Star Trek: Into Darkness

I consider The Motion Picture and Into Darkness to be of equal quality for completely opposite reasons. Star Trek Into Darkness was fast, funny and stupidly written. The Motion Picture was slow, ponderous and smartly written. Even if it was a re-hash of a previous episode, I felt it was a fairly well written science fiction mystery with a lot of intriguing ideas. Its failures are mostly of pace and editing. I have a soft spot for it mainly because of the magnificent score, probably Jerry Goldsmith's best.
 
Batutta said:
I consider The Motion Picture and Into Darkness to be of equal quality for completely opposite reasons. Star Trek Into Darkness was fast, funny and stupidly written. The Motion Picture was slow, ponderous and smartly written. Even if it was a re-hash of a previous episode, I felt it was a fairly well written science fiction mystery with a lot of intriguing ideas. Its failures are mostly of pace and editing. I have a soft spot for it mainly because of the magnificent score, probably Jerry Goldsmith's best.
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I did like ST: TMP when it first came out, but I think my 'sensibilities' have changed over the years. I saw it in theaters, I may have seen it on TV at some point, but I don't recall watching it at any specific point in time... (to contrast, I've watched another popular Wise film, "Sound of Music"(1965), many... many times... and even "The Day The Earth Stood Still"(1951), and for the remake... was totally disappointed... but that's another discussion... sort of...).

At that time, it had been 10 years since the TV show cancellation, and while I did watch, and like the TV show, I definitely was in a different head space than a trek fan...

But obviously I'm sufficient a 'fan' to buy the BD set...

It is also interesting when I think about it... Star Trek has far more 'installments' in movie form that many other popular 'serials' of the modern age... There's the 6 with the Geriatric Cast, 4 with the Young Whippersnappers, and now 2 of the rebooted series...

There was a joke in "Back to the Future II" about "Jaws IXX"... but it seems like it's going to be "Star Trek IXX"...
 
Batutta said:
I consider The Motion Picture and Into Darkness to be of equal quality for completely opposite reasons. Star Trek Into Darkness was fast, funny and stupidly written. The Motion Picture was slow, ponderous and smartly written. Even if it was a re-hash of a previous episode, I felt it was a fairly well written science fiction mystery with a lot of intriguing ideas. Its failures are mostly of pace and editing. I have a soft spot for it mainly because of the magnificent score, probably Jerry Goldsmith's best.
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Yeah, hence my first sentence in the OP of this thread.

To wit:

paulears said:
All the people who hated Star Trek, who got taken to see it, seem to have enjoyed it?
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That means it's something quite unlike Star Trek, while trading on the name.
 
j1clark@ucsd.edu said:
... and the Wife noticed the men in 'jumpsuits'... and their 'manly outlines'...
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I'm sure she was referring to this unintentionally hilarious shot--
Trek.png
 
Batutta said:
I consider The Motion Picture and Into Darkness to be of equal quality for completely opposite reasons. Star Trek Into Darkness was fast, funny and stupidly written.
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I can't argue with that but Into Darkness had a huge entertainment factor, that certain something that made it a fun movie to watch regardless of the flaws.

None of the original movies really stood up to Wrath of Kahn. It was great, the rest were mediocre at best, or kinda terrible.
 
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.
 
Finally watched it.

Despite lifting an entire scene word-for-word from Wrath of Khan, it wasn't a remake of that much better film. It was a remake of Star Trek: Nemesis, arguably the worst of the films.

It was just one stupid thing after another, starting with the Enterprise hiding underwater for no reason whatsoever.

Khan's motivation was baffling. I still have no idea why he did anything he did.

Marcus's motivation was Snidley Whiplash-ish, from the simplicity of being corrupt just to be corrupt to the stupidity of sending the best ship in Starfleet on a mission he intended to result in its destruction -- yeah, there's a good way to strengthen the Federation against invasion. Being paranoid does not necessarily make one murderous. (And what was with the costumes they wore on that ship?)

Carol Marcus served zero purpose, other than her underwear shot, and she's not English.

Scotty resigning just so they could get him onto the other ship was contrived out the wazoo.

And on and on and on.

That said, it was still better than the last one.
 
David Jimerson said:
Finally watched it.

Despite lifting an entire scene word-for-word from Wrath of Khan, it wasn't a remake of that much better film. It was a remake of Star Trek: Nemesis, arguably the worst of the films.

It was just one stupid thing after another, starting with the Enterprise hiding underwater for no reason whatsoever.

Khan's motivation was baffling. I still have no idea why he did anything he did.

Marcus's motivation was Snidley Whiplash-ish, from the simplicity of being corrupt just to be corrupt to the stupidity of sending the best ship in Starfleet on a mission he intended to result in its destruction -- yeah, there's a good way to strengthen the Federation against invasion. Being paranoid does not necessarily make one murderous. (And what was with the costumes they wore on that ship?)

Carol Marcus served zero purpose, other than her underwear shot, and she's not English.

Scotty resigning just so they could get him onto the other ship was contrived out the wazoo.

And on and on and on.

That said, it was still better than the last one.
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I was more entertained by this one, but I agree with you on all points. The writing for the reboot, or at least the writing that has ended up on the screen, has been consistently bad.
 
David Jimerson said:
Despite lifting an entire scene word-for-word from Wrath of Khan, it wasn't a remake of that much better film. It was a remake of Star Trek: Nemesis, arguably the worst of the films.
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OTOH, Nemesis always seemed to be a rehash of both W.o.K. and Undiscovered Country, with Romulans replacing the Klingons (and "Remans" in there...for some reason.) So, in that sense, Into Darkness is like a knock-off of a knock-off.


David Jimerson said:
Khan's motivation was baffling. I still have no idea why he did anything he did.
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This article claims that Cumberbatch's character wasn't always written as Khan, but as a rogue Starfleet officer. Once the story was mostly finished, the writers decided to shoehorn in Khan. That doesn't really make his motives any more clear, but it does help explain why "Khan" in this movie doesn't feel like Khan.



David Jimerson said:
Carol Marcus served zero purpose, other than her underwear shot, and she's not English.
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More than that, in this movie she's now a military "weapons specialist" instead of a civilian physicist/biologist like in W.O.K. They kept the name "Carol Marcus," and the fact that she had a thing with Kirk, but otherwise she's a different character.

David Jimerson said:
...contrived out the wazoo.
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This is the most accurate critique of both the J.J. Trek films that can be made, IMHO.

David Jimerson said:
That said, it was still better than the last one.
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Agreed. Into Darkness was a least fun, as long as you don't stop to think about anything that's going on. (like why Starfleet is even bothering to develop giant doomships when they now have trans-warp transporters that can just beam weapons and personel instantly across vast interstellar distances. Admiral Robocop wants to knock the Klingons down a peg? Just beam a few containers of antimatter strait to Qo'nos. Done. No elaborate scheme needed.)
 
Wesley Byram said:
OTOH, Nemesis always seemed to be a rehash of both W.o.K. and Undiscovered Country, with Romulans replacing the Klingons (and "Remans" in there...for some reason.) So, in that sense, Into Darkness is like a knock-off of a knock-off.
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That's why I say it -- it's a copy of a bad copy. But "the big bad guy with some ambiguous axe to grind (and who's apparently taking it out on the wrong people anyway) in a gargantuan starship" is pretty much Nemesis. Heck, the sets and costumes even looked similar.


This article claims that Cumberbatch's character wasn't always written as Khan, but as a rogue Starfleet officer. Once the story was mostly finished, the writers decided to shoehorn in Khan. That doesn't really make his motives any more clear, but it does help explain why "Khan" in this movie doesn't feel like Khan.
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It's not that he "doesn't feel like Khan" so much as there's no clear motivation for him to do anything he did in the movie. In fact, he seemed rather self-contradictory throughout.


More than that, in this movie she's now a military "weapons specialist" instead of a civilian physicist/biologist like in W.O.K. They kept the name "Carol Marcus," and the fact that she had a thing with Kirk, but otherwise she's a different character.
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I didn't see that she had a thing with Kirk in this one. And yes, making her a "weapons specialist" shows either a gross misunderstanding of Wrath of Khan, or some subtle ploy to suggesst Genesis was a weapon all along. Subtlety not having been demonstrated anywhere else in the movie, I'd have to go with the former.


This is the most accurate critique of both the J.J. Trek films that can be made, IMHO.
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The only reason Khan saved the little girl at the beginning was to demonstrate that his blood has healing properties (which is stuuuuuupid) so that Kirk could be saved later.

But hey, at least they got their "red matter" in there somehow.
 
One thing I'll give them credit for, though, is sort of addressing one of the bigger stupidities of the previous movie, which was promoting a 3rd-year cadet with disciplinary problems to permanent O6 Captain and giving him the command of supposedly the finest ship in the fleet on the basis of one mission. Gosh, he hadn't finished at the Academy, he hadn't had any command training, he has no experience at all with the primary mission of Starfleet, and he's not ready for the center chair? How could that be?

Of course, even that didn't amount to too much.
 
David Jimerson said:
That's why I say it -- it's a copy of a bad copy. But "the big bad guy with some ambiguous axe to grind (and who's apparently taking it out on the wrong people anyway) in a gargantuan starship" is pretty much Nemesis. Heck, the sets and costumes even looked similar.
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I see what you mean. Now that you mention it, this description also works for the '09 film just as well. Bad guy on Big Black Ship O' Doom is out for revenge for questionable reasons. I wonder what it says that the last 3 Trek films to be made adhere to that very same summation.



David Jimerson said:
I didn't see that she had a thing with Kirk in this one. And yes, making her a "weapons specialist" shows either a gross misunderstanding of Wrath of Khan, or some subtle ploy to suggesst Genesis was a weapon all along. Subtlety not having been demonstrated anywhere else in the movie, I'd have to go with the former.
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Maybe not in this film yet, but she was obviously set up as Kirk's soon-to-be romantic interest.


David Jimerson said:
The only reason Khan saved the little girl at the beginning was to demonstrate that his blood has healing properties (which is stuuuuuupid) so that Kirk could be saved later.

But hey, at least they got their "red matter" in there somehow.
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Yeah, it seems implausible that 20th century* biotech could produce resurrecting superblood that 23rd century science cannot.

On that note, why thaw-out a 200 year old dictator to help design ships and weapons for the 23rd century? That makes about as much sense as resurrecting Napoleon to help design nuclear ballistic missile submarines. Sure Khan is intelligent and a quick learner, but even then his defeat in W.O.K. ultimately came down to the fact that he was not fully up-to-speed with starship operation and combat. He overlooked the prefix code and allowed his defences to be disabled, then was done-in by his outdated "2 dimensional thinking."

*If they changed Khan's time of origin for this film, then I missed it.
 
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Batutta said:
Like the fact that the concept of transwarp beaming from one planet to the next renders the entire concept of the series moot.
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Not one planet to the next. From Earth to the Klingon homeworld. Instantaneously. And then they wasted their time building a big-ass starship.
 
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!

Midi_Chlorians_by_A_Heart_of_Blades.jpg
 
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