Star Trek Beyond has been out for over a week, so now it’s time to talk about all the cool little winks, nods, and less than obvious “Easter eggs” in the film. There were many really great homages to past Trek in Beyond. For great coverage of the homages, we highly recommend friend of TrekMovie Laurie Ulster’s post on Screen Rant, she did a great job. Our version then, will focus on smaller and less obvious or more real-world (rather than in-universe) nods, cameos, etc.

Music

Michael Giacchino worked some homages to TOS and TOS-movies into his score:

When Kirk and Chekov are in Jaylah’s trap there’s a small refrain that sounds like the “Shore Leave” music from TOS.

As the Enterprise arrives at Altamid, there are sort of haunting space chimes, that are very reminiscent of a TMP score track titled “Games.”

Calling the Beastie Boys “classical music” is both a Futurama reference and a long running joke in Sci-Fi in general to call contemporary pop music “classical music.”

Famous Names

The Franklin was lost in the Gagarin Radiation Belt – This is a double reference, it was mentioned in the ENT episode “Strange New World”, and it is named after Yuri Gagarin, first man in space.

The USS Franklin‘s registry number is NX-326, Leonard Nimoy’s birthday is March 26th or (3/26), it was confirmed by production staff that this was another way in which Beyond pays tribute to him.

The bridge escape pods were named Kelvin Pods in the movie because of the sacrifice of George Kirk on the bridge of the USS Kelvin as seen in Star Trek (2009). It also bears a resemblance to the all purpose spacedock “Work Bee” units first seen in Star Trek: The Motion Picture.

A nod to Captain Picard’s old ship can be overheard as the crew disembarks on to the Yorktown, the USS Stargazer NCC-2893 is called out over the starbase’s communication system.

The USS Franklin is named for Frank Lin, Justin Lin’s father. The dedication plaque even has a tiny space between the “Frank” and “lin” as a way to signify the namesake.

Other fun bits

Kirk tells Spock to “skip to the end” a reference to Simon Pegg’s Spaced.

When Bones comes into the officer’s lounge he finds Kirk drinking Saurian Brandy, a long running favorite adult beverage of choice in Trek series.

The ephemera control panel on the USS Franklin. John Cho tweeted this picture recently. Trek production staff have often had fun with the tiny labels on control panels which are never going to seen up close.

Scotty discusses the various theories about the Franklin‘s disappearance, he mentions a “giant green space hand”, which is a reference to the TOS episode “Who Mourns for Adonais?”

But did you catch that during the end credits a giant green hand appears after all the cast names and crew, right when the names Paramount Pictures and Skydance come up on screen? From the left, the giant hand quickly fills screen and dissolves. The hand is a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it moment.

Cameos

Justin Lin’s son is the green boy that the camera whizzes past but pauses on briefly, on the Yorktown

Greg Grunberg plays Commander Finnegan, the name is a call back to Finnegan from “Shore Leave.” Grunberg is a life-long friend of JJ Abrams and pops up in pretty much every show or movie JJ is involved with. Grunberg was also the angry voice of Kirk’s step-father when the young Kirk took his classic car out for a joyride in Star Trek (2009).

Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com, plays the alien Starfleet officer who calibrates the universal translator for Kalara’s language.

Screenwriter Doug Jung appears as Ben (Sulu’s husband).

Danny Pudi from cult sitcom Community along with Fast and Furious alum Kim Kold, are two of the aliens that intimidate Scotty after he crashes on Altamid.

We’re sure there’s even more, so feel free to add to the list in the comments.

Remember for this version, we purposefully skipped listing the homages, because Laurie did a great job covering them here:

http://screenrant.com/retro-references-star-trek-beyond/