Star Trek, Star Trek Into the Dark, and Star Trek Beyond in 4K.
The three movies are now available in a 3-Movie set
I have always enjoyed Star Trek although I never considered myself a Trekkie. I’ve never been to a convention or owned a tribble. But I was excited a decade ago to see that Star Trek was returning to the movie theater.
I had hoped that Star Trek would go in one of two new directions:
1. The next generation took place 80 years after the original series. I was hoping that they would jump even further in the future for a whole new series.
2. If they were returning to the original series I hope they would just pick up where the original series left off. This did not happen.
Star Trek: Instead it was a reboot with the director, J.J. Abrams, deciding to redo the original Star Trek series rather than continue it. In seeing the movie at home for the second time my original disappointment actually was a bit worse. While not a bad movie, I give it a grade of C. Abrams, with Star Wars, Star Trek and Mission Impossible seems unable to come up with an original premise and just redoes an old one.
The adventure takes place in what is now called the “Kelvin” Timeline, which is named after the USS Kelvin which is destroyed in the first minutes of the film. The film traces the new origin of Kirk, from his birth to his ascension of Captain on the Enterprise. The nemesis of the movie is Nemo, played by Eric Bana, who goes back in time to punish Mr. Spock for his inability to save Nemo’s home planet.
I have enjoyed time travel in movies: Back to the Future, Time Machine, Star Trek 4 and 7 as well as the City on the Edge of Forever. However I enjoy time travel when it advances a plot rather than erasing established canon and creating new ones. This also happened in the Avengers Endgame movie.
There are just too many coincidences here that make it hard for me to be absorbed by the movie. For example, Kirk is jettisoned from the enterprise, by Spock, instead of jailed when he complains too much. This would lead to his death, so it is something Spock would not do. Although there are a trillion planets in the solar system, Kirk lands on the one that just happens to have the original (Leonard Nimoy) Spock almost waiting for him. And it’s on the same planet as Mr. Scott.
The cast however is actually very good. Zachary Quinto, Chris Pine and Zoe Saldana had good chemistry and Zoe’s role, as Uhura was expanded.
The 4K presentation is terrific and the sound is wonderful in both this and the next movie.
Star Trek Into Darkness: When I pay new money for a movie ticket I don’t want to get an old movie. This movie remakes Star Trek two and three and frankly it is just not very good at doing it. I know many people feel that if it’s a good movie it does not have to be original but to me part of being a good movie is being original. Benedict Cumberbatch, honest to God, is one of my favorite actors today but he is terribly miscast in this movie. Ricardo Montalbán created an over the top, ethnic, exciting character, Khan Noonien Singh, in The Wrath of Khan and Space Seed. It’s all missing here as Khan had been whitewashed. Grade D. When I reviewed the Blu Ray a few years ago, I think my friend David V. disagreed and liked this movie far more than I did.
Star Trek Beyond:
This movie is more of an action and adventure movie than the other two. The Enterprise is severely damaged on a rescue mission and is blown apart as it’s crew is stranded on a planet with their new enemy, Krall.
This movie was not quite as visually nor sonically as good as the first two and that was a disappointment.
There was a tremendous falloff of attendance to this movie. This often happens when a movie in a series follows a bad one. The previous movie might have done well, but ticket buyers have had enough! And ther apparently will be a fourth one, it has just been announced.
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