STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[DaveyNY]

Been out of the movie for more than an hour now...

I'm torn...

I liked it, don't get me wrong...
It was a very entertaining two hours.

I'm kinda disappointed though, that they just decided to 're-imagine' TWoK.

I've had an inkling for awhile now that that was the direction they were heading with the story, I guess my expectations were that they would go further than that and include something more than another 'rogue' Star Fleet Admiral to round out their vision.

I'm trying very hard at this point to NOT let my long 'fan' association with Trek cloud my judgment...

It's just hard not to be a bit disheartened.



I've already seen what the original villains of Trek can do...
Please, lets go with something new and original with the next Trek movie.

<shrug>

 

[BillJ]

Saw it a second time last night, this time with my wife.

Great movie, though she enjoyed it I heard her giggling during the TWOK scream.

 

[BillJ]

There is one thing that bothered me...

They should've left Nimoy on the cutting room floor. They can call New Vulcan but can't send a distress signal to Earth?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

There is one thing that bothered me...

They should've left Nimoy on the cutting room floor. They can call New Vulcan but can't send a distress signal to Earth?

I think it was a dramatically preferable choice to nuSpock having an expository conversation with the ship's computer to learn more about Khan. I can't imagine, once the idea occurred to someone on the production, how they'd let go of it.

 

[DaveyNY]

Saw it a second time last night, this time with my wife.

Great movie, though she enjoyed it I heard her giggling during the TWOK scream.

Somewhere deep inside of me, a little bit was hoping they wouldn't go there...

By that point in the movie, to me, it felt contrived...

Again, it's probably my long association with Trek that is giving me these feelings... but I wonder, are there really that many people out there who didn't think the same thing.

It's supposed to be a poignant moment, but it lacked that extra bit of sentiment that the first ten minutes of the last movie had.

It made me wince.

 

[Chu'lak]

You know what I am beginning to hate? Star Trek fans. I can see not liking this movie for legitimate reasons, too fast to action packed, too much fun. Not enough staff meetings and mapping stars and studying nebluea. But I am reading things online like “McCoy said he delivered baby Gorn! Starfleet didn’t have first contact with the Gorn until 2267!”

This constant stream of Comic Book Guy nerd rage makes me embarrassed to love be a fan.

And I love that they say JJ has too much action. This movie is based on a series that the lead character got into a fist fight every week, tore his shirt open and once ran up a wall and tackled an Andorian.

 

[BillJ]

There is one thing that bothered me...

They should've left Nimoy on the cutting room floor. They can call New Vulcan but can't send a distress signal to Earth?

I think it was a dramatically preferable choice to nuSpock having an expository conversation with the ship's computer to learn more about Khan. I can't imagine, once the idea occurred to someone on the production, how they'd let go of it.

The exposition, regardless of how it was delivered, simply wasn't necessary. Khan already told us he was a bad dude from the past. It reminds me of the redundancy of the 2009 film where Spock Prime tells Kirk what a great leader he'll be then Nero does the same exact thing later while choking Kirk.

 

[cbspock]

It was mentioned in the film that Starfleet was aggressively searching space after the Narada incident and encountered the Botany Bay. So they may have encountered the Gorn earlier


-Chris

 

[DaveyNY]

There is one thing that bothered me...

They should've left Nimoy on the cutting room floor. They can call New Vulcan but can't send a distress signal to Earth?

I think it was a dramatically preferable choice to nuSpock having an expository conversation with the ship's computer to learn more about Khan. I can't imagine, once the idea occurred to someone on the production, how they'd let go of it.

It seems that there were many things in this production that they had a very hard time 'letting go of'...

I love this kind of 're-imaging' with the comics...
It just feels a bit wrong somehow, to me, to do it with a multi-million dollar movie.

I'm not saying that the inclusion of 'Nimoy-Spock' was a bad thing, I just wished they had gone in a direction with the story that wouldn't have needed it.

I guess I'm saying..., Give me New Trek...

Not Nu-Trek.

 

[BillJ]

I'm not saying that the inclusion of 'Nimoy-Spock' was a bad thing...

I am.

It really made no sense at all.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

The exposition, regardless of how it was delivered, simply wasn't necessary. Khan already told us he was a bad dude from the past.

I don't think so. He's selective in what he says, and then Admiral Marcus puts a different, much darker spin on it. Kirk's got to evaluate that, and then decides he's got to find a way to handle Khan because he needs his help.

Spock weighs all of that and decides to seek additional information about Khan - which is exactly what he should do - and his later actions are grounded in what he learns.

 

[cbspock]

The opening incident in the film really goes to show Kirk's inexperience. If Kirk and company pulled off the volcano mission sometime during their 5-year mission their plan would have been better thought out. I like the fact they are giving space for the characters to grow and change with the events in the new timeline.

When Khan was finally down, and Spock was just beating on him, it reminded me of the scene in the first movie when we saw Spock take care of the bullies when he was a kid.

I think the only time we saw Spock in the original series that out of control was This Side of Paradise, and Amok Time.

-Chris

 

[Franklin]

There is one thing that bothered me...

They should've left Nimoy on the cutting room floor. They can call New Vulcan but can't send a distress signal to Earth?

Trek's full of these stupid little inconsistencies, too. Maybe Spock has a special protected and secure line to Spock Prime. Who knows?

There is one thing that bothered me...

They should've left Nimoy on the cutting room floor. They can call New Vulcan but can't send a distress signal to Earth?

I think it was a dramatically preferable choice to nuSpock having an expository conversation with the ship's computer to learn more about Khan. I can't imagine, once the idea occurred to someone on the production, how they'd let go of it.

Dramatically, yes. But I'd agree with BillJ, otherwise. I'm going tonight, and while it sounds like I'm not going to be disappointed, I expect this little bit with Spock Prime to be my eye-rolling moment. Of course, he can get information from Spock Prime he couldn't get from a library computer like in "Space Seed".

And like I've mentioned before, it also defuses those who would've wondered why Spock wouldn't contact Spock Prime for advice in such a situtation. In a way, whether or not to use Spock Prime as a resource was probably the writers's equivalent of a no-win situation when using Khan. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

I'm actually quite surprised Nimoy agreed to do it considering how he said it had to be a meaty enough role and important to the story for him to be Spock Prime in ST09. He must really like and respect the Abrams bunch after his first experience with them. Egads, he must've decided to have a little bit more fun!

 

[BillJ]

The exposition, regardless of how it was delivered, simply wasn't necessary. Khan already told us he was a bad dude from the past.

I don't think so. He's selective in what he says, and then Admiral Marcus puts a different, much darker spin on it. Kirk's got to evaluate that, and then decides he's got to find a way to handle Khan because he needs his help.

Spock weighs all of that and decides to seek additional information about Khan - which is exactly what he should do - and his later actions are grounded in what he learns.

I simply disagree. Spock was there when he saw Khan take out about three dozen Klingon troops, was there when Khan attacked the 'Summit', was privy to the information that this guy blew up a Starfleet installation.

Plus, it's not like Spock to not use the 23rd century equivalent of Google to look up information once the Khan name was put out there.

 

[BillJ]

Trek's full of these stupid little inconsistencies, too. Maybe Spock has a special protected and secure line to Spock Prime. Who knows?

The Spock Phone!

 

[Amasov]

I still think Karl Urban is being sickeningly underutilized.

Well, they can't do everything. I'd rather see Uhura and Carol Marcus have substantial roles.

Urban is really good as McCoy, though.

"enough with the metaphors. That's an order."

I realize we're just now getting into the five year mission (thought the end of the last film seemed to suggest we were then, too), so being out in space for so long could lead to the crew bonding, but I was really hoping to see the Kirk, Spock, McCoy relationship blossom in this one. Karl Urban is so good as McCoy, but it almost seems to me that the writers don't really know what to do with him outside of sick bay.

 

[DaveyNY]

You know what I am beginning to hate? Star Trek fans. I can see not liking this movie for legitimate reasons, too fast to action packed, too much fun. Not enough staff meetings and mapping stars and studying nebluea. But I am reading things online like “McCoy said he delivered baby Gorn! Starfleet didn’t have first contact with the Gorn until 2267!”

This constant stream of Comic Book Guy nerd rage makes me embarrassed to love be a fan.

And I love that they say JJ has too much action. This movie is based on a series that the lead character got into a fist fight every week, tore his shirt open and once ran up a wall and tackled an Andorian.

I actually liked all the references like that in the movie...

I want it to be familiar..., but different.

(I noticed right away that Praxis has already blown up.)

Perhaps that was what I was expecting..., something more, than what I already know.

Don't just twist old stories, throw completely new shit into the pot and stir it up so that I have no clue as to how it's going to turn out...

Don't kill the one one character in the movie I KNOW can't stay dead...

I think I would have preferred that the Crew had abandoned the ship and let it crash into the Vengeance to keep it from hitting San Francisco.

At least that would have surprised me.

 

[Xaios]

I'm not saying that the inclusion of 'Nimoy-Spock' was a bad thing...

I am.

It really made no sense at all.

Actually, it does. Notice how as soon as NuSpock asks "how" the original crew beat Khan, they cut scene. If I had to guess, Spock probably said something along the lines of "we hoodwinked him," which is exactly what NuSpock proceeded to do. Spock Prime probably gave him the inspiration for what they did with the torpedoes.

 

[Garak]

I'm not saying that the inclusion of 'Nimoy-Spock' was a bad thing...

I am.

It really made no sense at all.

Actually, it does. Notice how as soon as NuSpock asks "how" the original crew beat Khan, they cut scene. If I had to guess, Spock probably said something along the lines of "we hoodwinked him," which is exactly what NuSpock proceeded to do. Spock Prime probably gave him the inspiration for what they did with the torpedoes.

Yeah, it's pretty obvious. The next time we see Spock he's ordering doctors and engineers to dismantle the torpedoes.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

I'm not saying that the inclusion of 'Nimoy-Spock' was a bad thing...

I am.

It really made no sense at all.

Actually, it does. Notice how as soon as NuSpock asks "how" the original crew beat Khan, they cut scene. If I had to guess, Spock probably said something along the lines of "we hoodwinked him," which is exactly what NuSpock proceeded to do. Spock Prime probably gave him the inspiration for what they did with the torpedoes.

Well yeah - when it's observed during the "Kirk dying" scene that Spock defeated Khan "by giving him what he wanted" it's an allusion to moments in TWOK like Kirk offering to beam the Genesis device to Reliant. That dialogue is matched with Kirk saying that sacrificing himself for the ship is what Spock would have done.