"Into Darkness" Boldly Goes Where Others HAVE Gone Before (but still well worth return visits)

[revdorothyl]

I finally got around to seeing "Star Trek: Into Darkness" in the theater yesterday and was pretty well satisfied, though it definitely covered some familiar ST:TOS and original series movies territory. Still, it mixed the familiar elements around in some truly interesting and entertaining ways. And I'm fond enough of ALL the new Enterprise

Comments

[anonymous]

...and the 'needs of the many' death scene works even better for me, in some ways, with Spock on the other side of the glass, saying good-bye to his newly-realized (rather than oldest and best) friend Kirk, and doing the "Kha-a-a-a-an!" scream of grief and promised vengeance.

I agree, this was a surprise turn-around that really worked. Brilliant writing. I think some of us were dreading a re-do of “The Wrath of Khan,” because it might feel exploitative, but this twist, with Kirk taking the logical role and Spock taking the grief-stricken, revenge role, really worked for me. (Also, it starts me wondering what core themes they will revisit in future movies.)

While I loved that Spock went after Khan with murderous intent, by that point in the movie I was just plain tired of fist-fights, and it felt just a bit like more gratuitous violence instead of the dramatic role-reversal it was supposed to portray. I loved it when Uhura beamed down and just stood there blasting Khan - that really added to the theme you are describing in this blog about new dyads and triads forming that include Uhura. Plus, it gave her a warrior role, instead of the more passive role she often had to take in the original series. (She was a warrior in the "Mirror, Mirror" episode that she pretended to seduce alternate-Sulu, but the story treats it as play-acting to buy time for the men to do the real work.)

[revdorothyl]

(Also, it starts me wondering what core themes they will revisit in future movies.)

Yes, I'm really looking forward to future additions to this series, now, since they seem to have beaten the 'every other Trek movie tends to suck to some degree' curse. (Or maybe they're just making up for the fact that the ST:TNG movies ended with two relative stinkers in a row, in "Insurrection" and "Nemesis", making "First Contact" the only really good, consistently re-watchable entry in their part of the movie franchise.)

...by that point in the movie I was just plain tired of fist-fights...

Agreed! At times, the explosions and fist-fights reminded me of the last two ST:TNG movies, in which they kept trying to add more and more 'action' and explosions and fast rides, to make up for the increasing ossification of the characters and the general backwards trend in their relationships. Perhaps I didn't mind the super-abundance of action so much in THIS film because the characters still seem so very fresh and the relationships so full of future potential, making up for the "Yet ANOTHER scene aimed straight for the teenaged boys in the audience?!?" overdone action stuff.

[Uhura] was a warrior in the "Mirror, Mirror" episode that she pretended to seduce alternate-Sulu, but the story treats it as play-acting to buy time for the men to do the real work.

And Uhura only got a back-handed nod to her warrior skills in "The Gamesters of Triskelion", fighting against slave gladiators in the initial battle, after which there's a gratuitous scene of her having to fight off the attempted rape by 'Lars' her drill-thrall who's been 'selected' to breed her! :(