Star Trek: Into Darkness

[CharlesPhipps]

Definitely my favorite of the new Trek movies. It's the only one which provides any actual social commentary. You can call it a 9/11 Truther movie (which is a disgusting RL position that invalidates real life suffering) if you want but general distrust of authority and expansion of military powers in times of crisis ARE real issues as are conspiracies as we've had confirmed multiple times. It's also a valuable message given the amount of government corruption as well as conspiracies which did accompany the War on Terror.

The Iraq War was sold on propaganda after all that means a healthy questioning of military priorities is necessary for a functioning democratic society. Given the destruction of Vulcan was the 9/11 of the "New Trek" the attack on the Klingons is much closer to Iraq given they are a hostile but unrelated power to the terrorists involved in Vulcan's destruction.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Definitely my favorite of the new Trek movies. It's the only one which provides any actual social commentary. You can call it a 9/11 Truther movie (which is a disgusting position that invalidates real life suffering) if you want but general distrust of authority and expansion of military powers in times of crisis ARE real issues as are conspiracies as we've had confirmed multiple times. It's also a valuable message given the amount of government corruption as well as conspiracies which did accompany the War on Terror.

The Iraq War was sold on propaganda after all that means a healthy questioning of military priorities is necessary for a functioning democratic society. Given the destruction of Vulcan was the 9/11 of the "New Trek" the attack on the Klingons is much closer to Iraq given they are a hostile but unrelated power to the terrorists involved in Vulcan's destruction.

Yeppers.

The whole plot with Khan was kinda TV-movie status for me but Starfleet corruption was a good touch.

[Worffan101]

I didn't like the obscene amounts of lens flare, sloppy choreography, rote camerawork, incoherent plot, transparently cheap, lazy, shallow, and idiotic fanservice, Kirk being A-OK with nuking the Klingons and never having any serious moral qualms about this because oh well, they're in the same place as the Bad Guy, collateral damage...and, yes, the 9/11 truther message.

The movie's plot, if you can call it that, begins with a suicide bomber blowing up a building, and then all the Very Important leaders of Freedomland are called into a meeting to discuss it. Then it turns out to be a false-flag as part of a convoluted plot by a guy who wants back on Big Guvmint.

It is intentionally, albeit briefly because the movie has ADHD worse than me, themed, structured, filmed, and portrayed as an analogue for 9/11, using cinematic language BUILT to induce memories of 9/11 in people who lived through it.

[Rocketboy1313]

Definitely my favorite of the new Trek movies. It's the only one which provides any actual social commentary.

Now that I am aware that you are that Phipps, as I have read the synopses of a few of your books and am planing to get a couple audio books soon, I can see why you would weight that as an important part of a movie and why this one would slide up the rankings for you. You are big on theme and I respect that.

But I have real problems with how the numerous plots and schemes in this movie do not hold up to scrutiny, I dislike how many of the characters act SUPER out of character, and even if it has a message about government grabbing power could be a good one, I do not care for how that message came across.

The "9/11 was an inside job stuff" seems more obvious to me and it makes me dislike the movie on that level too.

[PerrySimm]

Definitely my favorite of the new Trek movies. It's the only one which provides any actual social commentary.

By that standard, wouldn't Star Trek XI be the worst? Worse than Beyond?

[bronnt]

When I was watching the scene in theaters for the first time, I was actually going with it by the strength of Pine and Quinto's performances, especially once they veered away from familiar dialogue to "I'm scared, Spock" as Kirk dies. For that brief moment, the film actually had me... and then the filmmakers made Quinto scream "KHAN" and ruined whatever good that scene had going.

You nailed a strong point, honestly. I actually got sucked in there for a few seconds because of this inversion. This was Kirk's first real time facing the Kobayashi Maru, which was a central force in Wrath of Khan; examining the relationship of various characters with death. And then Spock screams Khan, it takes me out of the moment, and then I remember, "Oh right, they're just gonna give him Khan blood and he'll resurrect no matter how dead he is."

But most of the rest of the film just made me angry because Marcus' plan made no sense, Khan's plan made no sense, and it took ridiculous contrivances to make things mostly work out for each of them.

I get that not every character is always going to act perfectly rational, but when you're talking about these guys who are involved with intricate Machiavellian plots, they need to have some reason behind the actions they take, other than, "This sets up a great reveal for the film's third act."

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Definitely my favorite of the new Trek movies. It's the only one which provides any actual social commentary.

By that standard, wouldn't Star Trek XI be the worst? Worse than Beyond?

Not sure how he feels, but that is my order of the three.

[CharlesPhipps]

Not sure how he feels, but that is my order of the three.

I don't dislike any of the three but in terms of "This is what Star Trek is supposed to be about" the first and 3rd movies both feel somewhat popcorn-like in the literal sense of "fun to eat but not in any way nutritional." I generally like the first movie a bit more than the 3rd movie, though, because that had more character development and beats.

So, yes, Beyond is my least favorite of the three. The only thing I liked about that was the inability of Kraal to adjust to exploration even if I'm not sure that really works as a motivation save civilian life as a whole.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Not sure how he feels, but that is my order of the three.

I don't dislike any of the three but in terms of "This is what Star Trek is supposed to be about" the first and 3rd movies both feel somewhat popcorn-like in the literal sense of "fun to eat but not in any way nutritional." I generally like the first movie a bit more than the 3rd movie, though, because that had more character development and beats.

So, yes, Beyond is my least favorite of the three. The only thing I liked about that was the inability of Kraal to adjust to exploration even if I'm not sure that really works as a motivation save civilian life as a whole.

I actually do weight stuff more on how fun it is, and the third one just didn't do it for me. The stranded plot was alright but the third act I wasn't really invested. The first movie I felt had a well-rounded plot and wasn't really missing anything. Actually I might like it more than the second one as a film, but I do like it when characters are already established.

[Worffan101]

Weird, I thought 1 was meh, 2 was incoherent and insulting, 3 was actually creative and clever and I liked how the characters finally acted like they were from the Federation, not from Generic White People Anonymous.

I would've appreciated the themes of 2 a lot more if it hadn't been saturated in an incoherent plot and actual 9/11 truther BS (and yes, Charles, it WAS almost certainly 9/11 truther BS, Orci is a "truther" and has pretty openly put his batshit crazy beliefs into his writing before). If you want to do that "government ain't always trustworthy" thing, DS9 already did it far better with Leyton.