Escape to the Movies: Star Trek: Into Darkness

[rcs619]

Maybe I'm too much of a fan of harder sci-fi, but my interest in the movie honestly checked out when the Enterprise (Currently hanging around near the Klingon homeworld) just went and dialed up Scotty's personal phone(All the way back on Earth).

I'm sorry, but just being able to dial up someone in an entirely different star system and have an instantaneous lag-free conversation just ruined it for me. It completely and totally ruined any sense of scale, time and distance that traveling the stars in a faster-than-light spaceship was able to generate. They talked about going into the Klingon home system like they were journeying deep into enemy territory, like they'd be all on their own, carrying out a secret mission... then you just go and dial up some dude's cell-phone back home? Really?

The lack of any real distance or travel-time was a huge disappointment. Yes, I know it isn't a novel and Abrams was trying to tell a fast-paced rompy sort of story. But still, having this all happen in a single day, just felt... dumb.

And why could the Enterprise detect the life-signs of one dude all the way down on the surface of a planet from beyond orbit and NOT the squadron of Klingon aircraft patrolling right nearby?

And why didn't every Starfleet vessel in the Sol system immediately rush to investigate all the shooting and explosions going on by the moon? It's one light-second from Earth. They *had* to be able to detect something happening that close to the homeworld of the entire human race.

And why did the Enterprise suddenly fall into Earth's atmosphere when their ship was bumped out of warp and disabled right by the Moon?

And how the heck did the Vengeance have the acceleration and velocity to cover the distance between the Moon and the Earth so quickly and then not even leave a crater when it smashed into San Fransisco? It just kind of, slid along the ground until it stopped. Something that big making the trip from the Moon should be hitting with megatons of force.

I know, I know. Star Trek has never been hard sci-fi, but still. Things like that only make the actual science-fiction elements of the movie look poorly thought out, and completely dependent on the current needs of the plot.

On the bright side, the effects and cinematography where fairly nice, and there were a couple bits of banter that were genuinely amusing. I really did like the design of the Vengeance. Shame it never really did anything.

 

[Evil Smurf]

I've not seen any star trek movies and only a little bit of next gen because I don't like star trek. So it looks like I'll like this.

 

[leviadragon99]

Yeah... I saw Star Trek 2 for the first time not long ago and I thought it held up well, this movie's "tributes" to it, not so much... and I went into the movie having no clue what it was going to be about not out of some effort on my part to avoid being spoiled or because the marketing was just that mysterious... but because I somehow hadn't been exposed to any marketing for it.

 

[Ecliptica Wolf]

I've never watched the original Star Trek series' but I loved the first reboot and I loved this movie. It seems to me that, as usual, the people who dislike the film are the ones who compare it to the originals. Taken as a movie by itself this movie is fantastic and it's my favourite of the year. That's my opinion anyways.

Haters gonna hate.

 

[Woodsey]

Im not a star trek fan, but what is stupid is JJ had the whole ST universe of characters, aliens etc and all he could come up with is "This just redo film 2". Thats just lazy and a lack of imagination. Is this what he will do with the Star Wars, make episode 7, which will just be a remake of 4 but about a kid called Lance Skillwacker learning the force and fight Darth Verder who will be a clone.

Lazy JJ, very, very lazy.

And as a Wikipedia visit will tell you, he didn't write it. What was that you were saying? Something about being lazy....

OT: Thought it was good. Cumberbatch was great and I have no problem with them continuing to play with the fact that they're in an alternate timeline. The set-up in the first third seemed to take far too long, but once it's into the thick of it it was highly enjoyable.

 

[Azaraxzealot]

On it's own with a tweak here and there it is a good movie but because it requires an underlying level of original Trek knowledge for 'the big plot twist' to make any sense it is actually an all right movie.

It then wanders off in to being a bad movie when it takes established Trek techlore and starts to not only piss on that but some how manages to piss on Trek lore that the first reboot movie itself had a go at pissing on. If anyone cares I can explain what Trek tech it pisses on but for now I'll skip it.

Has everyone forgotten that the reboot doesn't affect the continuity of the original Star Trek by any means? Alternate timelines have always been present in the Star Trek universe (especially prominent in DS:9), so the original universe with the original Kirk and Spock and Picard and Riker and Janeway and Chakotay and Sisko and Worf is ALL STILL THERE AND UNAFFECTED BY THIS TIMELINE!

It was established in the very opening scene of Star Trek 2009 that this timeline was different, altered by the presence of Nero, so anything and everything different (physics, technology, character traits, how certain races looked) can all be chalked up to "Nero fucked it up."

I don't know why it's so hard for other Trek fans to see this...

If my memory serves me correctly, Nero went back in time, destroyed one ship, caused Kirk to grow up without his real dad, then went, hid and was completely silent for twenty odd years. And somehow, that was enough to alter physics (how does one alter the laws of physics?) and how certain races looked?

Simple. The butterfly effect.

Explains everything, and makes as much sense as anything else in Star Trek. I don't recall Star Trek ever favoring realism over spectacle even before the reboot. So why should it matter if the new timeline focuses more on the spectacle?

 

[Jedi-Hunter4]

Im not a star trek fan, but what is stupid is JJ had the whole ST universe of characters, aliens etc and all he could come up with is "This just redo film 2". Thats just lazy and a lack of imagination. Is this what he will do with the Star Wars, make episode 7, which will just be a remake of 4 but about a kid called Lance Skillwacker learning the force and fight Darth Verder who will be a clone.

Lazy JJ, very, very lazy.

I think you have misunderstood what role a director plays in the movie making process, very, very badly. A director does not have 100% control over the story or the script.

They have these things called movie studios who hire a team of writers and producers for that.

 

[malestrithe]

Why do people who hate movies do movie reviews?

Because people take dissenting opinions way too seriously.

 

[Sonic Doctor]

I kind of really enjoyed the movie, sure it got a completely different "feel" from other star trek but I was throughly entertained never the less.

Bob, you said they didn't "GET" star trek and I kindda assumed you're talking about the general flow and feel of the reboot that differs from the old treks, but would I would love to hear you elaborate some more on the matter on "intermission" in your own words of all the things you thought they didn't "get".

I don't want to assume what Bob would say is the reason why they don't "get" Star Trek, but I'll do it anyway. If he is coming at that point from a Trekkie perspective(which really, I see no other perspective it could be):

Star Trek fans(which is really who Abrams should have been making these movies for), don't want shout outs and call backs for the sake of shout outs and call backs. If such things happen, we want it to have meaning.

Star Trek, while at times it has action, isn't about the action. Star Trek is a story driven franchise. If the story fails and/or isn't the main focus(I'm talking about at least 65% of the work done on the project) of whatever the thing is, movie or series, it as a whole will fail and be a disappointment from a fan perspective.

Characters can't be totally the same every time out, they have to change and grow in some way, and they can't change and grow the same as they did in the last installment. Characters can't be hollow plot devices that just move along the action, it's possible for them to be at first, but the character has to eventually have more of a purpose in the long run after that.

When Star Trek fans go to see a new movie, or watch a new series, we don't watch it for the action. Action is the optional icing on the cake. We watch for the story. If the story is crud, movie/series-episode is crud.

At this point I would classify as JJ's Star Trek run as the hipster/oblivious non-knowledgeable crowd movies. The type of thing that gets watched by such people, because they are too intimidated by the established franchise to go watch it, so they watch the new stuff and say, "Yeah, I like Star Trek too man."

The proper Star Trek structure is story driven action. JJ's sell-outfest is Action driven action, with more action, and story that has been sprinkled on, but partly brushed away because, "We can't have too much story, because that will be lost on all the ADD kiddies and adults that only come to such a movie because of the pew-pew explosions."

----------
This is on my mind, and not part of the assumption of what Bob is thinking from above:

I'm not sorry to say this, because it is totally true. People that like these movies don't get Star Trek. If they have watched the old stuff before these, they never got what Star Trek was about then either. In my opinion, you can't call yourself a fan a Star Trek if you like these movies. At the most, you can call yourself a fan of extremely shallow action movies.

Yeah, I was a bit lukewarm about the reboot(the 1st movie) too.

I never really had any investment into the series, as I never watched it, but I can't imagine how painful it would be for me if I had.

Yet everyone still rates Into Darkness as "above average" and "quite good".

...

ABRAMS!!!!!!!!!!!

*echoes* ABRAMS!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, you don't want to truly painful this stuff is to fans like me. You don't want to feel this.

This "Reboot" basically tells me that I probably, if ever, won't see proper Star Trek for another decade or more.

I don't see it happening until someone comes along and says, "Hey, you know what was good about Star Trek, the old Star Trek, from the Original Series up to the end of Voyager, and the movies up to Nemesis. Remember when it was about the story, and how those stories made us dream about a better future, that while there is still danger, there is always hope for something better. Where action isn't what makes up the whole of the show. Yeah, let's make more of that, oh, and let's set it in the canon universe and totally retcon that JJ Abrams schlock by saying it was never connected to the canon universe, that its universe and the universe the old Spock came from in the first new movie are both alternate universes and don't have anything to do with the canon universe."

 

[Sonic Doctor]

Why do people who hate movies do movie reviews?

I don't get where you are coming from. When has Bob said he hates movies, from a medium perspective?

If that's not what you are saying, then you must be saying: Why does a person that doesn't like a movie make a review saying that he doesn't like it?

Reviewing is about positive and negative, plus, really anybody can review a movie, because for the most part, reviews are opinions, with a bit a facts. From what I see, Bob brought a lot of fact into this one. From a fan perspective, Abrams doesn't know how to do Star Trek(the fan perspective is the only one that matters when a franchise is as big as Star Trek is).

Yeah, I hate Abrams. I probably won't bother to see this in theatres and instead wait for it to appear on Netflix.

I won't even do that.

Before this review, I already knew I was at most going to watch it if somebody I knew got it on DVD and said they were going to watch it on a night I visited.

But now, Bob has totally confirmed what I figured this movie was going to be, and painted an even worse picture of what I thought it could be.

This means that I won't stain my proper Star Trek loving eyes with this movie. Somebody needs to convince Hollywood that he can't properly do franchise movies. They seriously need to tackle him and bar him from doing the new Star Wars, before he does any more damage to things he shouldn't be touching.

 

[Gordon_4_v1legacy]

The problems I find with this movie was aside fom plundering an older movie for about 40% of its plot points and even going so far as almost verbatim reshoot a key scene from another one with different players involed (and then suck at it), the idea that you needed Khan to make this work is insane.

They could have simpy stuck with 'John Harrison', rogue Section 31 agent trying to bring about war with the Klingons in collusion with Admiral Marcus. Also, Admiral Marcus has a fair point about the hostilities with the Klingons and since Starfleet lost about a dozen ships in the last movie, building bigger, better, and more powerful ships isn't exactly something the Federation Council would be vetoing: after all, Starfleet can have its diplomatic expeditionary arm (of which the Enterprise is the flagship) and a battle fleet to defend Earth or other Federation worlds from aggressors.

In all honesty, this felt more like a Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons film that has Star Trek's window dressing: Benedict Cumberpatch plays Harrison pretty close to Captain Black and Kirk and Spock are a costume change away from being Captain's Scarlet and Blue. Shame we're following around Captain Kirk as played by Chris Pine who seems to have confused self confident man of action (TOS Kirk) with swaggering frat boy douchebag (New Kirk) and co. Also I said it about ST09 and I'll say it about this one; the mini skirts (while attractive, cos Zaldana has got legs that go all the way up and make an arse of themselves) are a relic of the 1960's and Gene Roddenberry (for all his other good points) being a massive lover of women in short skirts, or out of them for that matter. The fact that they exist in this reboot at all is the worst kind of fan service. As for Alice Eve, I feel vastly sorry for her that her most memorable scene in this movie is the one where she stands in her undies and tells Kirk to stop staring. She's gorgeous, but she's a model, if I want to ogle her, Google will assist me.

As for good points (as even the disasterous abomination that was Green Lantern was not without them) is that the visual effects are top notch and the space battles are still a high water mark for future science fiction to beat. Also the shots of Earth's cities with its multi tiered highways, hover vehicles and such do make the universe feel fleshed out.


However, as a qualifier, I think Star Trek needs to stop being made as movies: the sort of stories it was made to tell or themes it tended to explore are best suited to the small screen. Star Trek has always had a lofty goal of intelligence and equity, and while it may not always have hit the mark, I give it points for trying. I shouldn't be hearing the words 'Big, dumb fun and explosions' in the same sentence as 'Star Trek'. I have no issue with a bit of blazing action as without some danger the whole thing would be dull, but action and explosions is not the core of Star Trek; though I suppose a net positive is that if nothing else the directing style will be well suited to Star Wars.

 

[Farther than stars]

Well, that review certainly was 'dark'.

Spoiler filled? Why?

This means that I can't watch this review.
The general consensus seems to be that it's good, I'll have to go by that - as I don't want a review spoiling the movie.

Don't worry, it's not that big of a spoiler.

I kind of really enjoyed the movie, sure it got a completely different "feel" from other star trek but I was throughly entertained never the less.

Except that Star Trek isn't really about "feeling" stuff. It's about political machinations and modern social attitudes in metaphor. The "feel" that comes with it is completely incidental. So if Star Trek: Into Darkness is rather shallow in those areas, I think it's completely legitimate to bash the film for not being as good as the series.

 

[Fiairflair]

Into Darkness was a let down for me. I have next to no knowledge of the original series and didn't know anything about the antagonist beyond his name.

Zoe Saldana (Uhura) and Simon Pegg (Scotty) had some stand-out performances and were what I enjoyed most about the film. I also enjoyed parts of what Benedict Cumberbatch (Harrison) did, although I felt many of his scenes were rather cliché.

That said, many of the scenes in this film were a bit convoluted. The early scene on Nibiru was simply too much to be believed, as was the scene in which the senior officers of star fleet get shot down. Alice Eve's character Carol was just embarrassing and I genuinely felt sorry for her. Unlike Bob I don't much care for Peter Weller (Admiral Marcus) and I didn't like him in this. Karl Urban (Bones) was also a letdown, especially after his much stronger performance in the previous film.

The ending was dreadful. Kirk and Spock talking through the glass door or the warp core was really good and Kirk ought to have died then and there. Instead we had an absurd resurrection and an unpleasantly corny ending scene.

 

[Para199x]

I'm actually shocked. As a HUGE fan of star trek I thought this movie was an amazing improvement over the 2009 movie. Yes the references were a bit over top but particularly the early ones which LOOKED like fobbing off the Prime Directive and the bad use of "The need of the many..." were actually used brilliantly. I was genuinely worried when that happened but then after the intro sequence it is made abundantly clear that this is done tongue in cheek and in fact the whole movie FEELS like star trek movie.

The only thing I'd say was bad in the entire movie was Spock yelling Khan, that was a step too far and didn't develop anything. The twist of switching Spock and Kirk's roles from the end of Wrath was a brilliant way to end the character arcs in the movie. Other than Chris Pine (who still wasn't terrible) everyone seemed to be really running with their roles.

As for the complaints about the Khan character: he did nothing which couldn't be made sense of, he had a character totally consistent with his background, especially coupled with the fact that he will have awoken 300 years in the future (to him) likely at gun point and pressed into subservience.

I think this may be the first time I've not even sympathized with Bob's opinion. The worst I can say about this movie is that it has 1 bad moment and a few unnecessary scenes. Having seen Wrath of Khan the day before I can say that the only actually good part of that movie was once they enter the nebula till the end (which does make up for the rest however the rest is SHOCKINGLY bad, I forgot just how bad it was)

 

[Farther than stars]

The reason you liked this film is because you're not a Trekkie. Only non-Trekkies could enjoy it because that's what Abrams wanted. You can't make money unless you pander to the larger audience and not a niche, and Abrams is a Jew after all.

Way to be randomly anti-semitic, jackass!

Ya well, if Shakespeare and South Park can do it then so can I. Historical stereotyping is great.

I think you might have misunderstood the sentiment. Sure, you can be antisemitic, but that doesn't mean you should. And I can guarantee that here on the Escapist you will find that people are against comments like those 1000:1. So to speak collectively, we say you shouldn't. Whether or not you fall in line depends on your own self-control and aptitude for empathy.
On the matter of Shakespeare, however, I think you might have misunderstood the Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare isn't antisemitic. As a matter of fact, he doesn't take sides, eternally playing the devil's advocate. At one point during the play, Shylock does bite back and says: "For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, and spit upon my Jewish gaberdine." This indicates that Shakespeare is fully aware of what representation of stereotypes does and he tries to illustrate that social dialog through this play. That's a slightly more refined motive than:

Historical stereotyping is great.

 

[Reyalsfeihc]

I really don't get it. How can Bob praise Iron Man 3 for pulling the exact same universe-twisting b.s. in order to modernize the franchise and give it a new twist, and yet when Abrams does it for ST:ID he goes postal?

Obvious biases are obvious.

 

[locoartero]

*sigh* Maybe then I should go see the Wrath of Khan, then? Like Doctor Who, I've always wanted to get into this quintessential nerd franchise but I don't know a good starting point for it. Do I watch the original series, do I watch Next Generation, do I start with the movies? I just don't know...
...but, having stopped before I could get spoiled, I'll probably watch this one anyhow.

If you're doubting about Who, start at S05E01 and assume stuff that pops up was established earlier and just pay attention. Also, accept that the sonic just does not seem to work sometimes... because.

 

[Blood Brain Barrier]

The reason you liked this film is because you're not a Trekkie. Only non-Trekkies could enjoy it because that's what Abrams wanted. You can't make money unless you pander to the larger audience and not a niche, and Abrams is a Jew after all.

Way to be randomly anti-semitic, jackass!

Ya well, if Shakespeare and South Park can do it then so can I. Historical stereotyping is great.

I think you might have misunderstood the sentiment. Sure, you can be antisemitic, but that doesn't mean you should. And I can guarantee that here on the Escapist you will find that people are against comments like those 1000:1. So to speak collectively, we say you shouldn't. Whether or not you fall in line depends on your own self-control and aptitude for empathy.
On the matter of Shakespeare, however, I think you might have misunderstood the Merchant of Venice. Shakespeare isn't antisemitic. As a matter of fact, he doesn't take sides, eternally playing the devil's advocate. At one point during the play, Shylock does bite back and says: "For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog, and spit upon my Jewish gaberdine." This indicates that Shakespeare is fully aware of what representation of stereotypes does and he tries to illustrate that social dialog through this play. That's a slightly more refined motive than:

Historical stereotyping is great.

I'm not antisemitic, nor was my comment. I like Arabs, Babylonians, Akkadians, Hebrews and their associated language and proto-language groups. The fact that I'm jumped upon the moment I make a sarcastic reference to a well-known historical stereotype of an ethic group says more about you guys than it does about me. Such eagerness to defend something we moderns regard as totally superficial indicates some rather deep insecurity, no?

 

[Grimh]

Huh? That was a twist?

Spoiler

The only thing I know about this movie is what I've seen from the trailers, and since they never mention Cumberbatch's character's name in them I just assumed it was Khan. I never realized it was actually supposed to be a bait and switch.

Oh well I'll probably see it anyway. I quite enjoyed the first one despite it's flaws.