STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]
- Thread starter Agent Richard07
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Just got back from the film and my thoughts aren't quite organized... 
On the plus side, man did this movie look beautiful!! I'm a 3-D skeptic but, aside from maybe one or two shots, I thought it was well done. And I liked a lot of the character interactions and humor - not nearly as bad as the worst reviews made it out to be.
On the down side, the writing.
What was the point of rebooting the franchise if they were just gonna bring Khan out again? A Khan who acts nothing like Khan, with none of the nuance, or romance, or charisma. (And I say this as a Cumberbatch fan.) Why didn't Kirk and Co. look him up in the library computer? (At least tell us if the records were wiped out by Section 31.)
And I'm sorry but the filmmakers can't use "It's an alternate universe!" as an excuse every time. Someone else pointed this out: while the timeline is used to set up certain plot elements, it's not like it's driving the characters and informing their decisions. "I wonder what my counterpart would do in this situation."
If they were gonna steal from a previous film, why not a lesser one? Why not do Star Trek V with Cumberbatch as Sybok and the crew could learn a lesson about worshiping false idols? I have to believe there was at least one superior idea that these guys came up with that, for one reason or another, was stuffed in a drawer.
There was no reason the villain had to be Khan and no reason for Carol Marcus to be in the film. They could've been anyone. I would've been happier if Cumberbatch had been one of Khan's men and maybe the real Khan would be revealed at the end, setting up the next movie.
I was entertained but shouldn't Trek aim for something higher than low-hanging fruit? And the theme is undercut by the plot: Khan should get a trial... but he doesn't! And since technically, this is the "second" movie, things like Kirk's death/rebirth and Spock's "KHAN!"... these guys didn't earn it yet.
Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park sums it up best:
"...it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox..."
On the plus side, man did this movie look beautiful!! I'm a 3-D skeptic but, aside from maybe one or two shots, I thought it was well done. And I liked a lot of the character interactions and humor - not nearly as bad as the worst reviews made it out to be.
On the down side, the writing.
What was the point of rebooting the franchise if they were just gonna bring Khan out again? A Khan who acts nothing like Khan, with none of the nuance, or romance, or charisma. (And I say this as a Cumberbatch fan.) Why didn't Kirk and Co. look him up in the library computer? (At least tell us if the records were wiped out by Section 31.)
And I'm sorry but the filmmakers can't use "It's an alternate universe!" as an excuse every time. Someone else pointed this out: while the timeline is used to set up certain plot elements, it's not like it's driving the characters and informing their decisions. "I wonder what my counterpart would do in this situation."
If they were gonna steal from a previous film, why not a lesser one? Why not do Star Trek V with Cumberbatch as Sybok and the crew could learn a lesson about worshiping false idols? I have to believe there was at least one superior idea that these guys came up with that, for one reason or another, was stuffed in a drawer.
There was no reason the villain had to be Khan and no reason for Carol Marcus to be in the film. They could've been anyone. I would've been happier if Cumberbatch had been one of Khan's men and maybe the real Khan would be revealed at the end, setting up the next movie.
I was entertained but shouldn't Trek aim for something higher than low-hanging fruit? And the theme is undercut by the plot: Khan should get a trial... but he doesn't! And since technically, this is the "second" movie, things like Kirk's death/rebirth and Spock's "KHAN!"... these guys didn't earn it yet.
Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park sums it up best:
"...it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could, and before you even knew what you had, you patented it, and packaged it, and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox..."
Because Star Trek V sucked? Because there was no redeeming feature to save from that movie?
It's just the basic problem of reboots that fuck with the originals. THAT "confuses the general audience".
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I'd love to see Jonathan Frakes direct another Star Trek movie, eventually. I think he did a bang-up job with First Contact, and the best he could with Insurrection. I still want J.J. to direct the third installment, though.
No.
If people can keep track of all the reboots/restarts in the comic-book universes, they will have no problem with two versions of Star Trek.
I think there were ideas from that movie that could've been salvaged and presented in a different context.
But some things, like Kirk's "I need my pain!" speech... they couldn't do that because the characters haven't reached that point yet.
And it was a rhetorical question.
A
Amaris
Guest
Yeah, the two timelines are different enough that they won't be confused. Now, there are folks who aren't too familiar with Star Trek, and they might be a bit confused (understandable, of course), but most folks should get it okay, or at the least, a little exposition will take care of that.
The notion that a reboot like this "confuses the general audience" is nonsense of the tail-wagging-the-dog variety. Very few people in the general audience will be confused because - Shocker! - they've never seen The Wrath Of Khan or given whatever they've heard about it more than a passing thought.
No one's interested in salvaging stuff from a twenty five year-old bomb.
No one's interested in salvaging stuff from a twenty five year-old bomb.
I think there were ideas from that movie that could've been salvaged and presented in a different context.
But some things, like Kirk's "I need my pain!" speech... they couldn't do that because the characters haven't reached that point yet.
And it was a rhetorical question.
STV has the quality of a good TOS episode. If you say you hate STV for it's silliness, plot holes, camp and visual effects, then you surely must hate TOS to death.
All moments between Kirk, Spock and McCoy are pure gold in this.
The scene in which Sybok shows them their pain, and Kirk's "I need my pain" is one of the greatest scenes in the Trek films.
Are you kidding ? It's the most unintentionally funny movie in the franchise. It's also pretty intentionally funny in my view, and the main character interaction works. Otherwise, garbage.
I think there were ideas from that movie that could've been salvaged and presented in a different context.
But some things, like Kirk's "I need my pain!" speech... they couldn't do that because the characters haven't reached that point yet.
And it was a rhetorical question.
STV has the quality of a good TOS episode. If you say you hate STV for it's silliness, plot holes, camp and visual effects, then you surely must hate TOS to death.
All moments between Kirk, Spock and McCoy are pure gold in this.
The scene in which Sybok shows them their pain, and Kirk's "I need my pain" is one of the greatest scenes in the Trek films.
I have a soft spot for it, especially that scene.
But one could ask the same question about any remake: why remake so many good movies when there are plenty of bad ones (or at least seriously flawed ones) that could be remade?
And again, I was simply thinking out loud.
That is a good scene. The movie as a whole is often laughably bad, though, imo.
In the next movie, somebody else is going to need their pain lol... Maybe Sulu?
McCoy: We have medicine for that.
Sulu: I need my pain.
Kirk's "I need my pain" speech is a bombastic embarrassment that makes the character out to be a self-dramatizing adolescent. It's fascinating that some folks seem to identify with it as if it somehow enlarges or enriches the character, when it fact it's of a piece with the nonsensical and ego-pandering "free climbing" scene that introduces Kirk in the movie.
But I love my Kirk bombastic and adolescent. It's sexy.
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