Star Trek Beyond
Entry updated 28 September 2026. Tagged: Film.
US film (2016). Paramount Pictures. Directed by Justin Lin. Written by Doug Jung and Simon Pegg, based on characters created by Gene Roddenberry. Cast includes Sofia Boutella, John Cho, Idris Elba, Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldaña, Karl Urban, Lydia Wilson and Anton Yelchin. 122 minutes. Colour.
After being refurbished, the Enterprise and its crew are sent to rescue a woman in an escape pod, Kalara (Wilson), who explains that her ship is on an unexplored planet. Once they land, they are attacked by numerous ships commanded by Krall (Elba), who takes over the Enterprise and captures some crew members. But the others flee with Kalara, who confesses that she was Krall's agent before dying in an accident, and they encounter an Alien woman, Jaylah (Boutella), who had previously escaped Krall. Krall then obtains an artefact and leaves to use it to create a devastating Weapon. The reunited crew finds an old Starfleet spaceship, gets it in working order, and takes off to confront Krall, who they learn is actually a former Starfleet captain who disliked Starfleet's policy of cooperating with previously hostile races. In the end, Krall is killed before he can use the weapon, and the crew returns home to await the construction of a replacement for their Enterprise, which had been destroyed on the planet, and their appearance in another film.
However, while the film was reasonably successful, it did not do as well as the two previous Star Trek films (see Star Trek; Star Trek Into Darkness), making Paramount hesitant to greenlight a fourth film; it was finally decided to reboot the franchise with an entirely new cast and hired a director and writers to prepare what will be the sixteenth film in the Star Trek series. It is a shame, because this cast had clearly settled capably into their roles and could have continued for several more films. The opening scenes, showing the crew relaxing while they wait for their ship to be finished, are enjoyable because they give audiences a glimpse of the everyday lives of crew members when they are not saving the galaxy from one menace or another – something the original series did, and something the films almost never do. The film also hearkens back to the spirit of the original series, for while Krall does some despicable things, the crew members, instead of hating him, struggle to figure out why he is doing the things he does, and when they learn about his background, they conclude that he was a basically a good man with good intentions who made some bad decisions; as Kirk (Pine) observed, "He lost his way." This contrasts with the black-and-white mentality of the Star Wars films, when a character would have said, "Thank goodness that bastard got what he deserved." The film is also nostalgic in its several references to the deceased Spock (and, implicitly, the deceased Leonard Nimoy), the concluding recitation of the famous Star Trek oath, and its restoration of the original series's regular drinking, though Roddenberry had removed alcohol from his Star Trek: The Next Generation. A weakness is the film's inclusion of supposedly inspiring platitudes that bear no relationship to the actual mission and priorities of the Enterprise; perhaps these were inserted by a cynical young producer unfamiliar with the original series in order to move audiences, though they have surely grown weary of the bromides that permeate other recent films. [GW]
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