MoviesReviews

Review of Star Trek Into Darkness

REVIEW-ST-ITD

WStarTrekIntoDarknessIMAXposterPTParamounte return to the land of Trek five years after J.J. Abrams successfully rebooted and revived this aged franchise. Having loved the new universe twist and elements of the 2009 film, I was left over eager for this new “episode” in the film-verse. When I caught my first run of the teasers and the trailers, I was a bit intrigued with the possibilities. We have a crashing “Enterprise”, Robocop, a few key plot devices, John Harrison and the return of the crew. So my thoughts were what could go wrong? Apparently plenty had the ability to go right and wrong but not for the reasons you’d expect. Now to preface this review, I will not be going in depth with the comparisons or “Easter Eggs”. Those details will be covered in a followup article.

My movie going experience begins in the IMAX 2nd showing for this film on opening night. My hopes were high. We begin with a mission to the planet Nibri where Kirk and McCoy are creating a diversion for Spock, Uhura and Sulu to pilot a shuttle to detonate a freeze bomb in a volcano. They also showed the Enterprise underwater. This minor detail along urks me as it is not possible for the ship to do this. There is a reason why the U.S.S. Voyager was the only ship with landing capabilities which is defined by physics and the Trek ship capabilities. In any case we cut to a malfunction with the shuttle and all crew stranding Spock in the volcano. They regroup in the Enterprise where we get a moment of Kirk and McCoy arguing with Spock over saving his life. He speaks the first of many dialogues rehashed from Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan being, “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.” Following this McCoy says, “Shut up Spock, we’re trying to rescue you!” – from “The Immunity Syndrome” episode of The Original Series.

Kirk refusing to allow his crew member and friend to die on the world opts to break the rules to fly the Enterprise directly overhead to rescue him the moment the lava was about to engulf him. Spock proceeds to argue with Kirk over the Prime Directive to which Kirk explains, “Big deal, they saw us.”

The majority of the story is summed up in the that Kirk is still very much green. Admiral Pike states early on after Spock files a report on their planetoids adventure where Kirk  was merely supposed to observe not interfere. Kirk omitted information from his report managing to get himself demoted albeit temporarily to 1st Officer beneath Pike. Pike stated to him, “You don’t respect the chair, Because you’re not ready for it.” This again states Kirk is not quite the Captain he is supposed to be but a cadet in mind still.

The film continues with a terrorist from Starfleet who is attacking various seemingly non-essential archives which house strategic military compounds. This is the mission of John Harrison throughout the film. We see him attack the city of London, take down various heads of the Fleet and using Scotty’s Transwarp Beaming, he gets away to the Klingon home-world of Kronos. Kirk heads a personal mission to head a manhunt questioning his morality and risking his crew in the process. Admiral Marcus allows this and later on there is a slaughtering of the Klingons by Harrison followed by the U.S.S. Vengeance making it’s arrival to the scene.

Into Darkness is absolutely a great movie despite it’s flaws of reusing previous film content. With it comes a great deal of new plot devices I never saw coming. Is it perfect? To that I have to say no, but in saying that I know that there are not enough gripes from people unfamiliar with the franchise.

Overly there are many references to the various episodes of The Original Series, Star Trek Deep Space Nine and the following films; Star Trek The Motion Picture, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, Star Trek Generations, Star Trek First Contact, Star Trek Nemesis, Star Trek (2009). That being said, there were enough interesting twists and turns on these many fan referenced pieces of plot, however that being said I would have liked a little more originality than they gave. I really enjoyed this film but there were too many forced elements of previous films in here or convenience plot pieces. Did the entirety work out nicely? To that I would argue yes but to those that know Trek I find it will be bit of a challenge to not figure out what is going to happen in the story once you discover them.

So to the hardcore Trekkies out there I say just put aside logic and what you know of the previous content. Sit back, relax and enjoy it for what it is. A new twist to old stories and hopefully a long and fruitful future in the years to come. So until next time, Live Long and Prosper.

 

RATINGS - 4.0 STAR

Show More

Steve "Megatron"

Co-Creator @GeekCastRadio | Creator @AlteredGeek | Voice Actor | Podcaster, Husband | Father | Web/Graphic Design | A/V Editor | Geek of Games, Tech, Film, TV.

8 Comments

  1. See for me it was the multitude of references that made the movie even that much better for me. I will have to re-watch both of the ‘new’ ones but my first instinct is that I actually prefer this one.

  2. Don’t get me wrong, I personally love it. However I see various attempts at things and quickly thrown in comments or scenes that could have been better utilized. I watched both films back to back and I have a hard time choosing. Nero felt flat in the first of the New Universe. So does various Enterprise crew members despite hinting at things to come in their individual future’s. I felt that yes the references helped to some degree but snagging some things verbatim from old movies / episodes causes it to be waning. In any case I am glad Abrams is done and we can see another director take charge in this universe. I would have gone more into detail in the review but I didn’t want to spoil anything for the general public. However in the podcast we can elaborate more upon this and the next article of comparisons.

      1. It depends but not really. Him, Kurtzman and Orci are same boat. I think they ALL need to move on. Only films I like Abrams did were Trek related. The rest of his stuff is meh.

          1. No but I’ve seen a lot of other things he’s directed or produced. Super 8 didn’t even sound good to me. I am not a fan of much of what he’s been associated with. Not saying he isn’t talented, I just personally don’t like his stuff. I loved his work on Trek but I think it moreso boils down to the writers who have a TON of ups and downs in their careers. I think this film fell victim to writing issues more than directorial. I’d like NEW writers for the next film.

          2. Interesting take – always good to hear different opinions. I have really enjoyed most of his work. I also while I’m not a huge fan or Kurtzman and Orci think they have done amazing with both Trek and Hawaii Five-O

          3. Thanks Kevin. Yeah my attempt was trying to relay it was a great film dispite the pitfalls. I think it was the writing though. JJ Abrams did great in the Trek films honestly. Kurtzman and Orci I am not a fan of them but again depends on the materials. I think they fall flat if they are tied to a series for more than the initial introduction film.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Back to top button