Star Trek Beyond

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**d-usa**

ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
Alpharius wrote:
I think it is becoming more common now though - the AMC's in my area serve alcohol.
There are at least two theaters within five miles of my house that serve adult beverages. One is the Alamo Drafthouse, which is my preferred theater and has full a waitstaff to serve you at your seat. The other is a Cobb Theater (which is literally right around the corner from me), which has a bar in the lobby that allows you to take your drinks into the theater with you and a kitchen where you can order and then carry your meal in.

And then you have Oklahoma, which has laws against that sort of thing

We have one theater that kind of does this, but our laws wouldn't allow it theater wide. It is against the law for a movie theater to sell alcohol unless the area is restricted to anybody under 21 years of age and it has to also serve food.

So the theater that does serve alcohol has all the big theaters in the ground floor, with access to a diner for food as well as the regular concession stand. And then you can go upstairs to the 21+ area with a full bar, a balcony in the two biggest theaters where they will serve you alcohol and food where you are sitting, and then multiple "directors suites" which are 40something seat mini-theaters where you can drink.

**tneva82**

ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
and it has a full waitstaff to serve you food and beverages at your seat.

How that works without there being somebody moving very likely front of somebody vision and without others having to hear your order?

If they can't serve at your seat without interfering other viewers then that's theater I will avoid like plague. Movie tickets are so expensive that at least I want to see and hear the movie uninterrupted.

**LordofHats**

Theaters with wait staff are usually smaller than a normal theater, both in size and how many people they are intended to seat. There's enough room for the waitstaff to move around without blocking your view (at least at the AMC I went to there was). The seats are spaced out sufficiently that you can't really hear the people around you giving their orders so long as they're not speaking with raised voices

**ScootyPuffJunior**

tneva82 wrote:
How that works without there being somebody moving very likely front of somebody vision and without others having to hear your order?

If they can't serve at your seat without interfering other viewers then that's theater I will avoid like plague. Movie tickets are so expensive that at least I want to see and hear the movie uninterrupted.

There is an aisle between each row of seating and the rows are elevated so that a person can more or less walk in front of you without blocking your view. To order something, you write it on a piece of paper and stand it up in a rail on the bar and the waitstaff walk by and grab it. The theater looks like this:

Alamo Drafthouse theaters enforce strict cinema-going etiquette: no unaccompanied minors, no children under two (except for designated shows), late arrivals are turned away, talking or texting during a show gets you one warning from the management and if it happens again the offending party is escorted from the theater and not given a refund.

**reds8n**

http://io9.gizmodo.com/oh-thats-where-carol-marcus-was-during-star-trek-beyon-1784771007?utm_campaign=socialflow_io9_facebook&utm_source=io9_facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

in case you were one of the 3, maybe even 4, people wondering.

saw it t'other day...

... yeah.....was...alright.

Not bad as such but not especially memorable either.

Can only share some of the confusion with regards to the villain and who/how many were working for him.

...so the 3 left from....earlier .... the 3rd one was the female one who tricked them right ?

One likes to think that if we ever built some dreadful weapon and decided it was too bad to be used we'd probably not separate it into 2 ... or more ? ... parts and... scatter them across the galaxy or something ?

That was a bit odd.

Acting was all good -- Karl Urban especially -- and I did like the bike scene -- nice use of the technology.

Quite "clever" with regards to things being mentioned and then being useful/relevant..

.. there's possibly a Chekov's gun joke here but let's not cross the streams, so to speak.

. soo , overall :

Never hits the highs of either of the first 2 yet neither was it as bad in the bad parts either.

**Xenomancers**

Manchu wrote:
If this was Mass Effect Beyond, I'd give it a solid C. But it's (supposed to be) Star Trek.

Some films are story-driven, some are character-driven, this one is action-driven. Things happen in this movie because someone thought it would look cool. And to be fair, sometimes those things do look cool - even really cool. But too often, the lighting is so bad and the sets are so confusing that even the action is merely bewildering. That especially hurts because, being action-drive, it's really hard to tell why, in a narrative sense, important plot points are happening.

The key example is the villain. These rebooted Star Trek movies are 0 for 3 when it comes to villains. This time, the villain's motivation is obscure to the point of nonexistent until, in the last 15 minutes or so, there is a anti-climactic reveal that still fails to establish a convincing motive for the character. This problem extends to the protagonist with a terrible twist: Captain Kirk, of all people, is fed up with exploring strange new worlds and seeking out new life and new civilizations, cutting against the grain of 50 years' worth of character development. The reason? To set up a thematic parallel with the villain, which is only relevant for the last fifteen minutes of the film and honestly adds little to no drama to their confrontation. For the rest of the film, the audience is expected to just accept that reboot Kirk would feel the exact opposite to what we would reasonably expect.

To the film's credit, this is the closest that reboot Trek gets to being Star Trek. They actually do explore a strange alien planet. And the characters, with a few exceptions, get to be funny and adventurous - although for some reason Spock feels barely there. I can't decide if that was deliberate. But the good bits and pieces remain bits and pieces amid the larger problem of a movie pulled along by confusing, if expensive-looking, action set pieces.

D+

For reference: Star Trek (2009) C; Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) F

0-3 on villains? Come on...Nero was pretty BA - I think Nero can hold his own against a whole cast of awesome startrek villains. Beyonds Villains though was a little weak I have to admit - his character development was poor and regressing into human form (I guess because he hadn't eaten any souls recently) really sullied the whole movie IMO. As to spock - his part was still pretty major even though he was seriously injured - I don't see how you could feel he was "barely there".

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Formosa wrote:
left half way through the movie... first time in my life I have done so, I think it perhaps has something to do with the fact I have been binging all the original TV series, I went in expecting trek, came out having watched more light shows and shallow story.

since I get cinema for free (thanks GF!) I may give it another go, cant judge it until I finish it.

Hate to disappoint you but the second half of the movie is 2-3x more light-showy than the first half.

**Gitkikka**

The movie was ok, I suppose. A incoherent mess for the most part, but scratched that "Summer Blockbuster" itch.

**tneva82**

ScootyPuffJunior wrote:
tneva82 wrote:
How that works without there being somebody moving very likely front of somebody vision and without others having to hear your order?

If they can't serve at your seat without interfering other viewers then that's theater I will avoid like plague. Movie tickets are so expensive that at least I want to see and hear the movie uninterrupted.
There is an aisle between each row of seating and the rows are elevated so that a person can more or less walk in front of you without blocking your view. To order something, you write it on a piece of paper and stand it up in a rail on the bar and the waitstaff walk by and grab it. The theater looks like this:

Ok sounds good enough

Seems the theater is built with that in mind. Local theater it wouldn't work at all.

**Manchu**

Xenomancers wrote:
Nero was pretty BA

I could just barely remember him while I was watching the movie he was in. I have so little memory of this throwaway nobody that I can't even argue specific points about his ... erm, character.

Xenomancers wrote:
As to spock - his part was still pretty major even though he was seriously injured - I don't see how you could feel he was "barely there".

Spock had a reasonable amount of screen time but he felt more like a supporting or incidental character in terms of his story not intersecting much with the main plot, as confusing as it was.

**KamikazeCanuck**

I can't believe how positive the reviews are for this movie from critics and regular folk alike. Now let me just say I liked it and I'm glad they made something but this imo one of the stupidest Star Trek movies of them all. It really is just a brainless action flick. That's probably why I still kind of like it, I'm ok with brainless action flicks but as far as Star Trek goes its pretty thin.

I mean what is the great theme of this movie? It seems to be Krall thinks war is good....and the enterprise crew thinks....war is bad. Wow, really makes you think....no wait, it doesn't.
Oh well, at least The Yorktown looked cool and we get a new Enterprise next movie.

**Manchu**

I think it is supposed to be "How Kirk got his groove back" but ... yes, I think you are right, the movie is thematically anemic.

**KamikazeCanuck**

Kid_Kyoto wrote:
IIRC YOrktown was the ship Roddenberry served on in the navy so they tend to use the name for Federation ships a lot. It was a semi regular in DS9 and I think there was in in TOS as well.

As for reboot trek, no plans to see it.

Why? I get hating all things reboot but this what some geeks would call a "soft reboot". So the reboot isn't just a straight up reboot out of nowhere there's an in-universe reason for it. Star Trek always messes around with time travel and alternate realities.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Manchu wrote:
I think it is supposed to be "How Kirk got his groove back" but ... yes, I think you are right, the movie is thematically anemic.

Right but where was the payoff on that even? He complains at the beginning about how things are getting kind of "episodic" but what's special about this episode that gets him his groove back? The only thing different is the catastrophic destruction of the Enterprise (and apparently massive casualties. Enterprise is supposed to have like 400 people on it. Don't remember seeing 400 people on that planet.). You'd think an outing like that would make you consider retirement even more.

**Manchu**

Hey man - you're preaching to the choir! I gave the movie a D+.

**KamikazeCanuck**

I give it a 3/5 but apparently I'm weird because I really liked Into Darkness. Not sure what about this one is supposed to be better than the last two.

**Manchu**

Well they did more classic Star Trek stuff - exploring a strange region of space, going on an away mission (well you know what I mean), and solving problems as a team rather than as individuals.

**KamikazeCanuck**

Yes, I guess they did technically "trek" but only barely. One of the things I liked best about it was it seemed like everyone in the crew got something to do this time. Though I recently went back and watched "Star Trek" and most of the crew has their moment in that one as well. In fact, Sulu's a bit of a badass in it.

**Backfire**

KamikazeCanuck wrote:
Yes, I guess they did technically "trek" but only barely.

Positive buzz is due to similar reasons as with new Star Wars movie - expectations were very low after previous movies so when they put out something which doesn't completely suck, it immediately feels great. First two new Trek movies had too much fan service, recycled Trek plot lines and characters and forced conflicts between crew members. Plus they had such huge plot holes you could fly the Dominion battlefleet through them. 'Beyond' at least tried to stand more on its own as a Trek movie. Wasn't wholly successful but it's the thought that counts.

**kronk**

Kirk did not shag a green skinned babe.

1/5, would not watch again.

Where have you gone, Rachel Nichols -ols
Trek nation turns it's nerdy eyes to you,
Woo, woo, woo!

**Pacific**

Thought the film was fun, but it ain't Star Trek.

They've actually started to remind me a bit of 80's action films, where you have the hero (Schwartzneggar, Stallone or whoever) spaying bullets and gunning down henchmen left right and centre, impervious to any harm themselves. In the same way there are lots of bits where I kept thinking to myself "the odds of surviving that would be just so small", and they get away with it hair styling intact every time (sliding down the saucer section bit for instance, when it's flipping over)

It actually just comes across as childish storytelling.

And that bit about Sulu being gay was all overblown wasn't it, think I literally turned down to flick a piece of popcorn off my chest and then looked up to the screen and had almost missed it!

**Tannhauser42**

Of the three, I did enjoy Beyond the most. Maybe because they finally gave McCoy the screentime the character deserves. I do feel the biggest disappointment of all three movies have been the villains.
1. Nero was just Random Revenge-Driven Bad Guy #142. He was there as a plot device to create the excuse for the new timeline. There was no real depth to him.
2. Benedict Cumberbatch made for a great genetic superhuman, but a bad Khan. A better story would have had him as one of Khan's superhumans, but only revealing the Khan angle (and Khan himself) at the end of the movie to lead into a third.
3. Krall. Great idea, but woefully underdone. Perhaps if we had seen several scenes of his captain's logs throughout the movie, showing his descent until the revelation that he is Krall (revelation to the characters anyway, as viewers we would know it's the same actor thus making it the same character, but sometimes the telling of the story can be just as, if not more, interesting than the climax).

I guess that's the sad part. Each of the villains had real potential, but none were properly developed. Perhaps the movies suffered from an attempt to make them into a starring vehicle for the actors, rather than just being about Star Trek?

**KamikazeCanuck**

I think if they spent another 5-10 minutes developing Krall he could have been a better character and it could have been a better movie.

As for Into Darkness was Khan the main villain or was it really Section 31?

**LordofHats**

Into Darkness ran with a prevailing them of "protecting what you love" and had Kirk as the primary hero with Khan and Admiral Marcus presenting extremes of how far someone might go to do that. Kirk is i nbetween the two, presented as a rash unsure captain who hasn't been taking his role as a leader seriously and now has to make a moral decision about what is right. Both characters challenge Kirk's preparedness to do what is necessary, with Khan questioning how far Kirk might go to protect his family, and Marcus bluntly stating Kirk wasn't capable of leading the Federation in a war against the Klingons (which is TOS/Original Films counterpart did).

Both Khan and Marcus (who seemed to have authority over Section 31) were the main villain of the film.

**tneva82**

Pacific wrote:
And that bit about Sulu being gay was all overblown wasn't it, think I literally turned down to flick a piece of popcorn off my chest and then looked up to the screen and had almost missed it!

Well to be fair it was referenced twice

Horrible! The shock! The horror! Huge big thingie!