STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Yes it was completely silly to have her on the volcano mission and insane to beam her onto that transport rather than a security dude. But it was also good to see them giving the women something to do other than open hailing frequencies. It doesn't make a huge amount of sense but it's better than the alternative.

When are we going to have a woman villain?

 

Kirk's threesome was there to show how immature he was, same with him ogling at Uhura. As for Uhura herself, she's an independent woman who rose through the ranks using her expertise and genius, and you can't really fault her for caring about her boyfriend. For God's sake the man lost almost everything, literally.

Equality isn't numbers here. It's the actions.

 

I have no problem with Kirk having sex with two beautiful women, especially at his age. Maybe TOS Kirk would have a little whisper in his head saying "be discreet" and maybe.. he wouldn't. And maybe in this century enjoying yourself in bed with some tail (SEE WHAT I DID THERE) is not "something like that" but just mutual recreation.

When did they show Zoe's ass?

And yes, gratuitous underwear. I would have preferred to see her in bed with someone if they wanted to flash her underwear. But whatever. I think we're getting some foreshadowing for Kirk's future relationship with her.

 

Agreed. Although Star Trek's been guilty of overusing its main cast, from the very beginning. It could have been a female security officer, too, who was beamed down instead instead of Uhura, by the way.

Dunno about next time, but we've already had the Borg Queen.

 

In the comics both Zahra and Rand take on the roles of security, although I favour keeping Rand as Kirk's yeoman because it gives her more of a connection to him and to the action. At the moment, they've glossed over why she is a yeoman at all.

Admiral Marcus should have been Carol's mum. Anybody who has watched the Manchurian Candidate could see a parallel. To late now though - nothing but male admirals in this reality. Buttlerfly Effect dontcha know?

 

I went prepared to fully love the movie, yet it struck me somewhat cold. I ended up giving it a B-. That being said, I will see it again to double check my original impressions. I think the thing that was the most off putting to me was all the call backs to TWOK. I felt like the writers were using a sledge hammer to get the point that this is Star Trek across when they just needed a regular hammer. Of course there was still a lot of stuff I enjoyed, and I probably would have really enjoyed a Robocop reference or two, especially if they could have gotten Kurtwood Smith involved in this iteration of Trek as well.

 

Oh I forgot about her.. JOKE!!

I want someone the caliber of Louise Fletcher or Polly Walker on the big screen as THE villain in a Trek movie.

 

Kirk's speech near the end of the movie was just amazing. you can actually hear the experience and maturity in his voice coming out and i can't wait to see how seasoned he will be when film 3 comes out.

 

I wonder how far in the future the next film will be. I'm thinking maybe the fourth year into their five-year mission.

 

I'm still scared that Star Wars will keep the third film from us.

 

As she's walking towards the Klingons, her ass is in the shot. It's about 5-10 seconds of just watching her walk with the Klingons in the background.

 

yeah they do need to make the characters a little bit older to match the actors that's playing them. heck John Cho is the oldest actor at 40, he's playing a 20 something year old Sulu.

 

Between the speech and the start of the 5 year mission, this was one of the best endings of any ST movie.

 

I was too busy thinking about scared she obviously was, and how she was pulling herself together to also think "oh that is her ass". Because you know when people walk in front of you of course you see their ass. Maybe you just noticed this because you like her ass?

 

[sarcasm]Yeah, it's my fault.[/sarcasm]

 

I wonder if in the third film we will see Carol and Kirk hooking up and having David.

 

Seriously, I have seen this movie three times AND I like a nice woman's body as much as the next person. I do not recall any gratuitous ass scenes and if you are saying that you could see her ass because she was walking away from the camera.. SO? You can see everyone's asses in that position. What was gratuitous about it?

 

I'm with teacake. While I had no problem noticing the Carol Marcus lingerie, the Uhura Klingon scene had a LOT more going on than just her ass. If that's what you saw ... well, then that's what you were focusing on.

I have to admit, as much as I am thrilled about Abrams and Star Wars, I, too, am a bit apprehensive. But as far as I know, as yet he's on for just SW VII, so perhaps he'll still have some love for the next Trek film.

 

I just saw the film an hour ago, thanks to the ticket Throwback sent me!

Some brief thoughts:

1. I LOVED that Section 31 was part of this! I loved the conspiracy aspect, and that the big bad wasn't just another pissed off mustache-twirling alien.

2. I liked Khan, but I won't be admitting that on Tumblr. He was actually way more terrifying than Montalban but also comes off as a character redesign. CumberKhan was way more a connection to Space Seed than TWOK, as it should be. Honestly, I would have LOVED to see Naveen Andrews or another Indian actor play him - but I can also see why they didn't (because it would be in the realm of unfortunate implications), and given how genuinely blood-curdling and inhuman I found this Khan, I'm fine with Cumberbatch's version. From a purely aesthetic standpoint, I bought him as a character in his own right. And I can see why they didn't use Joachim or someone else, it would have lacked the same impact.

3. I was okay with the Klingon redesign. Just okay with it. Enough was there that said "Klingon" to me that the redesign didn't bother me. It seemed midway between TNG and TOS. I bought the Klingons as Klingons and that's really all I ask. The costumes really did look inspired by TOS and I liked that.

4. Most of the people in the theater with me were people old enough to have seen the original series, let alone TWOK. The callouts to TWOK proved problematic because they caused everyone else in my row to snicker, mutter "yeah right", or giggle and THAT was distracting. Somehow, the tail end of the film came off a little... fanfictionish. But I was okay with it.

5. This is the first time I've really bought Chris Pine as Kirk.

6. The movie really runs fast. I couldn't believe I was in the theater as long as I was, it really feels short. I liked the brisk pace, though. Very tight writing.

I only have one question - one thing that confused me - what happened in the engine room that caused the ship to drop out of warp? Who sabotaged the ship and when? That part went by so fast.

 

This was a whole hell of a lot better than Trek XI was, that's for damn sure. This actually feels like Star Trek, or more Trek like than XI was anyway. The characters are a lot better handled this time around, Kirk and Spock actually reminded me of Shatner and Nimoy a few times, most notably the conversation about being happy.

Scotty was better balanced this time around. While I understand when you cast an actor like Simon Pegg you want to take advantage of his comedic talent, it is nice this time they managed to have give the character a more serious aspect. They managed to perfectly blend the seriousness of the character Doohan played with the humour Pegg brought to it in a way which works and fits the character perfectly. Hell, I kind of wish we could have gotten more of him and Keenser at a nightclub on Earth, that was a cool scene.

I still don't get why Chekov was made chief engineer. Yes, they handwave this away by saying he'd been training under Scotty, but still, he's probably the youngest officer on the Enterprise, and everyone else in engineering has more experience as engineers and officers than he does. It just seemed odd. It's nice they cut back on the V/W reversal this time.

Sulu, Uhura, and McCoy were under-utilized. Oh sure, they each had key scenes and were awesome in what they had, but I don't know. I guess there isn't really enough for everyone.

Cumberbatch does an awesome job as Khan. Despite obvious differences, he perfectly captures Ricardo Montalban's essence and makes his portrayal of the role unique to hiimself. Though I have to complain about casting a white guy in the role. Star Trek is well known for diversity among ethnicities. Hell, it's one of the things its famous for. It's kind of a smack in the face to take a character who is supposed to be Indian, and was originally played by a Latino actor and cast a white guy in the role. I can let it slide since Cumberbatch is perfect in the role, but really. It's especially bad since Abrams Trek doesn't really have very man non-white prominent characters. Or rather, Trek XI didn't (just Uhura, Sulu, Captain Robau and Tyler Perry). STID at least did feature more non-white characters, minor though most of them were.

I've made this complaint before, but really, the USS Vengeance has no subtletly to it at all. It's big, black, scary looking, armed to the teeth. Aside from Admiral Marcus, its crew are big, muscular guys who are scary-looking thugs. It has a masculine voice as opposed to the feminine one that is the Starfleet norm. And to make matters completely ridiculous, when it first shows up, there's a sound effect which sounds like Darth Vader's breathing. It might as well be flying a banner labelling it "Bad Guy's Ship."

Just what was up with the uniforms worn by the Vengeance crew anyway? It's been suggested that Vengeance is supposed to be a stealth ship, so one might say it's to cover up they're Starfleet. But then Marcus still has Admiral's stripes on his uniform, so that defeats the purpose. I suppose it's possible they're supposed to be Section 31 uniforms, and if so they should have just kept the black leather from DS9.

Kirk's death scene was far too derivitive of Spock's death scene from TWOK. It's practically a reenactment, down to every last detail. The only thing missing is an elderly Chinese guy in engineering for Spock to bump into as he runs in. And when it's all done and Spock screaming "KHAN!!!" is just too much.

But yeah, I actually enjoyed this one. This is Star Trek, not that idiotic mess they slapped together in 2009.

Other complaints and nitpicks:
-I can't stand this obsession Abrams has with everyone constantly talking over each other. It was grating in Trek XI and beyond annoying here. I think this time it got to me more than the lens flares.
-Exactly why did it need to be Khan's blood used to resurrect Kirk? Couldn't any of the Augments provide a blood sample, like say, oh I don't know, they guy they took out of a pod so they could put Kirk in stasis?
-On a similar note, Khan is immune to the Vulcan neck pinch. Spock successfully used it against an Augment in Space Seed.
-For that matter, Khan is too invincible. In TWOK having the Reliant's bridge fall apart on him seemed to have him done in enough that he just threw in the towel. Yet he's on board a starship which crashes into a city and he literally walks away from it essentially unscathed.
-The Tribble breathing just looked weird.