Star Trek: Beyond

I didn't get a chance to blog last week (pretty much at all), but I should have mentioned that LC and I went to see the new Star Trek film on opening night. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and felt that it was by far the best of the three "new Trek" films. In particular, I was glad to see the back of JJ Abrams' overuse of lens flare and also to see that the trailers had been misleading on one point - this wasn't a third part to Kirk's origin story. Instead, it was a good, fun action film.

Of all the previous films, the one that it put me in mind of most was "The Voyage Home", despite the plot having absolutely nothing in common with that film. But where most of the films are pretty grim struggles against impossible odds with little or no humour (or, when they're not, they're just rubbish), this one wasn't - it was light, it was funny, and it was entertaining. I couldn't really ask for more than that.

Well, except for one thing. Apparently, when writing the script, Simon Pegg was asked to make the new film "less Star Trek-y". Which is an absurd request, really - let it be what it is, and if that's not good enough, go do something else. But, fortunately, the script writers were very much on the ball with that one, and littered the script with lots of little references to older (and new) Treks for those who could see them. Good stuff.

So, I was very much impressed with that film.

(Next up is probably "Suicide Squad" on Friday. It looks like we're probably going to miss "Ghostbusters", and very likely "Finding Dory" too - we just don't have time to see all the films we want this summer. A shame... but they'll be out on blu-ray soon enough, and someone's got to keep that industry afloat...)