star trek beyond bees

We’re Not Talking About The Beastie Boys Scene In ‘Star Trek Beyond’ Enough

[Spoilers for Star Trek Beyond , obviously]

There are certain memes that will continue to go viral until the end of time, or the bourbon bagel burger kills us all, whichever comes first. To use a recent example: Celine a Scene supposes that adding her 1997 titanically powerful ballad, “My Heart Will Go On,” to “epic scenes” makes them “even more emotional and epic.” It works really well, as does the Walk of Life Project , which is basically the same idea as Celine a Scene, except with “Walk of Life” by Dire Straits. It’s an effective concept for an untold amount of songs. Jurassic Park is a perfect movie… but wouldn’t it be even more perfect with “Walk the Dinosaur” playing during one of the T-rex scenes? Yes, yes it would.

Both Celine a Scene and Walk of Life Project, while clever, only work for certain moments, though. They have to be either poignant, or the final scene in the movie. Meanwhile, every film ever would be better with any Beastie Boys song at any point. Take a look at the Star Trek reboots as proof.

In Star Trek , we’re introduced to a young James T. Kirk right after he “borrows” a Corvette. As his step-father yells at him for stealing the car, Kirk ends the phone call and starts blasting “Sabotage,” which is still a favorite amongst angsty youngsters even in the mid-2240s (maybe this makes a little more sense than people in the 31st century being familiar with Beck ).

In Star Trek Into Darkness , we hear another Beastie Boys song — the Fat Boy Slim remix of “Body Movin'” — while Kirk canoodles with two nice Caitian girls.

Lastly, and most importantly, in Star Trek Beyond , “Sabotage” literally saves the Federation. That is not hyperbole — a Beastie Boys song from 1994 protects the good people and aliens of Yorktown from Krall’s Swarm; if it hadn’t, the Swarm would have moved on to other parts of the universe, leaving behind only death and destruction. It’s insane, so insane that if you haven’t seen Beyond , first off, sorry for ruining the ending for you, but also, it’s really hard to explain.

“Okay, so,” one would hypothetically begin, “Stringer Bell destroys the Enterprise with assistance from his bee-like alien ships, and also there’s this bioweapon artifact that’s going to kill everyone, or something, and the only way Kirk and his crew, including an alien named after Jennifer Lawrence , can stop Stringer’s bees is by playing a 20th century ‘classical’ music song, which disrupts the aliens. That song is by Jewish punks-turned-rappers Beastie Boys.” I don’t know how many cans of Romulan ale Simon Pegg had downed when he came up with that, but I’m glad he did.

I’m not the only one.

On another subject, i REALLY enjoyed Star Trek. Best use of Beastie Boys' "Sabotage" EVER. Adam Yauch would be proud. #RIPAdamandAnton — The Dō Hø (@NectarousD) July 26, 2016

Ever since I saw the new Star Trek movie i've listened to Sabotage by the Beastie Boys at least 10 times a day — wesley (@built4ourthis) July 25, 2016

I saw Star Trek Beyond. I can't believe the Beastie Boys saved the universe. — Wee Babby Jaso (@BabbyJaso) July 25, 2016

Star Trek: Beyond wins the award for best use of a Beastie Boys song in a film. — Ramez Naam (@ramez) July 25, 2016

Things that J.J. Abrams has brought to both Star Trek and Star Wars that can never be undone? @greggrunberg and Beastie Boys (Ello Asty) — Da7e Gonzales (@Da7e) July 25, 2016

https://twitter.com/BeggarsSon/status/757346933463654401

https://twitter.com/walkselizabeth/status/756539545261408256

A lot of comparisons have been made between Star Trek Beyond and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (not only because J.J. Abrams’ name is attached to both), and how we’re living in a “ Star Wars world.” But having a pop song save millions of lives is unique to Star Trek . It can get away with using contemporary (for us in 2016) references like that because, well, Earth exists in the Star Trek universe; English isn’t even English, it’s “Galactic Basic Standard,” in Star Wars . The franchise, which is now 13 movies deep, should be taking these kind of goofy chances. It’s no crazier than Spock swimming with whales in Star Trek IV:  The Voyage Home , and that’s the most beloved Star Trek movie.

Star Trek is also working at a disadvantage. Before the Abrams reboot was released in 2009, the franchise was creatively drained and commercially ignored. Enterprise was a bust, and Nemesis barely made its $60 million budget back. The 1990s and 2000s weren’t a good time for Star Wars , either, but the dreaded prequels were still massive hits, and also, this is Star Wars we’re talking about. Everyone’s seen the original trilogy. (Do not @ me on Twitter if you haven’t seen the original trilogy.) The first three Trek movies? Not so much. The Empire Strikes Back earned $209 million at the box office in 1980. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , released two years later: under $100 million. Casual movie fans don’t have the same familiarity with Kirk, Spock, and Bones as they do Luke, Han, and Leia. Add the eternally cool and universally beloved Beastie Boys into the mix, though (especially a song as well known as “Sabotage”), and Star Trek Beyond suddenly appeals to a lot more people.

We know there’s going to be a Star Trek 4 , with Chris Hemsworth returning as Kirk’s father. How can it top Star Trek Beyond ‘s use of the Beastie Boys? It can’t, unless Greg Grunberg — Abrams’ good luck charm who’s also been in all of the films — raps “So What’cha Want.” Start from there, Simon Pegg.

I would also accept Public Enemy.

Star Trek : Beyond reminded me of something important. And it goes like this, "Fight the powers that be!" – Public Enemy @StarTrekMovie — Broad Smile 33 (@EddiewilsonLevi) July 24, 2016

• View history

Swarm ships were small, two-person craft left in large numbers on Altamid by the planet's original inhabitants sometime prior to the 2160s .

• 2 Technical data
• 3.1 Background information
• 3.2 Apocrypha
• 3.3 External link

History [ ]

Following the crash of the USS Franklin in the 22nd century , these craft were employed by Krall to waylay orbiting starships . Jaylah likened Krall's swarm ships to bees .

A swarm ship with a captured Enterprise escape pod

In the year 2263 , Krall used his swarm to attack the Federation starship USS Enterprise under the command of Captain James T. Kirk . Approaching the Enterprise in orbit of Altamid, these ships initially appeared to be one large vessel, emitting an unidentifiable signal , but quickly separated and attacked in a coordinated effort to disable the Constitution -class ship. Surrounding and ramming it repeatedly, these ships inflicted serious damage on the Enterprise , first severing its warp nacelles before finally separating its primary hull from its secondary hull .

Spock and McCoy's crashed swarm ship

Following the destruction of the Enterprise , Commander Spock and Doctor Leonard McCoy commandeered one of these ships and crash landed on the surface of Altamid.

Krall later used his ships to attack the Federation Starbase Yorktown in a massive assault. Utilizing antique equipment aboard the century-old USS Franklin , the Enterprise crew was able to identify the swarm ships' signals as closed networked cyberpathic communications that allowed them to coordinate their maneuvers. Emitting VHF radio signals in the form of "classical" music by the Beastie Boys , the Franklin flew very near to Krall's ships, causing a chain reaction that destroyed the swarm.

Once again flying a commandeered swarm ship, Spock and McCoy assisted James Kirk in defeating Krall within the Starbase Yorktown before Krall could unleash a super weapon and kill the base's inhabitants. ( Star Trek Beyond )

Technical data [ ]

Docked swarm ships on Altamid

Swarm ships were capable of space and atmospheric flight, and were equipped with warp drive . They were piloted by two drones and, when not in use, docked in tree -like formations at towers on the surface of Altamid. The ship is accessible through a circular hatch in the rear.

Though apparently lacking weaponry, Swarm ships were durable enough to inflict heavy damage on other ships by ramming them. When colliding with another ship, a Swarm ship could elect to penetrate only partway and deploy its lateral prongs to anchor itself; the nose of the ship could then split open to release drones inside the target vessel. Swarm ships were susceptible to phasers , but operate in such large numbers that phaser fire was overall ineffective against them. They were too small and nimble to be effectively targeted by photon torpedoes . ( Star Trek Beyond )

Appendices [ ]

Background information [ ].

Popular Mechanics' July 2016 cutaway depiction of a Krall swarm ship

The ships were named "Krall swarm ships" in a Popular Mechanics cutaway diagram of the Enterprise .

The idea of relatively very small ships that swarm to engage their enemies was thought up by Justin Lin and considered over a long time by him. When he suggested that concept as the director of Star Trek Beyond , the other filmmakers who were working on the movie liked his idea. " The swarm was always in play, " stated Star Trek Beyond Co-Writer Doug Jung . " I think that was again something that Justin always wanted to do [....] He's like, 'Why would you have that big ship going around? Why not just get a bunch of little ones?' And I was like, 'Yeah. Guess it makes sense!' " The idea of using small vessels also helped the team achieve a goal they were aiming for, as they wanted to make the space battle sequences in the movie less like the submarine warfare genre of films than was usual for such scenes in Star Trek . [1]

In the first trailer for Star Trek Beyond (which was released on 14 December 2015 ), Krall's swarm ships appear maroon in color. However, in the film's second trailer (which was released on 20 May 2016 ), they appear dark gray or black in color, as they do in the finished film. [2]

Apocrypha [ ]

In the fifth issue of IDW Publishing 's new Boldly Go series, these ships were used by Krall and Manas to attack Jaylah's and her family's ship.

External link [ ]

• Swarm ship at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Chris pine: captain james t. kirk.

• Photos (47)
• Quotes (44)

Photos 

Quotes 

[last lines] 

Captain James T. Kirk : [epilogue]  Space, the final frontier.

Commander Spock : These are the voyages of the Starship...

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : ...Enterprise. Its continuing mission...

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : ...to explore strange new worlds...

Sulu : ...to seek out new life...

Chekov : ...and new civilizations...

Lieutenant Uhura : ...to boldly go where no one has gone before.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : [referring to Starbase Yorktown]  What a damn monstrosity! Couldn't we just rent some space on a planet?

Commander Spock : Showing geographical favoritism among inducted Federation worlds could cause diplomatic tension.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : Oh, you don't think that looks tense? Looks like a damn snow globe in space, just waiting to break!

Captain James T. Kirk : [sighs]  That's the spirit, Bones.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : Everybody, raise a glass to Captain James T. Kirk.

Commander Spock , Lieutenant Uhura , Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott , Chekov , Sulu : Captain Kirk!

Captain James T. Kirk : Ah, thanks everyone. To the Enterprise.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy , Commander Spock , Lieutenant Uhura , Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott , Chekov , Sulu : The Enterprise.

Captain James T. Kirk : And - to absent friends.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy , Commander Spock , Lieutenant Uhura , Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott , Chekov , Sulu : Here. Here.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Alright, lets get this party started.

Balthazar M. Edison : You can't stop it. You will die.

Captain James T. Kirk : Better to die saving lives... than to live with taking them. That's what I was born into.

Captain James T. Kirk : Mr. Sulu... You can... you know... fly this thing, right?

Sulu : [looks back at him]  You kidding me, sir?

Captain James T. Kirk : Fantastic.

Captain James T. Kirk : [referring to his father]  He joined Starfleet because he... He believed in it... I joined on a dare.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : You joined to see if you could live up to him. You spent all this time trying to be George Kirk and now you're wondering just what it means to be Jim.

Captain James T. Kirk : How are we gonna get out of this one, Spock? We've got no ship, no crew. Not the best odds.

Commander Spock : We will do what we have always done, Jim. We will find hope in the impossible.

Kirk : [hears song "Sabotage" blaring, aimed to destroy Krall's attacking swarm]  It's a good choice.

Captain James T. Kirk : Captain's Log, Stardate 2263.2. Today is our 966th day in deep space, a little under three years into our five year mission. The more time we spend out here, the harder it is to tell where one day ends and the next one begins. It can be a challenge to feel grounded when even the gravity is artificial. But, well, we do what we can to make it feel like home. The crew, as always, continues to act admirably despite the rigors of our extended stay here in outer space. And the personal sacrifices they have made. We continue to search for new lifeforms in order to establish firm diplomatic ties. Our extended time in uncharted territory has stretched the ship's mechanical capacities. But fortunately our engineering department, led by Mr. Scott, is more than up to the job. The ship aside, prolong cohabitation has definitely had effects on interpersonal dynamics. Some experiences for the better, and some for the worse. As for me, things have started to feel... a little... episodic. The farther out we go, the more I find myself wondering what it is we're trying to accomplish. But if the universe is truly endless, then are we not striving for something forever out of reach? The Enterprise is scheduled for reprovisioning stop at Yorktown, the Federation's newest and most advanced starbase. Perhaps a break from routine will offer up some respite from the mysteries of the unknown.

Captain James T. Kirk : We make a good team. Right?

Commander Spock : I believe we do.

Captain James T. Kirk : I'm one year older.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : Yep, that's usually how it works.

Captain James T. Kirk : [referring to his father]  A year older than he ever got to be.

[after being teleported while in the middle of a leap and landing with a thud on the transporter pad] 

Captain James T. Kirk : [groans]  Let's never do that again.

Jaylah : [groans]  I agree, James T.

Captain James T. Kirk : You lost! There's no way you can make it back there. Give up!

Balthazar M. Edison : What, like you did? I read your ship's log, Captain James T. Kirk! At least I know what I am! I am a soldier!

Captain James T. Kirk : You won the war, Edison! You gave us peace!

Balthazar M. Edison : Peace... is not what I was born into.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : You didn't even try to get our time out here reduced.

Captain James T. Kirk : Why would I get reduced? Bones, we know our way through the nebula now. Can you imagine what we'll find?

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : Alien despots hell-bent on killing us? Deadly spaceborne viruses and bacteria? Incomprehensible cosmic anomalies that could wipe us out in an instant!

Captain James T. Kirk : It's gonna be so much fun.

Captain James T. Kirk : What happened to you out there... Edison?

Balthazar M. Edison : I have to say, Kirk, I've missed being me. We lost ourselves but gained a purpose! A means to bring the galaxy back to the struggle that made humanity strong.

Captain James T. Kirk : I think you underestimate humanity.

Balthazar M. Edison : I fought for humanity! Lost millions to the Xindi and Romulan Wars! And for what? For the Federation to sit me in a Captain's chair and break bread with the enemy!

Captain James T. Kirk : We change. We have to. Or we spend the rest of our lives fighting the same battles.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : [to Jaylah]  Now, you're part of something bigger now, lassie. Right? Dinnae give up on that. 'Cause we'll sure as hell never give up on you. That is what being part of a crew is all about.

Jaylah : Is that what you believe, James T.?

Captain James T. Kirk : All I know is we stand a better chance with you.

Spock : Captain, the flight patterns of bees are determined by individual decisions. Krall's swarm formations are too complex not to rely on some form of unified cyberpathic coordination. I surmise that if we...

Captain James T. Kirk : [interrupts]  Spock! Skip to the end.

Lieutenant Uhura : What he's saying is that if we disorient the swarm, we can kick its ass!

Spock : Precisely.

Captain James T. Kirk : Who's your new friend here? She sure know how to throw out the welcome mat.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : This is Jaylah.

Jaylah : I do not know what is a welcome mat.

Captain James T. Kirk : There's no such thing as the unknown, only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood.

Captain James T. Kirk : What does Krall want with this thing?

Kalara : To save you... from yourselves.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : [notices many empty glasses]  Uh, did you drink all those yourself? I'm impressed.

Jaylah : Someone said it would take my edge off. My edge is still not off.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Aye, well, maybe this will help... the captain pulled a few strings. That is acceptance into Starfleet Academy, if you want it.

Captain James T. Kirk : There are a lot of rules. Don't listen to them all.

Jaylah : Will I have to wear that uniform?

Captain James T. Kirk : I'm afraid so.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : This is the U.S.S. Franklin, sir. Can you believe it? First Earth ship capable of Warp 4. Went missing in the Gagarin Radiation Belt in the early 2160s.

Captain James T. Kirk : I remember that from the Academy. Captain Balthazar Edison.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Aye.

Captain James T. Kirk : One of the first heroes of Starfleet. How the hell did his ship end up here?

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : There's a lot of theories, sir. Surrendered to the Romulans. Captured by a giant green space hand. This far out, it's got to be a wormhole displacement.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : [about Balthazar Edison]  Ah, well, his record goes back way before the Federation even existed. He was a major in the United Earth Military Assault Command Operation. A lot of off-world combat.

Captain James T. Kirk : [surprised]  He was a soldier.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Aye, sir. And a pretty good one. His military service came to an end when MACO was disbanded.

Captain James T. Kirk : Why? What happened?

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : The Federation, sir. Starfleet. We're not a military agency. They made him a captain and gave him the Franklin.

Captain James T. Kirk : Vice Admirals don't fly, do they?

Commodore Paris : No. They don't.

Captain James T. Kirk : Well, no offense, ma'am, but... where's the fun in that?

Captain James T. Kirk : Scotty, can you beam me onto one of those swarm ships?

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Have you gone completely mad?

Captain James T. Kirk : Yes or no?

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : No. Yes. Maybe.

Commander Spock : Captain, my familiarity of the interior of those ships, however brief, makes me more qualified for this away mission.

Lieutenant Uhura : Spock, you're still hurt.

Captain James T. Kirk : She's right, Spock.

Commander Spock : I acknowledge and respect your concerns. Perhaps you would feel more confident if I were accompanied by someone with familiarity of both the ship and my injury.

Captain James T. Kirk : [sarcastic]  He's gonna love this.

Commander Spock : Captain, from what I can ascertain, the ships do indeed share a cyberpathic link which coordinates their actions. Patching it through now.

Lieutenant Uhura : [recognizing the sounds]  That's what that signal was. They weren't jamming us, they were talking to each other.

Captain James T. Kirk : Well, how do we get them to stop talking?

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : What about electromagnetic focusing? We could use the transporters, disrupt their network.

Commander Spock : The focus might be too specific. If we could plant some sort of disruptive communication signal inside the swarm, it might adversely affect their capacity to coordinate.

Chekov : It would have to be at a frequency they will not anticipate.

Sulu : We could cause a chain reaction that would wipe out the whole swarm.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Sir, a closed network like that might be very susceptible to very high frequency.

Captain James T. Kirk : VHF. Radio. We can... we can broadcast something from the ship to drown out their links. Something loud and distracting.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Loud and distracting? I've got just the thing.

Commodore Paris : For decades, the Federation taught that he was a hero. I guess time will judge us all.

Captain James T. Kirk : He just got lost.

Commodore Paris : You saved this entire base, Kirk. Millions of souls. Thank you.

Captain James T. Kirk : It wasn't just me. It never is.

Captain James T. Kirk : Mr. Scott, why is that thing still on?

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : We're working on it, sir, but as you can imagine, there's a lot of safety protocols surrounding the thing that, you know, keeps everybody alive.

Captain James T. Kirk : Figure something out.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Be careful, Captain. Gravity's gonna get a bit screwy the closer you get to the center.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : You want me to do what?

Commander Spock : Come along, Doctor.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : Whoa, wait a minute. Why, you green-blooded ingrate. This was your idea.

Captain James T. Kirk : It's a good idea, Bones.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : You know, next time you have a piece of pipe stuck in your transverse, call a plumber.

Captain James T. Kirk : Just make sure you find a way to break those things.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : If it gets hairy, I'll beam you straight back.

Commander Spock : Energize.

Captain James T. Kirk : You're gonna do great.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor not a...

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Captain, we're ready to broadcast.

Lieutenant Uhura : But the signal won't travel far. We have to get closer.

Captain James T. Kirk : How close?

Lieutenant Uhura : Very.

Captain James T. Kirk : Intercept course, Mr. Sulu. Put us right in the middle of that thing.

Captain James T. Kirk : I heard about Ambassador Spock. Is that what you wanted to mention that time in the turbolift?

Commander Spock : More or less. I trust your meeting with Commodore Paris went well.

Captain James T. Kirk : More or less.

Captain James T. Kirk : How far are we from the coordinates of that call?

Chekov : Still a ways, sir. Captain?

Captain James T. Kirk : Yeah.

Chekov : When did you begin to suspect her?

Captain James T. Kirk : Not soon enough.

Chekov : How did you know?

Captain James T. Kirk : Well, I guess you could say I've got a good nose for danger.

[jumping down off a rock, he activates a trap and a brown fog appears] 

Captain James T. Kirk : Run!

Jaylah : The digging machines uncovered a tunnel that goes into the crater. That's how I got out.

Captain James T. Kirk : Oh, so that'll be our way in. An away team will beam to the other side of the tunnel, follow it to Krall's base, get inside the building and break out the crew.

Chekov : Uh, Captain, we cannot lock onto anyone inside the crater in order to beam them out.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Oh, I could rig up pulse beacons as pattern enhancers. That'd get the signal out of the crater.

Chekov : All right.

Captain James T. Kirk : How many people can the Franklin transport at a time?

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Uh, with a wee bit of modification, 20 max, but I'm not sure how long it would hold out.

Captain James T. Kirk : Bones, Mr. Chekov, Jaylah, you're with me on the away team. Mr. Scott, modify that transporter and then do everything you can to get this ship operational.

Commander Spock : Captain, Mr. Chekov's technical acumen makes him more valuable aboard the Franklin with Mr. Scott. It is thereby logical that I would replace him.

Captain James T. Kirk : Why is that logical, Mr. Spock? You just got back on your feet.

Commander Spock : Lieutenant Uhura is in that facility, Jim.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : I'll keep an eye on him.

Captain James T. Kirk : Understood.

Jaylah : But his soldiers are everywhere. We won't pass unseen.

Commander Spock : What we require is a diversion.

Captain James T. Kirk : [coming up with something]  I think I have an idea.

Captain James T. Kirk : [seeing Krall's swarm ships taking off]  He's launching.

Commander Spock : The attack on Yorktown may be just the beginning. Armed with this bio-weapon, he could rid it of all life and use the base's advanced technology to attack an untold number of Federation planets.

Captain James T. Kirk : Then we're just gonna have to get this thing flying.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : We cannae just jump-start it, sir.

Captain James T. Kirk : [on the bridge of the derelict Franklin]  No clue what happened to the crew, huh?

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Ach, no, sir. They'd be dead a hundred years by now.

Captain James T. Kirk : Is that a...

[spotting an old motorcycle] 

Captain James T. Kirk : That's a PX70. Wow. My dad used to have one when he was a kid. My mom said he's put her on the back of it, drive her nuts.

Captain James T. Kirk : Scotty, how we looking?

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Ready as she'll ever be, sir.

Captain James T. Kirk : That's what I like to hear. All right. Bones, where are we with the crew?

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : I could use a functioning med-bay, but otherwise, we're secure down here.

Chekov : Mr. Sulu, we have to achieve terminal velocity in order for the stabilizers to provide lift. Are you sure this drop is high enough to do that?

Sulu : We'll find out.

Chekov : I have intercepted a weak communications transmission, sir. It's a Starfleet frequency.

Captain James T. Kirk : Can you lock onto the signal?

Chekov : Mm, yes, but how do we get to them?

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : I have an idea, sir. But I'm gonna need your permission.

Captain James T. Kirk : Why would you need my permission?

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Because if I mess it up, I don't want it to be just my fault.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : [beaming Bones onto the Franklin]  Good to see you in one piece, Doctor.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : Oh, am I? I feel like my innards have been to a barn dance.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Aye, well, these old transporters were only ever used for cargo, but a few modifications seem to do the trick. I thought it was best to beam you one at a time, though. You know, in case you got spliced.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : Oh. I couldn't imagine a worse scenario.

Captain James T. Kirk : Good to have you back. You all right?

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : Yeah, I'm fine. He's hurt.

Commander Spock : I am functioning adequately, Captain.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : In a pig's eye, you are.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : We should wait until we're absolutely sure.

Captain James T. Kirk : No, we have to get the crew back now. Chekov has the coordinates that can lead us to Krall's base, so we go.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : With respect, sir, how do we know that Krall was at the base when she called him? Even if he was, we don't know that the crew is with him.

Doctor 'Bones' McCoy : Or if they're even still alive.

Chekov : I am detecting a very trace amount of Vokaya.

Commander Spock : Does the location match the coordinates you acquired from Kalara, Mr. Chekov?

Chekov : It is a match, sir.

Commander Spock : Its presence suggests that Lieutenant Uhura, and thereby the rest of the crew, are being held at Krall's base of operation.

Captain James T. Kirk : Can you beam them out?

Chekov : No, sir. There is some geological interference that is blocking the transporter signal.

Captain James T. Kirk : Well, I guess we're gonna have to go and break them out the old-fashioned way.

Jaylah : You cannot go to this place. Everyone who goes there, he kills.

Captain James T. Kirk : You've... you've been there? You've seen it?

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Well, why didn't you say something, lassie?

Jaylah : Because I know you will ask me to take you there. If your friends are there, then they will die, just like my family. And I will not go back to that death place.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Aye, but if you've escaped, then you can show us the way in and the way out.

Jaylah : No! This is not the deal we made, Montgomery Scotty. If you choose to do this, you are on your own.

[first lines] 

Captain James T. Kirk : My name is Captain James Tiberius Kirk, United Federation of Planets.

Captain James T. Kirk : Scotty, can you get this thing started?

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Started, yes. Flying, sir, that's a different thing. These old vessels, they were built in space. They were never supposed to take off from atmosphere.

Captain James T. Kirk : Make it happen.

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : They're called starships for a reason, Captain.

Captain James T. Kirk : What, you're telling me this now?

Montgomery 'Scotty' Scott : Because I didn't want to disappoint you, you know, in case you didn't make it back.

Captain James T. Kirk : [sarcastic]  How thoughtful, Mr. Scott.

Captain James T. Kirk : Sulu, get us up there!

Sulu : Hold on to something!

Captain James T. Kirk : Let's make some noise.

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Star Trek Beyond Doesn’t Explore Any New Universes, But Has More Fun in the Existing One

The new Star Trek picture — called, for no particular reason, Star Trek Beyond — is a wild ride, fast and crazy kinetic, a bombardment in the manner of the Fast and the Furious movies by the same director, Justin Lin. Of course, “fast” and “furious” are adjectives that “classic” Trek fans loved the series for not being. But in some ways it’s a relief to leave that more deliberate universe behind. The new, slavishly imitative cast members haven’t made these characters their own, and there’s an eerie quality to their attempts — as if the future will bring not just starships and teleportation but also androids replacing long-dead actors. It’s better to have a well-made, unapologetic action-adventure like this one than a creepy stab at replication.

Not that the script — by actor Simon Pegg and Doug Jung — doesn’t pretend to aim high. Early in Star Trek Beyond , Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) stares forlornly into the distance. He’s having a midlife crisis. He wants to leave the untethered world of starships and settle down as an admiral on terra firma — or anywhere firma. This seemed very strange, given that he was handed the command of the Federation’s flashiest vessel straight out of Starfleet Academy (shouldn’t he have served on other ships first?) and that Pine looks as if he’d still be carded when buying beer. Spock (Zachary Quinto), too, is itching to leave the Enterprise , in his case to rebuild the lost civilization of Vulcan. Can these two really be on their way out in only the third movie? It seemed like a setup to me.

But you can forget the jacked-up drama once the Enterprise arrives at Yorktown, a pretzel-tiered metropolis full of CGI and actors with elaborate makeup jobs in the middle of space. (The scenes were shot in Dubai, the continued existence of which seems a shakier prospect than Yorktown’s.) From the moment the starship glides into port, it’s clear that Lin’s visual imagination dwarfs that of his predecessor, J.J. Abrams. So what if his shots streak by so fast you can only half-follow the action? Coherence is a small price to pay for beauty. This is like Abstract Expressionism.

Most of Star Trek Beyond is set on the blue planet Altamid, where the Enterprise is destroyed with sadistic thoroughness, taken apart by scores of little ships that swarm and strike like bees. The crew can’t reach Yorktown or other starships because a storm has knocked out the phone lines — no, actually, it’s because they’re inside a nebula — and you know what that means. The characters are thrown to the winds, leaving them crashed down on Altamid in groups of two.

Kirk and Chekhov (Anton Yelchin) dodge the death rays of a small woman with a large rubber brain-pan and then slide down what’s left of the Enterprise ’s saucer section. (It looks like the best water park ride imaginable.) A badly wounded Spock and Dr. McCoy (Karl Urban) sling insults back and forth before realizing that, in the absence of Kirk — who’s like the girl whose attentions they’re fighting for — they have no reason for resenting each other. It’s an especially ridiculous conflict in this new Star Trek series, since Quinto doesn’t have Leonard Nimoy’s talent for appearing utterly neutral while curling his eyebrows with unspoken judgments, thereby driving McCoy the hotheaded humanist into spluttering rages. Quinto has wounded eyes and lips that quiver petulantly. He’s the kind of Spock who should make McCoy say, “Chill out.” As for Urban, he’s the Looney Tunes Junior version of DeForest Kelly. The imitation is a hoot, but it’s just that—an imitation.

A word about Sulu (John Cho), who, with Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and the rest of the Enterprise ’s ensemble, ends up held captive on Altamid: In one earlier scene on Yorktown, there’s a shot of him with his arm around the waist of another man. This is supposed to signal that he’s gay, which has reportedly troubled the original Sulu, George Takei. Takei thinks — rightly, I’m sure — that the revelation has more to do with his own post- Trek celebrity than with the character of Sulu. The only hitch is that there is no character of Sulu. It’s ridiculous to speak of the original Sulu or Chekhov or Uhura as if they’re anything but a Japanese-American actor, an actor with an embarrassingly fake Russian accent, and a leggy African-American actress. The raging camera hog William Shatner made certain that those actors never had anything but the most rudimentary dialogue, and Scotty only got attention because of a few memorable catchphrases. Sulu could don a pink angora sweater and it wouldn’t affect his “character.” He and the new, more assertive Uhura are blank slates on which to write their own stories.

Pegg, meanwhile, has written himself a lot of good hysterical Scottish shtick, and the movie’s best scenes feature Scotty and an alien named Jaylah — a star turn for Sofia Boutella, who played the baddie in Kingsman: The Secret Service who bisected people with her blade-legs, and who’ll soon be seen in the title role of The Mummy . Boutella has a good, sharp, surly face with an improbably delicate cleft chin. Her features register even under a pound of white makeup slashed with black lightning bolts. Kayla is like a kickboxing Pocahontas. More than anything, she wants revenge on the movie’s number-two villain, who caused the death of her father.

Which brings me to the number-one villain, Krall, who brought down the Enterprise . He’s a huge guy with a leonine-alien face, a thunderous voice, and horrendous diction, which means I never fully caught his reasons for wanting to destroy Yorktown and everything else that the Federation has polluted. I was stunned to learn that under all that prosthetic muck is the great Idris Elba, which suggests the problem with most prosthetics: They make actors as dissimilar as Elba and Oscar Isaac look pretty much alike — and I’d so rather look at Elba’s (or Isaac’s) naked features. Christopher Plummer did the audience (as well as himself) a favor when he refused to submit to six hours of makeup to play a Klingon in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , and Ricardo Montalban needed nothing more than long white tresses and weights to build up his pecs to play the scariest Trek villain of all. That said, I did enjoy the interview in which Elba said his makeup helped him answer the old question, “What’s my motivation?” His motivation was to blast through his scenes so he could get all that fucking rubber off his face.

Despite the complex structure, the movie still comes down to two men pounding on each other in a small space while a clock tick-tocks toward Armageddon. At least Lin knows how to shoot his fights from unexpected angles and with enough spatial-temporal variables to keep us jolt-addicts rocking in our seat, happy to be dizzy.

But Star Trek Beyond is steeped in a larger sadness. Spock’s melancholy is triggered by news of the death of … well, Spock, meaning the first iteration of Spock, meaning Nimoy, who died before shooting commenced. (If you haven’t seen any films in this new cycle, you won’t have a clue what I’m talking about. I barely I have a clue what I’m talking about.) The other loss, of course, was the 27-year-old Yelchin, who died after the film was completed and whose obituaries led with his cartoonish Chekhov (with its deliberately phony Russian accent) rather than the other, more daring performances he had given in all manner of indie films . But in his final turn as Chekhov, he’s so exuberant that he practically bounds from scene to scene, as if he’d finally said to himself, “Chekhov is anyone I want him to be — and I want him to be madly optimistic and alive.” The thought of his tragically absurd death brings you crashing down to Earth. Why do real malfunctioning machines have to mess up our high-tech utopian fantasies?

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Film Review: ‘Star Trek Beyond’

Director Justin Lin brings his bravura action energy and a certain nostalgic flair to the 'Star Trek' series, even as he unboldly goes where too many have gone before.

By Owen Gleiberman

Owen Gleiberman

Chief Film Critic

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We’re in the jagged wilderness of a foreign planet, where the Enterprise has crash-landed after being cut in two by a swarm of metallic space “bees.” The swirling bees are controlled by Krall (Idris Elba), a dictator with the face of a lizard and the voice of a warlord and an attitude to match. He gets energy by literally sucking the life out of people, and he’s out to capture an artifact that was on board the Enterprise, an ancient clicking doohickey he wants for terrible (but unspecified) reasons. The crew of the Enterprise, dispersed on the planet, is trying to regroup, and now, at last, they have it together enough to launch a plan of attack. Captain Kirk ( Chris Pine ) provides the diversionary activity, riding a chopper around Krall’s woodland headquarters, his biker image literally multiplied a dozen times. Meanwhile, a leonine alien named Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), whose black-etched-on-white face makes her look like Darth Maul by MAC Cosmetics, engages in hand-to-hand combat with Krall, whomping him with kung fu kicks.

To be fair, a “Star Trek” movie — this is the 13th — can’t be expected to reinvent the wheel each time. Abrams already did that once, and he did it brilliantly, casting the series with such an acute eye for the inner qualities of every “Trek” crew member that you almost feel as if each character should come with a little book entitled “The Zen of Scotty,” “The Zen of Bones,” etc. Yet the dimension of the original series that turned fans into lifelong cultists is that it pushed and poked boundaries; it kept spinning your head. That’s what Abrams tried to do in his two films, and the underrated “Star Trek Into Darkness,” though it played a bit of a shell game with “Trek” mythology, casting Benedict Cumberbatch as a young Khan who didn’t completely parse as the Khan of legend, was still a movie that took you on a sinister cosmic joyride.

“Star Trek Beyond” might have been more accurately entitled “Star Trek Contained.” It’s got a very familiar, old-fangled, no-mystery structure, and that’s because it’s basically the “Star Trek” version of an interplanetary action film, with a plot that doesn’t take you to many new frontiers. But there’s plenty of chance to hang out with a cast that audiences have — rightly — come to love. On the planet, the crew members land in different places because they’ve escaped the crashing Enterprise in separate pods. It’s fun to watch Spock (Zachary Quinto) and Bones (Karl Urban) bond through their antipathy. Or Scotty (Simon Pegg) try to weave his nerd weaselness around the forceful Jaylah, the alien dominatrix in white who refers to him as “Montgomery Scotty.” Or Anton Yelchin’s Chekov simply be , in every scene, his ardently antic Chekov self, which allows us to revel in what an inspired job the late young actor did of making Chekov’s face match his heavily accented words, his eyes popping in comic communion with his vowels. Yelchin, a superb actor (he is honored in the closing credits with a simple “For Anton”), slyly disappeared inside this role, and in that very act of disappearance he was never more himself.

Conveniently, the planet houses the carcass of an old Federation ship, the U.S.S. Franklin, which our mighty crew can resuscitate. From there, the battle heads to Yorktown, a Federation outpost that’s like a gyroscopic steel-and-glass city that resembles an amalgam of the aristocratic satellite in “Elysium,” the city of the future in “WALL-E,” and an Apple store. It’s a lurching, multi-planed vertiginous place, and Lin stages the protracted final battle there like a gladiatorial contest suspended in the air. It’s a sequence you won’t soon forget.

Reviewed at AMC Century City, Los Angeles, July 14, 2016. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 122 MIN.

• Production: A Paramount Pictures release of a Skydance Media, Bad Robot Prods., Sneaky Shark, Perfect Storm Entertainment, K/O Paper Products production. Produced by J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk, Roberto Orci. Executive producers, Jeffrey Chernov, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Tommy Harper, Lindsey Weber.
• Crew: Directed by Justin Lin. Screenplay by Simon Pegg, Doug Jung. Camera (color, widescreen), Stephen F. Windon; editors, Greg D’Auria, Dylan Highsmith, Kelly Matsumoto, Steven Sprung; music, Michael Giacchino; production designer, Thomas E. Sanders; costume designer, Sanja Milkovic Hays; casting, Miranda Davidson, April Webster, Alyssa Weisberg.
• With: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin, John Cho, Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella.

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Movie Reviews

'star trek beyond' is an unapologetically wild ride, steeped in human drama.

David Edelstein

The Enterprise has been destroyed and its inhabitants have been thrown to the winds in the latest of the Star Trek series. Critic David Edelstein calls it a well-made action-adventure film.

TERRY GROSS, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. Gene Roddenberry's futuristic TV series, "Star Trek," ran for only three seasons in the mid-1960s. But it's given birth to other TV series, movies and a new cycle of films featuring the original characters played by younger actors. Now, we have the third in the series, "Star Trek Beyond," starring Chris Pine as Captain William T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock. Film critic David Edelstein has the review.

DAVID EDELSTEIN, BYLINE: The new "Star Trek" picture, "Star Trek Beyond," is a wild ride. It's fast and furious, which makes sense, since director Justin Lin made the last few "Fast And Furious" movies. And he thinks in terms of whoosh and jangle. He bombards you with angles. You have to concentrate or the action will streak right by. It's like abstract expressionism.

Now, if you're a lover of the original series, you might think, I like "Star Trek" because it wasn't fast and furious. It was philosophical. Well, I've got news. That "Star Trek" is gone. Since the series was, quote, "rebooted," the movies have made billions but haven't dispelled the memory of the original cast. There was something creepy about watching these young performers, as if the future will bring not just starships, but android replacements. Maybe it's better to have a well-made, unapologetic action adventure like this than a spooky replication.

The script, by actor Simon Pegg and Doug Jung, does provide a human drama of sorts. Early in "Star Trek Beyond," Captain Kirk, played by Chris Pine, is having a midlife crisis. He wants to leave the untethered world of starships and settle down. This seems strange, given that Pine looks as if he'd still get carded buying beer. Zachary Quinto's Spock is also itching to leave the Starship Enterprise to rebuild the civilization of Vulcan. Can they really be on their way out in only the third movie? It's a set up.

Most of "Star Trek Beyond" takes place on the blue planet Altamid, where the Enterprise is destroyed with sadistic thoroughness, taken apart by scores of little ships that swarm like bees. The characters are thrown to the winds, leaving them in groups of two. Kirk and Chekov, played by the late Anton Yelchin, dodged the death rays of a small woman with a wide brainpan and slide down what's left of the Enterprise's saucer section. It looks like the best water park ride imaginable.

A badly-wounded Spock and Dr. McCoy sling insults before realizing they have no reason for resenting each other, especially since Quinto's petulant Spock is a world away from Leonard Nimoy's Vulcan Buddha. Simon Pegg has written himself a lot of funny, high-strung shtick. And the movie's best scenes feature his Scotty and a pugnacious alien named Jaylah, a star turn for Sofia Boutella whose sharp features register even under a pound of white makeup slashed with black lightning bolts.

(SOUNDBITE OF FILM, "STAR TREK BEYOND")

SIMON PEGG: (As Scotty) Now, that's Starfleet property, OK, you can't just take - but I'm feeling generous today, so have at it.

SOFIA BOUTELLA: (As Jaylah) Where you get that?

PEGG: (As Scotty) It's my Starfleet insignia.

BOUTELLA: (As Jaylah) What does it mean?

PEGG: (As Scotty) Means that I'm an officer of Starfleet, its engineering division.

BOUTELLA: (As Jaylah) Engineering.

PEGG: (As Scotty) Aye, that's right. I fix things.

BOUTELLA: (As Jaylah) I know what is engineering.

PEGG: (As Scotty) You're not with those bastards that killed my ship, are you?

BOUTELLA: (As Jaylah) (Spitting).

PEGG: (As Scotty) I'll take that as a no.

BOUTELLA: (As Jaylah) He is Krall. He is the reason why you're here. Come with me, now.

PEGG: (As Scotty) Wait, now, hang on a minute, lassie. I'm having a difficult day here. I've got to find my crewmates.

BOUTELLA: (As Jaylah) You help me and I help you.

PEGG: (As Scotty) All right, well, things being as they are, I doubt I'll get a better offer today. So lead the way.

BOUTELLA: (As Jaylah) Good. I am Jaylah. And you are Montgomery Scott.

PEGG: (As Scotty) Aye, Scotty.

BOUTELLA: (As Jaylah) Come now, Montgomery Scotty.

EDELSTEIN: That villain, Krall, is a huge guy with a leonine alien face and horrendous diction, which means I never fully caught his reasons for wanting to wipe out the Federation. I was stunned to learn that under all that prosthetic muck is the great Idris Elba, which suggests the problem with prosthetics. They make dissimilar actors look alike. I'd rather see Elba's naked features.

Two issues have loomed in pre-release publicity for "Star Trek Beyond." There's a shot of John Cho's Sulu with his arm around another man, signaling that he's gay. This has reportedly troubled the original Sulu, George Takei, who thinks the revelation has more to do with his own post-track celebrity than the character of Sulu. Maybe so, except there is no character of Sulu. Fifty years ago, it seems that William Shatner made sure his supporting cast had only rudimentary dialogue. Sulu is a blank slate. He can be anything the new writers want him to be.

"Star Trek Beyond" is steeped in a larger sadness. The new Chekov, the gifted 27-year-old Anton Yelchin, died after the film was completed in an absurdly tragic accident. His car rolled down his driveway and pinned him. In his final turn, he's so exuberant. He seems to bound from scene to scene. High-flying as the movie is, the thought of his death can bring you crashing down to earth.

GROSS: David Edelstein is film critic for New York Magazine. Monday on FRESH AIR, my guest will be Michael K. Williams who played Omar on HBO's "The Wire" and Chalky White on "Boardwalk Empire." He's back on HBO in the new crime series, "The Night Of." We'll talk about the confusion he faced when fans expected him to be like his powerful, intimidating characters. And we'll talk about how he got his facial scar and how it changed his life. I hope you'll join us.

FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our engineer today is Adam Staniszewski, with additional engineering support from Joyce Lieberman and Julien Herzfeld. Our associate producer for online media is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. I'm Terry Gross.

Copyright © 2016 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information.

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How Star Trek Beyond Came Up With The Awesome Idea For Krall’s Swarm Of Ships

In 50 years of Star Trek history, fans have seen the USS Enterprise go up against hundreds if not thousands of equally-sized ships that threaten to destroy it -- but the new Star Trek Beyond presents the legendary vessel with a different kind of horrifying threat. The primary antagonist in the movie, Krall (played by Idris Elba ), attacks with a giant swarm under his control, and as we've seen in trailers, they do an excellent job of tearing the Enterprise apart. So how did the filmmakers develop this approach? It's actually an idea that director Justin Lin has had for a long time, understanding the advantages tiny ships would have going up against something as big as NCC-1701.

I learned about the origin of Krall's swarm of ships late last week while interviewing Star Trek Beyond co-writer Doug Jung during the blockbuster's Los Angeles press day . Always curious about how ideas come about and evolve over the course of production, I asked Jung how he and Simon Pegg came up with the bad guy's battle strategy -- and he explained that it was actually a contribution from Justin Lin that they all thought worked perfectly. Said the filmmaker,

The swarm was always in play. I think that was again something that Justin always wanted to do. He liked that idea of like asymmetrical warfare and he kind of made sense. He's like, 'Why would you have that big ship going around? Why not just get a bunch of little ones?' And I was like, 'Yeah. Guess it makes sense!' And it was also, I think we wanted to get a way a little bit from that sort of submarine warfare kind of feel.

It's certainly not the newest concept in fiction or even popular science-fiction (remember that it was the X-Wings that destroyed the Death Star), but it is tremendously cinematic, and beautifully done in Star Trek Beyond . Audiences have spent decades watching the Enterprise endure through vicious and hard-fought battles only to come out the other side okay -- but when Krall's swarm is attacking the ship in the first act of the new movie, it seems as though the powerful Federation vessel might as well be made of glue and tinfoil. It sets high stakes in the blockbuster, and while I won't get into spoilers, there is a brilliant payoff for them towards the end of the film as well.

It won't be long until you'll be able to witness the epic-ness of Krall's swarm, as Star Trek Beyond will be arriving in theaters this Friday, July 22nd. Until then, be sure to stay tuned for more from our interviews with the movie's filmmakers!

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"There's no relative direction in the vastness of space," a Starfleet high mucky-muck tells  Enterprise  Captain James T. Kirk ( Chris Pine ) in "Star Trek Beyond." "There's only you." She's asking him whether he wants to give up his captain's seat for a chance at a powerful desk job on the eve of his thirtieth birthday, a year younger than his father was when he died. Her language is meant to spur Kirk to look inward, and for a moment we might hope that he will, and that the film will look inward with him. 

There's a precedent for this sort of thing. Where all of the TV incarnations of " Star Trek " were mainly about morality and philosophy, with characterization serving as a means of examining those dramatic values, most of the big-screen film versions, including the '80s and '90s versions of the flagship TV show, were mainly concerned with the heroes' personalities. The screenplays gave us detailed examinations of, say, the relationship between Kirk and his half-Vulcan first officer Mr. Spock, between Kirk and the United Federation of Planets, between Kirk and the Klingons who tormented his civilization and killed his only son, and between all the characters (Kirk especially) and the prospect of aging and death. It was more soap opera than space opera at times, but always fun to watch, sometimes moving. 

What undermines "Star Trek Beyond" is that it's ultimately not interested in taking a long look at the "you" of Kirk, Spock ( Zachary Quinto ), ship's doctor "Bones" McCoy ( Karl Urban ), communications officer Uhura ( Zoe Saldana ), and the rest of the NCC-1701 crew. Sure, it nods in that direction. Even the worst "Star Trek" stories do. But in the end it's mostly a good big-budget sci-fi action movie that's been marinated in "Star Trek" flavor packets—and thus not terribly different from the 2009 "Star Trek" reboot or its sequel, " Star Trek Into Darkness ."

"Star Trek Beyond" pits the crew of the  Enterprise  against another bellowing megalomaniac ( Idris Elba ) who wants to punish the United Federation of Planets for its perceived sins. It's the best of the new "Trek" films, but it's still an unsatisfying effort if you want "Star Trek" to be something more than a military-minded outer space action flick, with familiar, beloved characters shoehorned into a standard mix of martial arts slugfests, close-quarters firefights, and scenes of starships and cities being shredded and burned. Advance publicity hyped "Star Trek Beyond" as a return to the original series' roots as a showcase for a bunch of eccentric personalities traveling the galaxy, ingeniously solving problems, and indulging in populist philosophizing about civilization and the frontier as they went along. But that's not what we get here—not really. 

Yes, there's a promising setup (the  Enterprise  crew is held hostage by a vicious bad guy who rules a backwater planet a la Kurtz in "Heart of Darkness"). And there are suggestions of classic "Star Trek" style action-plus-characterization-plus-cleverness, and pleasing performances by a cast that has settled into each others' rhythms, as a real-world naval crew would after years of sailing together. 

But the movie never delivers on its considerable promise because it's always in such a hurry to get to the next action scene. And aside from three magnificent setpieces—the first, crippling sneak attack by a fleet of tiny ships that swarm the  Enterprise  like explosive bees, and two vertigo-inducing chase-and-fight scenes in which geography goes all M.C. Escher on us—the action is not good enough to be the film's main course. Lin, who proved in the "Fast and Furious" series that he could do great or near-great action, here substitutes wobbly camerawork, chop-chop editing and rumbling sound effects for suspense and a sense of spatial design. It's a step up from the action in J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" movies, but that's not the sort of thing one should brag about. A climactic reprise of a certain overused Beastie Boys song might be the franchise's low point, rivaled only by the laughable credits sequence of "Star Trek V," which cut from a helicopter shot of a lean young stuntman scaling a craggy peak in the Pyrenees to a close-up of the 57-year-old star/director Shatner's meaty hand in a studio, gripping a fiberglas "rock."

Simon Pegg and Doug Jung's screenplay provides the right amount of homage (as when Kirk grumbles after an opening action scene that he ripped his shirt again), plus Spock/McCoy odd-couple banter and some marvelous, character-based laugh lines (Scotty demands that Kirk give an opinion on one of his engineering improvisations, because "if I mess it up, I don't want it to be just my fault"). There's psychological nuance, irony, even a political subtext (Elba's character, Krall, a reptilian Che Guevara-type who wants the galaxy's "frontier" to "push back" against the Federation's expansionism). Too bad none of these aspects are filled out with the detail they deserve. Krail's fire-and-brimstone sermonizing is turned to nonsense by a pointless and self-defeating third act "twist"—like we need another one of those after the boneheaded fan service of "Darkness"!—and there are points late in the film where "Star Trek Beyond" seems jolted by the sudden remembrance of things that it told us it was going to deal with but didn't. 

Uhura spends most of the movie in a prison camp. Kirk, Spock and even McCoy have human moments, but they spend too much of their screen time sprinting through hallways, firing phaser pistols, and piloting spaceships while yelling and grimacing in tight closeup, like the heroes of every other science fiction-flavored action movie projected in theaters recently. Krall and other characters allude to the Federation's fake-benevolent brand of imperialism, but unless you're familiar with examples from elsewhere in the "Star Trek" universe or got briefed by a super-fan before buying a ticket, you'll leave with no sense of whether the villains' grievances are legitimate, much less if you're supposed to feel mixed emotions at Kirk's inevitable triumph.  

Spock, whose home planet was destroyed by a renegade Romulan warlord in the first movie, suffers most from the filmmakers' preoccupation with  pew-pew-pew! a ction-adventure. For three movies now, Spock's been carrying a crushing load of survivor's guilt. The character's barely disguised Jewishness, brilliantly articulated by the late Leonard Nimoy in the original TV and movie series, is more pronounced in the new franchise: he's been turned into a holocaust survivor, part of a fragile Vulcan diaspora haunted by genocide. But the scripts seem scared of treating Spock's predicament with the seriousness it deserves, much less daring to put it at the center of a film. Here it's treated mainly as an explanation for why Spock can't seem to keep a relationship going with Uhura. The death of Leonard Nimoy is integrated into the story by having Vulcan diplomats inform Spock of the death of Ambassador Spock, an alternate-universe incarnation of the character who dispensed advice and plot points to new Spock whenever the screenwriters painted themselves into a corner. The film's method of mourning Nimoy's Spock makes the Spockus ex machina  thing worse. New Spock mourns classic Spock as if the two were dear friends who had dinner every Monday at the same Chinese restaurant.

The missteps of writing and direction are more depressing when you consider the excellence of the core cast. Quinto and Saldana give the Spock-Uhura relationship and their own spotlight moments a lot more than the film gives them. Pegg is a hoot as Scotty, colorful but never hammy, though we may justifiably raise a Spock-like eyebrow at all the times that the actor-screenwriter lets his character save the day. Pine's Kirk seems to be morphing seamlessly into Shatner's, complete with surprising pauses and intonations, but he's more credible as a strong, respected leader; watch how the actor grows more calm and friendly whenever Kirk's bridge crew is becoming more agitated. Elba is such a strong presence throughout, even near the end, that it's a shame Krall is never granted the depth and complexity that his character keeps threatening to disclose. 

At this point it's worth asking what, if anything, this franchise is good for besides generating cash for Paramount and its above-the-line talent. Everything that made the original TV series and its follow-ups, small- and big-screen, seem so open-hearted, intelligent and playful is marginalized to make room for hyperactively edited action scenes and displays of hardware and production design. These are technically state-of-the-art but ultimately not all that different from what you see in most other CGI-driven action pictures, superhero as well as sci-fi—long, loud spectacles that are filled with people fighting, blowing up cities and planets, and crashing things into other things, instead of finding some other, more surprising way to move the plot along. What's the point of giving up pleasures that the "Star Trek" franchise is good at providing, to make more room for pleasures that most big-budget science fiction and fantasy already give us, month after month and year after year? Why boldly go where everyone else is already going? 

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Film Credits

Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action and violence.

120 minutes

Chris Pine as Kirk

Zachary Quinto as Spock

Karl Urban as Bones

Zoe Saldana as Uhura

Simon Pegg as Scotty

John Cho as Sulu

Anton Yelchin as Chekov

Idris Elba as Krall

Sofia Boutella as Jaylah

Deep Roy as Keenser

Alice Eve as Dr. Carol Marcus

Writer (television series "Star Trek")

• Gene Roddenberry

Writer (uncredited)

• Roberto Orci
• Patrick McKay
• John D. Payne

Cinematographer

• Stephen F. Windon
• Greg D'Auria
• Dylan Highsmith
• Kelly Matsumoto
• Steven Sprung
• Michael Giacchino

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Den of Geek

Star Trek Beyond: 12 questions answered

A few spoiler-filled questions from Star Trek Beyond, and thoughts on their answers...

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This article first appeared on Den of Geek UK . It is FULL of nothing but spoilers.

Like all blockbuster movies, some of Star Trek Beyond sometimes leaves you with questions. Occasionally they have answers that are implied, or stated so quickly you might miss them, and occasionally they just don’t give you much to go on and you have to make up your own mind. As ever, we’ve tried to anticipate what questions you might have after seeing the movie and then answer them. Spoilers for Star Trek Beyond , quite naturally, follow.

Why did Edison change his name to Krall?

Well, using a fake name got Khan pretty far in the last film, so…

In this case, though: maybe he was trying to further disguise or distance himself from his humanity and the Federation. Maybe he just needed something that everyone could say. Judging on previous form, they’ll presumably do a tie-in comic that explains this so if you genuinely want to know, keep an eye on the racks.

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Where did Old Spock get a photo of the original TOS crew?

Well, when he was flying the jellyfish in the first movie, there was plenty of room in his robes for him to be carrying who knows what under there. It’s not inconceivable that he carries that photo around with him at all times, the big softie.

Why did Krall/Edison’s face keep changing?

It looks like the alien machines he used to prolong his life (which he found on Altamid after the Franklin crashed there) gave him the appearance of whichever alien/aliens he absorbed life-force from. By the end of the film he’s absorbed a bunch of human life energy, which is why he looked more like himself.

Who was Kalara really, then?

Kalara (the alien woman who asked the Enterprise for help to lure them into a trap) was presumably someone who was working with Krall/Edison as part of a general movement against the expansion of the Federation. It’s possible Krall/Edison did lure her ship to Altamid and kill her crew like she said, but maybe she was convinced to join him. Either way, this is another one of those questions you’ll probably discover the answer to when they do the prequel comic that I’m sure will be out within the year.

How did the Franklin get to Altamid, if it’s only on the fringes of the Federation a century later?

Well, given that it really was only a Warp 4 vessel, the “unstable wormhole” theory mentioned in the film seems correct. If you’re not familiar with the Trek -science, that means a wormhole (a direct link between two distant points in space) where one or both ends appear and disappear randomly, meaning once you go through you can’t get back the same way, because the exit you came through has already disappeared.

Why did the Enterprise need to separate its saucer section if it was already cut to bits?

The saucer section was still trying to draw power from the warp core, which was housed in the (severed) stardrive section. Since no saucer separation had been initiated, the impulse engines in the saucer couldn’t be engaged, which is why Kirk (and eventually Uhuru) had to manually jettison what was left of the stardrive section.

Where did Krall’s swarm of drones come from?

In his final log, Edison mentions finding “mining drones” of some kind. Over the next hundred years he presumably used the knowledge of his allies/prisoners and the resources on Altamid to turn them into a larger weapon – assuming he didn’t just steal it outright, that is.

How come the USS Franklin was still operational after 100 years crashed on Altamid?

Well, Jaylah seems to have patched it up for the most part with a view to getting it space-bourne again. But that’s why she needed Scotty – to help her through the last few steps so that she could actually get the ship working.

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Why did the Beastie Boys make the swarm ships blow up again?

It interrupted their communications, causing them to crash into one another and explode.

How come no-one else was able to help stop Krall on the Yorktown?

I think we can chalk this up to a combination of several things. First, Krall sent the rescue vessels to completely the wrong place by intercepting Sulu and Uhura’s transmission and changing the co-ordinates. Second, the drones probably did quite a fair bit of damage to any ships in the area at the time anyway. And finally we imagine there was some pretty serious evacuation going on behind the scenes of that last action segment, so maybe that was keeping them occupied.

Why did they get Jaylah a place at Starfleet Academy?

It just seemed like a natural end (at least for now) to her narrative arc in the movie.

What’s so tough about crossing a nebula such that Kirk is pleased they now know a route through it?

Well this one appeared to be full of very dangerous asteroids, and, well… the thing is… space is… it’s… I mean… Best we just go with this one…!

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Star Trek Beyond

Where to watch.

Watch Star Trek Beyond with a subscription on Paramount+, Apple TV+, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, Apple TV.

What to Know

Star Trek Beyond continues the franchise's post-reboot hot streak with an epic sci-fi adventure that honors the series' sci-fi roots without skimping on the blockbuster action.

Audience Reviews

Cast & crew.

Captain James T. Kirk

Zachary Quinto

Commander Spock

Doctor "Bones" McCoy

Zoe Saldana

Lieutenant Uhura

Montgomery "Scotty" Scott

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Film / Star Trek Beyond

Edit locked.

"We got no ship, no crew. How are we gonna get out of this one?" — Captain James T. Kirk

The One With… the Enterprise getting destroyed. Again.

Star Trek Beyond is the thirteenth film in the Star Trek film series, released in 2016.

The sequel to Star Trek Into Darkness and the third film in the "Kelvin Timeline" that began with Star Trek (2009) . Premiering at San Diego Comic-Con on July 20, 2016 and worldwide on July 22, it coincided with the franchise's 50th anniversary . It is directed by Justin Lin with a script by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung.

After a brutal attack on the Enterprise by an enigmatic and malevolent alien warlord named Krall ( Idris Elba ), the bridge crew are left stranded on an unknown world. Now Kirk ( Chris Pine ), Spock ( Zachary Quinto ), McCoy ( Karl Urban ), Uhura ( Zoe Saldaña ), Sulu ( John Cho ), Chekov ( Anton Yelchin ) and Scotty ( Simon Pegg ) must find a way to escape and put a stop to the warlord's sinister plans.

Star Trek Beyond provides examples of:

• Abandon Ship : Kirk orders the crew to abandon ship after the Enterprise has been critically damaged and is unable to escape. The Enterprise itself has its warp engines and main engineering hull cut off in succession, while the saucer separates from the remains of engineering and crash-lands on a planet.
• Aborted Arc : The first two movies had a plotline going on about the increasing militarization of Starfleet (thanks to Nero's incursion and Klingon border skirmishes) and a looming conflict with the Klingon Empire. Star Trek Into Darkness even had Starfleet wearing Nazi-ish uniforms and was full of The War on Terror parallels. Here, we get a bright, colourful standalone adventure where Scotty explicitly says "Starfleet is not a military organization," the opening scene is about diplomacy, and the main plot is a big-budget version of TOS's many "stranded on an unfamiliar planet" episodes. The only connection to this is a minor thematic one, as Krall is a stranded Starfleet officer who supports militarism. Furthermore, the technological advances from the last two movies (transwarp beaming, using augment blood to cure death) have been forgotten. None of this is a bad thing, though, because it brings this setting more in line with the parts of TOS that weren't about about Klingons, Romulans, or Khan (i.e. the majority of the show).
• Don't let the Red Skirt fool you, Uhura can hold her own. After Enterprise 's neck is severed from the stardrive, she runs into a room to help Kirk manually separate the saucer, sees two of Krall's mooks , and kills both of them in seven seconds flat.
• Jaylah, who is very handy in a fistfight or a gunfight.
• Shohreh Aghdashloo plays a flag officer.
• The Orion crewmember is played by Fiona Vroom, who previously portrayed one on the Fan Sequel web series Star Trek Continues .
• Sulu is revealed to be gay, just like his original actor.
• Along with a discussion on Aliens Speaking English , Jaylah's dialogue is a reference to Sofia Boutella's accent.
• Greg Grunberg plays a ranking officer only this time he's defending the station, not attacking it
• Adaptational Early Appearance : The Enterprise-A was only introduced fifteen years after the events of the five year mission. Here it appears three years in.
• Ambiguous Syntax : In his log, Captain Edison says "Of the crew, only three remain." While presumably this means Edison himself, Manas, and Kalara, it could also be interpreted as meaning three crew members besides Edison himself, in which case there might be a fourth member of the Swarm out there.
• And the Adventure Continues : The Enterprise crew departs from Starbase Yorktown on the Enterprise -A to resume their 5-year mission, with the "Space, the final frontier" monologue recited by the entire main crew.
• Are We There Yet? : As Jaylah leads Scotty on an extended trek to the Franklin , he gripes this. She warns him to not keep saying it, but fortunately they are just about there.
• Arm Cannon : The Swarm's normal weapons. They'e apparently detachable though, since Krall uses one in a failed attempt to shoot Kirk.
• Armor-Piercing Attack : Krall's drones are able to bypass the Enterprise's shielding, because Krall has its shield frequencies from hacking Federation technology. Subverted when his three remaining swarm ships are tricked into ramming the Franklin , which possesses actual armor they can't completely penetrate .
• Attack Its Weak Point : Used to brutal effect by Krall: eliminating the deflector dish prevents the Enterprise from activating its shields or warping long distances, taking out the nacelle pylons stops her from warping at all, and finally slicing the ship in half by attacking her neck severs the impulse engines from the warp reactors, disabling the ship. It turns out Krall knows so much about how Starfleet vessels work and how to attack them effectively because he used to be a Starfleet captain himself . Kirk returns the favor later on, using the "Bees'" computer navigation patterns against them to disrupt and destroy their formation easily.
• Autobots, Rock Out! : Weaponized. Due to Jaylah's penchant for "beats and shouting" music, the Enterprise crew use "Sabotage" to, well, sabotage the communications Krall's swarm uses to coordinate . Kirk: Let's make some noise.
• Award-Bait Song : Rihanna 's "Sledgehammer", which plays during the closing credits.
• Awesomeness by Analysis : For the third time in this movie series, Uhura shows what the job of communications officer entails besides being the radioman. Her keen ears and eidetic memory for sound is what tips her off to the fact that Krall is really the long-MIA Starfleet Captain Balthazar Edison, via the key phrase "pushing the frontier" .
• Badass Boast : A quiet one from Sulu to Krall: "You have no idea who we are. But you'll soon find out."
• Bat People : Two recurring extras are Starfleet officers who resemble humanoid bats with skin the texture of exposed musculature.
• Belly-Scraping Flight : Happens toward the end as the crew tries to get the nearly century-old USS Franklin airborne, which involves dropping it off a cliff to terminal velocity to get enough momentum for lift up. They scrape the cliff side once or twice on the way down, the tops of some trees when they pull up and brush a few more peaks on their way to orbit.
• Big Damn Heroes : Kirk almost follows Krall being Thrown Out the Airlock when he fails to open an escape hatch in time , but Spock and McCoy reach him in their hijacked vehicle and rescue him.
• Big Little Man : Kirk is surprised when the hostile alien ambassador roaring away at him charges down to kick his ass—and turns out to be the size of a small dog. Unfortunately all his friends pile onto Kirk as well, so he has to quickly beam out of there before they bite him to death.
• Birthday Beginning : The film opens three days before Kirk's birthday, and he's a little morose, because this year he'll be older than his father ever was .
• Birthday Hater : Kirk, because his birthday is also the anniversary of his father's death. This particular birthday is worse than usual because now he's a year older than his dad ever got to be.
• Bizarrchitecture : Starbase Yorktown, Starfleet's new deep space base/colony, is a series of interlocking ring worlds with their own gravities (their hollow centers contain tunnels and docking stations for starships), with a central hub that's straight out of Inception .
• Bluff the Imposter : Kirk pulls this on Kalara, claiming the artifact Krall is after is still on the Enterprise ; when she reveals her true colours , he and Chekov are able to get the drop on her.
• Boarding Pod : Krall's swarm of small ramming ships serves as both weapons and boarding pods so the Enterprise can be boarded and torn apart simultaneously.
• Body Horror : The victims of Krall's energy drain appear shriveled and mummified. McCoy has the opportunity to perform a medscan on one left barely alive and discovers that even internal organs are savaged by the attack. Later, Krall is seen performing his technique on two live crew members of the Enterprise in front of Uhura, who looks absolutely horrified.
• With the Enterprise destroyed, the bridge crew is forced to use the USS Franklin , a 100-year-old starship by this point, as their new ride.
• Kirk rides a vintage motorcycle that happened to be aboard the Franklin as part of the rescue mission.
• Early on, McCoy steals a bottle of scotch from Chekov's locker so he can have a drink with Kirk (they both would have guessed him to be a vodka man ), and toast Kirk's father. At the end of the film, Chekov is briefly heard telling a woman that "whiskey was actually invented in by a little old lady in Russia."
• One of the aliens who attacks Kirk in the opening scene and ends up beamed onto the Enterprise by accident is at Kirk's birthday party in the final scene, hanging out with Keenser . Kirk: Hey, Kevin. Still not wearing pants, I see.
• Scotty mentions an Urban Legend that the Franklin was grabbed by a giant green space hand. In the credit's sequence, we see just such a hand. (Also counts as a Mythology Gag , since that very thing happened to the Enterprise in the Prime timeline.)
• As it plays, McCoy and Spock note that it's classical music. Even Spock is bobbing his head to it. In Star Trek V , he did say he was "well-versed in the classics".
• Kirk knows how to ride a motorcycle, as he did it a lot before joining Starfleet in the first movie.
• Kirk remembers how he joined Starfleet because of Christopher Pike's Dare to Be Badass speech.
• The USS Franklin , the derelict vessel that the crew jury-rig to make it back to Starbase Yorktown, is very similar in design to Captain Archer's Enterprise NX-01 and has an NX-series registry number (NX-326) as well. It's indicated to be Earth's first Warp 4 vessel, which would make it older than the Enterprise , though it was evidently kept in service until the mid-22nd century.
• The Enterprise is equipped with escape pods built right into the walls of the main bridge. They're called "Kelvin pods" in reference to the USS Kelvin , most of whose bridge crew including George Kirk died because they had no way to escape the ship.
• Scotty escapes the destruction of the Enterprise by removing the warhead from a photon torpedo, stowing himself inside, and launching it, a trick he apparently picked up from Khan.
• Scotty again finds himself having to hold on for his life (and with his Starfleet ring prominently in view on his hand both times). While he had serious trouble before, this time he is able to make it without help.
• The Franklin 's former captain, Balthazar Edison, is said to have been a MACO prior to the founding of the Federation. He also tells Kirk that he lost soldiers to the Xindi and Romulans.
• Scotty mentions that the NX spaceships used to be built in space (so they're not meant to fly in atmosphere), unlike the current generation, a reference to how Kirk watched the Enterprise being built on the ground in the first movie.
• Uhura's brilliance in linguistics comes into its most crucial play ever, when she discovers a critical secret about Krall just from catching a single word spoken on a scratchy video on the USS Franklin .
• Sulu has a daughter .
• The Starfleet commodore who gives Kirk the mission briefing early in the movie is later identified with the surname "Paris", suggesting she may be an ancestor of Star Trek: Voyager character Tom Paris (the son of an Admiral Owen Paris).
• In the third film set in this timeline, the Enterprise is destroyed, just as it was in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock .
• An In-Universe Call-Forward : Ambassador Spock is revealed to have passed away, and when Spock is looking through his belongings, he finds a picture of the original crew circa Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , 24 years in this crew's future .
• Frequent Abrams collaborator Greg Grunberg appears as a Starfleet officer (Commander Finnegan) aboard the Yorktown starbase. If his name sounds familiar, it's because he's the alternate-universe version of the Cadet Shaun Finnegan who was Kirk's Academy-days bully in the original series. Related to this, he also voiced Kirk's (possibly abusive) stepdad in the first movie.
• Danny Pudi of Community (for which Justin Lin directed an episode) appears under heavy makeup as one of the stranded aliens that accost Scotty when he lands on Altamid.
• Casting Gag : One of the Enterprise crew members is a female Orion. She is played by Fiona Vroom, who already played the Orion woman Lolani in the eponymous episode of the Fan Sequel series Star Trek Continues .
• Casual Danger Dialogue : Kirk is under attack from a Teenaxi Zerg Rush and desperately calling for a beam-out. Scotty's response? Scotty: That was quick. There's quite a bit of surface interference, Captain.
• Character Development : Kirk has settled into the position of Captain, and no longer feels he doesn't deserve the job. As a result he seems more mature and confident, while also keeping a more aloof attitude .
• Chekhov's Gag : Keenser is ill, and is coughing up some manner of acid that could corrode through a bulkhead, which McCoy is treating. This appears to be a one-off joke when McCoy mentions it, but later it comes in handy when the crew is captured, as he coughs on a wall with wiring to the cell door, enabling Sulu and Uhura to hotwire the door open for an escape attempt. [Keenser coughs up on the door] Uhura: Nice job, Keenser. Sulu: That is a one heck of a cold. [Keenser nods]
• The necklace Spock gave Uhura, which is emphasized during their spat earlier in the film, becomes significant when Spock remembers that it's made of Vokaya, which he can track to find Sulu, Uhura, and the rest of the crew's location .
• The stereo Jayla scavenged from the wreck of the USS Franklin , which is used to broadcast music that disrupts the communications of Krall's swarm fleet .
• The seemingly useless trinket Kirk collects from a failed diplomatic mission is actually the MacGuffin that powers an ancient alien superweapon .
• The hologram generators that Jaylah uses to disguise the USS Franklin are later used to produce multiple images of Kirk riding a motorcycle around Krall's compound, providing Krall's mooks with multiple false targets to shoot at.
• Kirk is informed that Yorktown is building a new ship that will supposedly be more advanced than the Enterprise . It reappears at the end, when it is completed and christened the Enterprise - A .
• In the opening, Scotty tells Kirk he can't beam him up because of "geological interference" — that is, he's too far underground. This becomes an issue in rescuing the crew as well.
• The Breaching Pods slamming into the Enterprise hull gets turned against the villains when the Franklin suddenly launches out of the water in front of them, and Krall's ships get stuck in the hull, as the Franklin was built back when Starfleet still used armor plating instead of shields.
• Kirk uses the gunk that he and Chekov got trapped in to shield a group of Enterprise survivors during the rescue from Krall's compound.
• Chekhov's Gunman : Kirk runs into Ensign Syl during the Abandon Ship sequence. It's later revealed that he gave her the Abronath for safekeeping .
• Chekhov's Skill : We get to see Kirk drive a motorcycle again to create a diversion to allow his crew to escape Krall .
• Dr. Carol Marcus joined the crew of the Enterprise at the end of Into Darkness . She is not seen or even mentioned in this movie.
• Likewise, Gaila (who appeared in the 2009 film, and joined the crew permanently in the IDW comic series leading up to this film) isn't present in the film.
• Several Recurring Extra bridge crew members from the last film are also absent.
• Close on Title : No title appears until the end of the film, a first in the franchise's fifty year history.
• Clothing Damage : Kirk's fight with the Teenaxi leaves his uniform shredded. Bones: Jim, you look like crap. Kirk: Thank you, Bones.
• Confess to a Lesser Crime : After crash-landing on Altamid, Kirk accuses Kalara of knowing that they would be ambushed and of having led them into a trap, to which she claims that she only did so to protect her crew whom Krall has imprisoned; it turns out she really was in league with Krall, but fortunately Kirk sees through it .
• Continuity Nod : A number of them towards Star Trek: Enterprise , as that is the only series still officially canon to the reboot movies. On the planet, the crew find the Starfleet ship USS Franklin , which actually predates the NX-01 Enterprise and shares obvious design similarities. It's stated to be the first Warp 4 vessel, as the NX-01 was the first Warp 5 vessel. The transporter is mentioned as being rated only for cargo, not crewmen, as the NX-01 had the first official crewman transporter. The uniforms resemble the flight suit design. There are mentions of MACO, a pre-Federation Starfleet military corps that had a detachment on the NX-01, as well as events like the Romulan War and the Xindi Conflict. Krall's specifically mentions his time as a MACO and in the Xindi Conflict, which would indicate he served on the NX-01 during the third season .
• Contrived Coincidence : One would think this when an escape pod carrying a survivor from one of Krall's attacks just happens to arrive at Yorktown right after the Enterprise , which happens to be carrying the MacGuffin Krall wants, docks at the station. However, it's later revealed that the whole thing was planned from the start by Krall to lure the Enterprise to Altamid .
• The USS Franklin is from the era of Star Trek: Enterprise , being the predecessor to the Enterprise NX-01. Having been missing and in disuse for a century, Scotty and Jaylah bring the old boy out for one last flight to escape Altamid and reach Yorktown.
• The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701): For her final appearance, she's been given a noticeable refit between this film and the end of Star Trek Into Darkness with her warp nacelles made somewhat smaller, the pylons swept back, and the back of the neck (nape?) pushed slightly inward.
• The individual ships within Krall’s swarm. Spikes of Doom definitely in effect.
• And of course, the USS Enterprise - A .
• Costume Evolution : The Starfleet Uniforms get a overhaul dropping the delta patterned tunic from the first two films for solid colored ones closer to the Original Series designs with a tweaked collar.
• Creation Sequence : The movie ends with the time-lapse creation of the Enterprise -A .
• Creator Cameo : Doug Jung, who co-wrote the film, appears as Sulu's husband Ben. He's seen carrying their daughter to safety when Yorktown is attacked.
• Curb-Stomp Battle : Yet again , the Enterprise is on the receiving end of one of these, mainly because it's a Zerg Rush of enemy ships. Tragically, it's her last.
• Damsel out of Distress : By the time Spock arrives at Krall's camp to save Uhura, she's not only saved herself, but ends up saving him from one of Krall's mooks. Uhura: What are you doing here? Spock: Clearly I am here to rescue you.
• Deadpan Snarker : Spock and McCoy spend much of the movie trading dry wisecracks.
• Death by Irony : Enterprise gets her revenge on Kalara for luring her into Krall's trap, by way of Kirk firing all the ventral thrusters of the crashed saucer, flipping it over and crushing her under the saucer's bulk .
• Death by Looking Up : Kalara getting squashed like a bug by the crashed saucer of Enterprise .
• Death Notification : After arriving at Starbase Yorktown, Spock is approached by two Vulcan elders who inform him that Ambassador Spock has passed away .
• Death of a Thousand Cuts : The Enterprise gets destroyed by a massive swarm of fighter-sized ships that, if encountered individually, would've been negligible threats.
• Declining Promotion : Kirk in the end declines the promotion to admiralty he previously applied for. Like his prime universe counterpart, he now realizes he enjoys commanding a starship too much to give it up. Commodore Paris seems almost amused at this. Kirk: Vice Admirals don't fly, do they?
• Deconstruction : The design of the Enterprise herself suffers this — literally. The nacelle pylons and the "neck" between the saucer and engineering hulls are obvious structural weaknesses, and Krall takes brutal advantage of that.
• Determinator : After being wounded by shrapnel during their crash-landing on Altamid, Spock spends the rest of the film making a valiant attempt to soldier on in spite of his injuries; once he is out of mortal danger, he insists on accompanying the away team to rescue Uhura and the rest of the crew, and volunteers to board one of the enemy vessels (with McCoy forced to tag along in both instances, much to his chagrin).
• Did You Think I Can't Feel? : McCoy and Spock spend much of the movie together, doing their emotion/stoic classic banter. McCoy at one point says he thinks Spock hates him and Spock is taken aback, calling him Leonard and saying he thought it was clear he had the utmost respect for him.
• Digging Yourself Deeper : Though most of the bridge crew have assembled on the USS Franklin , almost every other Enterprise survivor is still imprisoned by Krall. Spock determines a novel method to locate them: Spock: It is vokaya , Mr. Chekov, a mineral unique to Vulcan which emits low-level radiation. ... Lt. Uhura wears a vokaya amulet which I presented to her as a token of my affection and respect. McCoy: You gave your girlfriend radioactive jewelry. Spock: The emission is harmless, doctor, but its unique signature makes it very easy to identify. McCoy: ...You gave your girlfriend a Tracking Device . Kirk, Chekov, Jaylah, Scotty : ( reaction shot ) Spock: ( Beat ) ... That was not my intention .
• Disney Villain Death : Manas and Krall.
• Distressed Dude : Spock suffers a nearly fatal injury in an escape pod crash. McCoy is there to help, but Spock is incapacitated until they get their hands on actual medical supplies.
• Do a Barrel Roll : The Enterprise -A pulls one off at the end of the film.
• Does This Remind You of Anything? : Krall's rhetoric bears a strong resemblance to that of the Nazis, no doubt on purpose. This may be ironic given that he turns out to be a black man. The good guys get this too, oddly, with Scotty illustrating Federation doctrine that strength comes from unity with the "fasces" symbol (a bundle of sticks is stronger than one) that was used by the Italian Fascists and inspired their name (of course, they are hardly the only ones who said this). note  The actual Nazis and Fascists said both things, in fact. Struggle was good between nations or races, but unity was also a strength within as well. The Italian Fascists actually took the fasces analogy from the Roman Empire, who used it to represent the unity of the many different nationalities under the Imperial government, much like the many species and planets united under the Federation.
• Dropped a Bridge on Her : Literally, even. The bridge of the Enterprise is dropped on Kalara, along with the entire rest of the saucer section .
• Dutch Angle : Extensively used in scenes set in the crippled and crashed Enterprise .
• Emotions Versus Stoicism : A natural consequence of McCoy and Spock being paired together during the Party Scattering .
• Empty Chair Memorial : When pouring a drink for himself and Kirk, McCoy also pours a glass in memory of Kirk's father.
• Escape Pod : The surviving crew abandons the ship in escape pods, which are quickly grabbed by Krall's fighters and brought to his base.
• "Eureka!" Moment : When they argue the hive's Zerg Rush could be disrupted with a "loud and distracting" signal, Scotty suddenly recalls something he called that, and asks Jaylah to provide some music for their attack.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap! : Spock's reaction as he remembers Uhura's necklace and McCoy points out the implications of his explanation. McCoy: You gave your girlfriend a Tracking Device ? Spock: [beat] That was not my intention.
• Krall's Mecha-Mooks are rather similar to the Geth ; both are a group of alien-created robots led by an organic being who happens to be a fanatical rogue agent of the respective series' main peacekeeping organization .
• After The Reveal , Krall is clearly one for Pinbacker in Sunshine , down to the video logs .
• Failsafe Failure : The last failsafe lever on Yorktown's atmosphere processing system refuses to work like the others did, forcing Kirk to tug at it until it finally comes free at the proper dramatic moment. Plus, the system has all kinds of elaborate safeguards to prevent anyone from tampering with it via the network — but a person can simply take an elevator to the roof of the building it's on and release a bio-weapon with ease even as people in the command center struggle to overcome the security protocols to try to stop them.
• Fanservice Extra : Not to the extent of the previous films, but a Recurring Extra female Orion crew member who never gets any dialogue is wearing nothing but a nightgown during her only notable scene, where she kicks Chekhov out of her cabin.
• Averted with Sulu, who has a photo of his daughter on his console on the bridge, yet survives the adventure, though at one point Krall threatens to kill him . His daughter herself, his husband, and all other inhabitants of Starbase Yorktown, are at risk of being killed by the Abronath when Krall attacks .
• And then there is the photo of the original TOS crew, his "family" , that young Spock finds among the personal items he inherited from the recently deceased Spock Prime. He likely died of old age though, and may have already outlived most, if not all of them.
• Flat "What" : Kirk's response to the Teenaxi Delegation's final logical descent to "They want to eat us!"
• Forced Friendly Fire : Uhura, in the course of beating down one of Krall's mooks, uses his gun to blast another when she's on the way to help Kirk separate the Enterprise saucer from the remains of the engineering section.
• The movie opens with tiny aliens trying to rip Kirk to pieces. Later, tiny swarm ships succeed in ripping the Enterprise to pieces.
• When Kalara first approaches Yorktown, her incoming video feed glitches, causing her to briefly resemble Krall, as a hint that they're on the same side . She also briefly appears more humanoid in other glitched shots of the video, possibly hinting at her and Krall's true origins .
• When Spock mentions to McCoy about his plan to return to New Vulcan after Ambassador Spock's death , he also says that he hasn't told Kirk about it as he hasn't had the time. McCoy mentions his belief that Kirk would not like it, saying, "he wouldn't know what to do without you" to Spock. In the climax, McCoy and Spock rescue Kirk from falling through the hatch into space. Promptly, Kirk thanks Spock with, "What would I do without you, Spock?"
• When Kirk volunteers the Enterprise to go on the rescue mission as it has the best sensors, Commodore Paris mentions that the only other ship with better sensors is not fully built yet, foreshadowing the Enterprise -A .
• Immediately after Spock stores the MacGuffin in the Enterprise archives, the archive computer readout momentarily blurs; revealed later that Krall was searching for the artifact by hacking into the Federation's computers .
• He refuses to say where he learned to speak English. Nor does he ever name his people, or homeworld .
• He's familiar enough with Federation tech to hijack one of their probes' signal .
• His calling the USS Franklin "Old Friend" has the viewer assuming he's referring to Kirk. He's actually referring to his old ship.
• Upon seeing Starbase Yorktown, he exclaims, "Look how far they've come," hinting that he was around when the Federation started .
• His sucking the life of captives and how it changes his appearance to one more smooth-skinned and human-appearing hints that he's not what he appears .
• His wardrobe has a similar pattern to NX-01 Enterprise -era uniforms .
• Forgotten Phlebotinum : Transwarp beaming and using augment blood to cure death aren't even mentioned. However, three years have passed since the end of Star Trek Into Darkness , so it's possible the technology has been somehow lost in the interim. Transwarp beaming in particular would be a Story-Breaker Power in Beyond . If the crew could use it to return to Starbase Yorktown without a ship, then there would be no need for Jaylah or the Franklin to play any role in the story.
• Four Lines, All Waiting : As detailed below on Party Scattering , once the Enterprise crashes there are four groups: Kirk and Chekov keeping their eyes on Kalara; Spock and McCoy; Scotty (who meets Jaylah); and Sulu, Uhura, and the rest of the surviving crew (who are captured by Krall). Then it's reduced by Kirk reuniting with Scotty, the latter managing to beam up McCoy and Spock, and ultimately the captive crew being rescued.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus : Hendorff , the big burly Red Shirt who appeared in the previous two movies note  He's the guy in the bar scene in Star Trek who insults Kirk by calling him "cupcake", and then appears on the away mission to Q'onos in Into Darkness can be seen walking directly behind Keenser when the enterprise prisoners are being herded onto Krall's base.
• From Bad to Worse : The crew escape the wrecked Enterprise , only to end up as prisoners on an alien planet where Everything Is Trying to Kill You .
• Future Music : Beastie Boys are now considered "classical". Ironically, Scotty doesn't like Public Enemy because it's " too old-fashioned."
• Gale-Force Sound : Taken to the Logical Extreme : both the Franklin and Starbase Yorktown, using "Sabotage" by Beastie Boys . While not 100% accurate, as they use the music broadcasted over VHF frequencies , the editing makes it look like this (provided you forget about Sound In Space ). Works exceptionally well in case of Yorktown, the activation of its powerful transmitters being synced to the Metal Scream in the song .
• Going Down with the Ship : Kirk is the last person to leave the Enterprise , though he doesn't crash with it.
• Go Mad from the Isolation : Krall is actually a Starfleet captain who crashed on the planet a hundred years ago. He and two others ended up as the only surviving crew. After waiting most of his life to be rescued, he grew resentful of the Federation, and after finding advanced mining drones on the planet to be a formidable fleet, in his last official Captain's Log he swore revenge .
• Got Volunteered : When Spock volunteers to commandeer one of the swarm ships, Kirk shoots him down because Spock is still injured. Spock compromises by suggesting someone also familiar with the swarm ship and his injuries join him. Cut to Bones giving Spock hell for the idea.
• Gravity Screw : Because of the design of Starbase Yorktown, the Artificial Gravity fields create areas where one can fly on gravity slipstreams, such as during the Interesting Situation Duel between Kirk and Edison .
• Gunship Rescue : Sulu and Uhura attempt this when stranded on Krall's base by attempting to send a distress beacon to Starfleet. Krall expected this, and actually skewed their location coordinates so any attempts at this trope would end up in the nebula, making them easy targets for Krall's fleet.
• Happily Married : Hikaru Sulu. He has a husband and young daughter.
• Hell-Bent for Leather : The survival uniforms worn by Kirk and Chekov — which sensibly lack rank insignia (given that they're survival gear, who wears them is a matter of who happens to get in that escape pod, and picking out senior officers in a situation where they may be evading and escaping from enemy territory would only tell the enemy who their high-value captives are) — have, as standard issue, a leather jacket (it's grey and dark blue, however, not black).
• Heroic Sacrifice : During the Enterprise's fall, Uhura completes the saucer separation, leaving herself to be captured by Krall.
• History Repeats : Just like his father, Jim Kirk is helpless to save his ship from an overwhelming enemy force, managing only to buy time for the survivors to evacuate. The Enterprise even closely resembles the USS Kelvin after her nacelles are blown off by the swarm. He does manage to escape before his ship's final destruction, however.
• Hoist by His Own Petard : Krall is killed by the superweapon he's spent all this time seeking.
• Hollywood Tactics : Par for the course with Star Trek when the Enterprise and later Starbase Yorktown use photon torpedoes against the swarm, which is ineffective because the swarm simply makes a hole for them to pass through. Photon torpedoes are consistently described as simply being matter/antimatter missiles, and even on Earth, explosive weapons don't need a direct hit to inflict damage: proximity detonation of the torpedoes would have inflicted significant casualties, if not ended the battle before the Enterprise was even boarded. (Partially handwaved when it's stated the torpedoes can't track the enemy, it's possible they could not even detect the targets for a proximity detonation.)
• Hope Spot : In the final battle between Krall and Kirk, Krall sees his mostly human reflection in a shard of glass. After briefly pondering helping Kirk stop the bioweapon, he grabs the shard and tries to kill Kirk. Kirk kills him about 30 seconds later.
• I Can Still Fight! : In spite of his various injuries, Spock keeps going on and surviving various away missions .
• I Choose to Stay : Kirk and Spock are seriously considering leaving the Enterprise to pursue other interests at the start of the film, but they eventually change their minds.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder : During the battle at Yorktown, Spock and McCoy are beamed onto one of Krall's ships to gather intelligence. What McCoy isn't this time is a Riddle for the Ages note  Assuming McCoy wasn't actually going to curse a certain F-word , the likely completion of the phrase would be "fighter pilot", given what Kirk was asking McCoy to do : McCoy: Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a f — [is beamed out]
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy : Justified . Krall's troops are actually re-purposed mining robots left behind by the former occupants of Altamid .
• Inappropriately Close Comrades : As well as the ongoing Spock/Uhura, Kirk's "Captain's Log" section at the beginning describes the open formation and breaking up of sexual relationships among crew members as just something that happens on a long space mission.
• Inertia Is a Cruel Mistress : Like Kirk and Sulu in the '09 film, Kirk and Jaylah are beamed out while in midair, and land hard.
• In Spite of a Nail : The Enterprise is wrecked over an alien planet, much like in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock . And like in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , the crew later take command of the Enterprise -A.
• A battle with Mecha-Mooks inside the Enterprise while it's being torn apart by the Swarm.
• Kirk exchanging phaser fire with pursuers while sliding down the saucer section.
• Kirk's final battle with Krall in the variable-gravity centre of Yorktown.
• Invisibility Flicker : The holo-camouflage hiding the Franklin .
• It Has Been an Honor : When Spock sees Krall's mooks converge upon them, he delivers a typically Vulcan variation on this trope to McCoy, right after McCoy quips, "And here I was thinking you cared." Spock: Of course I care, Leonard. I always assumed my respect for you was clear.
• It's Not You, It's Me : Uhura's reason for breaking things off with Spock early in the movie. Lampshaded by McCoy: McCoy: When an Earth girl says, "It's not you, it's me," it's definitely you.
• I Will Only Slow You Down : Spock says this to McCoy when they leave the cave: Spock: Leaving me behind will significantly increase your chances of survival, Doctor. McCoy: Well, that's damn chivalrous of you, but completely out of the question. Spock: It is imperative that you locate any surviving crew. McCoy: And here I was thinking you cared.
• Kalara lured the crew of the Enterprise to be ambushed by Krall's swarm leading to the ship's untimely destruction. Later, Kirk and Chekov activate the thrusters of the downed saucer section causing it to flip and crush her.
• Keystone Army : Krall's lethally swift and highly coordinated swarm of hive-minded drones are easily disrupted and defeated by jamming their control signal with "Sabotage" by Beastie Boys .
• Kirk Summation : Given by ( who else? ) Kirk to Krall in the final act, trying to appeal to his former loyalty to Starfleet and humanity and his better nature. Krall responds with Shut Up, Kirk! , leading to the final fight.
• Jaylah quite enjoys the "beats and shouting" of "classical" human rock music. Scotty, not so much.
• Likewise, Spock has no problem quoting Shakespeare, to McCoy's annoyance. He also apparently has no problem with Beastie Boys .
• Layman's Terms : While the crew attempt to figure out a way to stop Krall's attack on Yorktown , Spock comes up with an idea and starts going into a Technobabble-laden explanation, which annoys Kirk and he tells Spock to cut to the chase. Uhura helpfully translates in Spock's place. Uhura: What's he saying is if we can disorient the swarm, we can kick its ass! Spock: Precisely.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall : Kirk's log mentions that the last three years seem to have been of " episodic " nature.
• Legacy Vessel Naming : The more advanced ship being constructed by the Federation is christened the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701- A ) at the end, after the Enterprise is destroyed in the film .

• Lightning Bruiser : The "bees". The swarm is made of thousands of incredibly fast ships that simply dodge any attacks they come across, and they're sturdy enough to go through the Enterprise without being damaged, but they have no offensive weapons like phasers or torpedoes and are reliant on their communications network to coordinate attacks.
• Limited Wardrobe : While recording his Captain's Log , Kirk opens his wardrobe and looks at the identical uniform shirts.
• Literal Cliffhanger : Scotty's torpedo topples into a ravine as he makes a futile leap for the ledge... then we see he's managed to grab on lower down.
• Looks Like Orlok : Idris Elba's Big Bad character Krall has pointy ears, sharp teeth, and angular features.
• Meaningful Echo : During Kirk's meeting with Commodore Paris at the beginning, they discuss Kirk's doubts about his suitability for his current role, and she says that in space, "it's easier than you think to get lost." During their meeting at the end, they discuss what Kirk has learned about what happened to the crew of the Franklin after they were stranded on Altamid, and Kirk says their captain wasn't a bad man, he just got lost.
• Mecha-Mooks : The foot soldiers and pilots of the Swarm are revealed to be this, with Krall's only living henchmen being Manas and Kalara .
• Mildly Military : Kirk puts in for a promotion from Captain to Vice Admiral. In most navies, the rank of Rear Admiral is between Captain and Vice Admiral. (And promotions are awarded, not applied for.) Of course, Starfleet isn't a military organization .
• Misfit Mobilization Moment : Jaylah: You take my house... and you make it fly.
• Model Planning : Kirk and his officers plan their attack on Krall's base and the rescue of their crew using parts from the spaceship they're trying to repair.
• Mythology Gag : Considering the size of the franchise — more than enough for a separate page .
• Near-Villain Victory : Even after his swarm fleet is destroyed, Krall manages to sneak his way to the top of the central building inside Starbase Yorktown and almost succeeds in distributing his bioweapon throughout the station's ventilation system, which would kill everyone on board. Kirk barely manages to prevent it by ejecting both Krall and the weapon out the airlock just in time — and almost goes with them.
• Neglectful Precursors : The original inhabitants of Krall's planet. They departed long ago and left behind all kinds of dangerous technology including a fleet of swarm ships that can tear a starship to pieces , Bio-Augmentation technology that can extend life and enhance the body, and half of a Phlebotinum Bomb that kills life on a potentially massive scale.
• Not So Above It All : Spock can be seen bobbing his head slightly to Beastie Boys.
• Offscreen Airplane Pull-up : Because the Franklin wasn't designed with atmospheric flight in mind, the ship can't take off from its cliffside perch, and has to fall down said cliff to pick up enough speed for the thrusters to provide lift. Right as it reaches the bottom of the cliff, you see the ship nose-up like it's trying to pull up, but it keeps falling straight down regardless and falls out of view. A few seconds later, the ship races overhead as if atmospheric flight was trivial.
• Off with His Head! : The Enterprise's saucer section is sliced away from the stardrive section. Krall: Cut its throat.
• Older Is Better : The Franklin is inferior in virtually every way to a modern starship, but its outdated hull plating makes it more resistant to Krall's fighters than newer ships which rely on shielding that Krall's fighters can ignore. This is probably as close as starships get to Truth in Television , considering that WWII-era warships had thick armor to protect them, whereas modern warships rely more on advanced defensive weaponry.
• Spock is injured, and McCoy does emergency surgery on him, following it with an attempt to make things lighter with a joke. Spock starts laughing in response. McCoy correctly deduces that Spock's lost a significant amount of blood due to the injury, and is delirious.
• While previously shown to be gregarious and forceful, the movie opens with Captain Kirk feeling isolated and lacking purpose.
• Outdated Hero vs. Improved Society : Krall, a.k.a. Captain Balthazar Edison , was a former hero of the Romulan and Xindi Wars. When Starfleet was formed and the Federation preferred peace and cooperation between alien species rather than waging wars, Edison found out the hard way that he could not adapt to the new society. That, coupled with being abandoned in uncharted territories by the society he once proudly served, was the final straw that drove him mad and caused him to swear vengeance.
• Outrun the Fireball : Done by Kirk and Chekov once the captain shoots at the crashed Enterprise 's fuel compartment.
• Krall's fleet of swarm ships. They're too numerous for phasers to destroy many of them, they're too small and nimble for torpedoes to lock onto them, and they have tech that lets them pass straight through shields. They behave in much the same way as piranhas in movies do , and can destroy a starship in minutes.
• The swarm ends up on the receiving end when the Franklin gets involved, as it not only has a means to disable the swarm's coordination (getting VHF on a high-tech starship is trivial when the ship has a 20th-century "boombox" stereo on board), but since it uses armor instead of shields for defense, the biggest chunk of damage it takes in the film note  not counting the wear-and-tear that sitting on a cliff for 100 years must have done to it is when ramming a bulkhead , which would obliterate a more "modern" ship like the Enterprise , does cosmetic damage to the Franklin .
• The aforementioned boombox is itself an OCP, as it's not very likely you'd find one that far into the future when they're already ancient by 21st-century standards.
• Party Scattering : The crew of the Enterprise are split up once they land on Altamid. Scotty's escape pod lands him near Jaylah; McCoy and Spock (who were piloting an enemy ship) crash land in a mountainous river region; Sulu, Uhura, and the rest of the crew end up in Krall's base; and Kirk and Chekov (who left the Enterprise last) end up in a forest region near the Enterprise 's crashed saucer.
• Percussive Maintenance : Played for Laughs during Kirk's opening log by Scotty and Keenser trying to fix a device. Keenser whacks it as the scene closes with unknown results.
• Personal Effects Reveal : Spock receives Ambassador Spock's possessions, which include a portrait of the TOS Prime crew.
• The Peter Principle : Kirk was starting to get exhausted with the deep space exploration and being gone from anything related to Earth in years. For this reason he was considering a promotion to Admiral, but at the end of the film decides against it because he knew once he did he would miss the adventure of being a Captain. Kirk accepting promotion and hating it was a major character point in the original films, as Admiral Kirk became a bureaucrat and was told by both Spock and McCoy that commanding a starship is what he is best at (his demotion back to Captain was gladly received).
• Planet Spaceship : Starbase Yorktown is less a conventional starbase and more a small artificial planet that just happens to double as one. It's big enough to hold millions of inhabitants in rings along the edges.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child : Krall has managed to stay alive for "many lifetimes" thanks to technology that harvests the energy of the people he captures, to make himself younger. This technology has mutated his human form so that he resembles those he's feeding off.
• The Power of Friendship : Krall spends the entire film sneering that the Federation's objective of peace and cooperation makes them weak.
• The Power of Rock : Spock comes up with the idea of using radio jamming to disorient Krall's fleet, but they need a signal to broadcast. Cue Beastie Boys . Judging from the reactions of the characters, the music itself is broadcast on the ship and Yorktown as well. (The trope's best shown as the biggest explosion occurs right at a Metal Scream .)
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner : Just before unleashing The Power of Rock , Kirk can't quite resist the temptation. Kirk: Let's make some noise.
• Ragnarök Proofing : The USS Franklin seemingly crashed on the planet about 80 years ago and is expressly said not to be built for atmospheric travel. But with some hand-built repairs, the crew is able to get it back into decent condition and, with aid from a freefall, use it to escape the planet. It's not the first time in the franchise the Federation has made use of an 80+ year-old starship. It also helps that Jayla's been living in it since she was young; Scotty mentions she's done a number of repairs herself over time.
• The antagonistic aliens assault the Enterprise by swarming the ship with thousands of smaller craft that cause hull breaches wherever possible. When flying in formation, they're able to slice the nacelles right off, and separate the saucer from the engineering section a few minutes later.
• This backfires on Krall at the end. In order to intercept his remaining swarm fighters in Yorktown, Kirk has the Franklin burst from a pool that the ships are travelling over, causing all three to embed themselves in the Franklin's armored saucer (it's an older model which doesn't have shields).
• The original red shirts are given the traditional treatment when Krall boards the Enterprise . In this case it's fully justified ; their shipboard function is to repel hostile boarders, and they are intentionally putting themselves in harm's way to protect the rest of the crew. They also manage to put up a decent fight, but it's a one-sided battle from the get-go .
• The two who accompany Kirk during his first tussle with Krall are never named and don't last five seconds, although they do aid in taking down Krall's own mooks in turn.
• When the boarders storm the bridge, a handful of blue-shirts soak up the fire, leaving the main cast unscathed.
• Poor Ensign Syl is slaughtered for no other reason than to showcase Krall's ultimate weapon.
• A redshirt and a blueshirt are sacrificed to Krall's life-draining machine when he demonstrates it to Sulu and Uhura. In a cruel twist, Simon Pegg mentioned that these are Robert Tomlinson and Angela Martine, the couple Married at Sea in the Prime Timeline episodes TOS : " Balance of Terror " and 'SNW : " A Quality of Mercy ." One of them dies in those episodes.
• And like the second film, where he was involved in a defiance of this trope, Hendorff again survives the film's events. In this case, the trope is merely averted for him.
• Retro Upgrade : Kirk's crew manage to replace damaged parts of the Franklin with what little they could salvage from the Enterprise .
• The Reveal : Looking at some video logs (while doing some Rewind, Replay, Repeat ), Uhura finally figures out that Krall Was Once a Man , and even more, a Starfleet captain. Notably, she spots or rather hears the resemblance due to the way Krall and Captain Edison pronounce the word "frontier."
• Rule of Cool : Why does the swarm turn to engulf the Franklin in a literal oceanic-style wave? Why does Kirk's frequency attack use a Beastie Boys song? Because it's awesome.
• Franchise-wide, played with. After two previous films where Kirk gets his butt kicked by aliens/enhanced humans, he finally wins a fight against one of them.
• Kelvin Universe-wise, this movie showcases the third time a starship has "breached" something it's typically not supposed to. The first movie had the Enterprise breach the clouds of Titan as a signature scene, Into Darkness had it breaching high-rise clouds on Earth after a narrowly avoided burn-up, and here we have the Franklin breaching the water of a large pool, just in time to blockade all remaining enemy craft, including the Big Bad 's .
• Russian Reversal : Actually a plot point: Uhura's Cunning Linguist ears are able to recognize the similarity in Krall's line to a recording of USS Franklin 's missing CO, Captain Balthazar Edison, cluing her in that they're the same person. Krall: The Federation has pushed the frontier for centuries. But no longer. This is where it begins, Lieutenant [Uhura]. This is where the frontier pushes back .
• Saved by the Platform Below : Scotty's escape pod comes to a hold above a cliff's edge . When he exits, the pod drops into the abyss with Scotty following shortly after. Then the camera pans beyond the edge to show that he actually managed to hold on to a ledge just below.
• Scenery Gorn : The Enterprise is again turned into an impressively detailed burning wreck of broken metal.
• Scenery Porn : The Enterprise entering Yorktown, which is absolutely stunning in its scope. A snowglobe in space, as McCoy describes it, containing cities in rings around the edges.
• In the first film , the ship, albeit damaged, remained operative through the end.
• In the second , the ship almost crashed after taking severe damage and had to be repaired so she could fly again at the end.
• In this one, the ship finally gets completely wrecked beyond repair.
• Shining City : Yorktown, even filmed in one of the few cities on Earth that look futuristic, Dubai.
• Shooting the Swarm : The Enterprise firing her phasers at Krall's swarm. It does little to no good.
• The central MacGuffin is a bioweapon, over which its creators could not maintain control . It looks exactly like a Guyver unit.
• The backstory of Krall's time on the planet Altamid is one to Forbidden Planet .
• The plan at the end involves stealing an enemy ship and using it to introduce a disrupting signal that will help eliminate the alien fleet. Perhaps Kirk had just rewatched Independence Day .
• The armor Krall's soldiers wear strongly resembles the Covenant Elites' armor in Halo .
• Yorktown's design brings to mind the space station/cityscape of Elysium , on a more massive scale.
• Ensign Syl's cranium strongly resembles the facehuggers from the Alien films, and she shares the name of the Species femalien ("Sil") — both similar-typed aliens with H.R. Giger designs.
• One of Jaylah's traps ( the one Kirk and Chekov get caught in ) is essentially the Amber gas from Fringe .
• You can tell Simon Pegg co-wrote this film, with his classic "Skip to the End" line lurking in the script.
• McCoy refers to the Franklin 's medical systems as "from the Dark Ages". He has similar sentiment of 20th century medicine in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home after coming across an elderly hospital patient on dialysis.
• The motorcycle ridden by Kirk is a Hilts PX70 — the manufacturer being the name of Steve Mc Queen 's character in The Great Escape , who famously tries to evade Nazis using a bike (while ironically, the one in this movie is used to enter a prison).
• Single-Biome Planet : Averted. Altamid has a wide variety of environments ranging from dense forests to arid wastes to craggy mountains.
• Sink The Life Boats : Subverted when the Swarm snatch the lifepods as they eject, as Krall needs them to maintain his youth.
• Smug Snake : Kalara, for thinking that Kirk wasn't onto her after leading the Enterprise into a trap that saw it destroyed.
• The Social Darwinist : Krall believes that struggle makes you strong, and loathes the Federation's ideal that strength comes from unity, though his people seem pretty united themselves .
• Sophisticated as Hell : Spock of all people pulls one as McCoy attempts to cauterize his wounds and suggests that the pain would be less severe if Spock did not expect it: Spock: If I may adopt a parlance with which you are familiar, I can confirm your theory to be horseshit .
• Space Clothes : Played with. Aboard ship, the crew all wear the regular Starfleet uniform, but after they're stranded dirtside following the Enterprise 's destruction, Kirk and Chekov change into uniforms more practical for field duty, featuring knee pads, boots, and a heavy coat. (Spock, McCoy, and Scotty leave the ship by means other than the escape pods and so don't have field uniforms on hand, and the rest of the crew is captured without the chance to change clothes.)
• A downplayed version; after three years in deep space, Kirk is losing his sense of purpose. Commodore Paris: There's no relative direction in the vastness of space. There's only yourself, your ship, your crew. It's easier than you think to get lost.
• A more straight version would be Krall, whose sociopathy is borne out of being marooned on a desolate planet and feeling that the Federation has abandoned him .
• Space Station : Starbase Yorktown, which is a large globe containing the equivalent of several cities floating in space.
• Spectacular Spinning : Krall's armor has a shoulder disc that spins for no reason other than to look awesome.
• Stating the Simple Solution : Upon seeing Starbase Yorktown for the first time, McCoy suggests that it would've made far better sense to just rent out space on a planet instead . Spock says the decision was political : the Federation government apparently didn't want to show favoritism to any particular member planet, so they put it in deep space.
• Spock gets unexpectedly beamed up while he and McCoy are both surrounded by hostile alien gunships.
• When Kirk rides into Krall's base, Krall tries to shoot him down, allowing Uhura to slip away from captivity. Krall: [to Manas] Where is she?
• When Chekhov reports that Krall's swarm is forming an attack wave, it's shown resembling a massive tsunami wave coming at them.
• The signal used to disrupt Krall's swarm ships? "Sabotage" !
• Stock Scream : There's a Wilhelm scream when a Red Shirt suffers a Railing Kill in the initial battle.
• Straight Gay : Hikaru Sulu is gay, in honor of his original actor George Takei , and he and his husband have a young child.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land : Krall, born Captain Balthazar Edison. A MACO and a combat veteran of the Xindi and Romulan conflicts , Edison helped win the war for Earth, only for Earth to disband his entire organization during the formation of the Federation and merge its personnel with the only Mildly Military Starfleet. They gave him a ship and turned him into an explorer. Even before his obvious madness and belief that he was abandoned, it's not hard to imagine he harbored some resentment over it.
• Stacked Characters Poster : The movie poster depicts the main characters in a pillar from bottom right to top left.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome : Of all things, the USS Enterprise . She's attacked and ripped apart by a Zerg Rush about a quarter of the way into the film.
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids : Krall's swarm of starship-killing drones were apparently originally built as mining robots .
• Surprise Party : Early in the film, Kirk and McCoy celebrate Kirk's birthday in a low-key manner a few days early because he doesn't really like to celebrate on his birthday, what with it being the day his father died. At the end of the film, however, McCoy ends up hosting a large surprise party on Yorktown with the surviving Enterprise crew.
• Take Back Your Gift : Uhura attempts to return a necklace Spock had previously given her (as it's a family heirloom). He refuses, saying that it is not the Vulcan custom. Good thing he didn't take it back.
• Take My Hand! : Kirk reaches out to grab Jaylah's hand as he's being transported while she's falling to her death. He manages to reach her just in time to take her with him, saving them both.
• Team Spirit : After Scotty meets and befriends Jaylah, she begins helping out him and the other members of the Enterprise crew, but he has to teach her some of the Starfleet values of working together to support everyone. Scotty: You're part of something bigger now, lassie. Right? Dinnae give up on that. 'Cause we'll sure as hell never give up on you. That is what being part of a crew is all about.
• Technobabble : When discussing how to defeat Krall's swarm. Spock: Captain, the flight patterns of bees are determined by individual decisions. Krall's swarm formations are too complex not to rely on some form of unified cyberpathic coordination. I surmise that if we— Kirk: Spock! Skip to the end. Uhura: What he's saying is that if we disorient the swarm, we can kick its ass! Spock: Precisely.
• Teleportation Sickness : McCoy complains after being beamed up that his innards "feel like they went to a barn dance." Scotty replies that it's because the Franklin 's transporter was only rated for cargo, and he had to make some modifications.
• As Kirk and Chekov are traveling, the younger officer queries Kirk about how he knew that their recent passenger was a mole, and Kirk replies that he has a "nose for danger". As soon as they drop down into a gulley, a strange noxious fume wafts out, and Kirk sighs upon seeing it, knowing he just did this trope. It ended up being a good thing in the end, because they got ensnared in one of Jaylah's traps, and it leads to a reunion with Scotty.
• As McCoy and Spock find themselves surrounded by hostiles, McCoy notes that at least he won't die alone. Spock is promptly beamed away. McCoy: ... Well, that's just typical.
• After being beamed onto and hijacking one of the drone ships, McCoy reminds Spock that the last time they attempted to pilot one of the ships it crashed — mere moments later, they narrowly avoid crashing into one of the other drones; McCoy does, however, manage to pull off some impressive piloting.
• Terrible Trio : The Swarm is headed by three individuals: Krall is the Big Bad , Manas assists him in taking vessels that are lured into the nebula by Kalara .
• That's No Moon : Upon first encountering Krall's swarm ships, the Enterprise reads them as one large vessel. Then Kirk orders a zoom and realizes their true nature.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill : Kirk kills Kalara in repayment for destroying the Enterprise by squashing her like a bug with the wreckage of the saucer.
• There Was a Door : Krall and his mooks are shown blasting through a door on Enterprise . It's the vault, though, so odds are it was locked.
• Think Nothing of It : When Commodore Paris thanks Kirk for saving Yorktown. Kirk: It wasn't just me. It never is.
• Twice McCoy and Spock hijack an alien fighter and twice its pilot goes out the airlock.
• Krall/Edison, along with the bio-weapon he tried to use on Starbase Yorktown. Kirk is saved from the same fate.
• Tinman Typist : Each swarm drone has two android pilots and breathable air on board for some reason.
• Said word-for-word by Kirk during his birthday toast, to the Starfleet personnel who died during the film (and to Leonard Nimoy ). Also, an unintended meta-example, when Kirk says his line, the camera turns to the crowd, and center in the shot is Chekov, played by Anton Yelchin , who died a few weeks prior to the film's release.
• An unsaid version in the early scene where McCoy pours himself and Kirk shots, and a third, representing Kirk's lost father. They tap their shot glasses to the extra glass, then to each other's.
• Tracking Device : When Spock realizes that he can locate Uhura by scanning for a rare mineral in the necklace that he gave her, McCoy points out that he essentially put a tracker on his girlfriend. Spock's reaction is appropriately awkward.
• Trailers Always Spoil : Later TV spots reveal the big third act surprise ( the Was Once a Man twist concerning Krall ), much to the fury of fans and Simon Pegg . Several also show the big final space battle (although not the very end) with the USS Franklin taking out the swarm.
• Translator Microbes : Kalara uses a more realistic variation where you hear her speak an alien language, and a computer voice speaking English at the same time.
• True Companions : Exploited by Krall, who drags Sulu into the prison area where the surviving Enterprise crews are held and attempts to drain his life to coerce the crew into surrendering the MacGuffin , knowing that they value each other's lives more than it. Ensign Syl finally relents and surrenders the MacGuffin to Krall because she doesn't want Sulu to die. Krall later brutally kills her to demonstrate the MacGuffin's power.
• Tuckerization : The director's father Frank Lin inspires a starship, while planet Altamid is an anagram of Simon Pegg's daughter Matilda.
• Turbine Blender : Narrowly avoided by Kirk. When trying to vent the atmospheric processor before the bioweapon is cycled into the atmosphere, Scotty warns him that failure to trigger the venting sequence will cause him to be sucked into the fan along with the bioweapon. Kirk manages to throw the switch just before he's sucked toward the fan.
• Despite not being a starship pilot, McCoy knows how to pilot the alien starfighter when he ends up in one. Though if this timeline is anything like the prime one, Starfleet Academy gives basic courses on shuttle piloting (which would help).
• Sulu scoffs at the idea that he might not know how to pilot a 100-year-old starship. note  In the prime universe, Sulu had an appreciation for older pilot-driven vehicles and the skills to adapt to them, as he did in The Voyage Home .
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee : Kirk and Chekov attempt to use the Enterprise's sensors to locate the crew. The actual plan was to get Kalara to think she's found the MacGuffin and thus contact Krall, allowing Chekov to trace the signal rather than look for bio-signs.
• Or in Kirk's case, adventure is now boring. Three years into their five-year mission, Kirk is slowly starting to feel this way. He muses in his Captain's Log that if space is truly infinite, then they will never truly reach whatever it is they're striving for. He's ready to retire and become an admiral with a cushy desk job until the events of the film change his mind .
• Krall also seems somewhat dissatisfied with what his victories have given him. He is convinced that humanity has doomed itself by becoming a peaceful species, instead of a Proud Warrior Race .
• Vitriolic Best Buds : Spock and McCoy, having been separated from the crew during the crash landing, spend most of the film snarking at each other whilst McCoy tries to treat injuries Spock sustained in the crash with minimal supplies; nevertheless, Spock later confides in him the reasons for his strained relationship with Uhura, the death of Spock Prime, and his conflict over whether to remain at Starfleet or continue Spock Prime's work on New Vulcan, leading to the two of them seemingly growing warmer to one another . However, Spock later volunteers himself and McCoy to be beamed onto an enemy drone ship, much to McCoy's chagrin.
• Was Once a Man : Krall isn't an alien, but a mutated human, and an ex-Starfleet officer at that.
• Weaksauce Weakness : Krall's drone swarms are terrifying, but it turns out they can easily be defeated by broadcasting powerful VHF signals such as music, which disrupts their communications . However, this is justified in that the drones are actually mining units, and not intended to be weapons .
• As Spock states. Fortunately, Kirk is entirely willing to provide one, seeing as it involves riding a motorbike.
• When McCoy has to yank out the metal embedded in Spock's torso, he asks Spock what his favorite color is, knowing that Spock will be distracted by such an illogical question.
• Two in fairly close succession. Scotty: Sir, the nacelles, they're gone! Kirk: Mister Sulu, abandon ship.
• After Uhura and Sulu temporarily escape and send a distress signal, Krall confronts them. Sulu: You have no idea who we are. But you'll soon find out. Krall: You mean the distress signal you thought you sent ? The coordinates were altered. Your rescue ships will be stranded in the Nebula, and your base left vulnerable... Millions of souls from every Federation world holding hands. It's a perfect target.
• And then another one during the climax: Kirk: I don't know how, but Edison is Krall !
• The sight of the Enterprise's severed warp nacelles floating away from the ship, their glow dying as power fades. At this point, it's clear that our heroes are screwed .
• After Scotty meets Jaylah, she takes him to her "house", which is actually a crashed ship. Scotty is then stunned when he sees the name of said ship: USS Franklin . It's a Starfleet ship.

• Of a broader sort, Krall and the Franklin crew were first stranded decades before Nero's temporal incursion. What happened to them in the prime reality?
• Two Swarm ships plus Krall's are left following the "Sabotage" scene and crash into the Franklin's hull. Hull breaches are reported and we see what happens to Krall, but what about the four drones aboard those ships?
• When She Smiles : Subverted. McCoy's reaction to Spock breaking into a smile? McCoy: [fairly shocked] You really are delirious!
• Where's the Fun in That? : Kirk is offered a promotion to Vice Admiral after saving Yorktown Kirk : Vice Admirals don't fly, do they? Paris : No. They don't. Kirk : Well, no offense, ma'am, but... where's the fun in that?
• The background for Krall is essentially a simplified and militarized version of Morbius in Forbidden Planet : one of the last survivors of a mission of exploration is driven mad — or at least madder — by the technology of Neglectful Precursors , which he then uses for his own ends. Perhaps not coincidentally, the name of the planet is Altamid, which is close enough to "Altair IV" for one to suggest it wasn't a coincidence. Krall's name is also very similar to that of Forbidden Planet 's precursors, the Krell.
• The idea of combating a hostile alien race by using the power of music is a plot ripped straight out of Macross , though in practice it has more in common with Mars Attacks!
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds : For all of Krall's crimes and insanity, it's hard to not pity the man. Even Kirk seems to feel kinda bad for him in the end.
• The Worf Effect : The Enterprise is one of the most advanced, well-armed ships in a major galactic power's military fleet... yet it gets torn to pieces in short order by the new villain's swarm ships. Later in the film though, it's established the villain is intimately familiar with the workings of Starfleet, including specifications of ships like Enterprise via information/communication interceptions, so he knew exactly where and how to hit them hard prior to the attack , as opposed to spontaneously. On top of that, there's a strong element of Outside-Context Problem at work: the Enterprise wasn't designed to fight large numbers of small craft, because nobody uses that kind of tactic in this setting.
• Worst Aid : Lampshaded by McCoy when he says that pulling out the chunk of metal in Spock's gut could make him bleed to death. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the luxury of proper medical equipment to safely treat Spock, nor can he leave the object in Spock in their current situation. Instead, he decides to Take a Third Option by heating another piece of metal with his phaser and using it to cauterize Spock's wound, once the object is removed — it works well enough as a temporary measure until he finds better equipment.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit : Kalara claims to be the sole survivor of a catastrophe to lure the Enterprise into Krall's trap. She later tells Kirk that Krall is holding her family hostage to ensure her cooperation, hoping to gain the Captain's sympathy so she can steal the artifact from him. The second time, Kirk is onto her.
• Wrench Wench : Jaylah, in addition to being a handy fighter, is a natural engineer. She gets many of the Franklin 's systems operational, despite a lack of formal training and not understanding English . Kirk is so impressed that he arranges for her to be admitted to Starfleet Academy.
• "Yes"/"No" Answer Interpretation : When Scotty meets Jaylah, he asks if she's one of Krall's people, and she spits angrily on the ground. He decides to take that as a no.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me! : Scotty's reaction to his communicator falling apart.
• You Killed My Father : Jaylah gets her revenge on The Dragon Manas, who was the one who killed her father when she escaped.
• Zerg Rush : This is how Krall's fleet of drones operates, forming massive swarms of ships that are far too numerous for any single vessel to destroy before being overwhelmed. And given they fly very close, they're foiled once their communication is jammed, leading the ships to crash into one another, causing Impressive Pyrotechnics .

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Starbase Yorktown

The Enterprise arrives at starbase Yorktown, for resupply, shore leave for its crew and a good dose of eye candy for the audience.

Example of: Scenery Porn

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Star Trek Beyond: Beastie Boys, gay Sulu and more – discuss with spoilers

Did it boldly go or is it going nowhere? If you’ve seen the third Star Trek film of the JJ Abrams era, here is the place to talk about its finer points

Star Trek Beyond was supposed to be the movie that sent the previously successful JJ Abrams-sponsored reboot programme careering into a black hole. With Abrams having jumped ship to rival space saga Star Wars, and with the rather less illustrious Justin Lin now in command of the USS Enterprise, it was supposed Beyond might fail to reach warp speed. Then there was that unpopular first trailer , hinting that Lin might be taking the saga into Fast-and-Furious-in-space territory.

But as with the recent Ghostbusters reboot , we should have waited to see the film for ourselves, instead of listening to all the high-pitched noise coming from the blogosphere. Critics have now overwhelmingly endorsed Lin’s first Trek film. Here is your chance to give your own verdict on its key talking points.

The return to traditional Star Trek territory

Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) are famously unpopular among long-term fans of the franchise. But Star Trek Beyond reverses the paradigm whereby Kirk and his crew are moving ever further away from their 60s roots. Simon Pegg and Doug Jung’s script plays out like a supercharged episode of The Original Series (TOS), with the Enterprise arriving on a mysterious planet where a Federation ship has been left stranded. As on TV, they have to work out what’s going on, who the bad guys are and how to restore natural order in quick sharp time. As on TV, the tension between crew members is used to score gazillions of comedy points.

Yes, it’s all part of an epic battle to save the starbase Yorktown from villain Krall’s evil swarm-like weapons of mass destruction. But surely the Trekkies won’t begrudge us a little visual space spectacle to round things off?

The primary-coloured Apollo-era optimism

Chris Pine and Pegg have heavily hinted at Beyond’s liberal agenda in interviews, and it’s hard not to see Idris Elba’s baddie Krall as a symbol of Trumpian, post-Brexit politics, and the Enterprise and the Federation as emblems of open-hearted utopian pluralism. And there is something special about the way Krall’s efforts to destroy Yorktown are defeated by the controlled chaos of the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage , a vivacious blast of punky rap-rock emblematic of the unfettered creativity that, perhaps, only a truly free society can be capable of. Its warm, humanist sonic storm rips through the cold, militaristic cynicism of Krall’s swarm tech like some kind of omnipotent fairy dust. By this point, the Enterprise’s symbolism machine is on warp factor 22.

Sulu’s outing

It may have briefly upset the original Sulu , George Takei, but the Enterprise helmsman’s brief embrace with a male, Asian partner on Yorktown, as Kirk and his crew arrive for shore leave at the beginning of Beyond, is deftly handled. The space station is a bustling metropolis of wildly varying galactic species, and it makes sense that a society this diverse would have no problem with homosexuality. Gene Roddenberry imagined a future where diversity is the norm, and Beyond has lovingly embraced his legacy.

Idris Elba’s Krall and that big twist

Did you swallow Elba as an alien warlord early on, or was it obvious from the start that Krall had human roots? That big reveal was surely a play on TOS’s traditionally half-arsed efforts at creating believable extra-terrestrials, who always seem to be conveniently humanoid.

Was Elba’s impressive performance lost under all that makeup? Or did he successfully disappear into the role?

I enjoyed Beyond’s glimpse into Star Trek pre-history, reminding us that before Kirk et al could depart on their five-year mission, the Federation spent centuries bringing order and peace to the galaxy.

The tributes and the future

Leonard Nimoy would surely have enjoyed seeing his death incorporated into Beyond’s screenplay, as Zachary Quinto’s Spock Jr (sort of) discovers the date of his own demise. The new movie also pays tribute to Anton Yelchin , who died in a car accident last month, with a simple “for Anton” credit, and Abrams has said the role of ensign Pavel Chekov will not be recast for future movies. We’ll certainly miss those deliberately dodgy cod-Russian consonants, even if the Enterprise’s main navigator wasn’t heavily involved in events this time around.

As for Star Trek IV, Beyond touched nicely on Kirk’s continuing angst over the death of his father, which we saw in the opening scenes of the 2009 series opener. Chris Hemsworth will return as George Kirk in the next instalment, when the one-time USS Kelvin first officer will presumably have a lot of explaining to do about how he got away from those rogue Romulans.

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Screen Rant

All the retro references in star trek beyond.

Star Trek Beyond is bursting with references to Trek's past. With five series and ten pre-Abrams movies, our cup runneth over.

Spoiler alert! If you haven't seen Star Trek Beyond yet, you'll want to bookmark this for later. If you've already seen it, and you're a fan, you probably picked up on more than a few references to other entries in the Star Trek canon. Leaving out the Kelvin Timeline entries - that means the J.J. Abrams-produced reboots - we still noticed a few dozen throwbacks, references, and friendly nods to the various series and movies of the past. And that's not even including some continuing themes, like captains going crazy and betraying the Federation, anonymous red shirts getting slaughtered, a beautifully filmed saucer crash that reminds us of the same event in Star Trek Generations , and the familiarity of the Swarm (when we hear drones and hive minds and bee references, we can't help but think of the Borg).

From the names of starbases and Starfleet personnel to random quotes, gestures, and throwaway comments, here are  19 Hidden References To  Star Trek 's Past .

 19. Chekov Explains The Origins Of Scotch

In one of Star Trek Beyond 's final scenes, Chekov is seen explaining to a new alien friend that Scotch was " inwented by a little old lady in Moscow ." Anyone who watched the original series knows that Chekov was constantly attributing inventions, sayings, and discoveries to Russia, even when faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

Examples abound. When Scotty brings up the classic Scottish saying, " Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on you ," Chekov insists (with a smile) that the saying is Russian. On Pollux IV, he and Kirk discuss Apollo's ability to magically disappear, but he's baffled by Kirk's reference to the Cheshire cat in Alice In Wonderland . " Cheshire? No sir. Minsk, perhaps. " He insists that quadrotriticale was developed in Russia, which is why he's familiar with it when his Captain isn't, and in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country , he he says that Cinderella was a Russian epic.

His quote about scotch is pretty specific, though; it echoes his sentiments expressed to Scotty in fan favorite episode "The Trouble With Tribbles," telling him that Scotch was " inwented by a little old lady from Leningrad. "

18. McCoy Calls Spock A "Green-Blooded Ingrate"

McCoy and Spock have a long history of banter, but it's always McCoy who slings the insults, throwing in references to Spock's ancestry and physiology whenever he gets the chance. It's a strange thing for a 23rd-century Starfleet officer to keep doing, especially in a future filled with alien races, and double-especially considering the fact that he's a doctor, but that doesn't stop him. In Beyond, he calls Spock a " green-blooded ingrate " after he saves Spock's life and then gets dragged back onto an alien ship with him, but that's nothing compared to previous insults from the original series:

“ Don’t give me any Vulcan details, Spock .”

“ Are you out of your Vulcan mind? ”

“ I’m trying to thank you, you pointed-eared hobgoblin! ”

“ You bet your pointed ears, I am. ”

Even Kirk gets in on the action in "Catspaw," the very silly Halloween episode:

Spock: “ Trick or treat, Captain? ”

Kirk: “ Yes, Mister Spock. You'd be a natural. ”

17. The Yorktown Space Station

The stunning, multi-dimensional Yorktown Space Station is a major player in Star Trek Beyond . It's where the Enterprise crew gets assigned the mission that sends them into conflict with Krall, and our story begins. In panoramic sweeps we see dozens of species going on about their daily lives, and learn that Sulu's husband and daughter make their home there.

Its name has some history. In the original series episode "Obsession," the Enterprise is supposed to deliver much-need vaccines to the U.S.S. Yorktown, and on Star Trek Voyager , Tuvok's father was an officer on the Yorktown. In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , the Yorktown is one of the ships disabled by the destructive probe that's trying to find some whales to talk to.

But in this case, we think the reference is a throwback to Gene Roddenberry's first plan for the show. When he pitched Star Trek to NBC back in 1964, it featured a starship called The U.S.S. Yorktown, named after a World War II era aircraft carrier. Given that the whole premise of Star Trek centers around acceptance and diversity, the naming of the space station Yorktown, where multiple species live together in peace and harmony, seems to be a nod to the creation of the entire Star Trek universe. Further evidence: Director Justin Lin mentioned that there are 50 species on the Yorktown, representing 50 years of Star Trek .

16. Captain Kirk's Log Entry

While Kirk is recording his Captain's Log, he throws in a few references for us longtime fans. The Enterprise is already three years into her five-year mission, but Kirk gets specific, making a point of saying that it's their 966th day on the job. That number didn't come out of nowhere; Star Trek, the original series, premiered its first episode, "The Man Trap," on September 8, 1966. Yes, that's 9/66.

He also refers to life aboard the Enterprise as "episodic," which reminds everyone that this whole universe of movies, merchandise, events, and giant lines at Comic Con has its very humble beginnings in a TV series that almost didn't make it to a third season. Life may feel episodic at times, but Star Trek is always episodic, and the best of the movies feel like an expanded, extended episode of the TV show.

15. The Franklin's Serial Number

This is one of those little Easter eggs that we thought was a stretch, but was recently confirmed by the Star Trek Beyond team. The U.S.S. Franklin's serial number appears a couple of times during the movie, and seemed familiar, making us wonder if it was a tribute to Leonard Nimoy, who died last year and whose presence is still strong throughout this movie. He'd already appeared in the rebooted Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness , and was asked if he could also appear in Star Trek Beyond, but his health was already failing at that point, and he had to say no . He loved the idea, though, and had particularly enjoyed playing alongside the new cast in the first two, but he simply wasn't able to work anymore. Fittingly, there is a dedication to him at the end of the movie, right before the closing credits.

Nimoy's birthday was March 26th, making it 3-26, and a match for the Franklin's NX-326 designation.

14. Kirk's Depressing Birthday

In Star Trek Beyond , Kirk and McCoy share a drink - scotch, stolen from Chekov's locker - and talk about Kirk's upcoming birthday, which is not a celebratory occasion for him. As McCoy not-so-sensitively reminds him, it's the same day his father died. George Kirk's death was the event that kicked off the first reboot movie, and changed the timeline forever, but Kirk doesn't know that; he only knows that his dad died the day he was born. So the two men share a drink and talk about why Kirk is feeling so low.

A similar scene unfolds in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , when McCoy and Kirk share a drink and Kirk complains about feeling old and tired. McCoy isn't particularly sensitive then either. " Other people have birthdays ," he says, " Why are we treating yours like a funeral ?"

McCoy's long history of drinking with Kirk, Chief Medical Officer to Captain, was actually started by their predecessors, Captain Christopher Pike and Doctor Philip Boyce. In "The Cage," which later became the two-parter "The Menagerie," Boyce stops by Pike's cabin, and makes them a couple of martinis, because " sometimes a man'll tell his bartender things he'll never tell his doctor. "

Clearly, McCoy and Boyce went to the same medical school.

13. Krall's History

Remember the spoiler warning at the beginning? If you weren't paying attention then, pay attention now, and plug your eyes and ears while we do this next bit. Scrolling would probably accomplish the same goal, with less drama.

Krall used to be Captain Balthazar Edison of the aforementioned U.S.S. Franklin. Once the crew realizes that, they dig into his history, and find out that he was a soldier in the united Earth military organization called MACO (Military Assault Command Operations). We first heard of such a thing in Star Trek: Enteprise , when crew members and MACO personnel teamed up against the Xindi.

During Krall's final battle with Jim Kirk on the Yorktown, he bitterly refers to fighting the Romulans and the Xindi, and resents the fact that MACO was disbanded and replaced by Starfleet, when the United Federation of Planets was founded, an organization devoted to peace. All of this Trek canon history comes directly from Enterprise , the least-liked and least-watched, but clearly not the least important, of all the Star Trek series.

12. Spock Quotes Shakespeare

When Spock and McCoy are stranded, and Spock is injured, McCoy has some choice words for Spock's decision to start quoting Shakespeare. But how could Spock resist? The Bard and Star Trek go back a long way.

From the first season original series episode "The Conscience of the King," to Klingon Chancellor Gorkon's insistence that " You have not experienced Shakespeare until you have read him in the original Klingon " in  Star Trek VI ,  Shakespeare's presence has loomed large. But by far, his largest fan is Captain Jean-Luc Picard, who uses Shakespeare's words to rescue Lwaxana Troi from a romantically-inclined Ferengi, distract a 19th century landlord in San Francisco from evicting him and his crew by promising her a role in their production of A Midsummer Night's Dream , and convince Q that humanity is actually a pretty worthy species . Remember, this is a man who kept Shakespeare's Collected Works in his ready room at all times, because you never know when you're going to need a quick quote.

 11. Commodore Paris

In Star Trek Beyond, Shohreh Aghdashloo plays Commodore Paris, of the Federation High Command. She's the one who assigns James Kirk the Enterprise's mission, and also offers him a position as Vice Admiral.

In a Trek-savvy audience, you'll hear whispers the first time her name is mentioned, as everyone assumes she is an ancestor of Star Trek Voyager's Ensign-turned-Lieutenant, bad-guy-turned-good-guy, rogue-turned-family-man Tom Paris. Tom Eugene Paris was recruited to Voyager by Captain Janeway from a penal colony, to help her find the Maquis, and more than earned his keep. In his years aboard the starship, lost in the Delta quadrant, he became an invaluable member of the crew, saving them from peril multiple times, working undercover when necessary, and creating a series of particularly annoying holographic novels. His backstory included a disapproving father, Admiral Owen Paris, who came from a long line of high-ranking Starfleet officers. We can only guess that Commodore Paris was among them.

10. Uhura's Necklace

When Kirk is trying to figure out how to locate the Enterprise crew, Spock asks Chekov to scan for a specific Vulcan mineral, located in a necklace he gave to Lieutenant Uhura. McCoy has a field day with this, commenting on how Spock gave his girlfriend a tracking device. Who knew it would come in so handy?

Turns out necklace gifts have come in handy on Star Trek before. In the episode "Elaan of Troyius," the Enterprise is on a diplomatic mission, escorting the captivating but incredibly cranky Elaan to Troyius to be married and end a war. Things get dramatic: she stabs her instructor, chemicals in her tears make Kirk fall in love with her, and her guard betrays the Enterprise to the Klingons. The ship is about to be destroyed when Spock discovers some energy readings on the bridge, and traces them to Elaan's necklace. She calls them "common stones" but they turn out to be dilithium crystals, and once Scotty integrates them into the ship's engines, the Enterprise wins the battle and saves the day. The moral of the story: jewelry saves lives, no matter which timeline you're in.

9. Krall's Relationship With Kirk

Krall may be a new villain, but he has moments when he seems awfully familiar.

We already know from Star Trek Into Darkness that the reboot team is a fan of Khan. But the reboot Khan, with all due respect to the talents of Benedict Cumberbatch, is nothing compared to the original, played to perfection by the late Ricardo Montalban, and that's where see some Khanspiration in Beyond . Both Krall and Khan were abandoned, or at least perceived they were, and both are hell-bent on revenge, even if Khan is mostly angry at Kirk while Krall is pissed at the entire Federation. But by the end of the movie, when Krall has already come up against Kirk multiple times, their relationship starts to get personal. He even starts taking on a little of Khan's rhetoric, and finally, in a very Khan-like moment, says, " Goodbye old friend ," a phrase Khan really likes using when talking to his arch-enemy, Admiral Kirk.

In both cases, it's Kirk who survives, so we recommend not becoming an old friend of James T. Kirk's, if you value your own survival... unless your name is Spock.

8. "I Ripped My Shirt Again"

In the movie's opening scene, Kirk meets with the Teenaxi people to help them make a treaty with their enemies, the Fenopians. Before the scene is over, the Teenaxi, who look sort of like tiny dog-monsters, attack the poor Captain as a group, tearing at him as he tries to throw them off. Scotty beams him out, security guards remove the creatures who beamed over with him, and Kirk storms off with the comment, " I ripped my shirt again. "

Viewers of the original Star Trek know that's one of Kirk's trademarks, a nice way to counterbalance all the female near-nudity that was a staple of the 1960s series. His shirt ripped during fist fights with Gary Mitchell, Ben Finney, Finnegan, gladiators on Triskelion, and the Onlies, a bunch of really creepy children. It ripped when Spock sliced it open with a lirpa - don't blame Spock, he was in the grip of a blood fever - and when McCoy tore it open to give him a hypospray.  Assuming some of these events still happened in the Kelvin Timeline, Kirk wasn't kidding when he said "again."

7. Scotty Cracks His Knuckles

There's a light moment near the end of the movie, right when the stakes are at their highest. Krall is about to unleash his superweapon on the entire population of the Yorktown space station, and Scotty is trying to help them shut down the ventilation systems to prevent it. He sits down and gives his knuckles a good crack before diving in.

Flashback! In Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , the Enterprise crew travels back to the 80s to try to find some whales. (They need them to communicate with a space probe that's destroying Earth.) The crew splits up into teams, much like in Beyond and many a Trek episode, and Scotty and McCoy go looking for the 20th century equivalent of transparent aluminum.  They pose as scientists to get into a company called Plexicorp, and are given access to the computer. Just saying " Computer " doesn't seem to get it going (as it's an early era Mac), nor does it help when he picks up the mouse and speaks into it directly. Then the Plexicorp guy suggests Scotty use the keyboard.

" The keyboard ," Scotty says . " How quaint. " Then he cracks his knuckles, just like Simon Pegg, and gives it a go.

6. Kirk's Inspirational Speech

As they're about to head into the nebula on a rescue mission, Kirk delivers some words of inspiration to his crew. He has Uhura patch him in to the whole ship, and tells them, " There's no such thing as the unknown, only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood. "

Even across two timelines, our Kirk is still our Kirk. In the original series episode "The Corbomite Maneuver ," the crew is also faced with the unknown, and he wants to reassure then that there's still hope, despite the fact that they've just heard a shipwide message from an alien called Balok telling them they have ten minutes to make preparations for being destroyed. (He assumes they have a deity or two that provides them with some comforting beliefs.) What does Kirk tell his crew?

" There's no such thing as the unknown, only things temporarily hidden, temporarily not understood. " Wise words, obviously worth repeating.

5. A Toast To Absent Friends

After the mission is over, McCoy throws a little surprise get-together for Kirk's birthday. The crew is all decked out in their civilian clothing, but it's still clear that Kirk is their commander as well as the birthday boy. In view of the losses they suffered at the hands of Krall, he makes a toast. " To absent friends ," he says. It's a poignant moment, made more so by the cutaway added in after the film was done to Anton Yelchin, who died in a tragic accident after the movie was shot. It's a much-needed reminder that even in success, there are casualties.

In Star Trek III: The Search For Spock , Kirk makes the same toast as he has a drink with Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura. In this case he's referring to Spock, who died at Khan's hands and is now in a torpedo tube on the Genesis planet, and McCoy, who's at home, " pumped up full of tranquilizers ." Both DeForest Kelley (McCoy) and Leonard Nimoy are gone now. They have been and always shall be, our absent friends.

4. Spock's Lives

The two Spocks in the reboot movies can get a little confusing, since they are alive at the same time and even have conversations. Quinto's Spock sees Nimoy's Spock as a mentor, and so shaken when he hears about his death that he decides to leave Starfleet and pursue his work on New Vulcan. At least that's his plan. When he's telling McCoy about it, he starts with, "When you've lived as many lives as he ... "

While New Spock doesn't really know all the details of Original Spock's life, we do, and we know that he's lived quite a few lives. He came close to death many times in course of the Enterprise's adventures, but at the end of The Wrath of Khan , he sacrificed his life to save the crew, saving them all and devastating them at the same time. At the last minute, though, he mind-melded with McCoy, preserving his "katra" or his living spirit, so that he could live again. So in The Search for Spock , the crew violated direct orders and headed back to the Genesis planet, where they found his torpedo coffin broken open, and a mindless, empty Spock body waiting to get its katra back.

There was also that time when Spock's consciousness was stored in Christine Chapel, but he didn't actually die; his body was just being used by an entity named Henoch, and he got it back. So that doesn't count.

3. The Reason Spock And McCoy Were Beamed Up Separately

It wasn't just for comic relief that McCoy and Spock are transported separately, although dammit, Jim, that was a great moment. But when McCoy asks why, Scotty explains that he's using the cargo transporter for the first time and doesn't want to risk splicing them. "I couldn't imagine a worse scenario," McCoy says.

Of course, he already experienced that scenario, or rather, he's going to, depending on how you look at the timeline. See list item number four for details of the original Spock and McCoy merger.

In addition, we know that the transporter DID once splice together an unlikely duo. In the Star Trek: Voyager episode "Tuvix," Tuvok and Neelix were accidentally fused into one being due to a transporter accident. Tuvix retained elements of both of their characteristics but in the fusion, he became a new person entirely, with his own sense of self and and a desire to continue his existence. This led to a huge moral dilemma about whether or not it was right to kill Tuvix, a unique life form, in order to get Tuvok and Neelix back. Janeway had to make the hard choice, as always, and she wrestled with it, but ultimately decided it was her only real option. Bye bye, Tuvix. So, the splicing thing? A valid concern.

2. Kirk's Promotion

At the beginning of the movie, Kirk wants a promotion. He's tired, he feels a little lost, and the idea of being in one place has some appeal. He talks to Commodore Paris about a Vice Admiral position, which seems a little premature given that he hasn't even completed his five-year mission yet, but she's open to the idea and agrees to discuss it with Starfleet. By the end of the movie, he's changed his mind, and heads off happily anticipating new danger and adventure (and for us, Star Trek 4 ).

What's the advice the original Captain Kirk gives to Captain Picard when they meet in Star Trek Generations ? " Don't let them promote you. Don't let them transfer you. Don't let them do anything that takes you off the bridge of that ship, because while you're there, you can make a difference. " This is why Kirk was so depressed at the beginning of The Wrath of Khan and even so unnerved at the beginning of Star Trek: The Motion Picture . He needs that ship to feel like he's making a difference. He also likes to have a good time, which is why New Kirk asks if there's any flying when you're a Vice Admiral. When he's told no, he asks, with a grin, " Where's the fun in that? " And on we go.

1. The Giant Green Space Hand

All fear the giant green space hand! Sounds silly, but we loved when Scotty mentioned this as one of the perils of outer space. That throwaway comment of his is a reference to one of the worst SFX moments from the original series. In the episode "Who Mourns for Adonais? ," the Enterprise encounters the Greek god Apollo, who reaches out into space and grabs the ship with, yes, his giant green hand. " You will obey me ," he says, " lest I close my hand thus ." The air pressure gets a little intense, and he finally releases them by opening his hand (thus). They get the message: Kirk and a team beam down to the planet to see what he wants from them. Spock, however, isn't invited, as he reminds Apollo of Pan.

Apollo's demands are simple: he just wants the Enteprise crew to come live on Pollux IV and give them their loyalty, their tribute, and their worship.  When that doesn't work out, he spreads himself across the wind like the other Greek gods, while Lieutenant Carolyn Palamas cries. Kirk gets his by a wave of remorse once the whole thing is over, and wonders aloud if it would have hurt them so much to gather a few laurel leaves. Too late!

Sharp eyes will spot the green hand in the Star Trek Beyond credits; it's a blink-or-you-miss-it moment, but it's definitely there.

Star Trek Beyond premiered on July 22nd, 2016.

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A Quasi-American “Star Trek Beyond”

By Richard Brody

Since space is the final frontier, it’s apt that “Star Trek Beyond” borrows tropes from dramas of that primal frontier, Westerns. Even if it mixes its metaphors along the way, those metaphors give the movie a welcome bump to the second level of meaning, since, for most of the film, there isn’t even a first.

It’s a tired movie about a tired man on a dubious mission: in his opening voice-over, Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) expresses doubts about his multi-year mission in space, saying that, if the universe is infinite, he may be “chasing nothing.” The Enterprise makes a pit stop on the star base called Yorktown, an intriguing convolution that’s the movie’s most ingenious touch: it’s an Escher city with Möbius sidewalks, a vast postmodern city of gleaming glass and light-toned metal that seems like a skein of streets and highways, overpasses and bridges held together in a loose and airy web. Its gravitational forces are omnidirectional; as they shift suddenly across invisible borders, falling down is succeeded by falling left, right, up, and whichever other orientation a place is built for.

Yorktown (which shares a name with the Virginia town where the decisive Revolutionary War battle of 1781 took place) will ultimately live up to its name as the site of the final battle of the Starfleet against Krall—for that matter, the crew of the Enterprise will make that decisive return aboard an obsolete vessel called the Franklin—and that’s apt as well. Early in the film, the words “Republic” and “Federation” are intoned like mantras to position the mission in quasi-American terms; the name Yorktown links the space combat of “Star Trek Beyond” to the existential, the primordial, and the revolutionary—the fight to retain independence in the face of a force that would snap it back in, engulf it in a dictatorial order, and milk it as a mere source of sustenance (which is depicted in a grotesquely literal way that morphs the vampiric into the cannibalistic).

The first visit to Yorktown is pacific, even lullingly placid; the swoops and loops of its gravity curves play mostly for fun, and Captain Kirk, mission-weary, applies for a desk job there. Meanwhile, though, he and the crew return to their patrols and are lured toward the planet Altamid, where an ostensible rescue turns into an attack led by Krall, a wrinkled, reptilian humanoid who vaguely resembles the Creature from the Black Lagoon, but who mounts his attack with an overwhelming barrage of fast-moving, sharp-pointed projectiles—essentially space arrows (though, because of their mass-controlled swarming, the crew of the Enterprise calls them “bees”).

The arrows rip the Enterprise to shreds, and the crew is jettisoned in escape pods, crash-landing on Altamid; there, they need to regroup, to fight Krall and his minions, and to recover the MacGuffin, a little medallion called the Abronath that the Enterprise crew members consider a mere inert relic but that turns out to be the missing piece of an apocalypse-gizmo that Krall wants to seize in order to destroy the Federation and humankind.

Altamid, however, is no stereotypical weird planet of green cheese and pungent atmosphere. It’s an unadorned and uncultivated Earthscape, strewn with sharp rocks and hulking boulders and reminiscent, above all, of the craggy settings of Anthony Mann’s classic Westerns of the nineteen-fifties (such as “ The Man from Laramie ” and “ Man of the West ”). There, Spock (Zachary Quinto) is wounded, and he’s tended to by Dr. Leonard McCoy (Karl Urban), a.k.a. Bones, whose improvised medical tools are barely up to the task. Meanwhile, Scotty (Simon Pegg), alone in forbiddingly rugged terrain, is confronted by a stranger—Jaylah (Sofia Boutella), a paper-white, black-striped woman-like being from an alien species who is also marooned on Altamid—and her performance is, by far, the most intriguing and invigorating presence in the film.

Jaylah makes Scotty identify himself to her, at the point of a space gun; when he says that he’s Montgomery Scott, and adds, “Scotty,” she calls him “Montgomery Scotty,” as she does for the rest of the film. Pegg, who co-wrote “Star Trek Beyond” with Doug Jung, says that  he based the character —and even the name—on Jennifer Lawrence’s character in “Winter’s Bone.” I don’t disbelieve him; yet there’s another, even more prominent influence that, for all we know, may have acted unconsciously on Pegg and the director, Justin Lin, but that’s nonetheless both conspicuous and affecting: the character of Feathers, from Howard Hawks’s 1959 Western, “ Rio Bravo ,” and Angie Dickinson’s performance of the role. Jaylah speaks with a blunt intensity that’s sharpened with a constant tone of coolly theatrical irony, just as Dickinson does in Hawks’s film. Boutella’s controlled balletic, ferocity is also akin to Feathers’s own calmly forthright stride. The likeness is locked in by Jaylah’s meeting with Kirk: he introduces himself as James T. Kirk, and, for the rest of the film, she calls him “James T.,” echoing  Feathers’s mode of addressing  the protagonist of “Rio Bravo,” John T. Chance, played by John Wayne.

Jaylah’s presence and Boutella’s performance are fortunate, as the rest of the doings on Altamid are of a nearly relentless dreariness, not least because the battles on which the heroes’ survival depends could have been borrowed, costumes and actors aside, from more or less any superhero movie. The script doesn’t offer much in the way of martial inspiration, and Lin does nothing original with the flinging of bodies and the flash of guns. It isn’t until the crucial showdown on polygravitational Yorktown that the director struts his stuff; there, his kinetic imagination, stoked by geometrical wizardry, creates a battle sequence of unpredictable lurches and launches, high-energy gyrations that are rendered all the more exciting by the vast open spaces separating the ribbons and whorls of Yorktown’s architecture.

It’s no spoiler to say that one of the key weapons that the Enterprising fighters deploy, while flying the rickety Franklin in the face of Krall’s unified swarm of metallic “bees,” is a blast of the Beastie Boys’ 1994 song “Sabotage,” drolly called “classical music” by the twenty-third-century warriors. The victory is itself a strange echo of the movie’s own prevailing ethos. Throughout the film, both Kirk and Spock confront their own legacy—Kirk as the son of George Kirk, who died in battle, and Spock as the son of, well,  the  Spock—which provides the movie with its key emotional arcs, the personal struggles that underpin the political ones. A climactic depiction, in an archival photo, of the original “Star Trek” cast pushes in the knife of nostalgia and gives it a poignant twist. Personal and public legacies ultimately unite to bring about the unambiguous triumph of good over evil and preserve the Republic. The self-celebration of a legacy property’s sequel has rarely been framed in such starkly civic terms: the link between the historical continuity of the American federation and the personal continuity of family is the cultural continuity of “Star Trek” and pop music—and, for that matter, of classic Hollywood. Buy a ticket, keep America safe and free.

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By Anthony Lane

By Amy Davidson Sorkin

By Adam Iscoe

Star Trek Beyond

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Star Trek Beyond streaming: where to watch online?

Currently you are able to watch "Star Trek Beyond" streaming on Apple TV Plus, Paramount Plus, Paramount Plus Apple TV Channel , Paramount+ Amazon Channel, Paramount+ Roku Premium Channel. It is also possible to buy "Star Trek Beyond" on Microsoft Store, AMC on Demand, Apple TV, Amazon Video, Vudu, Google Play Movies, YouTube as download or rent it on Microsoft Store, Amazon Video, Apple TV, Google Play Movies, YouTube, Vudu, Spectrum On Demand online.

Where does Star Trek Beyond rank today? The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

Streaming charts last updated: 9:15:26 AM, 04/25/2024

Star Trek Beyond is 5880 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The movie has moved up the charts by 2477 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than Apollo 18 but less popular than Back to Q82.

The USS Enterprise crew explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a mysterious new enemy who puts them and everything the Federation stands for to the test.

Videos: Trailers, Teasers, Featurettes

Streaming Charts The JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts are calculated by user activity within the last 24 hours. This includes clicking on a streaming offer, adding a title to a watchlist, and marking a title as 'seen'. This includes data from ~1.3 million movie & TV show fans per day.

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The Beastie Boys Meet 'Star Trek Beyond'

The original Star Trek was known for its music, and the reboot movies have followed in its footsteps. Star Trek Beyond features an intense instrumental score by Michael Giacchino, but it also includes some more modern tunes. The song "Sledgehammer" by Rihanna was heavily featured in promotions for the movie, and a high-energy rock song plays through one of the film's most climactic scenes. If you watched the movie but didn't recognize the music in this sequence, you might be wondering what the song in the big Star Trek Beyond scene is, and I have your answer right here.

The track is none other than "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys, from the group's 1994 album III Communication . Producer JJ Abrams is known to be a big Beastie Boys fan , and "Sabotage" was also featured in 2009's Star Trek , which Abrams directed. Then in 2012, Abrams included the group's song "Body Movin'" in Star Trek Into Darkness . It therefore wasn't a huge surprise to fans when the Star Trek Beyond trailer featured "Sabotage," foreshadowing that there would be Beastie Boys music in the new film as well. If you missed it, here's how "Sabotage" plays into the climax scene of Star Trek Beyond. Spoilers ahead!

In the middle of the film's biggest battle, Kirk, Spock, and the rest of their crew realize they need to find a way to take Krall (the series' newest villain, played by Idris Elba) by surprise in order to defeat him. They struggle to locate a "loud, distracting" thing to do the trick, but then the character Jalyah (played by Sofia Boutella) comes up with an idea. Although it is 250 years in the future, Jaylah has a collection of '90s rock music, and so the group blasts "Sabotage" as they initiate the siege. Soon after, there is a transition into another battle scene, which — shocker — our heroes ultimately win. And so, the Beastie Boys tune plays a small but notable part in helping the good guys save the day.

The inclusion of the song in the film is also notable because, in general, the Beastie Boys do not allow their music to be used for commercial enterprises. In fact, as the NY Daily News reports , Adam Yauch included in his will a stipulation that forbade the use of the group's music for advertising purposes, and the surviving members of the group previously turned down a request for "Sabotage" to be included in an Arnold Schwarzenneger movie.

But the Beastie Boys, who have referenced Star Trek in their own songs , obviously weren't opposed to the use of their music in the famed franchise. This is good news for fans of both the band and the series, who can now enjoy the massive Star Trek Beyond scene with a healthy dose of "Sabotage."

Images: Paramount