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Canon-Strike IX: Star Trek

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    More films need to take Mission Impossible as a template then, where he made an entry that re-orientated the tone and focus of the character but then he stepped out as director with his company remaining involved, since then it's just blossomed from that reset. He's supposed to be getting involved in DC's output now so curious what difference that makes.

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      Star Trek: Beyond
      Where the Kelvin timeline currently hands off its chain of events lies with this now four year old movie that is the thirteenth in the long running film arm of the franchise. The USS Enterprise is a few years into its exploration mission and a bored Kirk applies for a supremely premature vice Admiral post before the ship is sent on a rescue mission that quickly see's her destroyed at a young age (later to be replaced by the conveniently in construction and barely different USS Enterprise-A). The film shows the crew battle a long lost Captain of the USS Franklin, this ship an NX model that provides the Kelvin runs second callback to Star Trek: Enterprise as well as being the final film for Anton Yelchin who died a few weeks before release, it also pays tribute to Leonard Nimoy who passed away between Into Darkness and Beyond.



      Where does Beyond stand in the Kelvin and film canon rankings?

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        I like Beyond, although admittedly I think part of that is going in with very low expectations after Into Darkness. And one of its strengths is simply avoiding most of the problems that Into Darkness had. It’s a much smaller movie from a story point of view. There is less happening, the stakes are smaller for most of the movie, they don’t go many places and so there just aren’t many places for the same contrivances and conveniences to creep in and it also doesn’t rely on repeating beats from previous movies. So almost every crime of Into Darkness is absent here.

        Sure, there are crimes. It still doesn’t make much of the Kirk, Spock, McCoy dynamic and the one big issue for me is that, for the fourth time in a row, the villain is yet again a guy with a grudge that doesn’t completely ring true. And it loses control of the film towards the end, descending into a poor fight because someone felt the stakes needed to go bigger and we needed punching. But given those particular crimes seem to be a hallmark of the Kelvin films, some carried over from Nemesis, I can’t single out Beyond as being the worst in any of those aspects. The villain issue is present but not as unintentionally hilarious as Into Darkness, for example.

        So what I’m mostly left with is a smaller rescue story that is easier to buy because, in truth, it doesn’t reach very high. And I’m happy it didn’t. The story is a bit more TV like, if you want to see that as a negative, but I feel it needed that course correction given where the previous movie fell down. The characters are fun, it has a lot of nice little moments and Pine in particular carries the movie really well. I enjoy it and enjoyed it again on my recent rewatch.

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          With Beyond I find it hard to describe what my disconnect with it is. You get the destruction of the ship, the battle in the wreckage, Elba's reveal and then the whole climax sequence and it all feels like soulless fluff. It kind of just washes over me in a way that not even Into Darkness manages in terms of that disconnect. I can't really specify where the failing lies as nothing sticks out as a real issue with the film but somehow the whole thing fails to gel together for me in a way that makes me think of Insurrection except that films faults are clear. Of all thirteen films Beyond simply feels to me like the one that most exists for the sake of existing, where nothing in it is earnt and also carries no worthwhile meaning.

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            I just struggle to even remember it, and that really says something given how readily I seem to remember obscure things about Trek.

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              Star Trek: Picard
              And so we arrive at the last stop for the Star Trek canon as it currently exists. Finally bringing the original timeline back into focus as well as moving events forward a few decades, the recent new show sets the stage with Jean-Luc Picard once again in the lead as he mourns the events of Romulu's destruction and aims to help a girl with a connection to an old friend. We see little of Federation ships with those that do appear looking like harsher lined Voyager's. Beyond the core character focused storyline, does the show move the canon along as much as it perhaps should?



              Does Picard make it so?

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                Originally posted by Neon Ignition View Post
                Does Picard make it so?
                Last 5 seconds of the intro. Just play that on a loop. Instant dopamine hit.

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                  Overall, I really liked Picard. I enjoyed the characters, I enjoyed many of the episodes and I loved seeing Stewart back as Picard. He is absolutely superb. I thought the ending was terrible. Those last two episodes were rushed, didn't seem to make a huge amount of sense and just felt poorly thought through. It fumbled the ending badly. And I think that's partly because it reached to high - there was no need for this story to be so big. I could write pages on those last couple of episodes... but I won't.

                  Had it been a film, the poor ending probably would leave me with a very bad memory of it. But a TV show is different and I can enjoy the individual episodes and, in this case, I did. Not everything worked for me - the villain Romulans seemed very cartoony and the holograms with the different accents never landed for me - but many of the other elements I liked and I did love some individual episodes, especially the one with Riker which was a small, peaceful episode. And really, when the show was at its smallest, that's when it worked best for me. Had the series mostly been Picard hanging out on that farm with his two Romulan buddies and his dog, I would have been very happy with that.

                  I enjoyed the journey, not so much the destination.

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                    Piccard is like someone read a few notes on the characterisation of TNG and made a show based on that. I got fooled enjoying it for a few episodes then I realised I'd been duped and this wasn't star trek at all. Abandoned never to return after 5 eps.

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                      Star Trek In Review
                      Reaching the end of our journey through charted space, we've followed two timelines through from the birth of the warp drive to the first steps into the post-Next-Gen era of Star Trek. Currently we're going to see many projects launch and run including a new look at the pre-Kirk days with Strange New Worlds, the Discovery leap into a new situation, the Kelvin timeline facing an uncertain future and Picard exploring the further end of the main timeline.



                      How should Star Trek proceed with its future in TV and Film?

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                        While I think what we've had recently is far from perfect for all the reasons we've gone through, I look back at where we were during Voyager and Enterprise and the Next Gen movies around the time, where Star Trek felt so generic and done, like I'd seen it all before and just couldn't face seeing the same thing again, and I compare it to now where I feel each form is very different and I'm seeing some risks in there. Not all the risks land for me but I'd far rather they explored and took those risks than play it safe and just make boring Star Trek.

                        Because let's face it, while there were plenty of dud episodes simply due to the amount of episodes in a season back in the day, some of TOS and Next Gen episodes have amazing storytelling and are really the pinnacle of Trek. It was already pretty amazing that Next Gen could follow TOS and be quite different and yet still very much Star Trek and do it really well. There is no point in just retreading that over and over. It's done and it's been done really well.

                        So give me the new takes. If I hate them, fine. But try. And if it's good, like the way even those original shows had some dud episodes, it doesn't all have to be great to be worthwhile. My personal preference is that they make new Trek, in the sense that I don't want to see Kirk, Spock and McCoy recast over and over again. I don't want a new Next Gen movie with Robert Pattinson as Picard. As much as I'm looking forward to Pike's show, I'll take the new over the old any day. So yeah, bring me new Treks, bring me different Treks and if they work they work but they can try anything.

                        Except Tarantino. He can shove right off.

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                          I won't lie, given the eye candy approach the movies take these days I'd be half tempted to use them as testing board for really going crazy with alternate scenarios. Like if somehow the changes in the timeline result in the Borg arriving in Federation space a hundred years early and facing off with Kirk

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