I would be a terrible, terrible fan if I didn’t talk about Into Darkness. I don’t really want to because I still uphold the belief that the J.J. Trek movies aren’t really Star Trek and are instead Space Setting Action Adventure Film #532343 with Familiar Character Names Parts 1 & 2. It sounds cynical but so many of the things that make a Star Trek movie a Star Trek movie are the very things that separate it from more generic sci-fi and also, very importantly, from something like, say Star Wars.
Trek is, at its heart a show about science fiction. It involves science. It’s not just action and violence. There is a decided lack of science in Into Darkness. That and I could go on and on about the ridiculousness of many things in the film.
SPOILERS FOLLOW:
The “Khaaaan” scream being among the absolute worst of them. In Wrath of Khan, Kirk screams in a dramatic but nonetheless appropriate fashion. In Into Darkness, Spock screams it for absolutely no reason whatsoever, and for reasons that defy even rampant emotional outbursts being illogical. Jordan Hoffman addresses this very well for me, though, so I don’t need to rehash the very good arguments made in this great review.
I’m frustrated by the battling ships in the vicinity of Earth, falling to Earth with no other ships or personnel around. No one knows until the Enterprise is bursting through the atmosphere. Really? Hasn’t this trick been played out enough? (One of the worst sins of Generations was the “We’re the only ship in range, sir” nonsense while the Enterprise-B was inside the Earth’s own solar system. I mean, seriously? Seriously?) It’s absurd that we’re meant to believe in this crap.
Others have addressed the point that Benedict Cumberbatch replaces Ricardo Montalban and that it makes little sense as Khan would have been born in the late 20th century, before the timeline split off. The rewriting here is confusing, and I adore Cumberbatch as an actor (from my limited exposure to him) and even in this role, but the role is underdeveloped. Mightily. He serves a good purpose but Khan is absurd in this scenario where any villain could have done the trick, including a new one. Wasn’t the whole point of splitting the timeline so that we could see a different take on Star Trek? No? Well, that’s certainly how it was presented.
Criminal underuse of Karl Urban yet again. McCoy was always my favorite of the original triad. Karl Urban does a fantastic job as the cynical, sarcastic doctor and he is scarcely on screen before being whisked away for yet another brain pain forced friendship between Kirk and Spock that makes not sense whatsoever in this universe.
This is still a fun movie, but it isn’t Star Trek. It’s a generic sci-fi film with characters who happen to share names with the ones from that 1966 television show. And that’s my biggest problem with this movie. It belittles the universe of ST without actually giving the audience anything meaningful to hold onto. My favorite ST series is DS9 so I’m happy to deal with dystopian viewpoints and so-called “anti-Roddenberry” doctrine so long as it serves a purpose and ultimately has more meaning than a bland “And everything mostly worked out” at the end. I confess I was originally excited to hear a Section 31 reference thrown into this movie but it went astray really quickly. But hooray, a concept first introduced in Ds9 finally made it to the big screen. Qapla!
Keith Decandido’s spoiler-iffic review of Into Darkness and the Half in the Bag equally spoiler-iffic review, in conjunction, more or less summarize the remainder of my complaints about the movie.
The successes, I think, are that it’s still very fun, provided you abandon your intelligence a little bit. It’s also tricked out with fairly humorous interactions and Cumberbatch is a fantastic joy to watch on screen.
My favorite part, however, is from the trailer for The Internship beforehand. Minute 2:07 is the relevant mark. (Trying to evoke Patrick Stewart is not a bad way to start out before a Star Trek movie, or really, um, anything.)
In other news, I watched every episode of the new Arrested Development season four the day they were released, and I can’t believe Venture Brothers actually came back, particularly because I haven’t been able to see it yet. I saw Iron Man 3 and I’m happy to talk about how much I love the Codex Alera books. My springtime of nerdom will be complete just as soon as Korra is available to me.
Dumpster Jedi 