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| Bad tidings in the post. |
Dir. Justin Lin
With its faithful and almost quaint keeping to the Gene Roddenberry ethos of pluralism and
tolerance, Star Trek Beyond reads like an extended episode of
the original television series. In a universe where minority races and beyond find
equal footing, gender, color and other differences are rendered meaningless in
the face of galaxies teeming with exotic life forms, the green-skinned
Shrek-looking aliens being a fast favorite.
The inclusiveness refreshingly extends to the gayness of Sulu
(John Cho), a fact subtly hinted at
when Sulu’s partner shows up with their daughter to rendezvous with the
travel-weary crew as they arrive for shore leave on Starbase Yorktown.
Gay or otherwise, the characters in Star Trek Beyond seem for the most part blander than their original counterparts. The
new Kirk (Chris Pine) eschews the
original’s megalomaniacal grandstanding in favor of self-sacrificial existential
angst. Spock (Zachary Quinto) turns completely flat, wrapped up in his interminable
inner conflict that pits his unassailable rationality with pesky interjections
by his human side. Even Uhura (Zoe
Saldana) has lost a lot of the strong black woman vibe that characterized Nichelle Nichols’ quietly powerful performances
in the past.
Only the new Chekov (Anton
Yelchin) really punches life into his character by acting and sounding like a hyperactive Scotty (Simon Pegg) the entire time, and the new
Dr. Bones (Karl Urban) with his confrontational dry humor evinced by corny
one-liners also lives up to the original role.
The main storyline isn’t entirely uninteresting, but it suffers from periods of action-induced doldrums, those tedious moments where excessive
jump-cuts, explosions and yelling substitute for weak plots points. Instead of
taking cues from Star Wars space
battles, the film could have been better served by taking a less cavalier attitude
toward the wonders of science, the physics of space travel and the biology of
sentient interstellar life.
Director Justin Lin
makes a little room for tenderness, though, reserved mostly for Spock who, in the most
confusing aspect of the film, learns that Ambassador Spock (played in absentia
by Leonard Nimoy) has died. Adding
to the mess in logic, Ambassador Spock bequeaths an old snapshot to the younger version
of himself that features the crew of Star Trek V from the Final Frontier days, a fitting homage in which the original principles have started to show their age.
Young Spock greets the news with semi-emotion, something his
logical side can’t fathom, but perhaps his bafflement has more to do with the alternate
reality plotline set up by the prior instalment of the franchise with the
photograph underscoring the question of the characters’ double existences. Aren’t
these both the same Spock, just existing in different universes? Is Spock
looking at himself in the future, dead?
Whatever the case may be, the picture of the original cast is not just a touching tribute, it's easily the best moment in an otherwise lackluster film.
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