Star Trek: Into Darkness
Hm. 'Entertaining but gutless' would about sum it up for me, I think.
I should probably admit first that I have never really been a Star Trek fan. That isn't to say I dislike it - not at all. I just haven't seen enough of it in the right order to qualify as a fan. I've seen significant chunks of the original Star Trek (although probably not all), and can name the main characters, even if I do have to look up the spelling, and have an idea of the sorts of themes and stories they addressed. I've seen bits and pieces of The Next Generation, so I can recognise Captain Picard, and I get the impression he spent most of his career bopping around the universe fixing the diplomatic nightmare created by Kirk's era. I have seen a couple of glimpses of Voyager and Deep Space Nine, but really have no idea who those people are or what on earth (in space?) they're doing.
I'm actually better with the films (another reason I'm more familiar with the first and second outings, unless they've been making movies about the other ones that I haven't heard of). Those pop up on TV every few years, and I can watch one all the way through and follow the plot to its end. But I have no idea what a 'star date' is supposed to be, or how the ship actually works, or what the in-universe history of the world is supposed to be like. And for the record, I think the whole 'We are Vulcans, and we don't do emotion' thing is absurd and should have been scrapped the first day. That sort of thing never works because human actors can't pull it off. Aside from Mr Spock, who seems to have been softened to 'normal person with a dry sense of humour', every Vulcan I've ever seen has defaulted to smug superiority. And that is definitely an emotion.
Anyway, here's the thing with Into Darkness: in artistic terms, I can't quite fathom why, as soon as you had established for yourself an alternate timeline in which you could do anything - anything - with these characters you chose, you would decide to sit down and remake The Wrath of Khan. Is remaking 30-year-old movies the height of creative brilliance, these days? Is a universe teeming with life, varying civilisations and infinite opportunities for catastrophe so limiting to you that you have to borrow an old idea? Seriously, film production team, what was going on in your heads?
Of course, from a financial point of view I can see exactly how that happened. So, you've just made a successful Star Trek film, rebooting the franchise and creating the potential for a profitable series. So, what next? Well, what was the most successful of the old Star Trek movies? The Wrath of Khan, of course. The one where Kirk engaged in an epic battle of wits with his greatest nemesis. The one where Spock died heroically. Before they started wandering around looking for 'God', or whatever the hell that was about. Everyone liked that movie. If you make that one again, everyone will like it just as much and you will make a fortune.
But, okay. I'm not inherently opposed to remakes. Every now and then, the remake is even better than the original. And there have been undeniable improvements in the film industry that make this a glossier and possibly more watchable movie. We no longer have to do that thing where we stare at some 'high-tech' piece of machinery while it goes 'Beep ... Beep ... Beep' for three minutes and the cast looks very concerned. We don't have to examine every angle of the damn Enterprise as she glides through space, because the director was apparently under the impression that the ship was more interesting than the story. We can get the plot off the ground right away, instead of spending half an hour carefully introducing characters everybody already knows. Good stuff.
Oh, and obviously we don't have to watch William Shatner try to act. I'm undecided on whether that is good. I mean, the man is awful but that's half the fun.
But at the same time, I think they may have forgotten what made The Wrath of Khan good in the first place. That film is all about Kirk getting a faceful of consequences. Years ago, he did ... what he always did on the TV show: bounded in, reordered everyone's lives according to his personal preferences, and then buggered off without ever bothering to check how it all turned out. In this instance he picked up a bunch of genetically engineered humans who had been drifting through space in cryogenic sleep for a few centuries, having fled the earth when their attempt to take it over failed. He revived them. They nicked his ship. Naturally, he nicked it right back. But because he admired their leader, Khan (I have seen that episode, and I don't share his admiration; I think the writers were confusing 'inspiring leader' with 'domineering shithead'), he decided that instead of taking them to earth for trial, he'd just dump them on the nearest planet and let them get on with it.
It didn't go well.
On the one hand, Khan is right to be 'wrathful'. Because their colony was entirely unofficial, no one ever came to see how they were doing ... and when it failed spectacularly, they were left to die. On the other hand, Khan is clearly a psychopath and Kirk left him free to roam the galaxy because he thought he was cool. Whichever way you look at it, when the blood starts flowing some of it is on Kirk's hands, and it's about time he faced that. The story is riddled with references to Kirk's inability to accept that he might be wrong, or a failure, in any significant way (obviously he's still the hero, and will take reasonable advice from his friends). He states repeatedly that he likes to win, doesn't believe in 'no win' situations, and the fact that he cheated on the kob- kyb- ... that test they have where you always have to lose, is used to shape the backbone of the story. Kirk's ideology requires that he end the day victorious. That he play until he wins and gets to decide everyone else's fate. That's what got them into this mess in the first place. And what gets them out of it is Spock slipping quietly away and giving his life to save the day. The price for Kirk's shenanigans is his best friend's life, and in that moment Spock is a far better leader than Kirk.
So Kirk is left with an opportunity to learn something.
At first it looked as though Into Darkness was going to take the same route: the story opens with Kirk ... being Kirk. He wants to save a planet from destruction, which is good. But his plan for doing this seems doubtful at best (the sci-fi 'fix the volcano' stuff is fine, the bit where he makes everyone on the planet hate him and then shoots his rescuer ... not so much), and when it goes wrong he proceeds to make everything worse in fixing it ... and then lies about it all on his report because he doesn't want to deal with the fallout. Of course he gets caught. And - cool. That's fine. We've established our problem for the story: Kirk means well, but he's arrogant and nowhere near as good as he thinks he is.
The trouble is that he never really faces consequences at all. His initial punishment is that he has to go back to futuristic uni, but his friendly boss intervenes so he's just demoted to first officer. That gets him into the all-important crisis meeting, where he is allowed to be the one to spot the crucial detail everyone else missed and start yelling for everyone to evacuate about ten seconds before the shit hits the fan. And five minutes after that, he's got his ship back and is gallivanting all over the universe again.
And, okay, I can go with that. We wouldn't really want Kirk to go back to uni. That would be boring for the audience, and the film should be punishing him, not us. But the pattern continues, and Kirk is continually allowed to sidestep taking responsibility for his actions. The obstinate bastard who cannot bear to lose is not Kirk but the villain of the piece, Admiral Whatshisface with the blonde daughter (an even bigger villain in this film than Khan, who can here at least honestly claim he was dragged into the situation against his will). It's easy to oppose his stubbornness and stupidity because we're predisposed to hate him in the first place. Asking the audience to critique the hero is much more interesting.
The film's climax reverses the situation in The Wrath of Khan: it is Kirk who kills himself to get the ship's reactor working again (and he's obviously of the 'if it doesn't work, hit it' school of appliance repairs - a man after my own heart). That's fine. As soon as I realised they were redoing The Wrath of Khan I thought they'd probably reverse it. There's no point in making exactly the same film twice. And fiction has a long, respectable history of 'redemption equals death' scenarios. But the trouble is, they don't make it stick. Not five minutes after Kirk expires, they've worked out how to revive him. Khan's blood has magic restorative powers, so Spock and Uhura chase him down, beat him up and bring him back to be experimented on. Kirk is fine.
And don't get me wrong: it's a fun ride. They zip around the galaxy, have space battles and fistfights, infiltrate things, yell at Klingons, shoot stuff and have tense standoffs. I was entertained. But at the end of the day, I'm pretty sure what Kirk learnt was that someone will always bail his arse out when he gets into trouble, and flying by the seat of your pants has good results 100 per cent of the time, with no unfortunate or unforeseen consequences. You know what gets you into trouble? Making detailed and careful plans, like that admiral guy. Granted they were evil plans, but I think we've established that planning ahead is something only evil people do.
Having Kirk make a speech about how he respects his position more now doesn't really make the situation any better.
Then there's the death itself. I'm afraid I think it was pretty hilarious. The thing is, they were trying to do something they hadn't really earned. Kirk and Spock are probably among the most iconic characters of the 20th century. Even if you haven't seen the show, you've probably got a general idea of who they are and what they do. Most of the people who saw The Wrath of Khan in cinemas probably grew up watching Star Trek on TV. Watching Spock die under those circumstances would be like losing a bit of your childhood. And The Wrath of Khan plays on that. Kirk and Spock bicker like an old married couple (sometimes an old ménage à trois when their friend Dr McCoy joins in), their conversations are full of in-jokes and references that confuse outsiders, and they repeatedly establish that they thoroughly understand each other's minds. These are lifelong friends, and that adds weight to Kirk's loss. It's a big thing. You screw up, you lose the dearest friend you've ever had. You'll probably never have another like that.
Into Darkness replays the death scene almost word for word. It only makes what few changes are necessitated by the swapped roles. But this is only their second story! Kirk and Spock hated each other for most of the first one. They're barely on speaking terms for half of this one. Trying to recapture the feelings from the older movie is just cheap and silly. Anyone who's seen the old stuff will get what you're doing, and people tend to get annoyed when films are obviously emotionally manipulative; anyone who hasn't won't know what the hell that was about. That isn't to say that the death scene had no weight at all. Plenty of films establish a friendship and then kill one character off to give another angst. It can be touching in itself. And it could be a different sort of story: to realise exactly how much you value friendship only when your friend is dying. But it only works if you make it stick. Spock barely has time to grieve before Kirk is up and about again. It's more like Kirk took a week off and Spock realised he missed him a bit than like he bloody died.
I wanted the movie to end with Dr McCoy discovering that Khan's blood could heal Kirk ... and that he had none left. That could have made a fun cliffhanger: it would leave Spock struggling to balance the need to bring in a dangerous fugitive, the need to obey regulations, and the need to do the impossible to save his friend. You know, raise the stakes a bit.
Also, they made poor Zachary Quinto yell 'KHAAAAAAAN!' when Kirk died. He made the best job out of it that he could, I think, but a) that line is inherently ridiculous and b) there's no way to hear it without thinking of Shatner's delightfully over-the-top version. So I'm stuffing my jacket in my mouth to keep from cackling while Spock mourns over Kirk's microwaved corpse. Was that the reaction they wanted? I'm doubtful.
Anyway, enough whinging from me. What I took away from this film is that you should always listen to Scotty. He is right about everything. And better than everybody. Simon Pegg is the best thing about Into Darkness. He's clearly having more fun than anybody else, his subplot allows him to be smart and useful while remaining in his field and he manages to make the character comedic without making him annoying. Scotty for captain! At least he knows how the damn ship works. I bet he wouldn't fix the reactor by hitting it.
It was also funny when they dragged in Leonard Nimoy to have the other Spock betray all his principles by telling little Spock about the future. Because Khan just really pisses him off. Yeah, I could believe that. If I got irradiated because some bastard kept shooting at my ship, I'd probably hate him too.
Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto are perfectly serviceable as the leads. I feel like I should say more about the damn stars, but there wasn't anything really challenging in the material. I remember far more about Pegg than I do about them. Pine's Kirk is very cocky and has no common sense; Quinto's Spock defaults to bewildered. I remain fond of Dr McCoy; I always liked him in the show, because he was always telling the other characters they were idiots. Which they were. Sometimes he was too, but somebody needed to point this stuff out. Uhura needs more to do. She did have some stuff in this one, but ... Well. Look. Scotty was the best character because he got a decent subplot that showed off why being an engineer was useful and heroic. Maybe next time they could actually let their linguist succeed at some diplomacy.
Benedict Cumberbatch is significantly more personable as Khan than the original. Not that I'd fault the actor, there. He was written as obnoxious (admirably obnoxious! or something), and there's not much you can do with that. The new version toned down the megalomania a bit to sound more like someone who could conceivably be put in charge of something. Although Cumberbatch seems to be drawing heavily on his Sherlock persona here, so it is kind of like watching what would happen if Holmes decided to be Moriarty for the day.
Now, why Khan is suddenly English I couldn't say. I could see two sides to this: on the one hand, whitewashing is an ugly thing to do. On the other hand 'Look, we are being attacked by non-white terrorists! Let us hunt them down and blow them up with secret missiles!' is kind of a shitty plot, too. I'd be more understanding about Khan's transformation if they bothered to increase the diversity of the heroes instead. In the 1960s, putting a Russian on the bridge was a bold move. Nowadays Chekov is just a nice white boy with a cute accent. They need to up their game and introduce ... I don't know, a Saudi lady, maybe, to keep up with the times. What we got instead was a blonde woman. Who was fine, and heaven knows they need more women. Just ... if the idea behind the diverse crew was to challenge prejudices, maybe they should try to challenge some prejudices.
And that, really, is all I can say about the film: it doesn't challenge anything. It's a lot of fun, it's reasonably light on the technobabble, it's got decent action sequences and the plot moves along at a nice pace. There's really nothing terrible about it. It's just that, unless we're giving out points for general plot coherence, it's not a very smart movie. The Wrath of Khan was slower, clunkier, and had William Shatner in it. But it also poked at you a bit. It said that the heroes were fallible and mortal. That, as much fun as Kirk's way of doing things is, maybe that's not the best way to do intergalactic diplomacy. It had guts. This doesn't.
I think the story would have been stronger if they'd actually forced Kirk to think about himself. And, yeah, if you're going to kill a main character ... don't bring them back five minutes later. But for a couple of hours spent watching pretty, shiny people shoot lasers at each other and play chicken with spaceships? Sure, for that it's completely worth it.
I should probably admit first that I have never really been a Star Trek fan. That isn't to say I dislike it - not at all. I just haven't seen enough of it in the right order to qualify as a fan. I've seen significant chunks of the original Star Trek (although probably not all), and can name the main characters, even if I do have to look up the spelling, and have an idea of the sorts of themes and stories they addressed. I've seen bits and pieces of The Next Generation, so I can recognise Captain Picard, and I get the impression he spent most of his career bopping around the universe fixing the diplomatic nightmare created by Kirk's era. I have seen a couple of glimpses of Voyager and Deep Space Nine, but really have no idea who those people are or what on earth (in space?) they're doing.
I'm actually better with the films (another reason I'm more familiar with the first and second outings, unless they've been making movies about the other ones that I haven't heard of). Those pop up on TV every few years, and I can watch one all the way through and follow the plot to its end. But I have no idea what a 'star date' is supposed to be, or how the ship actually works, or what the in-universe history of the world is supposed to be like. And for the record, I think the whole 'We are Vulcans, and we don't do emotion' thing is absurd and should have been scrapped the first day. That sort of thing never works because human actors can't pull it off. Aside from Mr Spock, who seems to have been softened to 'normal person with a dry sense of humour', every Vulcan I've ever seen has defaulted to smug superiority. And that is definitely an emotion.
Anyway, here's the thing with Into Darkness: in artistic terms, I can't quite fathom why, as soon as you had established for yourself an alternate timeline in which you could do anything - anything - with these characters you chose, you would decide to sit down and remake The Wrath of Khan. Is remaking 30-year-old movies the height of creative brilliance, these days? Is a universe teeming with life, varying civilisations and infinite opportunities for catastrophe so limiting to you that you have to borrow an old idea? Seriously, film production team, what was going on in your heads?
Of course, from a financial point of view I can see exactly how that happened. So, you've just made a successful Star Trek film, rebooting the franchise and creating the potential for a profitable series. So, what next? Well, what was the most successful of the old Star Trek movies? The Wrath of Khan, of course. The one where Kirk engaged in an epic battle of wits with his greatest nemesis. The one where Spock died heroically. Before they started wandering around looking for 'God', or whatever the hell that was about. Everyone liked that movie. If you make that one again, everyone will like it just as much and you will make a fortune.
But, okay. I'm not inherently opposed to remakes. Every now and then, the remake is even better than the original. And there have been undeniable improvements in the film industry that make this a glossier and possibly more watchable movie. We no longer have to do that thing where we stare at some 'high-tech' piece of machinery while it goes 'Beep ... Beep ... Beep' for three minutes and the cast looks very concerned. We don't have to examine every angle of the damn Enterprise as she glides through space, because the director was apparently under the impression that the ship was more interesting than the story. We can get the plot off the ground right away, instead of spending half an hour carefully introducing characters everybody already knows. Good stuff.
Oh, and obviously we don't have to watch William Shatner try to act. I'm undecided on whether that is good. I mean, the man is awful but that's half the fun.
But at the same time, I think they may have forgotten what made The Wrath of Khan good in the first place. That film is all about Kirk getting a faceful of consequences. Years ago, he did ... what he always did on the TV show: bounded in, reordered everyone's lives according to his personal preferences, and then buggered off without ever bothering to check how it all turned out. In this instance he picked up a bunch of genetically engineered humans who had been drifting through space in cryogenic sleep for a few centuries, having fled the earth when their attempt to take it over failed. He revived them. They nicked his ship. Naturally, he nicked it right back. But because he admired their leader, Khan (I have seen that episode, and I don't share his admiration; I think the writers were confusing 'inspiring leader' with 'domineering shithead'), he decided that instead of taking them to earth for trial, he'd just dump them on the nearest planet and let them get on with it.
It didn't go well.
On the one hand, Khan is right to be 'wrathful'. Because their colony was entirely unofficial, no one ever came to see how they were doing ... and when it failed spectacularly, they were left to die. On the other hand, Khan is clearly a psychopath and Kirk left him free to roam the galaxy because he thought he was cool. Whichever way you look at it, when the blood starts flowing some of it is on Kirk's hands, and it's about time he faced that. The story is riddled with references to Kirk's inability to accept that he might be wrong, or a failure, in any significant way (obviously he's still the hero, and will take reasonable advice from his friends). He states repeatedly that he likes to win, doesn't believe in 'no win' situations, and the fact that he cheated on the kob- kyb- ... that test they have where you always have to lose, is used to shape the backbone of the story. Kirk's ideology requires that he end the day victorious. That he play until he wins and gets to decide everyone else's fate. That's what got them into this mess in the first place. And what gets them out of it is Spock slipping quietly away and giving his life to save the day. The price for Kirk's shenanigans is his best friend's life, and in that moment Spock is a far better leader than Kirk.
So Kirk is left with an opportunity to learn something.
At first it looked as though Into Darkness was going to take the same route: the story opens with Kirk ... being Kirk. He wants to save a planet from destruction, which is good. But his plan for doing this seems doubtful at best (the sci-fi 'fix the volcano' stuff is fine, the bit where he makes everyone on the planet hate him and then shoots his rescuer ... not so much), and when it goes wrong he proceeds to make everything worse in fixing it ... and then lies about it all on his report because he doesn't want to deal with the fallout. Of course he gets caught. And - cool. That's fine. We've established our problem for the story: Kirk means well, but he's arrogant and nowhere near as good as he thinks he is.
The trouble is that he never really faces consequences at all. His initial punishment is that he has to go back to futuristic uni, but his friendly boss intervenes so he's just demoted to first officer. That gets him into the all-important crisis meeting, where he is allowed to be the one to spot the crucial detail everyone else missed and start yelling for everyone to evacuate about ten seconds before the shit hits the fan. And five minutes after that, he's got his ship back and is gallivanting all over the universe again.
And, okay, I can go with that. We wouldn't really want Kirk to go back to uni. That would be boring for the audience, and the film should be punishing him, not us. But the pattern continues, and Kirk is continually allowed to sidestep taking responsibility for his actions. The obstinate bastard who cannot bear to lose is not Kirk but the villain of the piece, Admiral Whatshisface with the blonde daughter (an even bigger villain in this film than Khan, who can here at least honestly claim he was dragged into the situation against his will). It's easy to oppose his stubbornness and stupidity because we're predisposed to hate him in the first place. Asking the audience to critique the hero is much more interesting.
The film's climax reverses the situation in The Wrath of Khan: it is Kirk who kills himself to get the ship's reactor working again (and he's obviously of the 'if it doesn't work, hit it' school of appliance repairs - a man after my own heart). That's fine. As soon as I realised they were redoing The Wrath of Khan I thought they'd probably reverse it. There's no point in making exactly the same film twice. And fiction has a long, respectable history of 'redemption equals death' scenarios. But the trouble is, they don't make it stick. Not five minutes after Kirk expires, they've worked out how to revive him. Khan's blood has magic restorative powers, so Spock and Uhura chase him down, beat him up and bring him back to be experimented on. Kirk is fine.
And don't get me wrong: it's a fun ride. They zip around the galaxy, have space battles and fistfights, infiltrate things, yell at Klingons, shoot stuff and have tense standoffs. I was entertained. But at the end of the day, I'm pretty sure what Kirk learnt was that someone will always bail his arse out when he gets into trouble, and flying by the seat of your pants has good results 100 per cent of the time, with no unfortunate or unforeseen consequences. You know what gets you into trouble? Making detailed and careful plans, like that admiral guy. Granted they were evil plans, but I think we've established that planning ahead is something only evil people do.
Having Kirk make a speech about how he respects his position more now doesn't really make the situation any better.
Then there's the death itself. I'm afraid I think it was pretty hilarious. The thing is, they were trying to do something they hadn't really earned. Kirk and Spock are probably among the most iconic characters of the 20th century. Even if you haven't seen the show, you've probably got a general idea of who they are and what they do. Most of the people who saw The Wrath of Khan in cinemas probably grew up watching Star Trek on TV. Watching Spock die under those circumstances would be like losing a bit of your childhood. And The Wrath of Khan plays on that. Kirk and Spock bicker like an old married couple (sometimes an old ménage à trois when their friend Dr McCoy joins in), their conversations are full of in-jokes and references that confuse outsiders, and they repeatedly establish that they thoroughly understand each other's minds. These are lifelong friends, and that adds weight to Kirk's loss. It's a big thing. You screw up, you lose the dearest friend you've ever had. You'll probably never have another like that.
Into Darkness replays the death scene almost word for word. It only makes what few changes are necessitated by the swapped roles. But this is only their second story! Kirk and Spock hated each other for most of the first one. They're barely on speaking terms for half of this one. Trying to recapture the feelings from the older movie is just cheap and silly. Anyone who's seen the old stuff will get what you're doing, and people tend to get annoyed when films are obviously emotionally manipulative; anyone who hasn't won't know what the hell that was about. That isn't to say that the death scene had no weight at all. Plenty of films establish a friendship and then kill one character off to give another angst. It can be touching in itself. And it could be a different sort of story: to realise exactly how much you value friendship only when your friend is dying. But it only works if you make it stick. Spock barely has time to grieve before Kirk is up and about again. It's more like Kirk took a week off and Spock realised he missed him a bit than like he bloody died.
I wanted the movie to end with Dr McCoy discovering that Khan's blood could heal Kirk ... and that he had none left. That could have made a fun cliffhanger: it would leave Spock struggling to balance the need to bring in a dangerous fugitive, the need to obey regulations, and the need to do the impossible to save his friend. You know, raise the stakes a bit.
Also, they made poor Zachary Quinto yell 'KHAAAAAAAN!' when Kirk died. He made the best job out of it that he could, I think, but a) that line is inherently ridiculous and b) there's no way to hear it without thinking of Shatner's delightfully over-the-top version. So I'm stuffing my jacket in my mouth to keep from cackling while Spock mourns over Kirk's microwaved corpse. Was that the reaction they wanted? I'm doubtful.
Anyway, enough whinging from me. What I took away from this film is that you should always listen to Scotty. He is right about everything. And better than everybody. Simon Pegg is the best thing about Into Darkness. He's clearly having more fun than anybody else, his subplot allows him to be smart and useful while remaining in his field and he manages to make the character comedic without making him annoying. Scotty for captain! At least he knows how the damn ship works. I bet he wouldn't fix the reactor by hitting it.
It was also funny when they dragged in Leonard Nimoy to have the other Spock betray all his principles by telling little Spock about the future. Because Khan just really pisses him off. Yeah, I could believe that. If I got irradiated because some bastard kept shooting at my ship, I'd probably hate him too.
Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto are perfectly serviceable as the leads. I feel like I should say more about the damn stars, but there wasn't anything really challenging in the material. I remember far more about Pegg than I do about them. Pine's Kirk is very cocky and has no common sense; Quinto's Spock defaults to bewildered. I remain fond of Dr McCoy; I always liked him in the show, because he was always telling the other characters they were idiots. Which they were. Sometimes he was too, but somebody needed to point this stuff out. Uhura needs more to do. She did have some stuff in this one, but ... Well. Look. Scotty was the best character because he got a decent subplot that showed off why being an engineer was useful and heroic. Maybe next time they could actually let their linguist succeed at some diplomacy.
Benedict Cumberbatch is significantly more personable as Khan than the original. Not that I'd fault the actor, there. He was written as obnoxious (admirably obnoxious! or something), and there's not much you can do with that. The new version toned down the megalomania a bit to sound more like someone who could conceivably be put in charge of something. Although Cumberbatch seems to be drawing heavily on his Sherlock persona here, so it is kind of like watching what would happen if Holmes decided to be Moriarty for the day.
Now, why Khan is suddenly English I couldn't say. I could see two sides to this: on the one hand, whitewashing is an ugly thing to do. On the other hand 'Look, we are being attacked by non-white terrorists! Let us hunt them down and blow them up with secret missiles!' is kind of a shitty plot, too. I'd be more understanding about Khan's transformation if they bothered to increase the diversity of the heroes instead. In the 1960s, putting a Russian on the bridge was a bold move. Nowadays Chekov is just a nice white boy with a cute accent. They need to up their game and introduce ... I don't know, a Saudi lady, maybe, to keep up with the times. What we got instead was a blonde woman. Who was fine, and heaven knows they need more women. Just ... if the idea behind the diverse crew was to challenge prejudices, maybe they should try to challenge some prejudices.
And that, really, is all I can say about the film: it doesn't challenge anything. It's a lot of fun, it's reasonably light on the technobabble, it's got decent action sequences and the plot moves along at a nice pace. There's really nothing terrible about it. It's just that, unless we're giving out points for general plot coherence, it's not a very smart movie. The Wrath of Khan was slower, clunkier, and had William Shatner in it. But it also poked at you a bit. It said that the heroes were fallible and mortal. That, as much fun as Kirk's way of doing things is, maybe that's not the best way to do intergalactic diplomacy. It had guts. This doesn't.
I think the story would have been stronger if they'd actually forced Kirk to think about himself. And, yeah, if you're going to kill a main character ... don't bring them back five minutes later. But for a couple of hours spent watching pretty, shiny people shoot lasers at each other and play chicken with spaceships? Sure, for that it's completely worth it.