In which I "review" Star Trek Into Darkness (Or "Not enough lens flare...JJ you're slipping")
Okay Star Trek Into Darkness, you were fun & awesome, but I'm about to get all nitpicky on your cinematic ass!
Okay, I'm a Star Trek fan. I like Star Trek. I like fun. I like action movies. But mashing Star Trek plus fun plus action does NOT always equal A GOOD STAR TREK MOVIE. I commence my nitpicking. And if you haven't seen the movie, this might not make sense. If you have, feel free to provide a rebuttal. I like rebuttals.
First: SPOILERS.
Second: There is EXCESSIVE use of CAPITALS and exclamation marks from henceforth.If you are offended by such things, this is not something you want to read. You've been warned.
WHY couldn't they just beam the stupid cold fusion thing into the volcano?! WHY did Spock have to rappel down into the mouth of a volcano to set off this thing? Okay, fine, they need "line of sight" to beam anything up or down - hence why the Enterprise had to RISE FROM THE OCEAN (standby for my beef with that!) to save Spock, but why couldn't they just shoot the thing into the volcano from orbit, thereby negating the chance that the aliens would see them and they wouldn't risk violating the Prime Directive - although just the fact that they stopped the volcano...isn't THAT violating the Prime Directive?! You mean to tell me they couldn't rig up a device that didn't HAVE to be operated by a person in order to be triggered? AND how did they get the Enterprise under the water without being seen? Okay, fine, night time all the little white aliens (which I liked immensely) are sleeping, let's go play submarine. So, the Enterprise silently and stealthily flew into the planet's atmosphere without a peep and DOVE into the ocean without waking anyone up? Sure. AND HELLO?! Did no one think about the consequences of when the Enterprise ROSE up so quickly out of the water?! TSUNAMIS PEOPLE! TSUNAMIS!!! And WATER IS HEAVY! I feel like it would've busted the saucer section right the heck off when the Enterprise rose so fast ON LEVEL out of the water (as opposed to the saucer section SLICING UP and out of the water like any mammallian sea animal/fish would!) PHYSICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And why, when Kirk, and everyone else in the room realized that the whole meeting was a trap (IT'S A TRAP! Nice one Admiral Ackbar! *high five*), did Kirk waste valuable seconds yelling "CLEAR THE ROOM!"? Why not just "GET DOWN!" or even "GET OUT!"? Suddenly he reverts to what is evidently a catch phrase from Star Fleet handbook. *head shake* And how did HE manage to NOT get shot when he was sitting RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE BLOODY WINDOW THAT GETS SHOT TO HECK?! AND WHY was the reaction time of all those STARSHIP CAPTAINS and their FIRST OFFICERS so fricking SLOW?! FIRED! ALL OF YOU!!!
And Crumblebot got taken down by a fire hose. There. I said it.
THEY KILLED BRUCE GREENWOOD!!! (KHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!) And I think Pike is REALLY Kirk's dad. Sorry whichever Hemsworth brother you are...but your lady went and did the dirty with Bruce Greenwood. Because Pike sure has a lot invested in Jim Kirk to NOT be his dad.
WHY is Scotty (whom I love) the only one with an ethical/moral/practical backbone? He goes and RESIGNS rather than let those torpedoes (potentially MOAR dangerous explosives, never mind that they're actually dangerous explosives) on board his beloved ship! No, everybody and their dog is too upset over Bruce Greenwood's death (understandable) to remember that Starfleet is all about DOING THE RIGHT THING! AND EXPLORATION! As Bones (I love you Karl Urban!) tries to remind people. Nope, Star Trek is ALL REVENGE ALL THE TIME! Even Spock jumps on board the bandwagon!
AND AGAINST ALL REASON, Kirk appoints the NAVIGATOR as the Acting Chief Engineer! *facepalm* I think there are ENGINEERS on board more qualified for that role over my beloved Pavel! Child genius, I get it, but let's just throw the ship's hierarchy out the garbage hatch with Kirk and Khan and let Kirk play willy nilly with ship assignments! ARRRRRGHHH!! You want to know who sabotaged the Enterprise's engineering section? Lieutenant Just-Under-Scotty-Who-Should-Have-Gotten-The-Job!!!
Introducing Carol Marcus. Okay, obviously she's going to be a romantic interest at some point (oh wait...just a reason to show her in her underwear) and she and Kirk will maybe have baby David Marcus at some point?
Mention of Nurse Chapel. Nice.
Okay, so this Uhura/Spock thing was fun while it lasted, but the novelty has WORN OFF. It doesn't BOTHER ME, bu it also doesn't really...do anything. Instead, what it actually did (the more I think about it) was turn Uhura into a silly girl - negating all of her badass mofo female character traits. Think about it, she's all pissed off because Spock was ready to sacrifice his life - "the good of the many!" - and hadn't stopped to think how sad she'd be. Um. What? Dudette...Quinto!Spock was about to DIE and you're pissed that he didn't say "FUCK THE PRIME DIRECTIVE! MY WOMAN NEEDS ME!"??? Plus, HE'S A VULCAN! IT WAS LOGICAL. Do you think she realizes she's DATING A VULCAN?!!?!? Gah! AND I'm pretty sure, considering that he's one of an "endangered species" after the last movie, he was more thinking about the fact that his death means there's one less Vulcan in the universe. GAH!!! *fist shake to Uhura* So then they try to make her all badass again by making her go meet with the Klingons (who have way more bling than I think is honourable) and she gets to speak Klingon. I wasn't that impressed. Although the Birds of Prey were pretty cool!
John Harrison is KHAN (Noonian Singh - which I don't think anyone but Nimoy!Spock ever says...). Okay, contrary to popular belief, although many news outlets may have spoiled it for the world about Khan, I DID NOT KNOW HE WAS KHAN. So. There. I was actually excited about Bumblebatch playing a cool new original villain.
Okay, big super starship...with Admiral "I want to be GI JOE"...WHERE does his crew come from?! Are they Star Fleet? Don't they think this is maybe not a great idea? I mean...who built the ship?! Must've been Star Fleet! What the?!!?!? I HAVE QUESTIONS THAT NEED ANSWERING!!! Like...how did Spock and Friends get all the cryo units out of the torpedoes so fast? I mean...there's 72 of them!!!
WHY does Bones suddenly/randomly have a tribble in sick bay? WHY?!? And on an even sillier note, he injected human blood into a tribble. HUMAN. TRIBBLE. I sense great scientific nonsense.
HOW is Kirk, a mere human, able to KICK the out of alignment warp core bit BACK into alignment? Without a suit? WHILE BEING BOMBARDED BY RADIATION?! See, at least in Wrath of Khan, Spock is a VULCAN (stronger than a human) and dies within moments of being bombarded by the radiation...AND shows radiation burns because, you know, RADIATION! Kirk still looks all pretty and managed to DEFY Scotty's "we'll be dead before we can climb up there" by climbing up there, KICKING the warp core back into place, and then sauntering back to the little window where he and Spock can have their last words together. WHAT?! Boy, someone better tell Scotty that he knows NOTHING ABOUT WARP CORE RADIATION!!! But, then again, no one is listening to Scotty.
The Enterprise is a TARDIS. It's bigger on the inside. Much too big. There's a LOT of running that the crew do inside their own ship. A LOT. And everything is always too far away. Buh.
And then they had to go bring Nimoy!Spock into the whole thing. Sigh. Who tells Quinto!Spock he can't tell him anything and then proceeds to tell him stuff. WTF?! Nimoy!Spock you're fired! And what the heck happened to the rest of Star Fleet?! WHERE IS THE REST OF STAR FLEET!?!?!? AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHGGGGGHHHH!!!!
And Spock yelling Khan was predictable and HILARIOUS! I was simultaenously filled with a weird sense of glee (because someone yelled KHAN! COME ON!!!) and wanted to laugh my face off. Think about it. Spock yells KHAN! KHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNN!!!! And really...let's think about this, shouldn't Spock be yelling "MARRRRCCCUUUUSSSS"? Because, really, HIS attack on the Enterprise led to this whole situation...in fact, his actions set the whole sequence of events into motion if you really think about it. And if ANYONE is going to think about it and get it right, it's the Vulcan. But no...he CRIES. Buh. Baby.
And then Spock gets to unload a can of Vulcan whoopass on Cummerbund, who just wants to squeeze heads till they pop! Oh and CHEKOV can't beam SPOCK up because they're MOVING TOO FAST...BUT YOU DID IT IN THE LAST MOVIE!!! So, they all think it's best to beam the COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER DOWN with a phaser set to stun...instead of a SECURITY OFFICER! OR EVEN SULU who hasn't gotten much action this time round (although he got to sit in the chair...which was a nice nod to the future Captain Sulu...unless JJ Abrams thinks otherwise). Okay, anyway, hey remember when Scotty shot Khan over on the big mofo ship when they all got to the bridge? Yeah, remember it knocked Khan out? Even if for a few moments? HOW COME WHEN UHURA SHOOTS HIM NOTHING HAPPENS?! AND SHE SHOOTS HIM MULTIPLE TIMES!!!!!!!! Don't EVEN try telling me that Scotty's phaser was set to kill, because I'm pretty damn sure Scotty wouldn't KILL a man in cold blood when he doesn't know WHAT's HAPPENING! And if he HAD set it to kill, why would he need to keep his phaser trained on what they would think is a dead man? GARRRGHH!!
They RESURRECTED KIRK WITH KHAN BLOOD. Because a DEAD tribble came back to life after being injected with HUMAN blood. *facepalm* Never mind the whole tribble thing, because I could go on and on about it, but they say that they gave Kirk a pretty substantial tranfusion of superCabbagePatch blood...does blood type no longer matter in Star Trek future time? Or is Khan, coincidentally, blood type O?
Oh and the Star Fleet uniform - those hats? Ugly. KHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNN!
I damn well better get whales in the next movie JJ Abrams. Or there's gonna be HELL to pay!
And if you want more nitpicky goodness, please read THIS ARTICLE which I feel was written by someone who was inside my head while I watched the movie, and maybe THIS ARTICLE and watch THIS VIDEO
Okay, I'm a Star Trek fan. I like Star Trek. I like fun. I like action movies. But mashing Star Trek plus fun plus action does NOT always equal A GOOD STAR TREK MOVIE. I commence my nitpicking. And if you haven't seen the movie, this might not make sense. If you have, feel free to provide a rebuttal. I like rebuttals.
First: SPOILERS.
Second: There is EXCESSIVE use of CAPITALS and exclamation marks from henceforth.If you are offended by such things, this is not something you want to read. You've been warned.
WHY couldn't they just beam the stupid cold fusion thing into the volcano?! WHY did Spock have to rappel down into the mouth of a volcano to set off this thing? Okay, fine, they need "line of sight" to beam anything up or down - hence why the Enterprise had to RISE FROM THE OCEAN (standby for my beef with that!) to save Spock, but why couldn't they just shoot the thing into the volcano from orbit, thereby negating the chance that the aliens would see them and they wouldn't risk violating the Prime Directive - although just the fact that they stopped the volcano...isn't THAT violating the Prime Directive?! You mean to tell me they couldn't rig up a device that didn't HAVE to be operated by a person in order to be triggered? AND how did they get the Enterprise under the water without being seen? Okay, fine, night time all the little white aliens (which I liked immensely) are sleeping, let's go play submarine. So, the Enterprise silently and stealthily flew into the planet's atmosphere without a peep and DOVE into the ocean without waking anyone up? Sure. AND HELLO?! Did no one think about the consequences of when the Enterprise ROSE up so quickly out of the water?! TSUNAMIS PEOPLE! TSUNAMIS!!! And WATER IS HEAVY! I feel like it would've busted the saucer section right the heck off when the Enterprise rose so fast ON LEVEL out of the water (as opposed to the saucer section SLICING UP and out of the water like any mammallian sea animal/fish would!) PHYSICS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
And why, when Kirk, and everyone else in the room realized that the whole meeting was a trap (IT'S A TRAP! Nice one Admiral Ackbar! *high five*), did Kirk waste valuable seconds yelling "CLEAR THE ROOM!"? Why not just "GET DOWN!" or even "GET OUT!"? Suddenly he reverts to what is evidently a catch phrase from Star Fleet handbook. *head shake* And how did HE manage to NOT get shot when he was sitting RIGHT IN FRONT OF THE BLOODY WINDOW THAT GETS SHOT TO HECK?! AND WHY was the reaction time of all those STARSHIP CAPTAINS and their FIRST OFFICERS so fricking SLOW?! FIRED! ALL OF YOU!!!
And Crumblebot got taken down by a fire hose. There. I said it.
THEY KILLED BRUCE GREENWOOD!!! (KHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!) And I think Pike is REALLY Kirk's dad. Sorry whichever Hemsworth brother you are...but your lady went and did the dirty with Bruce Greenwood. Because Pike sure has a lot invested in Jim Kirk to NOT be his dad.
WHY is Scotty (whom I love) the only one with an ethical/moral/practical backbone? He goes and RESIGNS rather than let those torpedoes (potentially MOAR dangerous explosives, never mind that they're actually dangerous explosives) on board his beloved ship! No, everybody and their dog is too upset over Bruce Greenwood's death (understandable) to remember that Starfleet is all about DOING THE RIGHT THING! AND EXPLORATION! As Bones (I love you Karl Urban!) tries to remind people. Nope, Star Trek is ALL REVENGE ALL THE TIME! Even Spock jumps on board the bandwagon!
AND AGAINST ALL REASON, Kirk appoints the NAVIGATOR as the Acting Chief Engineer! *facepalm* I think there are ENGINEERS on board more qualified for that role over my beloved Pavel! Child genius, I get it, but let's just throw the ship's hierarchy out the garbage hatch with Kirk and Khan and let Kirk play willy nilly with ship assignments! ARRRRRGHHH!! You want to know who sabotaged the Enterprise's engineering section? Lieutenant Just-Under-Scotty-Who-Should-Have-Gotten-The-Job!!!
Introducing Carol Marcus. Okay, obviously she's going to be a romantic interest at some point (oh wait...just a reason to show her in her underwear) and she and Kirk will maybe have baby David Marcus at some point?
Mention of Nurse Chapel. Nice.
Okay, so this Uhura/Spock thing was fun while it lasted, but the novelty has WORN OFF. It doesn't BOTHER ME, bu it also doesn't really...do anything. Instead, what it actually did (the more I think about it) was turn Uhura into a silly girl - negating all of her badass mofo female character traits. Think about it, she's all pissed off because Spock was ready to sacrifice his life - "the good of the many!" - and hadn't stopped to think how sad she'd be. Um. What? Dudette...Quinto!Spock was about to DIE and you're pissed that he didn't say "FUCK THE PRIME DIRECTIVE! MY WOMAN NEEDS ME!"??? Plus, HE'S A VULCAN! IT WAS LOGICAL. Do you think she realizes she's DATING A VULCAN?!!?!? Gah! AND I'm pretty sure, considering that he's one of an "endangered species" after the last movie, he was more thinking about the fact that his death means there's one less Vulcan in the universe. GAH!!! *fist shake to Uhura* So then they try to make her all badass again by making her go meet with the Klingons (who have way more bling than I think is honourable) and she gets to speak Klingon. I wasn't that impressed. Although the Birds of Prey were pretty cool!
John Harrison is KHAN (Noonian Singh - which I don't think anyone but Nimoy!Spock ever says...). Okay, contrary to popular belief, although many news outlets may have spoiled it for the world about Khan, I DID NOT KNOW HE WAS KHAN. So. There. I was actually excited about Bumblebatch playing a cool new original villain.
Okay, big super starship...with Admiral "I want to be GI JOE"...WHERE does his crew come from?! Are they Star Fleet? Don't they think this is maybe not a great idea? I mean...who built the ship?! Must've been Star Fleet! What the?!!?!? I HAVE QUESTIONS THAT NEED ANSWERING!!! Like...how did Spock and Friends get all the cryo units out of the torpedoes so fast? I mean...there's 72 of them!!!
WHY does Bones suddenly/randomly have a tribble in sick bay? WHY?!? And on an even sillier note, he injected human blood into a tribble. HUMAN. TRIBBLE. I sense great scientific nonsense.
HOW is Kirk, a mere human, able to KICK the out of alignment warp core bit BACK into alignment? Without a suit? WHILE BEING BOMBARDED BY RADIATION?! See, at least in Wrath of Khan, Spock is a VULCAN (stronger than a human) and dies within moments of being bombarded by the radiation...AND shows radiation burns because, you know, RADIATION! Kirk still looks all pretty and managed to DEFY Scotty's "we'll be dead before we can climb up there" by climbing up there, KICKING the warp core back into place, and then sauntering back to the little window where he and Spock can have their last words together. WHAT?! Boy, someone better tell Scotty that he knows NOTHING ABOUT WARP CORE RADIATION!!! But, then again, no one is listening to Scotty.
The Enterprise is a TARDIS. It's bigger on the inside. Much too big. There's a LOT of running that the crew do inside their own ship. A LOT. And everything is always too far away. Buh.
And then they had to go bring Nimoy!Spock into the whole thing. Sigh. Who tells Quinto!Spock he can't tell him anything and then proceeds to tell him stuff. WTF?! Nimoy!Spock you're fired! And what the heck happened to the rest of Star Fleet?! WHERE IS THE REST OF STAR FLEET!?!?!? AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHGGGGGHHHH!!!!
And Spock yelling Khan was predictable and HILARIOUS! I was simultaenously filled with a weird sense of glee (because someone yelled KHAN! COME ON!!!) and wanted to laugh my face off. Think about it. Spock yells KHAN! KHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNN!!!! And really...let's think about this, shouldn't Spock be yelling "MARRRRCCCUUUUSSSS"? Because, really, HIS attack on the Enterprise led to this whole situation...in fact, his actions set the whole sequence of events into motion if you really think about it. And if ANYONE is going to think about it and get it right, it's the Vulcan. But no...he CRIES. Buh. Baby.
And then Spock gets to unload a can of Vulcan whoopass on Cummerbund, who just wants to squeeze heads till they pop! Oh and CHEKOV can't beam SPOCK up because they're MOVING TOO FAST...BUT YOU DID IT IN THE LAST MOVIE!!! So, they all think it's best to beam the COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER DOWN with a phaser set to stun...instead of a SECURITY OFFICER! OR EVEN SULU who hasn't gotten much action this time round (although he got to sit in the chair...which was a nice nod to the future Captain Sulu...unless JJ Abrams thinks otherwise). Okay, anyway, hey remember when Scotty shot Khan over on the big mofo ship when they all got to the bridge? Yeah, remember it knocked Khan out? Even if for a few moments? HOW COME WHEN UHURA SHOOTS HIM NOTHING HAPPENS?! AND SHE SHOOTS HIM MULTIPLE TIMES!!!!!!!! Don't EVEN try telling me that Scotty's phaser was set to kill, because I'm pretty damn sure Scotty wouldn't KILL a man in cold blood when he doesn't know WHAT's HAPPENING! And if he HAD set it to kill, why would he need to keep his phaser trained on what they would think is a dead man? GARRRGHH!!
They RESURRECTED KIRK WITH KHAN BLOOD. Because a DEAD tribble came back to life after being injected with HUMAN blood. *facepalm* Never mind the whole tribble thing, because I could go on and on about it, but they say that they gave Kirk a pretty substantial tranfusion of superCabbagePatch blood...does blood type no longer matter in Star Trek future time? Or is Khan, coincidentally, blood type O?
Oh and the Star Fleet uniform - those hats? Ugly. KHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNN!
I damn well better get whales in the next movie JJ Abrams. Or there's gonna be HELL to pay!
And if you want more nitpicky goodness, please read THIS ARTICLE which I feel was written by someone who was inside my head while I watched the movie, and maybe THIS ARTICLE and watch THIS VIDEO