Escape to the Movies: Star Trek: Into Darkness
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So, what fan service are you referring to?Strife2GFAQs said:
1.Using the Star Trek Franchise
2.Using the characters of the original series
3.Using Old Spock from the original series
4.Showing Klingons
5.The negative chemistry between Spock and Kirk
6.Basing the new ship designs on the old ones
...Well, I'll stop there since you probably get the message. When you reboot a franchise, nothing you do can technically 'stand on it's own' because that's not what a reboot is. Of course they will eventually have to encounter the villains and a lot of the plot devices of the older series. It wouldn't be Star Trek if it lacked what defines Star Trek.
Wow Movie Bob. This is why you're going to hate Star Wars 7. You can't watch a movie that uses a popular franchise and accept they're using some great things in the franchise in an attempt to make a good movie. If I was making a Star Trek movie and wanted a great villain for it that fans would like I'd certainly use Khan. I really enjoyed Star Trek Into Darkness even though I'm a huge Star Trek fan. Maybe it would help if you can accept people are doing something new with a franchise and are taking familiar elements and trying to make something new like a certain other movie called The Amazing Spider-Man. When Star Wars 7 comes out and if it uses a iconic character and twists them in a new way I'll be watching with an open mind and enjoying it while you will probably hate the movie just because of it.
Another rather questionable Lensflare indulgence in mediocrity. Meh. I highly doubt there's going to be anything really good to be had with this Franchise, so what would it take to kill it off? And Star Wars right along with it.
Except in that very interview he goes on to say that he got into the series once he was brought onto the first movie and appreciated it quite a bit more. But I guess acknowledging that gets in the way of taking something out of context to justify nerd rage, so feel free to continue ignoring the entirety of the interview if you need to in order to continue feeling smug.Moeez said:
As a huge trekkie I also felt like they were going out of their way to point at things and go: "Rember this thing you liked! Here it is, eh, EHHH!" And after a while it got tiresome. The things you listed as fanservice really weren't the big fan-servicy things.xPixelatedx said:
For me, the hardest part to watch was:
The scene where spock comes down to find Kirk in the irradiated chamber. I get that it was supposed to show how both men's character was intact despite the alternate universe storyline, and that if their roles were reversed either would have died for the ship. But without any of the weight or chemistry that the original had, it felt like it was simply pandering in the worst way, as if it were trying to recapture one of the most emotionally jarring and deep moments in Strak Trek history without having any of the soul.
This was made all the wrose by them having already showed us the out. How can I care that Kirk is about to die if McCoy has already announced that Khan's blood might be able to resurrect the dead? From the moment McCoy made that statement, which seemed to have nothing at all to do with what was going on in the scene in which he said it, it was instantly obvious what was going to happen.
This was made all the wrose by them having already showed us the out. How can I care that Kirk is about to die if McCoy has already announced that Khan's blood might be able to resurrect the dead? From the moment McCoy made that statement, which seemed to have nothing at all to do with what was going on in the scene in which he said it, it was instantly obvious what was going to happen.
OT: All in all, it was an internally consistent space action movie that wasn't terrible on its own, but freaking peeved me off as a trek fan. I think the biggest issue the movie had was trying to have two antagonists, leaving no time for one or the other to be developed very well. I have to question its pacing and story, which seemed to me to have no few plot holes. I think the most egregious issue with it though was that in order to make its twist work, it had to do a CRAPLOAD of tell and not show. So many important plot shaping points were simply thrown at is in dialogue.
Also, Moviebob, the reason the Klingons looked like they did was because they were supposed to capture an 'inbetween' point in Klingon evolution. The radical difference between what Klingons looked like in the original series vs what they looked like in Next Generation and beyond was explained by Worf in DS:9, well, sort of explained. I actually applaud the make up work here as it captured a pretty decent looking in between state.
I don't see why everyone's saying that only trek fans don't like this. It's not a great movie, at best it's a decent action film that's really, really dumb. Characters do things for no reason, people beam across the known universe, Khan is some kind of superhero. All of that could have been forgiven though if the characters didn't simply retread their arcs from the first movie. More than half the cast is completely ignored.
He didn't really appreciate it, he more just understood why people like it. He didn't exactly jump on the chance to do a Star Trek reboot. It comes across in his reboots where the first movie felt more Star Wars (hardly any technobabble or politics, focus on action sequences and humor), which is why most people found it funny that he's doing Star Wars now. The only thing these reboots have got right are the characterisations, which is not exactly hard to do when you have actors who probably have more fondness for the characters than the director.Vivi22 said:
I agree with you about the change in theme. Star Trek at its core was a space opera, a drama that relied on the chemistry of its characters and sequences that required ingenious problem solving. About half way through DS:9 they started to shift focus toward a more action oriented Star Trek, and the series has suffered for it. It has always had action set pieces, some (perhaps many)of which were cheesy as hell, but that was never the main focus. Now we jump from one action set to the next at break-neck speed. The characters stand up becuase they were, as you said, already established, but their interactions seem flat because there's no drama to build up tension. While I applaud some of the actors for really capturing their roles, the story telling is doing them NO favors in helping us connect with them.Moeez said:
I though it was excellent, exactly what I was expecting from the sequel.
I loved the same-but-different series of events, like an alternate timeline should have!
Bad guy was great, story worked, acting was good. I didn't even make it to two hands counting lens flare.
Into Darkness was awesome, Bob is obviously a little overly butt-hurt as a trek fan. Stop expecting episodes of TNG and enjoy the new series for what it is.
I loved the same-but-different series of events, like an alternate timeline should have!
Bad guy was great, story worked, acting was good. I didn't even make it to two hands counting lens flare.
Into Darkness was awesome, Bob is obviously a little overly butt-hurt as a trek fan. Stop expecting episodes of TNG and enjoy the new series for what it is.
i could have sworn in 'space seed' they said he was latino, i don't recall them mentioning indian.Calibanbutcher said:
still, doesn't excuse the point i made.
also since when was 'khan' an indian name exclusively?
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Khan_Noonien_SinghJegsimmons said:
"Khan" might not be exclusive to India, but Noonien Singh really doesn't sound Latino if you ask me.
Bear in mind, I am going on what the wikis tell me, and they tell me that Khan was indian / suspected to be indian.
I thought it was okay, but that might be because...
I haven't seen Wrath Of Khan.
Oh, sure, I know about WOK. I know that Kirk screams KHAAAAAN!! and that Spock dies and that somebody talks about the needs of the many and I'm pretty sure Scotty plays bagpipes at some point, although I'm willing to be wrong on that one. But the upshot is that I'm forced to ask a question; if Khan's presence in STID is pointless if you aren't aware of the mythology from WOK, is WOK unwatchable without having previously seen Space Seed? Because it'd have exactly the same problem of lacking the backdrop of the Eugenics Wars and so on that apparently makes WOK work as a continuation of Space Seed as well as a movie in its own right, and otherwise Khan in WOK is just "some villain", a role Cumberbatch plays manfully as John Harrison here.
Of course, I said "okay" and not "good" because I know about WOK, and one thing I truly know is that emotional scenes should be met with hushed admiration, not joyous whooping because it can be recognised as a recreation or reference to a previous emotional scene. Kirk shouting "KHAAAAAN!!" was an expression of rage, and we were intended to feel his anger. Spock shouting "KHAAAAN!!" is also an expression of rage, and we were intended to spot the joke and laugh at it. That's an ultimate fail right there. And I honestly thought they were going to squeeze in another reference (about surgery on a photon torpedo) until I realised that that's not from WOK.
And that's STIDs biggest problem - the references and injokes get in the way of what is otherwise a watchable enough movie about a man seeking vengeance for the betrayal and attempted massacre of his people at the hands of the corrupted admiral of what I suspect is still a relatively nascent Federation, still yet to determine exactly what values and morals it wants to uphold. I'm hoping Scotty's reluctance to deal with the classified torpedoes and subsequent resignation (the film's finest character moment) will represent the beginning of that process in future movies, although I have a bad feeling that the more likely direction is to continue remaking the original movies...
Oh, sure, I know about WOK. I know that Kirk screams KHAAAAAN!! and that Spock dies and that somebody talks about the needs of the many and I'm pretty sure Scotty plays bagpipes at some point, although I'm willing to be wrong on that one. But the upshot is that I'm forced to ask a question; if Khan's presence in STID is pointless if you aren't aware of the mythology from WOK, is WOK unwatchable without having previously seen Space Seed? Because it'd have exactly the same problem of lacking the backdrop of the Eugenics Wars and so on that apparently makes WOK work as a continuation of Space Seed as well as a movie in its own right, and otherwise Khan in WOK is just "some villain", a role Cumberbatch plays manfully as John Harrison here.
Of course, I said "okay" and not "good" because I know about WOK, and one thing I truly know is that emotional scenes should be met with hushed admiration, not joyous whooping because it can be recognised as a recreation or reference to a previous emotional scene. Kirk shouting "KHAAAAAN!!" was an expression of rage, and we were intended to feel his anger. Spock shouting "KHAAAAN!!" is also an expression of rage, and we were intended to spot the joke and laugh at it. That's an ultimate fail right there. And I honestly thought they were going to squeeze in another reference (about surgery on a photon torpedo) until I realised that that's not from WOK.
And that's STIDs biggest problem - the references and injokes get in the way of what is otherwise a watchable enough movie about a man seeking vengeance for the betrayal and attempted massacre of his people at the hands of the corrupted admiral of what I suspect is still a relatively nascent Federation, still yet to determine exactly what values and morals it wants to uphold. I'm hoping Scotty's reluctance to deal with the classified torpedoes and subsequent resignation (the film's finest character moment) will represent the beginning of that process in future movies, although I have a bad feeling that the more likely direction is to continue remaking the original movies...
While I don't share MovieBob's loathing of J. J. Abrams, I will agree that this second rebooted Star Trek movie was only meh. I still enjoyed watching it, but that's only because I didn't have any major expectations other than it would just be a quick-and-dirty action-flick/thrill-ride type movie. Like Bob, I found the plot very thin and transparent and the constant homage references (particularly the latter scene where new Kirk does what old Spock did to save the ship in Wrath of Khan) to be ham-fisted and overly cameoed. Even the dialog in many points were just shoved in fan-service points. This did not stop me from chuckling when they happened (although the scene referenced in the prior sentence did make me wince considerably), but, even so, my overall impression of the movie was only meh. The first new Star Trek movie I'd actually be willing to watch again; this one, not so much.
While I'm not entirely willing to call Star Trek: Into Darkness a bad movie, it certainly wasn't a great or even good movie. It was just mediocre, kinda meh. It had some nice action scenes at points, a couple of impressive camera angles (the Enterprise rising from the ocean was cool, and seeing the dreadnought crashing into a city gave you a very definite sense of scale of just how big that ship really is; although its angle of approach was very clearly taken from the 9/11 footage of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center, for those who saw that), and the homage dialog did make me chuckle (and wince at the same time, occasionally). But overall, the movie was just...meh, lacking any real depth. I really don't know any other way to put it. If I had actually gone into the movie with great expectations (I ever only saw two trailers, the one way back when it was first announced and a recent one while I was watching The Hobbit in theaters; I had almost even forgotten the movie was coming out until my friend reminded me), I think I would have been highly disappointed. As it is, because I didn't expect more than just thrill-ride action, I was able to have a good time (being with friends helped; I think if I had seen it alone, I would have been more pissy about the experience).
One of the things that I've noticed with geeks/nerds when it comes to movies and TV shows is that they are quick to pan other movies and shows as being crap, but they always fail to recognize when the movies and TV shows within their own favored genres (i.e. sic-fi, fantasy, and video games) also fail as compelling movies for precisely the same reasons of being shallow, low-brow, having poor characterization, or just being clunky and ham-fisted. A bad movie is just a bad movie, independent of the subject-matter or references. So, I'm actually glad that Bob called this movie to task, because it really isn't that great, in my opinion.
CORRECTION: the second trailer I saw wasn't while watching The Hobbit, it was while watching Iron Man 3. That's just how much I had forgotten that the movie was even coming.
While I'm not entirely willing to call Star Trek: Into Darkness a bad movie, it certainly wasn't a great or even good movie. It was just mediocre, kinda meh. It had some nice action scenes at points, a couple of impressive camera angles (the Enterprise rising from the ocean was cool, and seeing the dreadnought crashing into a city gave you a very definite sense of scale of just how big that ship really is; although its angle of approach was very clearly taken from the 9/11 footage of the planes crashing into the World Trade Center, for those who saw that), and the homage dialog did make me chuckle (and wince at the same time, occasionally). But overall, the movie was just...meh, lacking any real depth. I really don't know any other way to put it. If I had actually gone into the movie with great expectations (I ever only saw two trailers, the one way back when it was first announced and a recent one while I was watching The Hobbit in theaters; I had almost even forgotten the movie was coming out until my friend reminded me), I think I would have been highly disappointed. As it is, because I didn't expect more than just thrill-ride action, I was able to have a good time (being with friends helped; I think if I had seen it alone, I would have been more pissy about the experience).
One of the things that I've noticed with geeks/nerds when it comes to movies and TV shows is that they are quick to pan other movies and shows as being crap, but they always fail to recognize when the movies and TV shows within their own favored genres (i.e. sic-fi, fantasy, and video games) also fail as compelling movies for precisely the same reasons of being shallow, low-brow, having poor characterization, or just being clunky and ham-fisted. A bad movie is just a bad movie, independent of the subject-matter or references. So, I'm actually glad that Bob called this movie to task, because it really isn't that great, in my opinion.
CORRECTION: the second trailer I saw wasn't while watching The Hobbit, it was while watching Iron Man 3. That's just how much I had forgotten that the movie was even coming.
I'm pretty excited for the new Star Wars movies, to be honest. Abrams's Star Trek movies are, in a lot of ways, more like Star Wars anyway. He has shown that he knows how to make a coherent, visually driven film with good performances from his actors. This time he'll be working with an ostensibly better writing team as well. Also, there's not nearly as much official source material as Star Trek, so unlike Star Trek they won't need to start a new timeline or anything. The new movies will probably overwrite much of the post-RotJ EU, which is a bummer for many fans, but I think what will come out of it will be a more cohesive story overall.
I disagree. Characterization-wise, I'd say that this version actually probably works notably better than the original in a lot of ways. Khan is just as arrogant, duplicitous and deceptive as the he was in TOS, and Cumberbatch nailed the role. What's more, they finally give Khan some room to play around with the whole "genetic superman" aspect of his character. Aside from a few scenes where he shows off superior strength and healing in TOS and WoK, it's always been heavily downplayed though they explicitly state just how superior he actually is.Jegsimmons said:
No, Ricardo Montalban comes across as of Latino descent with a tad bit of European. Khan's ethnicity is never explicitly stated that I can recall, but in the scripts he's generally thought of as being from India, and his name is pure Asia.Jegsimmons said:
In Khan's first appearance on TOS, nobody knew enough about him to go "Holy crap, that's Khan! He used to rule a quarter of the planet! And he's evil!!" They find it out over the course of the episode. Khan reveals some of it, some research turns up the rest, but by the time they've got it all put together, they've already let Khan read up on how to control the damn ship. Because, y'know, it's just polite to let a total stranger read the technical manuals for your ship.Jegsimmons said:
By the time they know who Khan is in Into Darkness, it's a bit late in the game to go digging through the history books.
What bugs me, however, is that in the midst of the crisis, they shoehorn that stupid call to TOS Spock into the film. It's totally nonsensical; if current-Spock had been unable to find anything in the history books regarding genetically engineered dictators named Khan, I could see a justification for it. Making it his go-to response is ridiculous; he has absolutely no reason to suspect that TOS Spock might have encountered Khan.
His battle scenes are a hell of a lot better than anything Khan managed in TOS. Kirk beats him up, for crying out loud, which was patently ridiculous.Jegsimmons said:
No, the problem with the Admiral's plan isn't too many redundancies. It's too few.Jegsimmons said:
If we're going to assume that Khan escaped more-or-less on his own, we're left wondering what pretext the Admiral was going to use to provoke a war with the Klingon Empire.
If Khan is supposed to be super-intelligent, then having him make the connection that if the Admiral wants a war, and he had Khan design some badass long-range torpedoes, maybe he shouldn't go hiding on Kronos.
If we allow for the prospect that Khan was played by the Admiral, given the fact that the Vengeance is still in the fitting-out process, why is the Admiral trying to provoke a war NOW? Why not wait until he has a few more such ships, fully worked-up?
Yes, the use of the long-range torpedoes as a plot device gives us an opportunity for your typical Hollywood veiled criticism of Obama's drone policy, coupled with a criticism of Bush-era militarism, but it's still a weak plot unless we take the perspective that the Admiral is scrambling to stop Khan before he either a.) hits something truly vital (since Khan is, after all, incredibly intelligent and capable), or b.) finds a sympathetic ear (as he does with Kirk) and spills the beans to someone in charge.
Squealing to the authorities seems unlikely given the Khan still wants to rule the universe, but it has to be allowed for.
The best explanation of that aspect of the plot that I can think of is that Khan's escape is largely spontaneous, the Admiral's sinister master plan is just a mad scramble to fix a terrible mistake, and he seizes the opportunity to spark the war he wants. But while he might have been taking advantage of the situation to provoke a war with the Klingons, why didn't Khan realize that?. If Khan knows enough to realize that the Klingons are a hostile power and that by hiding there he's safe from ordinary Starfleet retribution, he should have also realized that if the Admiral is getting ready for a war with the Klingons he's probably not going to be terribly concerned with pissing off the people he wants to go to war with.
As for the whitewashing of Khan, I can see a certain justification for it. The last thing most producers want to do is throw a southwest Asian terrorist up on the screen. It's similar to the casting of Ben Kingsley as the Mandarin; when China is a huge potential market, making a villain who is basically an incredibly racist caricature is probably not good business. Aside from being, y'know, racist. Similarly, there's a lot of effort (and a certain amount of justification for it) put towards divorcing the concept of "terrorist" from the concept of "Muslim". While it's generally acceptable to throw the united colors of Benetton at the heroes, it's often frowned upon to cast anyone other than a white male (or occasionally female) as the villain these days.
Ultimately I don't rank it as a great film, and it has the usual raft of Star Trek plot holes, but I enjoyed it.
I'm inclined to agree. Perhaps this is what happens when you're a movie critic for too long; you eventually become jaded to all but the most unique or bizarre of movie fare. Bob gave Spring Breakers a big thumbs-up after all. How MovieBob can give the incredibly average Iron Man 3 higher props than this movie is beyond me.Mezmer said:
It almost sounds like MovieBob resented the movie from the get-go, all because of a plot twist that many people (including MovieBob) had to already know was coming, which he interpreted as a marketing ploy. Pre-judging a movie because of it's marketing doesn't seem very professional or fair to the movie. Never mind the fact that it rather neatly gets a major canon plot point out of the way and sets the stage for a new "five year journey".
Maybe the exact reason Khan hid on Kronos was because he knew the Vengeance was still being fitted out and so he still had time to make alliances. If the admiral was trying to avoid war with the Klingons he'd likely try to open a dialogue with them to deal with the rogue supersoldier on their planet, otherwise Khan might have a run-in with a Klingon patrol, like they actually did, and any reports would detail a human aggressor.Raesvelg said:
I really liked this film. But I'm not a Trekkie. I've never really sat and watched Star Trek. Any series. I keep meaning to, but my attention span is far too short. Maybe if it shows up on my Netflix I'll watch it. I just got done with Hemlock Grove and I need something else. I knew of Khan. I knew of the famous KHAAAAAAAN! and I knew the ending of that film.
I didn't know Khan was a supersoldier. Frankly I had no idea who Khan was beyond his name. Every single fanservice nod or wink went right over my head, and since I'm pretty good at filling plotholes with imaginative solutions (I asked a friend about the whole restorative blood problem. He surmised that Khan was in charge because he was superior and it was only his blood that they could rely on as possessing the regenerative quality), but a whole lot of plotholes seem to be labelled as such through a "Why did Character A do this when Option B was a better idea?"
They did it because things look different from their perspective. Obviously.
The problem with writing super-intelligent characters is that they're not written by super-intelligent authors.Thyunda said:
Having character perspectives is great, don't get me wrong. Khan flips out and attacks the Enterprise after the torpedoes blow because he assumes that his people were still inside, since that's what he would have done, given that he is just a wee bit of a spiteful bastard and not particularly concerned with the lives of his enemies. That's his perspective, and it's fitting that he makes that particular oversight.
But basic reasoning shouldn't be subject to perspective, particularly when you're dealing with someone who is supposed to be intelligent enough on his own to create new technologies decades in advance of the existing ones, and to do so in a scant few years starting from three centuries behind. It's not a question of perspective when characters make obvious mistakes that they should not have made in character.
It's just lazy writing. Obviously.