With a heavy heart I write the words you are about to read. Two of the cast members for Star Trek have boldly gone where several have gone before. Leonard Nimoy (Spock/Ambassador Spock) and Anton Yelchin (Chekov) will be greatly missed. They will, however, not be forgotten. They have forged a new frontier for a franchise that will never die and immortalized their characters. They are gone but never, ever, forgotten.

“Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Enterprise. Its five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before.”

These words are like the movie, something no one is soon to forget. While I absolutely loved this movie I do have a few (rather cynical) complaints about it.

First, I think they forgot what movie they were doing for a moment. We see the opening shot of the Enterprise as it does what? As it plunges into darkness… Yeah. Sorry Justin Lin. You messed that up a bit.

Second, How is it possible that the Enterprise has been on a three-year-long mission to go where no man has gone before, yet there is still a GIANT SPACE STATION obviously within federation reach. They’ve been in space for three years! How are they still in federation space?

Third, if this giant nebula thing is in federation space, how is it possible that nobody was like, “Hey, federation, let’s wander into the giant cloud thing and visit the evil maniac who wants to destroy us all and put an end to him!”? Seriously! Also, if that old Star Ship could make it to this place before the entire crew died (or even appeared to have aged in the films) and yet the Enterprise just got there?!

Fourth, it was awesome; I won’t deny it. But it felt kind of familiar. The end sequence where the old Federation Ship (which is somehow still space worthy after a crash and sitting on a cliff face for several years, anyway) is flying through the enemies blaring old time rock music and having everything around them blow up. Yeah, we’ve all seen that before. It’s called Guardians of the Galaxy. That shot is literally Guardians of the Galaxy’s entire film collapsed into a five minute sequence.

I would like to clarify, I ABSOLUTELYloved this movie the stuff mentioned above was not nearly bad enough for me not to want to buy it! (November cannot come soon enough.) The jokes were perfectly done, the action sequences looked flawless, and it didn’t even feel like I was watching a Sci-fi at points (which I generally object to a Sci-Fi not feeling like a Sci-fi, but this was a flawlessly intertwined Sci-fi with real emotion and action).

If I had to pick a top three moments in this movie, it would be these:

First, the shot at the end where we get to see the Enterprise getting assembled from the ground up in the space dock is just beautiful! This entire sequence where it is being assembled is just a look into the imagination of the best that Hollywood has to offer. (Also I just really like seeing all the different parts of the ship being brought together to make this epic spacecraft!)

Second, the final audio at the end where (for what I believe to be the first time ever, and I hope not to be the last) the entire leading cast said the most famous lines from the series. This just brought together that feeling of unity within the crew. It sent chills down my spine hearing the dialogue with a new approach to it (normally it’s just Kirk saying it).

Third, Kirk riding around on a motorcycle surrounded by lots of projection Kirks riding around on motorcycles, all the while the crew escapes. Seriously! There are like ten Kirks riding old school motorcycles while dropping quick dry concrete space jello to protect the crew and take out the enemies!

All in all I would rate this movie a 9.95 out of 10 (it lost the .05 for the aforementioned negatives mentioned in the beginning of the article). This has potential to be the greatest movie of 2016. So far, it has my vote! If you were wondering if you needed to have seen the other Star Trek movies (or even like Sci-Fi), the answer is no. Anyone can enjoy this movie without being lost as to what’s happening in the plot. And ANYONE can enjoy the movie without specifically liking Sci-fi. (:ike I said, it doesn’t feel like a traditional Sci-fi.) Now, If you’re into Sci-fi, don’t worry; you’ll still get the Sci-fi feeling that you love, just mixed with a little more imagination (like Sci-fi was lacking imagination in the first place).

Star Trek: Beyond Expectations