10 Dumbest Things in Star Trek Beyond

Nero, Khan, and Krall. All three Kelvin universe villains are motivated by their desire for retribution. Revenge may be a dish best served cold, but apparently, it must be served as the main course at every meal where these films are concerned.

One can argue that Krall’s motivations are beyond mere vengeance, because he professes frustration with the Federation, its peacenik exploration mindedness, and he’s concluded that peace and unity are somehow a weakness. But that’s the problem: his multiple, overlapping motivations, don’t make him complex as much as muddled. 

On the one hand, Krall is a throwaway allegory on societies that train soldiers to be killing machines and then don’t make an effort to reintegrate them into peaceful society (but even the flawed The Next Generation episode “The Hunted”  did a better job at this). On another, he’s depicted as a former soldier who cannot accept that violent struggle isn’t necessary for societies to advance but only pays lip service to this. And, if we’re being honest, most veterans who’ve experienced the horrors of war don’t seek out more of it. They’ve had their fill. So there’s a certain intellectual dishonesty to the idea that Edison as Krall would be willing to kill innocent millions, including civilians, after fighting two wars to save them.

Sure, there’s a thematic point about how easy it is to get “lost” out in deep space, but Krall’s murky motivations aren’t so much his getting lost as him having gone cuckoo. That just makes him another nutso Nero from 2009, and once was enough.