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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.
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
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
No, he is very sparing with the technobabble but it is absolutely B.S. when it gets used... completely unrealistic. Not that the original technobable was good. I think they may have been trying to be intentionally humorous there.
The plot was simple. But the meaning behind the characters interaction with the plot was deep enough if your not completely mentally retarded. You will enjoy that. It had a Star Trek message in 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!
Watch TOS again. Most of the episodes were truly terrible. TNG was not too bad after season two, and DS9 was fine until the last season. The TOS movies however were much better.
-- 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.
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.
I *am* watching the original series again (on hulu) and to the contrary, I'm surprised on how well they hold up.
Yes, they are a bit cheesy, but for example 'the enemy within' made a pretty good point about good and evil - that the distinction is false - that we need the animal half of our nature in order to be effective.
Or the menagerie, with its central take-away that truly immersive VR is a drug, and that with it we may face destruction of our civilization from ppl wanting to retreat back into it and letting the world go to hell. We are probably going to be facing *that* particular dilemma in the next five years, if we aren't facing it already, here in america.
so lay off on the original series - for its time, it put up on the small screen a great deal of philosophy that otherwise would not have permeated popular culture.
That is called nostalgia. Watch this, enjoy it and you will complain when it gets rebooted again just the same.
"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.
Star Trek Into Darkness => Kirk Dates Nonstarters
I have to ask. Is this really such a huge deal for everyone? I don't even notice lens flares. I'll go back and look and think "oh yeah, I guess there was one in that shot." But other than, I mean, there's an entire movie to be watched. Judging its overall quality based on the presence or absence of one minor, irrelevant special effect just baffles me.
Everything is better with chainsaws.
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.
There is a good reason that the middle ages spoke Latin and that we still teach Greek plays. Once something has been done well it is difficult to beat it. 60's idealism driven Star Trek is very unlikely soil for our miserable in-looking times to beat.
Facts are history now plebs have politics for religion on social media.
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.
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.
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*...)
My thought is that that we will see a story arc where Spock is highly emotional (now), experiences Pon Farr for the first time where something bad happens, this pushes him to fully embrace logic, then he gradually realizes that there has to be a balance. My guess, having yet to watch Into Darkness, it that we will see this over several movies.
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.
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.
Nemesis is just... bad.
So bad in fact that after that they stopped making Star Trek movies.
Nemesis was not really a Star Trek movie. It was just a movie with Star Trek actors in a Sci-Fi setting.
I like to think Nemesis was a holodeck malfunction: Shortly after the credits finish there should've been a scene where Data, Geordi (visored), Dr. Pulaski, and Wharf and a security team (dressed circa season 2) force open the doors of a deactivated and visually damaged holodeck to find a dead Tom Hardy dressed in standard issue command uniform. Dr. Pulaski checks him over, and looks a Wharf and shakes her head. Data taps his comm badge and says "Data to Picard. I'm sorry, sir. We were too late to save Lt. Shinzon."
The road to tyranny has always been paved with claims of necessity.
Well, here's the thing, as a photographer I know that lens flare is an anomaly created by refraction of light. Generally, you try to reduce this effect as it "breaks the 4th wall" and force you as a viewer to recognize that this is a filmed event. You do this by altering lighting and camera position. Only occasionally has it even been used in a sparingly and creative way.
Now when you see it every couple of minutes, and know it was digitally inserted, that sort of just makes no sense. It's like a kid that got his hand on iMovie and had to use it's whole palette of effects as often as possible to prove their high tech. It's sort of like the instagram craze. By artificially making it look old, apparently that's cool. JJ Abrams was interviewed about this. He said it was his unique visual style, and by artificially inserting flairs he thinks it makes it look like the crew had no time to setup the shot correctly, because there's just so much action bursting off the screen. So not only is he overusing an effect, but he's artifically inserting it, to make it appear that he didn't have time to light his sets properly, and that apparently (to him) makes it EVEN MORE incredible.
Doesn't work for me though. I think it's stupid and distracting. Like when you some badly compressed gradients in black or compression artifacts on "so-called" HD cable tv. Once you start seeing it you can't look away. I don't think there's anything artistic about striving to make it look like you suck at lighting a shot.
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.
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.)
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
Now when you see it every couple of minutes, and know it was digitally inserted, that sort of just makes no sense.
I thought they were all, or at least most, done in-camera.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
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.
for example 'the enemy within' made a pretty good point about good and evil [...] Or the menagerie, with its central take-away that truly immersive VR is a drug
Spock's Brain. Whenever somebody brings up the nobility of Star Trek, I just remind them of "Spock's Brain."
There are a few great Star Trek episodes, with meaning and purpose. But there's also Spock's Brain, Return of the Archons, Operation: Annihilate!, Catspaw, Friday's Child, Who Mourns for Adonais, Gamesters of Triskellion, Omega Glory, Bread and Circuses, The Enterprise Incident, Spectre of the Gun, For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky, All Our Yesterdays, etc.
Actually, I remember seeing some kind of making-of short around the time the first one came out and they were talking about how the cinematographer managed to capture all the lens flares "to get this great look." I could be wrong, but they may not have been fake.
Breakfast served all day!
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
Au contraire--I'm actually a fan.
What I get annoyed with is the whole, "Star Trek explored all sorts of socially relevant topics." I don't deny this--but it did so fairly rarely. Hell, "Roseanne" and "Home Improvement" had the occasional "Very Special Episode" that explored socially relevant topics.
I don't hate those episodes listed. To me, they are examples of non-socially-relevant episodes--and I could list quite a few others. One of my favorite episodes is "A Piece of the Action." Short of "Don't leave a Chicago Gangs history book on another planet," there isn't much social relevance there. It's just a fun episode where Kirk out-mobsters the mobsters.
While "Spock's Brain" could be called a cautionary tale about society stagnating under the control of a machine intelligence, so could "Return of the Archons", "The Apple", and arguably "A Taste of Armageddon." Been there, done that, got the T-Shirt.
I may have been off-base regarding "Bread and Circuses," which I kind of looked at as a "Sliders" episode--"What if the Roman Empire hadn't fallen?" Fun concept, definitely, but not necessarily socially relevant. But you do make a good point.
Again, Star Trek had it's share of social relevance, and that's wonderful. But it also had it's share of episodes that were more character-driven than story-driven. That's not a bad thing. It also had a few really stupid episodes. I tend to look at televised science fiction in that light: If I can tune in and have a better than 50% chance of being entertained or enlightened, it's a good show. Star Trek definitely qualifies for me.
But let's not make it something that it was not.
The very start with the ship underwater set that trend. Why bother with shuttles and transporters if you can just land it anywhere? As for underwater - why not stick drills on it so it can tunnel since it's now already as ridiculous as a flying submarine molemachine battleship out of a Godzilla movie. Add transporting all the way to a distant planet and why do you need starfleet anyway?
Bad science is annoying, but not as annoying as being inconsistant with the bad science so that none of the new magical rules to replace science in the setting actually last the length of a movie. If anything at all can happen and there is no reason for anything then why bother?
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!
They're artificial in that there's frequently a torch just off camera being deliberately shone at the lens. You can see it in the making-of on the first movie's DVD