Star Trek Into Darkness (no spoilers) my mini review (1 Viewer)

[mattCR]

To Matt...Going after one person, regardless of borders, has gone on for centuries. Hell, a "people" has gone on the hunt for another "people" throughout history.Or was your head in the sand for Hussein, Bin Laden and have you not seen The Debt?

Two giant problems with your theory, though..

Hussein was the head of state of a country; and a war was basically declared (same with Osama, if you meant that); and in "The Debt" a covert force who could be disavowed was used.

In this case..

Spoiler

You armored up the flag ship of the federation and bum rushed into enemy territory. Imagine "The Debt" if Israel had tried to storm into Russia with a tank loaded up with weaponry.. sounds ridiculous, doesn't it? Or, if you've seen "The Good Shepherd", a CIA flick, you know that once foreign spies got out of the US, we didn't chase them down guns a blazing... that's how superpowers work..

But I guess part of it IS tainted in my mind about Trek, in general. Abrams has effectively turned Trek (and the Federation) into a gigantic "we have military might" organization from top to bottom that isn't afraid to start major military conflicts because they are seeking serious power.. and before we get into "no!" think about -why- they are chasing the bad guy down, and what he was recruited to do.... which BTW, is pretty stupid to have someone 300 years out of place assigned to that task, no matter how bright he was.. if Leonardo Da Vinci stepped out of time today, would you put him in charge of NASA? Come on..

But yes, I guess I should say part of my disappointment is that one of the great things about all trek was: in the future, we move BEYOND these things, and we become a society focused on trying to better ourselves, not one controlled by military ideals, etc.. and this rendition of Trek pretty well flushes that concept down the toilet.

 

[RobertR]

This review sounds awfully familiar....

We have a contradiction here. Your link has someone saying "if I wanted to see a Trek film with a plot that makes sense, I wouldn't have seen this", but Matt says the plot doesn't make sense....

 

[Dave Scarpa]

It makes sense to a certain point but then all falls apart

 

[Chris Will]

I had a long post type out but decided to not go down that road again. Suffice to say that I loved the movie, every last minute of it. I don't think the plot is as bad as others are making it out to be and I think some people here decided months ago to not like this movie. I bet I could go to the other thread and list everyone who is going to pan the movie. Then again, they'd probably say that I decided to love it months ago and maybe I did but; I actually did really, really enjoy this movie. Just like the 2009 movie, this one doesn't affect my love or passion for all of Trek that came before, they can co-exist just fine IMO. Can't wait to see it at least 3 more times, 2D with my wife, 3D and IMAX. If I had to put a number on it, I'd say 4.5/5. Better and more fun then IM3, imo of course.
Let's be honest here though, DS9 already did a pretty good job at militarizing Starfleet and STVI had rouge Starfleet officers conspire to kill Klingon diplomats, which is an act of war in most universes. I can think of a number of Voyager episodes where it was shoot first, ignore the Vulcan, and ask questions later. So, it's not like STID is the first time these themes have appeared in Star Trek plus, I thought they made it abundantly clear that what the bad guy wanted was not what Starfleet was about.

 

[RobertR]

STVI had rouge Starfleet officers conspire to kill Klingon diplomats, which is an act of war in most universes.

So I guess Kirk is now a rogue Starfleet officer. Nice way to portray him.

 

[Lord Dalek]

I give it 2.5 stars, or a grade of C+.

So when converting your obscenely steep ratings curve, its actually a good movie. Hooray!

 

[mattCR]

Here's the reality. Some people are going to love this film.. as I said, the action sequences are very good, the 3D is very good.. and that's going to be enough for people.

I guess my feeling about it is probably more closely linked to why I hated all the Transformers movies.. the plot just falls apart for me. I grasp that a lot of people are going to say "but it's such great fun" and I also grasp that it's going to be a huge blockbuster. I'm not worried about either of those things. Just like I know Transformers made a ton of money.

But the key problems I have, as I've discussed with friends, still don't go away.. the first half of the film was really enjoyable, special effects were good, and my thoughts of things like "why does nobody guard anything" would have been minor nitpicks. But the second half of the film -JUST TO ME- is a train wreck. While Star Trek (2009) was a pretty fun romp - and I had issue with it, but had to admit it was a fun romp - this requires a lot of people who are characterized as "super unbelievably smart" to do some wildly stupid things in order to get the conclusion we get. It also requires a fair bit of amazing revisions to how such a thing would even be possible, like wild rabbit out of the hat level magic.

I think the problem is going to be that people who don't like it are going to be compared to "you star trek elitists, you just hate everything fun!"... which I can see coming a mile away, as I said. I have no problem with people saying they enjoyed it as a great special effects/popcorn movie. But even with all of the effects, in comparison to other summer blockbusters the plot felt.. bolted on, and poorly.

I'm not giving it an "F" or saying it's worthless; hell, it's nowhere near the worst Trek movie (for me that's still Nemisis, which was god awful but chose your own). But that still doesn't mean it's very good.. IMHO.

I'm glad a ton of other people love it. That's the beauty of art, everyone can walk out with their own thoughts.

 

[schan1269]

Nemesis the "worst Trek"...

I think that (dis)honour falls on Final Frontier. Heck, how many times has this movie been revised for it "not to suck"? Granted it planted future seeds, but way too long.

If all else fails, the "New Trek" changed it to to the odd numbered films being better.

 

[TravisR]

Coming at the movie as someone who couldn't care less about Star Trek prior to the last movie, I had a good time with this one. It's fun, exciting and funny. I can't wait to see what J.J. Abrams does when he gets to make a full-on Star Wars movie.

I haven't looked at any of the Trek threads since the movie premiered a couple weeks ago but based on the pre-release posts, I already know who hated this movie.

 

[Dave Scarpa]

I've said I was enjoying it upto about half way, then it really does fall apart quickly like Matt says, ultimately it was decisions in the first film to not go with a straight reboot of the francise, drop this alt timestream nonsense and Dual Spock that ultimately dooms the sequel. If they had used Older Spock as a framing device to tell the story of their first meeting together it would have been better, much better.

 

[mattCR]

One other thing. I can't recall any professional film I've ever seen with that many blue and red horizontal large lens flares going through at least half the scenes. or the small dots of light imbalance when next to a viewscreen

 

[RobertR]

One other thing. I can't recall any professional film I've ever seen with that many blue and red horizontal large lens flares going through at least half the scenes. or the small dots of light imbalance when next to a viewscreen

We know lens flares make JJ Abrams tingle, so as long as he's making these movies it's just something people have to put up with. That includes the upcoming Star Wars movie.

 

[TravisR]

We know lens flares make JJ Abrams tingle, so as long as he's making these movies it's just something people have to put up with. That includes the upcoming Star Wars movie.

Obviously, he loves lens flares but they were dialed way back in Super 8 compared to his Trek movies anyway. I'm not saying there won't be any in Star Wars but since it's Part 7 (rather than a reboot), I think he MAY dial them back in effort to stay closer to the look of the first six movies.

 

[schan1269]

Lets hope the flares are dialed back...

Light Saber + light flares =

Speaking of JJ...and "crew"...

Anybody see the Urban interview where he jokes a cameo during Star Wars where he peeked his head in a room and said..."oops wrong room"...would be something he'd do in a heartbeat...

 

[RobertR]

he MAY dial them back in effort to stay closer to the look of the first six movies.

Given that he obviously wasn't interested in staying close to the look (or the characters) of previous Star Trek movies, that "may" is very iffy.

 

[Chris Will]

Well, there is one thing MattCR and I agree on, Nemesis is the worst Star Trek film, by far imo. The only reason I own is because I have the box set. Don't even know why I have the box set, the only next gen movie I enjoy is First Contact. I revisit V more often then any of the next gen movies, even FC. Honestly, to me at least, V is the only movie that truly captured TOS chemistry of Kirk, Spock and McCoy and is one of its most enduring qualities. Yes, the story is not that good and it is really corny in parts but, it has some of the best Krik, Spock and McCoy moments of all the films.

Given that he obviously wasn't interested in staying close to the look (or the characters) of previous Star Trek movies, that "may" is very iffy.

Well, he was tasked with "rebooting" Star Trek. He is not tasked with rebooting Star Wars, just continuing the series. I don't think he is going to have as much control over Star Wars as he does with Trek, he's already not getting his normal writing team.

I really didn't notice the lens flares as much this time around. I just re-watched '09 Trek earlier this week and they are toned down a bit in STID.

 

[Nelson Au]

Wow, even after all the lens flare backlash in the first movie, and Abrams was aware of the backlash I assume, he still has it in this movie? Well, I'm sure from an eyecandy and popcorn type movie, i will enjoy the ride. But with my brain on and all the Star Trek investment i have, I'm really curious to see this trainwreck second half of the movie!Based on what little I know of the actors, Urban and Pegg are the ones with real Star Trek knowledge. It would be interesting if they were allowed to honestly say what they thought of the direction of these films.

 

[TravisR]

Wow, even after all the lens flare backlash in the first movie, and Abrams was aware of the backlash I assume, he still has it in this movie?

He jokes about it on the Super 8 commentary so he's aware of the criticism. That being said, if he likes it and feels it works, I'm glad that he keeps it. He shouldn't change his 'art' to suit my tastes.

 

[RobertR]

I don't think he is going to have as much control over Star Wars as he does with Trek, he's already not getting his normal writing team.

Well, if he's not allowed to do it (despite wanting to), that's a different story.

 

[Nelson Au]

He jokes about it on the Super 8 commentary so he's aware of the criticism. That being said, if he likes it and feels it works, I'm glad that he keeps it. He shouldn't change his 'art' to suit my tastes.

Thanks Travis. I agree, it's his thing. I was more bothered by other things then lens flares in the first movie.