Star Trek: Into Darkness

[Darth Wedgius]

I wondered if this one could be the worst of the series when there is a slim chance that Kelvinverse Trek isn't done yet, but this is the movie that takes what is probably the most generally beloved Trek film and takes a huge, steaming dump on it. On the slim chance that there is another Kelvin-verse movie, the only way it could be worse is if it's subtitled, "Two Vulcans, One Cup."

Character motivations are important, right? And not everyone in the movie is supposed to be crazy.

Admiral Marcus is worried about war with the Klingons? The same admiral with technology that can beam warheads onto the enemy's planets? That can beam torpedoes into the vicinity of enemy warships or shipyards? This admiral can win almost any sizable battle while sitting in a chair, enjoying a good book, and having tea.

The father so desperate to save his daughter? So let Khan treat the daughter and then go to Starfleet security (such as it is). I'd take "I lied" vs."I killed a lot of people because I'd promised to" any day. Get Starfleet security to arrange his "take-down" at the entrance so Khan doesn't know he was betrayed. This is Kelvinverse Starfleet security so he might have to pretend he tripped, had the flu, and was hit by a space anomaly at the same time to make the take-down look believable, of course.

Khan's plan for revenge on Marcus? Does the man never go home? Scope-sighted-rifle. Grab a shuttle and program it to crash into Marcus's office. Tell someone you have orders to report to Marcus and kill him, since they apparently don't check those orders anyway. Expose Marcus's operations to the Federation, then take him out en route to testify. This is one of the problems writing for very intelligent characters, the lack of excuse if they turn out to be blithering idiots.

I've heard that most people liked the movie, but most Trek fans didn't. Fair enough -- I was a Trek fan for a long time, so undoubtedly my views are colored by that. But I suspect this movie is a major reason why so few people saw Star Trek Beyond, and probably killed the Kelvinverse.

[Lizuka]

I'm very eager to see this one. I rather liked Into Darkness the first time I saw it (well, the first two thirds, then it turned into an awful Wrath of Khan remake) then I watched it again and couldn't finish it. It's just so much worse on a rewatch.

[CharlesPhipps]

Admiral Marcus is worried about war with the Klingons? The same admiral with technology that can beam warheads onto the enemy's planets? That can beam torpedoes into the vicinity of enemy warships or shipyards? This admiral can win almost any sizable battle while sitting in a chair, enjoying a good book, and having tea.

It's hard to do that when Khan took his one unit and blew up the facility.

[bronnt]

I'm very eager to see this one. I rather liked Into Darkness the first time I saw it (well, the first two thirds, then it turned into an awful Wrath of Khan remake) then I watched it again and couldn't finish it. It's just so much worse on a rewatch.

If you turn your brain off, it's got some popcorn-movie enjoyable with action and drama. But even on a first watch I wanted to throw stuff at the screen at times; Spock and Uhura having a petty argument when they were supposed to be on a mission, Kirk punching the hell out of Khan who apparently turned into literal Superman. Then Kirk's speech at the end about how we can't give in to revenge and hate when that's all he and Spock did all movie to solve everything, ugh.

[bronnt]

It's hard to do that when Khan took his one unit and blew up the facility.

I mean, the knowledge that went into producing it wasn't destroyed. Scottie made this thing while working on a backwater station with almost no resources. They had years to reproduce his experiments between the previous film and this one. It's not like we were unable to ever use atom bombs again after we dropped the two we had on Japan, after all.

[Worffan101]

I'm very eager to see this one. I rather liked Into Darkness the first time I saw it (well, the first two thirds, then it turned into an awful Wrath of Khan remake) then I watched it again and couldn't finish it. It's just so much worse on a rewatch.

If you turn your brain off, it's got some popcorn-movie enjoyable with action and drama. But even on a first watch I wanted to throw stuff at the screen at times; Spock and Uhura having a petty argument when they were supposed to be on a mission, Kirk punching the hell out of Khan who apparently turned into literal Superman. Then Kirk's speech at the end about how we can't give in to revenge and hate when that's all he and Spock did all movie to solve everything, ugh.

I don't mind Khan having obviously superhuman physical abilities, but yeah, this movie was hackwork at best.

At worst, it was like scooping out my brain with a white-hot spatula and replacing it with cottage cheese.

[Darth Wedgius]

Admiral Marcus is worried about war with the Klingons? The same admiral with technology that can beam warheads onto the enemy's planets? That can beam torpedoes into the vicinity of enemy warships or shipyards? This admiral can win almost any sizable battle while sitting in a chair, enjoying a good book, and having tea.

It's hard to do that when Khan took his one unit and blew up the facility.

But Admiral Marcus recruited Khan before that. When Admiral Marcus got desperate enough to use Khan, he was reacting to a threat that didn't much exist.

For that matter, Scotty adjusted a normal transporter to do transwarp beaming back on Delta Vega. Even if they need a couple days to get it running without Scotty's help, the worst time to start a war with the Klingons is when Admiral Marcus tried to start a war with the Klingons.

[CharlesPhipps]

I may be seeing connections between movie 1 and 2 that were never intended.

The idea with Admiral Marcus being that he came to power and was radicalized by the events of the first movie with the Federation having lost one of its founding members due to space terrorism. As such, threats were dealt with far far more harshly.

Mind you, I was interested in the fact someone apparently thought Praxis being destroyed early was a ripple timeline effect since half the planet depicted in the movie is abandoned industrialized radioactive hell. I felt like that was another interesting plot angle completely ignored.

[Makeshift Python]

Charles, guy, you and I are on opposite sides when it comes to "Beyond".
The only thing I disliked about that movie was Krall. I did not think that character worked at all. Even if I do agree with the idea of "Old Warrior wants to rip down everything because he can't stand peace".

My issues with the movie more or less result from the fact they wanted to quietly sweep the first two under the rug to an extent.

Pine is old enough to be an actual Federation Captain now and none of the plot elements from previous movies are maintained so the criticisms from previous works no longer apply. It could just be a high budget modernized version of the original series which is what many fans wanted in the first place. It's also not a Wrath of Khan remake per se so it does honestly feel like a better movie individually for people who, well, hated the previous two.

That comes pretty close to expressing why Beyond worked better for me. I didn't hate the other two, at least not '09, but I really disliked how Kirk's rise to the captaincy was handled. Knowing that the number of actual stories we would get from this crew would be very limited, all I wanted was to see mature, adult characters go out and explore the universe. Beyond actually delivered that, the characters felt more recognizable, and I found it to be generally fun and engaging. It wasn't a great movie by any means, but forgetting the previous two movies was a plus.

On the contrary though, I think it still works as a follow up to ST09. It's still carrying a few threads like dealing with Kirk's motives for joining Starfleet. Now that he's outlived his father, he's wondering if his reasons for joining were right for him, and maybe he was just chasing his lost father. Then there's Spock, who now finds out that his older self has passed and wonders if he should pick up where his older self left off or continue on his own path. In a lot of ways it's complimenting what came before, to show how far Kirk had gone from the cocky 22 year old cadet fratboy to the more seasoned 30 year old captain.

That said, just notice how it doesn't seem to carry over anything from STID, almost as if that second film was so inconsequential. I don't even think Carol Marcus is ever name dropped. In fact, you could easily just watch ST09 and skip to BEYOND as that first film ended with Kirk and crew beginning their adventures in space, and then we catch up with them in the middle of their five year mission. This is also why STID feels like a step backwards. ST09 was supposed to serve as a story of how the crew got together before they started having adventures on a five year mission. Suddenly STID says "nope, not yet" and we have to go through Kirk's arc of earning the chair AGAIN and THEN it ends with them on a five year mission.

[Enterprising]

Mind you, I was interested in the fact someone apparently thought Praxis being destroyed early was a ripple timeline effect since half the planet depicted in the movie is abandoned industrialized radioactive hell. I felt like that was another interesting plot angle completely ignored.

There's actually an even bigger one than that. Remember that the Klingons lost 47 ships during Nero's escape. What really should have happened straight after that is the Romulans see the Klingons ripe for invasion, do so and successfully start conquering them. Which should put the Federation in a big dilemma. Do they let it all happen stating "prime directive" all the way, or do they wade in on the Klingons side on the logic it's better to have 2 separate powers with different agendas, rather than 1 big power with it's own that's against yours?