The years leading up to Star Trek Beyond’s release were not kind to the rebooted Star Trek Universe (now known officially as the Kelvin Timeline).

Despite critical acclaim and box office success, many fans regarded Star Trek Into Darkness as the worst Star Trek film ever. I still like it because it works as a large summer blockbuster. But like other modern Hollywood tent-poles, Star Trek Into Darkness doesn’t hold up well to repeated viewings. JJ Abrams admitted, “I found myself frustrated by my choices, and unable to hang my hat on an undeniable thread of the main story…so then I found myself on that movie basically tap-dancing as well as I could to try and make the sequences as entertaining as possible.”

Speaking of JJ, there was a vacuum of leadership on Star Trek Beyond when he left for Star Wars: The Force Awakens. Roberto Orci was hired to direct…and then was let go. Simon Pegg and Doug Jung were hired as writers while Fast and Furious veteran Justin Lin was brought in to direct.

Despite this exciting writing/directing team, Star Trek Beyond's first trailer was horrible. Paramount’s marketing went on to spoil the film’s big twist. Then there was all that disgusting gatekeeping around Rihanna’s Star Trek Beyond “Sledgehammer” music video. Things weren’t looking good for Star Trek’s 50th anniversary film.

Does Star Trek Beyond work? Yes, as well as the other Kelvin Timeline films have, but not for the reasons you might think. Spoilers ahead.

A Beautiful Celebration of Star Trek’s Optimistic Future

There’s a lot to like about the film. Star Trek is an optimistic story about humanity overcoming prejudice, poverty, disease, and uniting in the peaceful exploration of space. Star Trek Beyond feels like it’s built on top of this foundation. Starbase Yorktown is a stunning example of that – a giant optimistic bubble of future technology filled with many alien species working together on the edge of Federation space. It also honors The Original Series and Star Trek: Enterprise with subtle references scattered throughout the film that fans will enjoy but won’t distract mainstream audiences.

The cast continues to be charismatic, entertaining, and validating of the original characters. Zachary Quinto’s Spock brought me to tears when he sees Leonard Nimoy’s Spock's photo of The Original Series cast. It was beautiful to see a gay character in the final frontier and wonderful to have it be Sulu. Both Sofia Boutella’s Jaylah and Shohreh Aghdashloo’s Commodore Paris are welcomed additions to the crew and I hope we see them again in future films.

The film also looks and sounds amazing! I LOOOOOOOVE the interstellar-esque warp effect as well as the GoPro Justin Lin installed on the Enterprise. Michael Giacchino created a score that nicely extends upon the previous two films. While the destruction of the Enterprise was tough to watch, it looked fantastic (thanks to Lin’s childhood dreams).

A Simple Message for Complex Times

The underlying message of Star Trek Beyond is simple – it’s better to work together than to be divided. Krall literally divides the crew by destroying their ship and scattering survivors across the planet. By uniting under a shared goal, this very diverse group overcomes their challenges.

This is a very Star Trek message, but it isn’t done in a Star Trek way. The franchise has always started dialogue about the complex issues of the day. It uses political allegory to bypass your brain’s political defenses and make you reevaluate your position on polarizing political issues (like The Original Series’ Vietnam War episode, “A Private Little War”).

Sure, Krall could represent the authoritarianism of Donald Trump or the xenophobia behind Brexit, but it doesn’t say much about these things besides “they’re bad”. Krall could have started a real discussion about why the world is becoming so politically polarized and how we can overcome our differences through shared values. Or, he could have become a more compelling story about homegrown terrorism. Instead we get another amazing actor (Idris Elba) buried under layers of makeup playing an underdeveloped villain with simple motivations (like most Marvel Cinematic Universe films).

Finding Meaning in Each Other

While the unity versus division theme isn’t well developed, I love how Star Trek Beyond explores psychological meaning and purpose.

The film begins with Kirk feeling as though life has become “a little episodic”. Both he and Spock are struggling with their decision to enlist in Starfleet and are debating if this path still makes sense for them. As the Enterprise is destroyed, and the characters lose the thing that kept them together, each character has to find themselves, each other, and rediscover what they really care about in life.

Something we’ve discovered from positive psychology is how important meaning is to our long-term happiness. Meaning is about contributing to something that is greater than yourself. Some develop meaning through family, a career, service to a community, belief in a religion, or by advancing a cause. Being connected to a purpose doesn’t always make you feel better, but it does help you endure hardships. Viktor Frankl said it best in Man’s Search for Meaning: “Those who have a 'why' to live, can bear with almost any 'how'.” This is the reason finding renewed purpose in your work is a great way to cope with a job you don't like.

Like Kirk in Star Trek Beyond, at some point we all feel like life has become a constant rerun of the same events. That’s because of habituation/hedonic adaptation – we get used to things that remain the same. Your new job is exciting for a while, but eventually it’ll feel like a boring routine. We also don’t form many new memories when we do the same thing every day, which is why time flies as we get older. Connecting with something that gives our lives purpose, something that will continue when we're gone, that’s what helps us overcome these ruts.

That’s exactly what Kirk and crew do in Star Trek Beyond – each discovers that it’s not the exploration of the final frontier that give their lives purpose, at least not anymore. It’s the journey they're taking together, their friendship, their love for one another, the family they have formed that really matters now.

That's a far better tribute to Star Trek than a simple message about unity versus division.

An Uncertain Future

While Star Trek Beyond was well reviewed, this time by critics and fans, it bombed at the box office. Maybe a big budget Star Trek film can't work against the new Star Wars films. Star Trek has never been good at blowing stuff up, it’s much better at asking big questions about tough issues. If Star Trek 4 goes into production, I hope it returns to making us think about big questions rather than awe at big spectacle. There’s always room for both in science fiction (e.g. Children of Men, Inception, Moon, Looper, Interstellar), but this isn’t something the Kelvin Timeline films have been able to achieve, yet.