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Why Is "Into Darkness" So [imagine a different, more accurate past participle here]?

I liked that the movie allegorically addressed concerns about the morality of U.S. drone strikes, which continue to this day.
Is it OK to kill 100* people in a 'surgical strike' targeting 1 person? According to the U.S. government, yes. George Bush Jr. approved 57 such strikes during his 8 years in office, Obama approved 563 in his 8 years in office, Trump approved over 2000 in his 4 years in office and Biden is no doubt working hard to break Trump's record.

*Each strike kills on average 25 people but the military is allowed to make up to four strikes if their first 3 completely miss the target or they accidentally kill someone who just had the same name.
 
I think people strongly dislike the movie upon the discovery that the writer is a conspiracy theorist who was a 9/11 Truther and the movie has a lot of elements like that.

I originally thought it was a critique of the Iraq War's WMD explanation and was initially much softer.
 
Charles Phipps said:
I think people strongly dislike the movie upon the discovery that the writer is a conspiracy theorist who was a 9/11 Truther and the movie has a lot of elements like that.

I originally thought it was a critique of the Iraq War's WMD explanation and was initially much softer.
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I still think it's that. The reading that it's his 9/11 conspiracy fantasy is from YouTubers and never the man himself, IIRC. It doesn't hold up as a 9/11 truther story since Khan was rogue when he attacked Starfleet HQ and San Francisco, when that would require him to be following orders.

Everyone joked that the Vengeance crash was 9/11 x 10,000, but Kurtzman admitted in an interview that it was requested by the studio so they'd have something awesome to put into the trailers.
 
Spock’s Khan “scream”, in-story, makes more sense and is more appropriate than Kirk’s in TWOK. One can question the quality of the performance of the scene (I have zero problems with it—nor did anyone in the packed cinema at the screening I attended on opening night), but its in-story purpose is considerably more solid than the TWOK one.
 
Ovation said:
Spock’s Khan “scream”, in-story, makes more sense and is more appropriate than Kirk’s in TWOK. One can question the quality of the performance of the scene (I have zero problems with it—nor did anyone in the packed cinema at the screening I attended on opening night), but its in-story purpose is considerably more solid than the TWOK one.
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Correct. That moment is no more a problem with the film than any of the other fallacious complaints about it.
 
Khan wasn’t evil enough.

That’s really my only beef with STID. :shrug:

I definitely don’t get the butthurt about the KHAAAAAAAAN scream. So it’s an homage to TWOK? So the hell what! And there’s good reasons for Spock to lash out like that, because his friendship with Kirk is already well on its way. Hell, anybody who’s lost a good friend like that is likely to let out a good yell.
 
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I really enjoy most of the movie, but I do think things get a bit shaky with the Khan reveal, and the scream does take me out of the movie for a second. But, in the end, it's only a second, and I think people tend to forget that the Spock is this movie simply has less emotional control than his Prime counterpart.

The magic blood is a bit of a cheap plot device, but as a way to kill Kirk without writing off the character, I guess it's serviceable. At least it's foreshadowed.
 
I think a big problem with Khan as the villain is that if you did keep him as John Harrison, I think just about everyone would have been happy with the plot and it would have probably made sense if they were just a bunch of former section 31 operatives rather than Khan's followers. The story works fine and Khan feels tacked on.

It also feels like a waste when they could have gone different with the story. Play the audience for saps and have Khan actually team up with Kirk and have a happy ending.
 
The Wormhole said:
The guy used a sick child to manipulate her father into becoming a suicide bomber. That's not "evil enough" for you?
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Part of me also wondered whether he made the girl sick to begin with, but I don't think there's anything in the film to support that.
 
The Wormhole said:
Personally, I find it far more plausible he simply took advantage of a pre-existing situation rather than being personally responsible for the entire thing.
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I don't know, is it more plausible that he finds a situation he can take advantage of, or that he creates his own opportunity?
 
The Wormhole said:
Personally, I find it far more plausible he simply took advantage of a pre-existing situation rather than being personally responsible for the entire thing.
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Same. What Khan does throughout the film is find himself in unusual situations and manipulating them to his advantage. He is able to manipulate Kirk to support him against Marcus, he is able to manipulate Starfleet leadership to respond exactly how they did allowing for a further attack. At every point he is trying to gain the upper hand.
DonIago said:
I don't know, is it more plausible that he finds a situation he can take advantage of, or that he creates his own opportunity?
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The first one.
 
David cgc said:
The strong start is what makes it worse. It's the same reason I stopped watching Discovery at the end of the second season and still haven't been able to work myself up to catch up, I thought things were really going well... and then they weren't. I'd be much more willing to stick with something that didn't (apparently) blunder into greatness only to blunder right back out of it again and leave me disappointed.
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DSC S2 does get better towards the end. Not going to lie, it has it's weak points, but I do think it's worth pushing through.

ST:ID is just a mediocre film. It has a great premise and doesn't stick the landing; instead it ends off with a dumb fight scene and a miraculous resurrection.
 
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