STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]

[Maurice]

Just an observation on some of the comments I've read: I don't know where people keep coming up with this idea of superman Khan wanting to wipe out less perfect humans...the whole eliminate that which is imperfect is Nomad's bailiwick, after all. Khan just was super ambitious and thought his superiority meant his kind was meant to rule.

It's from the movie itself. Before NuSpock beams over Khan's crew, he asks Khan what he'll do with them. Khan says he'll continue his "work" and Spock says, that as he understands it, his work is the mass genocide of any beings he finds to be less than superior (which is, apparently, the information he got from Spock Prime).

OldSpock showing up was my big eye-roll moment of the movie. He didn't tell Spock anything that helped.

You'll remember that the audience's view on that exchange was cut off mid conversation.

That makes my point: I don't know where OLD SPOCK gets it, either, since that's not what happened. The writers basically made it up. I don't have a problem if this as indeed the case, but since they drag old Spock out from the old continuity they might as well at least have him not dissemble.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Three questions from the film prologue.. (just saw it for the fourth time).

1. Scotty: The salt water will ruin the.. WHAT? What was he going to say? Also starships fly through nebulas and near suns, surely this is fretting and not science to say salt water will ruin anything.

2. Getting too close to the volcano heat will damage the ship. Again, suns! WTH?

3. How did they get the Enterprise under water without the natives seeing them? It's not like they were far out in the middle of the ocean, even with all the lights out (?!) the ship would be visible descending at night.

 

[trevanian]

That was what was so great about the Klingon look from TMP to Enterprise, that no one Klingon looked exactly like another.

Actually, TMP Klingons' crests all came from the one mold. Lots of magazines used to print pics of any random TMP Klingon and label it "Mark Lenard as a Klingon".

I thought someone would mention this eventually, which is why I had first considered listing TSFS instead of TMP.

Well you need to revise it again, because Richard Snell (don't bother looking him up, he only got IMDB listed for TVH) ran the appliances for most of the films and he said Shatner was the first one to say, 'go for it' when it came to doing a mix of designs for klingons, that the Nimoy films' klingons were pretty much a cookie cutter operation by comparison. So TUC was able to leverage off TFF and really go wild with respect to this.

 

[Saito S]

Not going to get tangled up in all the discussions about this or that aspect of the movie (at least, for now), but I wanted to just voice my thoughts. Saw it on Saturday.

Based on what I thought of XI (fun to watch, but heavily flawed, with a really inane plot), my expectations for STID were honestly pretty low. I was expecting, at best, more of the same: fun to watch, but stupid. The reveal that it WAS, in fact, Khan, made me want to see it even less, because I found it disappointing that they were just going to do a retread of the most popular "oldTrek" film, rather than do something entirely new. So, I went to see it, feeling about as sure as I've ever been that I would not like the movie I was about to watch very much.

Boy, sometimes being completely wrong is fun.

I loved it. WAY better than XI; where the former was glitzy fluff that had a lot of noise (pleasant, pretty FX-laden noise, but still noise) to cover up its idiotic plot and complete lack of depth, STID had a good plot and surprising depth. Yes, some of it was kind of murky, especially if you start trying to analyze it, i.e. the torpedoes. But that's the kind of thing that's just not as big a deal when the movie is good. You can have the exact same flaws in two movies; one is great despite them, and the other is just meh all around. The flaws stick out a lot more in the latter.

I was just having too much fun watching the movie to care. And that, to me, is what makes a film great (or not).

Also, speaking of its depth: they did something that absolutely floored me. One of the most ridiculous things in XI was Kirk's promotion to captain. Not the field promotion; that made sense. The permanent promotion at the end, however, was just dumb. But I remember talking with friends, saying How cool would it be if in Trek XII, we see some fallout from that. Maybe Kirk's inexperience overpowers his natural talents and he gets into some kind of real trouble, or Starfleet ends up having to yank him back in some way... But, nah, these movies are not going to have that kind of-

Wait, did they just do exactly that?? I think they did! Hot damn!

I also REALLY liked the conversation between Spock and Kirk late in the movie, when the former tries to talk the latter out of going over to the Vengeance with Khan. When Kirk finally rounds on him and says that no, it isn't logical, it isn't rational, he knows that but he has to do it anyway... that was a fantastic moment for the dynamic that exists with (and between) those two characters.

And yes, it apes TWOK - hell, it's basically a reboot of TWOK, to some degree. I didn't like the sound of that going into it, but it pulled it off with flying colors, taking the better concepts from what was (Shields up! Arm all weapons!) a hugely overrated bore of a Trek film, and using them in better ways. And Cumberbatch's Khan was - right from the start, and through to the end - dynamic, threatening, brilliant, and downright badass, all things that Montalban's Khan could never muster, despite the audience being told that he was supposed to be all of them. STID Khan actually WAS.

No, it's not perfect, of course; aside from the aforementioned torpedo confusion, there were other things that made no sense or just plain didn't work. If artificial gravity was out, why were people falling all over the place instead of just floating? Did we really need THAT many scenes of things on the Enterprise blowing up and people getting tossed about by explosions and such? Yes, the situation is bad; we get it. Why were trips between Earth - the human homeworld and capital of the Federation – and Kronos – the Klingon homeworld and capital of the Empire – so ho hum and quick? Traveling between those two locations should not feel like a quick, consequence-free jaunt, and both of said homeworlds felt very lonely out there, these capitals of massive interstellar societies just sitting there with no ships around, no one seeming to notice or care about what was going on in their orbits... Etc. (Hardly a new problem in Trek, that last one, to be fair!)

But as I said above, those are ultimately quibbles whose real impact depend on the quality of the rest of the movie around them. In STID's case, they feel pretty minor.

So yeah. Blows away both TWOK and STXI. Best movie I've seen in a theater since... the Best of Both Worlds theatrical event a few weeks ago. Okay, okay... best actual movie, proper, I've seen since... hell, probably since the Avengers last year. And a serious candidate for my favorite Trek film. Color me impressed.

 

[Maurice]

3. How did they get the Enterprise under water without the natives seeing them? It's not like they were far out in the middle of the ocean, even with all the lights out (?!) the ship would be visible descending at night.

We have no idea how bright or dark the nights are on this planet, or even if the natives can see well in the dark. Ever go out into wilderness on a moonless night? Amazingly dark except for the starlight. Also, the ship could have descended into the ocean 30 miles away approached land underwater. At 30 miles distance even the huge E wouldn't appear very big. I often see huge container ships leaving San Francisco Bay from my bedroom window, and when they're about 14 miles miles from me (halfway to the Farallon Islands) they look pretty puny.

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

True true, it could have swum under water.

 

[RyuRoots]

Rather than mirroring what I said in the other thread, I'll just say that Saito basically states my thoughts, more or less.

It's hard to overstate how pleasantly shocked I was during and after the movie. I went in expecting a trainwreck and I got one of the best of all 12 films.

One thing that I truly loved in particular was how well they used some of the things FROM XI, most notably Kirk getting knocked down after the Nibirian incident and Spock talking about his feelings about death. I also feel that for the first time, I'm watching Chris Pine play Jim Kirk. In this movie we see a bit of intelligence, planning, and in general a bit more growth.

If the inevitable Star Trek XIII is as good as this, I await it with open arms.

 

[Dream]

True true, it could have swum under water.

The only reason we had those scenes was so they could show Kirk, McCoy and Uhura in form fitting wetsuits!

 

[TEACAKE'S PLEATHER DOME]

Those wetsuits were absolutely hot. Professional AND hot. Great patterning on them.

The costumes in this movie were the best ever IMO.

 

[Gepard]

Also, the ship could have descended into the ocean 30 miles away approached land underwater.

While you've got your screenwriting hat on, can you venture an explanation as to why they hid the ship in the flippin' ocean in the first place? I like it, it looked cool, and it established just how powerful the Enterprise is, making the beating it took from the Vengeance even more impressive, but I'm at a loss as to what the in-universe rationale is. Did Kirk do it just because he could?

Rather than mirroring what I said in the other thread, I'll just say that Saito basically states my thoughts, more or less.

It's hard to overstate how pleasantly shocked I was during and after the movie. I went in expecting a trainwreck and I got one of the best of all 12 films.

+1. Somehow, against all odds, this one has shot up my list into the top three or four. My "core" Trek movies are now TWOK, TUC, FC and STID. (Plus TSFS and TVH if I'm feeling generous.)

Hell of a trick, given how I felt about the last one.

 

[Kelso]

While you've got your screenwriting hat on, can you venture an explanation as to why they hid the ship in the flippin' ocean in the first place? I like it, it looked cool, and it established just how powerful the Enterprise is, making the beating it took from the Vengeance even more impressive, but I'm at a loss as to what the in-universe rationale is. Did Kirk do it just because he could?

They likely parked the Enterprise nearby because they rightly guessed that the shuttle might not make it back. It gives them a staging area inside the atmosphere. And given Kirk's nature at the start of the film, because he could. "Hey, this ship can be submerged in an emergency, right? This is an emergency!"

We weren't privy to the planning meetings that proceeded the mission, but I'd imagine that there objections to that point.

 

[Gepard]

And given Kirk's nature at the start of the film, because he could.

I'm leaning towards that explanation at this point. The ship can take the strain and it accomplishes the mission either way, so why not go for the version that's more fun?

It's essentially Picard and his dune buggy in Nemesis, only not hideously embarrassing to watch.

 

[GMDreia]

And Cumberbatch's Khan was - right from the start, and through to the end - dynamic, threatening, brilliant, and downright badass, all things that Montalban's Khan could never muster, despite the audience being told that he was supposed to be all of them. STID Khan actually WAS.


.

It's an unpopular opinion among Trekkers, but actually, I completely agree with you. In many ways - CumberKhan was way, way, way more intimidating than MontalKhan ever was. You get the vibe of someone who is so beyond humanity that he thinks of us as ants. I loved it, it was a fresh take on khan and IMO it's a great way to approach a genetically engineered character. You really see how the Eugenics Wars would've posed a real threat to humanity. It feels real and palpable.

I kind of see MontalKhan and CumberKhan in some ways as two different characters. Each is how the same character would be envisioned if being written fresh in the era they were written in.

There was a little bit of cognitive dissonance for me though over trying to connect the name Khan Noonian Singh with very posh British white guy.

 

[Belz...]

But who am I to look for logic in a script where a space ship hides under water for no reason and cannot withstand the heat of a volcanic eruption, which is minimal compared to what a ship like the Enterprise would need to endure when it, for example, enters the atmosphere of a planet to hide under water.

Entering an atmosphere does not generate much heat unless you're going really fast.

 

[gornsky]

Regardless of whose choice it is, I just think the scene works better with that swelling score that accentuates Kirk's sense of panic in TWOK.

Sometimes a good performance doesn't need music to carry it.

This one did, cause it was just lame. You know they're not going to kill him yet. They telegraph it throughout the movie they can cheat death. You didn't know that the first time you saw TWOK. But I guess it moves so fast, maybe the average viewer doesn't notice.

But hang on... this movie is edited differently. It can't be lame because it's the same and also lame because it's different (although that is the argument that seems to be all over the net). The sequence that takes Spock from the Command Chair to where Kirk is is all of 5 seconds. Is it your contention that this 5 seconds required a score, and without its own score, is "lame".

Then when Spock goes to Kirk, the piano/strings theme kicks in. It's very haunting, although on Giacchino's album it's called somewhat frivolously "Buying the Space Farm".

 

[gornsky]

2) The new-ish look for the Klingons. The helmets look like something that belongs on a Predator, and once said helmets are removed, every Klingon depicted looks indistinguishable from the next.

I've only seen it three times, but I only thought one Klingon took off his helmet?

Yes, we only see one Klingon. The rest remain helmeted. So I'm a little unsure about the idea that they all look the same

 

[Belz...]

You know they're not going to kill him yet.

Well, yeah. I watched The Doomsay Machine a few days ago, and even the first time I saw that episode I was never in doubt as to Kirk's survival. And yet the tension works.

When do they ever actually kill Kirk ? Well, Generations and Into Darkness. The latter is just temporary, that's all.

Wouldn't it have been something to have him permanently dead, however ?

 

[gornsky]

This is worth the read

http://subspacecommunique.com/conte...-why-star-trek-into-darkness-succeeds-reopeni


-Chris

Thank you so much for the link. Such lovely insights!

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

NuTrek is about the Original crew, not the secondary characters, aliens, ships or any of that other stuff.

Exactly so.

 

[topas]

I didn't see anyone addressing this, so thought I'd ask:

How did Uhura and Sulu get off their shuttle and what happened to it?

From what I gather after one viewing; they did not beam off it, they wore wetsuits as well (Sulu's line "ready to swim" from the trailers), so they probably flew it out of the volcanic ash cloud into the ocean, close to the E, abandoned the shuttle and swam to the Enterprise like Kirk and McCoy did later? If so, add even more cultural contamination once they find the wreckage someday...