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Into Darkness/Paradise Lost

Tiberius Jim

Tiberius Jim

Vice Admiral
Admiral
I've been re-watching DS9 on Amazon Video, and having gotten to Season 4 and the Homefront/Paradise Lost twofer, I was struck by how similar the plot is to Into Darkness. Both stories feature an Admiral with a mission of safeguarding the Federation and Earth by any means necessary, even if that means starting a war and deceiving his own people in the process. Leyton stages the attack on the power systems of Earth in order to ultimately gain power. Marcus does the same by sending Kirk on a staged mission he hopes will spark a war that he intends to lead. They both do these things with the best intentions and feel justified in their actions.

I actually feel like the story was told better in DS9. You have the addition of the Lakota operating under false pretenses attacking the Defiant only to switch sides once the truth is revealed. You have the poor unwitting Red Squad just doing what their told, not knowing their taking part in a treasonous plot. And you have Sisko throughout it all trying to make sense of it in what turns out to be a thrilling detective story culminating in the reveal of everything Leyton has been doing. You feel what Sisko feels in that you're not 100% sure what Leyton is doing is wrong.

Into Darkness, I feel, made things overly complicated with the Khan plot. Had Harrison remained Harrison and turned out to actually be working for Marcus the whole time, it might have seemed more plausible. Actually borrowing more from the DS9 episode might have actually helped the story. It would also force the writers to figure out some (better) way to bring Kirk back then the deus ex machina of Khan's super blood.
 
There is also that. Everything pretty much goes off the rails for me once it's revealed Harrison is Khan. That and the transwarp beaming device. Having Harrison attack in a BoP (leading everyone to believe the Klingons carried out the attack on SFHQ) and thus being able to warp out after being damaged by Kirk would still give you the "Our target is on Klingon/He went somewhere we can't go." plot point. It would also touch on a Kirk character point of hating Klingons, should he believe they just killed his friend/mentor. The twist would then come when we learn that it wasn't a Klingon but Harrison in a stolen BoP.
 
OTOH, for this rare once I welcome the mention of Section 31. Super-transportation was introduced in the previous movie, and now was a feature of the Trek universe; taking it away from our heroes and handing it over to villains and spooks was a good way to deal with the issue.

As for the endgame, I'm sure Marcus also had his Red Squad and loyalist ships and whatnot - he, too, was the boss (and this time an absolute ruler with five stars, rather than some three-pip local celebrity), and he, too, would be manipulating the entire Starfleet force near Earth to either do his bidding or then stay out of the way. He just didn't have the time to spell it out for the audience.

Which showcases how different the pacing was in the two stories. I think both versions deserved to be told. But whether Khan was welcome to join the game is a different matter...

But I did enjoy the slowly unraveling story of how two villains were fooling each other and themselves by supposedly working towards a common goal despite being mortal enemies. That we still don't know for sure who did what and which parts of the villains' descriptions of each other were filthy lies is IMHO excellent writing. ST6:TUC did some of that, too, but kept it "simple enough to understand" - meaning Saturday morning cartoon simple, to the detriment of the story.

Timo Saloniemi
 
That's true, the added element of the Founders, shown by the visit paid to Sisko by "O'Brien" was another bit I felt made that story superior. Maybe something similar could have been done with Klingons in ID.

There's also similarities between the Vengeance and the Lakota in that they're far more powerful than expected.

I guess what STID was missing for me was that mystery and more of an, "Oh, s***!" moment. Maybe when it's revealed that a Starfleet operative was behind the attack on HQ and not the Klingons. The filmmakers may have been going for that with Khan but it was so heavily discussed and rumored that it turned into more of an, "Oh, really?" moment.
 
Didn't they do a similar storyline on ENTERPRISE, with a corrupt Vulcan leader faking a terrorist attack in order to justify a preemptive war against Andor?
 
The DS9 two-parter was watchable, but had nothing to compare with the emotional hits of Pike dying or Kirk's sacrifice, the intense action of Spock's chase through San Francisco, the tension of Kirk's space jump with Khan, or even the humour of "James Tiberius Perfect Hair". In short, one is a movie and the other two parts of an ongoing TV series.


Robert Foxworth was good as Admiral Leyton, though. Just as unlikeable as Peter Weller in the douchebag Admiral role.
 
Flux Capacitor said:
I actually feel like the story was told better in DS9. You have the addition of the Lakota operating under false pretenses attacking the Defiant only to switch sides once the truth is revealed. You have the poor unwitting Red Squad just doing what their told, not knowing their taking part in a treasonous plot. And you have Sisko throughout it all trying to make sense of it in what turns out to be a thrilling detective story culminating in the reveal of everything Leyton has been doing. You feel what Sisko feels in that you're not 100% sure what Leyton is doing is wrong.
Click to expand...
Didn't all of that essentially happen, though, albeit with some differences?

- The Lakota/Vengeance does "switch sides" in the end, but unfortunately this time it's not from a crisis of conscience by its commander but because Khan took over the ship with the help of Kirk and Scotty. And even then it switched sides with Khan's sudden but inevitable betrayal.

- The "unwitting Red Squad unknowingly participating in a treasonous plot" is Kirk and his green crew, only a year out of the Academy and being manipulated by Marcus.

- The choice to land and search for Khan on Kronos rather than just fire torpedoes from deep space, the investigation into the true nature of the torpedoes, the interrogation of Harrison/Khan ultimately leading to his confession are the mystery and detective story and the ultimate reveal.

- And finally, Kirk does feel conflicted about Marcus' orders, which is why he was initially so gung ho to carry out a long range drone assassination on foreign soil in order to exact vengeance for Pike's death (only to have Vengeance literally come back and nearly destroy him —little on the nose, but hey).
 
Definite similarities. Though I find Into Darkness more fun to watch. But I also like "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost".
 
It was one of the better storylines of DS9, STID simply had the advantage of reaching a larger audience and the 2012/13 political landscape of drone warfare being more contemporary for it's audiences. But they're very close to one another in tone and plot.
 
Chemahkuu said:
It was one of the better storylines of DS9, STID simply had the advantage of reaching a larger audience and the 2012/13 political landscape of drone warfare being more contemporary for it's audiences. But they're very close to one another in tone and plot.
Click to expand...
If anything the fact that DS9 so accurately depicted the post-9/11 world several years before 9/11 makes it far more powerful and chilling. 2013 was over a decade after 9/11 where a writer could simply base events from their own memories, not to mention everyone and their uncle has done 9/11 allegories over the past decade that the story isn't really all that fresh and original.
 
Anyone could have theorised a terrorist attack, The Lone Gunmen did it far better even than DS9, unfortunately for them.

STID got to have commentary on something actually happening, which is more unpleasant, to me, than just speculation.
 
Several years ago, back when DS9 was on Spike, I was hang with a friend at his place. Said friend was never really into Trek that much aside from a handful of TNG isodes and the TOS films. He knew I was big into DS9, at the time.

Anyway, we were in that lackadaisical malaise young men often find themselves in when they can figure out what to do and were channel surfing when we came across "Homefront." We watched for about ten minutes when my friend turns to me and says, "You actually like this shit?"

BTW: Said friend loved ID.
 
Homefront/Paradise lost and Star Trek Into Darkness are both, ultimately, on-screen treatments of Diane Carey's "Dreadnought!" And Into Darkness even includes the Mary Sue character (Carol Marcus).
 
Crazy Eddie said:
Homefront/Paradise lost and Star Trek Into Darkness are both, ultimately, on-screen treatments of Diane Carey's "Dreadnought!" And Into Darkness even includes the Mary Sue character (Carol Marcus).
Click to expand...

How is Carol Marcus a 'Mary Sue'?
 
Greg Cox said:
Didn't they do a similar storyline on ENTERPRISE, with a corrupt Vulcan leader faking a terrorist attack in order to justify a preemptive war against Andor?
Click to expand...

Yup. I watched that episode of Enterprise this morning. The funny part about all of it is that the same actor playing Admiral Leyton in the DS9 two-parter also played the Vulcan leader in the Enterprise three-parter.... I bet his name was Ley'ton, pointy-ear in chief of the Vulcan High Council :vulcan:
 
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CommanderTrip said:
Yup. I watched that episode of Enterprise this morning. The funny part about all of it is that the same actor playing Admiral Leyton in the DS9 two-parter also played the Vulcan leader in the Enterprise three-parter.... I bet his name was Ley'ton, pointy-ear in chief of the Vulcan High Council :P
Click to expand...
Two-timing SOB. I bet he's a Changeling himself, meddling in our affairs for centuries.
 
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