*Thanks to Twitter teaching me about the beauty in brevity, I can sum up my feelings for the rousing new “Star Trek Beyond” with a simple sentence:
The Enterprise is in good hands.
Maybe not GREAT hands, as I think the movie may have been a little more coherent if director J.J.Abrams had stayed at the helm. But with his promotion — or demotion, depending on which team you’re on — to the Star Wars franchise, Justin Lin’s taken over and delivered a very, very good movie — not quite as good as the 2009 reboot, but better, actually, than Abrams’ 2013 sequel Star Trek Into Darkness.
I pride myself on writing reviews that don’t give away plot points, but let me say keep your eye on EVERYONE in this film. Several characters aren’t quite what they appear.
One of the characters that wasn’t quite what I was expecting was Sulu, with so much having been written and said about his big reveal as a gay man. I’ve two things to say on that: first, blink and you’ll miss it. I’ll let one of the film’s stars speak for me on the second point:
“,,,[Sulu]’s family was portrayed really nonchalantly, which I liked,” John Cho, 44, who played Sulu in the new film, told the New York Times. “He wasn’t coming out of the closet.”
I liked it, too.
Lin’s taking a beloved character and revealing that side of himself spoke far more loudly and proudly than if the director had created a new, rainbow flag-waving character, as George Takei, the actor who originated the Sulu character, says he would have preferred. New generations of Star Trek fans will only know a Federation with a proud gay character, thanks to Cho’s powerful, understated performance.
With all due respect to Takei, who’s now an honored LGBT activist, he should get over it — and himself — and take a lesson from one of Sulu’s colleagues, Mr. Spock: the needs of the many by far outweigh the needs of the few..or one.
Review continues at EURThisNthat.
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