View Poll Results: Star Trek Beyond

Voters
25. You may not vote on this poll
  • Yay

    15 60.00%
  • Nay

    10 40.00%
Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast
Results 1 to 25 of 51

Thread: Star Trek Beyond (Justin Lin)

  1. #1
    Moderator TGM's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Posts
    3,819

    Star Trek Beyond (Justin Lin)

    STAR TREK BEYOND

    Director: Justin Lin

    imdb


  2. #2
    Moderator TGM's Avatar
    Join Date
    Dec 2010
    Posts
    3,819
    Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much better than Into Darkness!

  3. #3
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    37,786
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    Sooooooooooooooooooooooooo much better than Into Darkness!
    That was a low, low bar but yes. Having just watched it last night... so yes. Just the fact that there's zero lens flares makes this automatically better.

    But really, this is what we get when you hand a competent director the keys to your franchise. You end up with things like, a story arch, multiple climaxes, humor, good dialog, incredible action... Uhura is actually given something to do.

    This movie my friends, is better than both Trek reboots (it very well may be the 2nd or 3rd best Trek film), and The Force Awakens.

    Lin sets the tone immediately both from a visual eye candy perspective, and magnificent camera work. Our first shot of the Enterprise comes from a slow overhead view, where the Enterprise passes under the camera, to reveal a planet where the opening scene takes place. But this kind of visual is used throughout the movie. There's another scene when they are on the planet, and you see a civilization in the distance and the camera turns and zooms down a valley to reveal what Bones and Spock are up to.

    THIS is world building. This is what you want to expand your universe. Our introduction to the space station where the camera is just rolling through a Mass Effect-like Citadel, with towering buildings, transports, people walking the streets, different races of aliens, people using technology and workers building shit. It's just all magnificent.

    Spoiler is witnessed in the trailer but I'm just using caution
    [
    ]

    My one complaint, which is a common one with blockbusters like this, is our villain seems underdeveloped. I wasn't really all that fearful of him. I didn't know what his master plan was until very close to the end of the movie. I didn't know why he was so mad until the very end. And even now that i know, it still seems a bit far-fetched.

    On top of the villain stuff, I still don't have any idea what the weapon is, or how the villain knew about it (did he read logs?) or how he developed a massive army.... with tons of ships? HIs army on the ground does not translate to the size of his base and number of ships. When you see the ships in action, there's hundreds of thousands of ships acting like a swarm of bees, and when we are on the ground, there's like two dozen bad guys. Where are the rest of them hiding?

    Anyway, it's super fun so go see it. It's also my pick in the movie draft so give them your $$.
    Last edited by Dukefrukem; 07-22-2016 at 02:26 AM.
    Twitch / Youtube / Film Diary

    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  4. #4
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    37,786
    Talk about a director on the up and up for blockbuster success.

    Star Trek Beyond $TBD
    Fast & Furious 6 $238,679,850
    Fast Five $209,837,675
    Fast and Furious $155,064,265
    The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift $62,514,415
    Twitch / Youtube / Film Diary

    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  5. #5
    Since 1929 Morris Schæffer's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Belgium
    Posts
    11,030
    Nice to hear mcut has also got great words to say about this. I look forward to it. That said, I found into darkness very entertaining, occasionally thrilling and competent too.
    [+] closer to next rating / [-] closer to previous rating

    • Dark (S3) ✦✦✦½ [-]
    • Fall (Mann, 2022) ✦✦✦½ [-]
    • Ms. Marvel (S1) ✦½ [+]
    • Dark (S2) ✦✦✦✦
    • Moon Knight (S1) ✦✦½ [-]
    • Get Carter (Hodges, 1971) ✦✦✦½ [+]
    • Prey (Trachtenberg, 2022) ✦✦✦ [-]
    • Black Bird (S1) ✦✦✦✦
    • Better Call Saul (S6) ✦✦✦½ [+]
    • Halo (S1) ✦✦✦ [-]
    • Slow Horses (S1) ✦✦✦½ [+]
    • H4Z4RD (Govaerts, 2022/BE) ✦✦½ [-]
    • Gangs of London (S1) ✦✦✦½ [+]
    • We Own This City (S1) ✦✦✦½ [+]
    • Thor: Love and Thunder (Waititi, 2022) ✦✦ [+]


  6. #6
    collecting tapes Skitch's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Neo-Ohio
    Posts
    16,583
    Quote Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
    Anyway, it's super fun so go see it. It's also my pick in the movie draft so give them your $$.
    Weekend projection from BOM:

    Star Trek Beyond (3,928 theaters) - $59 M

  7. #7
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    37,786
    Quote Quoting Skitch (view post)
    Weekend projection from BOM:

    Star Trek Beyond (3,928 theaters) - $59 M
    Holy disappointing!
    Twitch / Youtube / Film Diary

    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  8. #8
    collecting tapes Skitch's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Neo-Ohio
    Posts
    16,583
    Rough year for sequels. I blame months of JJ and crew claiming up and down that Cumberbatch was NOT playing Kahn.

  9. #9
    Screenwriter Fezzik's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Tallahassee, FL
    Posts
    2,725
    I loved this. The action was of almost virtuosity levels (with a few jolts of Lin absurdity for flavor), but the strength, amazingly enough, is in the characters. Pegg did a great job focusing on the crew - we see them interact in ways we haven't before. We see how they fit into each others lives.

    Its the equivalent of taking Tony Stark out of the Iron Man suit, in a way.

    Also, there was a nice unintended moment near the beginning that made me tear up:

    [
    ]
    Last edited by Fezzik; 07-22-2016 at 10:14 PM.

  10. #10
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    37,786
    Nice catch there with the whiskey!

    I forgot to mention one of my favorite things about this movie that Fez just reminded me:

    It turns into a journey/meet up movie... which is like... my favorite thing in movies.
    Twitch / Youtube / Film Diary

    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  11. #11
    Producer
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    2,936
    Mild yay. I am probably not the one to ask for opinions about Star Trek, since I somehow liked Into Darkness quite a bit, despite having seen TMP and WoK and should feel it a cinematic sacrilege. Along with Prometheus, this has made me long realize that I can put up with a level of blockbuster "bullshit" if your cinematic sensibility or directorial storytelling can match and doesn't sink along with it in the moment (unlike, say, Man of Steel's tornado scene).


    I bring this up first because despite feeling that Beyond has a very solid story and a terrific sense of teamwork/character dynamics, it leaves me cold a bit. I am reminded of Spielberg's Tintin, where if I feel so continuously overloaded on sensation, without enough downtime, that it just grows somewhat numbing. Lin's action scenes are very good. The cast feeling more diverse, more distributed in story involvement, and more like a "family" (probably imported from his Fast & Furious films) also inject a lot of humanity into the busy plot and sensory overload. Ultimately though, Lin isn't as adept in creating a strong narrative flow and momentum as Abrams is to me, but a lot of people's mileage will probably vary from this, obviously.
    Midnight Run (1988) - 9
    The Smiling Lieutenant (1931) - 8.5
    The Adventures of Robinhood (1938) - 8
    Sisters (1973) - 6.5
    Shin Godzilla (2016) - 7.5

  12. #12
    Piss off, ghost! number8's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Brooklyn
    Posts
    30,529
    Really really good. This feels like a bombastic big budget episode of TOS. Which admittedly means it's the most disposable and perhaps deliberately least thematically heavy of the three, but I'll fucking take it over the travesty of Into Darkness. This a solid, engaging space adventure that everybody got to be great in. I would take a few more of this.
    Quote Quoting Donald Glover
    I was actually just reading about Matt Damon and he’s like, ‘There’s a culture of outrage.’ I’m like, ‘Well, they have a reason to be outraged.’ I think it’s a lot of dudes just being scared. They’re like, ‘What if I did something and I didn’t realize it?’ I’m like, ‘Deal with it.’
    Movie Theater Diary

  13. #13
    collecting tapes Skitch's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Neo-Ohio
    Posts
    16,583
    Surpassed every expectation. Wonderful writing. I'll be real interested to see what this does week two, hopefully it has some legs. It deserves it.

  14. #14
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    37,786
    So any of you guys weren't thrown off by the number of ships versus number of enemies?

    Oh and how did they get those ships?
    Twitch / Youtube / Film Diary

    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  15. #15
    collecting tapes Skitch's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Neo-Ohio
    Posts
    16,583
    Duke, you could nitpick any film. He got the drone mining force and turned them into an army, its assumed thats where they came from. Where did the raiders in Seven Samurai get their horses? How did Bruce Wayne travel from one country to another? I don't think these are great plot holes. Let a flight of fancy fly a bit.

  16. #16
    Piss off, ghost! number8's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Brooklyn
    Posts
    30,529
    I actually don't think I understand the question... Number of ships vs enemies? You mean why there are more drones than there are humanoid villains?
    Quote Quoting Donald Glover
    I was actually just reading about Matt Damon and he’s like, ‘There’s a culture of outrage.’ I’m like, ‘Well, they have a reason to be outraged.’ I think it’s a lot of dudes just being scared. They’re like, ‘What if I did something and I didn’t realize it?’ I’m like, ‘Deal with it.’
    Movie Theater Diary

  17. #17
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    37,786
    Quote Quoting number8 (view post)
    I actually don't think I understand the question... Number of ships vs enemies? You mean why there are more drones than there are humanoid villains?
    Is it the wrong assumption that all of the ships in space- the swarm- were unmanned? (Even though the two they showed they boarded had 2 pilots)
    Twitch / Youtube / Film Diary

    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  18. #18
    Piss off, ghost! number8's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Brooklyn
    Posts
    30,529
    Ah, no, all the swarm ships were manned. It's the pilots (the insect-looking cannon fodder robots) that are drones. The film said they're native to the planet and were left behind. Krall took control of them and made them his soldiers. But they're incapable of doing tasks without orders.
    Quote Quoting Donald Glover
    I was actually just reading about Matt Damon and he’s like, ‘There’s a culture of outrage.’ I’m like, ‘Well, they have a reason to be outraged.’ I think it’s a lot of dudes just being scared. They’re like, ‘What if I did something and I didn’t realize it?’ I’m like, ‘Deal with it.’
    Movie Theater Diary

  19. #19
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    37,786
    I totally missed that. Where was that dialog?
    Twitch / Youtube / Film Diary

    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  20. #20
    Entertaining enough, I suppose, but this felt so perfunctory to me. A movie that exists simply to exist. As a self-contained "installment" of a multi-episode franchise like James Bond or Fast and Furious, where the goal is to simply churn out episode after episode, then something like this is definitely passable. Not in any way memorable, but enough to kill two hours of your time. If, rather, the idea here is to create something with an growing and interesting cinematic mythology, then this comes up pretty far short. I can't think of a single emotional beat or set piece in this entire film that adds anything to the franchise's legacy. If they made another, could one really say this has to be seen first?

    I like Lin -- I continue to believe Fast Five is one of the finest pure action movies of the past decade, and his work on TV was a revelation. So, I was considerably disappointed that the action in this film felt so indistinct. The first extended action sequence on the Enterprise was an endless and incoherent mis-mash of boring fistfights and things crashing into each other. And nothing that comes later lives up to the cinematic promise of Abrams' 2009 reboot, which I felt brought a sense of true image-making to the franchise. The character dynamics here felt pretty redundant, and Idris Elba was reduced to a monster-of-the-week.

    It's certainly a competently made sequel, more accomplished all-around than the dreck that was the third installment of X-Men. But it just feels like this thing went through the motions and gave us nothing of lasting significance, besides the image of a two-second back rub.
    letterboxd.

    A Star is Born (2018) **1/2
    Unforgiven (1992) ***1/2
    The Sisters Brothers (2018) **
    Crazy Rich Asians (2018) ***
    The Informant! (2009) ***1/2
    BlacKkKlansman (2018) ***1/2
    Sorry to Bother You (2018) **1/2
    Eighth Grade (2018) ***
    Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018) ***
    Ant-Man and The Wasp (2018) **1/2

  21. #21
    Replacing Luck Since 1984 Dukefrukem's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    37,786
    Quote Quoting DavidSeven (view post)
    Entertaining enough, I suppose, but this felt so perfunctory to me. A movie that exists simply to exist. As a self-contained "installment" of a multi-episode franchise like James Bond or Fast and Furious, where the goal is to simply churn out episode after episode, then something like this is definitely passable. Not in any way memorable, but enough to kill two hours of your time. If, rather, the idea here is to create something with an growing and interesting cinematic mythology, then this comes up pretty far short. I can't think of a single emotional beat or set piece in this entire film that adds anything to the franchise's legacy. If they made another, could one really say this has to be seen first? .
    I'm confused by this. Are you looking for a Star Wars-like story arch? Or an ongoing continuity like the MCU?

    Enough to NAY this no less... really?
    Twitch / Youtube / Film Diary

    Quote Quoting D_Davis (view post)
    Uwe Boll movies > all Marvel U movies
    Quote Quoting TGM (view post)
    I work in grocery. I have not gotten sick. My fellow employees have not gotten sick. If the virus were even remotely as contagious as its being presented as, why haven’t entire store staffs who come into contact with hundreds of people per day, thousands per week, all falling ill in mass nationwide?

  22. #22
    Quote Quoting Dukefrukem (view post)
    I'm confused by this. Are you looking for a Star Wars-like story arch? Or an ongoing continuity like the MCU?

    Enough to NAY this no less... really?
    Nah, doesn't have to be some big continuous arc.

    I just don't think they had a story to tell with this movie -- not even a self-contained one. It was just time to make another installment. What is this movie about? It's about 2/3 uninteresting action (though the use of Rage was pretty good) and 1/3 of totally Point A-to-Point B plot which was of utterly no interest to me. Maybe I'm missing it, but I don't see the story here. It's all empty plot and action. I think you can grow a cinematic mythology by simply making diverse and interesting movies within the bunch. I didn't see that here; I saw another widget on the blockbuster assembly line with no meat on it. Thus, the nay.
    Last edited by DavidSeven; 07-26-2016 at 06:24 PM.
    letterboxd.

    A Star is Born (2018) **1/2
    Unforgiven (1992) ***1/2
    The Sisters Brothers (2018) **
    Crazy Rich Asians (2018) ***
    The Informant! (2009) ***1/2
    BlacKkKlansman (2018) ***1/2
    Sorry to Bother You (2018) **1/2
    Eighth Grade (2018) ***
    Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018) ***
    Ant-Man and The Wasp (2018) **1/2

  23. #23
    Piss off, ghost! number8's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Brooklyn
    Posts
    30,529
    It's definitely a self-contained TOS episode on a bigger budget, like I said earlier, but I do think it is about something. Kirk's anxiety about growing older and having his feelings about his dad's death be his argument against Krall, whose motivation is specifically about him being unable to adapt to a society that has changed around him, all tie into Star Trek's mission statement of being about progress and the ideological dangers that face a utopia, and more importantly, is a fairly current social commentary on traditionalism. It's thin, but it's there and feels more Star Trek than the 9/11 Truther metaphor in Into Darkness.

    I think the behind-the-scenes drama with Orci leaving mid-production and Pegg/Jung/Lin having to meet a set release date definitely hurt it, because I can totally see another pass on the screenplay that gives that metaphor more weight, perhaps by moving up the Krall reveal and having the whole crew sit with that for a bit rather than just having Kirk hear it and immediately rebuff, all within one fistfight.
    Quote Quoting Donald Glover
    I was actually just reading about Matt Damon and he’s like, ‘There’s a culture of outrage.’ I’m like, ‘Well, they have a reason to be outraged.’ I think it’s a lot of dudes just being scared. They’re like, ‘What if I did something and I didn’t realize it?’ I’m like, ‘Deal with it.’
    Movie Theater Diary

  24. #24
    Nice input. I agree, giving more clarity on the parallelism with Krall and emphasizing his perspective some would've made this more interesting to me. Never felt the film gave us a great handle on him; thus the monster-of-the-week feel.
    letterboxd.

    A Star is Born (2018) **1/2
    Unforgiven (1992) ***1/2
    The Sisters Brothers (2018) **
    Crazy Rich Asians (2018) ***
    The Informant! (2009) ***1/2
    BlacKkKlansman (2018) ***1/2
    Sorry to Bother You (2018) **1/2
    Eighth Grade (2018) ***
    Mission Impossible: Fallout (2018) ***
    Ant-Man and The Wasp (2018) **1/2

  25. #25
    White Tiger Field Stay Puft's Avatar
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Posts
    3,711
    A mild yay, I suppose. It's easily the most enjoyable of the reboot series, as it carries forward the summer bombast while also, as others have pointed out, manages to feel like a self-contained episode of TOS. I can appreciate that. And however lacking it is for more time in the proverbial oven, it doesn't feel any worse off than the previous two (again, the themes are actually Trek, which I can dig, whereas I cannot abide whatever the fuck they thought they were doing with Into Darkness).

    Still a bit of a wash, though. It's fun, but it's still an underdeveloped, half-baked Hollywood blockbuster. Superficially slick, yet largely routine and forgettable.

    An aside, but:

    I'll admit the only reason I saw it is because it was screening in something called Barco Escape, which I had never heard of before (I think it's the first time we've had one in Toronto?), but the concept is not novel. The theatre is equipped with three screens, so the action wraps around your field of view (it covers the entire first section of seating, so if you were near the front you literally could not see all of it in a single glance), but that's something I've definitely seen before by other names (I remember going to an exhibition years and years ago that had landscape documentaries projected on panoramic screens that wrapped all the way around a room). Anyways, it's pretty neat. Only about 20 to 25 minutes of it was actual Barco footage, but my favorite part is the Chekov scotch scene where they used the other two screens to show the warp drive effects as a way of providing ambiance during a more intimate dialogue sequence. It was surprisingly effective. Otherwise, a bit hit or miss. Perspective can mess with the quality of the image, and I gathered while watching that it's most effective to just stay focused on the primary screen and let the periphery details remain as such (at least when dealing with a film like this, with special effects sequences retrofitted for Barco; the color timing was noticeably off in a couple parts that tried to digitally expand scenes with real actors, and a few other shots were partly zoomed and resulted in degraded image quality). When it hits, though, it's fairly impressive. Some of the sweeping shots of Yorkville were overwhelming in scale, and some of the money shots during the climactic space battle were astonishing. I'd be curious to see another film in this format when one is actually designed from the ground up to support it fully over the runtime.
    Giving up in 2020. Who cares.

    maɬni – towards the ocean, towards the shore (Sky Hopinka) ***½
    Without Remorse (Stefano Sollima) *½
    The Marksman (Robert Lorenz) **
    Beckett (Ferdinando Cito Filomarino) *½
    Night Hunter (David Raymond) *

Page 1 of 3 123 LastLast

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
An forum