The Heart of Into Darkness

Discussion in 'Star Trek Movies: Kelvin Universe' started by stj, May 30, 2013.

  1. The Doctor

    The Doctor Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    For me, the movie was summed up by the exchange between Kirk and Spock before the space jump between the Enterprise and the Vengeance.

    "I have no idea what I'm supposed to do. I only know what I can do."

    Kirk begins the movie as an undirected force of nature. He careens from situation to situation without much forethought or care but manages to achieve the impossible due to a potent mixture of intelligence and luck. Pike derides Kirk for not knowing the difference between that aptitude and the luck that had been so kind thus far, but Kirk can't hear Pike because he's never really been faced with consequences to his actions.

    Spock, on the other hand, has retreated even farther into logic after the destruction of Vulcan and the loss of his mother. As Uhura correctly points out, Spock has become cold and seemingly indifferent about life and death, even though he has people who love and care for him. Like Kirk, Spock has reverted to type but in such an extreme that he is damaging his relationships with Kirk and Uhura: the two people that care for him the most.

    So, while the first film was about recognizing greatness in Kirk and Spock, this film is about realizing that greatness. Along the way it manages to take a few topical (and fairly on-the-nose) shots at the current administration's drone warfare campaign and the dangers of becoming the darkness that you fight. This is hardly revelatory but it was far less overt than other Trek outings. (I'm looking at you, Undiscovered Country.) The core of this movie is the advancement of the Kirk-Spock bromance and how these two flawed men can, and will, achieve great things together.

    For me, it worked on every level. It was a stunning action-adventure piece with the kind of scope and attention to detail that thrilled the imagination. I was transported back to my youth because Trek was suddenly as vibrant and real as it was in my mind all those years ago watching reruns of TOS on Saturday mornings. The portrayals of the familiar characters was faithful and true while still feeling fresh. Kirk and Spock's bickering, Bones' charming curmudgeonly nature and Scotty's exasperated comic relief all invoked a sense of humanity that has been sorely lacking in the old guard of Trek. And because it was a thrilling adventure, populated by real people who had motivations and desires, the penultimate scene and Kirk's sacrifice felt earned and affecting.

    This is, without a doubt, my favorite Star Trek film.
     
  2. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Good review, Stig. :)
     
  3. BillJ

    BillJ The King of Kings Premium Member

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    Agreed. :techman:
     
  4. Belz...

    Belz... Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    At the very least, it sums up Kirk beautifully.

    Question: what do you mean by "old guard" ?
     
  5. The Doctor

    The Doctor Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Well, there's a quote floating around on the Internets that's from Marina Sirtis I think. It's something to the effect of "On Trek, characters don't interact, they hit their marks and declaim." There was a stilted and stifling theatricality to Trek that dated back to the TNG era that robbed the series and the films of their immediacy and humanity. The new films, however, are far more kinetic and visceral. Characters talk over each other, as people do in life and the frictions of working in close proximity under extreme pressures are evident in every scene.

    In short, I believe that the people inhabiting JJ Abrams's films could actually exist. I understand their motivations and actions. The same cannot be said for even the best of TNG or DS9. While those series had moments of excellent storytelling, it never felt particularly real or immediate.
     
  6. Enterpriserules

    Enterpriserules Commodore Commodore

    Here, here! I think you nailed it!
     
  7. Belz...

    Belz... Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    I was wondering if you were refering to all of Trek before the reboot, or to TNG more specifically. DS9 didn't seem to have this problem.
     
  8. Kruezerman

    Kruezerman Commodore Commodore

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    As everybody has already essentially summed up my own views, I will add in what's left. I begin with this quote from The Motion Picture:

    The Human Adventure is Just Beginning
    [LEFT]
    That line right there sums up what Star Trek is for me, it's about us. Not starships or space battles or talking to aliens, it's about humanity and our intricacies and insanity and everything that makes us, us. And Abrams brought that back to us, he made the characters imperfect again, he made Trek human again. I care about these people and I await the next one hungry for more.
    [/LEFT]
     
  9. The Doctor

    The Doctor Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    DS9 was just as bad as TNG when it came to dialog and pacing. The difference was that the characters were allowed to not like each other and have internal as well as external conflicts.
     
  10. Belz...

    Belz... Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Well, we'll have to agree to disagree, then, as I thought DS9 was an improvement over TNG in those regards. It's a minor point anyway.

    Am I correct in assuming you do not include TOS in this 'old guard' thing ? I'm just trying to clarify your term.
     
  11. Enterpriserules

    Enterpriserules Commodore Commodore

    I agree with you here, I think that DS9 was the pinnacle of character interaction and growth in the Star Trek Canon.
     
  12. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    It certainly did. All of modern Trek including Enterprise did.

    Even in Abrams's movies, as I noticed as I watched STID for the third time, Trek characters tend to speak in complete grammatical sentences without interrupting one another, avoid sentence fragments (except to demonstrate extreme stress) and so on. It's a style of writing that's still imitating 1960s television to some degree. Nonetheless, the Abrams films are better in this regard than TV Trek of the 1980s/90s.
     
  13. Belz...

    Belz... Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Well, old Trek certainly had that, too. It's certainly better than some movies in which you can' make out what they're saying because you constantly have to track two people at once. Healthy middle ground, I say. :)
     
  14. The Doctor

    The Doctor Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Yeah, I tend to give TOS a pass because it was actually produced in the 60's. Still, the people onboard the Enterprise had a believable humanity that far surpassed the Trek series that followed it. There was a level of bitchy interplay between the three principals that evoked the claustrophobic sense that, no matter how strong a friendship, continual exposure to each other aboard ship for prolonged periods had rubbed them raw. That kind of friendly (and no-so-friendly) ribbing was stripped bare from TNG (and DS9) to a large degree.
     
  15. mos6507

    mos6507 Commodore Commodore

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    The problem with DS9 was that in the process of allowing characters not to like each other, this also made them unlikable--to the audience, similar to how Pulaski being bitchy on TNG made her an unpopular character.
     
  16. Enterpriserules

    Enterpriserules Commodore Commodore

    I think this is just personal taste because I love the DS9 characters, I find them likeable because they are more "real". We all have things that are not quite as refined as we'd like. DS9 captured that idea that humans are still in progress even in the 24th century.
     
  17. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Well, yeah. The notion that they keep imitating that, though, so that it's become the "Star Trek stye" is both amusing and annoying.
     
  18. The Doctor

    The Doctor Rear Admiral Rear Admiral

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    Pulaski was a poorly-executed attempt to bring McCoy back to Trek without a good understanding of why he was so good. As for DS9, even the 'flawed' characters were virtual pillars of morality. The only reason to dislike any of them would be boredom.
     
  19. Admiral Buzzkill

    Admiral Buzzkill Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    Bingo!

    There's an early episode of DS9 - don't remember much about it - where Quark has to choose between getting Jake some medical attention because the kid fell off a box or something while eavesdropping on him, or be exposed as involved in some shady dealings.

    And of course Quark takes care of Jake. At that point I knew that the "edgier" characters who "weren't all playing nice together" that the producers talked about before the premiere were just that - marketing talk.
     
  20. Harvey

    Harvey Admiral Admiral

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    It's been a few years since I saw more than an occasional episode, but I don't recall the episode by that description at all.

    (Which is not to dispute the underlying point.)