simon pegg

Simon Pegg explains all.

Tom Cruise is back in top form in the sixth ‘Mission: Impossible,’ a shamelessly crowd-pleasing - but very smart - action movie.

In the midst of a dreary summer for blockbusters, Star Trek Beyond was a light in the darkness, returning the rebooted franchise to the fun, funny, and exciting roots of its 2009 predecessor. But even a cast as professional and talented as this one made plenty of mistakes, the best of which are preserved forever in the newly released Star Trek Beyond blooper reel.

Star Trek Beyond was one of the highlights of 2016’s slow summer blockbuster season, providing us all with a healthy dose of going boldly just in time for the original show’s 50th anniversary. But before all the action-packed mayhem that takes up most of the second half of the film, Beyond has a few quieter moments that show the crew of the Enterprise in more personal moments.

It’s been a while since the crew of the Starship Enterprise visited a strange new world in search of new life and civilizations. The Star Trek of television was full of strange new worlds; the Enterprise seemed to discover one every single week. The Trek movies, so focused on special effects, violence, and intricate revenge plots, have frequently strayed from Trek’s original mission. And while there’s plenty of action and excitement in Star Trek Beyond, there’s also a clear attempt to return this series to its core principles: Exploration, diplomacy, teamwork, and the hope for a better tomorrow. After the missteps of the punishingly bleak and the unfortunately rehashy Star Trek Into Darkness, it’s a necessary and welcome course correction; a Star Trek back into the light.

This week brought some great news for the future of diversity in Hollywood. John Cho announced his ‘Star Trek Beyond’ character, Hikaru Sulu, would be revealed as gay in the upcoming movie. But sadly not everyone was thrilled about it.

Ready Player One was always meant to be a movie. With a plot that centers on millenial nostalgia for early ’90s video games, movies, and television shows, and a thoroughly likable group of characters, Ready Player One has been on many science-fiction fans’ most anticipated movie list since the movie rights were optioned. And on Friday, screenwriter Zak Penn posted on Twitter that production on the Steven Spielberg-led film adaptation had finally begun.

It is interesting that, given a reboot could theoretically go off in any direction it chooses, that the relaunched Star Trek has begun to repeat events from the first Star Trek movie series. Star Trek Into Darkness was essentially a revisitation of The Wrath of Khan; the movie not only reintroduced the title character, it also flip-flopped the famous end of Wrath of Khan where Spock dies saving the Enterprise. (This time around it was Captain Kirk who made the ultimate sacrifice ... for about 8 minutes, and then he got better.) Certainly the circumstances of the film are very different, but Star Trek Beyond shares one crucial ingredient with Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, namely the destruction of the Starship Enterprise, and the shipwrecking of its crew on a distant alien planet.

Following last weekend’s debut of that great new trailer for Star Trek Beyond, Paramount has released a whole bunch of official stills from the upcoming sequel. The images offer new looks at Sofia Boutella’s alien character, along with Chris Pine’s Captain Kirk, Zachary Quinto’s Spock and Simon Pegg’s Scotty (and that little rascal Keenser) — speaking of which, Pegg has also offered some details on that mysterious space station you may have spotted in the most recent trailer.

If you weren’t particularly sold by the first trailer for Star Trek Beyond, then you may find the latest preview for Justin Lin’s sequel far more persuasive. It has a bit of everything: emotion, drama, epic intergalactic action, and Idris Elba as a menacing new villain unlike any the crew of the Enterprise has faced before. One thing is clear: this isn’t your average Trek mission.

This weekend welcomes 3 new releases for you to catch at the movies!  Among them are: Paul Limitless The Lincoln Lawyer Catch all the previews after the jump!