Rittenhouse Archives Star Trek Beyond Trading Cards Are Better Than The Film!

The Good: Beautiful common set, Decent chase cards, Some cool autograph signers, Impressive sketches
The Bad: Poor internal/external continuity, Repetitive signers/lack of major villain actor autographs
The Basics: The Star Trek Beyond trading cards take a disappointing film and make an impressive trading card set that acts as a decent tribute to the Kelvan Universe Star Trek films!


It is hard not to feel empathy for the trials and tribulations of a trading card company that has a long history of innovating. Rittenhouse Archives certainly has a well-earned reputation for trying new things in the trading card medium and their media-based trading cards are made popular by the results they are able to deliver based upon having a positive relationship with the film studios and talent with which they interact. To make more intriguing trading cards, Rittenhouse Archives manages to get in set materials, costumes and similar materials from studios like CBS Studios, which now produces the television shows and films in the Star Trek franchise. The positive relationship does not guarantee all aspects of an ideal trading card set will come together, though. That premise is embodied well in the new Star Trek Beyond trading cards.

The Star Trek Beyond trading cards, released in December 2017 by Rittenhouse Archives - more than a year after the cinematic release of Star Trek Beyond - reveals the benefits and issues with making a great trading card set based upon a blockbuster film. Fans of the Star Trek franchise, even those who primarily enjoy the new "Kelvan Universe" films, are deeply divided on Star Trek Beyond (reviewed here!) and I definitely fall into the camp that the latest cinematic outing for Star Trek was not one of its better ones. So, when I write that Rittenhouse Archives managed to make a trading card set that was vastly superior to its source material, I am not simply saying that the trading card company made something adequate out of something that was awful; the Star Trek Beyond trading cards are a truly beautiful trading card set with a wide array of benefits for trading card collectors and Star Trek enthusiasts alike.

But even with managing to make something impressive out of something that was unimpressive, Rittenhouse Archives was limited by the access the company had and the timeliness of its production schedule. Conceptually, the Star Trek Beyond set is more like the 2014 Star Trek Movies set (reviewed here!) in that it includes content from the prior two Kelvan Universe Star Trek films, in addition to Star Trek Beyond. Indeed, the chase cards include expansion sets that continue cards from the Star Trek (2009 Movie) set (reviewed here!) and the 2014 Star Trek Movies set, which dilutes the Star Trek Beyond theme of the set. The random expansion relic cards from prior films give the set something of an assembled, almost a collection of leftovers, feel. And, despite the access Rittenhouse Archives has with CBS and many of the actors from the Star Trek franchise, the Star Trek Beyond set is noticeably lacking in an Idris Elba autograph card. In fact, for a set that includes a huge array of costume and autograph cards from all three of the Kelvan Universe films, the Star Trek Beyond trading cards are unfortunately missing any of the primary villains on autograph cards - there are no Eric Bana or Benedict Cumberbatch autographs, either (the biggest adversary featured is a Peter Weller as Admiral Marcus autograph card, which is actually pretty cool in its own right!).

With an arguably lame film as source material and inability to get access to one of the biggest international celebrities on the planet right now, Rittenhouse Archives seems to have been in a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" type situation when it took on the Star Trek Beyond trading cards. Rather than harp on the addition of cards that flesh out past sets in an awkward way or the lack of an Idris Elba autograph card, Rittenhouse Archives focused its attention on giving collectors an immense amount of bang for their buck with the Star Trek Beyond trading cards . . . with so much that was good that when one looks at the assembled set, they are likely to forget there is no Idris Elba autograph and actually be dazzled by some of the new relic cards from Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness!

Basics/Set Composition

Fully assembled, the Star Trek Beyond trading card set has 346 cards, all of which is focused on the three Kelvan tangent universe films, with most of the cards relating very clearly to Star Trek Beyond! In addition to the trading cards themselves, there is an oversized binder produced by Rittenhouse Archives that comfortably holds the entire set . . . sort of. The Star Trek Beyond trading card set features four cards that do not fit into any sort of binder page I have yet found (beautiful cards, a pain in the ass to incorporate into the binder in a way that keeps the cards mint!). The set consists of 85 common cards and 261 bonus cards. The chase cards are mostly available in the packs of cards, though eleven of them were incentive or promotional cards and could not be found in any of the packs. The Star Trek Beyond trading cards were released in boxes of twenty-four packs of five cards each and it was priced to be a premium set . . . that delivered premium card quality throughout!

Common Cards

The common card set for the Star Trek Beyond trading cards consisted of eighty five trading cards and this is an important divergence from the 2014 Star Trek Movies set. The 2014 Star Trek Movies trading cards featured sets of cards for Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness that were 110 cards each. The moment the Star Trek Beyond trading cards were first introduced, most collectors assumed that Rittenhouse Archives was going to continue the same style of those cards for Star Trek Beyond. The common set illustrates brilliantly how Rittenhouse Archives made amazing lemonade out of some very bitter lemons: the writing on the Star Trek Beyond trading cards details every moment of the film. The plot summary is incredibly complete with a great attention to detail; Rittenhouse Archives made a set that utilized the entirety of the source material. The eighty-five card common set's length represents the best possible attempt to be thorough without stretching the plot to make more cards.

One of the nicest aspects of the Star Trek Beyond trading card common card set is that the cards are consistently oriented. The entire set features images in landscape orientation with a single decent-sized image on the front and a different image on the back. The Star Trek Beyond cards have the traditional UV-resistant coating which is flawlessly applied. The back of each card has a plot synopsis of the scene depicted on the front and the writing is impressive in its level of detail. The Star Trek Beyond common set accurately portrays the entire plot of Star Trek Beyond and is certainly intended for those who have seen the film, as the plot synopsis is complete. Rittenhouse Archives did an amazing job of translating the film into trading cards; this is an entirely complete and comprehensive set for relating the story of Star Trek Beyond!

Chase Cards

The 250 chase cards that can be found in packs and boxes of Star Trek Beyond are rich in material, with the Star Trek Beyond set focusing intensely on high-end insert cards, like relic, costume and autograph cards, though there are some less-expensive chase cards in the set as well. The chase sets take at least a complete case to finish, but most of the chase sets require multiple cases to have a fair shot at completion.

The first level of chase cards in the Star Trek Beyond set are the "Quotable" Star Trek Beyond cards. Each card in this subset is in landscape format and features a big image of a character (or, in some cases, multiple characters who shared the scene) and large text for a cool quote from the film Star Trek Beyond. These brightly colored cards follow the same type style as the "Quotable" cards that Rittenhouse Archives made for the Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary trading cards. These "Quotable" cards find a nice balance between the images and text, which was one of the issues with some of the earliest "Quotable" cards (small text, long paragraphs with tiny or no images, etc.). The technical issues fixed, the "Quotable" Star Trek Beyond cards feature, arguably, the best thirty quotes from the film over the course of the fifteen cards. It is a little odd that the set is not some multiple of nine cards, but it seems (again) like Rittenhouse Archives did all they could with the source material!

The Star Trek Beyond set has only one parallel set, which is a refreshing change from the 2014 Star Trek Movies set. One per pack is one of the eighty-five metal parallel cards mimicking the common cards on metal trading cards, as is the current trend in parallel cards. The bright coloring of the common cards translates beautifully to the metal cards, which are easily distinguished from the common cards by their rounded edges and an individual collector's number stamped on the back of each card. There are only one hundred of each of the eighty-five Star Trek Beyond metal parallel cards and this set looks great in metal!

The rest of the chase cards in the Star Trek Beyond trading cards are comparatively high-end cards and Rittenhouse Archives delivers a set that looks amazing with their new, ambitious, concepts. One of the coolest cards that continues the metal card trend into the Star Trek Beyond trading card set are the nine movie poster cards. These metal cards replicate the movie posters created for Star Trek Beyond during the massive promotional campaign for Star Trek Beyond. All seven of the main cast, plus Jaylah and Krall had posters, which are replicated into glossy, beautiful, metal cards. The popularity and quality of these cards exceeds that of the similar metal movie poster cards Rittenhouse Archives created for the James Bond films. While not individually numbered on the back, like other metal movie poster cards, the Star Trek Beyond metal movie poster cards were quite rare, being found only two per case!

The Star Trek Beyond set makes a number of conceptual callbacks to the trading card sets Rittenhouse Archives made for the classic ten Star Trek films. In some of those earlier sets, Rittenhouse Archives created patch replica cards of the patches from Star Trek The Motion Picture. In the Star Trek Beyond set, Rittenhouse Archives included manufactured patch cards for characters from Star Trek Beyond and Star Trek Into Darkness. The patch cards are well-made and intricately detailed, even if the patches in the films lack the prominent positioning of the patches in the original films (the patches Rittenhouse Archives replicated were shoulder patches as opposed to patches on character's chests). These landscape-oriented patch cards were also found only two per case.

Found only one per case are one each of the nine Anton Yelchin In Memoriam and six Leonard Nimoy In Memoriam cards. Anton Yelchin lost his life in a freak tragic accident shortly before the cinematic release of Star Trek Beyond and the Star Trek Beyond cards are the first chance Rittenhouse Archives had to produce a tribute card to the young actor. The Anton Yelchin In Memoriam cards are beautiful and include nice images from each of the three Star Trek films. The In Memoriam cards for Anton Yelchin are individually numbered up to 100 and they are consistent with the quality of the prior In Memoriam cards. The Leonard Nimoy In Memoriam expansion cards continue the In Memoriam set for Nimoy that was begun in the Star Trek The Original Series 50th Anniversary cards with images of Nimoy as Spock from his appearance in Star Trek (the 2009 film). Numbered to 125, each of the cards features images of Nimoy's penultimate performance in the Star Trek franchise beautifully rendered (it would have been virtually impossible to use a shot from Star Trek Into Darkness as Nimoy's Spock only appeared on the viewscreen in that film. The In Memoriam cards are one of the solemn gems of the Star Trek Beyond trading card set.

One per box there are one of thirty-five cards from a Relic, Uniform Relic and Pin card set. This is, arguably, the most conceptually-fragmented portion of the Star Trek Beyond trading card set, even if the results look absolutely amazing. The Relic and Pin set is a hodgepodge of relics, costume cards (inexplicably called "relics" in this set, despite being pieces of set-worn costumes) and manufactured pin cards. The thirty-five cards in this set are fractured throughout different styles, orientations and even the films, which makes for a conceptually erratic subset. Ultimately, I feel on the side of "it's far more wonderful that we collectors get these awesome relics than have to either buy an expansion set or go without them!" There are three proper subsets of actual relic cards on this Star Trek Beyond set: 2 expansion relics from the Star Trek set, four expansion "relics" (they are actually costume cards!) from Star Trek Into Darkness and two for Star Trek Into Darkness. The Star Trek expansion relics allow collectors to get a piece of a StarFleet chair and the interior of a shuttlecraft and the latter is an extremely limited thick card that is pretty cool. The Star Trek Into Darkness expansion relics fit the style made for the 2014 Star Trek Movies set flawlessly, though it seems odd that the RC13 card is unclear on whether it used material from Khan or Kirk's outfit (unless Pine and Cumberbatch shared a costume!). Rittenhouse Archives easily overcomes any trepidation on the one Relic card by having amazing variation with the Klingon Shoulder piece costume card and the scarce Admiral Pike costume piece (all of which that I found featured a piece of Pike's gold braid!). The two Star Trek Beyond relic cards are absolutely awesome. There is a piece of the Enterprise's interior and the exterior to a Swarm Ship. The Swarm Ship piece is an awesome find as each piece, like the Klingon Shoulder fabric, seems to have a different sense of coloring and texture, making each one unique!

Rittenhouse Archives manufactured uniform pin cards, which were part of the Relic and Pin set. The thick cards form a ten card subset that features full-sized metal pin badges embedded in each card. The badges replicate the metal pins worn by each of the main cast members on their uniforms (with variants for Kirk, Chekov and Spock to flesh out the set).

Rarer than the uniform pin cards are the seventeen costume relic cards, which are spread out into three subsets of the main set. Landscape-oriented, the relic costume cards feature single swatches, two swatches of fabric from a single character's costume (i.e. Kirk's shirt and pants) and single swatches from two different characters (like Kirk's shirt and Krall's armor). These cards are generally cool - the two that have costume materials from Krall are actually awesome! - though it seems a little odd that there is a Dual Character Relic of Jaylah and Chekov, when Jaylah and Scotty spent the most time together in Star Trek Beyond. That said, the various relic costume cards in the Star Trek Beyond set offer some of the most beautiful and diverse costume materials assembled for a film-based Star Trek set!

Despite being an assemblage of four different subsets, the autograph cards are pretty awesome in the Star Trek Beyond trading cards! With fifty-two different autographs, Rittenhouse Archives managed to get an impressive variety of signers, especially from the main cast of the three Kelvan Universe Star Trek films. The autographs come in four subsets - autographed relics, Star Trek (2009 Movie) full-bleed style, Classic Movies style (begin in the Complete Star Trek Movies set and continued through the other classic Star Trek movies trading card sets, and the Star Trek Into Darkness (landscape-oriented) cards. Star Trek fans will be thrilled to get autograph cards from Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Alice Eve, one of three different ones from rising international star Sofia Boutella (which is the biggest new signer in the Star Trek Beyond set and a very cool one at that!), and a scarce (less than 100 signed!) autograph card from Simon Pegg. There is even a new full-bleed Chris Pine autograph card and multiple Karl Urban autograph cards in the Star Trek Beyond set! While collectors might be underwhelmed by having three Jason Matthew Smith autographs in the Star Trek Beyond set, it's pretty cool that Rittenhouse Archives managed to get Peter Weller to sign again, as well as a new autograh card from Star Trek Beyond director Justin Lin.

For the first time in a Star Trek movies set, Rittenhouse Archives had sketch cards produced! Found one per case, the sketch cards feature subjects from all three Kelvan Universe Star Trek films rendered by one of thirty different artists. The Star Trek Beyond sketch cards were drawn by renowned artists like Kristin Allen, Carlos Cabalerio, Chris Meeks, Charles Hall, and Warren Martineck. The Star Trek Beyond set is a premium trading card set and the sketch cards bear that out; there are no duds (that I've yet seen!) in this collection of sketch cards. All of the sketch cards in this set were immaculately rendered by wonderful artists, none of whom seemed to rush their work on this set. All of the sketches look recognizable and like fine art, as opposed to having an assemblage of great artists with a few duds that make for disappointing pulls. Instead, the Star Trek Beyond sketch cards are some of the best that Rittenhouse Archives has ever released, making the implicit argument for better artists, better cards!

Non-Box/Pack Cards

The Star Trek Beyond trading card set has eleven cards not found in any of the boxes or packs. There are three promotional cards – the usual general release, an exclusive one placed in Non-Sport Update magazine, and the binder-exclusive promotional card.

The casetopper for the Star Trek Beyond trading card set is a strange one. Rather than have a movie poster card for Star Trek Beyond (there was at least one style not released in the metal movie poster set!), the casetopper for the Star Trek Beyond trading cards was an acetate movie poster card from Star Trek. The movie poster card featuring the (almost) negative image of the Enterprise at warp from the 2009 movie Star Trek translates incredibly well to the clear plastic card, though!

The Star Trek Beyond set is fleshed out with incentive cards and these follow the trend of recent Rittenhouse Archives releases! For purchasing six cases, dealers received a Zoe Saldana autographed costume card. The autograph costume card looks incredible and all of the cards I've seen have a very clear signature from Saldana, who has become quite a star in recent years, making for a coveted incentive card. The nine-case incentive card is a cool Chris Pine autographed costume card, which is rarer than the full-bleed autograph card from the set. This is an awesome addition to the Star Trek Beyond set!

The archive box for the Star Trek Beyond trading card set features four premiums not found in any other packs or boxes of the cards. There is a Classic Movies style autograph card for director Justin Lin, a variant badge pin card for Chekov, and an ambitious multi-costume card that features fabric swatches from all seven of the main crew members from the Star Trek films. The bridge crew costume card is a concept that seems iffy, but Rittenhouse Archives executed it incredibly well. The picture on the card features the whole cast and the layout of the fabric swatches is artistically done, making for an immaculate collection of costume pieces and an amazing trading card! The Archive Box is fleshed out with a four-card set of printing plates for one of the common cards in the set. Those are pretty cool and a nice addition to the Archive Box and the completed set.

The final chase card of the Star Trek Beyond set is the Rittenhouse Reward card. The Rittenhouse Rewards cards is a variant costume card for Chekov. The SR8a card is essentially the same as the SR8, but with Chekov's image facing the opposite direction as the main release card. It's hard to complain about another Chekov card and the SR8a card is an nice added incentive for collectors!

Overall

The Star Trek Beyond set ends up as an impressive collection that takes an lot of materials from all three Kelvan Universe Star Trek films and makes a great tribute to Star Trek Beyond that is far better than the last film alone!

This set culls images from the Star Trek films Star Trek (reviewed here!), Star Trek Into Darkness (reviewed here!), and Star Trek Beyond!

These cards are available in my online store! Please check them out here: Star Trek Beyond Trading Card Current Inventory!

For other Star Trek franchise trading card reviews, please check out my reviews of:
Women Of Star Trek 50th Anniversary
Star Trek Aliens
2013 Star Trek Into Darkness Preview Set

8/10

For other card reviews, please visit my Card Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2018 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Summer Blockbuster Season Starts With The Hilarious Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2

The Good: Very funny, Good effects, Engaging character moments, Good performances
The Bad: Less distinct music, Imbalance in serving the characters
The Basics: Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 does a decent job of tying up some big loose ends in the far corner of the Marvel Cinematic Universe with style and humor!


There are few elements of the Marvel Cinematic Universe that have aged as well as Guardians Of The Galaxy (reviewed here!). Comedies, especially, tend to have a shorter half-life than dramatic films, but Guardians Of The Galaxy has held up much better than a number of the Marvel Cinematic Universe origin stories and sequels. Arguably, the reason Guardians Of The Galaxy has endured so well over the years (and many, many viewings) is because it found the right balance of humor and action and paired both with an incredible and memorable soundtrack. So, of course, enthusiasm for Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 would be very high, perhaps to an unrealistic extent.

But Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 actually does an excellent job of creating an exceptional sequel and successor to the original film. Instead of having to work to assemble a new super hero (or anti-hero) team and build an entire franchise within the Marvel Cinematic Universe from scratch, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is allowed to play within the established corner that was created in the first film. And the pretty amazing aspect of Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is that the entire film is built on an allusion in the first film and a throwaway joke at the end of the film's teaser/first act.

Peter Quill, Gamora, Drax, and Rocket have been contracted by the leader of the genetically-perfect race living on the planet cluster Sovereign to thwart an impending attack from an interdimensional creature. The quartet works to take down the giant alien when it appears, while keeping Baby Groot safe from the conflict. Victorious against the creature, the Guardians go to Ayesha's throne room to receive their payment; Nebula, who was caught by the Sovereign security forces trying to steal the planet's rare and valuable batteries. Ayesha recognizes something in Quill, but in the process insults him and the team. Either because of the insult or simply on a whim of his own, Rocket steals the batteries from Sovereign while Gamora stows the new prisoner.

As the Guardians head to deliver Nebula to collect the bounty on her head, Yondu finds himself excommunicated by the Ravagers for breaking the Ravager code of dealing in children. Ayesha does not take long to realize that the Guardians have taken the batteries and she sets the Sovereign drone fleet against Quill's ship. The Guardians are facing certain death until they are rescued by a previously-unknown alien who destroys the Sovereign fleet right before the ship crash lands. With the ship out of commission on a distant world, the crew is met by Ego and Mantis. Ego tells Peter he is his father and invites him back to his world. Peter, Gamora, and Drax accompany Ego and Mantis back to Ego's idyllic world, leaving behind the angry Rocket and Nebula to fix the ship. Left vulnerable, Rocket falls prey to Yondu and his Ravagers who have been hired by Ayesha to recover the batteries and the Guardians. But Rocket and Yondu soon find themselves at the mercy of the Ravagers and Nebula with only Baby Groot to save them. And on Ego's World, Peter Quill learns his father's origins, his own powers and the destiny his father has for him. While Quill embraces his father's vision, Gamora and Drax learn from Mantis that Ego is not all he appears and they discover a threat to all life in the galaxy!

First off, one of the big aspects that separates the first Guardians Of The Galaxy from Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is the music. The first film had incredibly distinct music that resonated and became inextricably tied with the scenes it was in. For all of the apparent popularity of "Awesome Mixtape Volume #2," the film's music is hardly as iconic or memorable as the works from the first movie. In fact, after watching the film, I could only recall two of the songs used in the movie and - unlike the first movie - my mind resonated with the thought that director James Gunn absolutely missed the mark on one of the musical cues. There is a big, key scene in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 that features a bit of violence and one of the film's utterly unmemorable songs that would have been made absolutely hilarious and entirely memorable if James Gunn had used "It's Raining Men" in the scene. Seriously, there's arguably no bigger musical misstep in the film than that missed opportunity - and when viewing Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2, with that bug in your ear, it is virtually impossible not to watch the scene and imagine it with "It's Raining Men," laugh at how funny that would have been and then grimace at how the film's big moment there loses something by the musical piece that was worked in.

The only other major flaw in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 - outside, perhaps, wasting any time in the film to seed a potential future incarnation of the Guardians Of The Galaxy - is that the story has so many characters to service that in giving each one adequate screentime and story points, the film has an unfortunately erratic flow. Gamora draws the short straw for the major characters, largely because Zoe Saldana's best character moments are reflections of Karen Gillan's Nebula's character growth. Gamora acts as a sidekick to Star-Lord before reacting to Nebula's surprisingly deep realization that her hatred for Gamora is very reasonable. Gamora's bits are peppered throughout Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 without her actually getting a very strong narrative of her own (though she does have some big action moments and, ultimately, some decent character moments).

Similarly, Drax begins Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 with an impressive number of the film's funniest lines before the movie gets packed with a slew of other character and plot threads. Drax has almost no presence in the film's middle and he comes back late in the film with retreads of some of his earlier jokes. Rocket is presented as taking the brunt of everyone's ire and lashing out obnoxiously, but his practical joke motivates almost all of the film's action. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 devotes a significant amount of time to developing Yondu and utilizing Rocket as a foil for a whole "buddy comedy" subplot within the film. To be fair, Michael Rooker (Yondu) plays off the virtual Rocket amazingly well and Bradley Cooper's deliveries for Rocket have an impressive emotional range from snarky to hurt to goading in the funniest way imaginable.

Chris Pratt does well as Peter Quill, starting authoritative and moving fast into reasonably shaken by Ayesha's remarks about his heritage. Pratt has been thrust into the role of action hero and he rises to the occasion with good physical performances and - in some key moments as Peter learns about his father - acting through his facial expressions alone. Beyond that, Pratt plays to his comedic strengths is familiar deliveries of deadpan and sarcastic lines that made Quill memorable from the first film.

Newcomer to the Guardians team, Mantis, is an intriguing addition who is ultimately integral to Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2. Whether the character has enduring value beyond the specific story told in Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 remains to be seen, but she is utilized well in this film. And, despite being given lines that are variants of her one trick pony, Pom Klementieff delivers them with credible, wide-eyed innocence that plays as very funny. Klementieff and Dave Bautista have great on-screen chemistry as a rare successful comedic pairing of dual straightmen.

While Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 has a somewhat erratic plot execution as the various threads work to come together in a fairly predictable "stop the super-villain" way, the result is surprisingly satisfying. Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 finds the right balance between action-adventure violence and humor. Seeing the film in the theater, both my wife and I were shocked by the number of children being brought to Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2; it is not a soft PG-13. Between hilarious lines - "I have famously large turds!" - complex character motivations (are children truly likely to understand the motivation of the Celestial?!), a disproportionately large spider, and a fair amount of action violence, Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is not intended for kids.

But Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 is funny, has clever moments and the characters are motivated by surprisingly deep psychological factors. And for a film opening Summer Blockbuster Season - which is historically known for being vacuous and spectacle-based - it is hard to ask for more than what Guardians Of The Galaxy Vol. 2 delivers.

For other science fiction comedies, please check out my reviews of:
Ant-Man
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Men In Black

8.5/10

For other elements of the Marvel Cinematic Universe, please check out my Marvel Cinematic Universe Review Index Page for a complete relative listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Beyond The Hype: Star Trek Beyond Actually Sucks. (2017 Review This Again Review!)

The Good: Most of the performances are good, Amazing sets and make-up
The Bad: Very basic, formulaic plot, Visual aspects that make little rational sense, Character arcs that are frequently nonsense, Huge continuity and scientific problems
The Basics: Despite my first impression, it does not take long before the viewer recognizes that Star Trek Beyond is mostly just a mess.


[There is a big meme in the art community going around now called "Draw This Again." In the meme, artists illustrate how they have grown in their chosen medium by putting side-by-side pictures of art they created in the past and now. My wife had the great idea that I should do something similar with my reviewing. So, for 2017, I will be posting occasional "Review This Again" reviews, where I revisit subjects I had previously reviewed and review them again, through a lens of increased age, more experience, and - for some - greater familiarity with the subject. In the case of Star Trek Beyond, I ended up seeing the film only once, on the big screen, and reviewed it based upon that. Rewatching the film, my perceptions changed fairly drastically and because I do not alter old reviews, I figured this was an excellent subject for a Review This Again review. The film was originally reviewed here and I opted to not revisit that review before reviewing it again.]

2016 was a very busy year for me and I spent quite a bit of the year, sadly, neglecting Star Trek. The significance of that was that 2016 was the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek and I became a fan of the show and franchise right around the time of the 25th Anniversary. My love of Star Trek has been a lifelong love and during the 50th Anniversary, the only real things I did to celebrate or acknowledge the anniversary was rewatch Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (reviewed here!) and watch Star Trek Beyond once in the theater. So, when my mother bought me the Blu-Ray of Star Trek Beyond for my birthday, I was actually super-excited to watch the film again.

Last week when I watched Star Trek Beyond for the second time, on the small screen, divorced from the hype, I felt physically sick.

When I watched Star Trek Beyond the first time and reviewed it, I wrote a review arguing that - despite its faults - Star Trek Beyond was not the worst piece of science fiction crap ever. Now on my third viewing, having watched all of the bonus features to try to get a different perspective on it, I am not so sure.

Star Trek Beyond is a mess. Watching it one the small screen, without any thought about what the film was supposed to be, uninfluenced by hype or preview trailers, the faults and issues within the film become surprisingly glaring. From pretty severe editing problems within the film to philosophical problems with Star Trek Beyond that come out when one watches the bonus features, Star Trek Beyond is unfortunately sloppy . . . even if it is often visually incredible.

It is tough to discuss Star Trek Beyond as an abstract and without some potential spoilers for those who have not seen the film. Ironically, for a tribute to Star Trek, the idea of Star Trek Beyond is most explicitly based upon events of Star Trek Enterprise (reviewed here!), which was the least-Trek spin-off in the franchise - executive producer Brannon Braga explicitly stated that he wanted to get a new audience for the show and was not worrying about things like continuity in his creation. Rather hilariously, one of the issues a lot of people had with Sulu being revealed as gay in Star Trek Beyond is far less of an issue when one looks at the franchise objectively - when Sulu is revealed to have a daughter in Star Trek: Generations, there is no reference to the family Sulu had that generated that daughter; there is no real conflict!

But, there are huge issues in Star Trek Beyond, both in basic story-telling and in the presentation of the film.

Opening with Captain Kirk trying to deliver a gift to an alien race, from the Fibonan culture, he is met with resistance from the leaders of the planet he is on. Attacked by the Teenaxi, Kirk returns to the Enterprise with the artifact (which was an ancient weapon), where he feels disillusioned with the exploratory mission the Enterprise is on. The Enterprise arrives at the Yorktown base where Spock, now broken up with Uhura, learns of the death of Spock Prime. Shortly thereafter, an alien escape pod carrying Kalara arrives and tells the StarFleet officers that she needs help; that her ship crashed on a planet within a nearby nebula. The Enterprise journeys to Altamid, where Kalara's ship supposedly has crashed. As the Enterprise approaches Altamid, the Enterprise is destroyed and its crew separated (most captured) by alien forces as they try to escape the ship.

On Altamid, Uhura finds herself in the custody of Krall, the alien who attacked the Enterprise, searching for the artifact Kirk tried to give to the Teenaxi. McCoy and Spock crash together and Spock is seriously wounded, impaled by a piece of metal from the escape pod. Scotty finds himself in the company of Jaylah, a young woman whose crew and family suffered the same fate as the Enterprise, but has survived in the wreckage of an old Federation ship. While Scotty and Jaylah repair the ship and try to find a way to rescue others from the Enterprise, Kirk and Chekov hike with Kalara to the ruins of the Enterprise's saucer section. There, Kalara reveals herself to be working for Krall and betrays Kirk while she tries to get the artifact for Krall. As the main bridge crew finds one another - or is rescued by Scotty - they find a way off Altamid, but Krall also finds the artifact he is searching for. Armed with a powerful weapon, Krall sets his sights on the Yorktown, which leads Kirk into a fight with him.

Star Trek Beyond is riddled with problematic contradictions, not the least of which is in the visual scope of the film. It is, admittedly, tough to do new things within the Star Trek franchise. Newbies might be thrilled by the visual aspect of Star Trek Beyond in the swarm drones that erupt onto the screen early in the film; fans of the Star Trek franchise will recognize it as a minor permutation of the adversaries from the Star Trek: Voyager episode "The Swarm" (reviewed here!). But beyond that, there is the huge question of should a film like Star Trek Beyond try to do something that is so visually spectacular as it does.

The films in the rebooted Star Trek universe happen at an earlier time than the adventures of Captain Kirk and his crew in the prime Star Trek universe. So, while the argument can be made that just because viewers did not see something like the Yorktown Base in Star Trek does not mean it did not exist (i.e. the Enterprise just went in a different direction in the original?), it is harder to make that argument about the alien races. There is a fairly small sphere of influence the Federation has in the 23rd Century of Star Trek, so the idea that Star Trek Beyond purposely features 50 new, different, background aliens is somewhat ridiculous. In the rebooted universe, there would be no practical reason why the Federation would have encountered so many vastly different alien races, as opposed to have places like Yorktown Base populated by Andorians, Tellarites, and even perhaps Caitians. Star Trek Beyond opts for scale over sensibility.

Even Yorktown has some oddly un-Trek issues with its generation. McCoy asks why the Federation did not make a planet-based facility and the given answer is that it could lead to political tensions. Wouldn't a vastly more-Trek response to political tensions be working through those tensions and illustrate that they did not break the alliance (i.e. that the Federation is not so fragile as to be unable to survive any single philosophical debate) than to use the massive amount of resources needed to make a moon-sized space base? Star Trek Beyond is packed with details like that that fall apart with even the most minimal tugging of the thread. And how the hell would StarFleet build such a massive base near such a large unexplored area?! Seriously, in the time it took to build the Yorktown, there weren't ships that bothered to explore the "nebula" nearby.

And really, guys, do you know what the hell the difference is between a nebula and an asteroid field?! Nebulas are made primarily of gas; asteroid fields are giant rocks. like what is shown in Star Trek Beyond. That's not nitpicking, that is basic science.

Films in the Star Trek movie series have, unfortunately, developed into a painfully repetitive series of "kill the villain" type plots and rather than buck that trend and return to something more philosophical, Star Trek Beyond tries to repackage the same, stale plot with bigger explosions, louder music and more movement. But, at the core of every "kill the villain" flick, there has to be a compelling adversary. Every Star Trek film that has used the "kill the villain" plot conceit has desperately tried to make an adversary who matches the villainy of Khan. So, what happens when you used Khan in the last film? You come up with villains like Kruge (who actually kills people as an example instead of just talking about it, as Khan does!) and Krall.

Krall is a mess who embodies many of the problems of Star Trek Beyond. Star Trek Beyond, at its core, uses style over substance - hoping the viewer will not think too much about what they are seeing. Krall is an adversary who has one of the most forced hatreds for the Federation of any villain to appear in the Star Trek canon. Krall (why did he change his name?!) is essentially a space vampire (how did he become that?!) whose physique morphs as he absorbs the DNA of alien races he encounters. So, as he absorbs more of the Enterprise crew, he becomes more and more human in appearance. That's a fine-enough idea, though it is technically ill-defined within Star Trek Beyond (visually it is clearly and cleverly rendered through make-up effects).

But conceptually, Krall is a huge problem. Krall was originally human and he found himself well outside Federation space. Regardless of the whole military backstory conceit inserted into Star Trek Beyond, the person Krall was would have known that he was well outside of Federation space and resue was unlikely . . . especially if his ship came through the same "nebula" as the Enterprise. Krall does not behave like a military officer in that he rails against the Federation for not rescuing him and his crew - even though he would have known the Federation and StarFleet did not have the resources to do so. But here's the thing, if Krall becoming less human made him forget the technical knowledge he had about the Federation, why would he bear it such ill-will? In other words, the only reason for Krall to be so angry is that he is trapped upon an alien world; if he becomes more alien and stops feeling human or attached to the Federation, why wouldn't he simply accept that he is king of his new world and rule it as such? If the physical changes for Krall did not result in mental changes, he should know that rescue was not coming from the Federation and work to survive on the planet with his crew, knowing there was no future off-planet for him . . . in short, the most reasonable character-based evolutions for Krall all have him accepting his life on Altamid instead of wanting to get revenge upon the Federation.

Then there is the swarm Krall controls, which is one of the most problematic character-based problems in Star Trek Beyond. Krall explicitly states that the Federation's weakness is its interdependence; he advocates a philosophy of growth through conflict. Okay, some people believe such things. People who believe that interdependence is a liability do not, traditionally (or rationally) use a drone army that operates on a hive mind. The swarm in Star Trek Beyond operates using a network that is entirely interconnected, which results in Spock and McCoy having to deactivate the alien fleet by disabling the drones. Krall decries working together . . . with a fleet that entirely works together. Krall implicitly proves his point that there is only growth through conflict by utilizing tools that operate entirely symbiotically (without conflict) and he stagnates in his anger for a hundred years?!

Come to think of it, Krall has a massive swarm of ships that he is easily able to use to leave the nebula and get (at least) as far as Yorktown base. Why the hell did Krall wait for the base to be done to mount an attack on it? Krall has spent lifetimes searching for the artifact that Kirk was given . . . he searched . . . where, exactly? If he hated the Federation so very much, he could have inflicted plenty of damage upon it with his swarm drone army without the specific weapon he was searching for . . .

So, Krall, despite his ultimately well-defined backstory, is a villain who succumbs to the generic conceits of being an adversary as opposed to being a sensibly-defined individual. Manas is an incredibly generic lackey character who acts as Krall's right hand without any real character of his own.

Star Trek Beyond descends into a big motorcycle sequence and highlighting playing the Beastie Boys loudly which is much more the genre for The Fast And The Furious than a tribute to the cerebral nature of Star Trek.

As for the essential characters, Star Trek Beyond has weird issues that are amplified by the bonus features. In talking about the destruction of the Enterprise, Chris Pine mentions in one of the featurettes how being a starship Captain is the most important aspect of Captain Kirk's life at this point. Hearing him say that, my first reaction was "did you actually read the script?!" My reaction comes from the fact that Captain Kirk is looking for a new job at the outset of Star Trek Beyond. Bored with space exploration, Kirk has applied to be the Vice Admiral of the Yorktown Base - if being a Captain was so important to him, why is he looking to be promoted out of the position?! But herein lays the problem; the big emotional moment viewers are supposed to see is in Kirk's reaction shot to seeing the crashing saucer section. Chris Pine's reaction is surprisingly flat, which actually plays to the idea that Kirk does not care about the Enterprise the way the viewer does (or that he is in shock). While many things are complicated, either Kirk is bored with being the Captain and is ready to move on from his position or he is emotionally invested in being captain and his ship is so important to him that losing him is enough to traumatize him. Neither aspect is fleshed out sufficiently in Star Trek Beyond to be compelling.

There are a number of editing issues in Star Trek Beyond; shots where cuts are made at odd places. As well, one of the most awkward moments in Star Trek Beyond comes when Uhura puts together the identity of Krall by looking at an old ship's log. As the footage is played backward (with Uhura rewinding it), the audio goes forward - Uhura hears the word "frontier" repeatedly as she keeps rewinding the tape!

So, what works in Star Trek Beyond?

Jaylah is an interesting addition to the mix of characters (smart money is that she could replace Chekov in the next Star Trek film following the death of Anton Yelchin) and she offers the opportunity for Scotty to talk about Federation values. Jaylah is a strong female character who has a good backstory and plays off the established characters well. Jaylah becomes a conduit for which Star Trek and Federation values can be explored and promoted. Jaylah comes to see that a crew working together can overcome immense odds; she watches as the whole bridge crew contributes to reasoning how the swarm ships work together and how their interdependence may be exploited. That is cool. Unfortunately, Star Trek Beyond turns from something philosophical to utterly generic action-adventure in that such high-minded reasoning and teamwork is not used to stop Krall in a compelling "Star Trek" way. Star Trek values would have been served by having the Enterprise crew use reason and high-minded values to convince Krall not to deploy his super-weapon, as opposed to launching the armed villain out into space. So, Jaylah learns a bit of Federation philosophy and an equal measure that some enemies need to be put down. Even in Star Trek, Kirk tried to save Nero; in Star Trek Beyond, Kirk tries to confirm that Krall is dead instead.

Most of the acting in Star Trek Beyond is fine. Idris Elba is wasted as Krall as the villain makes little rational sense ultimately and Elba is not given the chance to exhibit much emotional range in the part. In fact, the greatest moment Elba has in Star Trek Beyond is gutted when the film continues in the same vein as it has been instead of making a right turn back into Star Trek territory. Each time I have watched Star Trek Beyond now, I am shocked because there is an exceptional moment at the climax of the film where Krall sees himself in a reflection. Elba's performance in that moment screams that Krall sees himself and is upset by the reflection he sees. Each time I see that moment, I expect that this will be a moment of epiphany for Krall and that Elba will deliver a line about how he was wrong and then sacrifice himself to stop his own weapon. No, Elba is not granted a moment where his performance is rewarded with something so high-minded and character-based.

Chris Pine plays Kirk as an action hero with little in the way of an emotional journey after the initial bar scene. Zachary Quinto, Karl Urban, and Simon Pegg are each predictably wonderful in their roles of Spock, McCoy, and Scotty. Star Trek Beyond minimizes the roles of Uhura, Sulu, and Chekov (Anton Yelchin's final appearance in Trek is essentially as a sidekick for Kirk), but the performers involved do fine in the supporting parts.

It is easy to read a critique of Star Trek Beyond and think "that is a whole lot of nitpicking," but the problems exist within the film and they truly do gut the movie on almost every front except spectacle. Once one pulls at the question of "If the survivors of the Franklin had access to a drone ship fleet that could get them off the planet and back into Federation space, why did they spend a hundred years on the planet (or returning to it) to scheme against their home instead of getting back to the people who had no reasonable knowledge of where they had ended up?" Star Trek Beyond becomes difficult to watch; so much in the movie is forced and inorganic. Beloved characters like Spock make disturbingly uncharacteristic decisions - Spock and Uhura's relationship is on the skids arguably because Spock considers having children . . . but why would a mixed-race person like Spock be obsessed with the "genetic purity" of propagating full-blooded Vulcans?! Kirk is bored and wants to take a more stable, more boring job? And it takes one mission where his crew is put in mortal peril for him to want to go back to the same type of exploration he found mundane?!

In tribute to fifty years of a series that challenged social stereotypes and perceptions of what humanity's future could look like, Star Trek Beyond presents a surprisingly dull action-adventure film where the plot conceits and characters are so facile that they do not withstand any serious scrutiny. That is hardly a fitting tribute to Leonard Nimoy or Anton Yelchin, to whom the film is dedicated.

For other Star Trek films, please visit my reviews of:
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek: Generations
Star Trek
Star Trek Into Darkness

2.5/10

For other Star Trek reviews, please check out my Star Trek Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2017 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Star Trek Beyond: Not The Worst Piece Of Crap In Science Fiction Action Flicks . . .

The Good: Decent special effects/direction, Moments of character and acting
The Bad: Thoroughly banal action sequences, Dull plot, Overused Star Trek conceits without a powerful ethical dilemma.
The Basics: For the 50th Anniversary of the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek Beyond continues the trend of transforming the franchise into one dominated by action adventure as opposed to cerebral science fiction.


I cannot recall being less excited for a Star Trek film than I was in advance of Star Trek Beyond. In 2009, when Star Trek (reviewed here!) was released, I swept away the months of trepidation I had about the film when I landed tickets months in advance of its release to a preview screening and was suddenly reassured that J.J. Abrams was not utterly destroying all I loved about the Star Trek franchise. Then came Star Trek Into Darkness (reviewed here!) and lightning not only did not strike twice, but the film dashed the hopes that the rebooted Star Trek universe might be intelligently and cleverly redirected, as opposed to playing to the cheap action adventure aspects that every special effects-driven blockbuster goes for. From the very first preview trailer of Star Trek Beyond, my hopes were dashed that for the 50th anniversary of my beloved science fiction franchise the writers and producers would create something worthy of the franchise name. Truth be told, my expectations were lowered the moment Simon Pegg was brought in to rewrite the script for Star Trek Beyond to make the film less "Trek-y." Paramount's goal for Star Trek Beyond was to make the film into a billion dollar-grossing movie . . . which, from a creative perspective, is a pretty lousy goal.

So, when I sat down to Star Trek Beyond, my expectations were appropriately low and I was prepared for a dumb action adventure film prioritizing flash over substance . . . and there were only a couple moments in the film that confounded those lower expectations. Star Trek Beyond is dominated by its action-adventure elements, minimizing the more cerebral elements. The result is a film that pays lip service to Star Trek and has many moments where it looks good, but it lacks depth and most of its most (potentially) emotional moments are moved beyond so fast that they lack impact.

The Enterprise has an unsuccessful diplomatic mission to an alien planet in the third year of its five-year mission. When the lifeforms Kirk is negotiating with reject the artifact he brought as a gift, the Enterprise leaves their planet and heads to a new Federation starbase on the edge of explored space. While at the Starbase, Spock learns that Ambassador Spock has died and Kirk is offered a very different career direction by the ranking StarFleet officer in the sector. Shortly after the Enterprise arrives, an alien escape pod arrives, carrying Kalara. Kalara tells the Federation that her ship was destroyed and its crew is stranded on a planet inside a nearby nebula. Kirk and the Enterprise are assigned to find the planet and rescue Kalara's crew, but when they arrive at the planet, they are attacked by a swarm of ships which destroy the Enterprise.

The attack on the Enterprise was perpetrated by Krall, who invaded the Enterprise to recover the artifact that Kirk attempted to give to the Teenaxi. Kirk, however, manages to stop Krall from getting the artifact, though he is unable to prevent his crew from being captured by Krall and his drones. With the Enterprise crew stranded on different parts of Krall's world, most of them captured and at his mercy, Kirk must figure out how to save his crew. Kirk quickly realizes that Kalara set the Enterprise up for capture and he and Chekov work to stop her, while Uhura tries to learn what Krall wants and witnesses his murderous power. Elsewhere on the planet, Dr. McCoy works to save Spock's life, as he was injured in the evacuation of the Enterprise. But Scotty lucks out more than the rest of the Enterprise crew, as he stumbles upon a woman who managed to escape from Krall and needs the engineer's help in restoring the ship she found. Together, Scott and Jaylah work to reunite the Enterprise's senior officers and rescue the rest of the crew from Krall. Krall, by tormenting Uhura and Sulu, manages to find the artifact he is looking for and he turns his attention to destroying the starbase outside the nebula.

What Star Trek Beyond does well is use its ensemble. For all the great things about the original Star Trek, it was not an ensemble piece. It was very much Captain Kirk and Spock's story, with an occasional subplot for McCoy and a peppering of episodes that gave Scotty a more significant role than normal. Star Trek Beyond gives all seven of the characters generally considered "key" Trek characters something to do. Sadly for the late Anton Yelchin, Chekov is given the least to do and he spends most of Star Trek Beyond acting as Kirk's sidekick and then Scotty's assistant.

Similarly, on the thematic front, Star Trek Beyond provides a single monologue from Jaylah that is almost Star Trek deep. Jaylah tells Scotty about Manas and Krall and it is a thinly-veiled Holocaust allegory, much the way "A Private Little War" (reviewed here!) provided an allegory for Star Trek viewers of the Vietnam War and the problems of Cold War escalation in a hot war theater.

Sadly, Star Trek Beyond glosses over its complex elements and most of its big character moments. Jaylah's monologue is brief and is a pretext to get her and Kirk into a big action sequence. Star Trek Beyond is at its worst when it prioritizes special effects (which are, admittedly, good) and action sequences over the allegory, cerebral elements and moments of genuine character development.

Star Trek Beyond has minimal character moments that are interesting or well-developed. Captain Kirk celebrates a quiet birthday with Bones and his sense of disillusionment reflects a poor redirection of Kirk for the reboot universe. Kirk was excited about the idea of a five year mission at the climax of Star Trek Into Darkness, but at the outset of Star Trek Beyond, he is bored and listless. And, given that he begins with a fairly exciting mission of his own, his discontent in the subsequent scene feels terribly forced.

In a similar fashion, Spock's character seems like a mess. In the Prime Star Trek Universe, it took Spock until Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (reviewed here!) for him to become well-rounded and believe that logic was only the beginning and that emotion could be useful to him. While the destruction of Vulcan and the death of Amanda obviously redirected Spock's life, that he would cry out in pain and cry openly are horribly out of character, as opposed to feeling like actual character development.

As for the villain, Star Trek Beyond has one of the least-inspired adversaries in the form of Krall. Krall is given a backstory, long after viewers have stopped caring and an explanation for his actions that is not entirely sensible in the way it is constructed and presented. More than that, Krall becomes a terrible excuse for Star Trek Beyond to devolve into the familiar format of a "kill the villain" story that viewers have seen far, far, too many times before. In fact, at a key moment at the climax of the film, it appears like Star Trek Beyond might defy that paradigm and offer the villain a chance at redemption, but it fails to pay that off in a satisfying way.

Director Justin Lin prioritizes action and flash over any real substance in Star Trek Beyond and the extended scene of the destruction of the Enterprise is a perfect example of that. For someone who claims to love the Star Trek franchise, Star Trek Beyond falls short on some essential concepts, not the least of which is that it is hard to see how the story would have occurred in the Prime Star Trek Universe. The events of Star Trek (the reboot film) essentially made the reboot universe smaller; starships were decimated, the Klingon Empire was virtually obliterated (losing 47 ships to Nero's vessel is a profound blow!) and Kirk's five-year mission seems like it would be beginning far earlier than it did in the Prime Universe (which makes sense given that in the Prime Universe, Spock had more than a decade serving under Pike on the Enterprise). So, the nebula in Star Trek Beyond seems like it would have been well within the sphere of potential exploration of the Federation in the original Star Trek . . . and the backstory for Krall would have existed within the Prime Universe. My point in this is that the "wholly original" story set in the Star Trek multiverse creates troubling questions for sensibility of how it could fit. In the Prime Universe, did the Federation just never stumble upon Krall in the nebula? Krall never destroyed the Enterprise in the Prime Universe, so are we to believe that within the core of the Federation planets, there exists this massive, baited, time bomb that never went off? That is a bit hard to swallow for die-hard Trekkers.

Ultimately, Star Trek Beyond is not all that fans might have feared when it was announced that the director was best known for his work in the Fast & Furious franchise. Justin Lin directs an action film, but assuming that Lin directed the script that was handed to him, he is hard to lay all the blame upon. Pegg might have beefed up his own part in the film, but one suspects there will come a time when the other writers reveal what they had created and it is hard to believe that it would not have had a more authentic Trek feel than the product that was delivered.

For other works with Idris Elba, please visit my reviews of:
The Avengers: Age Of Ultron
Thor: The Dark World
Pacific Rim
Prometheus
Ghost Rider: Spirit Of Vengeance
Thor
28 Weeks Later

4.5/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2016 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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If The Avengers Were Made As A Science Fiction Comedy: Guardians Of The Galaxy!

The Good: Good humor, Decent soundtrack, Good plot development
The Bad: Rather obvious (and rushed) character development, Nothing exceptional in terms of performances, Distracting 3-D in several points
The Basics: Guardians Of The Galaxy further expands the Marvel Cinematic Universe while amusing viewers . . . without resonating the same way as the prior installments.


Guardians Of The Galaxy has a number of reasonable comparisons to the giant Marvel film The Avengers (reviewed here!), not just because both are set within the same storytelling universe. The Marvel Cinematic Universe was established in Phase One (reviewed here!) as a surprisingly grounded place: Tony Stark needed time to train within his suit of armor, Steve Rogers was a unique warrior set in place as the only stopgap against an army powered by an extraterrestrial device and for the bulk of his time on Earth, Thor was without his godlike powers. For all of the supernatural and comic book conceits that exist in science fiction and comic book movies, the Marvel Cinematic Universe did not employ most of them (save in the Hulk movies, which is arguably why they failed). In other words, most of the Marvel Cinematic Universe strove to generally recreate the real world and then add slight twists to it and explore how “real people” and the “real world” would react to those twists.

Until the climax of The Avengers, when an interstellar alien force invades, and outside the climactic event of Thor: The Dark World (reviewed here!), the Marvel Cinematic Universe has worked hard to keep a realist sensibility to itself. Taking an entirely different tact is the new addition to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, Guardians Of The Galaxy. Guardians Of The Galaxy, as the name implies, is set (mostly) in the farthest reaches of the galaxy (where a sizable population still looks mostly human) and explores the larger consequences of the artifacts that the other films in the Marvel Cinematic Universe have been introducing. Those artifacts, like the Tesseract and the seed in the Thor sequel, are given an explicit name in Guardians Of The Galaxy: they are Infinity Stones (which Marvel geeks knew years ago). Guardians Of The Galaxy introduces another one and reveals what their purpose is . . . along with the motivation Thanos had for hunting the Tesseract in The Avengers. More than just in its outlandish setting, Guardians Of The Galaxy transforms the Marvel Cinematic Universe into a much less grounded place. Guardians Of The Galaxy feels like exactly what it is: a film based on a comic book.

That is not to say Guardians Of The Galaxy is not good. It is. Guardians Of The Galaxy is a fun and funny science fiction comedy, continuing the tradition of the niche genre like Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (reviewed here!) or Men In Black (reviewed here!). Unlike the former, Guardians Of The Galaxy lacks a sense of theme and universal resonance and treads more toward entertainment than enlightenment.

Opening in 1988, Peter Quill’s mother dies and the young boy flees into the night where he is promptly abducted by aliens. Twenty-six years later, Quill is scavenging on a dead world where he recovers an orb from the ruins. Moments after he gets the item he was sent for, he squares off against Korath and his forces. Evading them and retreating to his ship, the Milano, Quill decides to betray his employer and sell the recovered Orb on his own. While Quill heads to Xandar to sell the Orb, the villainous alien Ronan dispatches Gamora (who volunteers) to recover it. When the potential buyer for the Orb freaks out – after learning Ronan is after the artifact – Quill is attacked by Gamora, a sentient genetically-modified, cybernetically enhanced raccoon named Rocket and his humanoid plant companion Groot, and the Nova police force.

The quartet is imprisoned on a remote world, the Kyln, where virtually everyone wants to kill Gamora, especially Drax The Destroyer. Quill manages to save Gamora’s life and refocuses Drax on finding and killing Ronin. The quintet stages an incredible escape from the Kyln by working together, with the four aliens actually waiting for Quill when he goes back for his prized mix tape. Hunted by Ronan, Quill’s regular employer Yondu Udonta and the police force from Nova, Quill and his compatriots become determined to keep the Orb from falling into the hands of Ronan and Thanos when Ronan reveals that the Orb contains an Infinity Stone with virtually unlimited power to destroy. Working together, Quill, Gamora, Drax, Rocket and Groot must protect the citizens of Xandar from the genocidal plans of Ronan and Thanos.

In many ways, Guardians Of The Galaxy is a very typical science fiction film. In fact, its reliance upon humor makes it fun, but also as formulaic as virtually every comedy to grace the big screen . . . ever. Guardians Of The Galaxy transforms the Marvel Cinematic Universe simply by realigning the physics of the galaxy to allow virtually every comic book conceit as opposed to conforming to realistic physics. That makes the fight scenes in Guardians Of The Galaxy extraordinarily dynamic and animated, especially when Groot and Rocket are involved. They hop around without clear boundaries on their abilities (Groot, for example, is entirely inscrutable and only reveals the extent of his powers and abilities when they become relevant and necessary).

Peter Quill is a decent anti-hero; he does the right thing when it suits him, but he is a Han Solo-esque bounty hunter who also strangles small animals to use them as microphones when the mood takes him. In his quest to get respect in the galactic underground as Star Lord, Quill does not actually distinguish himself in any strong or meaningful way. Less the function of his personality or values, Quill manages to survive Guardians Of The Galaxy simply by biology. Heavily alluded to in the film’s very first scene, Peter Quill is not simply a human, but his heritage is only a minor subplot in the larger film.

Far more of a component of Guardians Of The Galaxy is establishing and then defying the premises of the universe and characters Peter Quill is a part of. In this regard, Guardians Of The Galaxy is painfully formulaic. Elements that are established in an obvious way include Groot’s limited vocabulary (he, we are told, only speaks the three words “I am Groot,” though Rocket seems able to interpret what he means by it as the film goes on), Gamora’s absolute refusal to dance, and the obviously seeded gift Quill receives from his dying mother that he has not opened over the lapsed twenty-six years. For sure, viewers need a film with character development to make any movie worth watching, but Guardians Of The Galaxy is like watching a checklist of the elements that are used to establish the characters getting checked off. Virtually everything established about a character, up to and including Drax’s lifelong struggle with metaphor, is defied by the film’s end. Guardians Of The Galaxy is obviously intended to build a franchise, but the way the film ends, there is almost nowhere to go for the characters that will not force the writers to completely redefine them. This would be analogous to Bruce Banner learning to control his ability to transform in Hulk (such an ability would have left the character with nothing compelling for The Incredible Hulk or The Avengers). So, in some ways, Guardians Of The Galaxy undoes its own attempt to build a franchise by making a solid (if formulaic) story.

In a similar fashion, Guardians Of The Galaxy is nothing extraordinary on the acting front. John C. Reilly is (mostly) goofy as the Nova Police Officer Dey and Glenn Close is appropriately authoritative as Nova Prime, the leader of Xandar. Djimon Hounsou plays the villainous Korath with virtually the same presence that he has played many other adversaries over the years. The film’s lead, Chris Pratt, plays Quill as an everyman and he does so with a similarly goofy quality (but without the slouch) to his character from Parks And Recreation. Even Zoe Saldana (who plays Gamora) is used in such a familiar way that director James Gunn doesn’t even bother hiding the allusion to her playing Uhura by throwing her in a miniskirt at the movie’s end.

Guardians Of The Galaxy is charming and worth watching, but it is hardly a great and enduring film the way some other, recent super hero films have managed to be.

For other works in the Marvel Cinematic Universe, please check out my reviews of:
Ant-Man
Captain America: Civil War
Doctor Strange
Iron Fist - Season 1
"What If . . . " - Agents Of S.H.I.E.L.D.

7/10

For other movie reviews, please check out my Film Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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Exactly As Droll As One Might Suspect: Maxim: The Hot 100 Disappoints

The Good: Decent photography, Good interviews
The Bad: Stupid concept, Addy, Lowbrow writing
The Basics: Maxim: The Hot 100 lives down to what one might expect of the annual magazine issue, though I was pleasantly surprised by the interviews!


One of the animated sitcoms - Family Guy, American Dad or The Simpsons has a line about Maxim that was utterly hilarious; something about their “Most Rape-able Celebrities” list. My wife recently gave me a gift subscription to Maxim, ostensibly for review and when Maxim: The Hot 100 (the annual special issue) arrived, I found myself trying to remember the joke from television about the publication. Maxim: The Hot 100 might not be quite the sinister issue that the joke insinuates, but it is pretty damn close.

Comprised of photos and a blurb for the 100 women that Maxim has decided (apparently through votes somehow) are the most desirable in the world, Maxim: The Hot 100 is like a catalog for shopping for unobtainable women. In addition to being a preposterous exercise (ranking women on their “hot” factor, as if there were a universal standard for the subjective emotion of desire), Maxim: The Hot 100 undermines itself far too frequently to be at all useful or even engaging. It’s not just some form of weird sour grapes that I write that; - favorites of mine like Anne Hathaway and Ellen Page did not make the list, but Bar Paly and Candice Swanepoel did(?!) – but any list where Katy Perry is ranked as more desirable than Sophia Vergara or Avril Lavigne ranks 44 and Anna Paquin is 78 seems skewed toward the absurd.

In addition to having a purpose that is ridiculous – are Maxim readers so stupid that they need to be told whom to be attracted to?! – and somewhat inscrutable (what are the readers supposed to do, exactly, with this information?), the Maxim: The Hot 100 special issue seems remarkably lowbrow in terms of the writing. Take, for example, the listing for Gal Gadot (who made #84 on the list) on page 13 of this year’s Maxim: The Hot 100. The blurb for Gadot reads, “Hollywood’s newest Wonder Woman is a total badass. She not only owns a motorcycle but also served two years in the Israeli army” (13). Gal Gadot is Israeli. You know who else served two years in the Israeli army? Every other Israeli citizen; it’s mandatory. Does that make her more of a badass than #39, Gina Carano, who was a MMA-brawler? Probably not. My point is that virtually none of the blurbs say anything useful, interesting or insightful about their subjects.

What keeps Maxim: The Hot 100 from the most dismal of ratings, then? First off, the photography. Most of the photos are incredibly good, exactly what one might hope for from a celebrity spankbook with a ridiculously low cover price of $3.99. The price of the magazine might make one think that it was not going to be a glossy, good-looking magazine, but apparently advertiser dollars subsidize the magazine enough that the special issue needs not charge an arm and a leg. Maxim: The Hot 100 features photographically solid pictures; in terms of color, contrast, and composition, the photographers utilized in Maxim: The Hot 100 clearly know what they are doing. In fact, because the photographers seem able and their subjects are undeniably photogenic, it is astonishing that they get some of the celebrities in remarkably unflattering looks (there’s something horrid about calling someone “hot” and smacking up a picture of them looking haggard, as at least one of the women was).

The other aspect that sells the magazine – the one that pleasantly surprised me – is the interviews. Maxim: The Hot 100 features interviews with cool celebrities (this year, it was Bryan Cranston and Nick Offerman). The questions asked of these celebrities are not the typical ones that have been asked to death and the answers are fun and informative.

Unfortunately, the two articles and a smattering of the hundreds of pictures throughout the magazine are hardly enough to justify the magazine’s existence. Several pages of the magazine are wasted debunking movie plot/effect issues (like would reversing the Earth’s direction a la Superman: The Movie turn back time). Does Maxim believe a large population of its readers are physicists who somehow slept through basic temporal mechanics? Or biology students who do not know the average size of a great white shark? Other preposterous articles focus on the latest supermodel, hot trends, and a short story about joining the mile-high club. The average length of an article in Maxim: The Hot 100 is one page, which suggests that the average reader’s attention span is ridiculously limited.

Not overflowing with impressive diction or vocabulary, Maxim: The Hot 100 is fairly ad-filled. The 120-page magazine features 22 pages of full ads (not counting the inside and back covers), along with 3 pages of partial ads and 8 pages of style articles which list all of the items in the photos, with a price (which is pretty much an advertisement to me!).

Maybe I’m not the target demographic, maybe I’m not desperately looking for unobtainable women or maybe I just don’t need a magazine to tell me what to like to have opinions. But, for those who don’t care about smart (the most common comment by women on the Maxim Hot 100 list is about their own butt; none of the quotes capture the intelligence of any of the smart women on the list), aren’t looking for a woman even close to 40 (Jennifer Lopez seems to be the most senior member of the list) and who want something more respectably portable than a hard-core magazine, Maxim: The Hot 100 is enough to entertain those who want to spend the four bucks on it.

For other magazine reviews, please visit my evaluations of:
AAA Living
Ladies’ Home Journal
Buffy The Vampire Slayer Magazine

2.5/10

For other magazine reviews, please check out my Magazine Review Index Page for an organized listing!

© 2014 W.L. Swarts. May not be reprinted without permission.
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