Would Into Darkness have been a better film if Khan was not the villain?

Indeed. To this day I am blown away by all the implausible "science" used in Trek but this blood thing is a line too far.

 

I'm not convinced it's the science of the blood thing that people take issue with, I think it's more that it was a cheap, lazily written way to get the quick death and resurrection scene in the movie.

I like into darkness just fine in the main - it's still one of the best trek films, but this contrived scene that was telegraphed from practically the beginning of the movie is one of it's issues.

It might be in the spirit of what's been seen before in the franchise but that doesn't make it any less eye rolling.

 

It is a bit of a "why bother even killing Kirk?" moment; they could just as easily have put him into a coma, and it seems to be done to unnecessarily increase the parallels to TWOK.

I had the same issue with the not one, but two quickly-reversed "deaths" in Rise of Skywalker...perhaps not coincidentally, also an Abrams film.

 

The we-think-they're-dead-but-wait-a-minute-they're-fine plot twist is one of the most common in movie history XD

 

x1000

I LOATHE stories that “spell everything out”. LOATHE them.

“John Harrison was a fiction created by Marcus” is all the “spelling out” one needs to account for the different look—if one “needs” such a thing at all.

 

Then stop calling it "magic blood" if the science isn't the issue. Blood based therapies, including platelet therapies, are real thing.

As for the rest, I will just agree to disagree. Yes, it was telegraphed from the beginning and that was fine by me. Because what matters in the moment is Kirk's decision, not whether or not he happens to stay dead.

I know I might be an outlier on this point but the whole "But they didn't stay dead!" protest rings so hollow to me. I don't expect main characters to stay dead. What matters to me in that moment is the choices the characters made that led up to it. Maybe it's just me but the characters are what drive it. Kirk didn't know he was going to live but made the choice anyway. The whole situation that he "didn't believe in" come full circle from ST 09.

Again, mileage, but I think too much emphasis is put on "He didn't stay dead" without being with the character in that moment.

See above.

 

For some reason many people seem to expect 'genre fiction' to work differently in this regard, bogging down the flow of storytelling by stopping to spell out every single little minute detail instead of leaving things for the viewer to infer and getting on with the actual story.

Kor

 

That's the thing, WoK was over thirty years old when STID came out. I'd bet less than 25% of the people who went to see it knew Ricardo Montalbán previously played Khan in some old movie from the 80s. Most of the audience thought they cast a popular actor to play a role, there was no preconceived notion they were supposed to cast a Hispanic actor to play a Sikh.

 

FWIW, as a movie-goer, I personally didn't really care...it's there and gone so quickly, and with so little general reaction to it (no fancy funeral for NuKirk), that...whatever...

As someone with a degree in English Writing though, I find it a bit silly and pointless.

The RoS death fake-outs bothered me more precisely because they were more manipulative of the audience.

 

Interesting. Well, I will agree to disagree at this point, since while I see the manipulation, the choices the characters made up to that point mattered more.

 

I agree with that, I had a lot of non-Trek fan friends and family who watched it who had no issues following along. I actually really enjoyed the way Benedict Cumberbatch delivered the line, 'My Name...is Khan.' The face he gave along with that declaration was a clear Threat. So new viewers knew that it meant something. Kirk appeared too focused on getting the particulars on the facts or just took it as a general threat, but Spock picked up on it and it was the reason I imagine he called his counter part later. Think I might have to start watching this film again on my lunch break. It's been a while.

 

Only better writing could make Into Darkness better. I was also disappointed to find out we wouldn't get Gary Mitchell, because I was hoping for a sequel film along the lines of Wrath of Khan being a sequel to "Space Seed" mixed with a recreation. By recreating Wrath of Khan itself it didn't copy the magic of the original, it just copied and mixed around the pieces with a worse basis.

The weakest part of Into Darkness is the 9/11 inside job concept where the admiral fakes casus belli by sacrificing Kirk. Get rid of that by switching it to less overt actions and it can work far better.

 

Yes because that's never happened in a Star Trek film before...

 

After the first movie, I was excited by the premise of the alternate universe where they could do whatever they wanted without being tied down by canon.

And what did this do with this seemingly boundless the-possibilities-are-endless premise? They went back and re-hashed old Trek. Very disappointing. There was no need to tell a Khan story. It was the cheapest lowest hanging fruit possible.

 

Sadly, Star Trek has never gotten over TWOK.

 

If it’s been done before, presumably better as well, it is even more reason not to repeat it.

 

That is not the Star Trek way.

 

The Undiscovered Country is one of my favorites of the older movies actually. I see elements in STID that cover more than TWOK as far as previous Star Trek goes. Which I don't have a problem with because this is an Alternate Universe so it makes sense to play around with some of the same ideas. That's what makes it fun.

 

Okay, then why not skip the scene in the brig where we get the "big reveal" that Harrison is Khan?

The name is meaningless to the portion of the audience who are not Trek fans, and the fans figured out who Harrison was months before the movie came out. So why not have Harrison use the name Harrison for the entirety of the story while quietly in the background being Khan?

Why spell everything out who he actually is?