facebook page this week (I think you have to friend him to get access though.) He hasn't gotten to YORKTOWN yet, but his FRANKLIN stuff shows some interesting versions.

 

[Brandon Conway]

I also think some of the decline is due to the return of Star Wars. I mean, in 2009 a decent amount of SW-only fans latched on to ST because they didn't have any prospects of more SW films. Now that they are getting a SW film every year many of these viewers may not care to even bother with ST any more.