The captain and crew of Star Fleet’s most prestigious ship boldly went once again earlier in 2016 with the third installment in the modern day incarnation of the long-standing sci-fi franchise, Star Trek Beyond. Following up on the success and critical acclaim of Star Trek: Into Darkness, it should have been pretty easy for new director, Justin Lin, to land on his feet, but with the release of the trailer below the Fast And Furious head honcho came under fire from the die-hard Trek community.
Their biggest gripe is the level of incendiary speed he’s added to the direction of the film, which, as you can see from the trailer, features a motorbike chase, despite it being the 23rd century, and has the Beastie Boys’ Sabotage running over the top of it all. We’re big fans of classic hip hop, so less concerned about that, but you can’t get away from the fact that the trailer did make it look more Fast And Furious than Star Trek. The film itself isn’t anywhere near as rapid angry driving as it appeared to be, but when it comes to the hype machine it all too easy to pitch things in the wrong way, which is kind of what happened here.
Release date
Cinema:
Star Trek: Beyond had a UK release date of Friday the 22nd July 2016, which saw it arriving on the big screen on the same date in the US. As you’d expect from a big budget action sci-fi movie, it was available to watch in both 2D and 3D, with the latter providing a fair amount of promise with everything from space firefights to robot skirmishes on dangerous planets featuring in the trailer.
It came out on the big screen on the same weekend as The BFG (2016) in the UK, so it didn’t have too much grown up competition at the box office. However, with the Ghostbusters remake out a week before and Finding Dory the week after, it wasn’t entirely without any serious contenders.
DVD, Blu-ray and digital download:
The film went on to get a UK DVD release date of the 21st November 2016 when it also came out on Blu-ray, Blu-ray 3D, 4K and digital download rental. However, it was available a week earlier to buy as a digital download from iTunes for anyone that was super keen to get their fix of Star Trek.
Story
As you can see from the trailer, the story sees the Enterprise getting shot down in a battle with new alien technology ripping it to shreds and leaving Captain Kirk and the gang to form a plan to fight back. However, with no ship and no crew at his command he’s got little in the way of firepower as they’re stranded on a planet and continue to be attacked by the new threat to Star Fleet.
Cast
The same main cast of Chris Pine (Z for Zachariah) as Captain James T. Kirk, Karl Urban (Dredd) as Bones, Zachary Quinto (Hitman: Agent 47) as Spoch, Zoey Saldana (Guardians Of The Galaxy) as Lieutenant Uhura and Simon Pegg (Mission: Impossible – Rogue Nation) as Scotty will be returning for the third entry in the new series. They’ll be joined once again by John Cho (Total Recall) as Lieutenant Sulu and Anton Yelchin (Broken Horses) as Chekov.
The new additions to the cast include Idris Elba (The Jungle Book (2016)) as the heavily made-up new villain of the piece and Sofia Boutella (Kingsman: The Secret Service) stars as alien bewbie, Jaylah.
Production
In addition to Justin Lin being in the director’s chair, taking over the role from J.J. Abrams, the film has been co-written by Simon Pegg along with Doug Jung, Roberto Orci, John D. Payne and Patrick McKay. Abrams isn’t entirely out of the picture though as he’s down as one of the three producers with Roberto Orci and Justin Lin.
Apart from the selection of The Beastie Boys, which Kirk references in the first outing for the new series, Star Trek (2009), the music is credited to Michael Gaichino, who’s recent credits include Jurassic World, Inside Out and Zootopia. Stephen Windon is the director of photography and adds to the Fast And Furious footnotes as he worked on both 6 and 7. Greg D’Auria, Dylan Highsmith, Kelly Matsumoto and Steven Sprung are responsible for film editing.
The BBFC has classified the film as 12A.
Review
We’ve already had a roller-coaster review response to the new Star Trek films, having been less than impressed by the all American feel of the first film, but giving much more love in our Star Trek: Into Darkness review, so it’s a bit of a disappointment that we were let down in the end by the latest deep space adventure. For the majority of the film, it’s a great modern take on the classic Star Trek genius, but it’s let down in the end by a slightly contrived plot twist. The Fast And Furious criticism ends up being inconsequential and just a small feature in a much bigger story. Check out our full review for more info.
Check out Justin Lin’s Twitter page to see the latest images and insider info on Star Trek Beyond.
Sabotage has featured in every reboot film. It’s a running in-joke and a sort of unofficial theme, which even I find amusing, and I hate rap/hip-hop/MOBO “music”