Star Trek: Into Darkness

[Sir Will]

Well Kirk is a fundamentally different man because he lacks his father's influence. It gets back to what I said about Beyond.

Beyond acts like the previous 2 movies didn't happen and he's just classic Kirk.

Some people like that. Other people don't.

So without his dad he became this an immature whiner? I don't buy it.

I buy it. I just don't like it. And I don't buy them putting him in charge.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Well Kirk is a fundamentally different man because he lacks his father's influence. It gets back to what I said about Beyond.

Beyond acts like the previous 2 movies didn't happen and he's just classic Kirk.

Some people like that. Other people don't.

So without his dad he became this an immature whiner? I don't buy it.

Someone that becomes defiant about their friend following the rules doesn't really not sound like an attribute of someone who's raised sans one of their parents.

[CharlesPhipps]

So without his dad he became this an immature whiner? I don't buy it.

Without his dad, the trauma of an abusive uncle, and the fact his dad died horribly in a massacre by an unknown alien. Plus, again, not seeing Kodos because his mom stayed on Earth.

Someone that becomes defiant about their friend following the rules doesn't really not sound like an attribute of someone who's raised sans one of their parents.

Generally homes broken up by loss have a reputation of children as wild child, defiant, and angry. So I don't know what you mean.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Someone that becomes defiant about their friend following the rules doesn't really not sound like an attribute of someone who's raised sans one of their parents.

Generally homes broken up by loss have a reputation of children as wild child, defiant, and angry. So I don't know what you mean.

I think you missed a double negative in my post.

[Mindworm]

Well Kirk is a fundamentally different man because he lacks his father's influence. It gets back to what I said about Beyond.

The problem with the Kirk portrayed in '09 and Into Shitness (and no I'm not giving either the dignity of the Star Trek name, they don't deserve it), is that at no point in either film would he be even allowed on the ship as a raw recruit enlistee never mind captain, not even in the touchy-feely early TNG Starfleet.

He in either film never showed the basic competencies to be able to successfully complete the most basic tasks required of a crew-member never mind the complex decision making, leadership or tactic capabilities required of a captain.

The UK armed forces used promote based on either aristocratic rank or ability to buy military rank. The navy had a solution for the problems that caused, a short jump with a rope around your neck, the army didn't. Hence why Britannia ruled the waves and the British army (aside from the Scottish regiments, which promoted based more on ability) were a joke.

[TrueMetis]

Maybe amongst some of the the irregulars you could call them a joke, but the British regulars had some of the best fire discipline in Europe. The issue was, quite rightly, that the Empire wasn't willing to put the money into training a lot of them focusing on making sure their Navy could take on both the second and third largest navies at once.

[Nealithi]

And that's why STID disappoints me so much. I don't mind a Trek film being an action-thrill ride. But you can do those with some brains. It doesn't have to be 2001 or Gattaca, but it could at least aspire to be Die Hard. But STID drops all the really promising themes and ideas set up in the first half so it can be all action scene/info dump/fanservice callback/info dump/action scene/fanservice/action scene/info dump/fanservice/info dump/action scene/blow up a city and the Enterprise yet again. From the beginning the Kelvin timeline was torn between being a clean reboot and an in-continuity bit of fanwank, to its detriment. It should have either committed to being its own thing and redefined Star Trek for the 21st century, or kept the faith with the original property. But this serving two masters just divided and confused the existing fanbase and left the wider audience with a fun confection they completely forgot about the next summer.

I think this should be mentioned a second time. Arguably the best Trek movie was Wrath of Khan. Every fight and effect was used for a purpose to show not tell. And as Chuck says, flows organically. This movie like many Abrams and recent science fiction works in general fails science worse than old 'high' science. Because they were trying from a flawed premise. These newer movies get holes punched into them by the average movie goer on the first outing. That is just lazy. You want the space battle right over Earth and damage to push Enterprise to the surface. Just shrink the moon. It does not need to be right next to us. And claim they are in low Earth orbit. Have Uhura claim Marcus has jammed all comms so there is no help coming. Two holes plugged. Took two seconds. Darn. But what is the flaw? I am fixing the mistake to get to the next special effect. Not to get to the next important scene.

Chuck did a segment on homage versus ripoff. And he puts it that an homage has to add something to the original. Some scenes I thought were better done. I think the flood the whole compartment line was better done here than WoK. I think some of it fits. They had a thread they could have followed. But missed it. Kirk had one defense of his command. In his time in command he has lost no one under his command. He is still haunted by his father's loss and works to save everyone. He goes off the deep end because Pike died. His surrogate father and commander. Let Khan point it out and it is a trait they share. Kirk knocking out Scotty to enter the warp core and save his ship and crew. He won't put anyone else at risk. He still puts it on himself. That sacrifice is what Spock needs to snap out of his emotional isolation fear. "You saved the ship. You saved everyone." Let Spock know Khan just tried to kamikazi Starfleet Command. And let him growl. "Khan" Then go to finish what his captain started and stop that maniac. You can even keep Uhura stopping him from killing the man. "Kirk wouldn't let you become a murderer either." Now Spock has something to live up to. Let Carol Marcus revive Kirk. Some of her early work on something she called project Genesis. It is so easy to fix this movie in hind sight. I think that is why it disappoints.
How do you fix Wrath of Khan? I can't think of anything really needing to be fixed.
Search for Spock? I don't think I would blow up the Enterprise. Cripple her maybe. But not wreck her. The theme of not being too old applied to her as well. And putting her out of her misery like that was a low shot. But I can't see how to save her. Go through the original movies and it is hard to rewrite them. These two? Far to easy.

[AllanO]

As hard as Chuck was on the movie, it could have been much worse. He could have found the movie to be boring etc., as it was he declared it effective as a way of getting from one action set piece to the next, since some movies fail at even that it could be far worse, that being said not exactly an endorsement...

One thing I wanted to mention about this review was appreciated the aside about how one of the writers had responded to criticism with snide presumptious contempt, basically saying everyone who finds fault with the writing is a fool in need of education whose comments can be ignored. I think in general when disagreeing with people such an attitude while always tempting is basically wrong, you should not actively dismiss people who disagree with you (life is short and pure logistics requires that we all passively don't seek out people who disagree with us or respond to them all etc., but that is different from taking some action to indicate you dismiss them). So worth keeping in mind.

On the bits that directly ape Wrath of Kahn, I think aside from the rip-off vs. Homage thing there is just the point that has sort of been made that the lines just seemed grossly out of place. The thing is that Paramount or whoever owns the Wrath of Kahn, they can do with it what they like, if an author chooses to reuse lines, events etc. it is not a rip-off but it may be bad writing. So when I saw the scene, I realized what it was doing and I think I laughed and covered my face because it was so bad. I still suspect anyone seeing it not having seen Wrath of Kahn would still find the dialogue stilted and so on, I would just state it in those terms...

All that said I may give the film a little more of a pass because I take characterization in terms of a sort of genre convention/movie logic. So when someone is convicted of a crime they did not commit in a movie, they then proceed to break out of prison beating up guards, cops and so on in the process all they have to do is prove their innocence of the original crime and everything is fine thanks to movie logic, but in real life they would be liable for all the crimes they committed in proving their innocence. Likewise the Kirk of this movie is a giant jerk but his one mea culpa moment near the end melts all that away by movie logic/genre convention etc. Still I can't say it is a movie free of giant glaring flaws and so on just maybe less grating that Chuck said (although I only saw it once and did not think about it again whereas he has had to see it multiple times and ruminate on it)...

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Still I can't say it is a movie free of giant glaring flaws and so on just maybe less grating that Chuck said (although I only saw it once and did not think about it again whereas he has had to see it multiple times and ruminate on it)...

Funny you mention this. I'll do the movie logic math, and take it into consideration because that is a means of remembering why stuff happens in a movie, though it does seem to contend with discrete criticism for understandable reasons.

Though what you say about ruminating on a movie to pronounce such concerns, I often ruminate on a movie positively with elements that I like making criticisms much less apparent or seem kind of nitpicky.

[Karha of Honor]

One thing I wanted to mention about this review was appreciated the aside about how one of the writers had responded to criticism with snide presumptious contempt, basically saying everyone who finds fault with the writing is a fool in need of education whose comments can be ignored. I think in general when disagreeing with people such an attitude while always tempting is basically wrong, you should not actively dismiss people who disagree with you (life is short and pure logistics requires that we all passively don't seek out people who disagree with us or respond to them all etc., but that is different from taking some action to indicate you dismiss them). So worth keeping in mind.

Orci was a Trekbbs poster. that was some long slow burnning forum drama climaxing.