Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) (1 Viewer)

[RobertR]

Or after seeing them, doesn't think too much about Star Trek films.

That would be me.

 

[Robert Crawford]

That would be me.

Me too. There are certain genre films in which I might think about the plotline afterwards and critique them more harshly, but Star Trek films don't fall under those categories for me.

 

[mattCR]

Is it bad enough to be called "Star Trek: The Phantom Menace"?

No. It's not -that- bad. Like I said, for a popcorn film, turn your mind off and the action is good, the 3D is good.. I do hate the lens flare which I found wildly annoying.. a friend reminded me of the scene today, it's when Carol talks to her Admiral Marcus and basically half of her face is not visible thanks to the lens flare. I get it, it's his style, but as far as I'm concerned damn annoying and it has nothing to do with the film.

Look, I think a lot of people are going to enjoy it. Just don't think that deeply about the story.

 

[Robert Crawford]

No. It's not -that- bad. Like I said, for a popcorn film, turn your mind off and the action is good, the 3D is good.. I do hate the lens flare which I found wildly annoying.. a friend reminded me of the scene today, it's when Carol talks to her Admiral Marcus and basically half of her face is not visible thanks to the lens flare. I get it, it's his style, but as far as I'm concerned damn annoying and it has nothing to do with the film.

Look, I think a lot of people are going to enjoy it. Just don't think that deeply about the story.

I agree with you about the lens flare. Very annoying.

 

[Michael Elliott]

Me too and the crowd I saw it with LOVED it. I think if you're a person who doesn't like or doesn't care about Star Trek, there's a very chance that you'll have a good time with this movie but it sure seems like many existing Trek fans hate this movie more than Hitler.

I've never seen any television show, have only seen three of the previous features and was lukewarm on the 2009 film but I enjoyed this. I thought the action scenes were great for the most part and there's no question that the cast has everything down. The 3D wasn't all that impressive but I continue to be a sucker so the only one to blame is myself here.

The biggest problem I had was the running time and the lack of a story that certainly didn't support such a running time.

I haven't read much on the film but I had heard "fans" were upset with it. I got the theater 30-minutes early today excepting there to be a crowd but there were only around 25 people there. I was shocked to see it so low for such a movie. As a horror fan, sometimes I think it's worse to be a fanboy because you just go to certain movies/actors/directors with certain expectations that others might not have. For me, I wouldn't have cared if Spock became a sadistic murderer and killed everyone on the ship. In fact, it would have been much better than what we got but I'm sure fans would have gone crazy.

This wasn't as good as IM3 but I thought it was better than the last one. I do wonder, perhaps dumbly, if some of this heat from fanboys is because the director is doing their upcoming rival series.

 

[TravisR]

I've never seen any television show, have only seen three of the previous features and was lukewarm on the 2009 film but I enjoyed this.

My Trek experience consists of having seen part of an episode of the original series, an episode of The Next Generation, First Contact (which I liked) and the first Abrams movie. Needless to say, I'm coming at this movie from an entirely different perspective than even a casual fan who has seen alot of the TV series and all the movies.

I got the theater 30-minutes early today excepting there to be a crowd but there were only around 25 people there. I was shocked to see it so low for such a movie.

Keep in mind that it opened Wednesday night so that and Thursday were probably the days that the die hards showed up.

 

[Rex Bachmann]

Michael Elliot wrote (post #25):

I do wonder, perhaps dumbly, if some of this heat from fanboys is because the director is doing their upcoming rival series.

Not me. Mr. Abrams and company are welcome to trash any and all other superpopular Hollywood "franchises" they can get their hands on. Why stop at only one? Qapla'!

 

[RobertR]

As a horror fan, sometimes I think it's worse to be a fanboy because you just go to certain movies/actors/directors with certain expectations that others might not have. For me, I wouldn't have cared if Spock became a sadistic murderer and killed everyone on the ship.

I'm sure there are future moviegoers who wouldn't care about Yoda being portrayed that way, either.

 

[Nelson Au]

If I wanted to watch The Wrath of Khan, I'd watch the Wrath of Khan!A few thoughts. I can't add much to the comments as I've had the same thoughts. That said, it was an entertaining two hours. The film looks great, it benefits from the ability to generate imagery that defies reality and looks real. The technology that The Motion Picture never had, yet still managed to make a great visual statement.I think another critic made a comment that this felt like Skyfall. Kirk went through what he needed to be taught to become Kirk and now they start their 5 year mission. The writers may have thought it clever that this alternate universe would allow them to use Khan in a way you didn't expect, but I saw through that pretty fast like everyone else here did. It might have better if Khan really did help Kirk to stop Murphy, I mean Marcus..I hated the habit that Orci seems to like to have the stupid arguing of characters like they did between McGarrett and Danno. Uhura dumping on Spock in the shuttle in front of Kirk and the red shirts, really?You know, I think Abrams, Orci, Kurtzman, Lindelof and the others were given a mandate by Paramount or they would not be working anymore. Make a super action film, make it appeal to boys, and it has to have Khan. But don't let anyone know it's Khan. They paid lip service to Star Trek. But they made a generic action movie with the same old formula. And why didn't they rebuild the Enterprise with better proportions!I don't even rate this or the 2009 film to the original 6 films. This is a new and different Star Trek. Not one for old fans. It's for the young new fans.

 

[Nelson Au]

After sleeping on it, and reading Mark Altman's trekmovie review and Harry Knowles geeked out review, I can see their point of view and I understand it.While I still think it was going back to the well to revisit a rogue leader in Starfleet and to bring back Khan as the big bad guy, I can fully understand Knowles review. His point is that this being a "What if" makes these movies a lot easier for me to take! And I agree with him that it lets them do their own Star Trek yet totally leaves alone TOS. And I've been revisiting TOS a lot more recently, and enjoying them and discovering so many more aspect of a series I've enjoyed for nearly a lifetime. You know what's a really mind blowing thing is I saw the last showing of STID and got home late, and saw William Shatner as a guest on Craig Ferguson! The guy is still fully engaged and sharp as a tack throughout the interview. Of course Ferguson asks if he saw the movie yet and Shatner says no, but he thinks they are wonderful.

 

[Sean Bryan]

I was disappointed with this. I loved the 2009 film, but just wasn't pulled into this one. Something was off. The recycled beats from Wrath of Khan seemed odd, especially since I knew there was no way they'd actually go through with it like WoK did. The bit with Bones injecting Khan's blood into the dead tribble telegraphed to me that any significant death would be temporary, so I had no sense of worry or urgency as the climax played out. And Spock's "Khaaaaaan!" just felt like "remember that famous shout from WoK? Well here it is again, only now it's Spock. See, we flipped it". It just didn't work at all for me as a true emotional moment from the character. I thought Into Darkness was "okay". It had nice chemistry between Kirk, Bones and Spock. It had great visual effects and neat action. I could take or leave the lens flares. Khan was cool, but he never really resonated with me. But considering how much I enjoyed the first one I was let down with this. I used to think that it would be cool to revisit Khan in this alternate timeline. But now i see that doing that was this movie's biggest mistake because they used him as more of a popcorn adventure element rather than the devastating adversary he was in Wrath of Khan. They repeated story beats, but I never felt like the stakes were high because I knew those beats, and I knew they wouldn't actually go all the way like in the original timeline. It's just odd that they would use Khan but adapt parts of Wrath of Khan instead of Space Seed. I hope I can enjoy it more in future viewings. Now that I know what it is, I may be able to enjoy it more as an adventure flick instead of waiting for an emotional resonance that never came. Oh, and saying it is anywhere near the quality of Nemesis is ludicrous.

 

[Steve Tannehill]

Wow, rough crowd. I just got back from seeing this, and I enjoyed it immensely.

 

[Simon Massey]

I come at this having enjoyed most of the previous iterations of Star Trek, especially DS9, but I also enjoyed Abrams version of Star Trek. However he is just not interested in Roddenberry's version of Star Trek and it really should be called "Before Star Trek : Into Darkness." Other than the characters, the only real connection is the film's attempts to comment on terrorism and how we respond to it both personally and globally, and even that is superficial and perfunctory at best.

To me, Abrams is only real interest here is delivering what I think is an enjoyable "summer popcorn movie." That term gets bandied about a lot of at this time of year as a justification for enjoyment of a movie which others often decry as awful or bad. I have been guilty myself of dismissing others' enjoyment of such films I found dreadful (pretty much every Transformers film or Fast and Furious). I can't deny that there are some gaping plot holes here and the film's slavish recreation of elements from the Wrath of Khan is baffling as I expected the film to take Khan and apply a different story given the freedom they had with the alternative timeline. They seemed to be doing that initially, but then comes Kirk's "death". At the very least, they could still have created a completely different scenario and stage the scenes in a different way. To have him die and resurrected is also absurd - at least previous Trek took one whole film to justify that and certainly didn't try it with a human. Sure incapacitate him to the point of near death and revive him with Khan's blood - now that would have made sense within the story. Time travel usually works well for this in a Trek story too!!

And yet I still had a great time with this movie and came out wanting to see it again. I guess this is my "summer popcorn movie" and I'm willing to accept that and acknowledge that Abrams version of Star Trek is a hell of a lot of fun. To me, the characters were funny, engaging and recognisable versions of those I loved, which helps the film immensely and the sheer pace was relentless, which left little time to dwell on those plot holes. I suspect that my enjoyment of the film may well be curtailed by future viewings as I become more familiar with it, but I hope not and for now this was great entertainment.

 

[Tommy R]

Just got back from seeing the movie, and while it had enough good moments to not be COMPLETELY un-watchable, it was overall just NOT a good movie. After seeing Trek '09, I thought, "That was OKAY, but hopefully a sequel can improve upon wat has been started with this". I was wrong. ST:ID had me pining for the days of Trek '09. J.J. is straight up a horrid filmmaker, and these writters can't come up with a story worth shit. The brightest spot IMO is casting, especially McCoy and Scotty. It was cool to see RoboCop acting still. But the WoK references were hard to take. I was seriously thinking to myself in the final act: "Is this a JOKE? Are J.J. and his buddies sitting back and laughing at what they've done?"

While I wouldn't put this on Nemesis or Insurresction levels, like I said it WAS watchable while Nemesis and Insurrection are NOT in my book, I just think that this was a bad movie. Plain and simple. As a Trek movie, and as a movie in general. Here's hoping Paramount can get a whole new of filmmakers to make some more sequel with this same cast. J.J. I'm sure will be tied up ruining Star Wars for a while. BTW, my excited for Episode VII has been SEVERLY curbed.

 

[Adam Lenhardt]

A very well-crafted film, even if it felt a bit unnecessary. The cast is stellar, with terrific chemistry among all of the key players. Great cinematography, production design and costumes. Confident and well-paced.Having had two films in a row where the Enterprise uses military tactics to stop a military threat to the human race, I hope the next one is a really far-out science fiction concept. On their five year mission, find something truly alien and unknown, really "boldly go where no man has gone before."

 

[Brandon Conway]

Haven't read other people's reaction in this thread, but here is mine:

Having heard how relentless the action was beforehand, I kinda think that aspect is being played out more than is fair. Yes, it's a generally action driven film. But the character moments - while never anything like, say, the meeting between Kirk & Spock in Spock's quarters in ST2 - were fairly effective, IMO.Overall, I think I like it more than the previous film, mainly because it doesn't have the overly hackneyed convenient circumstances which I was reminded of upon rewatching ST '09 earlier this week.Some one-off thoughts:- I liked the "we're kinda allies" for Kirk/Khan in the middle act quite a lot. Knew it would not last of course, but it was a nice callback to the first half of Space Seed.- Biggest logical gap of the film: there are no other Federation Ships near Earth to intervene when both ships are marooned by the Moon? The scope of the two Abrams films are so tunnel-visioned at times, it's the equivalent to characters not hearing a helicopter until they also see it RIGHT next to them.- The reversal on the Kirk/Spock ST2 material was done well, if a bit too on the nose with as many recycled lines that they used.- How awesome was the moment when Kirk grows up and decides to arrest Harrison? I'm REALLY glad they addressed how Kirk wasn't quite ready to command the Enterprise at the end of the ST '09, and getting his growth as a leader out of the way early in the film and working it into the story as neatly as it was pleased me greatly. From that moment on he was finally fully the 60s TV Kirk character in tone. So glad this happened.- Alice Eve is the hotness. The underwear moment was pointless fan service.... but I'm a fan, so I let it go.- The callback to Nimoy's Spock and the Prime Universe "how it previously happened" was both good and bad. I think it helped with Spock's perspective as a character for the ending of the film, but it also restrains these stories and helps define them as "we're twisting what you've already seen, don't you SEE?" They need to completely leave that element behind in the next film.- Fortunately, the way the film ended they are in a great place to go fully forward in the storytelling of future films with little looking back to how it was done before. I liked it well enough for this one, but let's see something new on their five-year mission in New ST3.- Here's my full review from my Facebook page:"Though still Trek through the prism of bombastic action filmmaking, this follow-up boasts a smarter sense of the characters and overall tone than it's enjoyable, yet heavily contrived predecessor. There is little action to spare, and the majority of it is done quite convincingly. When it borrows ideas from its 60s-80s tv & film ancestor it does so with charm and genuine understanding with why they worked - even if there is a slight tendency to oversell certain rehashed details. It also ends its story in a familiar place, allowing the tone of future films to better encapsulate the driving question behind Star Trek: just what is out there? 9/10"

 

[Sam Favate]

I enjoyed it, but I sure saw a lot of flaws. As I said in the Iron Man 3 thread, enough with the destruction! In the period in history where we are, seeing cities destroyed is not entertainment. Yes, 9/11 is a focal point that everyone in the audience can reference, but playing that emotional card is not acceptable. The audience doesn't need to feel that kind of fear in a fucking movie, for crying out loud. It's far from just JJ Abrams who has done this, but Enough. Enough. Enough.

Where's the positive message? This is Star Trek, right? I saw little to no optimism in that future. I remember 30 years ago when Nick Meyers was criticized for making Starfleet more militaristic. But that was nothing compared to this. And those uniforms! When Kirk and the others had those gray uniforms with the state trooper hats on, it almost looked like Starship Troopers (a film I hated). Again, show us you have a clue what Star Trek is about.

Is revenge the only story movies can tell these days? The '09 film was all about Nero taking his revenge; this film was almost called Vengeance, and Kirk wants revenge for the death of Pike (which was unfortunate because he was a great character). Is there no longer any other motivation in movies? Yes, yes, Kirk says at the end that while we have the desire for revenge, that isn't who we are -- after we just spent two hours on it.

I hate it when one movie in a series winks at the audience by quoting another movie in the series. (Star Wars is particularly guilty of this.) The end of Into Darkness with the Kirk/Spock roles reversed felt a little cheap. Clever? Maybe, but it's time for something original. And with this in mind, as great as Karl Urban is in the role of McCoy, he was given little to do but recite some of McCoy's greatest hits.

The visit to Kronos (isn't it Qu'onos?) was too dark. I never like when ships are flying through undefined buildings, under arches and what have you. We need a sense of where they are to be part of the drama. Also 5 minutes of Klingons? Felt tacked on.

I did really enjoy Pine and Quinto as Kirk and Spock. These guys have it down. The rest of the cast was also very good, if only they'd been given more to do. Weller was a bit too one-note. There was no complexity to his character at all. And I don't believe the head of Starfleet would really sacrifice everyone on board the Enterprise to start a war. Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek was filled with good people; we're led to believe that only our heroes are enlightened. Cumberbatch was good as Khan, but it takes something away from Khan when he had to share the villain's spotlight with Weller. (And come on, the USS Vengeance? Is this the mirror universe?) Much has been made of Cumberbatch's commanding voice, but his enunciation in the scene where he's first talking to Kirk was almost ridiculous. Alice Eve was good, although I was surprised there was not even a hint of her romance with Kirk.

And enough with the goddamn lens flares. They're horrible. Every one of them stops the movie cold because it takes you out of the film. Their presence in every movie he makes tells me Abrams is not nearly the master filmmaker we're told he is. I'm afraid for the Star Wars universe.

Bring on another director for the next Trek, maybe some other writers too. There are other writers who get Trek very well, and not just Gene Coon and Gene Roddenberry; the likes of Ron Moore, Ira Behr, and Rene Echevarria could do a great job. Trek works best on TV, but I'd take an original series film (well, not V) over more of this.

It doesn't sound like it, but I really did enjoy it. It was compelling in the moment I was seeing it. But when I stop and think about it, some of it crumbles. (Oh, and you get Leonard Nimoy for a two-minute scene and you pixelate the hell out of his image? You can't show him clearly for what may be the last time?!)

 

[Tino]

Jeez a lot of hate here. I loved it. I disagree with most of the criticisms but hey that's just me.An improvement in every way on the first film, which I loved. This film had it all, great action, great performances, a great story and great 3D. This IS Star Trek to me, and ive been a fan since the 70's, and that's all that matters. It met my expectations and exceeded them. Ymmv.

 

[Tino]

Btw, it opened soft to $70 million over the 3 days and $85 million since Wednesday. Its 4day total is about even with the last film. Although it is doing much better overseas and has already grossed $80 million( the first did $127 million total international) for $165 million worldwide.

 

[Lord Dalek]

I thought it was a hoot but yeah its pretty darn flawed.