STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Considering that neither were good or memorable, no.

I suppose some folks wet themselves over the ILM models.

 

It used to be said that those who fail to learn from past events are condemned to repeat them. Now it seems that those who remember the past too well feel compelled to revisit it, regardless of context or how inappropriate the intended homage plays.

Which probably explain why a few posts on trekmovie and here are already pointing to SFS as a riff point for some of Abrams' '15/'16.

 

Well, I liked it.


... the Trek movie, not the other one !

 

It may have the weakest plotting of any Trek movie, and that's saying a lot.

 

I still love it, has some of the best character moments of the TOS movie run. But I understand why modern audiences don't care about a thirty-year old Trek movie.

 

^Are you talking about TSFS? If so, I agree re the best character moments. However, the last 1/4 hour was THE most boring few minutes in a Trek movie since TMP's last 1/2 hour.

 

That's a far weaker claim than "no one [cares] now about [...] The Search for Spock".

 

Yup.

I also agree that once they leave Genesis, it's Snoozeville.

 

Part of me thinks it is snoozeville once they get out of spacedock.

But another part agrees with you, if you'll push your assessment back 2 minutes to include McCoy's monologue to Spock, which feels like De's best moment since THE EMPATH and BREAD & CIRCUSES.

 

Kelley's scene there is good. I think they might've needed to reorder the scenes somewhere (I don't know how) to maybe make the tempo of the last fifteen or so minutes seem a little more upbeat.

 

Telling the movie as a voiceover flashback comes to mind; would let you drop whatever you felt obliged to keep only for continuity.

Start the movie in darkness (no pun intended) with Kirk saying 'If I hadn't tried, the cost would have been my soul.' Makes everyone off-balance, thinking, is this going to NOT work out at the end?

 

Maybe. But I loathe flashbacks as a storytelling method.

 

Considering Abrams and Lindelof, I'm surprised there aren't more flashbacks.

 

The plot of TSFS hinges not on one or two moments when someone acts unaccountably dullwitted for a moment - nothing significant in the movie can move forward as it does except for the fact that every character other than the continuing cast of Star Trek (counting Sarek, I suppose) - behaves stupidly at just about every turn. The movie is a nearly flawless example of an Idiot Plot turned on its head - the heroes succeed at the end only because their competition and antagonists are too foolish to see and do the obvious.

 

Agreed.

Yet I still love the movie.

 

Nice to know I wasn't the only one thinking that. God, that movie was awful.

 

I still enjoy it some. That doesn't make it great.

 

What, specifically ?

 

I haven't watched the end of TSFS in many years.

When Scotty says, "That or nothing," my finger just automatically presses stop.

 

Seriously? TSFS is probably my second favorite TOS movie behind TWOK. I get the criticism of the fairly one-dimensional villains and fake Genesis planet, but the movie still has such an incredible atmosphere and sense of romance about it. The story is simple but compelling, it's got a ton of fun character moments, and it's got freakin Christopher LLoyd as a Klingon.

I seriously don't understand why fans have such a problem with it.