Star Trek: Beyond Stupidity

you know i once called star trek into darkness a terrible movie see there it is and you know what i was absolutely right it was a dumb pointless incoherent rehash of old ideas that had been done far better 30 years earlier but there's one movie that may be more dumb pointless and incoherent even than this a film so shitty that it basically killed star trek as a viable cinematic property a film named star trek beyond the third installment of the rebooted trick universe ever wanted to see james kirk jumping over an enemy base on a motorbike ever wanted to see the enterprise get blown up crash land on a planet and then get flipped over like a [ __ ] tiddlywink ever wanted to see an enemy battle fleet get defeated by the raw power of a beastie boys track ever wanted the whole thing to be directed by that guy who does the dumb car movies well then i guess star trek beyond is the film for you for those of us who remember when star trek was actually smart and creative and mature it's a bit like watching a toddler finger painting on the mona lisa with their own poo but what really surprises me is the number of critics that seem to think this was a really good movie jesus even read letter media were singing its praises no mike you were the chosen one well the drinker isn't so easily convinced a reckoning is in order and it seems like i'm the only man left to do it so set your phasers to [ __ ] once more because just like tatiana when she does one of her special massages i'm gonna break this one down and make it hurt so beyond kicks off with yet another wacky mission for james t kirk this time he's doing some diplomatic [ __ ] to broker a peace treaty with a planet of giant monster things but then they get mad and try to attack him and it turns out that they're actually tiny monster things oh how we laughed i feel like i'm watching star wars crossed with jurassic park in a way kirk escapes and beams back up to the enterprise with an ancient relic from another species that we never meet how did they come by it don't know what matters is that spock puts the ancient relic away in storage keep that one in mind because it will be important to whatever passes for a plot later with another unsuccessful mission completed kirk says [ __ ] it and goes away to get drunk with mccoy it's his birthday you see but he's in no mood for cake and strippers it seems he's feeling bored and discontent with their deep space mission and he's worried that his life is kind of directionless now cry me a [ __ ] river mate you've got like the most exciting job in the universe and you're still bitching about it you know i tore into darkness a new one for shamelessly recycling character arcs and iconic moments without the context in history that once made them so impactful and this shitty movie is doing the exact same thing within the first five minutes a discontented kirk celebrating an unwelcome birthday and converting his growing unhappiness over a summer drink with mccoy where have we seen this before jesus they even have the same dark lighting as kirk's apartment in wrath of khan the difference here is that kirk and wrath of khan had just turned 50 years old he was a middle-aged man now promoted to an unrewarding desk job and facing up to the unpleasant realization that his best days were now behind him it made sense that he was feeling restless and dissatisfied with his life wondering where it was all leading but this version of kirk is still in his prime he's captain of the enterprise and leading his crew to explore deep space this is the exact stuff that james t kirk lives for it's all he's ever wanted to do with his life and his biggest fear was having it taken away commanding a starship is your first best destiny anything else is a waste of material so why the change well because the writers wanted this movie to be all about characters questioning their path in life and because they lack even a tiny spark of imagination and original thoughts they took the character arc of a much older man in a completely different situation and tried to awkwardly graft it onto someone who has no logical reason to feel this way it's a bit like inventing a dildo that's also a food blender it's just not a good idea believe that anyway the enterprise ducks at starbase yorktown for a bit of shore leave and i know this is kind of a nitpick in the great scheme of things but aren't starbases supposed to be given numbers instead of names i thought names were reserved for starships that actually go places i say this because the yorktown becomes kind of important to the plot later and every time a character referred to it i kept thinking they were talking about a ship and that made my brain hurt now whatever now that the crew are ashore it's time for some interpersonal drama spock and ahura have just broken up with each other no way oh no what a shame their relationship was so compelling and believable what's even dumber is that directly after this spock receives word that old spock from the future has just died of old age now this was a nice little tribute to the real life death of leonard nimoy the problem is that it's very obvious that this scene was added in later because it doesn't flow with the events of the story at all like wouldn't have made more sense that the death of old spock should come earlier prompting youngspock to re-examine his life and question his relationship with uhura but then that would require logical intelligent writing and that's not what this movie's about also sulu's gay now for some reason [ __ ] knows why when it was never even hinted at in the original series or movies in fact if anything he seemed like kind of a ladies man when he got going is it because george takei is gay in real life you understand there's a difference between characters and the actors who play them right don't call me tiny anyway i guess it's time for the actual plot to get going so an escape pod approaches the yorktown with a lone survivor on board who claims that her ship crashed on an uncharted planet in a nearby nebula and she needs someone to go rescue the crew that's interesting what was her ship doing in this nebula how and why did it crash was it attacked if so by whom how did this girl manage to escape when no one else did why is the nebula uncharted if it's so close to the york time if it's really far away then how did she manage to get here in an escape pod these are all valid questions that sensible people would probably ask before mounting a rescue mission with the federation flagship wouldn't a sketchy story like this seem like a very obvious attempt to lure them into a remote location where they could be easily cut off and ambushed don't think about it too much this [ __ ] idiot obviously didn't because she's got more important things to talk about the only ship here with more advanced technology is still under construction how is that in any way relevant to current events will it be relevant by the end of the movie how many cigarettes do you have to smoke to end up with a voice like this but it's not just the ship that i'm sending anyway admiral chainsmoker sends kirk off to the nebula to do the rescue thing and it's weird because they're just able to fly through it without the slightest problem wow kind of makes you wonder why nobody else has ever explored this place until now but whatever they arrive at the planet but then they spot an enemy ship that comes right at them they opened fire on it but it turns out to be a massive swarm of smaller ships that quickly tear the enterprise apart and i guess shields just aren't a thing now jesus christ is there ever a scenario where the enterprise doesn't get its ass kicked i really didn't think it was possible to emasculate a starship but somehow these movies have found a way to do it anyway the drone ships breached the hull and a bunch of generic aliens fight their way on board led by some [ __ ] named crowl but corral's not interested in taking over the ship remember the artifact that kirk brought back from his wacky adventure at the start of the movie well that's what crowl's after so there's fighting and explosions and the ship gets split in half and i guess the artifact goes missing in the chaos because krauss spends the rest of the movie trying to recover it meanwhile kirk orders the crew to abandon ship as the enterprise goes down in flames hmm where have i seen this before yep i guess we ran out of stuff to steal from wrath of khan so we've moved on to search for spock now remember when the enterprise self-destructed and kirk and the others stood on the surface of the genesis planet watching sadly as the remains crashed through the atmosphere that was a good scene that made people feel emotions this one didn't the thing is once you remove the context and history behind the scene and don't give it even a second to breathe or sink in then it kind of loses its impact the loss of the enterprise in search for spock was perfectly played out with kirk reluctantly sacrificing his ship as a last resort to save his friends you can see how much it hurt him to do it how much the enterprise meant to him after so many years in command and so you empathized with his loss my god what have i done what you had to do what you always do turn death into a fighting chance to live i'd also like to point out that search for spock was actually a really good movie that's way better than anything new trek has ever produced but here there's so much [ __ ] going on all at once that you barely even have a chance to register what's happening the ship's [ __ ] anyway and it's not like this is a willing sacrifice on kirk's part it's just another thing that happens in the relentless cavalcade of nonsense that passes for the film's plots anyway back to the story i guess so the crew evacuate to the planet's surface in their escape pods and naturally they get separated into smaller groups kirk and chekhov wind up together and so do mccoy and spock uhura and sulu get captured by the generic aliens who are keeping the crew hostage while they try to recover the artifact scotty meanwhile runs into another survivor on the planet's surface this is jayla a strong female plot device that basically exists to provide exposition and allow the rest of the story to happen jayla saves scotty's life and fights off some random scavengers and when she learns that he's an engineer well the conversation goes a bit weird to be honest consider the following come with me now okay so she wants you to go with her and fix something that makes sense wait no hang on a minute lassie i'm having a difficult day here i've got to find my crewmates but you're more concerned about finding your friends first i can totally understand that i will help you find your mates and then you will help me so jayla agrees to help you find your crew and then you'll help her seems like we've got ourselves a deal no need to take this conversation any further you want me to fix something yes you help me and i help you don't do it scotty she said she was gonna help you first all right well things being as they are a day i'll get a better offer today so lead the way wait what the [ __ ] are you doing scotty i thought she was gonna help you find the others first why are you actively making this deal less advantageous for yourself did anyone even proofread this script so she brings scottie back to her home which turns out to be a crashed federation starship that's just been sitting out in the woods for like a hundred years i wonder what became of the crew i'm sure that won't be relevant late sir anyway the various groups i'll end up reuniting and stage a rescue mission to recover the enterprise survivors which involves kirk riding a motorbike because it looks cool and jayla fighting the aliens hand to hand because it looks cool and the crew using a beastie boys song to destroy the alien drone swarm because it sounds cool it's all very cool unfortunately cool isn't very deep cool isn't clever or thought provoking which is kind of the reason people used to watch star trek this is also where we discover crawl's true identity in the least shocking plot twist ever are you ready for this he and the other aliens are actually the original crew of the crash starship they got marooned here like a hundred years ago but luckily the planet was covered with abandoned alien technology that they used to prolong their lives where did this technology come from and who abandoned it don't know but the life extension technology gradually caused them to turn into aliens and they also adopted a new language and new names why don't know the point is that crowl wants the alien artifact because it's the final component of an ancient bible weapon that he plans to unleash on the yorktown as revenge for the federation abandoning him jesus and i thought the plot for into darkness was full of holes let's see if we can break this genius plan down a little shall we so crowl and his crew get stranded on this planet which conveniently has both life extension technology and a huge armada of fully functional drone ships just waiting for someone to claim them wow that was lucky they promptly forget about their own ship and spend the next couple of centuries just hanging around waiting for something to happen instead of you know repairing their ship or using the drones to escape uh okay then they decide to launch an attack against their own people to trigger an interstellar war because they don't like how the federation has become peaceful and unified and for this task they decide to recover the pieces of an ancient bioweapon even though they already have a massive fleet of drone ships that are more than capable of tearing apart the best starship in the federation uh okay so they send a lone messenger out to the yorktown to lure the federation into the world's most obvious ambush so that they can board the enterprise recover the artifact and complete the bio weapon because they totally knew that the enterprise would be the one to mount the rescue mission and that it would still have the artifact on board and that nobody would come looking for them once they vanished isn't that logical i'd like to point out that literally none of this would even be happening if kirk's goofy little mission in the first five minutes of the movie had been a success what the [ __ ] mother in christ is going on here this plan is the most contrived nonsensical redundant [ __ ] that i think i've ever heard its success depends on at least half a dozen factors that are completely out of cross control and even if there's some kind of miracle and everything plays out exactly as he needs it to he already has a weapon that's more powerful and versatile than the bio weapon he's spent centuries looking for not to mention that his entire motivation for doing all of this is that he's basically a mad guy who just likes war the absolute states of star trek anyway i guess it's time for the big showdown so kirk and the others pursue crowd to the yorktown in the antique starship which somehow still functions despite being abandoned on the planet for over a hundred years damn these things were really built to last and there's a big chase and stuff explodes again and then kirk ejects crawler into space along with the bio weapon and the movie ends with kirk telling admiral chainsmoker that he's decided to stay on as captain of the enterprise spock and uhura get back together yay and the crew inherit a brand new enterprise so everything can go back to the way it was and that's it that's the plot for star trek beyond stupidity if my thrilling plot summary hasn't made it obvious already let me say it loud and clear this movie [ __ ] sucks it sucks for all the same reasons as the other rebooted trek movies plus some entirely new ones for a start there's the plots it's basically a series of dumb superficial action set pieces that look like they were ported over from an entirely different film strung together by a dumb as [ __ ] script that relies almost entirely on coincidence convenience and contrivance just to get from a to b the villain's plan and motivations make absolutely no sense from any perspective to the point where he actually experienced some kind of existential crisis as i tried to wrap my head around it was it me i began to wonder was i just not seeing what my peers were seeing in this film is it okay to bleed from the ears it's basically the exact same mad guy with a doomsday device that we've seen twice already with new trek and [ __ ] it was kind of overused even by the time nemesis rolled around and that was nearly 20 years ago then there's the character arcs and events stolen from other star trek movies and stripped of their meaning and emotion whether it's the destruction of the enterprise or a kirk that's inexplicably old and world weary before his time it feels exactly like what it is old concepts reshaped and awkwardly jammed into a movie that's basically a conglomeration of half-baked hastily implemented ideas and when you consider the problems this film had behind the scenes it's easy to see why this [ __ ] happens the original script tried to move away from the grim convoluted violence of into darkness hoping to recapture the optimistic spirit of classic star trek only to be rejected as two star trekie [ __ ] off paramount with deadlines looming and time running out simon pig was brought in at the 11th hour to help rewrite the script hence the haphazard plot the fuzzy character motivations and the unusually high amount of simon peg screen time but the end result of all this is a film that feels like watery soup with the occasional chunk of interesting content floating in its depths it looks lovely visually and if you gauge a movie's quality by the amount of stuff that explodes then it'll probably make you happy but at its heart it's a movie that doesn't have anything interesting to say about its characters or the world they live in a movie that doesn't challenge the viewer to expand their horizons or see things from a different perspective a movie that doesn't feel like star trek in the slightest hopefully this represents the end point of the god awful kelvin timeline now we just need to get rid of discovery lower decks and picard and perhaps then star trek can rest in peace anyway that's all i've got for today go away now

Channel: The Critical Drinker

Views: 1,752,148

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Id: N6dkJX-ybfA

Length: 18min 0sec (1080 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 25 2020