Star Trek Into Darkness
Star Trek: Into Darkness
Star Trek: Into Darkness is an action packed movie that rewards Trek fans by paying homage to previous TOS Star Trek moments while finding it's own path. In some ways it definitely honors the original spirit but in other ways it really doesn't. And that would sum up the entire movie for me - in some ways it works, in other ways it doesn't. For ever meta moment of fail, there is another one that's a win. For every great cinematic moment, there's the lens flare of doom. For every character moment, there's an action sequence or two or three or four... You can break the movie down into so many component parts that you forget what the movie is about, so the real question to me is what did it accomplish emotionally. Did I care? And the answer was yes I did - but there were definitely times when the clunkiness of the dialogue or placement of a scene took me out of the movie in a way that decreased the overall emotional impact.
Kirk:
Did I care about Kirk? Absolutely. Did I care about his relationships with his crew and Captain Pike? Absolutely. I think Chris Pine did a tremendous job showing how much Kirk cared. I think the way it was written, you really only got a sense of how much Pike and Spock cared about him, though, albeit Scotty and he had some great scenes as he also did with Uhura and Bones.
Spock:
Did I care about Spock? Yes, but less so. This Spock is emotionally more volatile while hiding it better than TOS Spock. I wasn't sure how long they had all been a crew together at the start of this second movie - at the end Kirk said something about a year passing, but I wasn't sure if that was since the attack by Nero or the events in this movie after which the Enterprise needed repair. If 1 year had passed since the first movie, I would have expected Kirk&Spock to be better friends than they seemed at the beginning of this movie. I also would have expected Spock and Uhura to have worked out their relationship issues already. On the other hand, Kirk violated the Prime Directive to save Spock from lava, and his primary problem with that came when Spock filed a correct mission report rather than Kirk's less detailed one. In Kirk's mind, he made the only possible choice, which suggests a strong emotional relationship already present.
Kirk/Spock and Spock/Uhura:
These were the main/only 2 emotional relationships the movie cared about, and in some ways I think they were designed to complement each other. I've been a Kirk/Spock shipper since before I even knew of the existence of slash, so I don't mean to diss the Spock/Uhura relationship - but I'm biased. So when I say the 2 relationships are designed to complement each, what I actually mean is that in many ways Uhura's issues with Spock were directly there to showcase how different Spock was about Kirk and how similar Kirk's issues with Spock were to Uhura's. And that's also why Spock&Uhura could have a quick conversation (in the midst of a mission, so awesome timing there) about their relationship/Spock's lack of showing his feelings - with Kirk as the third party adding his own emotional reactions similar to Uhura's - and they would be ok immediately after, while the majority of the movie was about Kirk being very emotionally invested in Spock and Spock not being willing to acknowledge that back until Kirk died, at which point Spock's emotional distance disintegrated and he basically went on an emotional rampage to kill Khan (which is interesting because Khan discussed how Starfleet needed people with strategic intelligence but also savagery, the willingness to break the enemy's arm - and both Kirk and Spock do have that savagery when their emotions are aroused). So while Spock/Uhura is canon, the emotional core of the movie - like the first one - is moving Spock and Kirk forward emotionally in their relationship.
There are 2 core Kirk/Spock homages from TOS - the famous hand on the glass scene and also indirectly the sickbay bed scene from TMP. So, the most famous slash scene in history is from TOS Wrath of Khan when Spock was dying after saving the ship and they put their hands on the glass, separated only by the glass - Henry Jenkins in his seminal slash paper describes slash as what happens when you take the glass away. Into Darkness reverses this, with Kirk dying from radiation poisoning but their essential conversation where they express their feelings remains the same, with Spock finally acknowledging that the reason Kirk violated the Prime Directive and lost his captaincy at the beginning of the movie was their friendship. And while in TOS Spock remained relatively stoic as he died, this Spock was crying and overtly emotional as Kirk died. I have to admit, his scream of "Khaaaaannn" afterward took me out of the scene somewhat - I know it was to show how emotional he was, but... Yeah it didn't really work for me. Did anyone else think that the scene with TOS Spock was designed to remind us that in the first movie he and Kirk had mindmelded, so when Kirk said that he knew Spock would have gone in and sacrificed himself (as Spock also knew from talking with TOS Spock) that was Kirk showing there had been some memory transference during the meld?? I took it that way, but my brother-in-law didn't. I also felt emotional transference would explain why Kirk seemed to so very emotionally taken with Spock throughout the film - saving him despite the risk, interested when Uhura indicated they were fighting, etc. Emotionally, Kirk was where TOS Kirk was during the movies about Spock, whereas Spock was still at the emotionally repressed stage of early season TOS.
The other homage to me was the scene in the medical bay when Kirk was brought back to life and he and Spock had a brief emotional conversation - I was waiting for the moment when Kirk took Spock's hand in TMP and Spock expressed their friendship, knowing what love means and it didn't happen, so I was a little disappointed in their interaction post-Kirk's death.
McCoy
I honestly hate to put Bones in the "other characters" category because he was part of the TOS triumverate that I love, but he didn't really do a whole lot in the film. Well, besides bring Kirk back to life - but we barely saw that even. There was certainly less of the Bones&Kirk friendship compared to the first film, in the sense that they were already good friends and Bones was there to be the snarky doctor like on TOS. However, that was really the extent of Bones' role - to be snarky to anyone making decisions. He was sadly somewhat extraneous to the core emotional relationships. I know there are a lot of Bones/Kirk shippers and maybe they saw something I didn't, but I know I was sad at his lack of importance.
Uhura:
She was essential to one of the two core relationships, and she was part of all the big action scenes, but for the majority of scenes she was more background support than anything else. I really like Uhura, both on TOS and the reboot, and I like how Kirk (and Spock) trusted her linguistic ability to be willing to send her out to negotiate with the Klingons by herself, as well as her ability to kick butt. Honestly, I think in the next movie (presuming there is one) they either have to kick up the emotional relationship between her and Spock so it's equal to Spock and Kirk's or they need to break up so she can continue to kick butt but not be stuck as "love interest" without the movie making it truly interesting.
Scott - awesome as usual, although not as funny. I love how he stick to his guns about not accepting the torpedoes.
Chekov - took Scotty's place when Scotty quit and spent the rest of the movie belowdeck looking concerned, when he was even shown.
Sulu - got to take the con and be very decisive. I kind of got a sense that John Cho might be checking out of the series after this movie (just from some interview stuff) and showing him liking the captaincy in this movie could easily take him down a command route and away from the Enterprise in the next movie if he chooses to leave.
OK, so there was very clear race!fail in casting Khan as a pasty Englishman rather than a POC like the original Khan. Rodenberry was progressive and Abbrams regressive in their view of who a genetically superior human would be. I think Benedict Cumberbatch did an excellent job in the role, so it's no offense to him, just that Abbrams should have chosen someone else. There was also clear gender!fail with the Carol Marcus character and the scene where she took off her clothes for... some reason. She was an ok character, not great. Both issues were partially counterbalanced by the Bridge crew being very diverse in gender, race and species, which was nice to see.
The scene where Kirk was talking to Khan about serious matters and took a moment to ask Bones about the tribble he was injecting with Khan's blood was so clunky I couldn't even believe it. It was just horribly placed and changed the pace of the entire scene. It also very obviously set up how Kirk would come back, so when he died I just remembered the stupid tribble moment and didn't worry.
The other scene I had issues with was when Spock and Uhura took a few minutes to discuss their private life while on a tense away mission in front of not just Kirk but also 2 redshirts (who may or may not have surivived we never saw them again). I know it was so Kirk could insert his own commentary based on his and Spock's relationship. And I know it was designed to set the stage for Uhura accepting that he felt emotion but couldn't allow himself to express it, so that contrasted when he completely lost it when Kirk died. However it made me sit in the theater and think to myself that this was why there's a no fraternization rule in the military, because they should have been focused on the mission not their emotions.
Carol Marcus disrobing was completely unncessary and done only to show Kirk was a peeping tom and hey look boobs! I almost laughed actually, because it was so beyond unnecessary that rather than feeling insulted it almost felt ridiculous/satirical. But then I remember who was making the movie and realized it was meant to be tittilating rather than subversive and felt offended again.
This was an action movie, which meant the plot was basic and allowed for multiple scenes where new/differenct action movie events could happen. This also meant character moments and relationships were sacrificed on the alter of the bigger explosion/fight scene.
I did LOVE that Section 31 were the ones who found Khan and tried to use him. And that Admiral Marcus/Section 31 were trying to start a war with the Klingons now to stop them before they could choose a time to fight. I happened to love that concept in DS9 because it does ask a very basic question about Starfleet/the Federation and their ideals as they go into the real world.
And I also LOVED the fact that the question this movie asked was about vengeance and doing the right thing. That Kirk just wanted revenge for Pike's death, but he listened to Spock and Bones and realized bringing him to justice was the honorable/Starfleet thing to do. And because he did that, he prevented war with the Klingons and was able to ultimately become captain of the first 5 year exploratory mission. It felt like in that way the writers really did understand the vision that Rodenberry had of exploration and learning over war. Not that the rest of the movie would indicate that, but I choose to believe it.
Overall, I enjoyed it a lot, but not as much as the first movie because I felt it sacrificed character develpment for larger actions sequences. I'm hoping there will be a lot of character stuff in the deleted scenes on the DVD, because if there are then I will probably love this movie. As it is, I give it a B/B+ rating.
Star Trek: Into Darkness is an action packed movie that rewards Trek fans by paying homage to previous TOS Star Trek moments while finding it's own path. In some ways it definitely honors the original spirit but in other ways it really doesn't. And that would sum up the entire movie for me - in some ways it works, in other ways it doesn't. For ever meta moment of fail, there is another one that's a win. For every great cinematic moment, there's the lens flare of doom. For every character moment, there's an action sequence or two or three or four... You can break the movie down into so many component parts that you forget what the movie is about, so the real question to me is what did it accomplish emotionally. Did I care? And the answer was yes I did - but there were definitely times when the clunkiness of the dialogue or placement of a scene took me out of the movie in a way that decreased the overall emotional impact.
Kirk:
Did I care about Kirk? Absolutely. Did I care about his relationships with his crew and Captain Pike? Absolutely. I think Chris Pine did a tremendous job showing how much Kirk cared. I think the way it was written, you really only got a sense of how much Pike and Spock cared about him, though, albeit Scotty and he had some great scenes as he also did with Uhura and Bones.
Spock:
Did I care about Spock? Yes, but less so. This Spock is emotionally more volatile while hiding it better than TOS Spock. I wasn't sure how long they had all been a crew together at the start of this second movie - at the end Kirk said something about a year passing, but I wasn't sure if that was since the attack by Nero or the events in this movie after which the Enterprise needed repair. If 1 year had passed since the first movie, I would have expected Kirk&Spock to be better friends than they seemed at the beginning of this movie. I also would have expected Spock and Uhura to have worked out their relationship issues already. On the other hand, Kirk violated the Prime Directive to save Spock from lava, and his primary problem with that came when Spock filed a correct mission report rather than Kirk's less detailed one. In Kirk's mind, he made the only possible choice, which suggests a strong emotional relationship already present.
Kirk/Spock and Spock/Uhura:
These were the main/only 2 emotional relationships the movie cared about, and in some ways I think they were designed to complement each other. I've been a Kirk/Spock shipper since before I even knew of the existence of slash, so I don't mean to diss the Spock/Uhura relationship - but I'm biased. So when I say the 2 relationships are designed to complement each, what I actually mean is that in many ways Uhura's issues with Spock were directly there to showcase how different Spock was about Kirk and how similar Kirk's issues with Spock were to Uhura's. And that's also why Spock&Uhura could have a quick conversation (in the midst of a mission, so awesome timing there) about their relationship/Spock's lack of showing his feelings - with Kirk as the third party adding his own emotional reactions similar to Uhura's - and they would be ok immediately after, while the majority of the movie was about Kirk being very emotionally invested in Spock and Spock not being willing to acknowledge that back until Kirk died, at which point Spock's emotional distance disintegrated and he basically went on an emotional rampage to kill Khan (which is interesting because Khan discussed how Starfleet needed people with strategic intelligence but also savagery, the willingness to break the enemy's arm - and both Kirk and Spock do have that savagery when their emotions are aroused). So while Spock/Uhura is canon, the emotional core of the movie - like the first one - is moving Spock and Kirk forward emotionally in their relationship.
There are 2 core Kirk/Spock homages from TOS - the famous hand on the glass scene and also indirectly the sickbay bed scene from TMP. So, the most famous slash scene in history is from TOS Wrath of Khan when Spock was dying after saving the ship and they put their hands on the glass, separated only by the glass - Henry Jenkins in his seminal slash paper describes slash as what happens when you take the glass away. Into Darkness reverses this, with Kirk dying from radiation poisoning but their essential conversation where they express their feelings remains the same, with Spock finally acknowledging that the reason Kirk violated the Prime Directive and lost his captaincy at the beginning of the movie was their friendship. And while in TOS Spock remained relatively stoic as he died, this Spock was crying and overtly emotional as Kirk died. I have to admit, his scream of "Khaaaaannn" afterward took me out of the scene somewhat - I know it was to show how emotional he was, but... Yeah it didn't really work for me. Did anyone else think that the scene with TOS Spock was designed to remind us that in the first movie he and Kirk had mindmelded, so when Kirk said that he knew Spock would have gone in and sacrificed himself (as Spock also knew from talking with TOS Spock) that was Kirk showing there had been some memory transference during the meld?? I took it that way, but my brother-in-law didn't. I also felt emotional transference would explain why Kirk seemed to so very emotionally taken with Spock throughout the film - saving him despite the risk, interested when Uhura indicated they were fighting, etc. Emotionally, Kirk was where TOS Kirk was during the movies about Spock, whereas Spock was still at the emotionally repressed stage of early season TOS.
The other homage to me was the scene in the medical bay when Kirk was brought back to life and he and Spock had a brief emotional conversation - I was waiting for the moment when Kirk took Spock's hand in TMP and Spock expressed their friendship, knowing what love means and it didn't happen, so I was a little disappointed in their interaction post-Kirk's death.
McCoy
I honestly hate to put Bones in the "other characters" category because he was part of the TOS triumverate that I love, but he didn't really do a whole lot in the film. Well, besides bring Kirk back to life - but we barely saw that even. There was certainly less of the Bones&Kirk friendship compared to the first film, in the sense that they were already good friends and Bones was there to be the snarky doctor like on TOS. However, that was really the extent of Bones' role - to be snarky to anyone making decisions. He was sadly somewhat extraneous to the core emotional relationships. I know there are a lot of Bones/Kirk shippers and maybe they saw something I didn't, but I know I was sad at his lack of importance.
Uhura:
She was essential to one of the two core relationships, and she was part of all the big action scenes, but for the majority of scenes she was more background support than anything else. I really like Uhura, both on TOS and the reboot, and I like how Kirk (and Spock) trusted her linguistic ability to be willing to send her out to negotiate with the Klingons by herself, as well as her ability to kick butt. Honestly, I think in the next movie (presuming there is one) they either have to kick up the emotional relationship between her and Spock so it's equal to Spock and Kirk's or they need to break up so she can continue to kick butt but not be stuck as "love interest" without the movie making it truly interesting.
Scott - awesome as usual, although not as funny. I love how he stick to his guns about not accepting the torpedoes.
Chekov - took Scotty's place when Scotty quit and spent the rest of the movie belowdeck looking concerned, when he was even shown.
Sulu - got to take the con and be very decisive. I kind of got a sense that John Cho might be checking out of the series after this movie (just from some interview stuff) and showing him liking the captaincy in this movie could easily take him down a command route and away from the Enterprise in the next movie if he chooses to leave.
OK, so there was very clear race!fail in casting Khan as a pasty Englishman rather than a POC like the original Khan. Rodenberry was progressive and Abbrams regressive in their view of who a genetically superior human would be. I think Benedict Cumberbatch did an excellent job in the role, so it's no offense to him, just that Abbrams should have chosen someone else. There was also clear gender!fail with the Carol Marcus character and the scene where she took off her clothes for... some reason. She was an ok character, not great. Both issues were partially counterbalanced by the Bridge crew being very diverse in gender, race and species, which was nice to see.
The scene where Kirk was talking to Khan about serious matters and took a moment to ask Bones about the tribble he was injecting with Khan's blood was so clunky I couldn't even believe it. It was just horribly placed and changed the pace of the entire scene. It also very obviously set up how Kirk would come back, so when he died I just remembered the stupid tribble moment and didn't worry.
The other scene I had issues with was when Spock and Uhura took a few minutes to discuss their private life while on a tense away mission in front of not just Kirk but also 2 redshirts (who may or may not have surivived we never saw them again). I know it was so Kirk could insert his own commentary based on his and Spock's relationship. And I know it was designed to set the stage for Uhura accepting that he felt emotion but couldn't allow himself to express it, so that contrasted when he completely lost it when Kirk died. However it made me sit in the theater and think to myself that this was why there's a no fraternization rule in the military, because they should have been focused on the mission not their emotions.
Carol Marcus disrobing was completely unncessary and done only to show Kirk was a peeping tom and hey look boobs! I almost laughed actually, because it was so beyond unnecessary that rather than feeling insulted it almost felt ridiculous/satirical. But then I remember who was making the movie and realized it was meant to be tittilating rather than subversive and felt offended again.
This was an action movie, which meant the plot was basic and allowed for multiple scenes where new/differenct action movie events could happen. This also meant character moments and relationships were sacrificed on the alter of the bigger explosion/fight scene.
I did LOVE that Section 31 were the ones who found Khan and tried to use him. And that Admiral Marcus/Section 31 were trying to start a war with the Klingons now to stop them before they could choose a time to fight. I happened to love that concept in DS9 because it does ask a very basic question about Starfleet/the Federation and their ideals as they go into the real world.
And I also LOVED the fact that the question this movie asked was about vengeance and doing the right thing. That Kirk just wanted revenge for Pike's death, but he listened to Spock and Bones and realized bringing him to justice was the honorable/Starfleet thing to do. And because he did that, he prevented war with the Klingons and was able to ultimately become captain of the first 5 year exploratory mission. It felt like in that way the writers really did understand the vision that Rodenberry had of exploration and learning over war. Not that the rest of the movie would indicate that, but I choose to believe it.
Overall, I enjoyed it a lot, but not as much as the first movie because I felt it sacrificed character develpment for larger actions sequences. I'm hoping there will be a lot of character stuff in the deleted scenes on the DVD, because if there are then I will probably love this movie. As it is, I give it a B/B+ rating.