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Review: Star Trek: Into Darkness
Spoiler level: minor. This review contains character and actor names and a couple references to scenes without going into their content.
Let’s get this out of the way up front: Star Trek: Into Darkness is a very entertaining film, and you will probably enjoy it.
Into Darkness hits the ground running, quickly reintroducing the rebooted crew and the Enterprise in all its glory. The opening act reminds us of everything we like about the 2009 Star Trek; snappy dialog, direct references to important parts of the original TV show, and cinematography that shows off the power, grace, and majesty of a Federation starship. It also highlights many of the differences between classic Trek and Abrams Trek.
In Abrams Trek, everything is fast. Kirk runs fast, Spock talks fast, crewmembers are always scrambling about the bridge and engineering at top speed, and as soon as a decision is made, action is taken. Tension and conflict arises with immediacy, and is resolved at the same pace. In Abrams Trek, no screentime is wasted. If a section of dialog is a bit technobabbley or it’s just providing background, something shiny will appear to keep your eyes and your attention engaged. In Abrams Trek, the lens flare deserves its own billing. Oh my, the lens flare.
But the big question about the Abrams films, both in 2009 and 2013, is: are they Star Trek? It’s a complicated issue, but one that's worth answering to fans of the various Trek TV series. Let's start by answering a somewhat simpler question: are they sci-fi? Not really. They fit the Hollywood definition of sci-fi — after all, they're flying spaceships and talking to aliens — but of course sci-fi is more than that. It's about ideas; it's about taking some part of life and changing it, then seeing what happens as a result. That's why Leguin, Dick, and Vonnegut are celebrated as sci-fi writers alongside Bradbury, Asimov, and Niven.
Into Darkness and the 2009 Star Trek before it aren't about ideas. They're unrepentantly character-driven. They're space operas. Perhaps more importantly, they're action films. I say this not to be exclusionary, but so we can evaluate in the proper context: as a Trek-themed action movie, Into Darkness is fantastic.
But Trek isn't about action (space opera, sometimes — action, no). It has certainly incorporated action; Kirk didn't get the reputation for always having a torn shirt for nothing. But in the TV shows, the action was punctuation; it was the set-up to the plot, or a way to resolve it once a moral issue had been defeated. In Day of the Dove, we were constantly shown fight scenes, but their purpose was to show the exaggerated hatreds of the characters, and to set up the we-must-work-together ending. And let's be clear: Abrams Trek isn't the first time the movie franchise departed toward action, either. Star Trek 2, widely regarded as the best of the films, was certainly a space opera, and you could make the case that it's an action film. The last three Next Generation films tried to be action films and failed. Abrams Trek tries and succeeds.
So, is it Trek? Well, it doesn't pass the sci-fi test, but let's look at the characters. Christopher Pine's Kirk is an exaggeration of Shatner's Kirk. All the characteristics of Shatner's Kirk are present in Pine's Kirk, but magnified tremendously. On the TV show, Kirk had a reputation as a womanizer. In Abrams Trek, Kirk is shown waking up in bed with space-babes and hitting on almost every female he comes in contact with. A lot of times it's for comedic effect, and succeeds at being funny, but it also feels like a caricature. Zachary Quinto's Spock felt much more natural to me this time around, in some ways. He pulls off Vulcan stoicism well. The only downside is that his emotional control feels like a simple prop; he maintains his facade until the writers need to show how important some event is, then it breaks.
The other familiar crew members each get a brief moment in the spotlight, but the limitations of a two-hour movie prevent any significant depth. Bones exists to crack jokes and repeat his catchphrases. Chekov exists to run around looking overwhelmed. Scotty exists to solve whatever problem is keeping the plot from moving forward. Simon Pegg's Scotty is still jarring, to me. His role as comic relief doesn’t mesh well with my perception of Scotty. (People unfamiliar with the original series probably wouldn't notice, or care; he is funny.) Doohan's Scotty was funny sometimes, but not in such an intentional way. It seems odd to have that character cracking wise. Sulu's screentime is brief, but it's good.
The one character I truly lament is Uhura, though not because of any complaint with Saldana. She serves to highlight one huge difference between Abrams Trek and classic Trek: Abrams Trek is a guy-movie. The majority of Uhura's role in Into Darkness is to be Spock's love-interest. She has one brief moment of being her own person, showing her own strengths — and (very minor spoiler) she fails and has to be rescued by men. Aside from Uhura, there's only one other significant woman character in the film, and her main purpose is to be both eye-candy and a bargaining chip for the men. In fact, thinking back, I'm pretty sure Into Darkness fails the Bechdel test. It bothers me that this happens in a Star Trek film. One of Trek's driving principles is a future of equality; a future free of the sexism and racism and classism we deal with today. It's not always an easy thing to write into a story, especially one limited to two hours — but we should at least try.
But let's step back to the more mundane aspects of the film, for a moment. The visuals are absolutely stunning. The alien planets, outer space, and a futuristic Earth are all fascinating to see. More importantly, Abrams shows us the Enterprise as we've always wanted to see her. Whether it's tearing off into high warp, diving through the atmosphere of a planet, or having the hull torn open by phaser fire, the ship looks amazing. The inside looks amazing, too — engineering looks much more like the belly of an enormously complex spacecraft than ever before. The special effects budget was well spent. ...Mostly. Abrams is known for his use of lens flare, but rather than toning it back, it seems like he's doubling down on that reputation. There are also a few action sequences where camera shaking and flashes of light get a bit excessive. I get that moving the camera really fast around a completely CGI environment helps to mask the imperfections, but there are times where you'll know a whole lot is going on without being exactly sure what. I'd happily take a slightly-less-crazy chase scene if I can get a clear look at it.
The scoring is solid. Into Darkness takes its main theme from the 2009 movie, with a few improvements. It doesn't get in the way. The acting is generally fine, as well. The regulars are more comfortable in the roles; this time around, they're playing themselves as much as they’re playing the original crew. Benedict Cumberbatch brings his talent to a leading role, and he does well with what he was given, but he could have been utilized better. His character exists in two modes — complete stillness and furious action. There’s very little in between, and I think that middle-ground is where Cumberbatch thrives, as on BBC's Sherlock. Still, his character made a far more compelling opponent for Kirk than 2009's Nero.
There were a few points where the acting did strike a discordant note for me. To explain why, I'm going to step back for a moment and discuss one of the major themes of the Star Trek reboot. J.J. Abrams and the others running the show constantly use aspects of the original show — props, plots, attitudes, and characters — to inform the reboot. However, they’re very, very consistent about re-interpreting all of those aspects. Everything is close enough to be familiar, but different enough seem new. In most cases, it works; new phasers just look better than old phasers. New Spock is different from Old Spock, but not in a bad way. In Into Darkness, we meet a familiar alien race, and the re-interpretation makes them feel a bit alien again. But it doesn't always work, and this leads me back to the acting. Without spoiling the content, there are a few scenes that are much more direct adaptations of old Star Trek scenes than we saw in the 2009 movie. It is a really interesting and cool concept, but the execution felt very odd, for me. I'll try to describe it: knowing how the scene was "supposed" to go, it felt as though the actors were trying to recreate it, but failing. Obviously, this is not the case; it was clearly planned, scripted, and shot with painstaking care, until they got exactly what they wanted. Still, the similarity hit an uncanny valley between original and re-interpretation. Fortunately for most viewers, anyone who isn’t much of a Trek fan isn't likely to notice or care.
As a long-time Trek fan, Star Trek: Into Darkness occupies a conflicted spot in my mind. At the most basic level, I went to a movie and really enjoyed it. I don't regret the $10 I spent on it, and I suspect most people would feel the same. At the same time, I'm a bit troubled by the direction the franchise is taking. There are a whole generation of kids who are now growing up with a very different perception of Star Trek than I did. To them, it's going to be just another Transformers-style action flick with no lasting importance. There's none of the idealism, optimism, or broadmindedness that was inherent to classic Trek. It's not hard to see why that is; stories like that are much harder to tell on the silver screen, and even when done well, they don't make as much money. They're much better suited to episodic TV. Unfortunately, if we see a new Trek TV series (more likely: when we see a new Trek TV series), you can bet it will be done in the style of the Abrams reboot, and I worry that the true sci-fi stories and the thought-provoking allegories will be subsumed by over-the-top action and relentless special effects. At the same time, I think some Trek is better than no Trek, and the two Abrams films make a better legacy for the franchise than Insurrection and Nemesis. I almost envy non-Trek-fans for not having to resolve the conflict of What Trek Is versus What Trek Isn't.
Bottom line: go see it.
i prefer the older star treks. didn't care for the last one by Abrams and not seeing the others.
Yep. He was there.
characters, plot, action, blah blah blah. What I really want to know is: did they reverse the polarity of the bussard collectors and bring to warp a tachyon beam?
If I wanted to watch attractive, young people doing exciting things, I'd watch sports.
You're trying to claim that the original StarTrek wasn't a chauvinistic, womanising series in which Uhura was portrayed as an independant woman?
Seriously... What?
You can many points about how this differs from the original StarTrek, but that sure as hell isn't one of them.
Personally, I think this StarTrek is probably the most StarTrek that StarTrek has been in a long time.
Very thoughtful, and respectful of the original series. The treatment of women was mixed in the original series, but I always looked forward to an Uhuru, Nurse Chapel, or Yeoman Rand story, because they were more than sex objects. Heck, even when being treated as sex objects (e.g., Plato's Stepchildren), there were depths to it beyond the obvious.
"Ahh! I see you're in that indeterminate Schrodinger state where - oh, uh
I think it's an interesting comment about the women in the film.
This is one of only a handful of sci-fi movies that many of my female friends and acquaintances have actually enjoyed recently. I've received so many good reviews of it from women that I was hesitant to go and see it myself because I thought it was going to be too targeted towards the female audience.
Soulskill (i'm presuming) is a guy, so I find it interesting that you're offended on their behalf and yet a lot of women don't seem to mind it at all.
Note that I'm passing no judgement there, it's just an interesting observation for me.
See "The Wrath of Khan" instead.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Aren't you supposed to put "Sponsored Post" on a blatant advertisement like this?
Science Fiction is always rooted in what it means to be human. Usually by exposing something that is not human, and trying to make sense of it. Its about making you think.
Star Wars does not do that. It is fantasy happening in space. Abrams will do a great job with that franchise. To be honest, I hope the next Star Trek series is a long time coming (if its too soon, we'll get the Abrams treatment - which would suck), so we can go back to the best of Trek : true science fiction with multiple plots going on in a single episode.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
* Action for its own sake
* Characters are plot devices instead of people
* Women as second class characters
* Plot holes you could fit a dyson sphere through (ok, this is just because I wanted to write "dyson sphere")
* etc. etc.
It it not Trek. An apt description of the script would be .... into darkness.
That said, the movie is full of action and shiny distractions so it does have some entertainment value.
I found the first one unwatchable due to all the fake lens flares that were artificially inserted. Is this one any easier on the eyes? I'm really hesitant to see it.
There's a very easy way to avoid all sorts of "conflict[s] of What Trek Is versus What Trek Isn't" - don't watch it.
That this movie wsa total crap. Flame away
I'll wait until it's on Netflix.... "Generic Sci-Fi Action Thriller" just isn't something I'm willing to pay to see in the theaters. Not worth the time or money.
I would rather have no Trek for ~20-ish years than bad Trek. Bad Trek lowers the standards and takes a shit on the legacy of TOS, TNG, DS9, etc..
IMHO The best two of the "Main Universe" movies were Wrath of Khan and First Contact. Both had a lot of tense action and fantastic (for the time) special effects, but they still had fantastic writing and plots that included ethical and moral dilemmas as well as emotional ones. That, to me, is what a good Star Trek movie should strive to do.
I was hmmm-ing and hawww-ing over the 2009 movie, right up to that point, beyond which I started throwing things at the screen and demanding my money back.
I seriously doubt I'll see this new atrocity in the theatre. I may just wait for someone else to rent it so I don't have to pay a penny. J.J. Abrahms and associates make pretty good television shows (liked Fringe very much) but I am dubious at best about their movies.
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
The Star Trek movie, although it may have been a financial success, was a failure in several key areas, like believable physics (Red matter?), faithfulness to Trek canon (Spock and Uhura? Spock is mated to T'Pring), cinematography (lens flare overkill), and most especially, franchise continuity (it's been four years, where's the new TV series? We should be waiting on the third movie by now)
JJ may have made a popular movie, but it wasn't Trek, and it wasn't a successful reboot.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Too bad Spike Milligan never made a star trek movie. It would be more interesting.
-- science fiction is defined so narrowly that pretty much the only thing that qualifies is technical documentation;
-- old guys whine about the "perversion" of Star Trek into some sort of "jocky action film"
-- People miss the fucking point by 3 country miles.
News flash: Star Trek was never as good as you remember. It was never about "ideas," it was never "sci fi" in the narrow definition presented above, it was never NOT a caricature, and the reason it was never "cool" is because it was a plodding, meandering mess with shitty dialogue and poor production values.
If you don't like the new movies, that's fine, but stop pretending like the old Star Trek was some sort of masterpiece. It wasn't. The fact that geeks like it is more a testament to its imaginative world building than to its rigorous scientific accuracy, devotion to ideas, or fair & balanced treatment of characters. Maybe the reason you liked the boring old series so much and can derive no joy from a departure from the original formula is because you're boring, too.
And full disclosure: I watched the original & tng, and have seen most of the movies. I'm quite familiar with Star Trek, and I always enjoyed it - but I never reached the level of zealous worship apparently required to be a "fan." Christ, people. Get a grip. It was fine entertainment, but it was far from perfect, and wasn't as good as you like to remember it - that's nostalgia at work.
No doubt, the 2009 Trek reboot was rollicking good action fun with a bit of insider snark thrown in. What I've never understood, though, is how Spock managed to turn out so differently - clearly the "new" Spock has little control over his emotions, and apparently, little desire to control them. It was always that tension that made the half-breed human more human than the real humans in some circumstances. And although the new Kirk is a bit over the top, he was always meant to be - Roddenberry intended him as an exaggerated Horatio Hornblower. (And, to the point of the reviewer, StarTrek was deliberately intended as a "space opera" twist on the "horse opera" genre - he pitched the show to network execs as ""Wagon Train" to the stars"...)
Although I enjoyed the original, the idea of the Spock/Uhura lustfest just doesn't work for me at all. (First of all, did Uhura happen to just fall into Spock's seventh year rutting season? We'll never know, apparently....)
Anyway, it seems Spock's lust handily outstrips his logic, and we're left with the most improbably romance in history. (In the immortal words of the Trek take-off Galaxy Quest (which may well be the best "StarTrek" movie yet), "That's just *wrong*...)
"The future's good and the present is nothing to sneeze at." - Roblimo's last
At least 4 of those guys in the last photo die at the beginning.
I haven't seen Into Darkness but a lot of this review covered what was painfully realized in the first movie: no longer is Trek about philosophy, ethics, tolerance, gray areas and real world problems. It's mostly absolute good versus absolute evil. I think the driving force behind the bad guy in the first movie was largely a misunderstanding ... which is incredibly boring. His motivation was confusingly laughable.
Unsurprisingly I'm pretty sure I heard JJ Abrams tell Jon Stewart that "he never liked Star Trek" on The Daily Show. Well, now he's had a chance to kill it by turning it 100% into a modern day blockbuster action flick and shirking any attempt to tackle an interesting philosophical or ethical dilemma as the main plot. As the modern reemergence of comic book and super hero movies have shown, those films are a dime a dozen that anyone can do. Tackling something deeper while still holding our attention is the hard part. The Watchmen was a good candidate for it but fell short. I'm sure JJ Abrams would rather cover up the complicated parts that question good versus evil with another lens flare.
My work here is dung.
sci-fi is more than that. It's about ideas; it's about taking some part of life and changing it, then seeing what happens as a result.
So this movie count as science fiction. Took something i enjoyed in life, like the philosophy of Star Trek (i'd say, most of the series had plenty of it) and changed it to a mindless action flick. Some transmutations could turns lead into gold, but others go in the other direction.
Abrams daily show interview is all I needed to understand to stay away from this movie.
To be successfull you must fully whore yourself to the mass market and keep those action and cgi dials to maximum at all times. I pass.
"It's a movie with all the same strengths and weaknesses of its predecessor, and if it worked before, it'll work again."
It is nothing of the sort. They went a long way toward throwing away the tremendous gains of the 2009 "new" Start Trek movie.
The first movie took great pains to give them a brand NEW Star Trek world with all the possibilities that implies. It breaks all necessary ties with the past, and gave them a new start.
So what did they do? They made the second movie a blatant derivative of "The Wrath of Khan".
With all that possibility, they came close to throwing it all away. As it is, it was WAY too similar to that other Khan movie.
Pardon me, but I go to movies to see new things. This wasn't it. My rating: FAIL.
Ok, I admit it, I'm an old fart (53). Grew up with the "classic" version of ST, seen them all, pretty much have them all memorized. When Next Gen came out, watched it, for the most part enjoyed it. DS9, watched it, didn't really care for it. Voyager, watched 1 season, didn't care for it. Enterprise, watched it, LOVED it, but networks....you know how they are. I've seen all the movies, including the reboot in 09. As for the new one, yes, I'll see it. Not cause I'm devoted to one version or the other, but because it's an action movie, it's summer, and it takes your mind off the "real" world, if only for a couple hours.
and revitalized the Star Trek franchise, which had languished for 7 years without a new film and 4 years without a TV presence
..has been fixed by yet another remake of the same old.
Seriously! Does anyone make original stuff anymore. Last night I saw and ad for Johnny Depp as Tonto in the fucking Lone Ranger!
Hey! I have an idea, let's remake Gone With The Wind with Reese Witherspoon. Then we can enjoy a remake of Metropolis with Who Gives-a-fuck.
Write something new! Make up your own fantasy FFS!
It's a nice children's movie.
"SO we bide our time, waiting for a purer kick to bloom and the future is still bleak, uncertain and beautiful" -GSYBE
The only thing worse than the original Star Drek series is this epic fail created by JJ "Lens Flare" Abrams. If you enjoy any of his movies, congratulations. You are a fucking retard. Seriously. Try watching some REAL movies for a fucking change.
Star Trek Into Darkness => Kirk Dates Nonstarters
A gay Spock! Naw, that's not the issue. I probably won't watch it until it hits the $7.00 Wal-Mart bin.
You know what did it? The actual preview! When they showed the scene where Spock is telling them to let him die 'cause
the needs of the many out-weigh the needs of the one/few, complete bull-stuff!!! Think about it - they don't want to interfere
but yet they're there to interfere by stopping the volcano. How do they know letting the volcano blow wouldn't ultimately be
the best thing? Look at humans - if that rock hadn't hit Earth 65 M years ago, Barney would rule the planet today. There
is a (fictional) valid reason for stopping the rock from hitting the Earth, in which case we wouldn't be here.
Logic wouldn't allow that! Actually, the new Superman looks like it might pretty good. IM3 was okay, but I'm still trying to
figure out if there was an actual story/plot/point. Should've just adopted the kid - not like he doesn't have the bucks...
Christ, people. Get a grip. It was fine entertainment, but it was far from perfect, and wasn't as good as you like to remember it - that's nostalgia at work.
I mean, how old are you people? What have you done with yourselves? ... have you ever kissed a girl?
This film has been out on general release for 8 days already!
JJ Abrams is a Star.. TRAITOR.
He's not even a fan of star trek! And now he's doing the star wars movies!
http://www.theonion.com/articles/hes-dead-to-us-jim,32408/
If Khan is the new villain (and dispatched, note: haven't seen the movie yet), and Vulcan the planet is destroyed; where will Kirk and the crew be so that they are not stranded on Earth when the Whale Probe (from Star Trek IV : The Voyage Home) comes calling. In the reboot, there are still no humpback whales on Earth. And thinking about it, Spock wont be killed requiring them to go to the Genesis planet and get exiled to Vulcan.
If you're only going to look for what wasn't progressive, then you're going to be able to find it.
HOWEVER
1) Women did have genuine roles other than T&A
2) Wanted a mixed race kiss onscreen
3) Often too the "What if it were different" theme and really ran with it to check out what about the current society we had was absolutely batshit nuts.
This barrage of on-your-knees, head-bobbing, knob-slobbing positive reviews is not to be trusted. JJ Abrams is on record stating he doesn't like TOS, and thinks that ST is too cerebral. One could argue that every ST, movie or series, to be flawed in one way or another. Yet, they all stand in a different category from the reboot in that the reboot discards the underlying principles that made pre-Abrams ST worthy of attention in the first place.
Big booms, pretty colors! Generic summer 'splosions, woot. Abrams will deliver plenty of that. An aspirational ethical perspective? Not so much.
Why do people keep saying that JJ Trek 1 was a good movie? No, no it wasn't. Ignore whether it was Trek or not. Ignore whether it was SciFi or not. It was a bad movie. The casting was great (except for Chekov), the performances were great. The sets were... like watching how Apple would design something...
But the plot. Ugh. The entire time I was thinking about how I saw that exact scene in some other movie. Hey, JJ, you know the Spinning Blades of Doom (TM)? Yeah, Galaxy Quest was making fun of you with that, not encouraging you. Sure, make Kirk the youngest CO ever. I'm cool with that. Right up until, apparently, there's not a single officer on the entire ship... except for Spock... and you can just bring up his mommy issues to take command.
I'm not a Trekkie. This isn't about not liking how things are now. I find much of Old Trek to be unwatchable. That was just a crap movie, and I saw absolutely nothing to make me want to watch this new one, and every reason to just skip it.
Pass.
I think the comparison between the Star Trek of Today and the Star Trek of yesteryear is vastly unfair. The world of today is very different. The original Star Trek was set in a time that was practically before manned spaceflight; The concepts of space travel as well as technology were new except to the select few original nerds and geeks that read sci-fi by the masters or followed comic books. If the original Star Trek did anything it was to try and bring these ideas of technology and space flight to the masses. Some of the ideas are rather anachronistic and taken from old westerns, don't get me wrong it's great stuff. It also dealt with some social issues of the day, which was pretty common back in the day for classic sci-fi. Now everyone knows about technology and spaceflight nothing really wows anyone so it's really pointless to try and push that button; people are pretty jaded. Westerns are gone, for the most part anyway, and most of those concepts are long gone and if you tried to make a series with those concepts people would probably laugh and think it was kitsch. The awesome thing about the reboots is that it brings back to life for today's generation and it IS more of a space soap opera but that is what is popular today, like westerns were at the time of the original trek, and to bring people in you have to film something that is marketable and sell-able. If you want to see something classic like Star Trek, go watch the masters; the original crew, love those guys. I love the new crew as well, their just freaking awesome; I just realize that this is a different time and a different world. Besides I wouldn't want a line for line reboot anyway, I want to see something new.
...one way or another.
Even The Final Frontier gets a free pass on account of that "What does God need with a starship?" scene.
Nemesis is just... bad.
So bad in fact that after that they stopped making Star Trek movies.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
This, to plus six moderation, please.
And, disagreeing with the original review, Wrath of Khan was ***not*** the "Best" Star Trek movie. It was the Most Popular/Profitable (measured by domestic and worldwide box office to production cost), because of the same reasons that 2009 and Into Darkness were/are popular. Dare I say, REAL Trek was never about Popular - just enough to survive on.
For my money, Undiscovered Country. That movie had the action, adventure, humor ("Not everyone keeps their genitals in the same place..." "I believe I would say.... go to hell.... if I were human....") and ideals that were understandable and after conflict become brightly shining. And Captain Sulu, who might have been able to carry the legacy of TOS forward.
And I cannot see how one could be conflicted about Into Darkness' trek-ness without lumping 2009 into the same category. It will just be more of the same, without Nimoy.
Yes, I'll go see it. Yes, I'll hope. Yes, I'm prepared to be entertained by a movie. ("Are you NOT entertained?" uh, well, i suppose...) And yes, I'm fully prepared to realize that Trek isn't Trek anymore, and the world should be mourning it. Maybe it could never be again, especially after Enterprise, the final season of which became Trek again after trying every other fracking-popular-scifi-show-trope on and was killed for it.
But I can hope that watching JJ will become old and the fad will fade.... and then the next generations Nick Meyer can come along and give us our Trek again.
What Abrams did with the Star Trek Franchise was use all young/beautiful actors to portray the characters, use modern movie special effects, and take away most of the science that was usually the hallmark of the series (note: I said USUALLY) and replaced it with a lot of fast-paced action sequences. This may make the reboots "Cool" in the public consciousness but for me, the reboot was totally mindless and boring. I'll wait until the second movie in the reboot is available on Movie2K.com. That's right, I wouldn't even pay to see it on streaming video. I can't wait to see the disaster the JJ Abrams makes of the upcoming Star Wars trilogy, a la Disney. I'm sure I'll get down-modded by any ST-Reboot fanz here and I don't care. I like the old school ST...ST-TOS and ST-NG. Now, get off my lawn!
This movie and part of prior failed at basic science.
1) The ship is not a gaint beer factory with volumes of empty useless space between things. If you have leak there are no comaptments to stop the leak. See Titanic.
2) Build stairs to stairs to stairs show ship was not designed for use, but for only a movie.
3) Items inside of ship without power falling in planet's gravity well. Do not fall faster! You will not be runninng on the walls or sliding as it you are on a slide.
On another note...
1) A prefect human would have good teath.
2) An Asian 1990s charcter is not a white english guy.
3) Charcter of strong controled though - does not run in croward, does not fight stupily after controled battling, basicly being to opposite of his character.
Lastly...
The Golden Gate Bridge does not go east and west, nor is visual in fine detail from transamerica building! At least the real Start Trek gets that right.
Okay so I just read the wiki page on the Bechdel test, and now I'm wondering if any episode/film of the Star Trek franchise has ever passed it ... EVER. I mean even in Voyager I imagine if Janeway was talking to Kes or B'Elanna it was probably about Neelix or Paris. Maybe Janeway + Seven of Nine convos? But then can we really consider Seven of Nine's character to be a woman in the sense intended by the Bechdel test?
I don't think it's a matter of how Abrams' Trek compares unfavorably to the scientific and philosophical "Old Trek". This is not an entirely accurate characterization of Old Trek, and completely ignores the substantial difference between Old Trek and Middle Trek. Whereas Original Kirk often resolved things with a directed phaser burst or clunky fight scene, the series of the Berman era, starting with ST:TNG, went too far the other way, preferring to move the plot forward with endless meetings and discussions and existential crisis and long meaningful stares. (Side note, I think this was primarily because meetings are cheaper to film than fight scenes, but feel free to disagree.) This is where the technobabble reached a peak, as babbling nonsense to get out of a predicament is viewed as somehow more cerebral than kicking ass. Or actually coming up with a plausible predicament with a plausible solution.
And as we know, Berman's Super Talking Trek eventually collapsed in upon itself. Personally, I've seen every single episode of TOS several times, but I stopped watching each of TNG, DS9, and Voyager before they played out. And I only ever saw perhaps four episodes of Enterprise. (Of which, one was the arguably decent follow-on to "mirror mirror".) Why? Because with a few exceptions, it was boring as hell. The same endless discussions scored by the same eight bars of cello and viola until you want to claw your eyes out. It was an exercise in frustration.
I submit that Abrams' trek was meant as a direct counter to the Super Talking Trek of the Berman era. It's not necessarily TOS reinterpreted as a space opera, because, let's face it, a lot of TOS *was* space opera, just with less money and lower technology. Abrams' Trek takes the action qualities of TOS and gives it a huge boost of technology and caffeine, without losing sight of TOS beginnings: Horatio Hornblower in space. I haven't seen Into Darkness yet, but noticed the "wooden ships and iron men" feel to the battle scenes in the trailer, which Previous Trek had seldom been able to convey. I really don't have a problem with that.
But the lens flare, that has to go. What idiot thought that up?
I mean really, if Roddenberry and Coon and Fontana and the rest had access to something that looked like a decent space suit and the ability to film EVAs and descents into volcanos and small vehicles dogfighting in space, and the Enterprise in atmosphere, don't you think they would have used them?
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
I am not a fan, but nevertheless i did like the previous Star Tek movie. This one......it was boring. At some point i was about to ask, where is the alien enemy!!! Where is the fight? Where is the ACTION?
Wrath of Khan...the best Star Trek movie, to date...even though the special effects are 30 years out of date. Get off my lawn!
When was Trek EVER "about philosophy, ethics, tolerance, gray areas and real world problems?"
Seriously, what fucking alternate universe did you watch Star Trek in?
I guess you never watched TOS or NG. Episodes brought to light issues that paralleled the prevailing topics of the time such as racism, transgender, homosexuality, bi-racial relationships, the cold war, what defines humanity, etc, etc, etc.
Also ... Deanna Troy anyone? Space Opera / United Federation of Planets Star Trek is all well and good but to imply that it's ever been very progressive on the gender equality front is ludicrous.
Uh no. I won't enjoy this film as I value my eyesight. WTF is wrong with JJ Drunk?
The Trek reboot was a summer blockbuster and little more. I was entertained by it; even while being deeply disappointed. It squandered a relatively unique opportunity; played to the masses, and made a mint. From one perspective it is exactly what a movie should do. It wasn't the movie I wanted (but perhaps the movie I deserved...said in gravelly voice), but no one was obligated to make the movie I wanted.
That being said, it is a shame from my perspective. The reboot offered Abrams one of the most fertile story franchises in human history on a platter. It offered a chance to blend action, wit, science, a little sex appeal, commentary on the human condition, and special effects together in a package with a guaranteed viewership. It offered the chance to take a risk and make something great. Instead the film played it safe, and I suspect it will go down in history as meh.
ok
JJ Abrams tell Jon Stewart that "he never liked Star Trek" on The Daily Show. Well, now he's had a chance to kill it by turning it 100% into a modern day blockbuster action flick and shirking any attempt to tackle an interesting philosophical or ethical dilemma as the main plot. As the modern reemergence of comic book and super hero movies have shown, those films are a dime a dozen that anyone can do. Tackling something deeper while still holding our attention is the hard part. The Watchmen was a good candidate for it but fell short. I'm sure JJ Abrams would rather cover up the complicated parts that question good versus evil with another lens flare.
Where are the mod points when you need them? You hit the problem squarely on the head with the JJ Abrams reboots. Star Trek has been reduced to an action flick. Something that will be forgotten in a month. A lot of action, pretty visuals, with a big fat void in the middle. I've seen both now and they are utterly forgettable.
In case anyone is interested, here's the link to the NPR review of 'Into Darkness'. That reviewer seems to echo this review's sentiments pretty closely; it's different from the old Star Trek, and doesn't have much thought to it, but is entertaining nonetheless.
I admittedly haven't seen a whole lot of TOS, but yes, those are exactly what much of TNG is about. It's nowhere near perfect, but it tried.
The Enterprise poops out sparkly magic dust when it goes to warp, what's up with that? Is it supposed to be like tinkerbell? Is Disney buying Star Trek next? I'm going back to reading books.
This isn't a review of the latest movie. Its just a rehash of the same arguments everyone had when the 2009 movie came out. News flash: its still not like the old trek you (think?) you knew and loved. Its still just an action movie in space. It still has lens flare. Its made by the same guy so why would you expect it to be any different?
If you do like action movies in space, Into Darkness is an excellent movie. Personally I found it very entertaining and worth the ticket price. (Although I thought the "KHAAAAN!!" moment was weak sauce compared to the original.)
I haven't liked anything Abrams or his writing team has done, so I see no reason to expect anything better with this. If someone who didn't like the last film said this one was worth watching I would be interested in their take, but so far most people have said this one isn't as good at the last, which I did feel cheated for having paid $3 to see in a second run theater.
As some point people have to stop seeing films because of nostalgia. Only through refusing to support hollywood's drek can we expect to see renewed interest in original stories, intersting and clever plots, and character development.
Mine, AC.
Like all good science-fiction, Star Trek -- even in its original 1960s incarnation -- confronted topics of the day like racism (the black/white people) or class-ism/able-ism (the psychokinetic pseudo-Greek civilization). It explored the human condition. Yes, there was action, but it was just a component of good storytelling. Watch a season of ST:DS9 and you'll see that most of it is about the characters and how they relate to the circumstances around them. It's not just about firing phasers at bad guys. Sometimes the good guys are shown to be not so good after all, and ditto for the bad guys.
Koans and fables for the software engineer
Ow My Balls isn't just a funny show from the future, it's a commentary on the direction of entertainment in general. The audience is getting dumber and the investors are following them into the abyss. The contemporary American can't be bothered with questions of morality that come from other Treks, like whether an android is sentient or deserves the right of self-determination, or whether holographic forms can be considered "life". Shit man! There are lens flares and explosions to look at. Fuck that nerd shit.
Hey, that's Sherlock Holmes!
You are welcome on my lawn.
I would challenge the name 'science fiction' and say neither star trek is sci fi. What we know as Science Fiction I think was mislabeled and became a term to describe an exploration of humanity. Shouldn't the original star trek be more appropriately referred to as 'Sociological Fiction' . Science Fiction should just apply to stories exploiting science which to me would describe a movie about MacGyver. discuss :)
Note the security officers escorting the villain in the picture here...
ALL men.
Because, you need BIG STRONG ARMS to pull the trigger on a recoil-less phaser rifle.
I guess if a woman had been in the security detail, the villain wouldn't have escaped and the movie would have ended too quickly.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
Of course, JJ hates ST, he's needs to bash it so he can make Star Wars look good.
I mean complex story lines is not his specialty, a bunch of simple misunderstandings and keeping hidden/secret information is his talent. And non-complex storyline/topics, a lot of action, a lot of drama, a lot of SFX (re: len flares).... that IS Star Wars.
I can already predict what SW Ep.7 will be like.
Wait for the Into Darkness to turn up on TV or for a decent torrent.
It's a waste of time and money and a bad copy of The Wrath of Khan.
Spoilers from here on.
TWOK's Khan is the big bad from the moment you see him but he manages to come off as tragic by the end.
A man drowning in his own hate. Also, quoting Melville helps.
ID's Cumberbatch can't decide if he's Superman, a cunning villain, an ally, the big bad, a tragic hero of another story...
He's all over the place and each iteration just makes him come off weaker and unfocused.
Shinzon at least revealed to be crazy and kept on being crazy after that.
Cumberbatch is cunning, then stoic, then threatening, then tragic, then friendly, then evil, then angry, then practical, then calm under pressure (beating actually), and apparently... happy and peaceful by the end.
Also, the "big reveal" is UTTERLY MEANINGLESS. He goes "I... AM... KHAN..." DUN-DUN-DUN.
And everyone is like... Yeah? So?
It takes I think an hour or so for Quinto to call up Leonard Nimoy so he could tell him "Oh... That guy is REALLY BAD."
By then, they've sent him with Pine on a suicide mission. What could possibly go wrong?
TWOK has the whole theme of friendship and growing old and rebirth...
ID barely acknowledges friendship between Pine and Quinto.
Instead Pine fucks catgirls and has long talks with Bruce Greenwood - so there'd be something kinda like revenge as motivation for him to chase down Cumberbatch.
Except he's busy trying to shoot down Cumberbatch while Bruce Greenwood dies in Quinto's arms.
OK... let's say there's maybe guilt there. Guilt leads to anger, anger leads to...
So he tries to knock out Cumberbatch when they meet, fails miserably, keeps failing... making what is supposed to be a tragic moment of helplessness look funny.
Remember Joker taking over the control of the interrogation while Batman keeps pounding on him with his fists and achieving nothing?
You have nothing, nothing to threaten me with. Nothing to do with all your strength.
They missed that by a mile.
When did they remember the whole "I have been, and always shall be, your friend."?
At the very end, when they need it to show how they are best buddies - only without the setup it falls flat.
To be honest, they kinda tried it with that "Yo Vulcan-man, you know why I saved your life?" but they literally RAN away from that scene.
Can't have anything slowing down the movie. It's action non-stop.
Same goes for Pine's "discovery of responsibility". Utter failure.
Spock in TWOK takes responsibility. He puts on a radiation suit and carefully and by the book repairs the reactor.
The dude is there to do the job no one else can do, and he is the one in command. The one responsible for the ship and its crew.
What does Pine do? He rushes in, no protective clothing (See... it's not about him saving the SHIP... It's about HIM saving the ship.) - and then he proceeds to JUMP THE WARP CORE INTO ALIGNMENT.
He's literally jumping on the core.
http://i19.photobucket.com/albums/b169/urda002/jumpingOnTheCore_zps7756a36e.jpg
Again, drama turns into comedy.
Spock in TWOK is tearing your heart out, stumbling around blind from radiation, still trying to keep dignity he straightens up the uniform... the whole scene is heart-wrenching.
Pine in contrast is just... you know... dying.
So Pine tells Quinto he saved him cause they are... buddies, finishes Quinto and a single manly tear rolls down his cheek.
And then Pine is dead.
So Quinto could yell out "KHaaaan!"... into the air... And it feels lame.
He just does not seem angry enough, there or in the following scenes when he chases after Cumberbatch across San Francisco.
Which is a special brand of nonsense when they clearly have working transporters.
But the thing is... Chasing a meme (Khaaaan!
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Warning: some foul language ahead, and no, I do not advocate violence towards women. All right, then.
TOS was pretty good and the remasters are pretty cool to watch if for nothing other than how tacky they are. That being said, about half of the episodes are really, really cheesy. Some of the costumes are downright hilarious, like they raided the Hollywood studio equivalent of a Goodwill store. But hey, it's the original, and still quite watchable. We all know the characters, no need to go into that.
TNG was really very good in it's time, but I DARE you to watch it now. Wow, just horrific stuff. Bad acting, all the "men" have vaginas, way way overly PC, and the episodes flog you non-stop with the fucking morality angle. Ugh. Almost every actor way overacts, including Patrick Stewart, who is the star of the whole ordeal. He's excellent, if a little preachy and theatrical. But again, I just dare you to watch it.
DS9 is probably my favorite these days, as it's not too ancient, doesn't get too high & mighty, and the Ferengi presence makes for some good comedy. Still, the Bajor angle wears you down, and you just want to smack Kira around with her Bajor this Bajor that, Bajor...SHUT UP!!!!. You almost start rooting for the Cardassians. Sisko, and especially Quark and Garak steal the show. Keiko, Julian, and Odo are mostly annoying. The Cardassians are delightfully evil; I love me some Gul Dukat.
Voyager: Holy shit, this is a frickin' train-wreck in space. Like a train-wreck, it's a terrifyingly horrible thing to witness, but hard to look away. Being Trek, I have to watch it. It's really an unintentional comedy, and even watching it alone, I end up howling with laughter. Usually my dog will start biting me because I'm scaring the hell out of her as I'm doubled over in fits of laughter. You've got a helium addict for a captain (as I type this I'm laughing my ass off), the spastic half Klingon woman as the engineer, the 1st officer Tonto, the Hologram Doctor you just want to kick in the nuts he's so annoying, the Neelix cook dude (what the fuck is that?), and his Carol-Brady-hairdo sporting girlfriend playing the ???, fuck, I don't know what. This series is the very height of technobabble, and the plots and scripts are just downright ludicrous. I'm going to watch one after I post this, because they're funny as all hell.
Now there's Enterprise, which is pretty good actually. It takes a while to get rolling, and the last several episodes are for shit, but overall, it's pretty good as long as the T&A doesn't offend you: it's really blatant. The stars of this series are definitely the Vulcan science officer T'Pol's breasts and her ass, as this is what the camera is usually focused on. Could be worse. The doctor, Phlox, is excellent: actually, he's my favorite character. It's not without its share of annoying characters, however. Here we go: The WORST has got to be Hoshi, the Korean actress cast as a Japanese (of course) communication officer. At first you think: "Hey, at least she's kind of cute." But then the whining starts. And the pouting. Oh the pouting. Please just STOP IT, HOSHI. Ugh, she is such a bummer. Malcom, the security officer is OK sometimes, but definitely neurotic. Then the hotheaded engineer, who again, grows on you, but is mostly annoying. I liked Scott Bakula (for the most part) as the captain, but the fatal flaw is that NOBODY LISTENS TO HIM, and he rarely kicks their asses, electing to let it slide. Some really cool alien species show up here and there.
So, there's my take on the Star Trek series. Which should really be called Time Trek, because it seems half of the episodes are about time travel. I liked the 1st reboot for what it was (mindless action in space), but really people, ALL of the Trek iterations are pretty bad, so take off those rose tinted glasses and lighten up.
...they revive Pine about 5 action packed minutes after he dies. Filling him up with Cumberbatch juice.
So... Dying?
No biggie. Nobody has to die anymore.
Augment bloodTM baby.
Heals little dying girls AND brings back dead starship captains.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I don't think it's a matter of how Abrams' Trek compares unfavorably to the scientific and philosophical "Old Trek". This is not an entirely accurate characterization of Old Trek, and completely ignores the substantial difference between Old Trek and Middle Trek. Whereas Original Kirk often resolved things with a directed phaser burst or clunky fight scene, the series of the Berman era, starting with ST:TNG, went too far the other way, preferring to move the plot forward with endless meetings and discussions and existential crisis and long meaningful stares. (Side note, I think this was primarily because meetings are cheaper to film than fight scenes, but feel free to disagree.) This is where the technobabble reached a peak, as babbling nonsense to get out of a predicament is viewed as somehow more cerebral than kicking ass. Or actually coming up with a plausible predicament with a plausible solution.
I submit that Abrams' trek was meant as a direct counter to the Super Talking Trek of the Berman era. It's not necessarily TOS reinterpreted as a space opera, because, let's face it, a lot of TOS *was* space opera, just with less money and lower technology. Abrams' Trek takes the action qualities of TOS and gives it a huge boost of technology and caffeine, without losing sight of TOS beginnings: Horatio Hornblower in space. I haven't seen Into Darkness yet, but noticed the "wooden ships and iron men" feel to the battle scenes in the trailer, which Previous Trek had seldom been able to convey.
I agree that the different series of Trek had their different styles, and had their own, independent worth.
TOS - A middle aged, experienced, and aggressive Kirk, that uses his phaser, or mind,
TNG - the talking and meetings Star Trek.
DS9 - did permenance, and long term consequences well, especially for the first mirror universe episode.
Abram's Trek - the younger, even more aggressive Kirk. I saw the first, but not Into Darkness. If the inexperienced Kirk makes mistakes, and faces the consequences, I could take it as a Star Trek TV series.
Voyager, Enterprise, hypothetical "Captain Worf" - I pretend they don't exist.
I've been very much into Star Trek since I can remember. I have gone to conventions, and back when ToS was just Star Trek I could tell you every episode, and all the details behind them, and despite being pretty bad, I even like the odd numbered movies (Except V, that was terrible). I remember when TnG came out, there were similar complaints to what we are seeing now where people were complaining it wasn't Trek, not with the Captain crying and such. But people finally realized that Piccard was not Kirk. They were 2 different shows with 2 different crews set in 2 different times. We have the same thing here, while the character names are the same, the characters are different as you would expect from having different influences in their lives.
Many are complaining about the lack of Trekiness in the story. (Sorry, trying to be vague and drop too many spoilers.) In this movie I saw a Kirk hell bent on revenge as one might expect under the circumstances being questioned by his crew and then growing as a result of the influences of his crew. The crew faced moral dilemmas and positively influenced each other in the right direction. Kirk learned lessons that tempered his maverick nature, while Spock clearly let his human half out more. What the hell is not Trek about this?
In my honest opinion, there is a far greater chunk of people here in the world that just want to be entertained rather than think more than what they already do during their intense work days, Monday-Friday.
There is also the comfort factor. I believe I would be correct in stating that people tend to not like having their beliefs questioned or think about sensitive topics unless it's a horror movie or something like "The Dark Knight Rises".
That is what is going to sell. For example, I personally loved watching "Cloud Atlas", but it didn't do so well in the box office. Why? It had action and everything the geeks wanted! It failed because to the layman that isn't so great with science and likes to stick with reality, they got really confused throughout the movie. Meanwhile, whatever realistic RomCom or action flick was in theaters at the same time got more money.
Most people just simply want to be entertained. Us geeks that love to think all the time are in the minority.
SPOILERS
The spacing of the films -- every few years -- is supposed to be the opportunity for epic character and situational changes, for tragedy and redemption. Star Trek II-IV was an epic trilogy. Star Trek VI was kind of epic, due to the tie-ins to TNG and DS9. Star Trek VIII was epic. Star Trek 2009 was obviously epic.
The rest are just episodes -- everything gets resolved in a single movie with the universe completely unchanged. Star Trek VII was not epic even though Kirk died -- he didn't really die in a tragic way critical to the plot; he was just unceremoniously killed off. Plus it was a bad movie all the way around.
Thus, I liken Into The Darkness to Nemesis and Insurrection. It's just an episode.
I feel Abrams and the script writers were just rushed due to all the delays, and didn't have time to allow their collective creativity to be fully manifested.
Oh, it was a good movie. But it was an episode, not an epic.
Seriously, this movie was retarded.
Tribble experimentation and Khan's blood would cure Kirk?
Scotty just happening to stow away on the Vengeance?
Seriously, it was like a bad episode of Lost.
Just FYI for those who didn't see the History Channel show "Star Trek: Secrets of the Universe" that some of the engineering scenes were shot at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.
Here an article about it (link also on NIF home page): ‘Star Trek’ Boldly Goes to Unlikely Real-Life Locations
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
He's not killing Star Trek. Old episodes aren't deleted from peoples minds every time he makes a new one. What he's doing is a new version of Star Trek that doesn't have to do much with the original series besides names. Some people will like it, some people won't. Right there with you on the absolute good vs absolute evil thing. They could've thrown a couple of moral dilemas that didn't resort to the ol' switcheroo.
I hope this one is better....I had a hard time with the entire "The most advanced race, Vulcans, allow a drilling ship within range". How about, it should have been stopped at whatever planet is the outlier in that system...... This wasn't the Empire taking on Alderaan....This was the freaking Vulcans.... Next up, NYC allows a North Korean Trawler to go up the Hudson River without even so much as a Coast Guard Courtesy inspection.
Episodes brought to light issues that paralleled the prevailing topics of the time such as racism, transgender, homosexuality, bi-racial relationships, the cold war, what defines humanity [...]
And "Spock's Brain."
'nuff said.
"Sometimes the good guys are shown to be not so good after all, and ditto for the bad guys."
Bingo. Like the episode where that super soldier escapes and leads the Enterprise crew on a crazy chase. They catch him and are told he's a criminal. Really he's a veteran who was discarded after the war..... hmmmm sure that has no relevance to our world at all...............
Near the end of the flick we have a complete 'wrath of khan' ripoff, with Kirk in this movie taking the role of spock from wrath of kahn. We have quotes repeated verbatim "Don't go in there you'll flood the whole compartment", amoung others, and we have kirk running into certain death to manually physically manipulate the one thing the ship needs to 'get out of danger'. We have the dramatic moment back on the bridge where new spock is informed that he 'better get down here', and we have the death scene where kirk now irradiated lays near the door and talks to spock, complete with putting his hand up there and making the vulcan live long and prosper sign. I could go on, but this was just so embarrassingly bad stupid I can't belive they pulled this. AND, there was a "Kiiirrrkkk!" just like in wrath of kahn where kirk cursed kahn with the deafeing "KHHHAAANNN!!".
Oh, and wtf was that sequence with new spock talking to old spock? I like nimoy of course, but it was like one of those fantasy dream sequences you find in daytime television and added absolutly nothing of value to the film, and amplified my dissapointment at the blatant wrath of khan ripoff it'd turned into.
I support a reboot of trek, but remaking past films - and poorly at that - is not what it should be about.
how is there a discussion over whether parent is trolling?
this concerns me as a /. mod...
I know that when Hollywood is involved it brings out the fanboi bots but this is starting to get out of control.
Parent's post is exactly what a /. post should be. It takes a position, assumes a level of nerd-knowledge for the reader, is succinct, and has support for its claims.
heh...and of course he didn't reference TFA...so this is definitely not a 'troll' comment...
Alot of the comments claiming he is trolling however...some of those are PR bots...mods be aware
Thank you Dave Raggett
It's a shame this response was a short derogatory pissing contest. I would have eagerly read 3 pages of AC'S reasoning in an attempt to figure out at what point in his life he went off the rails. Seriously nobody gets it this wrong. And now i am left wanting.
What? You haven't seen Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey?
Their final showdown with De Nomolos is one of the few times I've seen someone use time travel properly.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
This review echos my thoughts very closely. Just saw the move today, and it is definitely entertaining. I, however, would not call this Star Trek. Gene Roddenberry had a vision of the future...but that vision is completely lost in these last two movies. Again, they are entertaining movies in their own right (indeed, they are 100% Hollywood...for all the good and the bad that that implies)...but I mourn for the loss of something that I felt was greater.
These movies, as well as the franchise, will do just fine, however.
Star Trek has a rating of 95% (94% with top critics) on Rotten Tomatoes. That puts it waaay up there. So if critic reviews are the "objective" measure, then it was very good. Or maybe we say "power to the people" and look at sales numbers. In that case it grossed $385 million, costing able $150 to make thus making it a success commercially. This is theatre numbers, not including rentals and DVD sales.
This also puts it over the gross for any other Star Trek movie, including the original motion picture, when adjusted for inflation. So by that "objective" measure it is also the best, since people spent the most on it in real dollars (meaning inflation adjusted).
As the parent says, it is fine not to like a movie. Your tastes are your tastes but stop trying to pretend like they are in any way, shape, or form "objective". They are subjective, that is what likes and dislikes are by definition. Particularly since if you put any numbers to it. Star Trek did really well. Film critics liked it, audiences liked it, that makes it good if you want to use metrics to define that.
Space: 1999 - TV intro (season 1) HQ (1975)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WZW4groJro
Seriously people. Go back inside to your basements and stop scrutinizing your lawns.
The problem isn't people not liking the movie, it is people hating on it, often without even seeing it, because they feel like they SHOULDN'T like it. It is similar to the hipster attitude: Star Trek can't be good because it's popular and popular can't be good. The Onion had a hilariously spot on piece on the first one called "Trekkies Bash New Star Trek Film As 'Fun, Watchable'." There was plenty of that happening. Trekkies hating on it as being "not Star Trek" or getting mad because it was "mainstream" without any real criticism of the movie, just that it wasn't ok to like because of what it was.
I can respect anyone who says "I don't care for this," but doesn't hate on it, they just don't care for it because it doesn't match their taste.
I can also respect someone who dumps on something, but has a well reasoned argument as to what they see is wrong with it. A great example are the Plinkett reviews on the Star Wars prequel. Mike Strokua presents plenty of reasons as to why they really aren't good movies, not just ones he doesn't care for.
I cannot respect people who hate on things for silly reasons, and who act like you are one of the unwashed masses if you happen to like it. That somehow liking that which is mainstream is bad and means you can't have any taste.
I encounter it with music all the time. I have a more refined taste than many and a lot more knowledge. I was a classical and jazz player for many years (about 10) and, well, if you play them for that long you either grow to enjoy them or you stop. My MP3 library is filled with Orff, Ravel, Bach, Motzart, Ellington, Bassie, Coltraine, Ferguson, and so on. I've also a good bit of theoretical music training, understanding of what actually makes music what it is, and a good bit of acoustics knowledge to boot. I can, should I wish, analyze a song on a fairly technical level.
However I also find I have a lot of enjoyment of new music, including some popular music. One such piece is Party Rock Anthem. It is no great masterpiece but I enjoy it. It is catchy and fun. I like to listen to it. It is also, of course, extremely popular. Something like 500m views on Youtube, where many haven't even heard of the composers I mentioned previously.
For that, I garner a sneer from some other "music lovers," as though you cannot possibly like the "trash" of the masses and still enjoy great works of the past. I say bullshit, you can like what you like, and you can appreciate things in different ways.
So the GP was very accurate, and there's been a lot of that shit in this thread. People whining it isn't "real" sci-fi. That it is dumb because of the actions, that it isn't good Star Trek, etc, etc. I say screw you, it was a fun movie. Not the best I've ever seen, but I enjoyed it. ...Though on the topic of sound the fucking theatres need to stop abusing the volume dial! I am seriously bringing my SPL meter next time and if it is exceeding maximum levels, I am going to try and get them in trouble. Movies are supposed to be loud for big hits, not all the damn time. 105dB for big brad band hits, 115dB for LFE explosions, 75dB, or less, for dialogue and standard effects. Not loud, louder and loudest!
It's an interesting part of human psychology I never studied, and I don't know how much research has been done on it. However you see it with relative frequency. Someone will decide something is offensive to a given group without themselves being part of that group.
The two issues people seem to be being offended on behalf of women for are the fact that Uhura wasn't a very "strong woman" character, in particular with her somewhat self centered reaction to Spock's attitude toward death, and to the fact that Kirk leers at Alice Eve's character and we see her in her undergarments.
I don't really get it myself. Ya the Uhura thing was maybe a little silly and "girly" but it was done first to set up Spock's reaction with regards to emotions and second because they wanted a lover's quarrel for comic relief (which the audience I saw it with found quite funny at least).
It is just something you'll encounter from time to time: Someone will find something offensive for you on your behalf, even when they are not in that group. I think perhaps some of the male reviews are worrying too much about if the portrayal of women was "correct" for whatever definition of "correct" they have whereas the women watching the movie are just concerned about if they are enjoying the time they spend watching it.
Ok, I liked the 2009 film. I've admitted this before. Sure, eech, red matter, but it's not like Star Trek and all its dekyons and chronoton emissions and time travel is strict standard model physics. But, no. Sorry, no. You've lost me J. J.
Please go take a basic physics course if you wish to continue making Star Trek movies. You can have your red matter, but get the fucking basics right. Repeat after me: $f = ma$. $f_g = \frac{Gm_1m_2}{r^2}$. $ma = \frac{Gm_1m_2}{r^2}$. You see that? Let me illustrate. *A Klingon Bird of Prey decloaks off the port bow and fires disruptors with lens flares at the ms on both sides of the equation while the screen is shaking in a completely unnecessary 30 minute action sequence* $a =\textrm{---you're never going to believe this---}\frac{Gm_2}{r^2}$. Holy shit! You know what?! That means your whole fucking scene with the Enterprise falling into the Earth's gravity well from the fucking moon DOESN'T MAKE SENSE Or don't. Fuck. What do I care. Chewbacca is a wookie, but he lives on the planet Endor. This DOES NOT MAKE SENSE!
Oh.. wait.. I hear you're going to do something or other with Chewy and Han and Luke. Well, maybe the Star Wars universe is more up your alley anyway.
I mean... if you managed to make a worse movie than Star Trek 5, that means you can't possibly make a worse movie than Phantom Menace. amirite? guys? guys?
Join the Slashcott! Stay away entirely Feb 10 thru Feb 17! Close all tabs to prevent autorefresh!
BS. Kahn was given a bit of pathos in this one, the whole protecting-his-family bit. And Kirk's character had a bit of an arc. He learnt a bit of humility. And Starfleet was shown to have bad elements. Hardly "...absolute good versus absolute evil"
The movie itself was enjoyable enough.
I am pissed about why I had to see it in 3-D. The movie was largely 2-Dish with very few object needing the illusion of depth and everytime there was a heavy action scene, the 3-D effects only caused a horroble blurring mothion on the screen, on some of those scenes, I just looked over the glasses and noticed that while slightly blurred from the 3-D projection, it was actually clearer than the view through the glasses. While I'm sure that this is more of a theater specific problem the main idea of 3-D for 3-D sake sucks.
The movie was only released in 3-D in my area, I would have enjoyed it more in a 2-D format.
Really it happen?Can you tell me what's wrong with pretty colors and snappy writing?
The director. Not sure why he likes it so much but it is added in, mechanically, by him shining lights at the cameras. They really need to hire someone to poke him with a sharp stick when he tries to do that. I'm not sure why he likes it so much, but he does. In behind the scenes stuff he talks about how much he likes the look of it.
But that's why it is there, one of the very primary creative forces in the movie really likes it.
The big "spoilers" are all over wikipedia and IMDB so is there truly a LOT of point in going so far out of the way to avoid talking about them that you can't actually review the movie?
Look, if a film has to tentpole on spoilers that are going to get revealed the first time people I dunno, SEE THE MOVIE, then the film needs something else to drive it. You cannot structurally support an entire movie meant to be in theaters for months based on the idea that the major plot device is going to be a secret the entire time. And then when the DVDs and BDs come out, is this charade going to repeat again?
Shhhh! Don't talk about Khan or Klingons being in the movie! Oh oooops.
At what point will it be acceptable again to discuss who is actually IN the damn film? Years from now? Instead of protecting this great secret, we SHOULD be asking why it has to be such a secret and why is that secret so important to the movie. What about whether these things -or anything else- makes the movie GOOD.
Where the hell is Roger Ebert when we need him to teach us about movies. Oh yeah. Well, that is a problem.
MY response to this movie was or order Wrath of Khan on BD. There was damn little wrong with that movie that ever needed to be fixed and it looks great on a nice HD screen.
Sig for hire.
I haven't watched this movie, but from what I understand, it is a generic action flick with a Star Trek skin.
We should somehow realize that Star Trek is not cinema. Most Star Trek movies are not that good.
The show shined in the series, and perhaps Abrams should think of doing a Star Trek series. He is very good for that format, and I believe that he will make the best Trek series so far.
...is non-existent. There are few discussions around about the 2009 movie, and almost 100% forum talk is about the old movies and series.
People watch the old movies and the series and then go to the forums and talk about them. They watch the 2009 film, but then they have nothing to say.
This proves for me, without any doubt, that the current Star Trek movies did in no way revitalized the franchise. Sure Paramount got a huge profit from it, but other than that, there is nothing to discuss coming from the new movies.
Episodes brought to light issues that paralleled the prevailing topics of the time such as racism, transgender, homosexuality, bi-racial relationships, the cold war, what defines humanity [...]
And "What might happen if we let our technology do too much of the work for us"
'nuff said.
TFTFY.
Yep. I made the mistake of watching the 2009 Star Trek. It was a disaster of a movie. A lot of people have told me they think it's a good movie, just not a good Trek movie, but I don't think it's even a very good movie on its own rights. Horrible plot. Horrible characterization. Horrible product placement.
Even Bill and fucking Ted knew that time travel gave you a hell of an advantage but we are supposed to buy that somebody that has the ability to go back in time is too God damned stupid to understand that concept? Really?
Although Bill and Ted suffered a serious cause-and-effect gap. Spoiler alert! How could they defeat Chuck de Nomolos if he was willing to kill them and they weren't willing to kill him? As soon as he got out of prison, he could kill them. Life imprisonment? Well he could just come back from after his breakout to help himself break out....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Yet another terrorist to fight against. Is it just me, or do we portrait the terrorist thing a little often lately. Maybe we should get over it. I personally don't like the plot. It is all about fighting against the end of the world. I am sick and tired of that. ST was always a combination of exploration of space and humanity. But there is nothing to be gained from that plot. Sad thing. This is no longer ST.
What's next? The next Star Wars movie becoming a comedy? Oh wait..
i forgot, how did old Spock get into the new Spock universe?
Not seen Into Darkness yet, but seriously, I have my doubts on this review. First Contact was incredible.
Do you see what I did there?
Rather than go see the new reboot movie I decided to donate some money to New Voyages. They are doing a nice job of carrying on the Star Trek banner and writing social commentary pieces using the original characters. These guys basically work for free, making Star Trek as a labour of love. I think they deserve a couple of dollars. http://www.startreknewvoyages.com/
Abrams didn't like Star Trek, he never got it and even said so - he liked Star Wars. He managed to even blow up a whole planet with a super large ship and I was waiting for some kind of "Kirk, I'm your father" moment... He'd have used light sabers in his sword fighting scene except that wouldn't have gotten permission from Lucas.
The movie was not Star Trek and despite being a Trek fan, I was not suckered into the typical remake formula that even the most poorly made movies use today. Cameos and geeky back references don't fool me. I guess I'm not much of a Trekkie because I'm not so emotionally desperate that I shutdown my brain at a Spock cameo. Hell, Disney could put Spock into the next Star Wars movie and bill it as both a Trek film and Star Wars film and I bet people would buy it! Sheep.
There are actual recorded interviews with Gene Roddenberry about how Trek was never "dark" and "edgy" and that completely missed the point of it; he had to fight to keep it away from people trying to drag it into that direction. It had the 60's moon landing optimism about the future and how we could aspire to evolve beyond such things; he primarily used aliens to illustrate those things. Today's modern anti-heroes have no place in the world he created. Like religion, the qualities that bring people in are often forgotten and the dogma takes over; having the superficial Trek branding doesn't define what is Star Trek. I wonder why anybody bothers to study or think at deeper levels on literature, because apparently not even the authors do; anymore. I dare not imagine how Candide, ou l'Optimisme would turn out as a movie.
Yes, the last Trek movies sucked because they don't care once they make money and know they can sucker people back for a few sequels - then they bring in somebody to try something drastic so they can continue to beat a dead horse... as if the "franchise" was worn out when in fact it is 100% the studio's fault every time. They make their money because people will settle for back references with a bland thoughtless dream-like state of mind (which is why huge plot holes are commonplace; once you suspend all reasoning... see the "How it should have ended" series) All this stuff is making people more stupid while wasting their time. Entertainment doesn't have to lower your IQ.
In video games, this would be like making a Mario themed FPS. It wouldn't be a Mario game.
In OS, this is like Linux running the Qvwm window manager.
In cars, this is like calling a motorcycle a school bus after painting it yellow and adding stop sign.
In politics, this would be Romney - ah, making him Democrat or Republican... he wouldn't really be either.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Lots and lots of lens flares? Like 3 or 4 gratuitous lens flares per shot? Because I don't know if I can watch sci-fi that isn't absolutely LOADED with tons of lens flares.
...in what universe Wrath of Khan is even arguably an action film. Kirk and Khan never even meet in person, and the total time the Defiant and the Enterprise actually spend in combat probably totals less than 2 minutes of screen time. It's far more a character study (a retelling of Moby Dick with Khan as Ahab), and a suspense film.
I admit that the first one had some novel ideas to explain Spock's control of emotion - the destruction of his home planet, it had valor and good special effects but the 2nd one undid all of that.
It masturbated out too much special effects that make even the 1st one look tame. Too many *den-denden-den-denden-denden*music score with the enterprise emerging out of cloud or water, that was done to death.
We know Spock was 2 people from the 1st one was a bit cheesy but it was uber-warp-cheesy to have Spock contact "Neo-Vulcan" to speak to old Spock to get advice on how to defeat Khan, kind of like phone a friend in Who wants to be a millionaire.
They undid Spocks control of emotion by making him break down and cry when Kirk was dieing of radiation. It's a bit early for Spock to suddenly be in touch with his human side. There was no transition there, no real character development - just *bang* suddenly he's in touch with his human side, in a gay way I might add.
The whole, big black military starship was really gay also.
All i all, it was even more OTT than the 1st but this time, it was indeed genuinely annoying. It just lived off the first one without really bringing anything new to the table.
"Bottom line: go see it."
Wrong.
Even the reviewer says it's only Trek-by-fiat, Trek-because-we-put-the-label-on-it.
Don't reward a money-making business by giving it money when sells you a cheap imitation labelling it genuine.
Fine, it's a great space opera. So is "Star Wars". In fact, "Star Wars" is a _better_ space opera. I suspect JJ will get those movies right, because all it will really take is a big SPFX budget, lots of pyrotechnics, and a half-dozen cliff-hangers and weird-ass plot-twists with no real regard for faithfulness to the original.
But a Rolecks is not a Rolex, no matter how shiny the micro-thin gold-plate is. If you buy the Rolecks, you kill craftmanship and vision. Watch it? Fine, but borrow the DVD from the library. Download it from any free source. But *don't*, by the Great Bird, *pay* for a bleedin' ticket. Use the only stick you have to make them start *doing* *it* *right*.
Now, A side note to JJ: Dear JJ- Next time you feel the need to make a Trek movie, don't. Just don't. But, if you can't resist the paycheck, or the fanboi ego trip ("Look, Mom! I'm makin' a Trek movie!") then here's the backup suggestion - Gather the group that did the digital remastering of ST:TOS and give them final approval on any aspect of the movie they want - script approval, casting, but especially final cut approval. Nobody overrides them, no contractual sleight-of-hand. Become "JJ Abrams Presents" a Trek movie, not "A JJ Abrams Film" Trek movie, OK? Because that group gets two things you don't - Trek and Art. Yes, they left in cheese in the remastering. most of that was deliberate. Respect paid to the original artists who did what they could with what they had. Most of it was "cleaning the painting". But what they enhanced, they enhanced. Yep, some of those old episodes are crap. Escaping the Network/Studio-Exec-Dumbs-It-Down-or-Cuts-The-Budget-to-Shreds curse is impossible. But that remastering group gets Trek. And you don't.
There is no such word as independant
Quote :"...and the two Abrams films make a better legacy for the franchise than Insurrection and Nemesis."
In all seriousness : you, Sir, are batshit insane and should be institutionalised in a closed mental asylum.
And "Spock's Brain."
'nuff said.
Every Star Trek series has had its moments of sheer mediocrity where the wrong people were clearly in charge, and they made lighter and fluffier decisions. For the original TV series, the first two years were decent, but in the third year the studio brought in the producer from Lost in Space and he really changed the feel of the show. Spock's Brain was his first episode.
For the next gen, you had horrible writers in the first two seasons (Maurice Hurley in particular) and a bit too heavy-handed control from Roddenberry. In the third season, he steps back a bit, Hurley is fired, and Ronald D. Moore and Michael Pillar join the show. Noticeable increase in quality. Too late to save the character of Wesley Crusher, though.
Augment blood now brings you back after you die from radiation poisoning you got from jumping around inside the warp core.
Or if you have a deadly disease that 23rd century medicine can't heal.
As for immortality, that's just my logical conclusion based on them using transwarp beaming Simon Pegg invented in the previous movie - to beam Cumberbatch from inside a falling "jumpship" (helicopter-thingy) all the way to Qo'noS.
Yes. Starships are now superfluous as we can beam right across the galaxy with a portable transporter.
And, as all augments were kept alive and in cryogenic tubes (even Cumberbatch), there is plenty of augment blood to go around.
Not that we need any, as Urban has "synthesized the serum from his super-blood".
So umm... yeah. Nobody has to die anymore. Super-blood.
But you are wrong calling this "Son of Star Trek 90210".
This is not Star Trek 90210. That's a TV show.
This is kids playing Star Trek in the playground, pretending their fingers are phasers, and arbitrarily giving themselves super-powers whenever they need them.
"You can't kill me! I have shields!"
"Yeah? Well I have shield-killer for your shields and I have super-shields and super-phasers and I'm an android so I'm super-strong and super-smart and super-fast! You're dead!"
"It doesn't matter if you have shield-killer and super-shields and super-phasers and you're an android and super-strong and super-fast and super-smart! You still can't kill me cause I got super-blood!"
"Moooom!! JJ won't let me kill him!"
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
...Seriously, what fucking alternate universe did you watch Star Trek in?
The '60s. As an adolescent.
And I'm actually not saying that to be humorous.
If you're 2 or 3 or 4 decades younger than I, you don't have the lack of knowledge of more recent years necessary to see it through the eyes through which I saw it, just as I'll never fully understand what it was like for my parents generation to have listened to the radio during the Great Depression and World War II in a time when television as a mass medium available to the public did not yet exist and had not been experienced, when one, or rare occasions, used a rotary phone on a party line to ask the operator to place a long distance call (that was going to cost an arm and a leg), and antibiotics were a recent discovery.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
In the scene in the beginning of the movie when Khan was first scene at the hospital, was the hospital a reference to The x mansion? It looked like the same building and in an overhead shot a man in a wheel chair appeared who looked very much like Professor Xavier. Overall, Star Trek Into Darkness was a great movie. The 3-D really made it pop.
Well written and thought out review. Congrats.
Umm... Abrams said as a 6 YO kids he didn't get it. Actually this movie has a philosophical directly to today's headlines aka Terrorism and Couter-Terrorism. I have seen it twice. And the movie isn't that dark, regardless of name. It is at times. But if you have seen it and think its only mindless action then you were too busy finding reasons to complain to consider the message of the movie.
The plot logic was just bad. There were too many plot holes. Its a well executed movie. But its a very bad story.
It is possible that the "New Generation" of Trek fans will see these films and find then go to netflix to see more. Half will keep watching while the other half will not be happy with the difference. But I'm fine with that. At least a few will see the shows and older movies for what they truly are, great.
I do wish you'd found a different way to phrase that.
: - )
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
I'm sorry I grew up in the black and white Star Trek and I love my classic but jaja Abraham did justice to the old trek. My opinion with no disrespect and I hope he makes more even my kids love it and they grew up watching the tv series of the 90's .
Super-strength, uber-endurance, mega-speed, telepathy, telekinesis, magic...
Pretty much anytime anyone needs a deus ex machina from now on they can just call on "Superblood!" and be done with it.
So, as far as their in-universe role, or their role in the story - it's the same thing.
Though they may have to rename it to something like "megaglobin" or "augmencytes"... Midi-chloriansTM now belonging to Disney and all that.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I'm an old phart. I missed the first run of ST:TOS because Tuesday was scout night. I had to catch up over the summer and fill in the gaps in reruns. I had the official Starfleet blueprint book. I've met Walter Koenig. I was one of the people at first excited, then disappointed, then bored with TNG and the series' that followed after. Somewhere along the line, I went from Trek fanatic to Trek detractor, and let's face it -- Trek in the Rick Berman era deserved some criticism.
The movies -- first one, after all that wait, so disappointing. Did we really have to wait that long for a flashy remake of The Changeling? Second, I saw several times. Third sucked. Fourth was embarrassing in parts, but generally ok. Fifth sucked even worse. Sixth made up for the fifth. I haven't seen any of the TNG films more than once. I remember First Contact was just ok and Generations slightly less so. The rest were painful to watch. Trek was dead dead dead.
And then, J. J. Abrams got involved. The reboot had its flaws -- the lens flare is really irritating, and the engine room looked like a brewery. (Oh, wait...) But it had something that had been lost somewhere along the way. Drive, purpose, excitement, adventure. Now, "adventure", of course, has different meanings to different people. If "adventure" means rehashing some philosophical point in endless meetings or technobabbling one's way out of an artificial predicament, the reboot doesn't have much of that. And that's a good thing.
Which brings us to Star Trek Into Darkness. I had read the reviews and forums before going, and non-trekkies appeared to consider it a good action movie, a real "roller coaster ride" (which made me a little uncomfortable -- so many films labeled thus have sucked mightily), whereas die-hard Trekkies seemed to hate it even more than the first film.
So I didn't know what to expect when I went. And I was amazed. Many of the problems of the reboot film have been corrected, and they've dug into Trek lore that I didn't think I'd ever see on the screen. I will not spoil it here, except to mention the Dreadnaught, which appears in the trailer. That ship was in the original "star fleet blueprints" released in the seventies, (marked "experimental" as I recall) has appeared in a few of the Trek novels, but never on the screen until now. (Which, in-story, makes no sense at all -- Star Fleet should have built several of them for the Borg war, but never mind.) And they even *called* it a Dreadnaught. For those of us who stuck with Trek in the early days, that, (and that the bridge was modeled after the original series) is a huge thing. There are other aspects of the plot (which I won't spoil here) that appeared in Trek novels but had never been filmed. Throughout, the impression I got was that this is Star Trek as originally conceived back in 1966 had they today's techniques and budget.
My conclusion: If you've been raised on Voyager and Enterprise, this is not your Star Trek. For you, there will always be reruns. But if you were eleven when you first saw The Man Trap, the current franchise is something you've wanted to see for a very long time. I'm sorry it doesn't fit the Endless Meetings, Super Talky Trek that some fans appear to desperately need. But speaking for myself, Into Darkness has made me a fan again.
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
You really can't see meaning and message in the old Star Trek?
No meaning in memes like "Needs of the many...", "What does god need with a starship?" or "Kobayashi Maru" for you?
And I'm not even gonna go near anything from all those other serials out there as it would turn into an episode by episode examination.
The movie is targeted at younger audiences.
Only if by younger you mean "with a mind of a small child".
Those movies are aimed at a WIDER audience.
You know... the audience of Transformers movies.
People who would throw money on brand recognition and big-fast-loud action scenes, but who have trouble following plot or dialogue.
Make it dumb, make it fast, make it loud, advertize the hell out of it's recognizable name and sit back and watch the money flow.
They made it into a summer ACTION blockbuster.
The original stories were SCIENCE FICTION.
Masume Shirow had this same problem with Ghost in the Shell and decided to take a break, or get out of cinema because of that same problem. He griped a lot about Innocence this way.
First off, it's Masamune.
Second, Innocence is Mamoru Oshii's baby that has VERY little to do with Shirow, who had fuck-all to do with it but take money for licensing out the brand and the characters.
Third... I really have no idea WTF are you talking about there.
Shirow has decided that it's OK with him to be a millionaire who only occasionally draws porn for fun and profit while licensing out his earlier work and the "Shirow brand".
He hasn't published a story since the '90s. All he keeps pushing is art-books and illustrations.
Good for him. The guy had only couple of stories in him, so he stopped when he reached his limit, while still doing what he likes to do.
Fourth... What "get out of cinema" problem you're talking about?
Are you aware that Oshii has happily "remade" (in Lucas-like fashion) the original GITS and released it as Ghost in the Shell 2.0 in 2008?
And it got criticized for having only certain scenes redone - being basically a pointless cash grab and a jarring mix of styles.
Not because "the time moved on" on the story or franchise.
If anything, people wanted (and still want) more of the same or similar.
That's why the series and the movies were a success - they explored and expanded the GITS universe further, WHILE maintaining a connection to the original manga and films.
Heck, they even managed to tie the series together with the original storyline, without succumbing to time-travel and parallel universes.
That's why they can do a new series a decade after the last one - cause they are adding fresh material to the universe.
Instead of rebooting it cause they've run out of ideas so they are "burning up" the franchise in a desperate cash grab which will bury the franchise after a few movies.
Or force them to do another pointless reboot, like the one that happened to Spiderman franchise.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Please check out my review for Star Trek here:
http://moviereviewsbyfertelmes.blogspot.com/2013/05/star-trek-into-darkness.html
Thank you!
The nod to section 31 was nice, after all I think this is perhaps the first time something created on DS9 was mentioned in a feature film. The problem I have with it is that all they did is name drop it. They mention the name a couple times then they're done with it. I think they could have tied it in a bit better, after all there have been multiple full episodes of background on 31, so there's plenty of content to tie in.
Similarly, I really enjoyed the scene toward the end of the movie where Spock pummels Khan. They tell you Khan is genetically engineered and reference him as a "super man", so between that and taking down a squad of Klingons single-handedly you get the idea that he's not to be messed with. From Trek dogma, we know that Vulcans are about 3-4x as strong as normal humans, so that means Spock and Khan are probably pretty close in terms of physical strength, but we've seen before when Vulcans lose their emotional control they're not to be messed with. So, I really enjoyed seeing Spock take Khan down a peg or two. That just reaffirms my belief that Zachary Quinto was the perfect casting choice for that role.
I think the problem is you have not seen the movie yet. Into darkness tackled the issues of 9/11, terrorism, and the Bush administrations drive into Iraq. The villain in this movie is evil, but you get to see and understand the motivations behind his actions.
Abrams did his best here in tackling current world issues but still trying to get the younger generation to enjoy Star Trek without the stigma associated with it. Basing your opinions solely on this review made it too easy for you to miss the point of the movie. The review focuses too much on the reviewer's conflict of what Trek should be and what it is now instead of peeling the layers of messages that the movie has such as how Bush handled the invasion of Iraq, how people react to a terrorism attack, and how vengeance and revenge leads you "into darkness". I cannot really outline how the movie specifically tackles these issues because that would result in major spoilers. Go see it first before passing judgment.
Oddly enough, the most loved trek movies are the ones that are not traditionally Trek: Wrath of Khan is a space opera that does not really focus much on issues of that time; The Journey Home tackles environmental issues but is basically a template of a fish out of water comedy movie; First Contact is basically a popcorn summer movie that focuses on action rather than issues; and, the Undiscovered Country tackled the Cold War but it was mostly remembered for the ship fight at the end (go Sulu!).
The movies that are considered traditional Trek are the least liked: The first, fifth, and Insurrection deal with real world problems in a major way, and they were largely lambasted for it.
http://earthclemcomics.blogspot.co.uk/2013/05/review-star-trek-into-darkness.html
KHAAAAANNNNN!
Well when you make what is a squeal to not just the previous movie but the whole franchice (like bond films) and it uses sceens from former movies you'll get comparisons. That's the lazy formula for hollywood sequeals which Trek had not done with the original movie run! Trek fans want "new" adventures not just a trip down memory lane. What is sad is that it's so easy to take a movie that's about 30 years old that today's young audiance hasn't seen and simply do it over with FX that will naturally be wilder a cast who's age reflects the audiance and call it a hit because the Trek name is iconic and will automaticlly sell tickets!
Since when did "Cold Fusion" freeze anything? And to freeze an entire volcano in an instant?
I understand that writers have license to stretch science to make a plot, but that was ridiculous.
67 they had a 5 year mission. Lasted 3 years! That was the pajama uniform timeline. The movie time continuum lasted until 2002 crossing the generations barrier in 1994. In 2009 the Abrams timeline was created, going back before 67 timeline start. It is unclear if the two timelines will converge in the future, or if the Star Trek will converge with Star Wars, even if only in a cameo.
Previous commenters’ confusion over the new depictions of Khan, Kirk and Spock are understandable. This wasn’t really Star Trek at all. It was Anti-Star Trek. Star Trek TOS was character driven. Spock was logical, McCoy was emotional, Kirk was the perfect mean between the two who ALWAYS won his fights, even if he had to cheat (Kobayashi Maru anyone?)
The first Star Trek reboot should have been titled "Star Trek: Kirk Gets Beat Up." JJ Abrams reimagined a fatherless James T. Kirk as an undisciplined wild child who continually has his ass handed to him, but nevertheless rises to captain the premier starship in the Federation. Really? Cadets beat him up, Spock beats him up, Nero beats him up. Hell, even Uhura beats him up. McCoy merely abuses him. The original Kirk was no man's whipping boy.
In this second attempt JJ Abrams creates an Anti-Trek, where Kirk is reduced to the sacrificial sidekick and Spock is the action hero who beats the master race villain senseless. This difference makes a difference between the chemistry of the original series and the reboot. The whole point of the Vulcan nerve pinch in TOS was that logical Spock (Prime?) would never (well, almost never) engage in anything so primitive as fisticuffs. Add to that a Vulcan physiology that could only get it on once every seven years and you realize that Abram’s Spock is no Spock at all. He's the TOS James T. Kirk with pointy ears. Kirk is reduced to the role of sacrificial red shirt, even if he is brought back from the dead at the end. Abrams misses the whole point of why the original Trek chemistry worked.
It's always nice to reboot a franchise, but when you so fundamentally change the basic elements of a mythos you create a different mythos. Abram's film is a decent bubblegum summer action film mislabeled "Star Trek"
The movie from 2009 is a the same style as all the contemporary B thrillers. The tension is created artificially with dark atmosphere and shaking the camera. Star Trek 2009 has been kidnapped becoming one of the many movies of the same sort. It is legal, it generates money, the producer is happy, the youngs are happy to see the same effects again and again. "Old farts" only could collect money to make their own and better movie.