Yes, it was sad to see Anton Yelchin after his untimely death in June. The world has been deprived of a great talent who had a promising career ahead of him. But his work as Chekov, especially in this film, will live on.
So let’s go beyond, where no SPOILERS have gone before!
Like Star Trek Into Darkness, we open with one of the Enterprise’s missions. Captain James “Jim” Kirk (Chris Pine) is serving as an emissary from one planet to another, trying to broker peace. He presents a gift from one civilization but the aliens he’s talking to twist everything he says into an insult, justifying their no doubt already made ahead of time decision to not accept an alliance. They start to attack Kirk, revealing the creatures to be only about a foot tall. Kirk is overwhelmed, though, and demands that Montgomery “Scotty” Scott (Simon Pegg) beam him out.
Back aboard the Enterprise, Kirk has Spock (Zachary Quinto) put the peace offering away while he files a log. In it, Kirk says that everything is running smoothly and his team works well together. But he’s growing tired and bored as he feels he’s fallen into a rut. Kirk is questioning who he is, confessing this to Leonard “Bones” McCoy (Karl Urban) as the two celebrate Kirk’s birthday. Bones tells Kirk he needs a change of pace and suggests their upcoming stop at the Yorktown Star Base will be helpful with that.
They arrive and began some R+R. Hikaru Sulu (John Cho) is reunited with his husband and daughter in a sweet scene that had drawn some controversy when original Sulu George Takei spoke out against making Sulu gay in the alternate universe. But it was handled matter-of-factly—Sulu is married and has a daughter. It’s just that he’s married to a man.
Nyota Uhura (Zoe Saldana) and Spock have also broken up. Bones tries to find out the reason but Spock isn’t telling much. Once the doctor leaves, two Vulcans approach Spock and ask to speak with him. They reveal that Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy) has died and give his alternate self his possessions. Spock thanks them and faces his own mortality.
Meanwhile, Greg Grunberg shows up in Yorktown’s surveillance center. They pick up a strange ship and pick it up. Its lone occupant is given a translation device and she reveals she is Kalara (Lydia Wilson). She explains that she was leading a crew to explore a nearby nebula when their ship was disabled. Her crew is trapped on a planet and she needs help to save them.
Of course, the Enterprise is the only ship with the technology to explore the nebula so Kirk has to cut his crew’s R+R short. Before he leaves, Commodore Parris (Shohreh Aghdashloo) asks him about the application he submitted to be Vice Admiral of Yorktown. He recommends Spock to replace him as captain of the Enterprise and explains that he’s looking for a change from the vastness of space. The commodore seems to understand and says she’ll discuss it with Starfleet Command.
Kirk and Spock board the Enterprise at the same time. Both start to say something before stopping. Kirk offers to let Spock speak first but Spock defers to him. He asks Spock if they can have a conversation when the mission is over as there is something important he wants to tell him. Spock agrees, saying he has something to tell Kirk as well. They arrive on the bridge and prepare for the mission.
Kalara leads them to the area of the nebula where her crew encountered their problems. Uhura picks up strange transmissions but hailing them doesn’t work. The crew spots the strange ships coming toward them and prepares to fight. However, they are no match for the ships and strange aliens end up boarding the ship. It turns out they are after the artifact the tiny aliens didn’t want in the beginning and Kirk knows he needs to keep it from them. He asks for Ensign Syl (Melissa Roxburgh)’s help as they try to keep the Enterprise from being destroyed.
The crew of the Enterprise meets the antagonist for this movie, Krall (Idris Elba), and he orders the destruction of the ship. Kirk has no choice but to order abandon ship. With heavy hearts, the surviving crew members head for their escape pods.
Scotty had been working on giving the Enterprise more power and so was forced to improvise, escaping in a rocket shell. Spock and McCoy end up hijacking one of the alien ships, using it to get away from the Enterprise. Uhura locks herself in with Krall to give Kirk a chance to escape. And Sulu as well as Pavel Chekov (Anton Yelchin) held the bridge until Kirk could come back. The three, along with Kalara, escape and Kirk watches his beloved ship crash on the planet’s surface.
Everyone ends up split up after this. Sulu and Uhura end up prisoners with the rest of the crew, caught at the mercy of Krall. He, though, takes a particular interest in Uhura and she tells him that their captain will come for them. It seems Krall wants that to happen. He wants a lot to happen, including Uhura and Sulu trying to get a message to Starfleet for assistance. They also learn that Krall has a way of staying alive by draining life forces from his prisoners and they watch two crewmates die in horror.
Scotty gets out of his torpedo and is dismayed to learn his communicator was broken in the crash. He is then set upon by scavengers and rescued by another alien, Jaylah (Sofia Boutella). She takes an interest in him when she learns he is an engineer and brings him with her so he can fix her house. Seeing no other option, Scotty goes with her.
Meanwhile, McCoy and Spock make it to the surface of the planet but Spock is injured in the process. McCoy is forced to improvise and pulls a piece of metal from Spock’s side. They then try to find the others or at least shelter, bickering all the while.
Kirk gets out of his pod and is reunited with Chekov and Kalara. They decide to try to get to the Enterprise to see what they can salvage, including the artifact the enemy wanted. Kalara seems very interested in it, saying that she needs it so she can get her crew back. Kirk suspected she knew more than she was saying but in the end, she was in on it the entire time. Kalara was one of Krall’s minions. Kirk and Chekov manage to outsmart her and get away.
Jaylah takes Scotty back to her home, which is a destroyed Starfleet vessel known as the USS Franklin. Scotty recognizes it and knows that it was supposedly lost years ago. Jaylah explains she found it and has been using it as her home. It’s why she knows English—she learned it off the ship’s logs. But it needs some repairs and Scotty is just the person to make them. She puts on the music she found—heavy metal—and they get to work.
When one of her traps gets triggered, she and Scotty go to investigate. They find Kirk and Chekov out there and Scotty convinces Jaylah to take them in. Both are amazed to see the USS Franklin and Kirk asks Scotty if he can get the transporter on the ship operational. Scotty isn’t too sure but promises to try.
Out in the strange wilderness, McCoy and Spock have found shelter. Spock tells McCoy that Ambassador Spock died and he conveys his condolences. Spock then continues to explain that he broke up with Uhura because he feels its his duty to help repopulate the Vulcan race and to take up the work Ambassador Spock was doing. McCoy realizes it means Spock will be leaving Starfleet and asks if he’s told Jim yet. Spock plans on doing it after the mission. You know. If they survive.
When they are set upon by scavengers, they realize they may not survive. Spock and McCoy prepare to go down swinging and McCoy is even nice to Spock…until he turns around to find him gone. He starts cursing his crewmate out as he’s teleported to the USS Franklin. Scotty apologizes for not teleporting both out together but he wasn’t too confident in the old technology. McCoy is happy to see Scotty, Kirk and Chekov but he asks Jaylah for medical equipment so he can patch Spock up properly.
Once Spock is all patched up, they focus on getting their friends back from Krall’s ship. Scotty says it’s hard to pick up on the crew’s sensors so Spock suggests they just track Uhura. He reveals that he gave her a necklace that had belonged to his mother and that it contained a stone from Vulcan that emits low level radiation. Spock believes that if they focus on that unique signature, they’ll find Uhura and the crew. McCoy is like “You gave your girlfriend a tracking device” and Spock is like “I gave her a necklace. It’s just serving another purpose right now.”
Scotty is able to isolate that particular radiation signature and they figure out where the crew is. Kirk works with them to come up with a plan to rescue the others. They are going to need Jaylah’s help though, but she’s not willing to offer it. Her family had once been imprisoned by Krall and when they attempted an escape, her father had died. She was the only one who made it. But Kirk pleads with her and she finally gives in.
Meanwhile, Krall attacks Sulu and nearly kills him as Uhura pleads with him to stop. Ensign Syl caves and reveals that Kirk asked her to hide the artifact in a secret compartment in the back of her head. Krall takes it and then orders the Ensign and Uhura to follow him. Ensign Syl ends up trapped in a chamber and Krall reveals the artifact is part of a weapon that can destroy everything. It’s like red matter from the first movie.
Horrified, Uhura realizes that Krall wants to use it on the rest of Starfleet. He tells her that the Federation’s policy of unity and peace is pathetic and that war and conflict are what really fuel people. Krall wants to return that chaos to the universe.
Kirk leads everyone in the raid on Krall’s compound, using Jaylah’s motorcycle and her bag of tricks to serve as a distraction. Spock finds Uhura and they rescue the others, bring them to the area that will serve as the transport point. Scotty has expanded the Franklin’s capacities so he can beam out twenty people at a clip.
Jaylah runs into the minion that had killed her father and fights him, finally getting her revenge. Before that, though, he told her that the Starfleet officers would never consider her one of their own. But Kirk proves him wrong when he makes sure to rescue Jaylah before Scotty beams him out.
While Kirk was rescuing his crew, Krall was taking his to the skies and beyond. They determine he’s heading to the Yorktown and decide to give chase. However, the Enterprise is down and they are unsure if they can get the Franklin back up. Sulu comes up with a plan and plunges the ship down over the edge of a cliff. When they reach terminal velocity, Sulu is able to get the ship up and on its way back to the stars.
Krall and his army reaches Yorktown and begins attacking it. Everyone on it starts running for the shelters while the Starfleet personnel try to figure out how to stop the onslaught. Kirk and his crew do the same onboard the Franklin, eventually coming to the conclusion that Krall’s drones work on a hive mentality. Spock suggests letting him take over one so he can through them off from the inside. Kirk is hesitant due to Spock’s injury, so he suggests McCoy go with him.
McCoy is not happy about that.
As Spock and McCoy fight the horde from inside its ranks, Kirk works with the Yorktown to figure out a way to stop the assault faster. The team decides that they need to use a frequency different from the horde’s in order to confuse them. Jaylah rigs up her stereo to broadcast at the right frequency and then picks “Sabotage” to blast.
It works and the drones start to explode around Spock and McCoy. Kirk broadcasts the frequency to Yorktown, who starts to blare “Sabotage” as well. However, Krall manages to get in and the Enterprise crew continues to pursue him.
They go through the Franklin once they are inside the Yorktown and Uhura discovers something in the records. She realizes the former captain of the ship is Krall. That they had crash landed on the planet and lost communication with Starfleet. He discovered the secret to prolonging his life, but absorbing all the life forces from other creatures altered his DNA. He is disenfranchised with Starfleet, believing they just abandoned him and his crew.
Kirk chases after Krall, who now looks more like Idris Elba. They realize he’s going to try to use the Yorktown ventilation system to release the weapon but Scotty won’t be able to shut it down in time. So Kirk has to fight Krall, who reveals he heard Kirk’s existential crisis. But Kirk now has himself figured out and he manages to defeat Krall, making him a victim of his own weapon. Spock and McCoy rescue Kirk before he is pulled out into space and return him to safety.
After the mission, Commodore Parris is able to close the files on the missing Franklin crew members. She then says that Kirk can have the Vice Admiral position. He, though, decides that he’s not done flying and chooses to stay the captain of the Enterprise. She understands and supports his decision.
Spock goes through Ambassador Spock’s things. He finds a picture, showing the original Star Wars crew. Spock realizes that his friends were important to his other self and they are important to him. So he decides to stay in Starfleet.
McCoy and Kirk met up with the others for what turns out to be a surprise birthday party for Kirk. They toast each other and realize they don’t want to be anywhere but with each other. Kirk then reveals to Jaylah that she’s been accepted into Starfleet Academy and she is overjoyed.
The crew gathers together and watches as a crew build the new Enterprise for them. Everything speeds up until the ship is ready for them to resume their five year mission and the movie ends with the entire cast speaking these famous words:
Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her continuing mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no one has gone before.Final verdict? I think this might be the best movie of the trilogy. Each character was given significant screen time and the team felt like a team, not Kirk and Spock with cameo appearances by everyone else. This movie even remembered that McCoy and Spock were friends of sorts.
There was also a good mix of action-adventure, sci fi, romance and comedy. Simon Pegg co-wrote the script, which I think was a good choice. He clearly knows Star Trek and is a master at his craft. Bravo, sir.
A fourth movie has been announced and Chris Hemsworth will be returning as George Kirk. I’ll be interested to see how they work that in.
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