that one where I keep misreading the titular acronym as a term for venereal disease
Oh my god, okay, I promise, I do feel bad about recurring here twice yearly at most, but-- Into Darkness. I had no choice but to pop up.
To start with, I really enjoyed it! I watched the first one again a couple of months ago, and discovered it didn't quite live up to my memory of its entertainment value, but then because of that I was pleasantly surprised by how engaging I found STID. Same gloss, same breakneck pace, but it didn't have to bother with slightly hokey introductions, and I thought they did a great job with offscreen character development, especially on Spock's end. In general I prefer established relationships to uncomfortable team-building, and the Uhura-Spock and Kirk-Spock dynamics were a more fun for me to watch when there was a history to take for granted. Actually, I came out a lot more invested in that threesome's group interplay than I did from the reboot: there was a pandering quality to the scene with them bickering in the shuttle, but it was also adorable, and it worked in a weird way to highlight Kirk's growth as well. Kirk probably had a lot of nightmares after he realized that he was the only person behaving professionally aboard that vessel. Kirk did not sign up for a reality in which he has to manage the most able and self-assured people he's ever met because they keep lapsing into arguments about feelings. There is no escaping his fate.
Uh, let's see, what else. For some reason (delusional, star-crossed love) I didn't immediately recognize Pike's reassignment to the Enterprise for the death knell it was, and so there followed a really funny five-minute period where I was so emotionally overwhelmed by the prospect of kayliemalinza's Rambleverse becoming an AMAZING PIKE-LADEN REALITY that I had to sit on my hands to keep from flapping around the theater like a giant delighted bat. Then there was an even funnier period in which I made a face like I had accidentally fellated a lemon. To suppress any outward signs of my bitter heartbreak! It was very sad. Though nothing helps me get over the deaths of pet characters like… their actual, tragic death scenes, and this was no exception, I'm afraid. I still can't believe Spock decided to go brain spelunking for last words and didn't even get exposition out of it. Spock, it's like you don't understand what genre you're in.
Casting issues aside, I thought what they did with Khan was--interesting, though compressed. Kind of disappointed that they didn't go the original route and have Kirk maroon him and his crew somewhere; I mean, I guess the sequel-baiting is a bit unstylish and would have demanded direct continuity in the next film, unlike with a TV show episode, haha, but I just like when villain collaboration doesn't go totally awry, and instead bears uneasy compromise fruit. Was pretty amused by the "and then they put him back to sleep and left the 73 cryochambers to be antagonists for some future generation" bit. Maybe they're just going to drain each of his crewmembers of blood as need arises? I mean, yes, it's unlikely, but given the most casual discovery of a resurrection serum in the history of sci-fi character revival techniques, we should keep an open mind. Seriously, that was cute, how no one even pretended to care about the wider ramifications of superblood once Kirk was up and about.
Other notes:
To start with, I really enjoyed it! I watched the first one again a couple of months ago, and discovered it didn't quite live up to my memory of its entertainment value, but then because of that I was pleasantly surprised by how engaging I found STID. Same gloss, same breakneck pace, but it didn't have to bother with slightly hokey introductions, and I thought they did a great job with offscreen character development, especially on Spock's end. In general I prefer established relationships to uncomfortable team-building, and the Uhura-Spock and Kirk-Spock dynamics were a more fun for me to watch when there was a history to take for granted. Actually, I came out a lot more invested in that threesome's group interplay than I did from the reboot: there was a pandering quality to the scene with them bickering in the shuttle, but it was also adorable, and it worked in a weird way to highlight Kirk's growth as well. Kirk probably had a lot of nightmares after he realized that he was the only person behaving professionally aboard that vessel. Kirk did not sign up for a reality in which he has to manage the most able and self-assured people he's ever met because they keep lapsing into arguments about feelings. There is no escaping his fate.
Uh, let's see, what else. For some reason (delusional, star-crossed love) I didn't immediately recognize Pike's reassignment to the Enterprise for the death knell it was, and so there followed a really funny five-minute period where I was so emotionally overwhelmed by the prospect of kayliemalinza's Rambleverse becoming an AMAZING PIKE-LADEN REALITY that I had to sit on my hands to keep from flapping around the theater like a giant delighted bat. Then there was an even funnier period in which I made a face like I had accidentally fellated a lemon. To suppress any outward signs of my bitter heartbreak! It was very sad. Though nothing helps me get over the deaths of pet characters like… their actual, tragic death scenes, and this was no exception, I'm afraid. I still can't believe Spock decided to go brain spelunking for last words and didn't even get exposition out of it. Spock, it's like you don't understand what genre you're in.
Casting issues aside, I thought what they did with Khan was--interesting, though compressed. Kind of disappointed that they didn't go the original route and have Kirk maroon him and his crew somewhere; I mean, I guess the sequel-baiting is a bit unstylish and would have demanded direct continuity in the next film, unlike with a TV show episode, haha, but I just like when villain collaboration doesn't go totally awry, and instead bears uneasy compromise fruit. Was pretty amused by the "and then they put him back to sleep and left the 73 cryochambers to be antagonists for some future generation" bit. Maybe they're just going to drain each of his crewmembers of blood as need arises? I mean, yes, it's unlikely, but given the most casual discovery of a resurrection serum in the history of sci-fi character revival techniques, we should keep an open mind. Seriously, that was cute, how no one even pretended to care about the wider ramifications of superblood once Kirk was up and about.
Other notes:
- BOO TO THE KLINGON REDESIGN. I liked the piercings but the actual ridges look like a staircase. A boring staircase! Klingons should be crusty and organic about the skull.
- That said, Planet In Medias Res was striking and beautiful--good foliage, good flaky chalk people, a total winner. That and the Enterprise underwater made me really crave more TOS-style shenanigans; I'm crossing my fingers that the next movie is going to deliver on the five-year-mission promise at the end of this one, and give me all the hot settings and absurdity I could ask for.
- Tearing through DS9 has ruined me for Klingons generally, I mean, I'm down for them as antagonists but I was so disappointed that there wasn't more back-and-forth and glimpses of their world, particularly because I loved Uhura as leatherclad liaison. Let me speak Klingon. You can read the howling opera librettos to me any day, Lieutenant.
- God I just can't get over Kirk being the grown-up in the Kirk-Spock-Uhura mess. And then lapsing in the elevator. And the shuttle. They're all so charming.
- I did think the faintly incestuous Starfleet system, and its parallels with Khan's icy murderclan, were pretty nicely done; I liked how Admiral Marcus' assertion that he groomed and doomed Pike makes him a sort of grandfather to Kirk, and how Kirk and Carol Marcus get to watch him die as fucked-up heirs to his power and legacy. That is going to be such an interesting romance. Imagine them getting drunk together and reminiscing half-hysterically about the noise his head made when it came off his neck. Ah, trauma. No better glue to bind.