Getting Even With Star Trek Into Darkness

[dnwilliams]

a 2009 JJ Abrams unleashed the prequel/sequel/reboot that reinvigorated the Star Trek franchise, bringing it greater critical and commercial success than it had ever seen at the multiplexes. To mark the occasion Movie-Moron has been honouring the age-old theory amongst Trekkies that  the even numbered entries into the Star Trek film series are good by 'Getting Even With Star Trek' and treating ourselves to viewings of those even-numbered Trek films. Our last discussion looks at Star Trek Into Darkness.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS


DNWilliams: Seeing as how you're fresh to this series of reviews, we'll kick off with a little background by way of introduction. Want to tell the Movie-Moron readers what your relationship with Star Trek is?
 Sheridan Passell: I've seen all the films, but the TV shows have largely passed me by.
 DNW:  That seems like a pretty weird way to come at the franchise, the Trek movies are quite a different animal from the shows.
 SP:  I'm not a TV person in general, not enough hours in the day, and I think sci-fi benefits from the budget and scope of cinema.
 DNW:  Would you consider yourself a fan of the films?
 SP:  For sure. The Wrath of Khan, The Voyage Home, The Undiscovered Country, Generations and First Contact were all enjoyable. The reboot too. I'd say Wrath of Khan is the definitive entry.
 DNW:  I imagine you have a fairly unique perspective on the reboot, given that you're mainly a fan of the film franchise. Something tells me you wouldn't be crazy about The Original Series either.
 SP:  The Original Series didn't appeal to me all that much, it's just a bit too budget, but the cast were charismatic.
 DNW:  What do you make of the return to those characters and the direction Abrams has taken things then?
SP: It was a gamble that definitely paid off. They tried to do the same thing after The Final Frontier, but the fans wouldn't stand for it. After Nemesis they really had nothing to lose, there was nowhere else for them to go. They didn't have a successful TV show to port over a la The Next Generation, so it was either create a whole new crew (which is arguably as risky) or reboot. By the time Abrams’s Star Trek came along there had been many successful reboots of other franchises, so it was a viable option.
 DNW:  The bitterest of fans would say that the franchise should've looked to the future as it had before, instead of returning to its roots. I feel very differently. The Abrams reboot is a real achievement in my mind; the fact that they returned to the characters that are the most ingrained in pop culture, restored the colourful and adventurous spirit of the original television show, all whilst actually respecting the canon of the franchise…masterstroke upon masterstroke, it shouldn't be undervalued.
 SP:  They had tried new crews on TV and they hadn't clicked in the way that they needed to. You couldn't have done a Voyager movie or that one with Scott Bakula. They executed it in the right way, I have no problem with it.  The mistake would have been, when rebooting with a younger cast, to have them as 'kids' for too long, but they were in their adult mode pretty quick. Star Wars's ‘early years’ treatment of Darth Vader is the textbook case of how not to do it - get them to adulthood fast.
 DNW:  I agree, things had gotten stale. Alright, shall we dive Into Darkness? On a surface level, I had reservations about the title. And not because it didn't have a colon, like some people.
 SP:  It's just the words ‘dark’ and ‘darkness’ have become very overused in describing movies on press tours, so to see it in the title here just betrays a lack of imagination. It's not as bad as ‘rises’ though.
 DNW:  ‘Rises’ was thematically resonant with The Dark Knight Rises though. ‘Into Darkness’ doesn't actually wind up being anything other than a title that the writers thought sounded cool, one that describes the stereotypical 'darker, edgier' sequel in a vague way.
 SP:  I wouldn't say it's much darker than the previous film, even. If it didn't prominently feature magic blood it might have been.
 DNW:  Right? There was the question of whether or not you can actually ‘Star Trek into’ something, because the title Star Trek already implies a trek through the stars.
 SP:  It's better than 'Star Trek: InchErection.'
 DNW:  Well, when you put it like that! Okay, opening scene: I loved this to pieces. The Enterprise are supposed to be observing a primitive world, Kirk and Bones are making a dash from the natives, and Spock is trying to stop a volcano from killing everyone.
 SP:  It was strong. It had very good visuals, and it was interesting to see the prime directive brought to the fore so much. In stark contrast to the start of Nemesis, where Picard drops down on a dune buggy for a joy ride before getting chased by the locals, they actually seem to care about the prime directive too.
 DNW:  The visuals WERE strong. The planet had a very distinctive look, which was great, and yeah, it couldn't have been more different from the likes of Nemesis. It's dynamic for a start.
 SP:  It did have Silly Movie Rule #1 - Characters can fall as far as they want, as long as it's into water. The reality is that a fall into water from any sort of significant height is virtually the same as hitting concrete. I'm looking at you, Skyfall.
 DNW:  And Fast Five.
 SP:  Oh yeah, but in Fast Five they project off a car mid-air. That's never been tried in reality.
 DNW:  One of them is also Vin Diesel, so we’re in unstoppable force, immovable object territory right there.
 SP:  He had the spirit of Telly Savalas holding him up.
 DNW:  Vin Diesel reminds you of Kojak?
 SP:  Hell to the yes. When they reboot Kojak there's only one name on that list. Are we off topic here?
 DNW:  Off-topic is what we do best. But yeah, the sequence is great for a number of reasons, it's exciting, it's visually arresting and it doesn't slouch on storytelling. You have a moral dilemma that the prime directive can present, the central theme of friendship brought into focus, and some great character work all in the opening minutes.
 SP:  Yeah, I'd agree with that, even though Spock's self-sacrificing spirit does feel ever so slightly forced. It's not like he'd be saving anyone, just upholding a Starfleet rule. The Spock of the past was always up for breaking rules to help his friends out.
 DNW:  Dude, the rule is there for a reason. I thought that was quite well communicated by the deification of the Enterprise that capped the sequence, implying Kirk's rashness shaped that society's development considerably.
 SP:  Picard didn't seem too bothered in his dune buggy…but young Spock hasn't loosened up yet, so it's okay.
 DNW:  Trek, truthfully, never let the prime directive get in the way of a some good fun, but they sure do like to bring it up. It's the principle, and Spock is a principled, logical man.
 SP:  Then we have some demotions and promotions, which take us back to where we started.
DNW: Yeah, Kirk finds out that Spock filed a report about the whole breaking-the-rules-to-save-his-life thing and, like you said, returns us to the status quo ante. Kirk is no longer the Captain of the Enterprise, Pike is, and Spock is no longer his crewmate.
 SP: Captain Pike is this series' Kenny from South Park.
 DNW:  How so?
 SP:  He's brutally crippled in the first movie, left for dead. Now he's back, he can walk, then he’s actually dead. Next time around I'd like to see him resurrected, reinstated as captain, and then immediately sucked out of an airlock.
 DNW:  I really like Bruce Greenwood in the role, he's an insanely good paternal figure.
 SP:  He's great, I was sad that they bumped him off for good. I found Spock prying into his dying moments to be quite intrusive. I thought it would be for some important piece of information, but no, he was just curious.
 DNW:  It's a mind meld, I figured he was trying to make the moment less painful for Pike by lending him some Vulcan zen.
 SP: Pike didn't look very relaxed, I've never seen anyone die worse to be honest. He looked mortified.
DNW:  Kirk is, naturally, very broken up about the whole situation. All of this was set up by Benedict Cumberbatch's John Harrison of course, making it the second time Kirk's father figure has been gunned down by the main villain in the movie. Harrison planned to take out as many senior Federation officers as he could in one fell swoop, but he leaves Spock, Kirk and RoboCop alive. This was a mistake.
 SP:  Yeah, Pike was hobbling around on a stick, surely you'd aim for the guy with the stick last.
DNW: We kind of skipped it, what did you think of Benedict Cumberbatch's introduction?
 SP:  The musical cue when he first appeared was awful but I thought it was an effectively mysterious intro. He's definitely strong in the movie, going for the stillness school of acting, and it works well.
DNW:  I don't know about that introductory cue, but on the whole, I think Giacchino's music is fantastic here. Cumberbatch does enigmatic well, and his it's sort of like someone threw Kirk and Spock in a blender. I like that a lot.
 SP:  The score is very good, save for that cue to introduce Harrison and the self-satisfied cue later when old Spock appears. "Look who we've got!!!"
DNW:  I'm guessing Harrison being tied to Section 31 means very little to you.
 SP:  Was it referring back to anything in the TV shows?
  DNW:  Yeah, Harrison is a Section 31 agent, which is a covert operations division of Star Fleet. RoboCop runs it. I thought, with Pike down, RoboCop was being set up as a replacement father figure for Kirk. I was not correct.
 SP:  I always thought he was a villain, he was too supportive. Anyone in authority who's super nice and supportive at the start of a movie often ends up being the villain.
 DNW:  Pike? Obi-Wan? Come on man, that's just silly.
 SP:  Pike is pissed with him to start with. The first thing he does is shout him down.
 DNW:  Hmmmmmmmm.
 SP:  Trust and fondness have to be earned, everyone needs an arc. If a boss character starts off overly friendly and nice, you know it's probably heading for trouble.
 DNW:  Well, he does authorise Kirk to use lethal force on Harrison right away, which should set alarm bells ringing.
 SP: That too. It does present a genuine dilemma, which has deliberate parallels with modern day terrorism and how we respond to it, questioning whether a retaliatory response just ends up doing more damage in the long term. Would you fire missiles at John Harrison on Kronos, knowing only what Kirk knew at the time?

[dnwilliams]

DNW:  I don't think I'd do it, but I wouldn't be too upset if somebody did. The thing with Section 31 that's significant is that it is decidedly not from Original Series Trek, it was introduced in Deep Space Nine in fact. I really like that they brought it in, and then with Harrison fleeing to Kronos, a place the Federation dare not boldly go, they also introduce the Klingons to the new Trek universe, who were around from the start pretty much.
SP:  I enjoyed the anticipation of the Klingon reveal here, it was all exciting stuff. I like how the Klingons have been re-established as a major threat.
 DNW:  I was particularly into it because they feel like, to borrow a turn of phrase from Nick Fury, part of a much bigger universe. The way their exploits and their hostility towards civilisations was outlined implied such scope, and I can't wait to see that explored, especially after how much I enjoyed The Undiscovered Country.  So RoboCop sends the Enterprise crew to Kronos to take out Harrison with 72 photon torpedoes and Carol Marcus is introduced. What did you make of her?
 SP:  She was obviously modelled to look like a throwback to the 60's TV show, it was an enjoyable portrayal. I wonder if she'll be bearing Kirk a son in the next film. David Marcus was conveniently full grown when he was introduced last time.
 DNW:  I highly doubt they'd move things along that quickly, they just want to get Carol in early so she can be Kirks One True Love.
 SP:  Yes, they didn't seem to get all that close in this movie. Next time. Also, we're meant to suspect she's part of a Starfleet conspiracy. Spock is suspicious of her to make us suspicious.
 DNW: I really enjoyed the way that she made Spock behave, he was very threatened by her. Spock and Scotty are both displeased by the mission, Spock because he doesn't exactly think that the Enterprise is supposed to go on revenge quests torpedoing the hell out of one guy in enemy territory, Scotty because he has a bad feeling about the torpedoes, which leads him to quit.
SP: I did think the engine room sets were a lot better in this movie than they were in the previous film. Last time they often seemed like some warehouse with pipes off Hollywood Boulevard, not really connected to the rest of the ship.
 DNW:  I agree, the warp core design is a nice middle ground between something you'd see in Trek and something that you'd see at NASA. A step up from the Budweiser factory, which still made an appearance this time around.
 SP:  Everything to do with the warp core and travel was excellent in this film.


DNW: So Spock manages to convince Kirk to take Harrison prisoner, and they both head down to Kronos with Uhura to arrest him.
 SP:  What do you make of the Spock-Uhura?
 DNW:  I think it's a great new way to explore Spock's dual heritage.
SP: How on earth would he be sustaining any sort of relationship with a human female? It’s hard enough to navigate for a non-Vulcan. I'm okay with it, just raising the question.
 DNW:  I love that Kirk is as incredulous about it as you are.
 SP:  I always side with the captain.
 DNW:  It really adds a new dimension to Spock's character. It's one thing to be stoic in a platonic relationship, it’s quite another to be stoic in a romantic one. Alright, so Harrison saves their asses from the Klingons, whose redesign I'm quite fond of, before surrendering once he hears about the torpedoes. They take Harrison up to the Enterprise and he reveals he's Khan – a relic of the 20th Century, in more ways than one.
Sheridan: I'm glad they went with Khan again, he's an exciting character. It is a little odd that while everyone else is recast so close to the original that he's no longer Latino though. They approached Benicio Del Toro, but he turned them down. An insane decision on his part, what else is he doing?
 DNW:  The race switch-up is strange, but Ricardo Montalban was a Latino playing a South Asian before, it was always strange. It's Khan that informs Kirk and Spock of Admiral Marcus's duplicitousness, and asks them to open a torpedo to prove that he’s shady.
SP:  The torpedo’s thing was a nice twist.
 DNW:  You didn't see it coming?
 SP:  That there were frozen bodies in there, no.
 DNW:  I called it right away. I liked it, but I thought it was in play for too long.
SP: Wait, how did you know there were frozen bodies in the missiles?
 DNW:  I knew because of dozens of things. The fact that Khan needed to have fellow augmented humans somewhere being #1. The fact that there was a very specific number of torpedos being #2. And the fact that "it's not a what, it's a who" is a familiar trope. And so on.
 SP:  Fair enough.
DNW:  It was a nice moment for Bones to shine too.
 SP:  Yeah it did a good job of the Hitchcockian approach, looking at a potential point of suspense in each scene. Other movies would have just opened the torpedo, this added the moment with Bones getting his hand caught. Did you completely follow the back story concerning Khan and Admiral Marcus? Marcus unfreezes someone who was frozen in the 20th Century to ask him about military tactics in a world where everything has changed beyond measure?
 DNW:  Khan and the rest of his kind have exceptional abilities in all areas. That's good enough for me. They'd adapt, their intellect would be put to good use.
 SP:  I thought Peter Weller was excellent as Marcus, he was the real revelation for me. Cumberbatch was very good, but Weller just owned the screen once he was revealed as a villain. This time Khan doesn't care about Kirk at all, he simply wants to reassemble his crew, which is bold choice considering his wrath is so iconic.
DNW:  It's the same motivation from Space Seed, pretty much, the episode Khan debuted in. They couldn't rehash Wrath of Khan because Kirk hadn't marooned him or anything.
 SP:  Of course. A more conventional screenplay might have had Kirk marooning Khan in a prologue, I'm glad they didn’t.
 DNW: Likewise. So, Khan's accusations seem to be truthful, and there's a face off with the Enterprise and Admiral Marcus's Federation warship, the Vengeance.
 SP:  The Vengeance was badass. I'm a big fan of how that was realised as a sort of dark reflection of the Enterprise.
 DNW:  It was a cool ship, for sure. I quite like the alternative uniforms that they had too.
 SP:  When the space battle begins between the two ships, there's a palpable sense of danger that wasn't always there in the previous movies. Taking fire surrounded by a lethal vacuum is not where you want to be. As pure spectacle, Into Darkness makes the Next Generation movies look like TV episodes.
 DNW:  The Enterprise is HEAVILY damaged here because they’re completely outmatched by the Vengeance, which is designed primarily for combat, but luckily Scotty was onboard the Vengeance and able to cripple it from the inside, leaving the door wide open for Kirk to step in and take care of business. Well, I say wide open, not really...
 SP:  Another pretty good, suspenseful sequence as they're fired across. I love how Khan and Kirk have to team up, and Kirk's attempt at small talk as they're waiting for the hatch.
 DNW:  It is a great little sequence, and I found myself liking that it's essentially a remix of the space-diving scene from the last movie, despite being a little sceptical of that fact to begin with.
 SP:  We can’t skip the warp fight.
 DNW:  Oh, the 'they can't follow us into warp' thing? that was GREAT.
 SP:  Suffice to say it was one of my favourite moments, I like the concept, the visuals, the menace of the Vengeance, and how the Enterprise comes spinning out. I'm looking forward to watching that again.
 DNW: As am I. Spock sets off the torpedoes, which he beamed aboard the Vengeance at Khan's request (albeit without the bodies of his kin inside), and both the Enterprise and the Vengeance hurtle towards Earth. Kirk does something drastic to save the Enterprise.
 SP:  Honestly I've really enjoyed the movie up to this point but when they did that so directly it was impossible not to compare, and this version of the death scene was weaker. The connection between the actors and the misery and helplessness wasn't on the same level.
 DNW: I thought it was a powerful scene, and I really enjoyed seeing an inversion of Spock's death from Wrath of Khan. It was moving on its own terms, but it was also cool to see the whole role reversal thing from a parallel universe standpoint.
 SP:  I did think while it was happening that they were going to kill him like they did Spock, it wasn't until a minute or two later that I remembered the healed child at the beginning of the movie. It's the villain super-blood, the plot point of the summer, allowing screenwriters to kill off major characters with none of the risk to the franchise. See also: Gwyneth Paltrow in Iron Man 3.
 DNW: I liked that they set up the return of Kirk, and it was inevitable, but part of me wishes it had been a more arduous task and that they'd left us with a cliff-hanger.
Sheridan:  Without Genesis it would have been hard to bring Kirk back in the next film, that was the perfect mysterious vehicle for Spock's return.
 DNW:  Nah, they could've just kept Kirk on ice.
 Sheridan: I agree killing Kirk off would have been amazingly bold and interesting, but imagine if the next movie had begun with the blood injection. Everyone would have felt cheated. When Spock died he was gone for a whole film.
 DNW:  I don't know, if the movie ended with them saying it was possible but it would take a long time for him to wake up, if ever, and he awoke at a pivotal point in the next movie, say when things with the Klingons really go south...it could've worked.
 Sheridan: I can see that. But being in stasis is not as bold as being dead like Spock was. I mean, Khan ends up in stasis.
 DNW:  True. Well, that's that pretty much. The crew assemble on the bridge at the end of the movie and set off on the five year mission to explore new worlds. Final thoughts?
 Sheridan:  I think it's because JJ Abrams will take five years to get round to making the next one. Seriously.
 DNW:  The five year mission is the set up for the original show, and Abrams isn't coming back. He's become one with the force.
 Sheridan:  Are you super sure he won't do both
 DNW:  I'm as confident as I cold possibly be. There's no way they're missing the 50th anniversary of Trek while Abrams is off making Star Wars.
 Sheridan: He said somewhere he didn't intend to stop directing Trek.
 DNW:  He won't be done with Episode VII, which has a 2015 release, to make a 50th anniversary Star Trek film for a 2016 release. He's lying. It's not humanly possible.
 Sheridan:  Him and Nimoy both? What is the world coming to? Anyway, Into Darkness is a highly enjoyable movie that's pretty much on a par, if not slightly better than the previous entry. It holds up the 'every even numbered Star Trek movies are good' principle, even though that was WRECKED by Nemesis being awful and Star Trek ‘09 being very good.
 DNW:  I think it's probably the first movie's equal too. I find it hard to say which I prefer.

[dalmatianjaws]

Just saw it today. The plot was pants (but the plot was pants in the 2009 one as well) but the character moments were generally fantastic. Kirk's death was idiotic, but everything up to that was a ton of fun. Still feels like a shallow version of the non-reboot stuff, but not as bad as some people are saying.