STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]
- Thread starter Agent Richard07
- Start date
Hey guys, just saw the movie and I thought it was fantastic. Just wanted to throw out a few things Bob Orci said over at Trek Movie since I saw everyone discussing them.
The Enterprise underwater- Basically the interference from the erupting Volcano would not allow them to transport without direct line of sight and they couldn't get close enough with shuttlecraft without risking being seen.
Khan's blood being uses instead of another cryo sleeper. Basically, Bones wasn't going to risk killing another cryo sleeper, since the unfreezing process was tricky, when there was still a chance they could get Khan. Also, he had no idea that anyone's blood other than Khan's would work since he has seen what happened with the tribble. Since Kirk was on ice time wasn't really of the essence, they had a chance to let things play out.
Also, the blood itself did not just save Kirk. It was a starting point for a serum that Bones created to reverse the radiation damage by restoring the cells. They had to make sure he wasn't still iradiated after the procedure.
Now, I would like to speculate on Khan's appearance. Since he was working for Section 31 and they value their secrecy and planning, I would assume that he was forced to undergo plastic surgery to fit in with his new cover identity. It really is the only logical conclusion I can come up with. Thanks for reading.
The Enterprise underwater- Basically the interference from the erupting Volcano would not allow them to transport without direct line of sight and they couldn't get close enough with shuttlecraft without risking being seen.
Khan's blood being uses instead of another cryo sleeper. Basically, Bones wasn't going to risk killing another cryo sleeper, since the unfreezing process was tricky, when there was still a chance they could get Khan. Also, he had no idea that anyone's blood other than Khan's would work since he has seen what happened with the tribble. Since Kirk was on ice time wasn't really of the essence, they had a chance to let things play out.
Also, the blood itself did not just save Kirk. It was a starting point for a serum that Bones created to reverse the radiation damage by restoring the cells. They had to make sure he wasn't still iradiated after the procedure.
Now, I would like to speculate on Khan's appearance. Since he was working for Section 31 and they value their secrecy and planning, I would assume that he was forced to undergo plastic surgery to fit in with his new cover identity. It really is the only logical conclusion I can come up with. Thanks for reading.
8. I think they were worried that if they darkened Cumberbatch's skin or blackened his hair it would have given the game away but leaving him with blue eyes did seem to be underscoring the fact that he wasn't even remotely south asian in ethnicity. It would have been nice to something subtle alluding to his ethnicity or faith such as a ceremonial dagger. If there was, I missed it.
10. TOS Spock was the finest first officer in the fleet but he had no desire to be captain in TOS especially given the racism against aliens at the time, which also seems to be present in NuTrek given how few there are among the top starfleet brass (sexist AND racist - they really are reminiscent of 21st century Earth).
I agree that NuSpock seems to have none of that reluctance to lead, being a higher rank at an earlier date here and he has 5+ years more experience than Kirk too. It's like promoting ENSIGN Chekov, with his year of experience as a navigator, shadowing Scotty on a part-time basis, to be in charge of engineering instead of Lieutenant Mulhall who has been working in engineering for the last year. She'll probably transfer to the rim with Christine Chapel and Elizabeth Dehner if she's already hit the glass ceiling.
12. I think this shows why you shouldn't appoint an ensign as your chief engineer. You have 400 crew probably a third of whom will be engineers and technicians. You are at red alert when damage control teams must take up positions all over the ship. The ship is broken and has no warp power, impulse power OR thrusters to maintain its orbit. The damage control teams are... somewhere else? Lost in the brewery perhaps?
18. I felt that allowing Uhura on the volcano mission was ok BUT they should have also had a geophysicist or volcanologist to provide expert advice. Spock is an astrophysicist and a computer expert. Uhura is a technician. Using characters for the sake of using them is ok as long as it isn't stupid. This was one of the most annoying pits that Voyager fell into e.g. using Kim and Neelix on a geology mission instead of introducing a ship's geologist. This can lead to the stagnation of the character dynamic in a series. In a movie franchise it just looks silly and it's something that NuTrek seems willing to use a lot. I do want to see them use the characters BUT assigning Chekov to assist the new chief engineer would have made FAR more sense than making him the chief and could have led to a similar amount of dialogue.
Uhura on the Qo'Nos mission was consolation for overlooking the fact that she was best qualified to accompany Kirk on the Romulan mission in the previous movie (lets not forget that Spock just turned up and insisted that he join in - it wasn't Kirk's command decision). It was moderately appropriate but yeah, it was a shame that she wasn't allowed to be smarter and more effective. TOS Uhura was very successful at bluffing opponents.
20. This was very silly and drawn out. He didn't even raise the intruder alarm. Scotty was in a starfleet vessel with a stonking great ID beacon and he managed to get inside a secure facility without needing so much as an ID badge. In fairness he could have disengaged the beacon but a vessel with no beacon should still have been challenged - we can locate unidentified aircraft with our current level of tech after all. With such appalling levels of security for secure sites, maybe it shouldn't come as a surprise that the guard was dumb. We also have to consider that Earth security took no action to intervene to prevent a battle in near Earth orbit, tow damaged ships out to a stable orbit, or use tractor beams, force fields, or missiles to protect populated areas.
It's up there with an emergency escape pod telling its inhabitant to wait for rescue from the outpost mere kilometers from the landing site without attempting to contact said outpost (which should have been able to beam Kirk to the base). In fact, why did Spock waste a life pod at all. He'd have been better off beaming Kirk straight to the station brig and save an important resource for the upcoming battle.
No wonder they needed Khan to help them out. It's the plot of Demolition Man all over again!
Last edited:
Saw it again in 2D. I think that'll be it for me until it's realsed on blu-ray.
- Caught the Mudd reference this time. Great nod to the Countdown to Darkness prequel comic.
- I take back what I said about the humor. It came off better on a second viewing.
- Khan's people were in pods in this movie but they weren't in "Space Seed".
- The Enterprise's design seems kind of flimsy with the warp nacelle pylons attached to the shuttle bay. Never took note of that before. Super strong 23rd century materials?
- Loved that portable hole.
For a lot of these issues, it's easy to come up with your own explanations if you need to.
- Caught the Mudd reference this time. Great nod to the Countdown to Darkness prequel comic.
- I take back what I said about the humor. It came off better on a second viewing.
- Khan's people were in pods in this movie but they weren't in "Space Seed".
- The Enterprise's design seems kind of flimsy with the warp nacelle pylons attached to the shuttle bay. Never took note of that before. Super strong 23rd century materials?
- Loved that portable hole.
Saw it the second time around. I like it.
Each deck is huge like the area where Scotty was. This is a pure military vessel. Gotta have big decks to hold all those weapons and equipment.
As mentioned in "Space Seed", he was unknown even in his own time.
Plastic surgery with the new name.
"Kronos" became the english designation because the two words sound so much alike.
Raised in the UK after the destruction of the Kelvin.
For a lot of these issues, it's easy to come up with your own explanations if you need to.
Last edited:
I thought the bar scene with Kirk and Pike was especially poignant, after they were done reminiscing about their last trip to a bar together. I didn't know Pine could act that well.
Okay, then assist the conversation until then by not participating. Any contribution you make will be informed by ignorance.
After last night's hand-wringing, I did see Star Trek: Into Darkness today. And my fears were relieved, in some respects. This is not a re-hash of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
It is a summer blockbuster. Kudos to the team that put this movie together for trying to put some semblance of a theme into the movie. Kudos for trying to take Star Trek and use it as a reflection of our attitudes towards terrorism, and what we do when we face an existential threat. I thought about my own attitudes towards Boston being on lockdown after the events that transpired around the Boston Marathon bombing. The best Trek tries to do this, and the argument about safety is some of the best parts of the movie.
It fails unless you consider it an action flick, however. Each and every one of these characters has a legitimate motivation for revenge--Khan for being used by Starfleet, Kirk for the murder of Admiral Pike, Khan for Kirk betraying him, Admiral Marcus for trying to keep the Federation safe from another Nero-style attack. Carol Marcus for seeing her father have his head crushed, Spock for having Kirk die. The movie fails in the simple art of storytelling from there. No character steps back from those emotions to show how we should respond, the appropriate response to having someone you loved murdered. No one is wise enough to lecture the crew. And that is very bad for Gene Roddenberry's vision indeed. A speech at the end, after using people was the only thing that kept them alive, does not a theme make. This movie is about exactly what NOT to do when someone wrongs you.
Carol Marcus is the only one who doesn't seek revenge. And her reaction is cold as if nothing happened. I know if I saw my father's head crushed, I would be emotional. Stepping away from the emotion, as Spock suggests on Kronos, is not the way to handle this situation. You must deal with the emotions and choose the right course of action.
Kirk's speech about how he "doesn't know what he should do" is what this character is all about. He doesn't have the training necessary to be Captain. His love for Spock is never explained, as a mind-meld transference from Prime Spock, to his sympathy over losing his mother, whatever. We are left to guess. The relationships--the loyalty, love, and comradery among the crew--never hinted at, never given a character-building scene. They just are loyal and we are to accept it.
There are no good guys in this movie, it relies on lore and sentimentality of the past to explain who we are supposed to be cheering for. They don't do anything noble. Kirk isn't concerned about anyone else in that room except the one he cared about. He's selfish.
Spock is willing to push away emotions but can't do it when it counts. Nyota never says "Stop Spock. It's wrong." She says "Stop Spock, we need him."
Scotty is the only redeeming figure in the whole movie. He is capable at his job, tries his hardest to do what is right, and has training to handle these situations. And he gets busted off the Enterprise for it.
Now, for the nit-picks:
--A pack of Klingons--sure we can take them on. One Vulcan, oh, I'm too weak and will lose.
--No need for Prime Spock at all. Happy to see Leonard Nimoy, no need to show him.
--All the business about the ships in Marcus' office. Who cares? With or without it, it wouldn't make the movie better or worse.
-- Apologies to the people who claimed the Enterprise wasn't the ship crashing into San Francisco. You can break down the images better than I can.
--Section 31 is no longer a secret? It goes away simply because an Admiral dies? Can someone say plothole?
--76 Khans are still alive.
--I had no emotional reaction to Kirk's death. Zero. A little boy was crying behind me. It was anti-climatic and it's been done before. Way before he looks at the tribble, I am muttering "Khan's blood." There wasn't enough of a battle with Khan, a real space battle, for me to feel this was the only way to save the ship and to have some emotional connection to it. Left me flat.
All in all: A for effort, D for execution. C overall. Questioning if I want to see Star Trek XIII.
It is a summer blockbuster. Kudos to the team that put this movie together for trying to put some semblance of a theme into the movie. Kudos for trying to take Star Trek and use it as a reflection of our attitudes towards terrorism, and what we do when we face an existential threat. I thought about my own attitudes towards Boston being on lockdown after the events that transpired around the Boston Marathon bombing. The best Trek tries to do this, and the argument about safety is some of the best parts of the movie.
It fails unless you consider it an action flick, however. Each and every one of these characters has a legitimate motivation for revenge--Khan for being used by Starfleet, Kirk for the murder of Admiral Pike, Khan for Kirk betraying him, Admiral Marcus for trying to keep the Federation safe from another Nero-style attack. Carol Marcus for seeing her father have his head crushed, Spock for having Kirk die. The movie fails in the simple art of storytelling from there. No character steps back from those emotions to show how we should respond, the appropriate response to having someone you loved murdered. No one is wise enough to lecture the crew. And that is very bad for Gene Roddenberry's vision indeed. A speech at the end, after using people was the only thing that kept them alive, does not a theme make. This movie is about exactly what NOT to do when someone wrongs you.
Carol Marcus is the only one who doesn't seek revenge. And her reaction is cold as if nothing happened. I know if I saw my father's head crushed, I would be emotional. Stepping away from the emotion, as Spock suggests on Kronos, is not the way to handle this situation. You must deal with the emotions and choose the right course of action.
Kirk's speech about how he "doesn't know what he should do" is what this character is all about. He doesn't have the training necessary to be Captain. His love for Spock is never explained, as a mind-meld transference from Prime Spock, to his sympathy over losing his mother, whatever. We are left to guess. The relationships--the loyalty, love, and comradery among the crew--never hinted at, never given a character-building scene. They just are loyal and we are to accept it.
There are no good guys in this movie, it relies on lore and sentimentality of the past to explain who we are supposed to be cheering for. They don't do anything noble. Kirk isn't concerned about anyone else in that room except the one he cared about. He's selfish.
Spock is willing to push away emotions but can't do it when it counts. Nyota never says "Stop Spock. It's wrong." She says "Stop Spock, we need him."
Scotty is the only redeeming figure in the whole movie. He is capable at his job, tries his hardest to do what is right, and has training to handle these situations. And he gets busted off the Enterprise for it.
Now, for the nit-picks:
--A pack of Klingons--sure we can take them on. One Vulcan, oh, I'm too weak and will lose.
--No need for Prime Spock at all. Happy to see Leonard Nimoy, no need to show him.
--All the business about the ships in Marcus' office. Who cares? With or without it, it wouldn't make the movie better or worse.
-- Apologies to the people who claimed the Enterprise wasn't the ship crashing into San Francisco. You can break down the images better than I can.
--Section 31 is no longer a secret? It goes away simply because an Admiral dies? Can someone say plothole?
--76 Khans are still alive.
--I had no emotional reaction to Kirk's death. Zero. A little boy was crying behind me. It was anti-climatic and it's been done before. Way before he looks at the tribble, I am muttering "Khan's blood." There wasn't enough of a battle with Khan, a real space battle, for me to feel this was the only way to save the ship and to have some emotional connection to it. Left me flat.
All in all: A for effort, D for execution. C overall. Questioning if I want to see Star Trek XIII.
They were frozen after they were clinically dead, but before enough time had passed for resuscitation to be possible. That's the whole point of freezing someone at the point of, or shortly after, clinical death -- we could revive them right now, but there wouldn't be any point, because we can't fix what's wrong with them. So we'll freeze them in the hopes they can be revived when a cure is available.
And, personally, I would argue that if you can be resuscitated, you were never really dead to begin with. But that's a whole other debate.
The point is that Crusher's treatment required very specific circumstances planned for in advance. She couldn't just bring people back from the dead at will, or we would have seen a lot less bodies throughout TNG's run.
That's the problem with using Khan's blood. Unless we establish some sort of limit on its abilities, it opens the door to regenerating anyone who has died. The Genesis Planet would have opened the same door, except that it blew up, conveniently skirting the issue.
I would really like the Enterprise to go up against something it's a match for. So far it's been dicked by the Nerada and now the Vengeance.
At least against the Reliant they were equally matched.
At least against the Reliant they were equally matched.
A
Amaris
Guest
Well, you know, people have different tastes. Personally, I like TUC a lot, it might be my favourite TOS movie, but I also think that the new Star Trek movies are better.
Not a fan of crude sexual metaphors. I don't think I follow you. What are the reasons that people dislike Nemesis for but like this movie for? The two don't have that much in common.
Yup. I shied away from watching Doctor Who for a while because its premise sounded pretty ridiculous to me (it still does). It turned out to be fantastic and became one of my favourite shows. A film is more than just its story.
Ok...
You should probably have that checked out. 
As for the Star Trek into Decadence moniker - I really don't get it. Maybe decadence means something else nowadays but if not I don't see it in the movie. It's about family, loyalty and ideals. Our heroes are people with a conscience and a sense of duty who are members of an organisation founded on high-minded ideals. That's not decadent at all.
But Kirk did step back and examine what he was about to do and the morality of such after seeing his officers react negatively to the mission. Much like Picard stepped back from using the virus on the Borg after people like Guinan and Geordi convinced him it was wrong.
Khan was still a terrorist who had a hand in murdering people and Kirk arrived at the correct way to handle the situation.
Because he was facing death. He still went on the mission. Admiral Marcus is right about what he did. There are no consequences, again, for this Kirk.
What consequences should he have faced? He lost a "father" figure and realized that command was about more than sitting in the "chair". Then he "died" saving his ship. And while bringing him back represents a cheat of sorts it doesn't cheapen the sacrifice the character was willing to make.
They wouldn't be in this situation if he hadn't tried to seek revenge. He started a war with the Klingons and gets a 5-year mission for it. That's not much in the way of a consequence.
What war? I doubt they send their most advanced ship on a five-year mission of exploration if they were in the middle of fighting a war...
Saw the midnight premiere last night. I really enjoyed it although I think it could have focused more on the characters and themes from TOS. I did enjoy it though.
I thought Zachary Quinto played a decent Spock for what it was...however due to my obsessiveness over the previous season of American Horror Story , I couldn't get Oliver Thredson out of my mind every time I got a good look at him. That would only make sense to AHS: Asylum watchers, but yeah.
Overall I thought it was a good watch, but I think I prefer the style of the tv shows better.
I thought Zachary Quinto played a decent Spock for what it was...however due to my obsessiveness over the previous season of American Horror Story , I couldn't get Oliver Thredson out of my mind every time I got a good look at him. That would only make sense to AHS: Asylum watchers, but yeah.
Overall I thought it was a good watch, but I think I prefer the style of the tv shows better.
I was laughing all through the homage. If it wasn't meant to be funny then I apologise to all those cinema-goers who haven't seen the original.
I too wasn't happy about Chris Chapel being booted off the ship given that Majel Barrett had died since making the last movie I was hoping that Chapel would have been given a part as an homage to the grand old dame of Trek. But bite you tongue! How dare you write off my beloved Janice!
Yeoman Rand has featured as semi-regular support in the comics, mostly in a security capacity so I was disappointed to see Boma on the Qo'Nos mission instead of her. It seems like yet another pointless miss when it comes to equalising the sexes a bit more and paying homage to some of the cool women of Trek.
On the other hand, Chris Chapel has been absent from the comics. I'd assumed that they were keeping her under wraps until the actress playing her was cast so the sidelining was a bit of a shock. I'm hoping that they are planning to reintroduce her in a Nuversion of What Are Little Girls Made of? I'm worried they'll use her as a one-shot but I'm keeping fingers crossed. They wrote Dr Dehner out of her episode but left in all the male characters and they still haven't featured or mentioned T'Pau despite featuring the surviving vulcans so the lack of respect to the female characters has been grating on me for a while now.
The Chekov and Uhura issue comes down to them wanting to use regular characters even if it makes no sense. I'm not a fan. They seem to be doing an excellent job with Sulu in both movies and the comics but less so with the others. Uhura suffered in the first movie when she was bumped from the Romulan mission despite being the best qualified so that the boys could play together and bond. I get the impression that these writers don't intend to change this style of storytelling.
It's not just about making use of your expensive actors though. They do seem to do the same thing in the comics. Kirk asks if the psychologist Dr Dehner (in fact she was a psychiatrist but maybe either Kirk or the writers don't understand the difference) would have any insight into Gary Mitchell's condition. When he's told that she elected not to join teh crew, does Kirk suggest that her replacement should venture forth instead? Perhaps the delectable Helen Noel might like to take a stab?
Nope apparently there aren't enough psychologists or phychiatrists to go round. Or enough engineers. Or enough physicists (since Spock seems to think that a research vessel needs only one - and that's probably why he nixed the geologist and vulcanologist too - what a glory hog). Still, with so few scientists you would think they'd have room for a few more engineers...
I think you take the whole 'sexual equality' thing of a show that was born in the sixties a little too seriously. It's Star Trek, it is what it is. There's lots of other shows that do far better on the 'sexual equality' count, you'd likely be happier watching those.
A
Amaris
Guest
Saw the original, didn't laugh at this one.
As for corny, well, sometimes you just need to let your communicator shake a little more, as your face morphs into apoplectic rage (even though you know that your ship will be picking up you in two hours), then have the scream of Khan's name echo into space several times.
In this case, I think Quinto did a superior job of exhibiting rage.
Last edited by a moderator:
Similar threads
- Sticky
- Poll
