• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Grade the movie...


  • Total voters
    796
What I liked:

- Set design (awesome stuff)
- Earth in the future, especially San Francicso, London and the British countryside with the hospital
- Costumes
- Soundtrack
- they cured the cameraman's Parkinson, and used less lens flares, I actually really enjoyed the cinematograpy and direction of the film
- first hour of story was dense and fun to watch, as someone who really dislikes 09 I was really positivley surprised by it, and thought "wow, it seems everyone deserves a second chance after all", I was about to forgive the plain stupidity to park a ship under water (tell me how they got there, WITHOUT the primitive species noticing, and why they didn't stay in orbit... I know... only reason, it was a cool looking effect... but that's a sorry excuse) and especially the stupidity of Starfleet command (to hold a emergency meeting in a room so easily accessible, as if the President of the USA would meet his staff in a sky skraper after a terrorist attack... uhm... yeah... ).
- Pike's lesson to Kirk! I was smiling... this young bada$$ so deserved this.
- Nods to DS9 and ENT
- Kronos (liked the design of the abandoned city) and the Klingons... the D4 however... looked just too generic, wish they would stay true to the original design linage

What I did not like:
- Basically what happened after they took Khan into custody and the film started ripping of TWOK, simply because it had no impact. When the original crew fought Khan for the first time, they have been a band for 20 years, hence Spock's death had impact. This Kirk and Spock know eachother for 12 month, so everything seemed to forced and I was not sold.
- Wha was Khan in there at all? The story would have worked much better without him, let Marcus be the bad guy, and make a prober cinematic rip off of "Paradise Lost" (the films was a mix of "Paradise Lost" (DS9) and TWOK in essence).
- Khan's explanation of his recent history... felt so forced so... "Let's have our Joker in this film". How would Khan be able to help them anyway? He was defeated in TWOK because he lacked 3-dimensional thinking (i.e. thinking like a space ship captain). How could he develop torpedoes within a year, which were 300 years ahead of his time? It felt unlikely and very forced.
- The action scenes were too boring, the ship to ship jump could have been cut shorter and more intense, and although it looked great, the Enterprise's decent was far too long, I remember looking at my watch when Kirk and Scott had trouble running through this ship
- The new warp core... aggghhhh.... V'ger is back. Honestly. It is the 23rd century. Why build something like that? Where you have NO access at all? How do you want to repair this thing?
- The brewery
- The ship to ship battle was far too short, but really intense, this could have been so cool done on such a budget, seems they don't like space battle and instead prefere jumps from high altitude (there are quite a few in this film... more than in some superhero movies)
- The Vengence... Ughhhh she is ugly, and turns uglyprise into something that is good to look at actually (honestly... uglyprise grew on me, a shame they changed the design after rechristening it in the end, that impulsebar looks bad), and again... for the 3rd time in a row we have a huge ship attacking Earth plot. NEMESIS had Scimirar, XI had the Narada, ID has the Vengence... can we come up with something... let's say slightly more original in the next one please? However I really like that motor sound she makes at warp...
- logical mistakes... Orci and Kurtzman... what is the problem to ask yourself... why does this happen?
- some of the humor was really cheap.
- that Alice Eve underwear scene... oh my was that cheap... btw... she was more annoying than Wesley Crusher... get her off board!
- The Vengence lacked something. The sets looked made for TV. Sometimes it felt like watching a TV episode.

All in all I enjoyed it much more, actually 1000 times more than that incredibly stupid, face-palm, shameful film that was released in 2009. I might even get it as a Blu Ray.

A vast improvement over the first one. Especially the changes in cinematography were great. It works as a popcorn film... maybe I am too demanding, but I want TREK to be more than that. Just yesterday I rewatched TUC, and that's in essence one of the best outings of the franchise. Yes, it has it's flaws and logical mistakes, but a good, emotional story, will make you forgive those (just like ID's first hour actually does!).

Now... Paramount, throw out the biggest issues (Orci and Kurtzman) and get authors of the calliber of the Nolan brothers to write the next film, and we will finally get a proper blockbuster TREK film, with an intelligent, emotional story.

Rating: C
 
Last edited:
What I did not like:
- Basically what happened after they took Khan into custody and the film started ripping of TWOK, simply because it had no impact. When the original crew fought Khan for the first time, they have been a band for 20 years, hence Spock's death had impact.

Second time they fought Khan you mean.
 
I actually thought it had everything I could want from a Trek film, I'm surprised people are saying it wasn't a good, solid and emotional story with a central theme along with some political and social commentary thrown in which isn't full of plot holes.
 
Different strokes and all that. I enjoyed it but was pretty meh on quite a few points. It's certainly not gaping with plot holes like ST11, but it does have some pretty big "Whaa?" moments.
 
Now... Paramount, throw out the biggest issues (Orci and Kurtzman) and get authors of the calliber of the Nolan brothers to write the next film, and we will finally get a proper blockbuster TREK film, with an intelligent, emotional story.

Ugh. Nolan movies put me to sleep, never got the love.
 
Last edited:
Did anyone else spot the exploded moon on the approach to Qo'nos or did I imagine it ?

Is it rather too early to be Praxis ?
 
Now... Paramount, throw out the biggest issues (Orci and Kurtzman) and get authors of the calliber of the Nolan brothers to write the next film, and we will finally get a proper blockbuster TREK film, with an intelligent, emotional story.

Ugh. Nolan movies out me to sleep, never got the love.

While I do like Nolan's films, when I hear a line like that..."the caliber of the Nolan brothers"...have people actually watched The Dark Knight Rises and The Dark Knight? Seriously? Those movies just just as many plot holes and strange moments as the Trek '09 and probably Into Darkness. And guess what...I don't care. I still love and enjoy them anyway. But it's such a double standard that Nolan and his guys are held up to such a high level, when they are guilty of the same things.

And I'm glad you guys found a negative review. I'm sure they're out there. Bravo.
 
Did anyone else spot the exploded moon on the approach to Qo'nos or did I imagine it ?

Is it rather too early to be Praxis ?

That was discussed in this thread already (I know it's getting very difficult to keep on top of it all). There is indeed half an exploded moon in orbit around Kronos - which I thought looked awesome. There is no indication that this is supposed to be Praxis, though - and wasn't Praxis further away from Kronos? It's been a while since I last saw Star Trek VI.
 
As much as I enjoy TUC, it doesn't do a good job of establishing where Praxis is relative to Kronos. We know that it's close enough that it has serious environmental implications. However, that would imply that the borders of the Klingon Empire are such that Kronos and Praxis really straddle the edge, because that's really the only way the Excelsior could be close enough to get hit with the shockwave without crossing into Klingon space.

I guess that's for another topic, though. :lol:
 
Did anyone else spot the exploded moon on the approach to Qo'nos or did I imagine it ?

Is it rather too early to be Praxis ?

That was discussed in this thread already (I know it's getting very difficult to keep on top of it all). There is indeed half an exploded moon in orbit around Kronos - which I thought looked awesome. There is no indication that this is supposed to be Praxis, though - and wasn't Praxis further away from Kronos? It's been a while since I last saw Star Trek VI.

Ah, sorry. I've been dipping in and out of this thread for days - I've obviously missed a chunk...
 
I saw it again... and I loved it just as much!:D A wonderful movie. Probably the best Trek of them all.

My one issue last time was that Spock blamed Khan for Kirk's sacrifice, it made no sense to me. Why would Spock yell "Khaaaan!" and go berserker when it was Admiral Marcus' attack that crippled the Enterprise, damaging the warp core and sending them spiralling down to Earth? On my first viewing I'd somehow missed that Khan attacked the defenceless Enterprise after beaming up the missiles and beaming Kirk, Scotty and Carol to the brig. THAT is what damaged the core and what sent Enterprise falling. Now Spock's "Khaaaaan!" and murderous revenge rage made sense.

I suspect in years to come, this will be known as "the one with all the crying" - Kirk cries, like, four times. Pike cries as he's dying, Khan cries in the brig, Uhura cries, Scotty's eyes tear up and even Spock cries. It was very emotional. Even on my second viewing I got a major lump in my throat on several occasions.

There is so much nerdy stuff I can't wait to pour over in October/November when the DVD comes out. I saw Franz Joseph-style Enterprise floorplans on consoles, noticed some new aliens (including another Orion crewperson) and a ton more.

I loved this movie!!
 
As much as I enjoy TUC, it doesn't do a good job of establishing where Praxis is relative to Kronos. We know that it's close enough that it has serious environmental implications. However, that would imply that the borders of the Klingon Empire are such that Kronos and Praxis really straddle the edge, because that's really the only way the Excelsior could be close enough to get hit with the shockwave without crossing into Klingon space.

I guess that's for another topic, though. :lol:

It was a sub-space shockwave, so really it could be anywhere.

My thoughts are that it is probably suppose to be Praxis we are seeing. Nero's incursion, on 75,000 km from the Klingon border, caused them to begin an unprecedented military build-up and caused the Praxis disaster earlier in this timeline.
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top