Star Trek: Into Darkness

hscully said:
I'm back from a time warp and late to the thread, but I read it all. It's impressive how well thought out everyone's comments are. Terrific. I was so busy I missed this at home and fortunately just caught it at the end of it's run down here in South Carolina.

This and the last JJ Abrams one were my favorites. I grew up on the original series. I never missed one. I hadn't liked much of anything else that followed including the windy TV series to follow, except the Wrath of Khan movie.

I had trouble with Pike history (he left to live in delusion on the planet with the keepers along with Kirk's badly scarred girlfriend) and Kahn being an Englishman but besides those two liberties I enjoyed it thoroughly. I loved the original cast and I love this cast. These versions get the main characters right. Chris Pine is an excellent Kirk. He drives it as did Shatner in the original. Quinto is a superb Spock. The chemistry between characters including Bones and Scotty is exactly right and I find the casting of the core crew just dead nut on including the excellent choice of Zoe Saldana as Ohura.

The original series was science fiction in the most cursory way. It was a western with bad rocks and a series of morality plays with a single determined, inspired and ballsy American captain and I think they nailed it. The subsequent TV series with Picard and the borg were langorous and just plain boring even if it was better Scy Fy. I don't care. This is what Star Trek is about for me. The execution was flawless technically and the dialog was close to the best banter from the series.

OK, I knew that Khan's blood would save Kirk. I didn't care. I'm glad they brought the core characters back so vividly and faithfully and I'm glad they made it and I can't wait to see it again and again.
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+1
 
Ryan Farnes said:
I'm glazing over these comments and thinking...wow, could this happen to Star Wars? The fans becoming irate over what is viewed as poorly constructed plots, bastardized prequels and bizarre changes to the universe we love?

Oh right. We've already been violated on those points. No where to go but up from here!
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Not to get too sidetracked into a discussion of Star Wars, but I think that the upcoming episode VII has a solid chance of being good.

Most of the problems with the 2 Bad Robot Trek films come from the writing, and not the direction per se. Acting, visuals, effects, production value, cinematography (overuse of lens flares not withstanding), pacing, etc. are mostly fine. Abrams' appears to be at least a competent director and maybe even a great one. The fact that his two Trek films are as well received as they are*, despite having swiss-cheese scripts with holes big enough to drive a Borg Cube through, maybe shows that J.J. has some legitimate skill as a filmmaker.

It's my understanding that Abrams will NOT be bringing over his writers to Star Wars. Disney has already picked Michael Arndt for that job. If Arndt gives J.J. a solid script to work with, then Episode VII will be fine. I doubt that it will be worse than the prequels.


*Among general audiences and critics - perhaps not so much among the pre-existing Star Trek fanbase.
 
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Wesley Byram said:
Most of the problems with the 2 Bad Robot Trek films come from the writing, and not the direction per se.
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From my point of view... no... with the exception of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture"(1979), all were shot like TV shows, and "Wrath of Kahn"(1982) rose above that 'mean level'.

On one of the BTS featurettes, the producer 'takes pride' in the production in that it was more like 'tv'... I don't recall the exact clip, perhaps it was in regard to the Kahn film, but it was my epiphany moment on what was different about the following movies.

JJ Abrams' reboot puts the 'movie' back in to the Star Trek films...
 
Say what you want about the script or overall film, but this was probably the best directed blockbuster of the summer. Think about it. Was the direction by Snyder, Black or even Blomkamp superior to JJ's directing here? Saying the action in this felt anything like the SW prequels is total BS.
 
JonsMovies said:
Saying the action in this felt anything like the SW prequels is total BS.
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There was a lot of running, jumping from great heights, jumping between floating things, ships tilting and people sliding backwards, all kinds of stuff that you saw quite a bit of in the prequels.
 
JonsMovies said:
Say what you want about the script or overall film, but this was probably the best directed blockbuster of the summer. Think about it. Was the direction by Snyder, Black or even Blomkamp superior to JJ's directing here? ....
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Agreed. For the Star Trek reboots, J.J. filmed a couple of contrived and nonsensical scripts and made them into successful movies that most people seemed to like. That's why I'm not too worried about his Star Wars film, even if I'm not crazy about his Trek movies. Give him a solid script and he'll probably give us a great film...as long as he goes easy on the lens flare this time.
 
I was at Redbox the other day. Searching, searching....several films I hadn't seen. Nothing caught my attention. I watched Into Darkness again, and enjoyed it.
 
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