Review: Star Trek Into Darkness · 10:34pm May 24th, 2013
Oh my God, that was absolutely incredible!
…sorry, I’m still nerding out over it.
I managed to see Star Trek Into Darkness at the theatre and I’ve got tingles from it. And since I am currently incapable of writing anything pony related, due to being in full sci-fi mode, I figured I’d write a review. Remember when I did those? Good times, good times… Anyways, I’ll try — try —to keep this mostly spoiler free, because we all know spoilers are the devil.
Without further ado, let’s get this started.
Graphics
Ok, yes, I realize graphics do not alone a movie make. Graphics are nice to look at, but they cannot hold my interest for a movie or a video game. Sci-Fi movies, more than other genres, require graphics to get the idea across. Just imagine Doctor Who without the TARDIS, Back To The Future without the Delorean, or, well, Star Trek without the Enterprise. They just wouldn’t work, but you also need to make it look if not real, at least plausible. That being said, holy shit.
I remember being a little kid and watching Star Trek: The Original Series and Star Trek: The Next Generation. It was cardboard sets, paper-mache rocks, painted backdrops, and ridiculous costumes. But I managed to look past that, look past the gaps in the woodwork, the incredibly fake-looking Gorn, and my imagination made it real. The Gorn’s mouth actually moved as it spoke, Q teleported around without heavy use of jump-cuts, space battles were intense free-roaming firefights using moons and debris as shielding while firing off massive phaser beams and photon torpedoes. Star Trek Into Darkness looks like how my imagination always made it out to be. The first 10-15 minutes are spent with Kirk and McCoy on an alien planet with bizarrely-coloured trees and even stranger natives. The trees look real, the natives look real, everything looks real, rather than just some guy in face paint. But the most impressive shot of that sequence is when the Enterprise, hidden at the bottom of the ocean — and don’t bring logic into this. If Kirk wants the Enterprise at the bottom of the ocean, Kirk puts the Enterprise at the bottom of the ocean, because he’s James Tiberius Fucking Kirk — lifts out of the water and rises into the air. And this thing has weight. You can almost feel the poor ship fighting gravity as it struggles to return to space. The rush of the water breaking as the Enterprise comes up for air, the WHOOSH of air as it gathers speed; I was just blown away.
And the graphics don’t stop there. We see shot after shot of Earth of the future, and it looks great! Buildings more impressive than today, hovercars, walkways, people; it looks like a living, breathing, thriving society. Even the interior of the Enterprise is visually stunning. The engine room is full of supporting beams and miscellaneous technical equipment; a far cry from the wide open feel of TOS or the vertical warp core from TNG. The bridge is rife with monitors and colour; it looks more like how an actual starship should look, with warp power being controlled via a lever rather than the simple push of a button. Even the main viewing screen looks better, with little pop-ups akin to a HUD from one of the various first-person-shooters. And when Enterprise jumps to warp, it’s one of my favourite visual sights.
Graphics do not make a movie, but done poorly they can certainly break a movie. And this is no slouch in the graphics department.
Music
Again, not integral to the movie-going experience, but still worth a short mention. I felt the music this time around to be average; not special, not bad, just simply there. There were two or three songs I felt stood out, the end credits being one of them, but overall the soundtrack was mostly mood music, there to set the scene but not really breaking any new ground so far as earworm melodies go.
Character/Plot
Lumping these together because they’re so intertwined. This movie is largely about character development for Kirk, Spock, Uhura, Chekov, Scotty, and even, to an extent, the Enterprise herself. The best Star Trek films realize that the Enterprise is as much a character as the actual people inside her, and this one is no different. When she gets damaged, you feel for her. When her life is in danger, you feel for her, and I mean for the actual ship itself, the nuts and bolts and metal that comprises her, not the people who will perish alongside her. It isn’t ‘Oh no, if the Enterprise crashes Kirk will die’, it’s ‘Oh no, Kirk, Spock, McCoy, and the Enterprise are all going to die!’
…oh, God, I’m referring to the Enterprise as a female. Quick, someone anthropomorphize her for me!
I’m weird, shut up.
Moving on…
I’ll spoiler this next bit for you worry-warts out there, so spoil at your own risk.
The main villain of the movie is, of course, Khan Noonien Singh, but to a large extent the other main villain of the movie is Admiral Marcus. Oh, look, a corrupt admiral in Starfleet. I never would have expected that.[/sarcasm] It’s interesting, actually, to note that Khan isn’t fuelled by revenge against Kirk this time around, but revenge against Marcus. The Enterprise and her crew just sort of stumble upon his plot and get caught up in the middle of Khan’s revenge plot and Marcus’ attempts to incite war. It’s during this major plot that we get the character arcs of Kirk, Spock, and the rest. Kirk is still his smug arrogant self from the first film in J.J. Abram’s continuity, and a large part of this movie is him growing out of this, learning to accept responsibility and realizing he is not, in fact, invincible. I’m hesitant to mention any others, since they tie into the main plot so heavily.
That’s not to say that the plot is completely perfect, though. Fans of any of the previous Star Trek movies will grow tired during the last 15 minutes or so, which feels more like it was hammered in and doesn’t really flow naturally, simply because we haven’t been with this crew as long as we have Shatner’s version. In the Prime timeline, we had 3 years of the show for TOS, and 7 for TNG, and we saw the actors grow together, we felt the camaraderie, friendship, and family they had for one another. With this new crew, we only have the two movies, and in-universe they’ve only been together for roughly 6 months. The familial bonds simply aren’t there, and the friendship they have seems more based on the mythos that the Star Trek series proper has made rather than any friendship that could have grown more naturally from this alteration to the timeline. Also, arguments that the ending rips off another much-loved Star Trek movie ending are not completely unfounded, though I feel it is different enough to dispute those claims. It’s akin to the argument that Star Trek Nemesis rips off the ending of Star Trek Wrath of Khan.
Still, these are petty claims that in no way mar the overall experience. The villain is a very credible — and at times, genuinely scary — threat. It’s made obvious on multiple occasions that this is not a man to trifle with. His reasons are justified, and I almost find myself sympathetic to his cause and, until the climax, was almost hoping he would win. We get a lot of insight into Spock’s character, McCoy and Scotty are developed more, at times I can almost see Shatner’s Kirk in Pine’s Kirk, Uruha is given a larger role than she ever had in the show, there are numerous shout-outs to other Star Trek movies and the show itself, mentioning characters and species we haven’t (yet) seen in the new movies, jokes about the Star Trek series and all the clichés it created, and a tense thrill-ride of a movie that will keep you second-guessing your expectations.
I highly recommend this movie to all Trekkies, both young and old.
-Tricondon
Uh, dude? The argument that Namesis rips off Wrath of Khan is completely founded. Nemesis is basically a remake of Wrath of Khan. Those scenes in Into Darkness? Most of those lines are word-for-word.
1102555
Which is why I consider Into Darkness more of an homage to Wrath of Khan. I have a laundry list of reasons Nemesis sucked; ripping off Khan just isn't among them. I feel Data's death scene to be overblown, especially the reactions we get from Troi and Picard at the 'funeral', but I just don't see the resemblance to Khan beyond killing off an 'emotionless' character.
-Tricondon
1102603 http://blogs.amctv.com/movie-blog/2008/08/star-trek-nemesis.php
1102640
I am perfectly capable of coming to my own conclusions. I am aware of other people's opinions, and respect them. If I disagree, I do not argue the point. It will inevitably degrade into a yelling match. Personally, I like a lot of things that Nemesis does. The story, while riddled with plot holes, is still a fun ride. You can tell the actors are genuinely having fun. The graphics, while not the best Trek's ever done, are still very impressive. Data's death is overblown, as I've said, but I simply don't see it as a blatant ripoff of Khan. You can link to other people's opinions all you want, but you will very likely fail in your attempt to change my mind, and that aside I already know most people's opinions. You aren't breaking new ground insofar as bringing new details to my mind, or opinions, or anything of that ilk.
-Tricondon
It's been done.
I got nothing. Yay for a review that makes at least one iota of sense.
Not a trekkie at all but I -really- want to watch this movie now... Oh and here's something http://www.fimfiction.net/story/51764/the-disqord-continuum for you to look at in case you didn't know of it's existence. It's MLPxTNG and there's a Prequel and Sequel that goes along with it.
1392369
Already well aware, my friend.
-Tricondon