Star Trek Into Darkness... Spoilers Ahoy
- Thread starter sixpackshaker
- Start date
- Status
trust me its not. There are some parallels (actually my least favorite parts), but it manages to be fresh.
The movie was enjoyable, like the first. But just as dumb as the first movie was. Orci and Kurtzman are fucking dumb writers. They write dumb movies. That being said, again, I still enjoyed myself.
This post from Neogaf goes nitpickingly into why it was so dumb. This guy wanted a Star Trekky Star Trek movie. I don't agree with all his points, but there are a great many I do agree with.
My spoilered thoughts.
I have so much negative to say about the movie...but I still enjoyed it, as little sense as that makes.
This post from Neogaf goes nitpickingly into why it was so dumb. This guy wanted a Star Trekky Star Trek movie. I don't agree with all his points, but there are a great many I do agree with.
I was! But I'll quote you anyway. 
First, let me get the good parts out of the way:
1. Special effects were great
2. Cumberbatch was good given the material, though I'd be hesitant to say he did a good job. He seemed to be held back by the script more than he did to help it.
3. The cast are good in their respective roles, and this kind of carries the movie.
Um...that's it I think. The new warp effect is better than the first movie's, but it still doesn't beat the classic flashing nacelles of the TV shows. Bring that back, please.
I gotta, say, I was bored for most of the film. Dialogue was clunky too. So, if I had to sum up the movie in two words, they'd be the following: dumb and pointless.
Dumb because:
1. The numerous gigantic plot-holes. It's even worse than the first movie in this regard. These act to take me out of the film and prevent me from enjoying it. I'm going to post several that jumped out at me:
*I have no idea why the Enterprise is underwater. Why is the Enterprise underwater?
*If a tribe of indigenous people have a settlement near a volcano that threatens to destroy their planet, I don't think taking something from them and making them run a couple hundred feet will guarantee their safety from debris before the eruption (apparently it does in this case).
*I find it weird that Starfleet has a specific regulation that says you must meet in a specific location after a specific event.
*Side problem to a broader point: You can transport from Earth to Qo'noS? Really? So why not transport there and transport back? This'll open a whole lot of narrative problems in the future.
*Um...how was Scotty able to just waltz into a top secret security base without anyone knowing?
*How is it this easy to infiltrate the Klingon homeworld?
*Earth's/Enterprise sensors can reach all the way to Qo'noS?
*Just that whole final battle. There are right behind Earth's moon, yet the film acts like they are all the way in uncharted space. Why is NOBODY helping them?
*Why didn't the Enterprise crew call for help at any point during their conflict?
*Why didn't Spock call for assistance while the ship was falling into Earth's atmosphere?
*Why did Spock and the bridge crew have to stay on the ship? They are right above Earth! They can just abandon the ship in the escape pods! Why are they staying on the ship? Why are they trying to rescue it?
*Where is everybody else during all of this? Why is there virtually no activity around Earth?
*How does the Enterprise go from being orbiting the moon to falling in Earth's atmosphere?
You get the point. The list goes on.
2. Transporter and warp speeds seem to be entirely arbitrary in this film. Seriously, it's like they have no meaning.
3. The entirely pointless scene in which Carol Marcus takes off her clothes. Come on, guys. Grow up a little.
4. Get the women out of the dresses/skirts. When Uhura beamed down on the very windy and fast moving vehicle with that dress, I rolled my eyes. Ugh.
5. Ripping off the ending to The Wrath of Khan. No imagination. No creativity. No originality. It's like they didn't know how to end the movie, so they brought out the script to Wrath of Khan and re-wrote the ending. I'm sorry, but it doesn't work. The friendship has to build up for a long time. More on this in a moment. Speaking of which...
6. During the opening, I realized that these were a bunch of kids in charge of the ship. It's hard to take them seriously.
7. Kirk was demoted because he wasn't "ready for the chair." You promoted him from cadet to captain! Of course he wasn't, you morons.
8. Klingons looked liked they were dipped in chocolate. Bring back their classic design.
9. The plot was just confusing in general. Why did Khan put his people in the torpedoes? And why did Admiral Marcus give them all to Kirk? Did he just assume the Klingons would destroy whatever torpedoes Kirk didn't use?
10. What's with Earth? What happened to the smooth combination of the future and simplicity found on the TV shows?
11. For the most part, clunky dialogue.
12. Action with little substance to support it.
13. Three-hundred year old technology being "beyond" Bones.
14. Spock's "KHHAAANNN" scream. Made me cringe.
15. For all its action, there was no good tension in this film. At all. Abrams needs to watch The Wrath of Khan to know how to create some good tension.
16. Kirk’s death scene was useless. His revival wasn’t earned, nor was his death warranted because there was no reason they had to save the ship.
17. Spock and Uhura. Ew.
This movie was pointless because:
I cannot, for the life of me, give anybody a reason to watch it. Seriously. By the end of the film Khan is in a cryotube and the only lasting effect for the Enterprise crew is the addition of Carol Marcus, which can be explained in a sentence in the next movie.
Everything – aside from the special effects – was done better in The Wrath of Khan. The story, characters, executions of its themes, tension, and yes, even the action was better in TWoK. I never came close to feeling anything during STiD than when the Enterprise maneuvered up behind the Reliant in TWoK. It’s a smart film, whose themes of old age and “paradise lost” evolve and play out naturally over the course of the movie. It makes numerous literary allusions – both direct and indirect – to three novels of classic literature: Paradise Lost, King Lear, and Moby Dick. All of which are incorporated seamlessly into the film’s narrative. I’m not going to go over all this extensively, but SFDebris does a pretty good job of it here. Star Trek into Darkness is The Wrath of Khan's dumb, mind-numbing younger sibling. You may as well re-watch TWoK than see this film.
Star Trek into Darkness takes many elements from previous Trek canon without any regard for the situations in which they were used and the situations that made them work. Section 31 is an example of such an element. However, I won’t go over all of that, only the main element borrowed from the Prime Universe, which is that of Kirk versus Khan.
In The Wrath of Khan, the battle between Kirk and Khan – which has far more tension, drama, and satisfying action than anything in STiD – was a battle of wits between two men. The movie is a progression of one outsmarting the other. Indeed, the only reason why Kirk won in the end was because Khan was inexperienced in interstellar battle.
Star Trek into Darkness just has Kirk being smacked around by Marcus and Khan like he doesn't know what he's doing. There's no satisfaction in their interaction or their fighting. Some of this is due to the way the story is setup, some of it is the writing, some of this is because of Cumberbatch’s performance and the fact that it can't measure up to the nuance of Montalban’s portrayal of the same character.
But it's mainly because Star Trek into Darkness doesn't try to do anything new with Kirk and Khan's relationship that the makes the movie pointless. Now, I looked up spoilers to the movie before I saw it, so I knew how it was going to end. What I didn't know was that Kirk and Khan would team up, if ever briefly. I really, really wish the movie had gone fully in that direction only for the two to depart later on. But no. It has to rehash old conflicts in the same old ways on dumber terms, assuming viewers can't handle a more sophisticated approach.
Even if you didn't want the two to team up, it's not like the concept of Kirk and Khan fighting each other can't be done in a different way. DS9 took the idea of Kirk versus Khan and made it its own, and in the end was just as compelling, in my opinion, but for entirely different reasons. Sisko versus Eddington plays out over two episodes, DS9’s fifth season episode "For the Uniform," and the sixth season episode "Blaze of Glory." "For the Uniform" progresses similarly to The Wrath of Khan in that the episode plays out with each man outsmarting the other, and it even has its own literary allusion with Les Misérables. It's different, though, for how it resolves itself and the reason for the conflict between the men. Sisko goes after Eddington because he feels responsible for Eddington's betrayal – and any consequences that resulted thereof – and blames himself for not seeing the betrayal coming. The only reason why Sisko wins in the end is because he goes to morally questionable grounds that Eddington never expected. By the end of the episode, you could argue that the only difference between the two men was that Sisko did it for his uniform. "Blaze of Glory" closes out their relationship in a way that makes you feel sympathetic for Eddington. Something you can't say for Khan.
The movie tries to make Khan sympathetic, but it moves too fast and focuses too much on its explosions and action to allow that narrative thread – or any narrative thread, really – room to breathe. There's no point where the movie allows viewers – or the characters – to slow down, sit back and reflect on its events. There's always some urgent thing going on in the background that distracts from the significance of what's going on. This is to the hindrance of the relationship between Spock and Kirk, as the movie relies more on audience's knowledge of their prior relationship from TOS and its movies, as well as pop culture knowledge, to carry the majority of its weight because it has no chance to give them sufficient room for that relationship to develop.
The death scene doesn't work for a variety of reasons, but chief among them are two: Kirk and Spock haven't known each other for that long, and its lacking the context of one of TWoK's broader themes. As I said in the previous paragraph, the two haven't known each other for that long. Their relationship has to be given more time to evolve and develop for that scene to have the same kind of emotional resonance.
From the beginning of The Wrath of Khan, viewers are presented with the idea of a no-win scenario, and how Kirk has never really faced one. Khan doesn’t kill Kirk, but he hurts him. The death scene with Spock resonates because that is Kirk's no-win scenario. He loses his best friend. From Spock’s death, Kirk learns that aging is simply part of the cycle of rebirth and death. Looking over the planet the genesis device created, he says, "I feel young." He decides to formally return to the captain's chair by the end of the movie. In Star Trek into Darkness, the death scene holds no lesson for Kirk. It holds no consequence for his character, or Spock’s. It's something forgotten by the end of the film.
It's not a bad movie. It's okay. In the end this film should be pretty much expected from a man who thought Star Trek was too "philosophical" and "debate-driven." That’s pretty much all I have say about it. Maybe I’ll have more to say after I see it a second time on Sunday. For anybody who sees this film, I'd recommend just to watch The Wrath of Khan instead, unless you're looking for something to do.
I watched this right after seeing an episode of Stargate: Atlantis, and the difference in how each respects the viewer's intelligence made me more annoyed by the movie's sloppy plot and less-than-satisfactory execution.
I just want a good Star Trek movie.
First, let me get the good parts out of the way:
1. Special effects were great
2. Cumberbatch was good given the material, though I'd be hesitant to say he did a good job. He seemed to be held back by the script more than he did to help it.
3. The cast are good in their respective roles, and this kind of carries the movie.
Um...that's it I think. The new warp effect is better than the first movie's, but it still doesn't beat the classic flashing nacelles of the TV shows. Bring that back, please.
I gotta, say, I was bored for most of the film. Dialogue was clunky too. So, if I had to sum up the movie in two words, they'd be the following: dumb and pointless.
Dumb because:
1. The numerous gigantic plot-holes. It's even worse than the first movie in this regard. These act to take me out of the film and prevent me from enjoying it. I'm going to post several that jumped out at me:
*I have no idea why the Enterprise is underwater. Why is the Enterprise underwater?
*If a tribe of indigenous people have a settlement near a volcano that threatens to destroy their planet, I don't think taking something from them and making them run a couple hundred feet will guarantee their safety from debris before the eruption (apparently it does in this case).
*I find it weird that Starfleet has a specific regulation that says you must meet in a specific location after a specific event.
*Side problem to a broader point: You can transport from Earth to Qo'noS? Really? So why not transport there and transport back? This'll open a whole lot of narrative problems in the future.
*Um...how was Scotty able to just waltz into a top secret security base without anyone knowing?
*How is it this easy to infiltrate the Klingon homeworld?
*Earth's/Enterprise sensors can reach all the way to Qo'noS?
*Just that whole final battle. There are right behind Earth's moon, yet the film acts like they are all the way in uncharted space. Why is NOBODY helping them?
*Why didn't the Enterprise crew call for help at any point during their conflict?
*Why didn't Spock call for assistance while the ship was falling into Earth's atmosphere?
*Why did Spock and the bridge crew have to stay on the ship? They are right above Earth! They can just abandon the ship in the escape pods! Why are they staying on the ship? Why are they trying to rescue it?
*Where is everybody else during all of this? Why is there virtually no activity around Earth?
*How does the Enterprise go from being orbiting the moon to falling in Earth's atmosphere?
You get the point. The list goes on.
2. Transporter and warp speeds seem to be entirely arbitrary in this film. Seriously, it's like they have no meaning.
3. The entirely pointless scene in which Carol Marcus takes off her clothes. Come on, guys. Grow up a little.
4. Get the women out of the dresses/skirts. When Uhura beamed down on the very windy and fast moving vehicle with that dress, I rolled my eyes. Ugh.
5. Ripping off the ending to The Wrath of Khan. No imagination. No creativity. No originality. It's like they didn't know how to end the movie, so they brought out the script to Wrath of Khan and re-wrote the ending. I'm sorry, but it doesn't work. The friendship has to build up for a long time. More on this in a moment. Speaking of which...
6. During the opening, I realized that these were a bunch of kids in charge of the ship. It's hard to take them seriously.
7. Kirk was demoted because he wasn't "ready for the chair." You promoted him from cadet to captain! Of course he wasn't, you morons.
8. Klingons looked liked they were dipped in chocolate. Bring back their classic design.
9. The plot was just confusing in general. Why did Khan put his people in the torpedoes? And why did Admiral Marcus give them all to Kirk? Did he just assume the Klingons would destroy whatever torpedoes Kirk didn't use?
10. What's with Earth? What happened to the smooth combination of the future and simplicity found on the TV shows?
11. For the most part, clunky dialogue.
12. Action with little substance to support it.
13. Three-hundred year old technology being "beyond" Bones.
14. Spock's "KHHAAANNN" scream. Made me cringe.
15. For all its action, there was no good tension in this film. At all. Abrams needs to watch The Wrath of Khan to know how to create some good tension.
16. Kirk’s death scene was useless. His revival wasn’t earned, nor was his death warranted because there was no reason they had to save the ship.
17. Spock and Uhura. Ew.
This movie was pointless because:
I cannot, for the life of me, give anybody a reason to watch it. Seriously. By the end of the film Khan is in a cryotube and the only lasting effect for the Enterprise crew is the addition of Carol Marcus, which can be explained in a sentence in the next movie.
Everything – aside from the special effects – was done better in The Wrath of Khan. The story, characters, executions of its themes, tension, and yes, even the action was better in TWoK. I never came close to feeling anything during STiD than when the Enterprise maneuvered up behind the Reliant in TWoK. It’s a smart film, whose themes of old age and “paradise lost” evolve and play out naturally over the course of the movie. It makes numerous literary allusions – both direct and indirect – to three novels of classic literature: Paradise Lost, King Lear, and Moby Dick. All of which are incorporated seamlessly into the film’s narrative. I’m not going to go over all this extensively, but SFDebris does a pretty good job of it here. Star Trek into Darkness is The Wrath of Khan's dumb, mind-numbing younger sibling. You may as well re-watch TWoK than see this film.
Star Trek into Darkness takes many elements from previous Trek canon without any regard for the situations in which they were used and the situations that made them work. Section 31 is an example of such an element. However, I won’t go over all of that, only the main element borrowed from the Prime Universe, which is that of Kirk versus Khan.
In The Wrath of Khan, the battle between Kirk and Khan – which has far more tension, drama, and satisfying action than anything in STiD – was a battle of wits between two men. The movie is a progression of one outsmarting the other. Indeed, the only reason why Kirk won in the end was because Khan was inexperienced in interstellar battle.
Star Trek into Darkness just has Kirk being smacked around by Marcus and Khan like he doesn't know what he's doing. There's no satisfaction in their interaction or their fighting. Some of this is due to the way the story is setup, some of it is the writing, some of this is because of Cumberbatch’s performance and the fact that it can't measure up to the nuance of Montalban’s portrayal of the same character.
But it's mainly because Star Trek into Darkness doesn't try to do anything new with Kirk and Khan's relationship that the makes the movie pointless. Now, I looked up spoilers to the movie before I saw it, so I knew how it was going to end. What I didn't know was that Kirk and Khan would team up, if ever briefly. I really, really wish the movie had gone fully in that direction only for the two to depart later on. But no. It has to rehash old conflicts in the same old ways on dumber terms, assuming viewers can't handle a more sophisticated approach.
Even if you didn't want the two to team up, it's not like the concept of Kirk and Khan fighting each other can't be done in a different way. DS9 took the idea of Kirk versus Khan and made it its own, and in the end was just as compelling, in my opinion, but for entirely different reasons. Sisko versus Eddington plays out over two episodes, DS9’s fifth season episode "For the Uniform," and the sixth season episode "Blaze of Glory." "For the Uniform" progresses similarly to The Wrath of Khan in that the episode plays out with each man outsmarting the other, and it even has its own literary allusion with Les Misérables. It's different, though, for how it resolves itself and the reason for the conflict between the men. Sisko goes after Eddington because he feels responsible for Eddington's betrayal – and any consequences that resulted thereof – and blames himself for not seeing the betrayal coming. The only reason why Sisko wins in the end is because he goes to morally questionable grounds that Eddington never expected. By the end of the episode, you could argue that the only difference between the two men was that Sisko did it for his uniform. "Blaze of Glory" closes out their relationship in a way that makes you feel sympathetic for Eddington. Something you can't say for Khan.
The movie tries to make Khan sympathetic, but it moves too fast and focuses too much on its explosions and action to allow that narrative thread – or any narrative thread, really – room to breathe. There's no point where the movie allows viewers – or the characters – to slow down, sit back and reflect on its events. There's always some urgent thing going on in the background that distracts from the significance of what's going on. This is to the hindrance of the relationship between Spock and Kirk, as the movie relies more on audience's knowledge of their prior relationship from TOS and its movies, as well as pop culture knowledge, to carry the majority of its weight because it has no chance to give them sufficient room for that relationship to develop.
The death scene doesn't work for a variety of reasons, but chief among them are two: Kirk and Spock haven't known each other for that long, and its lacking the context of one of TWoK's broader themes. As I said in the previous paragraph, the two haven't known each other for that long. Their relationship has to be given more time to evolve and develop for that scene to have the same kind of emotional resonance.
From the beginning of The Wrath of Khan, viewers are presented with the idea of a no-win scenario, and how Kirk has never really faced one. Khan doesn’t kill Kirk, but he hurts him. The death scene with Spock resonates because that is Kirk's no-win scenario. He loses his best friend. From Spock’s death, Kirk learns that aging is simply part of the cycle of rebirth and death. Looking over the planet the genesis device created, he says, "I feel young." He decides to formally return to the captain's chair by the end of the movie. In Star Trek into Darkness, the death scene holds no lesson for Kirk. It holds no consequence for his character, or Spock’s. It's something forgotten by the end of the film.
It's not a bad movie. It's okay. In the end this film should be pretty much expected from a man who thought Star Trek was too "philosophical" and "debate-driven." That’s pretty much all I have say about it. Maybe I’ll have more to say after I see it a second time on Sunday. For anybody who sees this film, I'd recommend just to watch The Wrath of Khan instead, unless you're looking for something to do.
I watched this right after seeing an episode of Stargate: Atlantis, and the difference in how each respects the viewer's intelligence made me more annoyed by the movie's sloppy plot and less-than-satisfactory execution.
I just want a good Star Trek movie.
My spoilered thoughts.
The Khan scream by Spock was just terribly goofy. It was also a pretty shitty parallel to Wrath of Khan. The friendship angle and such. In Wrath of Khan, these guys had known each other for decades. I like Pine and Quinto as Kirk and Spock individually, but they don't have the onscreen friendship chemistry that OG Spock, Kirk and McCoy had (which is pretty amazing since no one liked Shatner).
The magic blood that raises the dead might be the dopiest plot device ever. Especially when they just lock away a whole room full of magic elixir blood at the end of the movie. No one's interested in magic cure-all resurrection blood? Fuck off.
There's numerous inconsistencies and plot hole ridiculousness that I could go into, but the NeoGaf post goes through most of them and I can't expect anyone expected better of Orci and Kurtzman (especially after they added Lindlof to the mix....)
The magic blood that raises the dead might be the dopiest plot device ever. Especially when they just lock away a whole room full of magic elixir blood at the end of the movie. No one's interested in magic cure-all resurrection blood? Fuck off.
There's numerous inconsistencies and plot hole ridiculousness that I could go into, but the NeoGaf post goes through most of them and I can't expect anyone expected better of Orci and Kurtzman (especially after they added Lindlof to the mix....)
I have so much negative to say about the movie...but I still enjoyed it, as little sense as that makes.
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/vid...st&utm_medium=index_carousel&utm_campaign=all
MovieBob tears it apart and good. He reveals the big spoiler in it, as well.
And honestly? Now that I've heard the spoiler that I was dreading to be true? Fuck it. I'm not going to bother with this fan-service, rehashing bullshit. They had the perfect opportunity to do something new and innovative (which is like 90% of Trek's original point) and they just went with lifting the best of Trek, which will only bring about comparisons to the superior work.
MovieBob tears it apart and good. He reveals the big spoiler in it, as well.
And honestly? Now that I've heard the spoiler that I was dreading to be true? Fuck it. I'm not going to bother with this fan-service, rehashing bullshit. They had the perfect opportunity to do something new and innovative (which is like 90% of Trek's original point) and they just went with lifting the best of Trek, which will only bring about comparisons to the superior work.
BananaHands
Staff member
You sir, are a gentleman.
Yes, because and I spoiler
Khan has magic elixir blood that cures all diseases and brings dead tissue back to life. 20th century genetic engineering at it's finest.
This is kind of what pisses me off the most. Abbrams has been claiming since the movie began filming that Khan wouldn't be in it and it's a new universe with chances to tell new stories. He's a fucking shitty liar. Lazy nonsensical parallels and rushed dopey plot devices is all he can manage. I don't care if the next movie bombs because he isn't in charge of it (I hope he isn't), it will probably be a better God damn movie.
Let him go make Star Wars dumber (if possible).
He made a demo reel for Star Wars. That is all.
Just got back. It just wasn't that great. Parts sure were exciting, but holy fucking lens flare overdose. The 3d was incredibly irritating. The theme was constantly overused. Lines were cribbed directly from its much better inspiration. Will think on it more, but its definitely not a thinking persons Star Trek.
Fucking lens flares, Jesus.
Fucking lens flares, Jesus.
I just got back from it, and loved it!
SERIOUSLY? Did he not think all the people complaining about it last time might be an indication to cut back?
I thought there was actually a lot less lens flare this time.
This one was weird. There a bits of really good movie, and then there are bits of really bad movie, and most of those bits are from shoehorning in extra Trek-related things it didn't need.
Seriously? If this was less I really need to watch the first one because this was completely and utterly excessive. Often you couldn't even see what was going on because of the lens flare. It's like they made a joke of it when, for example
The Vengeance shows up. puts the spotlight on the Enterprise. You have an outside view and the spotlight is illuminating the enterprise in this red light, and the lens flare covers up what felt like a good fifth of the screen. And then it slowly blinks on and off until it's completely off. So you can now see the Enterprise...
And the 3d was completely distracting. They'd have someone's body or a line of glasses in the bar in front of the actors or just cloth in the front of the action and it was just completely distracting.
Even if the movie was well written (it wasn't)
Even if someone of the technology made sense (it didn't)
Even if the plot twists worked (They didn't)
At least make the movie somewhat watchable.
Some parts worked really well. The acting was okay. Karl Urban is always good as Bones. And Pike is played masterfully.
But it's obvious that this is a demo reel for Star Wars.
My wife and I enjoyed it, and this is coming from a Trek fan. That said I do agree it was a bit goofy.
It's hard to take the Spock and Kirk relationship seriously because of how little time the two version have been together. It would have been much better for them to imply that the Enterprise was RETURNING from the five year journey rather then having the events happen just before it. It would have allowed people to sit back and be "Oh these guys have been together a lot longer by this point, okay I get it." Instead they made it seem like it's only been a short while.
I think the whole Khan arc would have been way more interesting if they ended it with him being a good guy. I thought for a bit they were going that direction, but then they totally squandered it to make him bad again for the final act of the movie. The general plot holes were kind of getting on my nerves, but not enough to get me angry over it. The nerd in me still has issues with a few things, like how quickly they got to Earth from Klingon space. It was what, 30 seconds? In the first movie just getting to the armada from what was left of Vulcan seemed to be taking an hour. For awhile I thought they were just chilling around a random planet until Khan crashes in San Francisco, which is what really brings up the biggest problem with the movies.
Where the hell is everyone? I can understand the Enterprise being the only ship when it's out exploring the cosmos, but does Earth have ZERO defensive ships? In the first movie Nero just waltzed up to Earth and started drilling it. Not even a land-to-space defense system, let alone other ships. Don't give me that "but they were all either in Klingon space or destroyed at Vulcan!" bullshit, no place is going to leave themselves 100% defenseless like that when you could be on the brink of war. It was even more glaring in the new movie, because the Enterprise and that Dreadnaught were either blowing each other to bits or sitting dead in the water, and not a single other ship was sent to figure out what the hell? Not even one to try and shoot down a crashing ship before it takes out half of San Francisco? What the hell!
Really, and this is totally nerdy, the biggest thing that jarred me was when they reached Qo'noS and the moon of Praxis was ALREADY EXPLODED. This was one of the big plot points of Star Trek VI that happens years later, and why they decided to try for peace with the Federation. I know they probably wanted to use it as the excuse why Qo'noS looked like a bunch of ruins with little if any Klingon defenses, but they barely even acknowledged that. They just throw Qo'noS into the plot, and make it so a small away shuttle can pretty much just fly right in, the only resistance being three small scout ships. Did the Klingons look at the way Earth defenses were being handled and decide "Yes, I like that, let's do that."
I think the whole Khan arc would have been way more interesting if they ended it with him being a good guy. I thought for a bit they were going that direction, but then they totally squandered it to make him bad again for the final act of the movie. The general plot holes were kind of getting on my nerves, but not enough to get me angry over it. The nerd in me still has issues with a few things, like how quickly they got to Earth from Klingon space. It was what, 30 seconds? In the first movie just getting to the armada from what was left of Vulcan seemed to be taking an hour. For awhile I thought they were just chilling around a random planet until Khan crashes in San Francisco, which is what really brings up the biggest problem with the movies.
Where the hell is everyone? I can understand the Enterprise being the only ship when it's out exploring the cosmos, but does Earth have ZERO defensive ships? In the first movie Nero just waltzed up to Earth and started drilling it. Not even a land-to-space defense system, let alone other ships. Don't give me that "but they were all either in Klingon space or destroyed at Vulcan!" bullshit, no place is going to leave themselves 100% defenseless like that when you could be on the brink of war. It was even more glaring in the new movie, because the Enterprise and that Dreadnaught were either blowing each other to bits or sitting dead in the water, and not a single other ship was sent to figure out what the hell? Not even one to try and shoot down a crashing ship before it takes out half of San Francisco? What the hell!
Really, and this is totally nerdy, the biggest thing that jarred me was when they reached Qo'noS and the moon of Praxis was ALREADY EXPLODED. This was one of the big plot points of Star Trek VI that happens years later, and why they decided to try for peace with the Federation. I know they probably wanted to use it as the excuse why Qo'noS looked like a bunch of ruins with little if any Klingon defenses, but they barely even acknowledged that. They just throw Qo'noS into the plot, and make it so a small away shuttle can pretty much just fly right in, the only resistance being three small scout ships. Did the Klingons look at the way Earth defenses were being handled and decide "Yes, I like that, let's do that."
Eh, there's no point in trying to suss out why all the bits that didn't make sense don't make sense. The writers are lazy hacks.
Also,
transwarp beaming from planet to planet. Yet we can't get a lock on people in a fistfight on the ground because they're moving. Repeatedly.
DESPITE the fact that Chekov demonstrated he could teleport people hurtling to the ground in the previous movie.
And why the hell would you have to park the Enterprise underwater so a spear-throwing species wouldn't notice you. Could you not just stay in orbit?
DESPITE the fact that Chekov demonstrated he could teleport people hurtling to the ground in the previous movie.
And why the hell would you have to park the Enterprise underwater so a spear-throwing species wouldn't notice you. Could you not just stay in orbit?
I mentioned the Chekov thing to my wife.
"It's a bit weird that in the first movie he was able to transport Sulu and Kirk while they were moving at terminal velocity, and yet in this movie when Kirk and company are just kind of moving around a bit, he can't?"
They attempted to explain away the whole long range transporter thing by implying Scotty's tech was taken from him and classified, thus how it was used by Khan. I wouldn't be surprised if that was also the reason they made the whole plot of Scotty getting removed from his position on the Enterprise, just so they could keep the excuse going about why the Enterprise does not use those long range transporters again.
They attempted to explain away the whole long range transporter thing by implying Scotty's tech was taken from him and classified, thus how it was used by Khan. I wouldn't be surprised if that was also the reason they made the whole plot of Scotty getting removed from his position on the Enterprise, just so they could keep the excuse going about why the Enterprise does not use those long range transporters again.
Former Topless Robot Editor Rob Bricken's usual funny self Q&A about the movie.
http://io9.com/star-trek-into-darkness-the-spoiler-faq-508927844
http://io9.com/star-trek-into-darkness-the-spoiler-faq-508927844
BananaHands
Staff member
I'm confused on why people are upset on why
I mean. In the third movie Spock gets brought back by a magical planet and some Vulcan mind-meld.
It's a Star Trek film. Loosen up a bit. This was all started by William Shatner shackin' up with green girls and cheesy plots.
Kirk got brought back by Khan's blood.
I mean. In the third movie Spock gets brought back by a magical planet and some Vulcan mind-meld.
It's a Star Trek film. Loosen up a bit. This was all started by William Shatner shackin' up with green girls and cheesy plots.
NO IT"S SERIOUS BUZINESS!!! Star Trek is philosophical and serious, with no action scenes whatsoever because people talk it out in the future!!! It wasn't some low budget show with heavy handed moral lessons where the Captain explained how things should be in the 1960s in between ripping his shirt off and clubbing people in the back with both his hands.I'm confused on why people are upset on whyKirk got brought back by Khan's blood.
I mean. In the third movie Spock gets brought back by a magical planet and some Vulcan mind-meld.
It's a Star Trek film. Loosen up a bit. This was all started by William Shatner shackin' up with green girls and cheesy plots.
BananaHands
Staff member
And that was a shitty Star Trek movie, just like this one.I'm confused on why people are upset on whyKirk got brought back by Khan's blood.
I mean. In the third movie Spock gets brought back by a magical planet and some Vulcan mind-meld.
It's a Star Trek film. Loosen up a bit. This was all started by William Shatner shackin' up with green girls and cheesy plots.
Dumb.
BananaHands
Staff member
But... but... this was an EVEN!!
GasBandit
Staff member
Which makes it all the more egregious.
BananaHands
Staff member
Did you enjoy the 2009 one? Perhaps with the timeline being altered, they also altered the bad films to even numbers?
- Status