My thoughts on and gripes with Star Trek Into Darkness

[Ometiklan]

Well, sorry, but if it's stated in the movie, you don't need to look anywhere else.

If Khan says that Marcus's mission is X, but what is demonstrated on screen doesn't support that and I ask "what is Marcus' plan?", do you still insist that it is X?

Name one thing that wouldn't have been accomplished without ANY of the characters, save Spock, Kirk, Scotty and Marcus ? You could literally have three people on the Enterprise and everything would have happened the same way.

I have to disagree. I haven't studied every significant role in the movie, but even when a character like Chekhov doesn't get particularly Chekhov-appropriate tasks to do, he still ran engineering and fixed the warp drive and saved Kirk and Scotty. Removing Chekhov from the movie would require someone else to be promoted to chief engineer. For Carol, literally everything she does would have been achieved without her character being there.

solariabsg25:

About Khan and item 16, you may be right. If I watched the movie again, maybe I would pick up a little more that Khan is biding his time and planning. I didn't get that the first watch. I did enjoy Cumberbatch's performance and I did think that he was the aggrieved party, which is why I thought for a moment he would convince Kirk to go after the worse bad guy. It worked that way a little bit, and in the end maybe Kirk's betrayal of Khan on the Vengeance's bridge destroyed any chance of Khan saving his men and accepting punishment, but overall Khan seemed to me to be so enraged that all that came through was a desire to destroy everything. I guess I just expected a little more depth to the character/plotting, and didn't feel like I got it. I wouldn't mind rewatching just Khan and seeing if there are elements I missed, I just wish I didn't have to work through all the rest of it to see it.

Flake:

Of course other Star Trek episodes have demonstrated these issues but mostly individually or in small groups, and of course I have noticed them, but I think something of what I am trying to indicate here is how STID piles all of the nitpicks on top of the plot holes on top of the nonsensical plotting, on top of the poor characterizations, on top of the too-rapid pace, on top of ... everything else. If I have to dig through all of these things to find the supposedly "good" movie hiding underneath, I don't think there is much of a movie left that can be considered good.

 

[newtontomato539]

Using Khan is a retread.

Check.

Using Mitchell is not.

Chec-





The Kelvin 2233: Have we ever seen the Star Fleet uniforms, phaser pistols, tricorders, etc from that era?

. . . .

I thought not.

If something is not explained, it is not a Plot Hole. tm

Yet another "JJ Abrams Sucks!" thread

 

[Belz...]

If Khan says that Marcus's mission is X, but what is demonstrated on screen doesn't support that and I ask "what is Marcus' plan?", do you still insist that it is X?

In what way does the screen stuff not support X ?

I have to disagree. I haven't studied every significant role in the movie, but even when a character like Chekhov doesn't get particularly Chekhov-appropriate tasks to do, he still ran engineering and fixed the warp drive and saved Kirk and Scotty. Removing Chekhov from the movie would require someone else to be promoted to chief engineer.

He did dick all. Automated repair function could have replaced him.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

My god.

 

[F. King Daniel]

My god.

It's full of stars...
[YT]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YbLRzabppus[/YT]

 

[Opus]

Wow. That's quite an OP.

I loved this movie. The plot was fine. The pacing was fast. The characters were rich. There was growth in Spock and Kirk. It's fresh and new because we are now in the Alt. Universe and everything's up for grabs. The nuSpock has an interesting story arc. And, most importantly, it's a damn fun movie.

These are 'The Good 'Ole Days'.

 

[Belz...]

My god.

It's full of stars...

Dammit, I was going to say that.

 

[Ovation]

Going back to point 16 - I think Khan really had no plan at all to keep any bargain with Kirk, he was simply going along with my "oh, woe is me" sob story until it was time to act. I suspect his superior intellect allowed him to realise he hadn't completely swayed Kirk to his side, so he was ready for Kirk's move.

Just saw it again last night. I viewed it this way the first time. Second viewing makes it even clearer.

The fact that, thanks to Admiral Marcus, Khan was actually the aggrieved party helped his story along, but as to his turning at the end, I think that Khan really couldn't be anything else. He was conditioned during the Eugenics War, whether by his own desires or by design, to rule.

Pretty much.

Khan in this movie is one of the best villains in Trek as he isn't a maniacal madman, he is at all points, up until he believes his comrades have actually been killed, in complete and total control. His manipulation of Kirk from the moment they have their discussion in the brig is testimony to this. And this harks back to his appearance in Space Seed, rather than TWOK when his brilliance is clouded by the losses he suffered over the years and his rage and thirst for vengeance.

Well said.

I didn't find the movie the least bit complicated or convoluted. I mean I followed it as it was happening and it all made sense on the surface. That is what a good story does. Real life stories are usually flawlessly told, but they are also boring 99% of the time, that is why we enjoy the fake stuff.

Take any good or even great movie or TV show and look at it with a critical eye and you are going to poke giant holes in any story.

Star Trek itself is absolutely riddled with plot holes, inconsistent history, and bad science. I mean I guess its fun to discuss them from time to time because there is literally nothing else do with such big gaps between productions but I'd rather see someone not complain about a Star Trek movie for doing things done in other incarnations of Star Trek on a regular basis while still talking about how great those movies are.

I would say a criticism of acting and pace, and cgi is fine. But more often than not I am seeing a ton of complaints about things other Trek's have been doing for 50 years.

Also well said.

 

[Commishsleer]

The coordinate system - really?

 

[Ometiklan]

newtontomato539:

It’s not that Gary Mitchell wouldn’t be a retread, but rather that given what was known at the time (the bad guy is more than human), my preferred option for villains would have put Gary Mitchell over Khan. In general, my preferences would have been:
1. New opposing force/issue (not necessarily a “villain”)
2. New villain
3. New take on Gary Mitchell based on new timeline
4. Innovative version of Khan based on new timeline
5. Khan as we have seen him before

I think the movie falls in with #5.

But good point on 2233, we don’t know what everything looked like exactly. At best we have what they looked like in “The Cage” circa 2254. I guess I would anticipate that engineering/starship design would not change so significantly in 20 years that the Kelvin’s bridge, engineering/shuttle bays, the weapons, etc. would look so different. As I said originally, I think it would have been a better choice to show the Kelvin much more like the TOS ships, and thus add impact to the changes in design/technology etc. resulting from the changes in the timeline. It’s an artistic opinion.

Belz:
“In what way does the screen stuff not support X ?”

I was using it as a general comment on how to interpret the information provided in the movie: do you go with what a character says is going on or do you base your decisions on what is shown on screen? When you replied that some stuff was explained in the movie and that that was the end of the discussion, my point was that if what is portrayed on screen makes no sense can we determine if there is an explanation that is more reasonable, or just chalk it up to bad screenwriting. I would very much appreciate an explanation of the actions of Marcus or Khan that make more sense in the context of what is actually portrayed on screen. Some commenters have provided some good points on other issues, but I still don’t think Marcus’ plan or Khan’s assassination plan made any sense at all. My points 21 and 23.

“He did dick all. Automated repair function could have replaced him.”

I agree totally. The character was poorly written, and any other engineering character could have replaced him. But that further highlights my point on Carol. No one even need replace her. If she did not exist, all the same information would have been conveyed and achievements would have occurred.

CommishSleer:
It's just a minor nitpick, but it left me wondering, so I pondered alternatives. If you can think of something that makes more sense, please add it (another commenter had posted it might be some kind of nested-sector-based system, which might work). I just wondered why the screenwriters didn't use a coordinate system that either 1) makes some sense based on portraying a location in a 3 dimensional space as large as the galaxy, or 2) used a coordinate system that has already be portrayed in Star Trek.

 

[Avon]

NuKhan was an occasionally sympathetic anti-hero. he was not presented as this before. so #4.

also your first post was so long that you could challenge stj for the 'insanely super-long post that defies common-sense' crown.

 

[Franklin]

Wow. Out of curiosity, I copied the OP into a Word file. It was ten pages long (single-spaced) and 6697 words. That's gotta be a record.

 

[beamMe]

Wow. Out of curiosity, I copied the OP into a Word file. It was ten pages long (single-spaced) and 6697 words. That's gotta be a record.

Well, tldr

 

[Belz...]

“In what way does the screen stuff not support X ?”

I was using it as a general comment on how to interpret the information provided in the movie: do you go with what a character says is going on or do you base your decisions on what is shown on screen?

Both, and I think it's enough to have a good idea of the plan.

Marcus wanted to eliminate Khan with the torpedoes. An ironic way of killing his own crew, as well. The torpedoes would spread and damage locations around Kronos, prompting the Klingons to find the disabled Enterprise and destroy her, and leading to a war that Marcus thought he would win with either one or several Dreadnaughts.

Well, tldr

tlrd for me (too long, read diagonally).

 

[Set Harth]

I suspect this issue has been addressed before, so apologies if I'm covering old ground here, but if Marcus wanted a war with the Klingons why didn't he simply use transwarp beaming to wipe them out at long distance? Or did he want a more "conventional" conflict, the kind that would garner public approval and facilitate an even greater military buildup of the fleet?

 

[beamMe]

I suspect this issue has been addressed before, so apologies if I'm covering old ground here, but if Marcus wanted a war with the Klingons why didn't he simply use transwarp beaming to wipe them out at long distance? Or did he want a more "conventional" conflict, the kind that would garner public approval and facilitate an even greater military buildup of the fleet?

He wanted to reshape Earth society by way of this war. Wiping the Klingons out from a distance wouldn't have served his goals.

 

[Belz...]

How would he wipe out the Klingons with transwarp beaming ?

 

[Avon]

beaming their heads from their shoulders from a quadrant away?

though then you're left with the problem of what to do with several billion klingon heads

 

[geneo]

Also remember, this is an alternate timeline so nothing has to be exactly the way we think it should have been - that is the real time line..this is the alternate one where anything goes, it is developing it's own niche and this is only the 2nd. movie.

 

[BillJ]

How would he wipe out the Klingons with transwarp beaming ?

You could easily beam WMD's all across the surface of the Klingon homeworld and aboard all ships/bases that you knew the location of. You might not completely wipe them out, but with a co-ordinated effort it would be a hell of a first strike.