Star Trek into Darkness and Back Again
I'm back, and I have updates, but everything will wait for now. What I want to do - indeed, what I must do - is share a few thoughts from my first viewing of Star Trek into Darkness. (These are my first, preliminary impressions; I'll see it again tomorrow, and my thoughts no doubt will develop further.)
General and Relatively Spoiler-Free Notes* ( Read more... )
General and Relatively Spoiler-Free Notes* ( Read more... )
Comments 47
(Ah yes. Star Trek! That was good too. I noticed the bit about Noel Clarke's character's choice re: his daughter basically setting up the choices everyone else makes for the rest of the movie...but as a Mickey Smith fan I was disappointed he didn't have more lines!)
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YAY!!! I am doing a dance right now. You can't imagine how much it tickles me that you remember that line, too, and love it.
I agree that Mickey - er, I mean Clarke ;) - should've had more lines. That said, the man doesn't need to say a thing to convey volumes. His expressions were amazing! On my second viewing today I was struck by how very much he communicates in those seconds before he drops the "ring" into the water - just wrenchingly well done.
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Oh god yes, I remember that little look. Ouch ouch ouch. Shame he had to bow out so early, though, if only he'd somehow survived the explosion...
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Oh, thank you for this. I'm glad to know it struck you the same way.
I saw it again today, and knowing what was coming, I cried even harder. I'm already waiting for the DVD so I can rewatch those scenes (the bar scene is devastatingly good) over and over again.
I noticed this second time around that Pike, breathing through clenched teeth and obviously aware he's dying, doesn't actually tear up until Spock puts his hands on his temple to meld with him. That sort of broke me into little pieces.
I also realized this time that the last voice Kirk hears in his head before he comes back to life/consciousness after his two-week coma is Pike saying, "I dare you to do better."
I'm so glad Pike and his influence were given such respect in this film.
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What absolutely makes this film, immediately, right out of the gate, and then throughout, is the remarkable and textured chemistry between Bruce Greenwood as Christopher Pike and Chris Pine as James T. Kirk. Greenwood steals every scene in which he appears, but he also draws a terrific performance from Pine, one that sells the very heart and premise of the rest of the film.
YES. So very true. Their scenes are awesome.
Pike's death wasn't as hard for me because I spent the last years writing my Draws AU epic so _my_ Pike is totally alive, but it's for a good cause in the movie, IMVHO. Kirk grows so much in it, from spoiled boy to Captain.
How much do I love that Kirk's first instinct is to fight the attacker, while Spock's first instinct is to protect/meld with Pike? Very much. Kirk's touch to Spock's shoulder after Kirk's own breakdown proves that he realizes Pike meant nearly as much to Spock as he did to Kirk, although Spock cannot articulate this. A lovely nod to Original Series canon ( ... )
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Your kind comments deserve a longer response, but I'm on my way out, so just a quick reply for now re: Spock melding with Pike. I can imagine a reading of that scene that posits that Spock failed Pike, and I can easily imagine that Spock thinks he failed him, whether or not he really did.
For a man so concerned with morality (as later events in the film prove him to be), though, the thought of using Pike's death as a handy window into the human psyche seems ethically problematic. Asking for consent to the meld wasn't exactly a practical step at that moment, but surely Spock would recognize such an intimate intrusion would not be welcomed by a private man like Pike if it was simply a data-gathering expedition of sorts.
For that matter, he told Kirk and Uhura that when he joined with Pike he experienced those emotions, not that he joined with Pike in order to experience the man's emotions. For a precise character like Spock, that's a difference. He left his motives out of it; if anything, his comments to ( ... )
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I admit it's been ages since I've watched many of the original movies (something that will probably be corrected this week), and am much less territorial about this fandom (as opposed to Star Wars or HP), but yeah, my biggest problems were too little Bones and too much fighting on moving vehicles. Minor squibbles.
Like you I absolutely adored the Kirk and Pike relationship in this one, even more than the last. My only thing I'll add is I really loved Spock and Uhura fighting - for once not as a fandom, trying to break them up scene, but rather as a tool for getting emotions out and a yeah... how would that work... scene.
But overall I just found it a fun movie!
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I like that you made sense of this: Kirk's touch to Spock's shoulder after Kirk's own breakdown proves that he realizes Pike meant nearly as much to Spock as he did to Kirk, although Spock cannot articulate this. Of course Pike did - they saved him from Nero together, didn't they? I noticed Kirk's shoulder touch, saw it as comforting but I didn't entirely get it till now. I do wish the writers had made it explicit that Spock wasn't being a voyeur but was comforting Pike.
There is never enough McCoy.
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