STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Shazam!]

Why can't a person love something that's flawed?

Of course they can. But it seems that you're not allowed to dislike something that's flawed.

I'd just like the movie to be discussed on its individual merits as opposed to continually wheeling out old Trek to discredit one's opinion*

For a franchise lauded for its ignorance of what came before people sure seem quick to re-establish ties to the prime universe when it suits then.



*This applies to people who both like and dislike the movie, btw.

 

[Opus]

If you like one movie for the same reasons you dislike another, it's game for discussion.

 

[BillJ]

I'd just like the movie to be discussed on its individual merits as opposed to continually wheeling out old Trek to discredit one's opinion.

So we shouldn't compare the actions of one Khan vs. another because that makes the older stuff look just as silly and inconsistent?

Khan misreading the people of the 23rd century isn't exactly a creation of Star Trek Into Darkness.

If you can make the claim that Khan in the latest movie isn't very smart and makes mistakes and claim that makes the latest movie bad. Then it's fair to bring up the fact that those characteristics are consistent with the way the character has been portrayed in the past.

 

[Belz...]

Those torpedoes though...[...] But actually the explosives have been removed and in their stead replaced with Kahn's peoples, so was that part of Kahn's plan or was Marcus trying to help Kahn?

Well it doesn't help that you didn't pay attention while watching the movie. One fuel cell was removed and replaced with cryotubes. Not the warhead: a fuel cell.

And that's the other problem. Kahn was brought out of cryogenic stasis by admiral Marcus, but Kahn is like 250 years behind the times. So why use Kahn to build the latest in new and deadly advanced weaponry?

They actually explained that, too. Did you really see the movie in a theatre ?

But if Marcus was that intent on bumping off Kahn and starting a war, then why didn't he check these advanced torpedoes?

I think Marcus knows they're in there. It's just an ironic way to get his way.

Nah I haven't seen TWOK

How can you not have seen TWOK ? That's... your right, of course, but if there's one Trek movie you have to see, it's that one.

STID has nothing to offer if you start thinking about it and if you could detach yourself from the incessant action scenes and weird plot twists whilst watching it.

I'm not sure you should assume to know that people must agree with you if they would only be logical.

 

[Ln X]

I know which movie you were talking about. I just thought maybe you should go see how many holes and bits of illogic the fans of this board were able to spot in The Wrath of Khan.

I have viewed the thread, and again most of these holes and bits of illogic can be reasonably explained away, without new holes and more illogical things cropping up. STID is something different entirely, it's more rife with major flaws/holes/illogical things:

1. Kirk being clearly too immature and hotheaded to be captain during the first quarter of the movie.

2. Spock being too emotional.

3. Spock/Uhura.

4. The 82 torpedoes and all the shenanigans concerning them.

5. Can't McCoy use the blood from one of the 82 augments (Kahn's people) to save Kirk?

6. Admiral Marcus doesn't check his special torpedoes.

7. A shuttlecraft would have been easier and safer to travel between the Enterprise and the Vengeance.

8. Why would Kirk and Kahn go in space suits with thrust packs and travel at high speeds through an area of space cluttered with debris?

9. The Klingons didn't go to war with Starfleet despite the infraction Kirk made.

10. How was Scotty's vessel allowed to go inside the Vengeance?

11. Starfleet conducts a top-secret and high security meeting in a room rather unsafe and prone to an attack. I mean if Kahn really is that dangerous couldn't they have found a more secret place to conduct that meeting (one where they won't so ridiculously exposed).

12. Kahn lives despite crashing in two ships.

13. The Enterprise lands under the sea on that M-class world without the natives seeing anything.

14. Super volcanoes can destroy a planet even though this volcano was not even on par with Earth's supervolcanoes.

15. Cold fusion, which is a thermonuclear reaction, can now cool an entire volcano AND freeze magma and the contents of the magma chamber.

16. The Vengeance needs a lot more crew for a ship of that size as systems break down.

17. If Kahn has this special transwarp transporter technology, why couldn't he use it again to beam off Kronos?

18. There was no real threat in that scene with Carol Marcus and McCoy since the missile had no actual warhead.

19. How do advanced torpedoes effect the Enterprise's warp core if they are merely stasis chambers in disguise?

20. Scotty resigning does not make any sense, if he is the most experienced engineer then wouldn't he endangering lives by being away from the Enterprise should a problem with the warp core actually happen due to those torpedoes?

21. Admiral Pike lets Kirk off on a whim.

22. Kirk was never promoted back to a captain.

23. There was an American flag at that memorial scene, shouldn't that be the UFP flag if it Starfleet property?

24. If Kahn wanted to blow up that Section 31 weapon's facility, why didn't he beam in the bomb with his special transporter?

25. Section 31, being so thorough and watchful, fail to screen or notice a suspicious device.

26. Maybe Admiral Marcus could carry out a coup and take over the Sol system, but he couldn't possibly take over the entire Federation.

27. A distinct lack of aliens.

28. If Spock is emotionally compromised just after the destruction of his planet and duffs up Kirk, then why would seeing Kirk die elicit such a response from Spock?

29. Kirk barely knew Pike, so why did he so profoundly mourn for the admiral when he died?

30. If Kahn wanted revenge on admiral Marcus, why didn't he take him out during that meeting on Earth?

31. And if the 2nd terrorist attack was part of Marcus' plan, wasn't he cutting things a little finely being caught up right in the centre of the attack?

32. Carol Marcus in her underwear serves no purpose whatsoever.

33. Kirk always makes Spock redundant by going on virtually every away mission and always undermines Spock's authority by taking matters into his own hands.

34. Giving 33, why would Spock care so much about his captain?

35. This movie can't go 2 minutes without plot twists or action scenes.

36. Spock screaming Kahn.

37. Kirk's death was emotionally meaningless when they already planted the fact that Kahn's blood can revive dead animals and humanoids.

38. If Kahn really valued his people, why didn't he rescue them first with his transporter technology and then carry out his revenge? Surely carrying out revenge is easier with 82 more augments at your side?

 

[BillJ]

33. Kirk always makes Spock redundant by going on virtually every away mission and always undermines Spock's authority by taking matters into his own hands.

You know, you're entitled to your opinion, but have you even watched the original Star Trek? How can Kirk leading landing parties be considered wrong in-universe?

 

[Belz...]

30. If Kahn wanted revenge on admiral Marcus, why didn't he take him out during that meeting on Earth?

He tried and failed. Kirk foiled him, for one.

 

[BillJ]

26. Maybe Admiral Marcus could carry out a coup and take over the Sol system, but he couldn't possibly take over the entire Federation.

Why not? Admiral Leyton thought he had a shot at controlling the Federation in Homefront/Paradise Lost.

 

[Ln X]

I know exactly how Spock took it

Well your comments in this thread indicate that you don't.

seeing ones planet be destroyed is several orders of magnitude worse than seeing ones best friend die.

Ever heard of the expression "the straw that broke the camel's back" ?



So it's realistic, then.



Sure it does. We've discussed that at length.



By what metric ?



You might have missed it in the first movie, but he had a very, very different childhood from Prime Kirk.



Then I'll say this for him, he's consistent.



Yeah but we're talking about Odo, here. Vulcans have much more violent emotions than humans.



How would the Klingons know Starfleet was even there ? Plausible deniability.



Oh, I wish people would stop making that parallel. The new Trek movies are NOTHING like Star Wars. Action doesn't equal Star Wars.



Actually it almost withered away and died for the reverse reason.



It felt like TOS, actually. Quite a bit.

This is not reinventing Star Trek, instead this is killing the franchise

Please do not confuse your appreciation for a movie with its level of success. The box office revenues disagree with you.

And finally two more points: Starfleet feels too much like an army and those caps really suck!

Starfleet has always felt like the military, and they've had caps before. They just never wore them. Hell, there was one in the very first pilot.

1. I do know how he took it.

2. Maybe Spock would have cracked if he had really known Kirk well or they were friends, but Spock disliked Kirk's style of captaincy, so the emotional connection is not there.

3. It is no where near realistic, the fact we have Kirk as captain with less than two years of experience as a Starfleet officer throws professionalism and career advancement out of the window. Films are not realistic but some are far more implausible than others, STID is such a film.

4. So admiral Marcus wants a war, big deal, the movie just uses this as emotional shlock just to get the emotions pumping with Kahn, Kirk, Spock and Uhura. Marcus is just a one-dimensional character and the really interesting bit -- an admiral wanting to start a war -- is just brushed aside.

5. By the metric of Vulcan discipline, emotional restraint and what we know about Vulcans and Spock in general.

6. Then giving his background what were Starfleet thinking making him the captain of the Enterprise? What makes Kirk so special (seriously the movie gives you the answer; pure dumb luck) when should it be Spock as the captain?

7. Agreed, consistently bad and stupid.

8. So do changelings, they have a mean temper and a powerful racist streak. Odo had some festering emotions to yet he composed himself with dignity. Ironically Spock in this movie talks about dignity and how clinging to his Vulcan ideals is the answer yet conveniently forgets them at the end.

9. The Klingons are not that stupid, they would have suspected a Starfleet ship was hidden somewhere in there system. And since when has an enemies plausible deniability stopped the Klingons from attacking? Klingons don't work that way, and maybe that could have worked had the movie's adversary been say the Romulans or Cardassians. But Klingons are something different.

10. The things which differentiated Star Trek from Star Wars are not overtly present or really noticeable in STID.

11. Yes it did, it suffered from fatigue, and now it's going to die from oversimplification and a lack of identity.

12. STID and TOS are worlds apart: special effects, characters, pace, plot, morality, ethics, sci-fi. They are north and south, up and down, east and west... You get the picture!

13. Box office revenues are no guarantee of quality or of a continued existence of a franchise. There is nothing truly distinguishable or special about the NuTrek characters, and from the basis of just two movies we still know rather little about them, we think we know them well cos of TOS but they are a totally different set of characters due to the altered timeline. The only reason we had two new trek films was because Hollywood was running out of franchises to rape/monetize.

Unfortunately the STID formula (nonsensical plot, cartoonish extreme characters, lack of pacing, emotional frenzy and oversimplification; this applies to many other new sci-fi movies to) is going to be repeated again should there be another sequel. But Hollywood will be too scared to try something really different, so they'll want the same tired old formula in the hopes that it will lure hundreds of millions of dollars. They are NEVER going to change from this formula because these days it is not about the films it is about the money and the tens of millions paid for advertising and actor's salaries (which comprise the bulk of a film's costs).

Besides a franchise which does the same old formula, or worse still rips off directly from older episodes or movies, is going to stagnate very quickly. Now Star Trek is at the mercy of an audience whose sense of artistic style is utter trivia, and who go to see films for escapism and for no other merit. With STID, Star Trek has lost its distinctiveness, and if you can tell me ten things which made this movie really stand out from the rest of the crowd this year and the last one well... You couldn't because this movie is just a remake or adaptation of TWOK, we've seen it before, it has been done to death before.

If a third movie will be made it will more than likely be a disaster because the writers will just do the same thing and make it really obvious and dumbed down. But have no fear because even if the third movie fails or doesn't garner the success and money Hollywood wants, we will have another reboot in several years time and once more the franchise can be monetized. STID just condemned Star Trek to that future, JJ Abrams could have done something different he could have taken a more ballsy approach or tried to emulate some of Trek's more finer qualities: politics, morality, actual character development, character studies and ethics.

Any new Star Trek films will go down STID's route. Which is why I pray the next ST director and writers will come up with something which is thought-provoking and has the balls to go at its pace and not pander to the audience. Maybe a miracle will happen, but my hopes for that are very low indeed.

 

[BillJ]

Goddamn, you might want to get down off your high-horse before you get a nosebleed.

Now Star Trek is at the mercy of an audience whose sense of artistic style is utter trivia, and who go to see films for escapism and for no other merit.

Sure as fuck beats being bored for two hours.

 

[Ln X]

You know, you're entitled to your opinion, but have you even watched the original Star Trek? How can Kirk leading landing parties be considered wrong in-universe?

It's just an aspect I've never really liked about Star Trek full stop, TNG took a better approach where Picard was not obliged to lead every single away team. It's just a really corny way of getting the captain character to bond with the lesser characters and to get him into the action. Having said that the TNG movies were rather Picard-centric and the ending always involved him at the climax, but I'm okay with that because I rather liked the whole; Picard is a living legend sort of thing. After seven series and some movies I thought the cliché was appropriate.

But NuKirk feels like he's only the captain because he has the pips, he bosses people around and admiral Pike made him a captain. Maturity, captaincy and NuKirk are things which are mutually exclusive so Kirk just comes off as some douche or prick for the first half of the movie.

 

[BillJ]

Lots of young men are douchebags. I doubt Prime Kirk was all that different.

 

[Ln X]

Goddamn, you might want to get down off your high-horse before you get a nosebleed.

Now Star Trek is at the mercy of an audience whose sense of artistic style is utter trivia, and who go to see films for escapism and for no other merit.

Sure as fuck beats being bored for two hours.

With escapism no one ever gets bored, and that's what nearly all movies do, so if you never want to use your brain you are in nirvana!

It really comes down to culture, and films are a key part of modern day culture (something which has been dying for ages) but right now we seem to be stifling from a lack of creativity. STID is a prime example, it could have done more, it could have been two movies, but... Something is just missing from it.

This youtube video explains it best about this movie and what it so sorely lacks.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q7GXxooffR8

 

[BillJ]

I was born in 1971 and as far back as I can remember people have been complaining about dumb Hollywood movies. People called The Wrath of Khan a dumb movie.

The good old days weren't always good, as Billy Joel said.

 

[Belz...]

Would you mind structuring your replies, please ? It's hard to follow otherwise.

1. I do know how he took it.

Then what's the problem ?

3. It is no where near realistic, the fact we have Kirk as captain with less than two years of experience as a Starfleet officer throws professionalism and career advancement out of the window.

I don't think this reply is particularily honest. Either that or you lost track of my post. I was specifically answering you saying that "ST: Into Darkness is a steaming pile of boiling emotions, illogical actions and threadbare plots. ".

4. So admiral Marcus wants a war, big deal,

Ok, so your problem is not that it's not explained, but that you don't like it.

5. By the metric of Vulcan discipline, emotional restraint and what we know about Vulcans and Spock in general.

That's a personal judgment by you. Again, Vulcans are VERY emotional, and discipline does little against the loss of billions of your kin, including your own family.

6. Then giving his background what were Starfleet thinking making him the captain of the Enterprise?

I'll take it that you accept my explanation of the difference.

7. Agreed, consistently bad and stupid.

If you agree that he was like that before, what's the problem ?

8. So do changelings, they have a mean temper and a powerful racist streak.

They also don't have tear ducts. Liquid, remember ?

9. The Klingons are not that stupid, they would have suspected a Starfleet ship was hidden somewhere in there system. And since when has an enemies plausible deniability stopped the Klingons from attacking?

Now you're just ignoring what I tell you. I answered your point with a reasonable possibility. You might not agree, but at least acknowledge that it's there. Furthermore, as you said, Klingons are not stupid. Would they go to war over an unknown foe that wiped out a patrol ? They have no clue who it was. At best, they know an unidentified ship was accosted.

10. The things which differentiated Star Trek from Star Wars are not overtly present or really noticeable in STID.

That was not your claim, but I'll humour you: what are those differences ?

11. Yes it did, it suffered from fatigue, and now it's going to die from oversimplification and a lack of identity.

Again you are confusing your opinion for objective reality. Star Trek can be horrible for you and yet successful, or vice versa.

12. STID and TOS are worlds apart: special effects, characters, pace, plot, morality, ethics, sci-fi. They are north and south, up and down, east and west... You get the picture!

I get the picture but I disagree with you. And who cares about special effects in such a comparison ? You know I was talking about the plot and themes of the original show. Several posters are on record here saying they find the parallels quite apparent.

13. Box office revenues are no guarantee of quality or of a continued existence of a franchise.

I agree about quality, but they definitely are a guarantee of continued existence. In fact, they are the ONLY THING that offers such a guarantee, since movie making is a business.

Unfortunately the STID formula (nonsensical plot, cartoonish extreme characters, lack of pacing, emotional frenzy and oversimplification; this applies to many other new sci-fi movies to) is going to be repeated again should there be another sequel.

Oh, so you'd rather Trek to be dead than to be different from what you want ?

Besides a franchise which does the same old formula, or worse still rips off directly from older episodes or movies, is going to stagnate very quickly.

1) The Friday the 13th movies made ten entries with exactly the same recipe.
2) STID and ST09 are very different movies. Same genre, I'll grant you.

If a third movie will be made it will more than likely be a disaster because the writers will just do the same thing and make it really obvious and dumbed down.

You don't know that. And your use of the word "likely" allows you to not have to acknowledge your error once it's not a disaster.

Any new Star Trek films will go down STID's route. Which is why I pray the next ST director and writers will come up with something which is thought-provoking and has the balls to go at its pace and not pander to the audience.

If they don't pander to the audience, who, exactly, do you want them to pander to ?

 

[Belz...]

With escapism no one ever gets bored, and that's what nearly all movies do, so if you never want to use your brain you are in nirvana!

I use my brain for a living and for a considerable amount of my free time. So you'll excuse me if I don't want to have to scratch my head when I watch movies.

I was born in 1971 and as far back as I can remember people have been complaining about dumb Hollywood movies.

Right. Why do you think we got the stupid Hays code in the 30s ? I mean the ROMANS complained about lazy writing back in antiquity.

 

[Ln X]

I was born in 1971 and as far back as I can remember people have been complaining about dumb Hollywood movies. People called The Wrath of Khan a dumb movie.

The good old days weren't always good, as Billy Joel said.

Yeah there was a lot of bad movies to, but in the good old days there were at a couple of dozen movies which were really good or stood out or were original. These days you are lucky to find a couple of new major films per year which offer anything substantial or are a real pleasure to watch.

 

[BillJ]

These days you are lucky to find a couple of new major films per year which offer anything substantial or are a real pleasure to watch.

I find plenty to watch, but I guess that's because I don't use my brain.

 

[Belz...]

Yeah there was a lot of bad movies to, but in the good old days there were at a couple of dozen movies which were really good or stood out or were original. These days you are lucky to find a couple of new major films per year which offer anything substantial or are a real pleasure to watch.

Well I have to agree that this is just nostalgia talking, here. There are still a handful of good movies every year.

I will grant you that it seems like there is less original stuff, but it has no bearing on profit.

By the way, don't you find discussing like this more interesting than spamming pictures ?

 

[Ln X]

Yeah there was a lot of bad movies to, but in the good old days there were at a couple of dozen movies which were really good or stood out or were original. These days you are lucky to find a couple of new major films per year which offer anything substantial or are a real pleasure to watch.

Well I have to agree that this is just nostalgia talking, here. There are still a handful of good movies every year.

I will grant you that it seems likie there is less original stuff, but it has no bearing on profit.

By the way, don't you find discussing like this more interesting than spamming pictures ?

Oh yeah, I do love a good intellectual discussion, when I first came on with those pictures I was a blathering idiot there and at times I can be a bit of dickhead going in without thinking beforehand (or not thinking enough). But I know my limits, I know when I've crossed the line and I won't try to hide from my mistakes. I messed up three hours ago with the memes so sorry about that.