Star Trek: Beyond

I think if Krall was played by a lesser actor than Idris Elba, he would have been terrible. He didn't really get all that much screentime, and most of it was just "I am generically angry and hate the Federation on principle." But Elba sold the character perfectly.

I actually do like the idea of Krall as a representative of the old, pre-Federation Earth, ie. he's us. But it's not given enough space (ha) or time (haha) to breathe, to work its way into its jaded 21st Century viewership. A twist like this almost can't work as an actual surprise anymore, but you can still sell it on an emotional, personal basis.

Not to mention he basically disappeared before the Golden Age humanity was having right now, back when just after he'd been fighting in a war against two different species that had wanted to destroy humanity.

Also, just got back from seeing it myself. I loved the tributes to Nimoy and the old crew.

One thing I enjoyed seeing though was how Admiral Shala'Raan vas Tonbay is still in a position of authority in a fleet, though she's taken a demotion and is now human xD

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

And, assuming that the One-Steve Limit applies, she's Tom Paris's ancestor.

So I saw the movie. I liked it more than Into Darkness. Not sure how I felt about Krall as a villain though. Anybody else hoping Jaylah becomes a part of the team in future movies?

edited 2nd Aug '16 3:21:43 PM by Kostya

It depends on if she's assigned to the Enterprise when she graduates from the Academy, and if the Enterprise will pick her up on a stop-in, considering it's still got two years on its five-year exploratory mission.

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

Given Anton Yelchin's death it wouldn't shock me if she replaced Chekhov in the next movie.

Krall won't become as iconic as original Khan, but he was more enjoyable than the Khan they had in the last movie, who was really overshadowed by Admiral Marcus.

Honestly what worked about Krall was that he was the most understandable villain in the reboot trilogy so far, not so much in that what he does really makes sense, but its easy to see why it makes sense to him. He's also the most believably beatable villain. The air of mystery helps distinguish him from his predecessors too. Khan is the guy we all know was pulled from that original series episode, except these movies had no TV shows so its kinda empty. Nero's described in intimate detail. The characters know him, the audience knows him. Here everyone has to piece everything about Krall together until the eleventh hour and there are many workable possibilities, meaning that even if you guessed right you probably guess something else too.

And this movie still left a lot unanswered. No obvious cliff hangers or sequel hooks, but plenty to explore in more depth if some future writer wants to.

I also like how Uhura shows none of the fear as Krall's prisoner as she did confronting the Kligons. Fear of the unknown clearly isn't hers, which makes sense given they're on a mission to tackle just that.

That's why he wants you to have the money. Not so you can buy 14 Cadillacs but so you can help build up the wastes

Finally saw the film. I have some mixed feelings, but overall is more positive than the last two films. First and foremost I finally like Chris Pine as Kirk. He was previously written, directed and physically made to look young, hip and Cool People Rebel Against Authority. Here he finally seems to look and act like Kirk should, with a certain nobility and maturity along with a seasoned level of respect for everyone on the ship. You could call it Character Development, but those are traits that should have been expected for Starfleet captain to begin with.

The destruction of the Enterprise had very little emotion, the ship has never been much more than a cool object in the reboot films. It's obviously supposed to be an homage to Star Trek III or even Generations, but in those cases there was a Hope Spot that things would turn out okay, only for it to get much worse. The problem is that the nacelles are ripped off in basically the first attack wave. When something like that happens you know it's going to be an abandon ship situation from the start, yet the action goes on for 10 minutes.

Krall was a reasonable villain, not so much for how Idris Elba played him but the gradual reveal of who he was. There is a nice little parallel between him and Kirk, especially in Kirk's opening log about how it's easy to get disoriented when you're away from home for a long time. It also works well with another Star Trek theme, that how we face death is just as important as how we live.

The main problem I have is in the gaps with how he has that army, that unbeatable swarm of ships and the life drain ability. I get the planet has some Lost Technology, but his main camp did not look anywhere near big enough for an army and fleet of that size and the ruins of the last inhabitants we do see are not that impressive. Similarly, Kirk having the final puzzle piece of the Forgotten Superweapon was rather contrived.

I did enjoy the references to the greater Star Trek mythology. It was quite a surprise to hear references to the Xindi conflict, Romulan War and see an NX-style ship. That made the film feel richer and the universe has an actual history to it, instead of referencing events that never actually happened in this timeline.

They did mention that there was a lot of subsurface development. It's likely that the drones and ships were kept underground and Krall just discovered them.

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

You know what would have been interesting? If they said the planet was Talos IV. Although that might be a bit too continuity breaking.

Talos IV?

The super weapon wasn't contrived, the bait was launched because Krall over heard that the weapon had been taken to Yorktown.

And Krall is immortal, so he just has to wait for that eventuality of a federation ship with the weapon flying near the nebula.

edited 18th Aug '16 8:58:01 AM by Whowho

Talos IV, the planet from the original pilot of Star Trek, "The Cage." It's home to an advanced race of beings who use telepathy to make illusions, so they could have totally had the advanced tech that Krall found. Of course, they were still alive during the TOS era in the original timeline, so that might not work.

I get the feeling that Nero's time traveling effected the actions of future time travellers, which has cause some aspects of the Kelvin time line to be different pre-Kelvin event.

I thought the theory was that First Contact created one timeline branch (to explain all the continuity fuck ups in Enterprise), then the Kelvin line branches off from that one.

"Yup. That tasted purple."

Well, Time Travel in Star Trek has generally treated changes to the timeline as an instantaneous thing, it's not a gradual shift a la Back to the Future. That implies with every significant time travel story there is years of alterations that occur from that divergence out to infinity and then reset when put back on track. And also that something has to provide a time bubble around the characters to prevent them from being affected, typically via already being in the past or standing next to the Guardian of Forever.

So I'll say what we are really seeing is the progressed alternate timeline that occurred from one of the myriad changes. If we want to go further we could assume someone went out and fixed the Kelvin incident so that the timeline, more or less, resets itself to the more traditional TOS story. Other timeline changes don't allow things to progress exactly the same but is a Close-Enough Timeline that from the audience perspective it is identical. While there are theories about the ripple effects of the events from Star Trek: First Contact, Star Trek: Enterprise had built into its own story about a temporal cold war already being in play for years before the series started.

But on the whole superweapon coincidence thing, Thrall being able to hack directly into the Federation information infrastructure is a rather absurd hand wave all on its own. It would be like a computer programmer from the 60's figuring out how to hack the CIA mainframe without them knowing about it just because they found a crashed drone. In addition he was looking for an item the size of a jewelry box, and proceeded to shred the Enterprise apart looking for it. Causing massive damage to the vehicle holding your MacGuffin is putting the MacGuffin in danger too. On top of that the superweapon didn't really seem all that impressive. If left unchecked then yes, I can see it being very destructive, but no more than his unstoppable swarm ships. If the swarm ships weren't neutralized and were able to breach the outer shell by the time they got to the center of Yorktown most of the population would be dead already.

The actual whys and hows of the actual deed I will grant you but any logical flaws in Thrall's thinking can probably legitimately be excused by the fact he has lost at least a few of his marbles by now and probably not Mr Intelligent Strategist.

"These 'no-nonsense' solutions of yours just don't hold water in a complex world of jet-powered apes and time travel."

The super weapon wasn't about killing people his swarm could not, but about killing people while leaving the their star ship building base mostly intact.

That's why he wants you to have the money. Not so you can buy 14 Cadillacs but so you can help build up the wastes

Saw the movie a couple questions.

[[spoilers:Shouldn't Spock be young in the cast picture? I thought Vulcans age far slower than humans?

Also, how did Krall get to be a shapeshifter? I didn't quite get that part of why he turned into an alien until the very end where he looked like his human form. ]]

edited 12th Sep '16 9:27:09 AM by washington213

It was the technology left behind that made him look like that.

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.

I wish we'd gotten a little more preamble to that. The twist of him having been transformed by this life-extending technology was interesting, but the way we find that out happens too fast for the viewer to fully absorb it. The movie glosses over it and we lose out on the impact.

It also feels a little convenient, the way the Enterprise *just* found this artifact, and they *just* got back to civilization, and then they're immediately being roped into this expedition with this alien woman. It's been a while since I saw the movie, so forgive me if this was explained, but how could she know the Enterprise had the artifact, that they'd arrive at Yorktown just in time for her to crash into the station, and that Admiral Raan would send the Enterprise along with her? Was that all just a coincidence? Because if so...

I kind of wish we'd taken a little time before getting to Yorktown to have maybe a brief montage of some of the other voyages of the starship Enterprise. It wouldn't have to be that long, but it would help open up the setting a little more, in a movie which sometimes felt closed off (thanks to being mostly set on the planetary equivalent of a desert island). Even if it did still feel much truer to the spirit of discovery of the shows.

To answer questions, Krall knew the weapon was at Yorktown because he'd been listening to the mission reports. (Also keep in mind that the nebula is MASSIVE, the end indicated the entirety of the remaining two years of mission would be spent exploring it. The nebula likely boarders hundreds of starfleet outposts. Krall just had to wait for any super weapon to pass through any of them.

We knew Krall was a shape shifter because the first thing he did with his prisoners was absorb their life force and we see his features change to resemble that of the aliens he just absorbed.

The cast picture is set twenty years into their future. And Vulcans tend to spend the majority of their lives looking middle aged by human standards.

@The Kelvin timeline. I imagine it's different pre Kelvin impart because there's no way the events of Voyage Home could have gone the same way.

edited 12th Sep '16 1:21:10 PM by Whowho

Also, that photo is a promotional photo from one of the original Trek movies and thus in-universe was presumably taken during that time period. Which mean Spock looks the way he's supposed to.

Maybe you'd be less disappointed if you stopped expecting things to be Carmen Sandiego movies.

Ohhhh. Okay, that makes a lot more sense now. I didn't pick up on the idea that Krall's life-draining caused him to more closely resemble whatever species he used it on at all.

And I guess I can accept that he'd recognize the device from the mission reports, although his mole does still seem to get there a little too quickly. Does she specifically ask for Kirk? How does she know the outpost won't send another ship with her instead? One without the artifact?

She doesn't specifically ask for Kirk, the Enterprise is sent to investigate and she's sent along with them because she knows the way through the nebula.

That is the face of a man who just ate a kitten. Raw.