STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]
- Thread starter Agent Richard07
- Start date
The overall feedback of this movie was great, but when I talk to Trek fans online its really weird. Even DS9 fans....
It's the closest we will get to a DS9 movie imo..
I mean it was way better than 2009, but as I said earlier, for whatever reason, I saw this movie less and don't enjoy it as much?
It's the closest we will get to a DS9 movie imo..
I mean it was way better than 2009, but as I said earlier, for whatever reason, I saw this movie less and don't enjoy it as much?
I wasn't able to enjoy this on as much as the 2009 one. Because this one reused the villain from and a major scene from a previous movie I was always thinking how much better they were able to pull it in wrath of khan. In the 2009 they were doing their own thing, with their own story, in their own universe. This time, because of khan, was thinking how much better it would have been if it hadn't been khan. The so called dramatic reveal wasn't dramatic because I saw it coming from the preview. If cumberbatch had instead been one of khans subordinates rather than him himself, trying to FREE khan and his people, and then built cumberbatch as a badass loading khan as a bigger badass he was willing to follow out of respect, that would have added a layer of menace to his actions that was lacking. HE wasn't the big bad, he was trying to FREE the big bad.
Oh, and can someone tell me why you would hide a starship underwater rather than in space? Please? Other than to dramatically reveal it of course. Again you could have had almost same dramatic entrance with the enterprise diving in from space, with the excuse being that in order to get a transporter lock on Spock through the interference created by the volcano the had to get right on top of it.
Also, cure for death in khan blood? Death by radiation poisoning is the next best thing to immolation or dissolving in terms of making sure someone stays dead. It destroys on a cellular and molecular level, your DNA is Swiss cheese after. In the middle of a pitch battle with casualties presumably coming in from all over the ship, McCoy takes time from treating injured and dying people to test "what would happen if I shot this dead gribble I happen to have with some Khan blood for almost no reason". Why?
Also, have some issues with this movie btw.
Oh, but I did think of a convincing reason why the enterprise was able to barrel up to the front door of the capital world of their mortal enemies, then follow that up by flying to the planet and getting involved with a shoutout with a Klingon patrol, without a major and immediate but whooping. If the moon in orbit of Kronos, was in fact praxis (somehow), than it may be that the planet had been evacuated p, as it had needed to be in the Undiscovered Country, and that the planet was essentially abandoned and unguarded, but still to deep in Klingon space for the federation to risk sending a ship.
Oh, and can someone tell me why you would hide a starship underwater rather than in space? Please? Other than to dramatically reveal it of course. Again you could have had almost same dramatic entrance with the enterprise diving in from space, with the excuse being that in order to get a transporter lock on Spock through the interference created by the volcano the had to get right on top of it.
Also, cure for death in khan blood? Death by radiation poisoning is the next best thing to immolation or dissolving in terms of making sure someone stays dead. It destroys on a cellular and molecular level, your DNA is Swiss cheese after. In the middle of a pitch battle with casualties presumably coming in from all over the ship, McCoy takes time from treating injured and dying people to test "what would happen if I shot this dead gribble I happen to have with some Khan blood for almost no reason". Why?
Also, have some issues with this movie btw.
Oh, but I did think of a convincing reason why the enterprise was able to barrel up to the front door of the capital world of their mortal enemies, then follow that up by flying to the planet and getting involved with a shoutout with a Klingon patrol, without a major and immediate but whooping. If the moon in orbit of Kronos, was in fact praxis (somehow), than it may be that the planet had been evacuated p, as it had needed to be in the Undiscovered Country, and that the planet was essentially abandoned and unguarded, but still to deep in Klingon space for the federation to risk sending a ship.
Last edited by a moderator:
I like to think they were hiding the Enterprise under the ash cloud to avoid Starfleet's long-range sensors seeing Kirk break the Prime Directive. And under the water to hide from the natives.
Something very similar happened in Insurrection, where a Federation holoship was hidden from the Ba'ku under water. I bet it's takeoff looked awesome too... if they'd bothered to show it.
Nuclear war and it's repercussions are exactly the kind of thing Khan would have been engineered to survive.
"Khan's blood regenerates like nothing I've ever seen, and I wanna know why."
Sickbay looked to be under control at the time.
The Enterprise was parked on the Federation/Klingon border, and they flew the rest of the way in a civilian trade ship. Yes, the province they were going to was uninhabited (we're told when Kirk tells Marcus his plan to capture Harrison), having been evacuated presumably because of Praxis.
ST09 was apparently an exciting novelty for a lot of people, and an Event Movie in much the same way TMP was. If you look at the original Grading and Discussion thread for that movie, you can see a lot of people talking about rewatching it in the theatre in successive sessions in classic mega-fannish style. (I've never been able to do that; but some people certainly rock it out.)
STID was a revisiting of a formula that a lot of those early viewers naively thought it would abandon, because they believed the reboot was going to be about telling new stories.
It's funny, because given its eventual financial success and what superficially appears to have been its critical success, STID should have been AbramsTrek's triumphant victory lap. And yet in point of fact, if it had relied on the domestic market like its predecessor it would have flopped, and it's common to hear the word "disappointing" and "misfire" used to describe it even in allegedly positive reviews.It's not because STID committed any sins that ST09 didn't commit. They're both basically dumb, bad but fun-if-you-don't-look-too-closely action movies, two and a half-star fare at best and questionably at home in the Trek license at all (depending on your priorities). Take my Trekfan hat off and I can still enjoy the Spock "KHAAAAN!" scream for its sheer silliness. But on the curiously-somewhat-underwhelmed domestic market, STID suffers from a) no longer being an overhyped novelty, and b) having had pretensions far above the actual quality of its content. Putting the movie in the same frame as TWOK was hubris pure and simple, because it just reminds a lot of people of how much better the classic movie was and how relatively brainless -- even when half-assing sophistication -- the reboot franchise is.
Last edited:
ST09 was apparently an exciting novelty for a lot of people, and an Event Movie in much the same way TMP was. If you look at the original Grading and Discussion thread for that movie, you can see a lot of people talking about rewatching it in the theatre in successive sessions in classic mega-fannish style. (I've never been able to do that; but some people certainly rock it out.)
STID was a revisiting of a formula that a lot of those early viewers naively thought it would abandon, because they believed the reboot was going to be about telling new stories.
It's not because STID committed any sins that ST09 didn't commit. They're both basically dumb, bad but fun-if-you-don't-look-too-closely action movies, two and a half-star fare at best and questionably at home in the Trek license at all (depending on your priorities). Take my Trekfan hat off and I can still enjoy the Spock "KHAAAAN!" scream for its sheer silliness. But on the curiously-somewhat-underwhelmed domestic market, STID suffers from a) no longer being an overhyped novelty, and b) having had pretensions far above the actual quality of its content. Putting the movie in the same frame as TWOK was hubris pure and simple, because it just reminds a lot of people of how much better the classic movie was and how relatively brainless -- even when half-assing sophistication -- the reboot franchise is.
Nope. Next?
How adorable. Pity I wasn't talking to you.
That a third movie is assured, giving fans of the first two exactly what they want, pretty much negates attempts to paint Into Darkness as a failure.
I'm pretty sure that's the planetoid where Carol and McCoy defuse the bomb, not Kronos.
A
Amaris
Guest
ST09 was apparently an exciting novelty for a lot of people, and an Event Movie in much the same way TMP was. If you look at the original Grading and Discussion thread for that movie, you can see a lot of people talking about rewatching it in the theatre in successive sessions in classic mega-fannish style. (I've never been able to do that; but some people certainly rock it out.)
STID was a revisiting of a formula that a lot of those early viewers naively thought it would abandon, because they believed the reboot was going to be about telling new stories.
It's not because STID committed any sins that ST09 didn't commit. They're both basically dumb, bad but fun-if-you-don't-look-too-closely action movies, two and a half-star fare at best and questionably at home in the Trek license at all (depending on your priorities). Take my Trekfan hat off and I can still enjoy the Spock "KHAAAAN!" scream for its sheer silliness. But on the curiously-somewhat-underwhelmed domestic market, STID suffers from a) no longer being an overhyped novelty, and b) having had pretensions far above the actual quality of its content. Putting the movie in the same frame as TWOK was hubris pure and simple, because it just reminds a lot of people of how much better the classic movie was and how relatively brainless -- even when half-assing sophistication -- the reboot franchise is.
Don't be like that. Respect, man. Come on. You know good and well the film has been a critical and commercial success. You don't have to like it, but don't pretend it didn't do well by all accounts.
There does appear to be a tiny planet in the distance when they leave in the Mudd ship, but I'm not certain that we're looking at Kronos in that shot. The next scene is a cutaway transition to the ship entering Kronos' atmosphere, so it's open to interpretation. This is about the 45 minute mark.
Khan, Tribbles, Klingons ... all of the ingredients known to general audiences are in this picture. I'm not at all surprised at Abrams using them. The problem is, what's left that the public would be aware of? The Gorn, I suspect. I'm not really sure, but I think everything the public knew about STAR TREK has already been trotted out. That said, my only gripe and grievance was the obscene under-use of Alice Eve. Carol Marcus is obviously being set up for the next movie, with little thought devoted to her beyond that. As delicious a babe as Alice is and as important as Carol Marcus turned out to be for the "prime" universe, I find her being downplayed very distracting in this movie. Although her dropping her drawers for no reason did compensate, some. Love me some eye candy, as do we all.
Oh! Uhura's bitching to Spock about their relationship was not a plus for me, because I don't really give a shit about their relationship. In fact, if it were not for the relationship, Uhura would've, undoubtedly, been left in the background, just as Nichelle Nichols' Uhura had. And I just find it weak, honestly, that this was the only way Abrams could figure to give her something meatier to do. It's embarassing. Khan's motives behind most everything he does in this movie are appropriate, even understandable. The movie still succeeds at being entertaining popcorn fare, which is all it was ever striving for, it seems. So, I grade this movie a solid "B+," with a point taken off for its treatment of Carol Marcus. Even if I were ignorant of who that character was, I'd still be like, "they should be doing more stuff with that hot blonde." Otherwise, I'm looking forward to STAR TREK 3!
Oh! Uhura's bitching to Spock about their relationship was not a plus for me, because I don't really give a shit about their relationship. In fact, if it were not for the relationship, Uhura would've, undoubtedly, been left in the background, just as Nichelle Nichols' Uhura had. And I just find it weak, honestly, that this was the only way Abrams could figure to give her something meatier to do. It's embarassing. Khan's motives behind most everything he does in this movie are appropriate, even understandable. The movie still succeeds at being entertaining popcorn fare, which is all it was ever striving for, it seems. So, I grade this movie a solid "B+," with a point taken off for its treatment of Carol Marcus. Even if I were ignorant of who that character was, I'd still be like, "they should be doing more stuff with that hot blonde." Otherwise, I'm looking forward to STAR TREK 3!
My opinions aren't news at this point, are they?
(EDIT: Looking at it in retrospect, the comment about people being naive probably sounds like I was mocking the fans, which wasn't my intent, I was actually trying to poke fun at the lack of aspiration at the studio. Sorry if that came across badly.)
Dude asked why he saw and enjoyed STID less. I think there's a larger context for why many people in the domestic market seem to feel that way and I said so. If you're reading what I wrote you will note that I did not say it wasn't commercially successful -- just that it's been noticeably less enthusiastically received and critically overrated
than its predecessor, and that its domestic box was down. Both of which are in point of fact true.And I'm not making up what I said about the curiously muted character of even ostensibly positive reviews, either. It's pretty commonplace, with just a random search I could give you two dozen examples right now. And that's something I wonder about and strikes me as a bit weird, because that shouldn't be something you notice in the coverage of a movie that was an unqualified critical success. Right? Least I don't think so, it's not the kind of thing I remember running across in "positive" reviews for movies with 80%+ Rotten Tomatoes scores before.
So, I'm curious about stuff like that, and I talk about it. And life goes on.
Last edited:
My only thing I did not like about STID was that Khan was played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who then proceeded to confuse strong emotion with over enunciating all his lines during the "big dramatic" scenes.
He was literally chewing the scenery. I've never seen someone talk like that, I found it hilarious. Which was, well, pretty bad for the character.
Pretty funny directorial decision there; the "no ship should go down withooouuutt heerrrrr caaaaptaaiin" line made me burst out laughing, someone must have thought that would evoke Montalban or something? Cumberbatch was actually quite entertaining when he was just being bad-ass, though.
God, his scenery chewing was awful. The problem was is that the best scenes he had was when he was silent, and any half way decent "beefcake" actor could have handled those scenes.
My opinions aren't news at this point, are they?
Dude asked why he saw and enjoyed STID less. I think there's a larger context for why many people in the domestic market seem to feel that way and I said so. If you're reading what I wrote you will note that I did not say it wasn't commercially successful -- just that it's been noticeably less enthusiastically received and critically overrated
And I'm not making up what I said about the curiously muted character of even ostensibly positive reviews, either. It's pretty commonplace, with just a random search I could give you two dozen examples right now. And that's something I wonder about and strikes me as a bit weird, because that shouldn't be something you notice in the coverage of a movie that was an unqualified critical success. Right? Least I don't think so, it's not the kind of thing I remember running across in "positive" reviews for movies with 80%+ Rotten Tomatoes scores before.
So, I'm curious about stuff like that, and I talk about it. And life goes on.
What you find "unusual" is rather more commonplace than you think. Do some reading of reviews for other blockbusters with quite high ratings. And, in the end, those reviewers still gave a positive grade--that should tell you something (something that clashes a bit with your thesis). Sometimes your emphasis on the "muted" nature of the positive reviews resembles the post-election analysis of pundits who are unhappy with the election results but refuse to acknowledge the degree to which the option they did not favour was actually popular with others (if you can read French, there are numerous examples in the Quebec political press in the wake of last Monday's debacle for the outgoing government).
I don't think any serious film critic has suggested the Trek movies are in the same league as Casablanca or the first two Godfather films or Lawrence of Arabia in terms of being all-time cinematic classics that will likely never be forgotten. But I don't think they're quite as pessimistic about them as you believe--you're reading something into their commentary that isn't as pronounced as you think.
That's entirely possible, no doubt some more systematic comparison is in order.
And they've stated the emphasis for Star Trek 3 will again be growth in foreign markets, which means the financial analyses of angry fanboys continue to evade their concern.
.
Similar threads
- Sticky
- Poll
