Stark Trek Into Darkness *SPOILERS*

[Nephtys]

I don't know how anyone couldn't find this movie at least enjoyable. I rather liked Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Sherlock, in fact. Even with it's gratuitous in-joking and references.

It's a new Star Trek. But it still humors Old Star Trek. And that's fine! The universe has a feel to it that's fleshing itself out. I especially appreciated the 'normal people living' in futuristic San Fran, which seems to add something to the adventurous tone of the film. Basically, it did seem like a sort of continuation of the first remake film, instead of being jarringly different, like a lot of sequels.

[Vendetta]

Is it really fan service though? Of the trekkies here who is actually happy that Nimoy showed up instead of rolling their eyes? Who isn't disappointed that they remade Wraith of Khan, did it worse, and avoided creating anything new? I am a franchise fan and that didn't make me happy.

You basically can't remake Wrath of Khan with a young cast, because Wrath of Khan is about an old man facing up to mortality after denying it for too long. The whole repeated theme of a "no win scenario" is mataphor for old age and death, and most of what happens to Kirk's character is reminders of his increasing physical frailty and the failures of his life (his failed relationship with his son), and his refusal to face mortality is contrasted with Spock's acceptance of his own.

Wrath of Khan is the only Star Trek movie that was actually about something, and which works irrespective of your understanding of or connection to the franchise (even if it reuses a series villain, it doesn't actually matter, he's just a person contrasted with Kirk by being put in similar "no win" situations and showing how the drive to survive them that we see as positive in Kirk can actually be destructive).

It was totally a mistake to use Khan without understanding what the original Wrath of Khan was about.

[Vanas]

Protip: This wasn't TWoK. Yes, it stole some scenes from it to be a throwback, but this wasn't TWoK. This was... a new movie. Scary, I know.

Heck, we also know that Khan's still around. I'd be suprised if someone doesn't defrost him in the future in order to continue Starfleet's experiments in necromancy. Then he might be rather more wrathful.

Although, on a side note, I think I've spotted what Alt-Khan is missing. Original Khan, for all his megalomania was pretty much oozing charm everywhere he went. Alt-Khan is far more clinical in personaility; possibly because of the fact he's been Marcus' pet ubermenschen for a while and is just angry as opposed to particularly wrathful.

[Stark]

I think you're confusing corny for charming.

[Vendetta]

Protip: This wasn't TWoK. Yes, it stole some scenes from it to be a throwback, but this wasn't TWoK. This was... a new movie. Scary, I know.

Which raises the question of why use Khan at all. What does his backstory bring to Space Strangelove (mad general attacks enemy before they attack first) that any other character wouldn't have?

[Skylon]

Protip: This wasn't TWoK. Yes, it stole some scenes from it to be a throwback, but this wasn't TWoK. This was... a new movie. Scary, I know.

Which raises the question of why use Khan at all. What does his backstory bring to Space Strangelove (mad general attacks enemy before they attack first) that any other character wouldn't have?

Apparently the writers created the script without the intent of using Khan at all (From Memory Alpha's entry on new Khan):

If you think about it, he could've revealed his name was Schmuko with a slightly different back story (super criminal from Federation jail, etc...) and that Marcus used him by threatening other people he cared about (family instead of crew) and the story still stands." Eventually, "The details became too juicy to avoid. Genetic super man from a time that understood war and savagery, etc. Once we had a basic structure that did not necessarily necessitate him, we were able to tailor the script itself to details and inspirations that he brought.

I'm still a little iffy on the use of Khan, but they at least did some different stuff with the character and it didn't wind up as a total retread, or even feel like a remake of "Space Seed" or "Wrath of Khan". The only part that blared "REMAKE" was Kirk's near-sacrifice as a reversal of Spock's in TWOK, mainly because of the dialogue and it actually served to move forward Kirk's earning his wings and cementing the friendship between Kirk and Spock

I did like that Spock managed to take down Khan the same way Kirk did in "Space Seed"...with a blunt instrument.

[Adam Reynolds]

Which raises the question of why use Khan at all. What does his backstory bring to Space Strangelove (mad general attacks enemy before they attack first) that any other character wouldn't have?

I think a major factor was the success of recent superhero movies. They wanted a truly superhuman character in order to play to that crowd.

My initial thought after seeing it was that I just plain enjoyed it. While there are things that I could criticize after the fact, while watching it there wasn't a lot that bothered me. Another though that popped up was that I enjoyed this movie enough to be less worried about what Abrams will do with Star Wars(which I tend to like more than Trek). In terms of the plot I though it was overall significantly better than the '09 movie as it seemed somewhat more logical and even addressed some of the criticisms of that movie. In general I think that the more someone liked the original Trek the less they like these movies(to an extent).

[Flagg]

I think you're confusing corny for charming.

I have hurt you Kirk... And I wish to go on... Hurting you...

[CaptainChewbacca]

One thing I think is a bit funny is that now in Alt-Trek Khan's arch-enemy is most likely Spock, not Kirk. To Khan Kirk was jut an annoyance, Spock is the one who ruined his plan, destroyed his ship, and beat him senseless before locking him back up.

[Admiral Valdemar]

One thing I think is a bit funny is that now in Alt-Trek Khan's arch-enemy is most likely Spock, not Kirk. To Khan Kirk was jut an annoyance, Spock is the one who ruined his plan, destroyed his ship, and beat him senseless before locking him back up.

If he comes back (a big if), it probably would be a remake of TWoK if we had Alt-Khan defrost at some point. Just with Spock, as you say.

[Surlethe]

I really enjoyed the movie. J.J. Abrams really knows how to handle outer space -- he makes the "Star" in Star Trek super fucking beautiful. Khan was the best character, trailed closely by Spock; I want to echo CC and Valdemar that this movie was about Khan versus Spock, down to the fight scene at the end. I would have liked more foreshadowing about this, including somehow a reminder that Vulcans are alien. Spock is faster, stronger, and smarter than humans; he was the only character in the movie capable of posing a serious challenge to Khan. Not reminding audiences of this diminishes Khan's villainy.

Khan playing Kirk like a fine violin was beautiful to watch. The dialogue was impeccably delivered, and Khan's manipulation of the situation was almost devastatingly inevitable. But after Khan took the bridge of the Doomship, I hated how they shoehorned Nimoy into the movie. What a stupid-as-fuck deus ex; Spock was plenty smart enough to come up with that trick on his own.

What happened next just tore me completely out of SoD. They're halfway to the moon; free-fall from rest to the Earth would take about 40 hours. At least I can chalk up the varying gravity to the Enterprise's tumbling, but that 40 hours went pretty damn fast. Exterior shots of the falling ship went from near the Moon to Blue Marble Earth (~2 hours above Apollo parking orbit) to upper atmosphere in about ten minutes; my eyes about rolled out of my head. Disappointing, especially in the context of Abrams' almost impeccable handling of almost all else space (delightful abandonment of "up" and "down", no noise when appropriate, and I don't even remember any banking starships). Oh yeah, and don't even get me started on the radiation in the warp core, or the fact that Kirk fixed such a powerful and delicate machine by kicking it back into "alignment".

[Worlds Spanner]

I really enjoyed the movie. J.J. Abrams really knows how to handle outer space -- he makes the "Star" in Star Trek super fucking beautiful. Khan was the best character, trailed closely by Spock; I want to echo CC and Valdemar that this movie was about Khan versus Spock, down to the fight scene at the end. I would have liked more foreshadowing about this, including somehow a reminder that Vulcans are alien. Spock is faster, stronger, and smarter than humans; he was the only character in the movie capable of posing a serious challenge to Khan. Not reminding audiences of this diminishes Khan's villainy.

Khan playing Kirk like a fine violin was beautiful to watch. The dialogue was impeccably delivered, and Khan's manipulation of the situation was almost devastatingly inevitable. But after Khan took the bridge of the Doomship, I hated how they shoehorned Nimoy into the movie. What a stupid-as-fuck deus ex; Spock was plenty smart enough to come up with that trick on his own.

What happened next just tore me completely out of SoD. They're halfway to the moon; free-fall from rest to the Earth would take about 40 hours. At least I can chalk up the varying gravity to the Enterprise's tumbling, but that 40 hours went pretty damn fast. Exterior shots of the falling ship went from near the Moon to Blue Marble Earth (~2 hours above Apollo parking orbit) to upper atmosphere in about ten minutes; my eyes about rolled out of my head. Disappointing, especially in the context of Abrams' almost impeccable handling of almost all else space (delightful abandonment of "up" and "down", no noise when appropriate, and I don't even remember any banking starships). Oh yeah, and don't even get me started on the radiation in the warp core, or the fact that Kirk fixed such a powerful and delicate machine by kicking it back into "alignment".

I didn't mind Nimoy being shoehorned in. All he said was that Khan was really dangerous, which was pretty fucking obvious at that point, imo. He's not going to be around much longer, and I think his involvement/blessing was a big part of the first movie being a success, so a cameo seemed appropriate.

As for the free fall, I was a bit taken aback that they were at Earth at all, until I remembered that when they were 20ish minutes out Kirk had told the con to get there asap. I assume that they entered the gravity well with some momentum. I'd have to watch again to make sure that there wasn't a scene where they were obviously full stop.

The entire reactor scene was kind of dumb. I think they just wanted to show off their concept for it, which was admittedly a cool blend of the expected M/AM emitters with lots of extra piping and tubing, sticking with their concept for engineering and the ship as a while. No dilithium visible, leading me to wonder about Scotty mentioning it being "charged" at the end of the 2009 film.

[Skylon]

What happened next just tore me completely out of SoD. They're halfway to the moon; free-fall from rest to the Earth would take about 40 hours. At least I can chalk up the varying gravity to the Enterprise's tumbling, but that 40 hours went pretty damn fast. Exterior shots of the falling ship went from near the Moon to Blue Marble Earth (~2 hours above Apollo parking orbit) to upper atmosphere in about ten minutes;

Maybe they were still at impulse velocity on a heading toward Earth? With the controls locked, and no way to brake their speed/establish a proper orbit?

Oh yeah, and don't even get me started on the radiation in the warp core, or the fact that Kirk fixed such a powerful and delicate machine by kicking it back into "alignment".

Would you have preferred technobabble?

Actually there was once again, remarkably little technobabble. But I agree, Abrams does make "space" beautiful in Trek, with also the right dose of danger to the setting.

On another note, did we have a moment where the writers forgot the "you can't beam through shields" (when Admiral Marcus beamed Carol off the bridge) only to have them later re-establish that rule, when Khan and Spock exchanged Kirk for the torpedoes? Is this just a curse for anybody writing Trek?

[charlemagne]

What happened next just tore me completely out of SoD. They're halfway to the moon; free-fall from rest to the Earth would take about 40 hours. At least I can chalk up the varying gravity to the Enterprise's tumbling, but that 40 hours went pretty damn fast. Exterior shots of the falling ship went from near the Moon to Blue Marble Earth (~2 hours above Apollo parking orbit) to upper atmosphere in about ten minutes; my eyes about rolled out of my head.

What bothered me most was the following scene with Vengeance crashing into San Francisco - it apparently took the city or rather all of Earth by total surprise. Even with only the hero ship in the vicinity, you'd imagine Starfleet would pick up on something huge about to crash into Earth. People only noticed that a fucking spaceship was coming when they could see it with their own eyes. That seemed a bit off.

Another thing: did anyone else get the impression that the thing that pushed Khan over the edge and launched him into full genocidal warmonger mode was Scotty stunning him on the Vengeance bridge? Up to that point, sure, Khan manipulated Kirk and was certainly working his own agenda above all, but it seemed to me that this latest "betrayal" is what made him snap for good. Overall Khan, just like Kirk, was only trying to take care of his crew.

[Worlds Spanner]

What happened next just tore me completely out of SoD. They're halfway to the moon; free-fall from rest to the Earth would take about 40 hours. At least I can chalk up the varying gravity to the Enterprise's tumbling, but that 40 hours went pretty damn fast. Exterior shots of the falling ship went from near the Moon to Blue Marble Earth (~2 hours above Apollo parking orbit) to upper atmosphere in about ten minutes; my eyes about rolled out of my head.

What bothered me most was the following scene with Vengeance crashing into San Francisco - it apparently took the city or rather all of Earth by total surprise. Even with only the hero ship in the vicinity, you'd imagine Starfleet would pick up on something huge about to crash into Earth. People only noticed that a fucking spaceship was coming when they could see it with their own eyes. That seemed a bit off.

Another thing: did anyone else get the impression that the thing that pushed Khan over the edge and launched him into full genocidal warmonger mode was Scotty stunning him on the Vengeance bridge? Up to that point, sure, Khan manipulated Kirk and was certainly working his own agenda above all, but it seemed to me that this latest "betrayal" is what made him snap for good. Overall Khan, just like Kirk, was only trying to take care of his crew.

Marcus and Khan were both lying a lot, but I'm inclined to believe Marcus' claim that Khan and his crew were planning - in the long run - to commit lots and lots of genocide. I think Khan would have been willing to leave in peace for the time being if he had not been shot and his crew had been returned. I think being shot made him determined to kill Kirk right then, and having the torpedoes go off made him crash into San Francisco. Ultimately though, I think he was in genocidal warmonger mode anyway, just trying to keep it controlled.

[Guardsman Bass]

What bothered me most was the following scene with Vengeance crashing into San Francisco - it apparently took the city or rather all of Earth by total surprise. Even with only the hero ship in the vicinity, you'd imagine Starfleet would pick up on something huge about to crash into Earth. People only noticed that a fucking spaceship was coming when they could see it with their own eyes. That seemed a bit off.

For that matter, you'd think the Klingons would be a bit more watchful about starships warping into the orbital space around their homeworld (especially if tensions with the Federation are running high). They did ultimately intercept them on the ground, but that wasn't until they were actually flying around on the surface.

[Kuja]

I actually tuned out around halfway through because...I don't know, somehow, the movie managed to bore me.

I saw where the plot was going around the time Dr Marcus was intruduced and from there it went through all the predictable motions - Bad Admiral tries to blow up the Enterprise, plucky crew manages to force their way out of CERTAIN DOOM, oh look we're going to recreate the whole radiation chamber thing but this time it's KIRK who dies (don't worry we showed you Bones with the tribble so you know we'll bring him back).

Benedict Cumberbatch actually bored me. He actually bored me. I like Benedict Cumberbatch, shit, I mainlined the whole BBC Holmes series mostly on the strength of his Sherlock, but here he was almost a plank. I agree with Lusankya, that first scene where they showed his face and the orchestra started jamming DUN DUN DUN DUN DUN was just hysterical. Peter Weller was at least kind of entertaining as Bad Admiral.

The part with Scotty sneaking into the super-duper-double-probation-top-secret hangar made me laugh. He actually sweeps into formation ahead of several other shuttles and nobody notices? We can teleport across the galaxy and give oldSpock a ring from Earth orbit, but don't notice a random-ass shuttle cutting someone off on the intergalactic freeway? I mean, once he was actually in the place I could buy him slipping onto the undercrewed ship, but that shot with his shuttle was goofy as hell.

Just like last time, my favorite parts of the movie were Quinto and Urban. Those two really have their parts down to a T. Chris Pine still doesn't really sell me on his Kirk, but he's okay.

And just like last time, I want to tie JJ Abrams to a chair and beat him half to death with a stage light. I went and saw Iron Man 3 just recently and I didn't have a single issue watching metal robots wrestle superhumans for two hours, but I had to repeatedly wince and squint at STID. I hate his goddamned fucking lens flares. I don't care if your movie is genius or shit, if I'm squinting to see the actors past the goddamn lights coming off the cameras I'm gonig to be annoyed as fuck with it. It wasn't as persistant an issue as I remember the 09 movie having it, but it was irritating nonetheless.

STID was...meh. Disengage higher brain functions at the door, watch the pretty explosions and laugh at the one-liners. I guess it wasn't bad for what it was trying to be: a popcorn action movie with some pretentions at human drama.

[Worlds Spanner]

And just like last time, I want to tie JJ Abrams to a chair and beat him half to death with a stage light. I went and saw Iron Man 3 just recently and I didn't have a single issue watching metal robots wrestle superhumans for two hours, but I had to repeatedly wince and squint at STID. I hate his goddamned fucking lens flares. I don't care if your movie is genius or shit, if I'm squinting to see the actors past the goddamn lights coming off the cameras I'm gonig to be annoyed as fuck with it. It wasn't as persistant an issue as I remember the 09 movie having it, but it was irritating nonetheless.

Did you see it in 3D? I hated the lens flare in 2009 but intentionally saw STID in 2D because I read bad things about the lens flare in 3D and I didn't notice the lens flare at all.

[Kuja]

Did you see it in 3D? I hated the lens flare in 2009 but intentionally saw STID in 2D because I read bad things about the lens flare in 3D and I didn't notice the lens flare at all.

No, I saw it normally. It was mostly a problem on the scenes on the Enterprise. The stuff on Earth and elsewhere was alright.

[Stark]

When I rewatched the first film I didn't notice any lens flare after the opening, so I'm tempted to believe its one of those made up things.

[Flagg]

When I rewatched the first film I didn't notice any lens flare after the opening, so I'm tempted to believe its one of those made up things.

It's not as bad as people make it out to be, but there is a lot of it. I don't mind it so...

[Kuja]

When I rewatched the first film I didn't notice any lens flare after the opening, so I'm tempted to believe its one of those made up things.

It's not as bad as people make it out to be, but there is a lot of it. I don't mind it so...

I think it's something that might be worse in the theater than at home, because I've rewatched ST09 since then too and I don't remember it bugging me when I did.

Ultimately it's not a big huge deal, it's just something that's irritating you wish would go away and let you watch the damn movie.

[Vendetta]

When I rewatched the first film I didn't notice any lens flare after the opening, so I'm tempted to believe its one of those made up things.

It's probably exaggerated, but JJ Abrams has basically said "I put in lots of lens flare to make the future look shiny", so there is more than you'd usually see in a film.

It was basically a modern way of capturing the aesthetic of the original series where everything was bright and clean.

[Admiral Valdemar]

When you go to the extent of using dedicated lenses to create the effect as well as CGI, then you love your shiny shiny. That said, I didn't have any issues with STID regarding that particular bug bear of people, nor did I find it annoying in the first film.

[TheHammer]

I think my biggest complaint was the use of TOS Spock. It was uncalled for, and really added nothing the reboot crew couldn't have figured out themselves. They can't run off to TOS Spock for advice every time shit happens.

Actually I think Spock was more or less using his older self to confirm whether or not Khan could be at all trusted. After all, he had saved them on Kronus, and had the very plausible story that he was doing all of this to save his own people and "to prevent a war with the Klingons". Then the whole "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" aspect just clouded the whole situation.

Going to old Spock helped clear up the fact that Khan could not be trusted and lead to Spock's rigging of the photon torpedos to explode. If Old spock had said "Yes, we started off as adversaries but it turns out he was a really big help and ally" his actions may have been different.