Is 'Star Trek Beyond' Cursed?

Have you heard of the Star Trek curse? Less insidious than the Superman curse (that's killed actors who have donned the mantle), the Star Trek curse purports to explain why the even-numbered entries into the film franchise are good, while the odd ones are bad. Simon Pegg famously drew attention to it in Spaced, when his character Tim Bisley proclaimed solemnly:

Sure as day follows night, sure as eggs is eggs, sure as every odd-numbered Star Trek movie is shit.

The latest entry into the franchise, Star Trek Beyond, debuts in cinemas this weekend and has the dubious honor of being the thirteenth Star Trek film ever made. According to the Star Trek curse, that means it should suck, but Rotten Tomatoes has it sitting pretty at a 93% Fresh rating. What does this mean? Is the curse broken? Was there ever a curse at all? WHAT DOES IT MEAN?

Well, nerds have crunched the numbers, and statistically speaking, the curse is real. The first 9Star Trek movies bounced back and forth on the ratings scale, with the odds being significantly lower than the evens. But then Star Trek: Nemesis came and seemingly broke the curse by being so terrible that Paramount never made another Star Trek movie starring a complete cast from one of the original shows. Star Trek: Nemesis didn't just break the curse; broke the Star Trek franchise. (For what it's worth, we ranked it as the second worst film on our official list, but that might be because we're sweet on young Tom Hardy's Jean-Luc Picard clone.)

In 2009, the Star Trek film franchise was rebooted with a new timeline. The energetic and delightful Star Trek surprised fans by being really, really, really good — despite being the eleventh film. Star Simon Pegg joked about it ahead of the film's release, but it really did look like the curse had been reversed. Now the even numbered films, like the lackluster Star Trek Into Darkness, were "bad," and the odds were good. The hype is that Star Trek Beyond confirms this.

So Star Trek is still cursed, but now the curse has boomeranged in the opposite direction because of the reboot. Well, yes, but no. Some fans postulate that Star Trek Nemesis is an odd-numbered film because it's 10 (i.e. 1+0=1). By this logic, the Star Trek curse goes on according to its original rules. (Sigh.)

The bottomline is the Star Trek curse is still kind of a thing, but it doesn't seem to have touched Star Trek Beyond…unless you want to get macabre about it. See, Leonard Nimoy passed away during the film's pre-production and young star Anton Yelchin died in a freak accident last month. The film is dedicated to both their memories and Star Trek Beyond's promotion has been dogged by the shadow of grief.  It's a film that's overcoming some truly sad odds, Star Trek curse notwithstanding.

Star Trek Beyond premieres nationwide this weekend.

[Where To Stream All The Star Trek Films]

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