Star Trek Beyond: 10 Things It Did Better Than J.J. Abrams

10. New Characters, New Faces

Star Trek: The Original Series would constantly introduce new characters, as well as countless alien races, each of which was invented to serve a very particular purpose. Sometimes, the secondary cast would feature more prominently than the regular crew, and were more important to the story, and generally more interesting, well-rounded characters.

Unfortunately, Star Trek ’09 was predominantly concerned with reintroducing familiar faces, such as Captain James T. Kirk, and Mr. Spock. Naturally, this made sense at the time, seeing as how audiences needed to become reacquainted with those characters. However, Into Darkness essentially made the same mistake, failing to create anything new, and relying wholeheartedly on established images, and already recognisable characters.

Star Trek Beyond feels remarkably fresh, successfully introducing countless original alien designs, and having the story revolve around an entirely new character, Jaylah. As a result, Beyond manages to avoid the mistakes of previous instalments, cultivating its own unique sense of personality without having to rely on the same handful of tired concepts.