Star Trek Beyond Guide

Star Trek Beyond is the third film in the nuTrek movie series, following from Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness. Perhaps the most significant event in the 50th anniversary year of the Star Trek franchise, the film saw its official US release on the 22nd of July 2016. It was seen up to a couple of days earlier thanks to advance marathon screenings with the other films in the series, and releases in other territories; with Iceland, Indonesia, and the Philippines getting the first releases, on the 20th of July - See international release dates.

This page is an introduction to key information about the film, with links to more information from coverage on The Trek Collective, and details of tie-in products related to the film. See my review, here.


Story

The film is set two-and-a-half years into the Enterprise's five-year-mission, and has a thematic exploration focus, with the setting being a "strange new world" (although the actual mission of the Enterprise is a rescue). The character focus of the film is on the fatigue of the long mission, and questioning of many of the characters future plans. The official description of the film is as follows:

"Star Trek Beyond," the highly anticipated next installment in the globally popular Star Trek franchise, created by Gene Roddenberry and reintroduced by J.J. Abrams in 2009, returns with director Justin Lin (“The Fast and the Furious” franchise) at the helm of this epic voyage of the U.S.S. Enterprise and her intrepid crew. In “Beyond," the Enterprise crew explores the furthest reaches of uncharted space, where they encounter a mysterious new enemy who puts them and everything the Federation stands for to the test.

The director has spoken about a general theme of exploring contrasting philosophies of the Federation as it expands its presence into the frontier, and a counter position of an opposing force, led by the main villain. Writer Simon Pegg has coupled this with the idea that the crew are getting tired some years into the mission, commenting that "The idea of the movie, the story in the film, is that what they encounter helps to clarify what their job is".

Early in the film will the USS Enterprise is destroyed, leading to the crew being stranded and separated on the planet Altamid following a devastating attack on the Enterprise. This sees the crew split into pairs, Spock and Bones, Kirk and Chekov, Sulu and Uhura, and Scotty with a new character Jaylah. Eventually reuniting, they leave the planet on a small older ship, the USS Franklin.

The film opens with the Enterprise and crew visiting a new distant starbase, called Yorktown, a diplomatic hub for recent Federation members in the region. The crew return to the starbase aboard the Franklin.


Trailers and images

A few trailers have now been released:

• See listing of all trailers.
• First trailer screencap breakdown.
• Second trailer screencap breakdown.
• Third trailer screencap breakdown.

Stills and behind the scenes photos from the film have also been released; see them all in a gallery of all such images on Trek Collective Archives. You can also find a listing of all the clips released from the film.

Several posters have also been released, which you can also see all of in another Trek Collective Archives gallery.

Production

The new writers and director on set

The film has seen significant changes in the creative team compared to the first two installments in the series: Justin Lin (best known for his work on the Fast and Furious franchise, see article for more details) takes over from J.J. Abrams as director, working on a script by Simon Pegg (who of course plays Scotty) and Doug Jung (see another article for a summary of their previous works).

This new creative team was assembled at quite short notice, replacing the previous writing team of Roberto Orci (who co-wrote the previous films), and new-comers J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, who were preparing a script for Orci to direct. Orci continues as producer, alongside J.J. Abrams and Bryan Burk.

There were also some geographical changes in production, with most of the shoot taking place in Vancover, rather than LA, where the previous films were shot. Dubai was also a location for some parts of the film.

The film was initially announced for a July 8th release, but was pushed back a couple of weeks to allow for competing releases.


Cast

The main cast on the bridge set

The primary cast all returned as the crew the USS Enterprise. Joining the cast are Idris Elba, as the villain, Krall, Sofia Boutella as an alien called Jaylah, Shohreh Aghdashloo as Commodore Paris, Joe Taslim and Manas, and Lydia Wilson as Kalara.

Roy Deep also returned as Keenser, while some other prominent secondary Enterprise crew did not feature this time, perhaps most noticeably Carol Marcus was absent.

Sofia Boutella's Jaylah

Idris Elba as Krall

Behind-the-scenes

USS Franklin concept art

Justin Lin with some new aliens

The first glimpse behind the scenes on the production came in a tweet from the director, who post a picture of part of a new costume. Since then there have been a few media reports giving glimpses at the production:

• The Omaze fund-raising campaign tied to the production released several videos, including the cast on the Enterprise sets in the launch video, a new alien revealed in the first update video, and props shown in a follow-up campaign.
• Access Hollywood and Entertainment Tonight released some short interviews from set visits.
• Photo from first day of shooting showing aliens.
• Many of the official promo photos from the film show behind the scenes moments.
• Starships cross-sections image.
• Behind the scenes featurettes.
• Behind the scenes footage and interviews.
• Details and images of alien make-up and prosthetics.

Concept art:

• HPE technology concept art and props. 
• USS Franklin concept art.
• Starbase Yorktown concept art.
• USS Enterprise-A concept art.
• Battle shuttle and Altamid concept art.
• Prop concept art.
• Costume concept art.

Starship cross-sections

Music

Michael Giacchino, who composed the scores for both of the previous nuTrek movies,. has returned to score Star Trek Beyond's soundtrack. Several preview videos were released:

• Giacchino has posted several videos from the recordings. 
• Giacchino also posted recordings from the live premiere rehearsal.
• The record label released a behind the scenes video/preview.

Rihanna is also releasing a single, Sledgehammer, as part of the soundtrack. See the video.

Home video releases

The film will of course be released in all the current home video formats, including 4K Ulta HD, bluray, 3D bluray, DVD, and as a download. There will also be box sets of all three nuTrek movies. Several retailer exclusives are expected, including variant covers, steelbook packaging, and sets with extra collectables. (See article for first covers and more details)

The collectables so far announced include a model of the USS Franklin available via Amazon, a set of three model ships via Walmart and Amazon Germany, and a five unspecified items coming with one of the three-movie sets from Zaavi.

Sequel

Paramount have announced plans for a sequel, with Chris Hemsworth set to return as Kirk's farther, George Kirk. New contracts signed ahead of the production of Star Trek Beyond securing Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto to return as Kirk and Spock, the rest of the cast while assumed to return are not known to have such deals in place.


Promotional tie-ins

Hewlett Packard Enterprise had an advertising and product placement arrangement with the film, that saw several technologies inspired by HPE's The Machine technology appear in the film, as well as a promotional campaign, staring with a TV advert, and continuing with videos looking at their prop designs.

Enterprise Rent-a-Car also had tie-ins, including an amusing TV advert.

Rocket Mortgage had a service of TV adverts, featuring a new Vulcan character called Savek, extolling the virtues of signing up to a mortgage using the company's app.

In Malaysia, Min Kaffe launched a promotional coffee variety, called Beyond Coffee.

Star Trek Beyond cups and other food and drink vessels were available at cinemas. Including a series of cup-topper models of ships from the film.

Books

Titan Books will be publishing a behind-the-scenes book called  Star Trek Beyond - The Collector's Edition.

There will be two Star Trek Beyond calendars, one from US publisher Universe, and one from Heye in the Germany.

Boldly Go #1

IDW have announced a new ongoing Star Trek comic series, Boldly Go, which will continue the adventures of the crew following the events of Star Trek Beyond.

With the previous films IDW released prequel miniseries, leading up to the events of the films (Countdown, and Countdown to Darkness), but no such series was released before Star Trek Beyond. After release, the other films in the series also got subsequent series picking up on backstory (Nero and Khan), there have been no announcements about a similar series related to Star Trek Beyond so far either.

All the previous Star Trek films have also had prose novelizations, with both the previous nuTrek movies being adapted by Alan Dean Foster. However, according to Cross Cult, who publish German translations of Star Trek books, they have removed the Star Trek Beyond novelisation from their scheduling, after being informed no such book would be produced.

Costume and prop reproductions

The film introduces a number of new costumes and props, many of which will be recreated as replicas by Anovos. The first product in their Star Trek Beyond released was a Starfleet mission patch. They have also announced a kit of the new type 1B phaser, as well as uniform tunics and dresses, and the survival jacket.

More everyday costume reproductions are also available from Rubies who offer the uniform tunics and dress in both adult and childrens sizes.

Toys and models

Funko have released a range of Pop! vinyl figures representing all the main characters from the film.

Moebius Models will be launching a range of nuTrek model kits in 2017, including the Beyond version of the Enterprise, and the USS Franklin.

QMx will be releasing a large and detailed model of the USS Franklin, and have also announced a 1:6 scale Captain Kirk action figure. (See further images and details)

Eaglemoss have indicated they will be producing models of ships from the film, as part of Star Trek: The Official Starships Collection, indeed they have no less than three designs on the cards already, which they hope to release as larger special issues, close to the release of the film. Any ships produced would also have an accompanying magazine exploring the design of the ship.