Escape to the Movies: Star Trek: Into Darkness
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Hm. I thought it is really better then the first one. It actually RESEMBLED Star Trek. It had more or less PRESENT ethical and moral elements in character motives. Overall the movie was fun to watch and it had within it just a bit more then simply OMFG A GIANT SHIP BLOWS THINGS UP!!!1111
(Disclaimer: I gave up on spoilers here so I put them in. Warned...?)
I watched the review, and now I've watched the film, and I agree with a lot of Bob's points here. Then again, I'd consider myself a Trekkie, just watched The Wrath of Khan again, and I disliked the first reboot movie anyway. My expectations going into this weren't high but I was expecting a decent action movie.
What I got was a very emotionally mixed movie with pacing issues and one of the most bizarre, horrible, and contrived endings I've seen in a while. Even if I liked the movie more than I thought I would, the ending was just so down-right cliched and obvious that I kept thinking, "no no no, that's way too obvious!" What's the point of this twist, including all the actually nice emotions and acting that I thoroughly enjoyed in this film, to waste it on yet another fight scene and an almost pointless non-character arc. I loved the Kirk/Spock moment -- the "twist" -- but dammit, they really ruined it for me. Revenge does not suit you Spock.
The rest of the movie was full of ham-fisted ideas, action scenes, lack of character, and a lack of a good Khan. I kept waiting for Khan to go all psychopathic on us and when we did, when he went for his crew, I got so little of it that I wondered why they even had him in there. Khan, in here, felt too generic and lacking in the gravitas of the original.
Plus I just don't like the new Spock. I really don't. Strangely his character gave me the best scenes, mainly towards the end, and the reason why I'm so conflicted with this movie. Some of it was pretty damn good yet a lot of it was just really boring. Kept yawning and waiting for some plot to pick up. Another Star Trek movie I won't watch again and I'm not too hopeful for the rest of the series or Star Wars right now.
I'm not trying to sway anyone into thinking anything but their own opinion of the movie (I'm no critic) but I thought I'd throw my two cents in. It's ok to hate this movie and it's ok to love it. In the end, does it really matter? This is the Star Trek we're going to be getting for a while, for better or for worse. At least we still have the originals on Netflix.
As an aside: poor Klingons! Ugh.
I watched the review, and now I've watched the film, and I agree with a lot of Bob's points here. Then again, I'd consider myself a Trekkie, just watched The Wrath of Khan again, and I disliked the first reboot movie anyway. My expectations going into this weren't high but I was expecting a decent action movie.
What I got was a very emotionally mixed movie with pacing issues and one of the most bizarre, horrible, and contrived endings I've seen in a while. Even if I liked the movie more than I thought I would, the ending was just so down-right cliched and obvious that I kept thinking, "no no no, that's way too obvious!" What's the point of this twist, including all the actually nice emotions and acting that I thoroughly enjoyed in this film, to waste it on yet another fight scene and an almost pointless non-character arc. I loved the Kirk/Spock moment -- the "twist" -- but dammit, they really ruined it for me. Revenge does not suit you Spock.
The rest of the movie was full of ham-fisted ideas, action scenes, lack of character, and a lack of a good Khan. I kept waiting for Khan to go all psychopathic on us and when we did, when he went for his crew, I got so little of it that I wondered why they even had him in there. Khan, in here, felt too generic and lacking in the gravitas of the original.
Plus I just don't like the new Spock. I really don't. Strangely his character gave me the best scenes, mainly towards the end, and the reason why I'm so conflicted with this movie. Some of it was pretty damn good yet a lot of it was just really boring. Kept yawning and waiting for some plot to pick up. Another Star Trek movie I won't watch again and I'm not too hopeful for the rest of the series or Star Wars right now.
I'm not trying to sway anyone into thinking anything but their own opinion of the movie (I'm no critic) but I thought I'd throw my two cents in. It's ok to hate this movie and it's ok to love it. In the end, does it really matter? This is the Star Trek we're going to be getting for a while, for better or for worse. At least we still have the originals on Netflix.
As an aside: poor Klingons! Ugh.
It's 95% of manbaby tantrum and 5% review. At least he's consistent, when it comes to movies like this.mattawbrown said:
Defend the movie? Are you trying to be funny?The Dubya said:
It'a a critical and financial success - 87% at RT, 260 000 000+ worldwide at boxofficemojo. What's there to defend?
JJ Abrams made a second successful Trek movie in a row. All Bob has to show for is 5 minutes of fanboy-tears.
Now that Abrams is taking his crew and moving on to Star Wars, I'm looking forward to Paramount hiring some hack-director, who will either try to emulate Abrams' style (and fail at it) or the style of the older movies (and fail at that).
Either way expect another 10-year hiatus after a few failed movies (like after Insurrection and Nemesis), while these two movies will go down in history as the most successful movies in Star Trek franchise.
If you'd honestly like to attempt to get into the Trek franchise, I would recommend starting with The Next Generation.Grenge Di Origin said:
It's a bit rough at first. Mostly hit and miss. But by season three on to season seven it becomes one of the greatest science fiction shows to ever air.
From there, continue on to Deep Space Nine and Wrath of Khan (movie). After that, well....if you're not into the series by then it doesn't matter.
I'm glad I watched this review. Bob is normally so bad at reviewing movies and I pretty much disagree with everything he says as the stuck up snob he is. I, by the off chance, just watched this review with a friend of mine and as soon as he said "it's bad" I knew it would be great.
So we went and watched it and I was right. It was a great, great movie!
So thank you Bob for always being clueless! You constantly show me which movies I should go see
Also, the poster above asking about getting into the Trek universe, watch some of The Next Generation to get to know the characters then go rent First Contact.
So we went and watched it and I was right. It was a great, great movie!
So thank you Bob for always being clueless! You constantly show me which movies I should go see
Also, the poster above asking about getting into the Trek universe, watch some of The Next Generation to get to know the characters then go rent First Contact.
Just saw the movie last night
And like the first movie, I liked it
Now, I've only ever really seen the Next Generation and onwards of star trek media, so the original series... well...
Lets just say that the greatest exposure I get of the original series is via Day Job Orchestra's youtube hilariously silly redubs when they use original series clips.
I liked the movie - I found some of the twists quite imaginative, and... well
Lets get spoilery:
Final verdict: Good popcorn flick, nothing grand - but an ok movie, at least for someone who hasn't seen the original series movies. Its abrams after all.
And like the first movie, I liked it
Now, I've only ever really seen the Next Generation and onwards of star trek media, so the original series... well...
Lets just say that the greatest exposure I get of the original series is via Day Job Orchestra's youtube hilariously silly redubs when they use original series clips.
I liked the movie - I found some of the twists quite imaginative, and... well
Lets get spoilery:
The switch with who yells out "KHAN!" was IMO both quite amusing and seemed oddly fitting, although it would have been better if, well, there'd been some kind of new character arc it could have been part of.
I'll agree with moviebob that the lack of proper character arcs for the enterprise crew is a bit of a let down, but I did like how Ohura and Spock's relationship is made quite... I'm tempted to say human, but perhaps its better to simply say that I like how the movie shows their relationship issues. This doesn't make up for the lack of character arcs, but hey
Beyond that, then the switch at the end - well - spock did call up old spock and ask how the original Khan was defeated. So I honestly don't think the movie can be damned for retreading that way of defeating Khan.
I'll agree with moviebob that the lack of proper character arcs for the enterprise crew is a bit of a let down, but I did like how Ohura and Spock's relationship is made quite... I'm tempted to say human, but perhaps its better to simply say that I like how the movie shows their relationship issues. This doesn't make up for the lack of character arcs, but hey
Beyond that, then the switch at the end - well - spock did call up old spock and ask how the original Khan was defeated. So I honestly don't think the movie can be damned for retreading that way of defeating Khan.
Final verdict: Good popcorn flick, nothing grand - but an ok movie, at least for someone who hasn't seen the original series movies. Its abrams after all.
I watched the movie just a bit ago...
I am an old star trek fan. I grew up watching TOS, TNG, DS9... I watched all the movies multiple times. I know the lore pretty well, but I don't obsess over it.
I hated the Into Darkness. I didn't MIND the first remake, I thought it was somewhat clever and while some of it got a bit too convenient, I ultimately left that movie feeling happy. I was looking forward to this movie. So then I watched Bob's review of the movie. I watched it all the way through, and I was kind of disappointed, because I said 2 years ago: "God I hope they don't try to remake the old movies" But w/e right?
This. Movie. Was. Awful.
The twists were asinine and predictable, Once we knew who Cumberpatch was, if you had seen the original movies... the Entire Movie Was Over. You knew exactly what was going to happen from there on out. None of the dramatic scenes had any weight, none of the shout outs did anything... and I even got the freaking Obscure shout outs (Section 31...). And the Klingons... Oh god the Klingons.
Why on earth are they not taking this in a new direction? Hell, there are so many directions they could have taken this movie, stuff from the original series that not only would have made a good movie, but would have made fans happier than watching a poor retread of Material we all saw when we were younger. Make a movie about Harry Mudd, Make a movie about the klingons (Using actual Klingons), Make the movie about one of the innumerable god-like beings that could really stretch the FX budget. Don't do the same thing that they did already, but get it all wrong.
I am an old star trek fan. I grew up watching TOS, TNG, DS9... I watched all the movies multiple times. I know the lore pretty well, but I don't obsess over it.
I hated the Into Darkness. I didn't MIND the first remake, I thought it was somewhat clever and while some of it got a bit too convenient, I ultimately left that movie feeling happy. I was looking forward to this movie. So then I watched Bob's review of the movie. I watched it all the way through, and I was kind of disappointed, because I said 2 years ago: "God I hope they don't try to remake the old movies" But w/e right?
This. Movie. Was. Awful.
The twists were asinine and predictable, Once we knew who Cumberpatch was, if you had seen the original movies... the Entire Movie Was Over. You knew exactly what was going to happen from there on out. None of the dramatic scenes had any weight, none of the shout outs did anything... and I even got the freaking Obscure shout outs (Section 31...). And the Klingons... Oh god the Klingons.
Why on earth are they not taking this in a new direction? Hell, there are so many directions they could have taken this movie, stuff from the original series that not only would have made a good movie, but would have made fans happier than watching a poor retread of Material we all saw when we were younger. Make a movie about Harry Mudd, Make a movie about the klingons (Using actual Klingons), Make the movie about one of the innumerable god-like beings that could really stretch the FX budget. Don't do the same thing that they did already, but get it all wrong.
Yeah.... I've never liked Moviebob and now I remember why.
The characters went through trails in the movie and came out better for it.
They didn't 'rip off' the end of Wrath of Khan, it's called an Homage. Something a critic (as Moviebob claims to be) should understand.
Action was good. Acting was great. Moviebob has no credit. Stop reviewing things.
The characters went through trails in the movie and came out better for it.
They didn't 'rip off' the end of Wrath of Khan, it's called an Homage. Something a critic (as Moviebob claims to be) should understand.
Action was good. Acting was great. Moviebob has no credit. Stop reviewing things.
Well it's been about 2 months and I've FINALLY seen Star Trek Into Darkness (and now I've finally seen this review), and I have to admit, I did like the movie.
Though at the same time, I wasn't too thrilled about Kahn being the main villain either. I'm really a bit conflicted.
I think the actor who played Kahn was all wrong.
And when Spock yelled out Kahns name I just didn't buy that.
Though at the same time, I wasn't too thrilled about Kahn being the main villain either. I'm really a bit conflicted.
I think the actor who played Kahn was all wrong.
And when Spock yelled out Kahns name I just didn't buy that.
Well, I finally saw STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS. I missed it when it was in theaters this past summer so I decided to wait and see it when it came out on Blu-Ray. Now I won?t get into the latest brouhaha over the disc?s paltry extras and how many (myself included) feel that this marketing strategy by Paramount just might rank up there with the Edsel and New Coke-no, this is about the actual film itself.
I enjoyed it.
Now, I realize that, to a lot of people in the STAR TREK universe, what I typed above is the equivalent of saying that Hitler had some good ideas or Ted Bundy was misunderstood or that I just signed the order to have all copies of the Bible burned and purged from people?s memories. To those people I have this as a reply: STAR TREK V.
At a recent ST con, a poll was taken of the attendees and STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS was chosen as the all-time worst of the ST films. You heard that right-it is considered the worst of ALL THE STAR TREK MOVIES. Now I am not one of the acolytes of Gene Roddenberry?s legacy and I probably should describe myself thusly: I only saw some fleeting glimpses of the original series when it originally aired (the best remembered being ?Spock?s Brain? [I know]); I caught up with some episodes when the show went into syndication and enjoyed what I saw but I did not get as caught up in this as I was with STAR WARS in the beginning; I was really looking forward to the first film when it came out and was totally captivated by pretty much all of it (and still am, although I thought then and, to a lesser degree still think that Shatner had some of the worst line readings in movie history: ?Bones-I need you! BADLY!?); saw all the rest of the films with both the original cast and the TNG cast on opening day; and only missed opening days for J. J. Abrams reboot and this new one due to circumstances beyond my control, the death of my mother the main reason for not seeing the 2009 film for a month. I do love a good sci-fi story well told and well produced, and for the most part all of the ST series and films have pretty much satisfied my wants and needs. The idea of mankind having a future out there in space is still a pretty cool idea, and compared to much of the pessimism and angst present in so much speculative fiction both on the printed page and in visual media these days, Roddenberry?s idealism and optimism is a pretty wonderful thing, and I can understand the devotion that so many have to what he charted out and nurtured over 40 years ago.
Except in this case-THE WORST OF THE FILMS? Really? Seriously? Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope and nope.
I guess this is the movie that had Spock do some goofy turn in gravity boots and spooking Kirk while he free climbed El Capitan. Oops-my mistake-that was STAR TREK V.
Maybe this was the movie that had Kirk, Spock and McCoy singing ?Row, Row, Row Your Boat? around a campfire, proving that those recordings that Shatner and Nimoy made were pretty good after all?oh, dopey me, that was also STAR TREK V (They also sing the song again at the end-a reprise of sorts-nice).
I got it-this is the film where Scotty turns and walks right into a bulkhead on the ship he knows better than the back of his hand and that he loves more than life itself and everyone watching went ?Wha?" Oh?that?s right-STAR TREK V, again.
A pattern seems to be forming?well, this certainly is the film where Uhura does a fan dance to distract some people so that Kirk and his men can accomplish a mission while the audience buries their face in their hands or slides down in their seats because they can?t believe what Nichelle Nichols was talked into doing.
What was that? V again? No!
OK-last chance?this has to be the movie where the Enterprise, in an attempt to find some phantom planet that will be impossible to reach due to a barrier in space that looks impenetrable, manages to smash through that barrier?like someone opening a door and stepping into a hallway immediately?right?
No?
V?again? Dammit!
So-all the above took place NOT in STID (easier than typing it a lot) but a film that came out in 1989, got the worst reviews of all the ST films that I have read (it also has the lowest rating of all the films by Leonard Maltin-**, admittedly not a fan of the series but that does stand out), abruptly reversed the financial windfall of the fourth film, which until the 2009 film was the most financially successful of all the ST films, even taking into account ticket price inflation, and even caused one of the featured actors in it-David Warner- to remark to me when I asked him about it after the 6th film came out: ?Oh, please-I would rather talk about the GOOD STAR TREK film I was in.?
Now let me say this-STID is not, in my opinion, a great ST film-not comparable with WRATH OF KHAN, THE VOYAGE HOME, THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, FIRST CONTACT or even THE MOTION PICTURE. Some things from a story angle were really hard to swallow-
SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!!
-how does a pitched battle between two Federation starships over Earth not get seen by the Federation or even people on the ground without some form of intervention?
-for someone with the last name of Khan, whom we have been told in previous incarnations was from India, Benedict Cumberbatch looks rather pasty and pale for someone from that area (although I do not recall any mention of his heritage in this film, so that might get a pass)
-how does a ship in the vacuum of space not totally implode when a bunch of explosives go off? This happens more than once in the film, and how does a massive ship, crashing towards Earth, not cause more destruction as it tears into a huge city than what appears in this film?
-exactly why does the Carol Marcus character have a shot where we (and Kirk) see her in her underwear?
There might be some other minor quibbles but I cannot remember them at this time. Much griping and grousing has been made of the reversing of the roles Kirk and Spock play in the big emotional scene toward the end. I found myself trying not to wince when I head some familiar lines from WRATH OF KHAN, but I felt that there were not too many to make me feel like they lifted the entire scene line-for-line from it, and Zachary Quinto?s reading of the ?KHAAANNN!? line easily eclipsed Shatner?s faux apoplexy in WOK. The only problem I had with the scene is that this Kirk and Spock are not as emotionally invested in each other as with the other cast, so the feelings that are expressed felt a bit forced to me.
But getting back to my original point-there is no way that this film is worse than Shatner?s misfire. For one thing, the characters in V that we know and love do things that just make no sense when you compare how they were in the series and the films before and the one after. Seriously-making Spock and Scotty comic relief? I am surprised that Leonard Nimoy and James Doohan did not walk away from this film when they saw what was being done to their characters or request serious rewrites (I can understand now why Doohan had little nice to say about Shatner in later years) as well as Nichelle Nichols, who has a lovely voice but?a fan dance? Secondly, the idea of the ST crew either going to find God (or some higher power) or running across someone in their travels who thinks they are A or The God is not new-the TOS episode ?Who Mourns For Adaonis?? comes to mind, but if you tell the audience that to reach someplace where ?God? is supposed to be, you will be taking a great risk getting there, then don?t begin the journey and almost in the blink of an eye-you are there! If there was a reason to have something like the V?ger flyover from TMP reprised and perhaps jazzed up a bit, this plot point cried out for it. Having the characters see their own lives flashing before their eyes and what they hope to achieve when they would actually meet God would have been an interesting visual as their ship travelled to their destination, and having Kirk ask ?What does God need with a starship?? pretty much negated what the whole reason for going was about-if God is so all-powerful, using a starship to get somewhere would seem awfully slow to me.
My main complaint about STID is this: why do a remake of what many consider the best film of the franchise instead of just sending the crew out on the 5-year mission? After all is said and done, this film is pretty much a time-filler until the crew actually sets out exploring those ?new worlds and civilizations,? which looks like what they were doing at the beginning of the film anyway. Maybe Abrams and his crew felt they needed to clear the decks of everything and make sure this new crew was firmly set in the public?s mind before doing so, but to me and I would think to many, the 2009 film, in giving us an alternative timeline pretty much did this. Whether the filmmakers felt that they had to make this film in order to lay new groundwork (the RAIDER OF THE LOST ARK/Khan shot feels like both an homage and a rip-off and an elbow to the ribs-I guess we?ll see him again, cripes) is beyond me, yet I did not feel like this was a vanity project like STV was. I found the story compelling, many of the visual effects shots really cool (I love the vapor trail when the Enterprise goes to warp and the shot of the ship dropping and dropping then hitting the clouds and finally rising up through them just gorgeous), the actors filling the shoes of the characters in most respects (Urban, Pegg, Cho and Quinto are really growing on me; Pine, Saldana and Yelchin..we?ll see), and a real sense of a futuristic Earth that we only got glimpses of in the other incarnations.
What I find so fascinating about the people who do not like this film, and again-I also think it has faults, is the vehemence against it. The way I have seen some people rail against it you would think that Abrams had made a minstrel show onboard the Enterprise (calling McCoy ?Bones? seems apt for that) or that all previous ST TV series and films and anything connected to them would now be taken to a big bonfire on the Paramount lot and incinerated and all who loved them would be lobotomized or sent to camps run by Michael Bay.
Folks, that ain?t gonna happen. Everyone who loves STAR TREK has had at least a few moments when they thought the franchise was dead: when the original series went off the air, when the new TV network that was supposed to have a new series as the cornerstone didn?t work out, when the first film came out, when V came out, when the original cast made the sixth film, when TNG had a sputtering first season, when DEEP SPACE NINE came out and many thought it perverted Roddenberry?s vision, when NEMESIS came out and did badly, when ENTERPRISE first aired and when it last aired, when Abrams made the 2009 film, when Abrams made this film?.kee-ripes! The great thing about STAR TREK is its resiliency-it has gone through so many iterations, deaths, rebirths, and resurrections as to make Jason Voorhees seem like a piker. You know, I remember when people were begging George Lucas to make more STAR WARS movies-they did that for so many years that it seemed whenever he blew his nose there was speculation that a new film was in the offing. Then, when he did make his next three films the fans turned out in droves but those same people also hated a lot of those films (even if they saw them over and over in a theater then at home) with a passion-because they weren?t the STAR WARS films they wanted. Now George Lucas is vilified for those three films and so many complain of how he ruined the franchise-hey guys, it was his franchise and he could do what he wanted with them?
So J. J. Abrams didn?t make the STAR TREK movie everyone wanted-hey, he could have made the characters appear in a burlesque show but he didn?t; he could have made it with everyone just sitting in a room around a table talking about what they would do but he didn?t; he could have had Kirk and Spock doing their own version of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN but he didn?t. He made his own STAR TREK movie because the first one did well and that is what the studio wanted, so they had him make another one. This isn?t Uwe Böll, or Michael Bay, or McG or even Alan Smithee-this is someone who has made many things that people love and are as devoted to almost as much as STAR TREK.
The way things are going with the entertainment business-which is exactly that, a business-and how those in the offices either base their decisions solely on what the public wants (another RESIDENT EVIL movie?) or face a hue and cry when the public doesn?t get what they want (a White House petition about Ben Affleck as Batman-God?), is it any wonder that we either keep getting sequels or recycled stuff and then people complain about it? This franchise will survive and-I hope-be going long after all the original ?Trekkers? are long gone and are buried in their photon torpedo tubes.
As William Shatner put it-get a life.
I enjoyed it.
Now, I realize that, to a lot of people in the STAR TREK universe, what I typed above is the equivalent of saying that Hitler had some good ideas or Ted Bundy was misunderstood or that I just signed the order to have all copies of the Bible burned and purged from people?s memories. To those people I have this as a reply: STAR TREK V.
At a recent ST con, a poll was taken of the attendees and STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS was chosen as the all-time worst of the ST films. You heard that right-it is considered the worst of ALL THE STAR TREK MOVIES. Now I am not one of the acolytes of Gene Roddenberry?s legacy and I probably should describe myself thusly: I only saw some fleeting glimpses of the original series when it originally aired (the best remembered being ?Spock?s Brain? [I know]); I caught up with some episodes when the show went into syndication and enjoyed what I saw but I did not get as caught up in this as I was with STAR WARS in the beginning; I was really looking forward to the first film when it came out and was totally captivated by pretty much all of it (and still am, although I thought then and, to a lesser degree still think that Shatner had some of the worst line readings in movie history: ?Bones-I need you! BADLY!?); saw all the rest of the films with both the original cast and the TNG cast on opening day; and only missed opening days for J. J. Abrams reboot and this new one due to circumstances beyond my control, the death of my mother the main reason for not seeing the 2009 film for a month. I do love a good sci-fi story well told and well produced, and for the most part all of the ST series and films have pretty much satisfied my wants and needs. The idea of mankind having a future out there in space is still a pretty cool idea, and compared to much of the pessimism and angst present in so much speculative fiction both on the printed page and in visual media these days, Roddenberry?s idealism and optimism is a pretty wonderful thing, and I can understand the devotion that so many have to what he charted out and nurtured over 40 years ago.
Except in this case-THE WORST OF THE FILMS? Really? Seriously? Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope and nope.
I guess this is the movie that had Spock do some goofy turn in gravity boots and spooking Kirk while he free climbed El Capitan. Oops-my mistake-that was STAR TREK V.
Maybe this was the movie that had Kirk, Spock and McCoy singing ?Row, Row, Row Your Boat? around a campfire, proving that those recordings that Shatner and Nimoy made were pretty good after all?oh, dopey me, that was also STAR TREK V (They also sing the song again at the end-a reprise of sorts-nice).
I got it-this is the film where Scotty turns and walks right into a bulkhead on the ship he knows better than the back of his hand and that he loves more than life itself and everyone watching went ?Wha?" Oh?that?s right-STAR TREK V, again.
A pattern seems to be forming?well, this certainly is the film where Uhura does a fan dance to distract some people so that Kirk and his men can accomplish a mission while the audience buries their face in their hands or slides down in their seats because they can?t believe what Nichelle Nichols was talked into doing.
What was that? V again? No!
OK-last chance?this has to be the movie where the Enterprise, in an attempt to find some phantom planet that will be impossible to reach due to a barrier in space that looks impenetrable, manages to smash through that barrier?like someone opening a door and stepping into a hallway immediately?right?
No?
V?again? Dammit!
So-all the above took place NOT in STID (easier than typing it a lot) but a film that came out in 1989, got the worst reviews of all the ST films that I have read (it also has the lowest rating of all the films by Leonard Maltin-**, admittedly not a fan of the series but that does stand out), abruptly reversed the financial windfall of the fourth film, which until the 2009 film was the most financially successful of all the ST films, even taking into account ticket price inflation, and even caused one of the featured actors in it-David Warner- to remark to me when I asked him about it after the 6th film came out: ?Oh, please-I would rather talk about the GOOD STAR TREK film I was in.?
Now let me say this-STID is not, in my opinion, a great ST film-not comparable with WRATH OF KHAN, THE VOYAGE HOME, THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, FIRST CONTACT or even THE MOTION PICTURE. Some things from a story angle were really hard to swallow-
SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!!
-how does a pitched battle between two Federation starships over Earth not get seen by the Federation or even people on the ground without some form of intervention?
-for someone with the last name of Khan, whom we have been told in previous incarnations was from India, Benedict Cumberbatch looks rather pasty and pale for someone from that area (although I do not recall any mention of his heritage in this film, so that might get a pass)
-how does a ship in the vacuum of space not totally implode when a bunch of explosives go off? This happens more than once in the film, and how does a massive ship, crashing towards Earth, not cause more destruction as it tears into a huge city than what appears in this film?
-exactly why does the Carol Marcus character have a shot where we (and Kirk) see her in her underwear?
There might be some other minor quibbles but I cannot remember them at this time. Much griping and grousing has been made of the reversing of the roles Kirk and Spock play in the big emotional scene toward the end. I found myself trying not to wince when I head some familiar lines from WRATH OF KHAN, but I felt that there were not too many to make me feel like they lifted the entire scene line-for-line from it, and Zachary Quinto?s reading of the ?KHAAANNN!? line easily eclipsed Shatner?s faux apoplexy in WOK. The only problem I had with the scene is that this Kirk and Spock are not as emotionally invested in each other as with the other cast, so the feelings that are expressed felt a bit forced to me.
But getting back to my original point-there is no way that this film is worse than Shatner?s misfire. For one thing, the characters in V that we know and love do things that just make no sense when you compare how they were in the series and the films before and the one after. Seriously-making Spock and Scotty comic relief? I am surprised that Leonard Nimoy and James Doohan did not walk away from this film when they saw what was being done to their characters or request serious rewrites (I can understand now why Doohan had little nice to say about Shatner in later years) as well as Nichelle Nichols, who has a lovely voice but?a fan dance? Secondly, the idea of the ST crew either going to find God (or some higher power) or running across someone in their travels who thinks they are A or The God is not new-the TOS episode ?Who Mourns For Adaonis?? comes to mind, but if you tell the audience that to reach someplace where ?God? is supposed to be, you will be taking a great risk getting there, then don?t begin the journey and almost in the blink of an eye-you are there! If there was a reason to have something like the V?ger flyover from TMP reprised and perhaps jazzed up a bit, this plot point cried out for it. Having the characters see their own lives flashing before their eyes and what they hope to achieve when they would actually meet God would have been an interesting visual as their ship travelled to their destination, and having Kirk ask ?What does God need with a starship?? pretty much negated what the whole reason for going was about-if God is so all-powerful, using a starship to get somewhere would seem awfully slow to me.
My main complaint about STID is this: why do a remake of what many consider the best film of the franchise instead of just sending the crew out on the 5-year mission? After all is said and done, this film is pretty much a time-filler until the crew actually sets out exploring those ?new worlds and civilizations,? which looks like what they were doing at the beginning of the film anyway. Maybe Abrams and his crew felt they needed to clear the decks of everything and make sure this new crew was firmly set in the public?s mind before doing so, but to me and I would think to many, the 2009 film, in giving us an alternative timeline pretty much did this. Whether the filmmakers felt that they had to make this film in order to lay new groundwork (the RAIDER OF THE LOST ARK/Khan shot feels like both an homage and a rip-off and an elbow to the ribs-I guess we?ll see him again, cripes) is beyond me, yet I did not feel like this was a vanity project like STV was. I found the story compelling, many of the visual effects shots really cool (I love the vapor trail when the Enterprise goes to warp and the shot of the ship dropping and dropping then hitting the clouds and finally rising up through them just gorgeous), the actors filling the shoes of the characters in most respects (Urban, Pegg, Cho and Quinto are really growing on me; Pine, Saldana and Yelchin..we?ll see), and a real sense of a futuristic Earth that we only got glimpses of in the other incarnations.
What I find so fascinating about the people who do not like this film, and again-I also think it has faults, is the vehemence against it. The way I have seen some people rail against it you would think that Abrams had made a minstrel show onboard the Enterprise (calling McCoy ?Bones? seems apt for that) or that all previous ST TV series and films and anything connected to them would now be taken to a big bonfire on the Paramount lot and incinerated and all who loved them would be lobotomized or sent to camps run by Michael Bay.
Folks, that ain?t gonna happen. Everyone who loves STAR TREK has had at least a few moments when they thought the franchise was dead: when the original series went off the air, when the new TV network that was supposed to have a new series as the cornerstone didn?t work out, when the first film came out, when V came out, when the original cast made the sixth film, when TNG had a sputtering first season, when DEEP SPACE NINE came out and many thought it perverted Roddenberry?s vision, when NEMESIS came out and did badly, when ENTERPRISE first aired and when it last aired, when Abrams made the 2009 film, when Abrams made this film?.kee-ripes! The great thing about STAR TREK is its resiliency-it has gone through so many iterations, deaths, rebirths, and resurrections as to make Jason Voorhees seem like a piker. You know, I remember when people were begging George Lucas to make more STAR WARS movies-they did that for so many years that it seemed whenever he blew his nose there was speculation that a new film was in the offing. Then, when he did make his next three films the fans turned out in droves but those same people also hated a lot of those films (even if they saw them over and over in a theater then at home) with a passion-because they weren?t the STAR WARS films they wanted. Now George Lucas is vilified for those three films and so many complain of how he ruined the franchise-hey guys, it was his franchise and he could do what he wanted with them?
So J. J. Abrams didn?t make the STAR TREK movie everyone wanted-hey, he could have made the characters appear in a burlesque show but he didn?t; he could have made it with everyone just sitting in a room around a table talking about what they would do but he didn?t; he could have had Kirk and Spock doing their own version of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN but he didn?t. He made his own STAR TREK movie because the first one did well and that is what the studio wanted, so they had him make another one. This isn?t Uwe Böll, or Michael Bay, or McG or even Alan Smithee-this is someone who has made many things that people love and are as devoted to almost as much as STAR TREK.
The way things are going with the entertainment business-which is exactly that, a business-and how those in the offices either base their decisions solely on what the public wants (another RESIDENT EVIL movie?) or face a hue and cry when the public doesn?t get what they want (a White House petition about Ben Affleck as Batman-God?), is it any wonder that we either keep getting sequels or recycled stuff and then people complain about it? This franchise will survive and-I hope-be going long after all the original ?Trekkers? are long gone and are buried in their photon torpedo tubes.
As William Shatner put it-get a life.
Okay there are some spoilers below:
I wanted to see this movie before I commented on it, and now that Netflix has delivered it I figured I'd deliver my commentary in this now ancient-thread.
JJ Abrams is a good creator/director who has done some things I'll admit to really liking, but when it comes to Star Trek he does not get the material or the characters at all. The problem starts with him trying to make things a bit too young and radical, probably in an effort to attract new viewers. In doing so he kind of destroys any credibility that a work of military science fiction is going to have. Originally Kirk was admittedly a swashbuckling maverick, but he was also old enough, and in control enough, despite his arrogance to be believable as a starship captain of the "Horatio Hornblower" mould. When he pushed the envelope of what he could get away with he did it from the perspective of someone who was already an established officer and had enough weight, support, and connections behind him to get away with it. In comparison JJ Abrams has pretty much reinterpreted the character as a spoiled kid who despite some basic talent would never have been put in command of anything, and probably would have been drummed out of any military organization. No matter who his daddy was, or what admiral he had behind him, it's hard to accept him being in command of anything, especially following a sequence of events where a reference to a phrank Kirk pulled in TOS was turned into a major
plot point in the first movie and literally had him getting on board a ship he later commands based on an unbelievably contrived technicality. This entire attitude continues into the second movie, where again we're retreading the same thing where Kirk is pretty much in the process of losing his command, and continues to act like someone who isn't so much an "edgy" military officer, but someone who doesn't belong there to begin with. When you continue to have a movie built off of such a messed up building block, you see the pieces and concepts falling apart which continues into the sequel.
To be honest, I've heard a lot of claims that JJ's "reboot", "alternate universe", or whatever else you want to call it isn't supposed to be for Trekkies. The usual argument being that Trekkies are a small, niche audience (which is funny because it's Trekkies that have kept this alive as long as it's gone on), and that by doing things this way a new, younger, audience can be brought in. Generally speaking the same arguments you see with comics all the time, whenever someone wants to reboot an established universe using the argument that what's holding back sales is the huge amount of material someone has to familiarize themselves with to fully understand what's going on. The results are also predictable where "reboot" comic universes like say Marvel's "Ultimate Universe" themselves ultimately wind up becoming the obscure second fiddler to the "prime universe".... not that this holds up in intent because [spoiler incoming]:
The entire "Into Darkness" movie is basically a parody of "Wrath Of Kahn", and I mean this literally. Unless you've seen the original "Khan" movie you would literally not get the meat this film is leading up to. The entire climax of this film is LITERALLY reversing the roles of the Khan finale. At the end of the original movie Spock dies from radiation while fixing the ship. In this movie it's KIRK who dies doing this. This leads to Spock letting out the epic and much parodied scream "Kaaaaahn!!!!!" before going out to pursue him mano-a-mano Captain Kirk style. The basic gimmick being that in this universe it was established Kirk couldn't even hurt Khan by punching him, but Spock who has super-strength apparently can (this does indeed make a bit of sense) leading to a chase, fist-fight, where Spock winds up getting taken down by Khan and then rescued by Uhura. Given the lack of any high concepts involved here like the "Genesis Torpedos" we have Kirk literally resurrected by a blood transfusion from Khan after Dr. McCoy notices Khan's blood was capable of resurrecting a tribble he injected with it.... an entire sequence which pretty much only "clicks" if you realize what it's subverting (some of the cheesiest, but coolest Trek moments) which requires one to be a Trekkie... in reality it comes across in the scope of the overall movie like "What the F@ck am I watching, did someone accidently switch a "Robot Chicken" script with Act 3 of this movie and nobody noticed?".
In short this is horrible, the kind of thing that happens when a sequel to a movie that should have been let die somehow gets greenlit. Like anything, especially in fandom, even the objectively worst things created wind up having legions of adoring fans, and there are doubtlessly many people who disagree... but really, this is one of those movies that is truly terrible, and honestly with the entire final sequence (which I had to describe to make this point) it has to be noted that the misuse of the license is a big part of it.
Oh and don't even get me started on what he did to the Klingons... really, the only real reason I can see the JJ-verse continue is so he can do "Kirk Meets The Borg" and re-envision The Borg as a cross between Oompa Loompas and The Na'vi or whatever...... I mean the only thing you can do here is wait to see how bad it's going to get.
I wanted to see this movie before I commented on it, and now that Netflix has delivered it I figured I'd deliver my commentary in this now ancient-thread.
JJ Abrams is a good creator/director who has done some things I'll admit to really liking, but when it comes to Star Trek he does not get the material or the characters at all. The problem starts with him trying to make things a bit too young and radical, probably in an effort to attract new viewers. In doing so he kind of destroys any credibility that a work of military science fiction is going to have. Originally Kirk was admittedly a swashbuckling maverick, but he was also old enough, and in control enough, despite his arrogance to be believable as a starship captain of the "Horatio Hornblower" mould. When he pushed the envelope of what he could get away with he did it from the perspective of someone who was already an established officer and had enough weight, support, and connections behind him to get away with it. In comparison JJ Abrams has pretty much reinterpreted the character as a spoiled kid who despite some basic talent would never have been put in command of anything, and probably would have been drummed out of any military organization. No matter who his daddy was, or what admiral he had behind him, it's hard to accept him being in command of anything, especially following a sequence of events where a reference to a phrank Kirk pulled in TOS was turned into a major
plot point in the first movie and literally had him getting on board a ship he later commands based on an unbelievably contrived technicality. This entire attitude continues into the second movie, where again we're retreading the same thing where Kirk is pretty much in the process of losing his command, and continues to act like someone who isn't so much an "edgy" military officer, but someone who doesn't belong there to begin with. When you continue to have a movie built off of such a messed up building block, you see the pieces and concepts falling apart which continues into the sequel.
To be honest, I've heard a lot of claims that JJ's "reboot", "alternate universe", or whatever else you want to call it isn't supposed to be for Trekkies. The usual argument being that Trekkies are a small, niche audience (which is funny because it's Trekkies that have kept this alive as long as it's gone on), and that by doing things this way a new, younger, audience can be brought in. Generally speaking the same arguments you see with comics all the time, whenever someone wants to reboot an established universe using the argument that what's holding back sales is the huge amount of material someone has to familiarize themselves with to fully understand what's going on. The results are also predictable where "reboot" comic universes like say Marvel's "Ultimate Universe" themselves ultimately wind up becoming the obscure second fiddler to the "prime universe".... not that this holds up in intent because [spoiler incoming]:
The entire "Into Darkness" movie is basically a parody of "Wrath Of Kahn", and I mean this literally. Unless you've seen the original "Khan" movie you would literally not get the meat this film is leading up to. The entire climax of this film is LITERALLY reversing the roles of the Khan finale. At the end of the original movie Spock dies from radiation while fixing the ship. In this movie it's KIRK who dies doing this. This leads to Spock letting out the epic and much parodied scream "Kaaaaahn!!!!!" before going out to pursue him mano-a-mano Captain Kirk style. The basic gimmick being that in this universe it was established Kirk couldn't even hurt Khan by punching him, but Spock who has super-strength apparently can (this does indeed make a bit of sense) leading to a chase, fist-fight, where Spock winds up getting taken down by Khan and then rescued by Uhura. Given the lack of any high concepts involved here like the "Genesis Torpedos" we have Kirk literally resurrected by a blood transfusion from Khan after Dr. McCoy notices Khan's blood was capable of resurrecting a tribble he injected with it.... an entire sequence which pretty much only "clicks" if you realize what it's subverting (some of the cheesiest, but coolest Trek moments) which requires one to be a Trekkie... in reality it comes across in the scope of the overall movie like "What the F@ck am I watching, did someone accidently switch a "Robot Chicken" script with Act 3 of this movie and nobody noticed?".
In short this is horrible, the kind of thing that happens when a sequel to a movie that should have been let die somehow gets greenlit. Like anything, especially in fandom, even the objectively worst things created wind up having legions of adoring fans, and there are doubtlessly many people who disagree... but really, this is one of those movies that is truly terrible, and honestly with the entire final sequence (which I had to describe to make this point) it has to be noted that the misuse of the license is a big part of it.
Oh and don't even get me started on what he did to the Klingons... really, the only real reason I can see the JJ-verse continue is so he can do "Kirk Meets The Borg" and re-envision The Borg as a cross between Oompa Loompas and The Na'vi or whatever...... I mean the only thing you can do here is wait to see how bad it's going to get.