star trek beyond old ship

11 things we learned from 'Star Trek Beyond'

It's more Trek than it looks, and it's all about Brexit. Here's what we learned from the new Star Trek movie. Spoilers on the starboard bow, captain!

"Star Trek Beyond" is a joyful, fast-paced romp , so let's open hailing frequencies and add to the captain's log 11 of our favourite things about the latest adventure of the Starship Enterprise.

Sensors detect heavy spoilers, so shields up!

The reboot has caught up with the original series

The rebooted movies took us back to before the crew of the Enterprise were the crew we know, introducing a young and reckless James T Kirk and a Spock still struggling to deal with his emotions. But now, in "Beyond", the crew is part-way through their five-year mission, which is where we met them in the original show. In a sense, the saga has come full circle.

It's not based on "Star Trek III" (but it sort of is)

Although the second reboot "Star Trek into Darkness" reworked the second original movie "Wrath of Khan", the creators of "Beyond" decided to come up with a totally new story for the third reboot. But there's at least one big parallel: "Beyond" features the destruction of the Enterprise, as does "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock".

There's another very nerdy reference too. In "Beyond", Yorktown is the name of a starbase, but in old-Trek the name was used for a starship. At the end of "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" the starship Yorktown was rechristened the Enterprise-A -- like the end of "Beyond", in which a ship built at Yorktown is christened Enterprise-A.

The writers might be "Enterprise" fans

Speaking of nerdy nods, among the fan-pleasing references to old school canon are mentions of the Xindi race and MACO troops, the marines of early Starfleet. These featured heavily in the much-maligned prequel series "Enterprise".

Upside-down camera is the new lens flare

Justin Lin loves to spin his camera round, doesn't he?

Star... Trek... Beyoooond!

Dunno why they used the Beastie Boys when this was the obvious choice...

That's 1979 hit "One Step Beyond" by British ska-pop group Madness, by the way -- good luck getting that out of your head.

On a related note, the musical interlude may have fans rolling their eyes, but the manoeuvre is approved by everybody's Time Lord. In the 1988 "Doctor Who" story "Silver Nemesis", the Doctor confounded the villainous Cybermen by playing a jazz cassette to block their communications.

You'd never guess who wrote it

Scotty, played by Simon Pegg, plays a big part in proceedings, including plenty of funny lines and even the odd action beat. And guess who wrote it? Why, Simon Pegg!

Pegg co-wrote the script with Doug Jung, who's not to be left out: he appears as Sulu's husband on the Yorktown.

Uhura, Sulu and the crew of the Enterprise get lots of cool stuff to do in the fast-paced "Beyond".

That said, everyone got a say

Before they began writing, Pegg and Jung emailed the actors to ask what they wanted to do. And to be fair, all the crewmembers get a cool moment or two, which is more than could be said of the "Next Generation" movies.

Jaylah is meant to be Jennifer Lawrence (but she's more like Rey)

Pegg and Jung conceived of this new character as being like Jennifer Lawrence's character in the film "Winter's Bone", so they began referring to her as "J-Law" (Lawrence's nickname)...which ended up as Jaylah .

But when you think about it, Jaylah is a scavenger living in a wrecked spaceship, playing with the artefacts of the past and fighting with a staff. That sounds less like Jennifer Lawrence and more like Rey from " Star Wars: The Force Awakens ".

More 'Star Trek Beyond'

• 'Star Trek Beyond' boldly brings the fun back to Trek (spoiler-free review)
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Amazon Prime directive

Danny Pudi of "Community", Shea Whigham from "Boardwalk Empire" and Greg Grunberg from "Lost" and "The Force Awakens" appear, although they're mostly unrecognisable under layers of makeup. Oh, and who's the last name on the cast list, playing "Starfleet Official"? It's only the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos. We're hoping that means Amazon Prime deliveries by transporter are just round the corner.

It's all about Brexit

Bad guy Krall is all about division. He refuses to co-exist with the people he once fought against, and his goal is to smash apart the United Federation of Planets. Our heroes meanwhile fight to convince him that unity, tolerance and friendship are the way forward.

Krall's bitter urge to break apart a federation of former enemies who have become allies is relevant in a world in which the population of Britain recently voted to leave the alliance of the European Union, a move dubbed " Brexit ".

I guess you could say Krall wants a Trekxit.

It's actually more Trek than it looks

The original Enterprise crew in action.

The planet turns out to have a connection to Earth's past, and the baddie is a Starfleet officer gone loopy (like Gary Mitchell or Matt Decker). There's even a message about how we're better off joining together and helping each other out. Heck, all that's missing is a supercomputer that thinks it's a god.

Even if the action divides fans, "Beyond's" love for classic Trek is obvious. That's fitting seeing as the film is released just shy of Star Trek's 50th anniversary. With all six original shows on Netflix and a new series on the way , it's never been a better time to be a Star Trek fan. And now the saga has come full circle, who knows where it will (boldly) go from here.

‘Star Trek Beyond’'s New Ship Revelation Connects to Hardcore ‘Trek' Continuity

That little ship that's not the Enterprise? It's got a name and a history!

This post has been updated

By now, it’s fairly common knowledge that the beloved Starship Enterprise is going to be destroyed at some point in the newest Star Trek movie, Star Trek Beyond. But what’s been intriguing fans is the presence of another Star Fleet ship in the trailers. Which ship is it? What’s it called? How does it figure into the plot of the new movie – and the overall continuity of Star Trek?

Popular Mechanics revealed slick new cutaway images of the various fictional starships from Star Trek Beyond. This includes the evil Krall Swarm Ship, the Enterprise, and a smaller Star Fleet ship, called the U.S.S. Franklin.

In two of the trailers , we’ve seen Captain Kirk and crew on what looks to be the bridge of a smaller starship. This spread confirms that ship is indeed the U.S.S Franklin, which we’re told here was an early prototype ship and one of the first Starfleet ships to ever reach Warp 4. This detail is relevant.

Because Trek fans love figuring out fictional timeline stuff more than maybe any fandom, the name of this ship actually popped up back in Janauary on TrekCore.com , but this new Warp 4 detail places the ship in a very specific part of Star Trek’s chronology. This ship slightly predates the events of the TV show Enterprise, nearly everyone’s least favorite version of Star Trek.

The cast of 'Enterprise' (2001-2005) with their Enterprise 

Set nearly a century before the original series, Enterprise starred Scott Bakula as Johnathan Archer, the Captain of the first Star Fleet ship to have the ability to go past Warp 5. Archer was even vaguely referenced in the 2009 Star Trek reboot when Scotty (Simon Pegg) mentions he accidentally beamed “Admiral Archer’s prized beagle” to an unknown location. Prior to this little tidbit, many fans had speculated this secret second ship (which we now know as the Franklin) was the same make as the NX-01 version of the Enterprise from the show Enterprise. But, if this ship could only get up to Warp 4, that means it’s from before that show.

In the movie itself however, the dialogue suggests that the U.S.S. Franklin was given to Captain Edison(Idris Elba) to command after the formation of the Federation, and after the war with the Xindi. If the Franklin only went Warp 4, that makes it less advanced than the NX-01 Enterprise which could go Warp 5. So why was it cruising around after the events of the show Enterprise ? Many fans have pointed out this seems to be a mistake, that the Franklin should have been depicted as being a Warp 6 ship, and not a Warp 4 ship. However, there’s one easy explanation: it is an older ship than the NX-01 Enterprise, and it was in service before , just not under Captain Edison’s command. By the time the ship is given to Edison to command, it’s a “Federation” ship. This explains why their uniforms are all slightly different than on TV show Enterprise. See, problem solved!

'Star Trek Beyond's new ship, the U.S.S. Franklin. (revealed by TrekCore)

To put it in perspective, this revelation is to Star Trek what the recent Forest Whitaker character revelation was to Star Wars. Meaning, it’s really only relevant for the totally devout.

What does it mean for the plot of the film? Not a lot. But if you’re anything like me or if you see the movie with a hardcore Star Trek fan, they might give some knowing nods and sighs connected with some kind of inside joke about this new little ship.

Star Trek Beyond is in theatres now.

See the New USS Enterprise in Mind-Blowing Detail

The USS Enterprise is getting an upgrade for Star Trek Beyond , out July 22.

The newest voyage to the final frontier, Star Trek Beyond, comes to theaters on July 22. In addition to the Enterprise , which will have new escape pods inspired by the destruction of the USS Kelvin in the 2009 movie,  Beyond will feature two other vessels: tiny swarm ships flown by the enemy Krall and the USS Franklin , an early prototype ship that was the first to reach Warp 4. 

Check out the graphic of the USS Enterprise in all its glory by clicking the image below. Once there, you can double-click to zoom in for extra detail:

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Here's What We Can Piece Together About the Plot of Star Trek Beyond From the Trailer

The Star Trek Beyond trailer is full of beam-outs, fight scenes and explosions. But what does it mean? We went through it frame by frame, trying to figure out just what kind of mess Kirk and the rest of the Enterprise crew have gotten themselves into. Here’s our detailed gif-and-screencap breakdown!

Warning: Spoilers in the form of guesswork follow.

Appropriately, since he wrote the script for this one, the trailer starts with Scotty investigating where the sound of the Beastie Boy’s “Sabotage” is coming from. Because we’re already giving shout outs to the first of these reboot movies.

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Also, this looks like our cast is trying to get a ship off the ground—and it’s an old vessel that’s been crashed for a long time, not our shiny Enterprise. See how old and beat up things look?

Also, there are readouts about the topology and status of the planet on the ship’s screens.

And we get our hero shots: Scotty, Kirk, Sulu, Uhura, Chekov, and Spock are all on this junker.

“It’s a good choice,” says Kirk, who trashed his stepfather’s car to this song.

Lots of different jacket choices at play here.

And why are they trying to get this ship working? Well, a swarm of bombs/ships/somethings have taken out the Enterprise.

It’s shredded, and Kirk can see that as he takes an escape pod away and down to the planet below.

“We’ve got no ship. No crew. How are we going to get out of this one?” Kirk asks.

There’s some fiery devastation here, that doesn’t quite jibe with the way the planet the crew has landed on looks in other scenes. It’s too dark for one thing. It looks like something crashed, though.

Kirk was on his own in his pod, whereas Spock (with a big old burn in his side) is with McCoy. We’re going to get some good old fashioned “McCoy hates Vulcans, and Spock in particular, but in a gentle, grumpy way” banter, I bet.

Lots of ship parts here, too. This whole planet might be a ship graveyard, where any ship that gets too close is downed.

Also alone in his pod? Scotty. We’ve also got a new voice telling us, “We will find hope in the impossible.” It’s Spock.

“At least I won’t die alone,” says Bones. And then Spock is transported away. To which Bones grumbles, “Well, that’s just typical.” Bones isn’t on the bridge of the old ship, by the way? Is this him getting separated? Or just a fun way to torture the man who hates space the most?

Kirk rides a motorbike through some sort of encampment. You know how we all do motocross in the future?

Here’s a totally new character doing a lot of what we see her do in this trailer: Fight.

“This is where it begins, Captain,” says a distorted voice. Could be Idris Elba in his still secret villain role. Looks like the same swarm that took out the Enterprise has made it to some Starfleet outpost. Possibly Earth.

More fighting.

This looks like our big bad and the white woman fighting in the encampment, while the cut to Kirk looks like it’s from back on board the Enterprise. As does the sparking hole in the wall.

This is definitely an incursion onto an Starfleet ship at red alert, with someone in yellow getting tossed around engineering. History suggests Kirk is getting his ass kicked again.

“This is where the frontier pushes back,” continues the voice. The trailer suggests the big scaly alien is the one speaking.

“I know why you’re here,” says the new character, to Scotty. Right before showing him into a dark space filled with cables. Is this the old ship that they fix up to escape? Whatever happens, she’s clearly an ally of our heroes. We’ve seen set photos of a crash set, which could be this ship or the Enterprise.

No idea who this is, but they’ve got prominent placement. It looks like the same character crawling through the flaming, dark rubble before. And the shadow? Could be a ship taking off.

The structures in the background look like the same ones that Kirk does his bike thing through. While we saw Scotty with the white woman, Kirk on his own, and Spock teleported away from Bones, we see Sulu and Uhura are with the majority of the Enterprise crew, who are being imprisoned.

There’s Keenser in the background of this shot.

This looks like the same place as the scene above, and Uhura is separated from something bad happening. Wherever the crew is being herded to, it can’t be good.

And we’re back in space, watching the Enterprise get trashed.

This looks like the end of the fight scene we saw earlier, with Kirk getting to his new ally in time for both of them to be beamed out, instead of falling to their deaths. Kirk is still wearing his motocross goggles. “Okay, let’s never do that again,” says Kirk.

Details on Star Trek Beyond are surprisingly sparse. What we can see from this trailer is that neither Romulans nor Klingons are the villains here. It definitely looks like the Enterprise goes somewhere they shouldn’t, with the ship being destroyed by the swarm of bombs or fighters or whatever they are. And it’s not the only ship to meet that fate, since the surface of the planet is littered with the scraps of old ships.

On the planet, most of the crew (Uhura and Sulu included) are captured. Scotty and Kirk end up elsewhere, and they meet up with the white alien woman, who helps them. Possibly by showing Scotty an old Federation ship which he is able to fix. Spock and Bones are on their own adventure.

The villain has some beef with the Federation’s exploration of the frontier, and this looks like how he fights back. And that’s pretty much what we’ve managed to cull from this trailer. It’s crazy how little has been leaked.

Contact the author at [email protected] .

The Ending Of Star Trek Beyond Explained

Star Trek Beyond has landed in theaters, and the crew of the USS Enterprise have endured another ordeal in space while averting yet another world-ending disaster. There aren't too many loose ends left to tie up after Beyond 's final act, but there are certainly some things that seem like they might carry over into the next Trek movie. Let's take a look at what the ending of Beyond mean for the future for Kirk and the crew—and as always, be warned that there are SPOILERS AHEAD .

The crew will pilot the new Enterprise into unknown territory

Thankfully, the Federation works quickly and gets started on building the USS Enterprise-A at the end of the film, while Kirk and the crew look on. They still have two more years in their five-year mission, so you can bet they'll get some mileage out of the new ship. And since Chris Hemsworth is set to return as Kirk's late father George, we might see some time travel or wormhole action to allow for a reunion between father and son.

Jaylah might join the crew after her Academy training

Newcomer Jaylah quickly becomes one of the more interesting characters in Beyond . Her friendship with Scotty is entertaining, and their back-and-forth interplay is fun to watch. Thanks to this friendship, Jaylah gets accepted to Starfleet Academy on Scotty's recommendation; we're not sure how long she'll train, but it's not entirely out of the question that we might ultimately see her join the crew of the Enterprise. She's a skilled fighter, which is always useful, and she kept the USS Franklin running for a while, so she can be handy with repairs. We'd say she probably has a bright future in the Federation.

Kirk and Spock will return, but the crew might change

In the real world, Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto have signed contracts to return for a fourth movie , so we can count on seeing these two again. Whether or not they'll be joined by Zoe Saldana, Simon Pegg, and John Cho remains to be seen, but we're glad we're getting at least another movie out of Trek 's rebooted odd couple.

Chekov will not return

Anton Yelchin's character, Pavel Chekov, will not return in the fourth film. Yelchin tragically passed away just a month before Star Trek Beyond 's release, and it has been reported that his character, who serves as the ship's main navigator, will not be recast . The film is dedicated to both Yelchin and Leonard Nimoy, with a message for these actors during the credits. We might see Sofia Boutella's Jaylah return and take over as the Enterprise-A 's main navigator, but we certainly won't see a different actor as Chekov.

Krall's weapon is still floating in space

It's easy to forget in all the action of the final act, but after the credits, you might want to stop and consider that Krall was jettisoned into space with his bioweapon, which tears biological material apart. The starbase Yorktown might have been spared, but shouldn't we be worried about the floating clouds of doom that are now hurtling through space? Sure, it's probably a long shot that the bioweapon will hit a populated planet, but the possibility isn't nil. They'll just have to hope that this particular baddie doesn't come back (although we're always happy to see Elba on screen).

Spock and Uhura will rekindle their romance

It might not seem like anything major, but being imprisoned on Altimad and almost dying helped Spock and Uhura get their groove back. We're going to gloss over the fact that the necklace Spock gave Uhura is a radioactive tracking device, and just say we're relieved they're back together. The warp-speed turbulence the characters have endured over the span of three movies has probably solidified their relationship, so we don't think it's out of the question for them to take it to the next step in the fourth film. Might we see Kirk officiating a wedding on the bridge of the Enterprise-A ?

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"There's no relative direction in the vastness of space," a Starfleet high mucky-muck tells  Enterprise  Captain James T. Kirk ( Chris Pine ) in "Star Trek Beyond." "There's only you." She's asking him whether he wants to give up his captain's seat for a chance at a powerful desk job on the eve of his thirtieth birthday, a year younger than his father was when he died. Her language is meant to spur Kirk to look inward, and for a moment we might hope that he will, and that the film will look inward with him. 

There's a precedent for this sort of thing. Where all of the TV incarnations of " Star Trek " were mainly about morality and philosophy, with characterization serving as a means of examining those dramatic values, most of the big-screen film versions, including the '80s and '90s versions of the flagship TV show, were mainly concerned with the heroes' personalities. The screenplays gave us detailed examinations of, say, the relationship between Kirk and his half-Vulcan first officer Mr. Spock, between Kirk and the United Federation of Planets, between Kirk and the Klingons who tormented his civilization and killed his only son, and between all the characters (Kirk especially) and the prospect of aging and death. It was more soap opera than space opera at times, but always fun to watch, sometimes moving. 

What undermines "Star Trek Beyond" is that it's ultimately not interested in taking a long look at the "you" of Kirk, Spock ( Zachary Quinto ), ship's doctor "Bones" McCoy ( Karl Urban ), communications officer Uhura ( Zoe Saldana ), and the rest of the NCC-1701 crew. Sure, it nods in that direction. Even the worst "Star Trek" stories do. But in the end it's mostly a good big-budget sci-fi action movie that's been marinated in "Star Trek" flavor packets—and thus not terribly different from the 2009 "Star Trek" reboot or its sequel, " Star Trek Into Darkness ."

"Star Trek Beyond" pits the crew of the  Enterprise  against another bellowing megalomaniac ( Idris Elba ) who wants to punish the United Federation of Planets for its perceived sins. It's the best of the new "Trek" films, but it's still an unsatisfying effort if you want "Star Trek" to be something more than a military-minded outer space action flick, with familiar, beloved characters shoehorned into a standard mix of martial arts slugfests, close-quarters firefights, and scenes of starships and cities being shredded and burned. Advance publicity hyped "Star Trek Beyond" as a return to the original series' roots as a showcase for a bunch of eccentric personalities traveling the galaxy, ingeniously solving problems, and indulging in populist philosophizing about civilization and the frontier as they went along. But that's not what we get here—not really. 

Yes, there's a promising setup (the  Enterprise  crew is held hostage by a vicious bad guy who rules a backwater planet a la Kurtz in "Heart of Darkness"). And there are suggestions of classic "Star Trek" style action-plus-characterization-plus-cleverness, and pleasing performances by a cast that has settled into each others' rhythms, as a real-world naval crew would after years of sailing together. 

But the movie never delivers on its considerable promise because it's always in such a hurry to get to the next action scene. And aside from three magnificent setpieces—the first, crippling sneak attack by a fleet of tiny ships that swarm the  Enterprise  like explosive bees, and two vertigo-inducing chase-and-fight scenes in which geography goes all M.C. Escher on us—the action is not good enough to be the film's main course. Lin, who proved in the "Fast and Furious" series that he could do great or near-great action, here substitutes wobbly camerawork, chop-chop editing and rumbling sound effects for suspense and a sense of spatial design. It's a step up from the action in J.J. Abrams' "Star Trek" movies, but that's not the sort of thing one should brag about. A climactic reprise of a certain overused Beastie Boys song might be the franchise's low point, rivaled only by the laughable credits sequence of "Star Trek V," which cut from a helicopter shot of a lean young stuntman scaling a craggy peak in the Pyrenees to a close-up of the 57-year-old star/director Shatner's meaty hand in a studio, gripping a fiberglas "rock."

Simon Pegg and Doug Jung's screenplay provides the right amount of homage (as when Kirk grumbles after an opening action scene that he ripped his shirt again), plus Spock/McCoy odd-couple banter and some marvelous, character-based laugh lines (Scotty demands that Kirk give an opinion on one of his engineering improvisations, because "if I mess it up, I don't want it to be just my fault"). There's psychological nuance, irony, even a political subtext (Elba's character, Krall, a reptilian Che Guevara-type who wants the galaxy's "frontier" to "push back" against the Federation's expansionism). Too bad none of these aspects are filled out with the detail they deserve. Krail's fire-and-brimstone sermonizing is turned to nonsense by a pointless and self-defeating third act "twist"—like we need another one of those after the boneheaded fan service of "Darkness"!—and there are points late in the film where "Star Trek Beyond" seems jolted by the sudden remembrance of things that it told us it was going to deal with but didn't. 

Uhura spends most of the movie in a prison camp. Kirk, Spock and even McCoy have human moments, but they spend too much of their screen time sprinting through hallways, firing phaser pistols, and piloting spaceships while yelling and grimacing in tight closeup, like the heroes of every other science fiction-flavored action movie projected in theaters recently. Krall and other characters allude to the Federation's fake-benevolent brand of imperialism, but unless you're familiar with examples from elsewhere in the "Star Trek" universe or got briefed by a super-fan before buying a ticket, you'll leave with no sense of whether the villains' grievances are legitimate, much less if you're supposed to feel mixed emotions at Kirk's inevitable triumph.  

Spock, whose home planet was destroyed by a renegade Romulan warlord in the first movie, suffers most from the filmmakers' preoccupation with  pew-pew-pew! a ction-adventure. For three movies now, Spock's been carrying a crushing load of survivor's guilt. The character's barely disguised Jewishness, brilliantly articulated by the late Leonard Nimoy in the original TV and movie series, is more pronounced in the new franchise: he's been turned into a holocaust survivor, part of a fragile Vulcan diaspora haunted by genocide. But the scripts seem scared of treating Spock's predicament with the seriousness it deserves, much less daring to put it at the center of a film. Here it's treated mainly as an explanation for why Spock can't seem to keep a relationship going with Uhura. The death of Leonard Nimoy is integrated into the story by having Vulcan diplomats inform Spock of the death of Ambassador Spock, an alternate-universe incarnation of the character who dispensed advice and plot points to new Spock whenever the screenwriters painted themselves into a corner. The film's method of mourning Nimoy's Spock makes the Spockus ex machina  thing worse. New Spock mourns classic Spock as if the two were dear friends who had dinner every Monday at the same Chinese restaurant.

The missteps of writing and direction are more depressing when you consider the excellence of the core cast. Quinto and Saldana give the Spock-Uhura relationship and their own spotlight moments a lot more than the film gives them. Pegg is a hoot as Scotty, colorful but never hammy, though we may justifiably raise a Spock-like eyebrow at all the times that the actor-screenwriter lets his character save the day. Pine's Kirk seems to be morphing seamlessly into Shatner's, complete with surprising pauses and intonations, but he's more credible as a strong, respected leader; watch how the actor grows more calm and friendly whenever Kirk's bridge crew is becoming more agitated. Elba is such a strong presence throughout, even near the end, that it's a shame Krall is never granted the depth and complexity that his character keeps threatening to disclose. 

At this point it's worth asking what, if anything, this franchise is good for besides generating cash for Paramount and its above-the-line talent. Everything that made the original TV series and its follow-ups, small- and big-screen, seem so open-hearted, intelligent and playful is marginalized to make room for hyperactively edited action scenes and displays of hardware and production design. These are technically state-of-the-art but ultimately not all that different from what you see in most other CGI-driven action pictures, superhero as well as sci-fi—long, loud spectacles that are filled with people fighting, blowing up cities and planets, and crashing things into other things, instead of finding some other, more surprising way to move the plot along. What's the point of giving up pleasures that the "Star Trek" franchise is good at providing, to make more room for pleasures that most big-budget science fiction and fantasy already give us, month after month and year after year? Why boldly go where everyone else is already going? 

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Star Trek Beyond (2016)

Rated PG-13 for sequences of sci-fi action and violence.

120 minutes

Chris Pine as Kirk

Zachary Quinto as Spock

Karl Urban as Bones

Zoe Saldana as Uhura

Simon Pegg as Scotty

John Cho as Sulu

Anton Yelchin as Chekov

Idris Elba as Krall

Sofia Boutella as Jaylah

Deep Roy as Keenser

Alice Eve as Dr. Carol Marcus

Writer (television series "Star Trek")

• Gene Roddenberry

Writer (uncredited)

• Roberto Orci
• Patrick McKay
• John D. Payne

Cinematographer

• Stephen F. Windon
• Greg D'Auria
• Dylan Highsmith
• Kelly Matsumoto
• Steven Sprung
• Michael Giacchino

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Back in August we saw some of the cast on the hull of some kind of vessel — one that had faint English writing printed on that hatch cover — so that too is likely the  Franklin .

Here’s a closer look at the  STAR TREK BEYOND  logo used on the poster — not expected to be used in the upcoming marketing campaign — sporting the same design last seen at September’s press conference in Dubai.

Thanks to DB Wilson for sharing his photos with us!

• concept art
• star trek beyond
• USS Franklin

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TrekCore.com is not endorsed, sponsored or affiliated with Paramount, CBS Studios, or the Star Trek franchise. All Star Trek images, trademarks and logos are owned by CBS Studios Inc. and/or Paramount. All original TrekCore.com content and the WeeklyTrek podcast (c) 2024 Trapezoid Media, LLC. · Terms & Conditions

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• Despite Star Trek: Beyond leaving room for further adventures, Star Trek 4 has yet to be released after 7 years.
• Star Trek Beyond introduced the USS Enterprise-A as the new starship for Kirk and his crew.
• The delays in creating a sequel to Star Trek Beyond may be due to pay disputes and the desire to compete with Marvel blockbusters.

Despite Star Trek: Beyond 's ending leaving the doors open for the further adventures of Chris Pine's Kelvin Timeline crew, it's now seven years after the movie's release, and Star Trek 4 is yet to surface. Star Trek Beyond , the third entry in the J.J. Abrams' produced Star Trek movies, stranded the USS Enterprise crew on the planet Altamid. Discovering an abandoned Starfleet vessel from a century earlier, it's revealed that Krall and his army are the mutated crew of the USS Franklin, and Krall has been plotting his revenge against the Federation ever since crashing on Altamid decades ago.

While Kirk and Spock are considering their futures in Star Trek Beyond , there was never any indication that this was intended to be the final Kelvin Timeline movie. Captain Kirk has lost faith in his five-year mission and has applied to become Vice Admiral of the revolutionary new starbase, the Yorktown. Meanwhile, the death of Ambassador Spock (Leonard Nimoy) has forced his younger self to consider leaving Starfleet and continuing Spock's diplomatic work on New Vulcan. By the end of Star Trek Beyond , Kirk and Spock realized they belonged aboard the USS Enterprise together and prepared to continue their five-year mission. Seven years later, audiences are yet to see that mission play out on the big screen.

Star Trek Beyond's Ending & How Kirk Beat Krall Explained

Krall had been tracking the USS Enterprise since it took possession of an ancient artifact that was the final component needed to complete the construction of the Abronath, a devastating ancient bioweapon. With the Abronath in his possession, Krall and his swarm set off for the Yorktown to wipe out its inhabitants. Giving chase in the USS Franklin, Kirk, and the crew first had to weaken Krall's swarm. Spock and Doctor Leonard "Bones" McCoy (Karl Urban) beamed aboard one of the swarm ships to throw off their formation, allowing the Franklin to destroy the ships by using "Sabotage" Kirk's favorite Beastie Boys song as a discordant and disruptive noise.

With the Swarm destroyed, Kirk discovered the truth about Krall, that he was actually the embittered war veteran Captain Balthazar Edison. Krall had survived the destruction of the Swarm and still intended to use the Abronath by unleashing it into Yorktown's atmospheric regulator to wipe out all life aboard the space station. Kirk and Krall fought in the central atmospheric regulator, with the Enterprise Captain attempting to prevent Krall from unleashing the weapon. With help from Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott (Simon Pegg), Kirk was able to override the regulator and eject Krall, and the Abronath into the vacuum of space.

Star Trek Beyond Launched The USS Enterprise-A

With the original USS Enterprise destroyed in the spectacular first act of Star Trek Beyond , Kirk needed a new ship after saving Yorktown. The USS Enterprise-A is teased by Commodore Paris (Shohreh Aghdashloo) when she says that the only other ship capable of navigating the nebula near Altamid isn't near completion. With the Enterprise destroyed on Altamid, this new starship was presumably hastily renamed so that the Federation could retain its flagship.

As the Enterprise crew gathered to celebrate Captain Kirk's birthday at the end of Star Trek Beyond , they looked out admiringly at their new starship - the USS Enterprise-A. The construction of the new starship appeared to signal the ongoing adventures of Kirk and the crew. However, to date, the new Enterprise hasn't been put through its paces on the big screen, as Star Trek 4 is perennially delayed by multiple behind-the-scenes issues.

Why Kirk Is Not Vice Admiral & Enterprise Crew Changes

Kirk's heroic efforts guaranteed him the position of Vice Admiral aboard the Yorktown, however, he ultimately declined it. In a callback to the advice his Prime Universe counterpart once gave Captain Jean-Luc Picard (Patrick Stewart), he decided that there's no fun in becoming a deskbound Admiral. Instead, he was revitalized by his experiences on Altamid and realized that it was an adventure and the chance to " fly" that he really wanted, not promotion. Spock, meanwhile, discovered an old photo of the Prime Universe Enterprise crew, considerably older than their Kelvin Timeline counterparts. Realizing that he had made friends for life, he decided not to leave Starfleet for New Vulcan. Touchingly, Kirk and Spock never voice their doubts to each other, an unspoken acknowledgment of their importance to each other.

Some Enterprise crew members were tragically killed during the fight with Krall, including Ensign Syl (Melissa Roxburgh) who hid the artifact for Kirk. However, Star Trek Beyond teases a potential addition to J.J. Abrams' Star Trek cast in the form of Jaylah. Kirk got her fast-tracked into Starfleet Academy, suggesting that she may have returned as Ensign Jaylah in Star Trek 4 . It's hard to tell if the production problems with Star Trek 4 will make Jaylah's return more, or less, likely.

Star Trek Beyond Lost Leonard Nimoy & Anton Yelchin

Leonard Nimoy's death in 2015 is acknowledged by the passing of Ambassador Spock in Star Trek Beyond . Even in death, Nimoy's Spock influenced the Kelvin Timeline version, as his personal effects revealed the lifelong friendships that his younger self had formed. It was a touching tribute to the legacy of Leonard Nimoy, that also acknowledged Star Trek 's 50th anniversary when Star Trek Beyond was released in 2016.

Tragically, Anton Yelchin was killed in a freak motoring accident at his home a month before Star Trek Beyond 's theatrical release. It's for this reason that the movie ends with a dedication to Anton Yelchin, and Star Trek Beyond is a wonderful tribute to his portrayal of Ensign Pavel Chekov. Yelchin gets some great action sequences and comedy moments which he always excelled at as Chekov. Another tribute to Anton Yelchin was recently made with Star Trek: Picard 's President Anton Chekov (Walter Koenig).

Why Star Trek Beyond Hasn't Had A Sequel In 7+ Years

There have been multiple attempts to realize Star Trek 4 since 2016, with one possible version set to bring back Chris Hemsworth as Lt. George Kirk in a time travel movie. Another Star Trek 4 script, co-written by Quentin Tarantino was due to be a cinematic adaptation of the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "A Piece of the Action", involving a planet whose society was inspired by 1920s Chicago gangsters. For whatever reason, neither of these projects got off the ground, though it's been suggested that pay disputes put paid to the "Two Kirks" movie idea.

Chris Pine's Star Trek 4 plan hints as to why it's taken so long for a Star Trek Beyond sequel to surface. His reference to Paramount wanting Star Trek to compete with the big blockbusters of Marvel Studios is particularly telling. Although far from being a flop, Star Trek Beyond didn't perform as strongly at the box office as expected. Clearly, the various scripts drafted for Star Trek 4 haven't inspired much hope for big box office returns in the eyes of Paramount's studio heads. Ironically, the delays in getting a workable script that can compete with the Marvel Cinematic Universe led to director Matt Shakman departing the project for Marvel 's Fantastic Four .

Prior to the ongoing industrial action in Hollywood, a script was being written by Lindsey Beer and Geneva Robertson-Dworet, with J.J. Abrams calling it the closest to 2009's Star Trek in terms of quality of story. The ongoing WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes will have delayed work on Star Trek 4 even further. While Paramount Studios long ago abandoned their plan to have Star Trek 4 released in 2023, it's no longer clear exactly when audiences can expect the movie to hit theaters.

Star Trek Beyond Influenced Star Trek On Paramount Plus

While Star Trek as a movie franchise appears to be in a state of flux, the streaming era has allowed it to make a hugely successful return to TV. However, the DNA of J.J. Abrams' Kelvin Timeline movies is shared by these new Star Trek TV shows. It's telling that Star Trek: Strange New Worlds is focusing on younger versions of Spock, Uhura, and Kirk, who were arguably the main trio in the first of Abrams' Trek movies. Also, Captain Pike's Enterprise is as sleek and cinematic as the one seen in the Star Trek movies.

Similarly, the uniforms worn by the crew in Star Trek: Strange New Worlds reflect the movie costumes worn by Chris Pine and the cast. While Strange New Worlds is episodic, shows like Star Trek: Picard and Star Trek: Discovery have told huge movie-style stories across whole seasons. If Star Trek Beyond is truly the end for Star Trek 's Kelvin Timeline, its legacy will live on in the franchise's TV renaissance, truly made possible by the success of the movies that proved there was still an appetite for Gene Roddenberry's vision.

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Film / Star Trek Beyond

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"We got no ship, no crew. How are we gonna get out of this one?" — Captain James T. Kirk

The One With… the Enterprise getting destroyed. Again.

Star Trek Beyond is the thirteenth film in the Star Trek film series, released in 2016.

The sequel to Star Trek Into Darkness and the third film in the "Kelvin Timeline" that began with Star Trek (2009) . Premiering at San Diego Comic-Con on July 20, 2016 and worldwide on July 22, it coincided with the franchise's 50th anniversary . It is directed by Justin Lin with a script by Simon Pegg and Doug Jung.

After a brutal attack on the Enterprise by an enigmatic and malevolent alien warlord named Krall ( Idris Elba ), the bridge crew are left stranded on an unknown world. Now Kirk ( Chris Pine ), Spock ( Zachary Quinto ), McCoy ( Karl Urban ), Uhura ( Zoe Saldaña ), Sulu ( John Cho ), Chekov ( Anton Yelchin ) and Scotty ( Simon Pegg ) must find a way to escape and put a stop to the warlord's sinister plans.

Star Trek Beyond provides examples of:

• Abandon Ship : Kirk orders the crew to abandon ship after the Enterprise has been critically damaged and is unable to escape. The Enterprise itself has its warp engines and main engineering hull cut off in succession, while the saucer separates from the remains of engineering and crash-lands on a planet.
• Aborted Arc : The first two movies had a plotline going on about the increasing militarization of Starfleet (thanks to Nero's incursion and Klingon border skirmishes) and a looming conflict with the Klingon Empire. Star Trek Into Darkness even had Starfleet wearing Nazi-ish uniforms and was full of The War on Terror parallels. Here, we get a bright, colourful standalone adventure where Scotty explicitly says "Starfleet is not a military organization," the opening scene is about diplomacy, and the main plot is a big-budget version of TOS's many "stranded on an unfamiliar planet" episodes. The only connection to this is a minor thematic one, as Krall is a stranded Starfleet officer who supports militarism. Furthermore, the technological advances from the last two movies (transwarp beaming, using augment blood to cure death) have been forgotten. None of this is a bad thing, though, because it brings this setting more in line with the parts of TOS that weren't about about Klingons, Romulans, or Khan (i.e. the majority of the show).
• Don't let the Red Skirt fool you, Uhura can hold her own. After Enterprise 's neck is severed from the stardrive, she runs into a room to help Kirk manually separate the saucer, sees two of Krall's mooks , and kills both of them in seven seconds flat.
• Jaylah, who is very handy in a fistfight or a gunfight.
• Shohreh Aghdashloo plays a flag officer.
• The Orion crewmember is played by Fiona Vroom, who previously portrayed one on the Fan Sequel web series Star Trek Continues .
• Sulu is revealed to be gay, just like his original actor.
• Along with a discussion on Aliens Speaking English , Jaylah's dialogue is a reference to Sofia Boutella's accent.
• Greg Grunberg plays a ranking officer only this time he's defending the station, not attacking it
• Adaptational Early Appearance : The Enterprise-A was only introduced fifteen years after the events of the five year mission. Here it appears three years in.
• Ambiguous Syntax : In his log, Captain Edison says "Of the crew, only three remain." While presumably this means Edison himself, Manas, and Kalara, it could also be interpreted as meaning three crew members besides Edison himself, in which case there might be a fourth member of the Swarm out there.
• And the Adventure Continues : The Enterprise crew departs from Starbase Yorktown on the Enterprise -A to resume their 5-year mission, with the "Space, the final frontier" monologue recited by the entire main crew.
• Are We There Yet? : As Jaylah leads Scotty on an extended trek to the Franklin , he gripes this. She warns him to not keep saying it, but fortunately they are just about there.
• Arm Cannon : The Swarm's normal weapons. They'e apparently detachable though, since Krall uses one in a failed attempt to shoot Kirk.
• Armor-Piercing Attack : Krall's drones are able to bypass the Enterprise's shielding, because Krall has its shield frequencies from hacking Federation technology. Subverted when his three remaining swarm ships are tricked into ramming the Franklin , which possesses actual armor they can't completely penetrate .
• Attack Its Weak Point : Used to brutal effect by Krall: eliminating the deflector dish prevents the Enterprise from activating its shields or warping long distances, taking out the nacelle pylons stops her from warping at all, and finally slicing the ship in half by attacking her neck severs the impulse engines from the warp reactors, disabling the ship. It turns out Krall knows so much about how Starfleet vessels work and how to attack them effectively because he used to be a Starfleet captain himself . Kirk returns the favor later on, using the "Bees'" computer navigation patterns against them to disrupt and destroy their formation easily.
• Autobots, Rock Out! : Weaponized. Due to Jaylah's penchant for "beats and shouting" music, the Enterprise crew use "Sabotage" to, well, sabotage the communications Krall's swarm uses to coordinate . Kirk: Let's make some noise.
• Award-Bait Song : Rihanna 's "Sledgehammer", which plays during the closing credits.
• Awesomeness by Analysis : For the third time in this movie series, Uhura shows what the job of communications officer entails besides being the radioman. Her keen ears and eidetic memory for sound is what tips her off to the fact that Krall is really the long-MIA Starfleet Captain Balthazar Edison, via the key phrase "pushing the frontier" .
• Badass Boast : A quiet one from Sulu to Krall: "You have no idea who we are. But you'll soon find out."
• Bat People : Two recurring extras are Starfleet officers who resemble humanoid bats with skin the texture of exposed musculature.
• Belly-Scraping Flight : Happens toward the end as the crew tries to get the nearly century-old USS Franklin airborne, which involves dropping it off a cliff to terminal velocity to get enough momentum for lift up. They scrape the cliff side once or twice on the way down, the tops of some trees when they pull up and brush a few more peaks on their way to orbit.
• Big Damn Heroes : Kirk almost follows Krall being Thrown Out the Airlock when he fails to open an escape hatch in time , but Spock and McCoy reach him in their hijacked vehicle and rescue him.
• Big Little Man : Kirk is surprised when the hostile alien ambassador roaring away at him charges down to kick his ass—and turns out to be the size of a small dog. Unfortunately all his friends pile onto Kirk as well, so he has to quickly beam out of there before they bite him to death.
• Birthday Beginning : The film opens three days before Kirk's birthday, and he's a little morose, because this year he'll be older than his father ever was .
• Birthday Hater : Kirk, because his birthday is also the anniversary of his father's death. This particular birthday is worse than usual because now he's a year older than his dad ever got to be.
• Bizarrchitecture : Starbase Yorktown, Starfleet's new deep space base/colony, is a series of interlocking ring worlds with their own gravities (their hollow centers contain tunnels and docking stations for starships), with a central hub that's straight out of Inception .
• Bluff the Imposter : Kirk pulls this on Kalara, claiming the artifact Krall is after is still on the Enterprise ; when she reveals her true colours , he and Chekov are able to get the drop on her.
• Boarding Pod : Krall's swarm of small ramming ships serves as both weapons and boarding pods so the Enterprise can be boarded and torn apart simultaneously.
• Body Horror : The victims of Krall's energy drain appear shriveled and mummified. McCoy has the opportunity to perform a medscan on one left barely alive and discovers that even internal organs are savaged by the attack. Later, Krall is seen performing his technique on two live crew members of the Enterprise in front of Uhura, who looks absolutely horrified.
• With the Enterprise destroyed, the bridge crew is forced to use the USS Franklin , a 100-year-old starship by this point, as their new ride.
• Kirk rides a vintage motorcycle that happened to be aboard the Franklin as part of the rescue mission.
• Early on, McCoy steals a bottle of scotch from Chekov's locker so he can have a drink with Kirk (they both would have guessed him to be a vodka man ), and toast Kirk's father. At the end of the film, Chekov is briefly heard telling a woman that "whiskey was actually invented in by a little old lady in Russia."
• One of the aliens who attacks Kirk in the opening scene and ends up beamed onto the Enterprise by accident is at Kirk's birthday party in the final scene, hanging out with Keenser . Kirk: Hey, Kevin. Still not wearing pants, I see.
• Scotty mentions an Urban Legend that the Franklin was grabbed by a giant green space hand. In the credit's sequence, we see just such a hand. (Also counts as a Mythology Gag , since that very thing happened to the Enterprise in the Prime timeline.)
• As it plays, McCoy and Spock note that it's classical music. Even Spock is bobbing his head to it. In Star Trek V , he did say he was "well-versed in the classics".
• Kirk knows how to ride a motorcycle, as he did it a lot before joining Starfleet in the first movie.
• Kirk remembers how he joined Starfleet because of Christopher Pike's Dare to Be Badass speech.
• The USS Franklin , the derelict vessel that the crew jury-rig to make it back to Starbase Yorktown, is very similar in design to Captain Archer's Enterprise NX-01 and has an NX-series registry number (NX-326) as well. It's indicated to be Earth's first Warp 4 vessel, which would make it older than the Enterprise , though it was evidently kept in service until the mid-22nd century.
• The Enterprise is equipped with escape pods built right into the walls of the main bridge. They're called "Kelvin pods" in reference to the USS Kelvin , most of whose bridge crew including George Kirk died because they had no way to escape the ship.
• Scotty escapes the destruction of the Enterprise by removing the warhead from a photon torpedo, stowing himself inside, and launching it, a trick he apparently picked up from Khan.
• Scotty again finds himself having to hold on for his life (and with his Starfleet ring prominently in view on his hand both times). While he had serious trouble before, this time he is able to make it without help.
• The Franklin 's former captain, Balthazar Edison, is said to have been a MACO prior to the founding of the Federation. He also tells Kirk that he lost soldiers to the Xindi and Romulans.
• Scotty mentions that the NX spaceships used to be built in space (so they're not meant to fly in atmosphere), unlike the current generation, a reference to how Kirk watched the Enterprise being built on the ground in the first movie.
• Uhura's brilliance in linguistics comes into its most crucial play ever, when she discovers a critical secret about Krall just from catching a single word spoken on a scratchy video on the USS Franklin .
• Sulu has a daughter .
• The Starfleet commodore who gives Kirk the mission briefing early in the movie is later identified with the surname "Paris", suggesting she may be an ancestor of Star Trek: Voyager character Tom Paris (the son of an Admiral Owen Paris).
• In the third film set in this timeline, the Enterprise is destroyed, just as it was in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock .
• An In-Universe Call-Forward : Ambassador Spock is revealed to have passed away, and when Spock is looking through his belongings, he finds a picture of the original crew circa Star Trek V: The Final Frontier , 24 years in this crew's future .
• Frequent Abrams collaborator Greg Grunberg appears as a Starfleet officer (Commander Finnegan) aboard the Yorktown starbase. If his name sounds familiar, it's because he's the alternate-universe version of the Cadet Shaun Finnegan who was Kirk's Academy-days bully in the original series. Related to this, he also voiced Kirk's (possibly abusive) stepdad in the first movie.
• Danny Pudi of Community (for which Justin Lin directed an episode) appears under heavy makeup as one of the stranded aliens that accost Scotty when he lands on Altamid.
• Casting Gag : One of the Enterprise crew members is a female Orion. She is played by Fiona Vroom, who already played the Orion woman Lolani in the eponymous episode of the Fan Sequel series Star Trek Continues .
• Casual Danger Dialogue : Kirk is under attack from a Teenaxi Zerg Rush and desperately calling for a beam-out. Scotty's response? Scotty: That was quick. There's quite a bit of surface interference, Captain.
• Character Development : Kirk has settled into the position of Captain, and no longer feels he doesn't deserve the job. As a result he seems more mature and confident, while also keeping a more aloof attitude .
• Chekhov's Gag : Keenser is ill, and is coughing up some manner of acid that could corrode through a bulkhead, which McCoy is treating. This appears to be a one-off joke when McCoy mentions it, but later it comes in handy when the crew is captured, as he coughs on a wall with wiring to the cell door, enabling Sulu and Uhura to hotwire the door open for an escape attempt. [Keenser coughs up on the door] Uhura: Nice job, Keenser. Sulu: That is a one heck of a cold. [Keenser nods]
• The necklace Spock gave Uhura, which is emphasized during their spat earlier in the film, becomes significant when Spock remembers that it's made of Vokaya, which he can track to find Sulu, Uhura, and the rest of the crew's location .
• The stereo Jayla scavenged from the wreck of the USS Franklin , which is used to broadcast music that disrupts the communications of Krall's swarm fleet .
• The seemingly useless trinket Kirk collects from a failed diplomatic mission is actually the MacGuffin that powers an ancient alien superweapon .
• The hologram generators that Jaylah uses to disguise the USS Franklin are later used to produce multiple images of Kirk riding a motorcycle around Krall's compound, providing Krall's mooks with multiple false targets to shoot at.
• Kirk is informed that Yorktown is building a new ship that will supposedly be more advanced than the Enterprise . It reappears at the end, when it is completed and christened the Enterprise - A .
• In the opening, Scotty tells Kirk he can't beam him up because of "geological interference" — that is, he's too far underground. This becomes an issue in rescuing the crew as well.
• The Breaching Pods slamming into the Enterprise hull gets turned against the villains when the Franklin suddenly launches out of the water in front of them, and Krall's ships get stuck in the hull, as the Franklin was built back when Starfleet still used armor plating instead of shields.
• Kirk uses the gunk that he and Chekov got trapped in to shield a group of Enterprise survivors during the rescue from Krall's compound.
• Chekhov's Gunman : Kirk runs into Ensign Syl during the Abandon Ship sequence. It's later revealed that he gave her the Abronath for safekeeping .
• Chekhov's Skill : We get to see Kirk drive a motorcycle again to create a diversion to allow his crew to escape Krall .
• Dr. Carol Marcus joined the crew of the Enterprise at the end of Into Darkness . She is not seen or even mentioned in this movie.
• Likewise, Gaila (who appeared in the 2009 film, and joined the crew permanently in the IDW comic series leading up to this film) isn't present in the film.
• Several Recurring Extra bridge crew members from the last film are also absent.
• Close on Title : No title appears until the end of the film, a first in the franchise's fifty year history.
• Clothing Damage : Kirk's fight with the Teenaxi leaves his uniform shredded. Bones: Jim, you look like crap. Kirk: Thank you, Bones.
• Confess to a Lesser Crime : After crash-landing on Altamid, Kirk accuses Kalara of knowing that they would be ambushed and of having led them into a trap, to which she claims that she only did so to protect her crew whom Krall has imprisoned; it turns out she really was in league with Krall, but fortunately Kirk sees through it .
• Continuity Nod : A number of them towards Star Trek: Enterprise , as that is the only series still officially canon to the reboot movies. On the planet, the crew find the Starfleet ship USS Franklin , which actually predates the NX-01 Enterprise and shares obvious design similarities. It's stated to be the first Warp 4 vessel, as the NX-01 was the first Warp 5 vessel. The transporter is mentioned as being rated only for cargo, not crewmen, as the NX-01 had the first official crewman transporter. The uniforms resemble the flight suit design. There are mentions of MACO, a pre-Federation Starfleet military corps that had a detachment on the NX-01, as well as events like the Romulan War and the Xindi Conflict. Krall's specifically mentions his time as a MACO and in the Xindi Conflict, which would indicate he served on the NX-01 during the third season .
• Contrived Coincidence : One would think this when an escape pod carrying a survivor from one of Krall's attacks just happens to arrive at Yorktown right after the Enterprise , which happens to be carrying the MacGuffin Krall wants, docks at the station. However, it's later revealed that the whole thing was planned from the start by Krall to lure the Enterprise to Altamid .
• The USS Franklin is from the era of Star Trek: Enterprise , being the predecessor to the Enterprise NX-01. Having been missing and in disuse for a century, Scotty and Jaylah bring the old boy out for one last flight to escape Altamid and reach Yorktown.
• The USS Enterprise (NCC-1701): For her final appearance, she's been given a noticeable refit between this film and the end of Star Trek Into Darkness with her warp nacelles made somewhat smaller, the pylons swept back, and the back of the neck (nape?) pushed slightly inward.
• The individual ships within Krall’s swarm. Spikes of Doom definitely in effect.
• And of course, the USS Enterprise - A .
• Costume Evolution : The Starfleet Uniforms get a overhaul dropping the delta patterned tunic from the first two films for solid colored ones closer to the Original Series designs with a tweaked collar.
• Creation Sequence : The movie ends with the time-lapse creation of the Enterprise -A .
• Creator Cameo : Doug Jung, who co-wrote the film, appears as Sulu's husband Ben. He's seen carrying their daughter to safety when Yorktown is attacked.
• Curb-Stomp Battle : Yet again , the Enterprise is on the receiving end of one of these, mainly because it's a Zerg Rush of enemy ships. Tragically, it's her last.
• Damsel out of Distress : By the time Spock arrives at Krall's camp to save Uhura, she's not only saved herself, but ends up saving him from one of Krall's mooks. Uhura: What are you doing here? Spock: Clearly I am here to rescue you.
• Deadpan Snarker : Spock and McCoy spend much of the movie trading dry wisecracks.
• Death by Irony : Enterprise gets her revenge on Kalara for luring her into Krall's trap, by way of Kirk firing all the ventral thrusters of the crashed saucer, flipping it over and crushing her under the saucer's bulk .
• Death by Looking Up : Kalara getting squashed like a bug by the crashed saucer of Enterprise .
• Death Notification : After arriving at Starbase Yorktown, Spock is approached by two Vulcan elders who inform him that Ambassador Spock has passed away .
• Death of a Thousand Cuts : The Enterprise gets destroyed by a massive swarm of fighter-sized ships that, if encountered individually, would've been negligible threats.
• Declining Promotion : Kirk in the end declines the promotion to admiralty he previously applied for. Like his prime universe counterpart, he now realizes he enjoys commanding a starship too much to give it up. Commodore Paris seems almost amused at this. Kirk: Vice Admirals don't fly, do they?
• Deconstruction : The design of the Enterprise herself suffers this — literally. The nacelle pylons and the "neck" between the saucer and engineering hulls are obvious structural weaknesses, and Krall takes brutal advantage of that.
• Determinator : After being wounded by shrapnel during their crash-landing on Altamid, Spock spends the rest of the film making a valiant attempt to soldier on in spite of his injuries; once he is out of mortal danger, he insists on accompanying the away team to rescue Uhura and the rest of the crew, and volunteers to board one of the enemy vessels (with McCoy forced to tag along in both instances, much to his chagrin).
• Did You Think I Can't Feel? : McCoy and Spock spend much of the movie together, doing their emotion/stoic classic banter. McCoy at one point says he thinks Spock hates him and Spock is taken aback, calling him Leonard and saying he thought it was clear he had the utmost respect for him.
• Digging Yourself Deeper : Though most of the bridge crew have assembled on the USS Franklin , almost every other Enterprise survivor is still imprisoned by Krall. Spock determines a novel method to locate them: Spock: It is vokaya , Mr. Chekov, a mineral unique to Vulcan which emits low-level radiation. ... Lt. Uhura wears a vokaya amulet which I presented to her as a token of my affection and respect. McCoy : You gave your girlfriend radioactive jewelry. Spock: The emission is harmless, doctor, but its unique signature makes it very easy to identify. McCoy : ...You gave your girlfriend a Tracking Device . Kirk, Chekov, Jaylah, Scotty : ( reaction shot ) Spock: ( Beat ) ... That was not my intention .
• Disney Villain Death : Manas and Krall.
• Distressed Dude : Spock suffers a nearly fatal injury in an escape pod crash. McCoy is there to help, but Spock is incapacitated until they get their hands on actual medical supplies.
• Do a Barrel Roll : The Enterprise -A pulls one off at the end of the film.
• Does This Remind You of Anything? : Krall's rhetoric bears a strong resemblance to that of the Nazis, no doubt on purpose. This may be ironic given that he turns out to be a black man. The good guys get this too, oddly, with Scotty illustrating Federation doctrine that strength comes from unity with the "fasces" symbol (a bundle of sticks is stronger than one) that was used by the Italian Fascists and inspired their name (of course, they are hardly the only ones who said this). note  The actual Nazis and Fascists said both things, in fact. Struggle was good between nations or races, but unity was also a strength within as well. The Italian Fascists actually took the fasces analogy from the Roman Empire, who used it to represent the unity of the many different nationalities under the Imperial government, much like the many species and planets united under the Federation.
• Dropped a Bridge on Her : Literally, even. The bridge of the Enterprise is dropped on Kalara, along with the entire rest of the saucer section .
• Dutch Angle : Extensively used in scenes set in the crippled and crashed Enterprise .
• Emotions Versus Stoicism : A natural consequence of McCoy and Spock being paired together during the Party Scattering .
• Empty Chair Memorial : When pouring a drink for himself and Kirk, McCoy also pours a glass in memory of Kirk's father.
• Escape Pod : The surviving crew abandons the ship in escape pods, which are quickly grabbed by Krall's fighters and brought to his base.
• "Eureka!" Moment : When they argue the hive's Zerg Rush could be disrupted with a "loud and distracting" signal, Scotty suddenly recalls something he called that, and asks Jaylah to provide some music for their attack.
• Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap! : Spock's reaction as he remembers Uhura's necklace and McCoy points out the implications of his explanation. McCoy : You gave your girlfriend a Tracking Device ? Spock: [beat] That was not my intention.
• Krall's Mecha-Mooks are rather similar to the Geth ; both are a group of alien-created robots led by an organic being who happens to be a fanatical rogue agent of the respective series' main peacekeeping organization .
• After The Reveal , Krall is clearly one for Pinbacker in Sunshine , down to the video logs .
• Failsafe Failure : The last failsafe lever on Yorktown's atmosphere processing system refuses to work like the others did, forcing Kirk to tug at it until it finally comes free at the proper dramatic moment. Plus, the system has all kinds of elaborate safeguards to prevent anyone from tampering with it via the network — but a person can simply take an elevator to the roof of the building it's on and release a bio-weapon with ease even as people in the command center struggle to overcome the security protocols to try to stop them.
• Fanservice Extra : Not to the extent of the previous films, but a Recurring Extra female Orion crew member who never gets any dialogue is wearing nothing but a nightgown during her only notable scene, where she kicks Chekhov out of her cabin.
• Averted with Sulu, who has a photo of his daughter on his console on the bridge, yet survives the adventure, though at one point Krall threatens to kill him . His daughter herself, his husband, and all other inhabitants of Starbase Yorktown, are at risk of being killed by the Abronath when Krall attacks .
• And then there is the photo of the original TOS crew, his "family" , that young Spock finds among the personal items he inherited from the recently deceased Spock Prime. He likely died of old age though, and may have already outlived most, if not all of them.
• Flat "What" : Kirk's response to the Teenaxi Delegation's final logical descent to "They want to eat us!"
• Forced Friendly Fire : Uhura, in the course of beating down one of Krall's mooks, uses his gun to blast another when she's on the way to help Kirk separate the Enterprise saucer from the remains of the engineering section.
• The movie opens with tiny aliens trying to rip Kirk to pieces. Later, tiny swarm ships succeed in ripping the Enterprise to pieces.
• When Kalara first approaches Yorktown, her incoming video feed glitches, causing her to briefly resemble Krall, as a hint that they're on the same side . She also briefly appears more humanoid in other glitched shots of the video, possibly hinting at her and Krall's true origins .
• When Spock mentions to McCoy about his plan to return to New Vulcan after Ambassador Spock's death , he also says that he hasn't told Kirk about it as he hasn't had the time. McCoy mentions his belief that Kirk would not like it, saying, "he wouldn't know what to do without you" to Spock. In the climax, McCoy and Spock rescue Kirk from falling through the hatch into space. Promptly, Kirk thanks Spock with, "What would I do without you, Spock?"
• When Kirk volunteers the Enterprise to go on the rescue mission as it has the best sensors, Commodore Paris mentions that the only other ship with better sensors is not fully built yet, foreshadowing the Enterprise -A .
• Immediately after Spock stores the MacGuffin in the Enterprise archives, the archive computer readout momentarily blurs; revealed later that Krall was searching for the artifact by hacking into the Federation's computers .
• He refuses to say where he learned to speak English. Nor does he ever name his people, or homeworld .
• He's familiar enough with Federation tech to hijack one of their probes' signal .
• His calling the USS Franklin "Old Friend" has the viewer assuming he's referring to Kirk. He's actually referring to his old ship.
• Upon seeing Starbase Yorktown, he exclaims, "Look how far they've come," hinting that he was around when the Federation started .
• His sucking the life of captives and how it changes his appearance to one more smooth-skinned and human-appearing hints that he's not what he appears .
• His wardrobe has a similar pattern to NX-01 Enterprise -era uniforms .
• Forgotten Phlebotinum : Transwarp beaming and using augment blood to cure death aren't even mentioned. However, three years have passed since the end of Star Trek Into Darkness , so it's possible the technology has been somehow lost in the interim. Transwarp beaming in particular would be a Story-Breaker Power in Beyond . If the crew could use it to return to Starbase Yorktown without a ship, then there would be no need for Jaylah or the Franklin to play any role in the story.
• Four Lines, All Waiting : As detailed below on Party Scattering , once the Enterprise crashes there are four groups: Kirk and Chekov keeping their eyes on Kalara; Spock and McCoy ; Scotty (who meets Jaylah); and Sulu, Uhura, and the rest of the surviving crew (who are captured by Krall). Then it's reduced by Kirk reuniting with Scotty, the latter managing to beam up McCoy and Spock, and ultimately the captive crew being rescued.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus : Hendorff , the big burly Red Shirt who appeared in the previous two movies note  He's the guy in the bar scene in Star Trek who insults Kirk by calling him "cupcake", and then appears on the away mission to Q'onos in Into Darkness can be seen walking directly behind Keenser when the enterprise prisoners are being herded onto Krall's base.
• From Bad to Worse : The crew escape the wrecked Enterprise , only to end up as prisoners on an alien planet where Everything Is Trying to Kill You .
• Future Music : Beastie Boys are now considered "classical". Ironically, Scotty doesn't like Public Enemy because it's " too old-fashioned."
• Gale-Force Sound : Taken to the Logical Extreme : both the Franklin and Starbase Yorktown, using "Sabotage" by Beastie Boys . While not 100% accurate, as they use the music broadcasted over VHF frequencies , the editing makes it look like this (provided you forget about Sound In Space ). Works exceptionally well in case of Yorktown, the activation of its powerful transmitters being synced to the Metal Scream in the song .
• Going Down with the Ship : Kirk is the last person to leave the Enterprise , though he doesn't crash with it.
• Go Mad from the Isolation : Krall is actually a Starfleet captain who crashed on the planet a hundred years ago. He and two others ended up as the only surviving crew. After waiting most of his life to be rescued, he grew resentful of the Federation, and after finding advanced mining drones on the planet to be a formidable fleet, in his last official Captain's Log he swore revenge .
• Got Volunteered : When Spock volunteers to commandeer one of the swarm ships, Kirk shoots him down because Spock is still injured. Spock compromises by suggesting someone also familiar with the swarm ship and his injuries join him. Cut to Bones giving Spock hell for the idea.
• Gravity Screw : Because of the design of Starbase Yorktown, the Artificial Gravity fields create areas where one can fly on gravity slipstreams, such as during the Interesting Situation Duel between Kirk and Edison .
• Gunship Rescue : Sulu and Uhura attempt this when stranded on Krall's base by attempting to send a distress beacon to Starfleet. Krall expected this, and actually skewed their location coordinates so any attempts at this trope would end up in the nebula, making them easy targets for Krall's fleet.
• Happily Married : Hikaru Sulu. He has a husband and young daughter.
• Hell-Bent for Leather : The survival uniforms worn by Kirk and Chekov — which sensibly lack rank insignia (given that they're survival gear, who wears them is a matter of who happens to get in that escape pod, and picking out senior officers in a situation where they may be evading and escaping from enemy territory would only tell the enemy who their high-value captives are) — have, as standard issue, a leather jacket (it's grey and dark blue, however, not black).
• Heroic Sacrifice : During the Enterprise's fall, Uhura completes the saucer separation, leaving herself to be captured by Krall.
• History Repeats : Just like his father, Jim Kirk is helpless to save his ship from an overwhelming enemy force, managing only to buy time for the survivors to evacuate. The Enterprise even closely resembles the USS Kelvin after her nacelles are blown off by the swarm. He does manage to escape before his ship's final destruction, however.
• Hoist by His Own Petard : Krall is killed by the superweapon he's spent all this time seeking.
• Hollywood Tactics : Par for the course with Star Trek when the Enterprise and later Starbase Yorktown use photon torpedoes against the swarm, which is ineffective because the swarm simply makes a hole for them to pass through. Photon torpedoes are consistently described as simply being matter/antimatter missiles, and even on Earth, explosive weapons don't need a direct hit to inflict damage: proximity detonation of the torpedoes would have inflicted significant casualties, if not ended the battle before the Enterprise was even boarded. (Partially handwaved when it's stated the torpedoes can't track the enemy, it's possible they could not even detect the targets for a proximity detonation.)
• Hope Spot : In the final battle between Krall and Kirk, Krall sees his mostly human reflection in a shard of glass. After briefly pondering helping Kirk stop the bioweapon, he grabs the shard and tries to kill Kirk. Kirk kills him about 30 seconds later.
• I Can Still Fight! : In spite of his various injuries, Spock keeps going on and surviving various away missions .
• I Choose to Stay : Kirk and Spock are seriously considering leaving the Enterprise to pursue other interests at the start of the film, but they eventually change their minds.
• I'm a Doctor, Not a Placeholder : During the battle at Yorktown, Spock and McCoy are beamed onto one of Krall's ships to gather intelligence. What McCoy isn't this time is a Riddle for the Ages note  Assuming McCoy wasn't actually going to curse a certain F-word , the likely completion of the phrase would be "fighter pilot", given what Kirk was asking McCoy to do : McCoy : Damn it, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a f — [is beamed out]
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy : Justified . Krall's troops are actually re-purposed mining robots left behind by the former occupants of Altamid .
• Inappropriately Close Comrades : As well as the ongoing Spock / Uhura, Kirk's "Captain's Log" section at the beginning describes the open formation and breaking up of sexual relationships among crew members as just something that happens on a long space mission.
• Inertia Is a Cruel Mistress : Like Kirk and Sulu in the '09 film, Kirk and Jaylah are beamed out while in midair, and land hard.
• In Spite of a Nail : The Enterprise is wrecked over an alien planet, much like in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock . And like in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home , the crew later take command of the Enterprise -A.
• A battle with Mecha-Mooks inside the Enterprise while it's being torn apart by the Swarm.
• Kirk exchanging phaser fire with pursuers while sliding down the saucer section.
• Kirk's final battle with Krall in the variable-gravity centre of Yorktown.
• Invisibility Flicker : The holo-camouflage hiding the Franklin .
• It Has Been an Honor : When Spock sees Krall's mooks converge upon them, he delivers a typically Vulcan variation on this trope to McCoy , right after McCoy quips, "And here I was thinking you cared." Spock: Of course I care, Leonard. I always assumed my respect for you was clear.
• It's Not You, It's Me : Uhura's reason for breaking things off with Spock early in the movie. Lampshaded by McCoy : McCoy : When an Earth girl says, "It's not you, it's me," it's definitely you.
• I Will Only Slow You Down : Spock says this to McCoy when they leave the cave: Spock: Leaving me behind will significantly increase your chances of survival, Doctor. McCoy : Well, that's damn chivalrous of you, but completely out of the question. Spock: It is imperative that you locate any surviving crew. McCoy : And here I was thinking you cared.
• Kalara lured the crew of the Enterprise to be ambushed by Krall's swarm leading to the ship's untimely destruction. Later, Kirk and Chekov activate the thrusters of the downed saucer section causing it to flip and crush her.
• Keystone Army : Krall's lethally swift and highly coordinated swarm of hive-minded drones are easily disrupted and defeated by jamming their control signal with "Sabotage" by Beastie Boys .
• Kirk Summation : Given by ( who else? ) Kirk to Krall in the final act, trying to appeal to his former loyalty to Starfleet and humanity and his better nature. Krall responds with Shut Up, Kirk! , leading to the final fight.
• Jaylah quite enjoys the "beats and shouting" of "classical" human rock music. Scotty, not so much.
• Likewise, Spock has no problem quoting Shakespeare, to McCoy's annoyance. He also apparently has no problem with Beastie Boys .
• Layman's Terms : While the crew attempt to figure out a way to stop Krall's attack on Yorktown , Spock comes up with an idea and starts going into a Technobabble-laden explanation, which annoys Kirk and he tells Spock to cut to the chase. Uhura helpfully translates in Spock's place. Uhura: What's he saying is if we can disorient the swarm, we can kick its ass! Spock: Precisely.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall : Kirk's log mentions that the last three years seem to have been of " episodic " nature.
• Legacy Vessel Naming : The more advanced ship being constructed by the Federation is christened the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701- A ) at the end, after the Enterprise is destroyed in the film .

• Lightning Bruiser : The "bees". The swarm is made of thousands of incredibly fast ships that simply dodge any attacks they come across, and they're sturdy enough to go through the Enterprise without being damaged, but they have no offensive weapons like phasers or torpedoes and are reliant on their communications network to coordinate attacks.
• Limited Wardrobe : While recording his Captain's Log , Kirk opens his wardrobe and looks at the identical uniform shirts.
• Literal Cliffhanger : Scotty's torpedo topples into a ravine as he makes a futile leap for the ledge... then we see he's managed to grab on lower down.
• Looks Like Orlok : Idris Elba's Big Bad character Krall has pointy ears, sharp teeth, and angular features.
• Meaningful Echo : During Kirk's meeting with Commodore Paris at the beginning, they discuss Kirk's doubts about his suitability for his current role, and she says that in space, "it's easier than you think to get lost." During their meeting at the end, they discuss what Kirk has learned about what happened to the crew of the Franklin after they were stranded on Altamid, and Kirk says their captain wasn't a bad man, he just got lost.
• Mecha-Mooks : The foot soldiers and pilots of the Swarm are revealed to be this, with Krall's only living henchmen being Manas and Kalara .
• Mildly Military : Kirk puts in for a promotion from Captain to Vice Admiral. In most navies, the rank of Rear Admiral is between Captain and Vice Admiral. (And promotions are awarded, not applied for.) Of course, Starfleet isn't a military organization .
• Misfit Mobilization Moment : Jaylah: You take my house... and you make it fly.
• Mistaken for Name : After Jaylah and Scotty introduce themselves to each other, Jaylah calls Scotty by his full name. He tells her that she can call him "Scotty." Jaylah then proceeds to address him as "Montgomery Scotty" throughout the film.
• Model Planning : Kirk and his officers plan their attack on Krall's base and the rescue of their crew using parts from the spaceship they're trying to repair.
• Mythology Gag : Considering the size of the franchise — more than enough for a separate page .
• Near-Villain Victory : Even after his swarm fleet is destroyed, Krall manages to sneak his way to the top of the central building inside Starbase Yorktown and almost succeeds in distributing his bioweapon throughout the station's ventilation system, which would kill everyone on board. Kirk barely manages to prevent it by ejecting both Krall and the weapon out the airlock just in time — and almost goes with them.
• Neglectful Precursors : The original inhabitants of Krall's planet. They departed long ago and left behind all kinds of dangerous technology including a fleet of swarm ships that can tear a starship to pieces , Bio-Augmentation technology that can extend life and enhance the body, and half of a Phlebotinum Bomb that kills life on a potentially massive scale.
• Not So Above It All : Spock can be seen bobbing his head slightly to Beastie Boys.
• Offscreen Airplane Pull-up : Because the Franklin wasn't designed with atmospheric flight in mind, the ship can't take off from its cliffside perch, and has to fall down said cliff to pick up enough speed for the thrusters to provide lift. Right as it reaches the bottom of the cliff, you see the ship nose-up like it's trying to pull up, but it keeps falling straight down regardless and falls out of view. A few seconds later, the ship races overhead as if atmospheric flight was trivial.
• Off with His Head! : The Enterprise's saucer section is sliced away from the stardrive section. Krall: Cut its throat.
• Older Is Better : The Franklin is inferior in virtually every way to a modern starship, but its outdated hull plating makes it more resistant to Krall's fighters than newer ships which rely on shielding that Krall's fighters can ignore. This is probably as close as starships get to Truth in Television , considering that WWII-era warships had thick armor to protect them, whereas modern warships rely more on advanced defensive weaponry.
• Spock is injured, and McCoy does emergency surgery on him, following it with an attempt to make things lighter with a joke. Spock starts laughing in response. McCoy correctly deduces that Spock's lost a significant amount of blood due to the injury, and is delirious.
• While previously shown to be gregarious and forceful, the movie opens with Captain Kirk feeling isolated and lacking purpose.
• Outdated Hero vs. Improved Society : Krall, a.k.a. Captain Balthazar Edison , was a former hero of the Romulan and Xindi Wars. When Starfleet was formed and the Federation preferred peace and cooperation between alien species rather than waging wars, Edison found out the hard way that he could not adapt to the new society. That, coupled with being abandoned in uncharted territories by the society he once proudly served, was the final straw that drove him mad and caused him to swear vengeance.
• Outrun the Fireball : Done by Kirk and Chekov once the captain shoots at the crashed Enterprise 's fuel compartment.
• Krall's fleet of swarm ships. They're too numerous for phasers to destroy many of them, they're too small and nimble for torpedoes to lock onto them, and they have tech that lets them pass straight through shields. They behave in much the same way as piranhas in movies do , and can destroy a starship in minutes.
• The swarm ends up on the receiving end when the Franklin gets involved, as it not only has a means to disable the swarm's coordination (getting VHF on a high-tech starship is trivial when the ship has a 20th-century "boombox" stereo on board), but since it uses armor instead of shields for defense, the biggest chunk of damage it takes in the film note  not counting the wear-and-tear that sitting on a cliff for 100 years must have done to it is when ramming a bulkhead , which would obliterate a more "modern" ship like the Enterprise , does cosmetic damage to the Franklin .
• The aforementioned boombox is itself an OCP, as it's not very likely you'd find one that far into the future when they're already ancient by 21st-century standards.
• Party Scattering : The crew of the Enterprise are split up once they land on Altamid. Scotty's escape pod lands him near Jaylah; McCoy and Spock (who were piloting an enemy ship) crash land in a mountainous river region; Sulu, Uhura, and the rest of the crew end up in Krall's base; and Kirk and Chekov (who left the Enterprise last) end up in a forest region near the Enterprise 's crashed saucer.
• Percussive Maintenance : Played for Laughs during Kirk's opening log by Scotty and Keenser trying to fix a device. Keenser whacks it as the scene closes with unknown results.
• Personal Effects Reveal : Spock receives Ambassador Spock's possessions, which include a portrait of the TOS Prime crew.
• The Peter Principle : Kirk was starting to get exhausted with the deep space exploration and being gone from anything related to Earth in years. For this reason he was considering a promotion to Admiral, but at the end of the film decides against it because he knew once he did he would miss the adventure of being a Captain. Kirk accepting promotion and hating it was a major character point in the original films, as Admiral Kirk became a bureaucrat and was told by both Spock and McCoy that commanding a starship is what he is best at (his demotion back to Captain was gladly received).
• Planet Spaceship : Starbase Yorktown is less a conventional starbase and more a small artificial planet that just happens to double as one. It's big enough to hold millions of inhabitants in rings along the edges.
• Powered by a Forsaken Child : Krall has managed to stay alive for "many lifetimes" thanks to technology that harvests the energy of the people he captures, to make himself younger. This technology has mutated his human form so that he resembles those he's feeding off.
• The Power of Friendship : Krall spends the entire film sneering that the Federation's objective of peace and cooperation makes them weak.
• The Power of Rock : Spock comes up with the idea of using radio jamming to disorient Krall's fleet, but they need a signal to broadcast. Cue Beastie Boys . Judging from the reactions of the characters, the music itself is broadcast on the ship and Yorktown as well. (The trope's best shown as the biggest explosion occurs right at a Metal Scream .)
• Pre-Asskicking One-Liner : Just before unleashing The Power of Rock , Kirk can't quite resist the temptation. Kirk: Let's make some noise.
• Ragnarök Proofing : The USS Franklin seemingly crashed on the planet about 80 years ago and is expressly said not to be built for atmospheric travel. But with some hand-built repairs, the crew is able to get it back into decent condition and, with aid from a freefall, use it to escape the planet. It's not the first time in the franchise the Federation has made use of an 80+ year-old starship. It also helps that Jayla's been living in it since she was young; Scotty mentions she's done a number of repairs herself over time.
• The antagonistic aliens assault the Enterprise by swarming the ship with thousands of smaller craft that cause hull breaches wherever possible. When flying in formation, they're able to slice the nacelles right off, and separate the saucer from the engineering section a few minutes later.
• This backfires on Krall at the end. In order to intercept his remaining swarm fighters in Yorktown, Kirk has the Franklin burst from a pool that the ships are travelling over, causing all three to embed themselves in the Franklin's armored saucer (it's an older model which doesn't have shields).
• The original red shirts are given the traditional treatment when Krall boards the Enterprise . In this case it's fully justified ; their shipboard function is to repel hostile boarders, and they are intentionally putting themselves in harm's way to protect the rest of the crew. They also manage to put up a decent fight, but it's a one-sided battle from the get-go .
• The two who accompany Kirk during his first tussle with Krall are never named and don't last five seconds, although they do aid in taking down Krall's own mooks in turn.
• When the boarders storm the bridge, a handful of blue-shirts soak up the fire, leaving the main cast unscathed.
• Poor Ensign Syl is slaughtered for no other reason than to showcase Krall's ultimate weapon.
• A redshirt and a blueshirt are sacrificed to Krall's life-draining machine when he demonstrates it to Sulu and Uhura. In a cruel twist, Simon Pegg mentioned that these are Robert Tomlinson and Angela Martine, the couple Married at Sea in the Prime Timeline episodes TOS : " Balance of Terror " and 'SNW : " A Quality of Mercy ." One of them dies in those episodes.
• And like the second film, where he was involved in a defiance of this trope, Hendorff again survives the film's events. In this case, the trope is merely averted for him.
• Retro Upgrade : Kirk's crew manage to replace damaged parts of the Franklin with what little they could salvage from the Enterprise .
• The Reveal : Looking at some video logs (while doing some Rewind, Replay, Repeat ), Uhura finally figures out that Krall Was Once a Man , and even more, a Starfleet captain. Notably, she spots or rather hears the resemblance due to the way Krall and Captain Edison pronounce the word "frontier."
• Rule of Cool : Why does the swarm turn to engulf the Franklin in a literal oceanic-style wave? Why does Kirk's frequency attack use a Beastie Boys song? Because it's awesome.
• Franchise-wide, played with. After two previous films where Kirk gets his butt kicked by aliens/enhanced humans, he finally wins a fight against one of them.
• Kelvin Universe-wise, this movie showcases the third time a starship has "breached" something it's typically not supposed to. The first movie had the Enterprise breach the clouds of Titan as a signature scene, Into Darkness had it breaching high-rise clouds on Earth after a narrowly avoided burn-up, and here we have the Franklin breaching the water of a large pool, just in time to blockade all remaining enemy craft, including the Big Bad 's .
• Russian Reversal : Actually a plot point: Uhura's Cunning Linguist ears are able to recognize the similarity in Krall's line to a recording of USS Franklin 's missing CO, Captain Balthazar Edison, cluing her in that they're the same person. Krall: The Federation has pushed the frontier for centuries. But no longer. This is where it begins, Lieutenant [Uhura]. This is where the frontier pushes back .
• Saved by the Platform Below : Scotty's escape pod comes to a hold above a cliff's edge . When he exits, the pod drops into the abyss with Scotty following shortly after. Then the camera pans beyond the edge to show that he actually managed to hold on to a ledge just below.
• Scenery Gorn : The Enterprise is again turned into an impressively detailed burning wreck of broken metal.
• Scenery Porn : The Enterprise entering Yorktown, which is absolutely stunning in its scope. A snowglobe in space, as McCoy describes it, containing cities in rings around the edges.
• In the first film , the ship, albeit damaged, remained operative through the end.
• In the second , the ship almost crashed after taking severe damage and had to be repaired so she could fly again at the end.
• In this one, the ship finally gets completely wrecked beyond repair.
• Shining City : Yorktown, even filmed in one of the few cities on Earth that look futuristic, Dubai.
• Shooting the Swarm : The Enterprise firing her phasers at Krall's swarm. It does little to no good.
• The central MacGuffin is a bioweapon, over which its creators could not maintain control . It looks exactly like a Guyver unit.
• The backstory of Krall's time on the planet Altamid is one to Forbidden Planet .
• The plan at the end involves stealing an enemy ship and using it to introduce a disrupting signal that will help eliminate the alien fleet. Perhaps Kirk had just rewatched Independence Day .
• The armor Krall's soldiers wear strongly resembles the Covenant Elites' armor in Halo .
• Yorktown's design brings to mind the space station/cityscape of Elysium , on a more massive scale.
• Ensign Syl's cranium strongly resembles the facehuggers from the Alien films, and she shares the name of the Species femalien ("Sil") — both similar-typed aliens with H.R. Giger designs.
• One of Jaylah's traps ( the one Kirk and Chekov get caught in ) is essentially the Amber gas from Fringe .
• You can tell Simon Pegg co-wrote this film, with his classic "Skip to the End" line lurking in the script.
• McCoy refers to the Franklin 's medical systems as "from the Dark Ages". He has similar sentiment of 20th century medicine in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home after coming across an elderly hospital patient on dialysis.
• The motorcycle ridden by Kirk is a Hilts PX70 — the manufacturer being the name of Steve Mc Queen 's character in The Great Escape , who famously tries to evade Nazis using a bike (while ironically, the one in this movie is used to enter a prison).
• Single-Biome Planet : Averted. Altamid has a wide variety of environments ranging from dense forests to arid wastes to craggy mountains.
• Sink The Life Boats : Subverted when the Swarm snatch the lifepods as they eject, as Krall needs them to maintain his youth.
• Smug Snake : Kalara, for thinking that Kirk wasn't onto her after leading the Enterprise into a trap that saw it destroyed.
• The Social Darwinist : Krall believes that struggle makes you strong, and loathes the Federation's ideal that strength comes from unity, though his people seem pretty united themselves .
• Sophisticated as Hell : Spock of all people pulls one as McCoy attempts to cauterize his wounds and suggests that the pain would be less severe if Spock did not expect it: Spock: If I may adopt a parlance with which you are familiar, I can confirm your theory to be horseshit .
• Space Clothes : Played with. Aboard ship, the crew all wear the regular Starfleet uniform, but after they're stranded dirtside following the Enterprise 's destruction, Kirk and Chekov change into uniforms more practical for field duty, featuring knee pads, boots, and a heavy coat. (Spock, McCoy , and Scotty leave the ship by means other than the escape pods and so don't have field uniforms on hand, and the rest of the crew is captured without the chance to change clothes.)
• A downplayed version; after three years in deep space, Kirk is losing his sense of purpose. Commodore Paris: There's no relative direction in the vastness of space. There's only yourself, your ship, your crew. It's easier than you think to get lost.
• A more straight version would be Krall, whose sociopathy is borne out of being marooned on a desolate planet and feeling that the Federation has abandoned him .
• Space Station : Starbase Yorktown, which is a large globe containing the equivalent of several cities floating in space.
• Spectacular Spinning : Krall's armor has a shoulder disc that spins for no reason other than to look awesome.
• Stating the Simple Solution : Upon seeing Starbase Yorktown for the first time, McCoy suggests that it would've made far better sense to just rent out space on a planet instead . Spock says the decision was political : the Federation government apparently didn't want to show favoritism to any particular member planet, so they put it in deep space.
• Spock gets unexpectedly beamed up while he and McCoy are both surrounded by hostile alien gunships.
• When Kirk rides into Krall's base, Krall tries to shoot him down, allowing Uhura to slip away from captivity. Krall: [to Manas] Where is she?
• When Chekhov reports that Krall's swarm is forming an attack wave, it's shown resembling a massive tsunami wave coming at them.
• The signal used to disrupt Krall's swarm ships? "Sabotage" !
• Stock Scream : There's a Wilhelm scream when a Red Shirt suffers a Railing Kill in the initial battle.
• Straight Gay : Hikaru Sulu is gay, in honor of his original actor George Takei , and he and his husband have a young child.
• Stranger in a Familiar Land : Krall, born Captain Balthazar Edison. A MACO and a combat veteran of the Xindi and Romulan conflicts , Edison helped win the war for Earth, only for Earth to disband his entire organization during the formation of the Federation and merge its personnel with the only Mildly Military Starfleet. They gave him a ship and turned him into an explorer. Even before his obvious madness and belief that he was abandoned, it's not hard to imagine he harbored some resentment over it.
• Stacked Characters Poster : The movie poster depicts the main characters in a pillar from bottom right to top left.
• Sudden Sequel Death Syndrome : Of all things, the USS Enterprise . She's attacked and ripped apart by a Zerg Rush about a quarter of the way into the film.
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids : Krall's swarm of starship-killing drones were apparently originally built as mining robots .
• Surprise Party : Early in the film, Kirk and McCoy celebrate Kirk's birthday in a low-key manner a few days early because he doesn't really like to celebrate on his birthday, what with it being the day his father died. At the end of the film, however, McCoy ends up hosting a large surprise party on Yorktown with the surviving Enterprise crew.
• Take Back Your Gift : Uhura attempts to return a necklace Spock had previously given her (as it's a family heirloom). He refuses, saying that it is not the Vulcan custom. Good thing he didn't take it back.
• Take My Hand! : Kirk reaches out to grab Jaylah's hand as he's being transported while she's falling to her death. He manages to reach her just in time to take her with him, saving them both.
• Team Spirit : After Scotty meets and befriends Jaylah, she begins helping out him and the other members of the Enterprise crew, but he has to teach her some of the Starfleet values of working together to support everyone. Scotty: You're part of something bigger now, lassie. Right? Dinnae give up on that. 'Cause we'll sure as hell never give up on you. That is what being part of a crew is all about.
• Technobabble : When discussing how to defeat Krall's swarm. Spock: Captain, the flight patterns of bees are determined by individual decisions. Krall's swarm formations are too complex not to rely on some form of unified cyberpathic coordination. I surmise that if we— Kirk: Spock! Skip to the end. Uhura: What he's saying is that if we disorient the swarm, we can kick its ass! Spock: Precisely.
• Teleportation Sickness : McCoy complains after being beamed up that his innards "feel like they went to a barn dance." Scotty replies that it's because the Franklin 's transporter was only rated for cargo, and he had to make some modifications.
• As Kirk and Chekov are traveling, the younger officer queries Kirk about how he knew that their recent passenger was a mole, and Kirk replies that he has a "nose for danger". As soon as they drop down into a gulley, a strange noxious fume wafts out, and Kirk sighs upon seeing it, knowing he just did this trope. It ended up being a good thing in the end, because they got ensnared in one of Jaylah's traps, and it leads to a reunion with Scotty.
• As McCoy and Spock find themselves surrounded by hostiles, McCoy notes that at least he won't die alone. Spock is promptly beamed away. McCoy : ... Well, that's just typical.
• After being beamed onto and hijacking one of the drone ships, McCoy reminds Spock that the last time they attempted to pilot one of the ships it crashed — mere moments later, they narrowly avoid crashing into one of the other drones; McCoy does, however, manage to pull off some impressive piloting.
• Terrible Trio : The Swarm is headed by three individuals: Krall is the Big Bad , Manas assists him in taking vessels that are lured into the nebula by Kalara .
• That's No Moon : Upon first encountering Krall's swarm ships, the Enterprise reads them as one large vessel. Then Kirk orders a zoom and realizes their true nature.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill : Kirk kills Kalara in repayment for destroying the Enterprise by squashing her like a bug with the wreckage of the saucer.
• There Was a Door : Krall and his mooks are shown blasting through a door on Enterprise . It's the vault, though, so odds are it was locked.
• Think Nothing of It : When Commodore Paris thanks Kirk for saving Yorktown. Kirk: It wasn't just me. It never is.
• Twice McCoy and Spock hijack an alien fighter and twice its pilot goes out the airlock.
• Krall/Edison, along with the bio-weapon he tried to use on Starbase Yorktown. Kirk is saved from the same fate.
• Tinman Typist : Each swarm drone has two android pilots and breathable air on board for some reason.
• Said word-for-word by Kirk during his birthday toast, to the Starfleet personnel who died during the film (and to Leonard Nimoy ). Also, an unintended meta-example, when Kirk says his line, the camera turns to the crowd, and center in the shot is Chekov, played by Anton Yelchin , who died a few weeks prior to the film's release.
• An unsaid version in the early scene where McCoy pours himself and Kirk shots, and a third, representing Kirk's lost father. They tap their shot glasses to the extra glass, then to each other's.
• Tracking Device : When Spock realizes that he can locate Uhura by scanning for a rare mineral in the necklace that he gave her, McCoy points out that he essentially put a tracker on his girlfriend. Spock's reaction is appropriately awkward.
• Trailers Always Spoil : Later TV spots reveal the big third act surprise ( the Was Once a Man twist concerning Krall ), much to the fury of fans and Simon Pegg . Several also show the big final space battle (although not the very end) with the USS Franklin taking out the swarm.
• Translator Microbes : Kalara uses a more realistic variation where you hear her speak an alien language, and a computer voice speaking English at the same time.
• True Companions : Exploited by Krall, who drags Sulu into the prison area where the surviving Enterprise crews are held and attempts to drain his life to coerce the crew into surrendering the MacGuffin , knowing that they value each other's lives more than it. Ensign Syl finally relents and surrenders the MacGuffin to Krall because she doesn't want Sulu to die. Krall later brutally kills her to demonstrate the MacGuffin's power.
• Tuckerization : The director's father Frank Lin inspires a starship, while planet Altamid is an anagram of Simon Pegg's daughter Matilda.
• Turbine Blender : Narrowly avoided by Kirk. When trying to vent the atmospheric processor before the bioweapon is cycled into the atmosphere, Scotty warns him that failure to trigger the venting sequence will cause him to be sucked into the fan along with the bioweapon. Kirk manages to throw the switch just before he's sucked toward the fan.
• Despite not being a starship pilot, McCoy knows how to pilot the alien starfighter when he ends up in one. Though if this timeline is anything like the prime one, Starfleet Academy gives basic courses on shuttle piloting (which would help).
• Sulu scoffs at the idea that he might not know how to pilot a 100-year-old starship. note  In the prime universe, Sulu had an appreciation for older pilot-driven vehicles and the skills to adapt to them, as he did in The Voyage Home .
• Unspoken Plan Guarantee : Kirk and Chekov attempt to use the Enterprise's sensors to locate the crew. The actual plan was to get Kalara to think she's found the MacGuffin and thus contact Krall, allowing Chekov to trace the signal rather than look for bio-signs.
• Or in Kirk's case, adventure is now boring. Three years into their five-year mission, Kirk is slowly starting to feel this way. He muses in his Captain's Log that if space is truly infinite, then they will never truly reach whatever it is they're striving for. He's ready to retire and become an admiral with a cushy desk job until the events of the film change his mind .
• Krall also seems somewhat dissatisfied with what his victories have given him. He is convinced that humanity has doomed itself by becoming a peaceful species, instead of a Proud Warrior Race .
• Vitriolic Best Buds : Spock and McCoy , having been separated from the crew during the crash landing, spend most of the film snarking at each other whilst McCoy tries to treat injuries Spock sustained in the crash with minimal supplies; nevertheless, Spock later confides in him the reasons for his strained relationship with Uhura, the death of Spock Prime, and his conflict over whether to remain at Starfleet or continue Spock Prime's work on New Vulcan, leading to the two of them seemingly growing warmer to one another . However, Spock later volunteers himself and McCoy to be beamed onto an enemy drone ship, much to McCoy 's chagrin.
• Was Once a Man : Krall isn't an alien, but a mutated human, and an ex-Starfleet officer at that.
• Weaksauce Weakness : Krall's drone swarms are terrifying, but it turns out they can easily be defeated by broadcasting powerful VHF signals such as music, which disrupts their communications . However, this is justified in that the drones are actually mining units, and not intended to be weapons .
• As Spock states. Fortunately, Kirk is entirely willing to provide one, seeing as it involves riding a motorbike.
• When McCoy has to yank out the metal embedded in Spock's torso, he asks Spock what his favorite color is, knowing that Spock will be distracted by such an illogical question.
• Two in fairly close succession. Scotty: Sir, the nacelles, they're gone! Kirk: Mister Sulu, abandon ship.
• After Uhura and Sulu temporarily escape and send a distress signal, Krall confronts them. Sulu: You have no idea who we are. But you'll soon find out. Krall: You mean the distress signal you thought you sent ? The coordinates were altered. Your rescue ships will be stranded in the Nebula, and your base left vulnerable... Millions of souls from every Federation world holding hands. It's a perfect target.
• And then another one during the climax: Kirk: I don't know how, but Edison is Krall !
• The sight of the Enterprise's severed warp nacelles floating away from the ship, their glow dying as power fades. At this point, it's clear that our heroes are screwed .
• After Scotty meets Jaylah, she takes him to her "house", which is actually a crashed ship. Scotty is then stunned when he sees the name of said ship: USS Franklin . It's a Starfleet ship.

• Of a broader sort, Krall and the Franklin crew were first stranded decades before Nero's temporal incursion. What happened to them in the prime reality?
• Two Swarm ships plus Krall's are left following the "Sabotage" scene and crash into the Franklin's hull. Hull breaches are reported and we see what happens to Krall, but what about the four drones aboard those ships?
• When She Smiles : Subverted. McCoy 's reaction to Spock breaking into a smile? McCoy : [fairly shocked] You really are delirious!
• Where's the Fun in That? : Kirk is offered a promotion to Vice Admiral after saving Yorktown Kirk : Vice Admirals don't fly, do they? Paris : No. They don't. Kirk : Well, no offense, ma'am, but... where's the fun in that?
• The background for Krall is essentially a simplified and militarized version of Morbius in Forbidden Planet : one of the last survivors of a mission of exploration is driven mad — or at least madder — by the technology of Neglectful Precursors , which he then uses for his own ends. Perhaps not coincidentally, the name of the planet is Altamid, which is close enough to "Altair IV" for one to suggest it wasn't a coincidence. Krall's name is also very similar to that of Forbidden Planet 's precursors, the Krell.
• The idea of combating a hostile alien race by using the power of music is a plot ripped straight out of Macross , though in practice it has more in common with Mars Attacks!
• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds : For all of Krall's crimes and insanity, it's hard to not pity the man. Even Kirk seems to feel kinda bad for him in the end.
• The Worf Effect : The Enterprise is one of the most advanced, well-armed ships in a major galactic power's military fleet... yet it gets torn to pieces in short order by the new villain's swarm ships. Later in the film though, it's established the villain is intimately familiar with the workings of Starfleet, including specifications of ships like Enterprise via information/communication interceptions, so he knew exactly where and how to hit them hard prior to the attack , as opposed to spontaneously. On top of that, there's a strong element of Outside-Context Problem at work: the Enterprise wasn't designed to fight large numbers of small craft, because nobody uses that kind of tactic in this setting.
• Worst Aid : Lampshaded by McCoy when he says that pulling out the chunk of metal in Spock's gut could make him bleed to death. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the luxury of proper medical equipment to safely treat Spock, nor can he leave the object in Spock in their current situation. Instead, he decides to Take a Third Option by heating another piece of metal with his phaser and using it to cauterize Spock's wound, once the object is removed — it works well enough as a temporary measure until he finds better equipment.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit : Kalara claims to be the sole survivor of a catastrophe to lure the Enterprise into Krall's trap. She later tells Kirk that Krall is holding her family hostage to ensure her cooperation, hoping to gain the Captain's sympathy so she can steal the artifact from him. The second time, Kirk is onto her.
• Wrench Wench : Jaylah, in addition to being a handy fighter, is a natural engineer. She gets many of the Franklin 's systems operational, despite a lack of formal training and not understanding English . Kirk is so impressed that he arranges for her to be admitted to Starfleet Academy.
• "Yes"/"No" Answer Interpretation : When Scotty meets Jaylah, he asks if she's one of Krall's people, and she spits angrily on the ground. He decides to take that as a no.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me! : Scotty's reaction to his communicator falling apart.
• You Killed My Father : Jaylah gets her revenge on The Dragon Manas, who was the one who killed her father when she escaped.
• Zerg Rush : This is how Krall's fleet of drones operates, forming massive swarms of ships that are far too numerous for any single vessel to destroy before being overwhelmed. And given they fly very close, they're foiled once their communication is jammed, leading the ships to crash into one another, causing Impressive Pyrotechnics .

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Starbase Yorktown

The Enterprise arrives at starbase Yorktown, for resupply, shore leave for its crew and a good dose of eye candy for the audience.

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Swarm ships were small, two-person craft left in large numbers on Altamid by the planet's original inhabitants sometime prior to the 2160s .

• 2 Technical data
• 3.1 Background information
• 3.2 Apocrypha
• 3.3 External link

History [ ]

Following the crash of the USS Franklin in the 22nd century , these craft were employed by Krall to waylay orbiting starships . Jaylah likened Krall's swarm ships to bees .

A swarm ship with a captured Enterprise escape pod

In the year 2263 , Krall used his swarm to attack the Federation starship USS Enterprise under the command of Captain James T. Kirk . Approaching the Enterprise in orbit of Altamid, these ships initially appeared to be one large vessel, emitting an unidentifiable signal , but quickly separated and attacked in a coordinated effort to disable the Constitution -class ship. Surrounding and ramming it repeatedly, these ships inflicted serious damage on the Enterprise , first severing its warp nacelles before finally separating its primary hull from its secondary hull .

Spock and McCoy's crashed swarm ship

Following the destruction of the Enterprise , Commander Spock and Doctor Leonard McCoy commandeered one of these ships and crash landed on the surface of Altamid.

Krall later used his ships to attack the Federation Starbase Yorktown in a massive assault. Utilizing antique equipment aboard the century-old USS Franklin , the Enterprise crew was able to identify the swarm ships' signals as closed networked cyberpathic communications that allowed them to coordinate their maneuvers. Emitting VHF radio signals in the form of "classical" music by the Beastie Boys , the Franklin flew very near to Krall's ships, causing a chain reaction that destroyed the swarm.

Once again flying a commandeered swarm ship, Spock and McCoy assisted James Kirk in defeating Krall within the Starbase Yorktown before Krall could unleash a super weapon and kill the base's inhabitants. ( Star Trek Beyond )

Technical data [ ]

Docked swarm ships on Altamid

Swarm ships were capable of space and atmospheric flight, and were equipped with warp drive . They were piloted by two drones and, when not in use, docked in tree -like formations at towers on the surface of Altamid. The ship is accessible through a circular hatch in the rear.

Though apparently lacking weaponry, Swarm ships were durable enough to inflict heavy damage on other ships by ramming them. When colliding with another ship, a Swarm ship could elect to penetrate only partway and deploy its lateral prongs to anchor itself; the nose of the ship could then split open to release drones inside the target vessel. Swarm ships were susceptible to phasers , but operate in such large numbers that phaser fire was overall ineffective against them. They were too small and nimble to be effectively targeted by photon torpedoes . ( Star Trek Beyond )

Appendices [ ]

Background information [ ].

Popular Mechanics' July 2016 cutaway depiction of a Krall swarm ship

The ships were named "Krall swarm ships" in a Popular Mechanics cutaway diagram of the Enterprise .

The idea of relatively very small ships that swarm to engage their enemies was thought up by Justin Lin and considered over a long time by him. When he suggested that concept as the director of Star Trek Beyond , the other filmmakers who were working on the movie liked his idea. " The swarm was always in play, " stated Star Trek Beyond Co-Writer Doug Jung . " I think that was again something that Justin always wanted to do [....] He's like, 'Why would you have that big ship going around? Why not just get a bunch of little ones?' And I was like, 'Yeah. Guess it makes sense!' " The idea of using small vessels also helped the team achieve a goal they were aiming for, as they wanted to make the space battle sequences in the movie less like the submarine warfare genre of films than was usual for such scenes in Star Trek . [1]

In the first trailer for Star Trek Beyond (which was released on 14 December 2015 ), Krall's swarm ships appear maroon in color. However, in the film's second trailer (which was released on 20 May 2016 ), they appear dark gray or black in color, as they do in the finished film. [2]

Apocrypha [ ]

In the fifth issue of IDW Publishing 's new Boldly Go series, these ships were used by Krall and Manas to attack Jaylah's and her family's ship.

External link [ ]

• Swarm ship at Memory Beta , the wiki for licensed Star Trek works