Star Trek Beyond
Star Trek Beyond is a 2016 American science fiction action film directed by Justin Lin, written by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung, and based on the television series Star Trek created by Gene Roddenberry. It is the 13th film in the Star Trek franchise and the third installment in the reboot series, following Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013). Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto reprise their respective roles as Captain James T. Kirk and Commander Spock, with Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldaña, John Cho, and Anton Yelchin reprising their roles from the previous films. This was one of Yelchin's last films; he died in June 2016, a month before the film's release. Idris Elba, Sofia Boutella, Joe Taslim, and Lydia Wilson also appear.
Star Trek Beyond
- J. J. Abrams
- Roberto Orci
- Lindsey Weber
- Justin Lin
- Kelly Matsumoto
- Dylan Highsmith
- Greg D'Auria
- Steven Sprung
- Paramount Pictures
- Skydance
- Alibaba Pictures
- Huahua Media
- Bad Robot
- Sneaky Shark Productions
- Perfect Storm Entertainment
Paramount Pictures
- July 7, 2016 (Sydney)
- July 22, 2016 (United States)
122 minutes[1]
United States
English
$185 million[2]
$343.5 million[2]
Principal photography began in Vancouver on June 25, 2015. The film premiered in Sydney on July 7, 2016, and was released in the United States on July 22, 2016, by Paramount Pictures.[3] The film is dedicated to the memory of Yelchin, as well as to actor Leonard Nimoy, who died during pre-production.[4] The film grossed $343.5 million at the box office, and received positive reviews from critics. At the 89th Academy Awards, the film was nominated for Best Makeup and Hairstyling. A sequel is in development.
Plot[edit]
The Federation starship USS Enterprise arrives at starbase Yorktown, for resupply and shore leave for its crew. Struggling to find meaning in the middle of their five-year exploration, Captain James T. Kirk has applied for a promotion to vice admiral; he recommends Spock as his replacement. Meanwhile, Hikaru Sulu reunites with his family, Montgomery Scott works to keep the ship operational, and Spock and Nyota Uhura have ended their relationship; Spock also receives word from New Vulcan that Ambassador Spock—Spock's alternate-universe counterpart[a]—has died.
Enterprise is dispatched on a rescue mission after an escape pod drifts out of a nearby uncharted nebula. Its occupant, Kalara, claims her ship is stranded on Altamid, a planet in the nebula. Upon arrival, a massive swarm of small ships ambushes the Enterprise and quickly begins to tear it apart. The swarm's leader, Krall, and his crew board the crippled Enterprise, capture and kill many crew members, and attempt to capture the Abronath, a relic recovered during a recent mission. Kirk orders the crew to abandon ship, leaving the disintegrating Enterprise saucer section to crash on Altamid.
On the planet, Krall captures Sulu, Uhura, and other survivors. Kirk and Pavel Chekov, accompanied by Kalara, locate the Enterprise's saucer section. Knowing that Kalara knew they would be attacked, Kirk tricks her into revealing herself as Krall's spy. She is killed when Kirk and Chekov escape Krall's soldiers and flip the Enterprise saucer, crushing her. Elsewhere on the planet, Dr. Leonard McCoy and a wounded Spock search for other survivors. Spock tells McCoy that he ended his relationship with Uhura and is leaving Starfleet to help the Vulcan survivors and continue the late Ambassador Spock's work. Jaylah, a scavenger who previously escaped Krall's encampment where her father was killed, rescues Scott and takes him to her makeshift home, the grounded USS Franklin, an early Starfleet vessel reported missing over a century earlier. Scott is reunited with Kirk, Chekov, McCoy and Spock. Krall coerces the captive Enterprise crew to hand over the Abronath, then uses it to complete an ancient bioweapon. With the device complete, Krall intends to kill Yorktown's inhabitants, then use the base to attack the United Federation of Planets. Kirk and the others free the crew as Krall launches into space with the bioweapon, leading his drones to Yorktown.
The Enterprise survivors power up the Franklin and launch her in pursuit of Krall. Theorizing the swarm's system may be vulnerable to high frequencies such as VHF or radio, they jam and destroy the swarm by broadcasting the song "Sabotage" by the Beastie Boys. Krall is chased by the Franklin through Yorktown. Uhura, Kirk and Scotty discover from the Franklin's logs that Krall is actually Balthazar Edison, Franklin's former captain. A pre-Federation human soldier, Edison rejected the Federation's principles of unity and cooperation with former enemies like the Xindi and the Romulans. When he and his crew were stranded on Altamid by a wormhole, the survivors used the extinct natives' technology to prolong their lives at the cost of the others and re-purposed the ancient race's dormant mining drone workers into the swarm. Thinking the Federation had abandoned them, Edison planned to destroy the Federation and resume galactic conflict. Kirk pursues Edison into Yorktown's ventilation system, where Edison activates the bioweapon. Before it can spread, Kirk ejects it and Edison into space, where the weapon disintegrates Edison. Using a commandeered alien ship, Spock and McCoy save Kirk moments before he is also blown into space.
In the aftermath, Commodore Paris closes the files of Captain Edison and the USS Franklin crew. Though offered the promotion to vice admiral, Kirk decides to remain as a captain; Spock, after finding a photograph of Ambassador Spock's Enterprise crew, chooses to remain in Starfleet and renews his relationship with Uhura. On Kirk's recommendation, Jaylah is accepted into Starfleet Academy. As the crew celebrates Kirk's birthday, they watch the construction of their new ship, the USS Enterprise-A—and resume their mission.
Leonard Nimoy appears in a photo cameo appearance as Spock Prime, alongside George Takei, Walter Koenig, William Shatner, James Doohan, DeForest Kelley, and Nichelle Nichols as the Prime versions of Sulu, Chekov, Kirk, Scott, McCoy, and Uhura, respectively. Jeff Bezos cameos as an alien Starfleet official.[6] Carlo Ancelotti has a brief cameo as a doctor at Starbase Yorktown.[7]
Production[edit]
Development[edit]
Having directed and produced Star Trek (2009) and Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), J.J. Abrams returned only as a producer so he could focus on directing Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), the first installment of the highly anticipated Star Wars sequel trilogy.[8][9][10][11] Writer-producer Roberto Orci was announced as director in May 2014.[12][13] He would have been making his directorial debut.[14] However, in December, Orci's role was also listed as a producer only,[15] with Edgar Wright considered to replace him as director, along with a short list of others, including Rupert Wyatt, Morten Tyldum, Daniel Espinosa, Justin Lin, and Duncan Jones.[16] Also, Star Trek actor and director Jonathan Frakes expressed interest in the job.[17] At the end of the month, Lin was announced as director of the third installment[18] after declining an offer by Universal Studios to return to the Fast & Furious franchise as director of The Fate of the Furious (2017) after James Wan's departure from the project.[19]
Screenplay[edit]
In 2013, Orci had begun writing the script with Patrick McKay and J. D. Payne,[20][21] with Payne saying of the script in March, "We really want to get back to the sense of exploration and wonder. The kind of optimistic sense of the future that Star Trek has always kind of had at its core. It's the Chicago Bulls in space, in terms of these people who are all awesome at their job."[22] In January 2015, after Orci's departure as director, Simon Pegg and Doug Jung were hired to rewrite the screenplay,[23] with Pegg saying about the previous draft that Paramount "had a script for Star Trek that wasn't really working for them. I think the studio was worried that it might have been a little bit too Star Trek-y." Pegg had been asked to make the new film "more inclusive", stating that the solution was to "make a western or a thriller or a heist movie, then populate that with Star Trek characters so it's more inclusive to an audience that might be a little bit reticent."[24] Pegg and Jung used Memory Alpha, a Star Trek fan wiki, as a resource in the writing of the film.[25]
Casting[edit]
The first film's major cast members signed on for two sequels as part of their original deals.[26] In 2014, early in the film's development, William Shatner said that he was contacted by producer Abrams to see if he would be interested in a possible role, but as the process continued and the script changed hands, the role never materialized.[27][28] Alice Eve was not included in the film despite her character having joined the Enterprise crew at the end of the last installment, because Pegg, in writing the script, did not have anything meaningful for her to do; however, he stressed that Eve could appear in a later installment.[29] Joseph Gatt's cyborg Science Officer 0718 was dropped from the film after a rewrite.[30] In March 2015, Idris Elba was in early talks to play the villain, and he was confirmed for the role in the following months.[31][32] Pegg noted that the villain would be an original one, rather than a known antagonist from past stories in the Star Trek franchise.[33] In April, Sofia Boutella joined the cast in a lead role,[34] and in early July, Deep Roy was confirmed to reprise his role of Keenser.[35] That month, Joe Taslim was added to the cast opposite Elba's villain,[36] and by August, Lydia Wilson joined as well.[37] In March 2016, Shohreh Aghdashloo was cast as Commodore Paris for reshoots on the film.[38]
Filming[edit]
Principal photography on the film began on June 25, 2015, in Vancouver,[39] and Squamish, British Columbia (in the Stawamus Chief Provincial Park), after several delays caused by multiple script rejections.[40][41][42][43] Additional filming locations were Seoul, South Korea, Dubai, United Arab Emirates, and the Nahanni National Park Reserve in Canada's Northwest Territories.[44][45] Principal filming ended on October 15, 2015. In March 2016, production underwent reshoots, with Aghdashloo added to the cast.[38]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
Star Trek Beyond underperformed financially at the box office. Scott Mendelson of Forbes observed that one factor contributing to the film's underperformance was its untimely release in a crowded summer in which it was surrounded by other films like Ghostbusters, Jason Bourne and Suicide Squad. He also noted that had Paramount released the film for the Star Trek's 50th anniversary on September 8, the film could have benefited from that occasion, as demonstrated in October 2012 when MGM released the James Bond film Skyfall (which went on to gross over $1 billion)[58] for that series' 50th anniversary.[59][60]
Star Trek Beyond grossed $158.8 million in the United States and Canada and $184.6 million in other countries for a worldwide total of $343.5 million, against a production budget of $185 million.[2] It had a global opening of $89.2 million and an IMAX opening of $11.6 million on 571 IMAX screens.[61] Industry analyst Danny Cox had previously estimated that in order for the film to break even, it would have to earn $340–350 million worldwide,[62] and ended losing an estimated $50.5 million.[63]