Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)
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| More like mystery COCKS |
Directed By: J.J. Abrams
Written By: Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof
Starring: Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Peter Weller,
*Spoilers*
There’s an anecdote that is often used when writers talk about getting studio notes and re-writing scripts. In the story a writer is called in and is asked to re-write the ending. The main character is supposed to have a big success at the end but it just doesn’t feel like that much of a victory so they ask the writer to change the ending to fix this. He doesn’t change the ending though because he recognizes that the ending isn’t the issue, it’s the beginning. The stakes weren’t properly set up and so you don’t have a reason to want him to win. The point of the story is that while the producers were responding honestly to the script and felt the weak ending it’s the writers job to understand WHY the ending felt weak.
The same kind of thing happens with how audiences react to things. Like, let’s say if you really love a movie, the bad guy from the movie and the ending of the movie does that mean you can just take some elements from that movie and re-create it to get the same effect? No you can’t. Or should I say "no you KHAAAAAAAAAN'T"
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is one of the most loved Star Trek movies. In fact ‘Wrath of Khan’ is often referenced interchangeably with ‘The Empire Strikes Back’ by filmmakers as a way of saying “The sequel will be better and darker than the original.’ Loads of Star Trek fans love Khan and when Trek was re-booted in 2009 a lot of them were hoping to see Khan again.
Star Trek Into Darkness also has Khan as a bad guy and plays with the stuff that happens in Wrath but in a bunch of dumb ways. I really liked the 2009 Star Trek and one of the things they did in it that I thought was a cool idea was the fact that they made the fact that it was a reboot part of the plot. Someone goes back in time and changes the past, creating an alternate timeline. Leonard Nimoy’s Spock also goes back in time too meaning there are now two Spock’s in this timeline. Unfortunately it seems more and more like the timeline plot was just a cheap way of getting Star Trek fans to shut up and stop complaining about ignoring the original films. “They’re still part of the canon we’re using”, the filmmakers can say. ‘Look, here’s original Spock to tie everything together”. I really wish that they had just rebooted it. Even if in Into Darkness they had quietly ignored that there was two timelines and just changed what ever they wanted I might have been okay with that. Instead they specifically bring back Old Spock in this one just to point out that he faced Khan before. So Wrath of Khan is part of the back story to this and Khan is the same guy in both movies. In that case how did a Indian (who was played by a Mexican) turn into a British guy? And why does that scene with Old Spock even happen? I thought at first that they would do something interesting where Old Spock would warn them about how much of a bad guy he is but because of the different timeline he’s not that bad and it would create tension. Nope. He’s just a bad guy. So, what? Spock was just there to point out to the audience that Khan is from the older movies?
There is a lot of this movie that only seems to work if you know Wrath of Khan. I used to always point at Trek 09 as being one of the best examples of how to do references/call backs. Every reference in that movie works if you haven’t seen any Trek beforehand. The reference itself is a second layer if you happen to get it. This one acts like we should already care about who Khan is. His reveal is played like it’s a big moment for no reason. And then there’s the ending which this time has Kirk sacrificing his life in place of Spock. He dies and then five minutes later he’s brought back. Why even bother to kill him off at all? They seem to have just doesn’t it because Wrath of Khan did it but without any of the depth. Along the way Spock screamed out ‘KHAAAAAAAAAN’. Why? Because Kirk shouted it out in Wrath of Khan and it’s well known so yeah, fuck it, lets just shoehorn it in here too.
I know this might sound really nit-picky but all I felt watching the movie was that this is the movie equivalent of offering someone cake and then throwing it on the floor. I mean, they are still free to enjoy it as long as they don’t mind having to eat like an animal. Are they going to keep doing this? Is there going to be one where they have a plot involving whales in the future? They have a whole universe to play with! Why even re-tread anything at all? God forbid we might see something new.
I've seen people defend the movie by talking about how if you ignore all the stupid stuff Abrams is still able to put together a decent set piece but I don't even care anymore. There was one part that could have been cool where they do a space jump but they already did one in the last movie so it's not even original.
Another major problem was Alice Eve. Not her, but how she was treated. She is seemingly only in the movie for two reasons. One, there is a character in Wrath called Carol Marcus so of course they’re going to shove someone with that name in there. Also she strips down to her underwear FOR NO REASON AT ALL. Okay, I do know the reason, it’s so they could put it in the trailer. UGH.
Edit: Damon Lindelof acknowledged this issue on twitter last night and said he'd be more careful about this sort of thing in the future.
I have other issues too, the majority of the crew are sidelined just to focus on Spock and Kirk but even then they’re not really developed any more than they were in the last one. Also the end got a bit confusing because I thought they were far from Earth but then they fell to earth? That might have just been me zoning out though. I was sick of the movie by that point.
When they first announced the new Star Wars movies I was kinda looking forward to them because I liked the idea of there being fresh blood but now I’m absolutely dreading them. JJ Abrams doesn’t even like Star Trek and he ruined this movie by shoving in a bunch of stuff fans were familiar with. God only knows what he’ll do with a series he’s been obsessed with since he was a kid.
