The new issue of Empire is onsale on Thursday and, as subscribers will testify, it’s packed with Star Trek Beyond and classic Star Trek goodness. There’s a special 50th anniversary supplement and a cover feature that boasts everyone from director Justin Lin, to his cast, to the bloke who dusts around Captain Kirk’s chair on the Enterprise. It also features plenty of new looks at the movie, two of which have been given a sneak preview.
The two, we’d hazard, represent scenes from the third act denouement. The first shows Captain Kirk (Chris Pine) offering covering fire for some of his crew members on what may or may not be the wreck of a Federation starship. Note the numbers etched on the side of it.
Exhibition two is, unless Kirk, Scotty and their new cohort Jaylah (Sofia Boutella) are pioneering a new board game, a plan of attack in the formation. It’s not as detailed as the one in Top Secret! – in fact, it looks a bit like Kirk’s attempt to explain the offside rule has spiralled out of control – but it’ll no doubt involve taking the fight back to Idris Elba’s big bad, Krall.
The third instalment of the rebooted Star Trek franchise positions Krall as the master villain, hunting the Enterprise and its complement down in a violent attempt to give the Federation a bloody nose. They’ve been pushing the frontier, and the frontier, as Elba’s villain says, is “pushing back”.
Once again, Kirk (Pine), Spock (Zachary Quinto), McCoy (Karl Urban), Scotty (Simon Pegg), Chekov (Anton Yelchin), Sulu (John Cho) and the gang are in big trouble out in space, although this time they’ll have some help from Kingsman’s Boutella as an equally kickass extra-terrestrial.
The new Empire is available in all good, evil and Klingon newsagents from Thursday June 30. You can subscribe to Empire (including the option of an instant digital subscription by clicking here{