Star Trek: Into Darkness

[eldaec]

Just got back.

The prologue you saw before the hobbit was the best part.
But the film holds together till about half way through.
Fell apart somewhat for me when they tried to do the heart of darkness thing.
Oh my god the ending is terrible.
Still really no worse than the other trek films.
Can see the stylistic point about it being a bit star wars, but it had as much trek philosophical stuff as any other trek movie.

I've seen worse, I've seen better. In summary : meh.

[Merusk]

A rousing "Meh" seems to be the national consensus, too.  Didn't even break 85 mil with a 4 day weekend.

[ghost]

A rousing "Meh" seems to be the national consensus, too.  Didn't even break 85 mil with a 4 day weekend.

Does the "meh" matter if you're a Trekkie, enjoy Trek but don't have a uniform or don't now who Lore is? 

[eldaec]

The film is borderline unintelligible for anyone without a basic awareness of the plot of old trek. Non-trekkies need not apply.

The big cumberbatch reveal made me laugh out loud while the GF had no idea what was going on, same goes for the tribble based chekovs gun and the sequence with kirk doing the thing he does at the end. I don't think either laughter or incomprehension were ideal responses. Too much of the actual plot came through references. That said this was far more faithful to trek than anyone cares to admit. The prime directive, avoiding war with the other guys, and heart of darkness segments felt like solid trek stuff to me, the central relationships between kirk, spock and uhura were well delivered. The problem was that the HoD section was confusing and made little plot sense, then the final sequence after that was terrible trekkie pandering, and the filmmakers even bottled out on the logical conclusion of their pandering.

And wtf was Leonard Nimoy in this film for?

[eldaec]

Oh and the 3d was even worse than usual.

Do not see this film in 3d. For me the choice was 3d or non-imax. Ideally you want imax 2d, but on no account go to a 3d showing.

[Ghambit]

I would only consider 3d if it's also IMAX (and a museum quality one at that).  3d on a normal-sized movie screen is never good.  For me though, it was worth it just seeing those fleeting epic Enterprise shots (especially when going to warp), but that's just me.  I'm a trekkie.  /shrug   

[eldaec]

Screen I saw it on was 70 feet tall with 15/70 projection.

The 3d was still dire.

I think the key issue is that Abrams, who is not a noted fan of 3d, made no compromises in how the film was edited. Lots of cuts, shots had a lot going on, lots of closeups, and long sections in the dark. If you compare it to something like the hobbit the difference really stands out,  Jackson had clearly had made the compromises of much simpler scenes and nothing particularly dark (to the detriment of the film as a whole).

[Pennilenko]

I just saw this. I enjoyed it.

I think the nitpick meter getting turned up to 11 is unwarranted.

[Ratman_tf]

I think the nitpick meter getting turned up to 11 is unwarranted.

I'm a bit surpised that people are nit picking this one, when the first film set the standard for stupid storytelling. Those horses not only left the barn, but they made it to Cabo and are relaxing on the beach sipping cocktails by now.

[Samwise]

Taken completely independently of Star Trek I'd give this movie a B+ for being a decent action movie with punching, yelling, explosions, and only a couple of stupid plot holes.

Viewed with full awareness of the earlier works it was referencing, it was pretty painful.  The bit toward the end, with the hands?  Made me physically uncomfortable.

[Ingmar]

I suggest reviewing the earlier work in question in close succession; it does not hold up in comparison IMO.

[Evildrider]

Overall I thought this was just ok.  As a sci-fi movie it was fun, but the Trek fan in me wishes they would have just made up a new villain and totally forgot about Khan.

[Samwise]

I actually have been, partly because of this thread.  

[naum]

I think the nitpick meter getting turned up to 11 is unwarranted.

I'm a bit surpised that people are nit picking this one, when the first film set the standard for stupid storytelling. Those horses not only left the barn, but they made it to Cabo and are relaxing on the beach sipping cocktails by now.

^^This.

It was an entertaining flick, with lots of action bits and if you went into the theater alert to the plentiful tidings of plot stupidity that would be evident, it's a good 2+ hours of popcorn and visuals. And all the homage honoring lines backreferencing the old school series elicited chuckles.

If you were expecting something deeper, you were bound to be disappointed.

[Reg]

Ohhh now I understand why everyone is so upset.  Up until the last two movies every Star Trek flick has been a deep philosophical journey into unexplored realms of imagination.

[Pennilenko]

Ohhh now I understand why everyone is so upset.  Up until the last two movies every Star Trek flick has been a deep philosophical journey into unexplored realms of imagination.

[Samwise]

I should clarify, the thing that made this movie in particular painful (despite being a decent action flick, which is more than you can say for the TNG movies) is the hamfisted recycling and referencing of earlier movies that didn't make sense in context, but was there so people could say "hey, I get that reference!"  Every time one of those happened it took me right out of the movie because I of course recognized the reference but it was almost never done in a particularly clever way.  

I think somebody earlier commented on why the "KHAAAAAN" felt so weird and shoehorned in.  One that really stuck out for me was McCoy referencing a Gorn, which is dumb, but it just so happened that I had watched the TOS episode "Arena" (which the Gorn is from) that very morning, so it was fresh in my mind, and rather than thinking "hey, Gorn, I get that reference, that's clever," I thought "nobody from the Federation has even seen a Gorn yet, the whole point of that Arena episode was that they were making first contact with that species, how are they showing up at McCoy's maternity ward, and aren't they reptilian anyway?"

I mean, I get that I'm a big nerd and I'm not the target audience for this movie, but that's the point.  The Trek I grew up watching actually had people keeping track of the continuity and trying to create a coherent universe, because the target audience was nerds like me who dig that sort of thing.

[Ratman_tf]

Ohhh now I understand why everyone is so upset.  Up until the last two movies every Star Trek flick has been a deep philosophical journey into unexplored realms of imagination.

Did you miss the part where I said every TNG movie was crap too? 

[Ingmar]

I think somebody earlier commented on why the "KHAAAAAN" felt so weird and shoehorned in.

In context I feel like it actually makes more sense to me than the original one. Kirk freaks out because he's been stranded in the cave, even though he already knows he has a secret plan with Spock to beam him out. So what's he so mad about?

There's also nothing as stupid as the Genesis project involved in this one (Genesis is monumentally awful in so many ways, it dwarfs every single science nitpick I might have with Into Darkness combined), and no douchebag Son of Kirk. Honestly the more I think about it the worse Wrath of Khan looks in comparison to this one, and that's the "best" Star Trek movie.

[Ratman_tf]

I think somebody earlier commented on why the "KHAAAAAN" felt so weird and shoehorned in.

In context I feel like it actually makes more sense to me than the original one. Kirk freaks out because he's been stranded in the cave, even though he already knows he has a secret plan with Spock to beam him out. So what's he so mad about?

We as an audience don't know that. So it comes across as genuine rage. We later learn that it's part of his plan, so he was playing to Kahn. I mean, if he'd said "Oh, damn. I lost. Good show!" Khan would have been one suspicious mofo.

[Lakov_Sanite]

You may not like this movie...

...it was still better than EVERY FUCKING TREK MOVIE BEFORE THE REBOOT.

Wrath of Khan does not hold up, it just doesn't.

Whales? Fucking whales?!

The entire TnG abominations?!

I LOOOOOOVED TnG/DS9 but the movies are shit, universally.

[Merusk]

I agree on Genesis, but Douchebag, Son of Kirk will be the next movie, since Carol Marcus (son of Kirk's mom and MUCH hotter than in WOK) was here. Rite?

[naum]

If your story is not about time travel, but it has time travel in it, then your story sucks.

[Samwise]

Whales? Fucking whales?!

One of many things I like about that movie is that it's not the standard "there is a bad guy, the captain of the Enterprise must punch him" plot that I think every Trek movie since has had.  Most of the really good Trek stories were not about fighting a particular antagonist.

[Ingmar]

I agree on Genesis, but Douchebag, Son of Kirk will be the next movie, since Carol Marcus (son of Kirk's mom and MUCH hotter than in WOK) was here. Rite?

Well, presumably not as an adult douchebag, no.

[Samwise]

I agree on Genesis, but Douchebag, Son of Kirk will be the next movie, since Carol Marcus (son of Kirk's mom and MUCH hotter than in WOK) was here. Rite?

Well, presumably not as an adult douchebag, no.

I'm sure he'll accidentally fall through a temporal wormhole as a baby and emerge as an adult or some bullshit at the start of the movie if they want him in there as an adult.

[Ingmar]

True; it is Star Trek after all.

[Teleku]

Star Trek 4 is still the best trek film.  Fuck you all.   

[Ingmar]

I like that one too. Maybe some local bias involved. 

[HaemishM]

You may not like this movie...

...it was still better than EVERY FUCKING TREK MOVIE BEFORE THE REBOOT.

Wrath of Khan does not hold up, it just doesn't.

Whales? Fucking whales?!

You are wrong. While I will agree that the whale movie was damned silly mostly because they played it for so much comedic effect and character interaction, but Khan? Much much better movie than Into Darkness by a mile, taken within the context of the time it was done.

The TNG movies? Utter shit.

[K9]

All arguing aside, I think we can all agree that Star Trek V was the worst.

[HaemishM]

I don't know, I'd prefer that to Insurrection or Nemesis. The latter is a movie so bad I can't remember shit about it other than it sucked.

[Khaldun]

I think somebody earlier commented on why the "KHAAAAAN" felt so weird and shoehorned in.

In context I feel like it actually makes more sense to me than the original one. Kirk freaks out because he's been stranded in the cave, even though he already knows he has a secret plan with Spock to beam him out. So what's he so mad about?

We as an audience don't know that. So it comes across as genuine rage. We later learn that it's part of his plan, so he was playing to Kahn. I mean, if he'd said "Oh, damn. I lost. Good show!" Khan would have been one suspicious mofo.

The moment is a meme, as I said earlier, both because it makes emotional sense in the context of the film's narrative AND because we all love it for the sheer raw Shatnerism of it. It works on two levels: it's Shatner cheese AND it makes narrative & character sense.

In this film it is ONLY and ONLY and ONLY a bad weird dinner-theater homage to the older film. It makes no narrative sense, it makes no sense in terms of characterization, it doesn't even make much meta-fictional sense--it's not a clever ironic twist or a different line reading or anything. It's just "hey, wow, look it's Spock saying it now, we iz cool."  Meaning: if you hate the older film why the FUCK do you like that moment now? Seriously. You like a movie today that's slavishly imitating an affectionally-mocked bit of cheese from a movie you hate, because why? 

Everything that's good about Quinto's interpretation of the character (in some ways he gets it even more right than Nimoy) is undercut in that scene, everything that's interesting about this reboot cast and situation is undercut in this scene, everything that was ok about the first half of the film's storyline is undercut in this scene. If Spock is yelling about anyone, he should be yelling MARRRRRRCUS, that's the guy who really fucked up the ship and the situation. Khan is practically an innocent bystander by comparison.

[Ironwood]

All arguing aside, I think we can all agree that Star Trek V was the worst.

What does God need with a starship ?

Always wondered.

[Ratman_tf]

All arguing aside, I think we can all agree that Star Trek V was the worst.

Though I personally consider nuTrek about as bad.