[The Lone Ranger]

Star Trek: Beyond. I've mentioned it before, but I was not a fan of the first two Abrams-Trek movies. They're perfectly good mindless action-adventure movies, but they're not Trek. They may feature characters named "Spock" and "Kirk" and "Uhura" and a ship named Enterprise -- but these movies are in no way Star Trek.


So, now we have Star Trek: Beyond. It's pretty-much the same. The movie (like its predecessors) relies on our knowledge of and affection for the characters from the original Star Trek in order to make sense of what's going on. But you can't have it both ways: if the movie doesn't really make sense unless you know the characters and their motivations -- you can't have the characters behaving completely unlike the original characters that we know and love.


Then there's the old saying: show, don't tell. The movie tells us several times that Kirk and Spock are supposed to be really close and that they work really well together -- but they never show it.

The movie says that Spock and McCoy, despite their bickering, like and respect each other -- but they never really show it. Indeed, McCoy doesn't sound like he likes or respects Spock at all. His needling of Spock typically sounds a lot less like good-natured banter and a lot like just plain bigotry* and downright nastiness. Especially when he makes a completely serious (and completely unevidenced) accusation against Spock that -- if it were true -- would make Spock a pretty nasty person.

[That the writers don't seem to have any real idea what Vulcans are supposed to act like is another complaint, but that would be a long rant.]


A good deal of the "impact" of this movie and the previous two Abrams-Trek movies is supposed to be engendered by our feelings for the Enterprise. Fans of the original Star Trek know that the Enterprise herself is as much a character as Spock, Kirk, Scotty, etc. Indeed, in "Who is your favorite Star Trek character?" polls, people often list the Enterprise as their favorite character.

Why is this so? Because the television series (and the movies with the original cast) always make it clear that Kirk, Sulu, especially Scotty, and even Spock love the Enterprise and think of her as their home. It's also shown that the Enterprise can and does stand up to enemy vessels -- and even if she takes a beating in the process, she always protects her crew and "always brings them home," as even the technophobic McCoy noted.

Do you ever get the impression that any of the characters in the Abrams-Trek movies have any real affection for the Enterprise? No, you do not.

Do you ever get the impression that the Enterprise is well-built, that she could stand up to even the weakest of hostile vessels, that she will protect her crew and bring them home? No you do not.

Indeed, every single one of the movies set in the Abrams-Trek universe features the Enterprise getting its ass handed to it in seconds every single time it encounters a hostile vessel. You get the distinct impression that the Enterprise, far from being a character in its own right, and regarded as beloved by its crew, and far from being a well-built and capable vessel -- is a flying deathtrap that's ready to blow up the instant a bad guy so much as gives a dirty look.

Naturally, this movie features a confrontation between the Enterprise and hostile vessels. It is just embarrassingly brief and one-sided.


But presumably, we're supposed to feel something about seeing the Enterprise get ripped to shreds in seconds. But why? It's completely unearned, because we're given no reason to like the ship, no reason to think that it's an even remotely-capable combat vessel, and no reason to think that the crew feels any affection for it whatsoever.

It is not shocking or affecting -- or even particularly interesting -- to see the Enterprise get its ass kicked ... again. Not when it happens in every single movie.


And instead of ... oh, I dunno, developing the characters ... the writers are mostly interested in showing us really dumb, really loud, really unbelievable action sequences. I mean, there were times when I was tempted to blurt out, "Oh, come on! -- are we supposed to take this seriously?".




Now, having said all that, this is the first movie set in the Abrams-Trek universe in which I felt like the writers had any idea at all about what makes Star Trek work. Watching the first two movies, I can't help but wonder, "Has Abrams ever even seen an episode of Star Trek?" Because if he has, he sure doesn't seem to understand the show, the setting, or the characters.

What the writers of Star Trek: Beyond actually seem to get is that the Federation isn't just an alliance of convenience. And Starfleet isn't just some military organization, it's meant to represent and express the ideals upon which the Federation was founded.

Because the writers seem to have at least some understanding of what Star Trek is actually about, and have made an effort to express the fundamental idealism upon which the show was based, this puts Star Trek: Beyond -- for all its failings -- light-years ahead of the previous two movies, if you ask me.

***

*In fairness, this was something that always bothered me about the original Star Trek. For its time, Star Trek was quite progressive, but by today's standards, it sometimes seems embarrassingly sexist and even racist at times.

Seriously. I'm not saying anything against DeForest Kelly -- who, by every account was one of the sweetest guys who ever lived -- but go back and watch some of the episodes of the original series and pay attention to Dr. McCoy's behavior and attitudes. Dr. McCoy sometimes sounds like an out-and-out bigot. What's more -- oddly enough -- he sometimes comes across as rather anti-intellectual.


Sure, his needling of Spock is mostly good-natured, but sometimes it very-definitely is not. And in fairness, Spock typically gives as good as he gets. And at times, Spock can be pretty darned smug, with his "Vulcans are so superior to Humans that it's ridiculous" attitude -- and thus, is fully deserving of some ego deflation.

But McCoy's constantly insisting that Spock is just plain wrong to control and repress his emotions is just plain bigotry. No?

Keep in mind that while he may be half-Human, Spock was born on Vulcan, he was raised on Vulcan as a Vulcan, and he self-identifies as a Vulcan. For McCoy to continually insist that it's somehow wrong of him to not behave more like a Human is just plain bigotry.

Don't believe me? Imagine if Spock had a Swedish mother and a Nigerian father, was raised in Nigeria, and self-identified as a Nigerian. If McCoy constantly berated him for not acting "White enough," we wouldn't hesitate for one second to call him out as a bigot.


As an aside, I remember reading a Star Trek novel years ago which beautifully illustrated that though he is (rightfully) a beloved character, Dr. McCoy's behavior (at least where Spock is concerned) is often bigoted and sometimes strangely anti-intellectual.

The Enterprise was passing near an unexplored star system, and they were only close-enough for a long-range scan. Kirk asked Spock if the long-range scans provided any information that would make it worth the effort of diverting from their course in order to investigate the system in more detail.

Spock reported the summation of the long-range scans. He noted that the star was a G2-spectral class star, that the 4th planet was orbiting at 0.98 AU from the star with an orbital eccentricity of 0.02, that it had a mass of 1.05 Earth-masses and an equatorial diameter of roughly 8,000 miles, that it had a rotational period of roughly 23 hours and an axial tilt of 12 degrees. At their current range, it was impossible to tell if the planet supported life, but the atmosphere read as 70% nitrogen, 25% oxygen, 3% argon; and the remaining 2% consisted mostly of carbon dioxide and water vapor.


"That's just so much meaningless junk," McCoy grumbled. "Just admit that you don't know, Spock, and stop trying to dazzle us with BS."

Kirk spoke up. "So, Mr. Spock, what you're telling me is that the star is roughly the same mass and output as Earth's Sun. Given the planet's distance from the star, it should be squarely in the 'Goldilocks Zone' and so may well support liquid water, which would make it an excellent candidate for life. Given the planet's rotational period, the temperature difference between the day side and night side should not be extreme. Given the axial tilt and orbital eccentricity, it should have seasons, but they should not be as extreme as those on Earth. Given that oxygen is highly reactive, the fact that there is so much of it in the atmosphere implies that some process is adding it to the atmosphere -- photosynthesis is a likely candidate. Given that terrestrial planets this close to their Sun typically have atmospheres consisting mostly of carbon dioxide, the nitrogen/oxygen atmosphere again strongly suggests the possibility of life. That there is a relatively large amount of water vapor and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere -- but not enough to suggest a runaway greenhouse effect -- further indicates that the planet may well have equitable surface temperates and liquid water on the surface."

"In short, according to your analysis, the 4th planet sounds like an excellent candidate for closer investigation; it should have Earth-like conditions and surface gravity, liquid water on the surface -- and very likely, life."

"Does my analysis agree with yours, Mr. Spock?" Kirk asked.

"Very much so, Captain," Spock replied.


Kirk then turned to McCoy and pointed out, "We're space explorers, Bones. Just because you apparently never bothered to take any courses in planetary astronomy while you were at Starfleet Academy, don't think that the rest of us didn't."