Spoilers Within
Star Trek Into Darkness was Ok. The 3D was good in spots, the special effects were a bit over the top, and the acting was as wooden and silted as the last movie. If you liked J.J.Abrams Star Trek, you’ll like his Into Darkness. If you happen to be Trekkie, well, this is in no way a Star Trek movie. These kids are not Kirk, Spock, McCoy, etc. That ship is not The Enterprise. At best, this is an alternate timeline episode, but it’s so far from the Star Trek universe it’s more like Fan Fiction-something you might read for grins, but not something that should be taken seriously and added to the official Canon.
I really hated Star Trek Enterprise, there were maybe three episodes that I liked, and they were set in Alternate Universes, one where Captain Cupcake was killed. So I hate it that J.J. Abrams has destroyed the entire Star Trek Universe-except for what happened in Enterprise!
The 3D was very good, especially near the beginning when our heroes are being chased by stereotypical natives throwing spears and shooting arrows. This was a throwback to good old fashioned 3D movies where things come flying out of the screen. The bulk of the effects are simple depth of field tricks that made the whole movie feel like a watching a VeiwMaster wheel. It was interesting, but I did get a bit of information overload and a slight headache by the time the finial credits started to roll.
Spoilers–
Real Trek Nerds grew up watching Star Trek five times a week in reruns. Most of us memorized entire episodes, learned the history of the Federation, and knew that Captain Kirk was the first man to see a Gorn, a Horta, a Romulan, and just about every other race they ran into. The Enterprise boldly went where no man had gone before! So it is a bit jarring, even in this rebooted, reloaded, re-imagined, and totally screwed up J.J. Abram Universe to hear Harry Mudd mentioned in passing, hear that Doctor McCoy midwifed a Gorn, and see a Tribble sitting around as if it were as commonplace as a beagle.
Then there is the ongoing massive destruction of London and San Fransisco-pointless and emotionless destruction that is clearly high powered CGI and feels like nothing more than high powered CGI. There is no feeling of loss or grief as these cardboard building come falling down. Abrams lacks the balls of Nicholas Meyer and his ripoff/send up of scenes from The Wrath of Khan are flat-out insults to one of the greatest death scenes in the history of cinema. Spock’s death was pure emotional agony and he was only one of a full cast of corpses on the floor by the time The Wrath of Khan ends. Abram’s knocking out his Kirk for a couple of minutes was meaningless and had all the drama of a toothpaste commercial.
They really need to stop calling these things Star Trek. If this is a sign of things to come, I’m not looking forward to J.J.Abrams’ Star Wars.
Look at it this way: the Tribble desk accessory in Sickbay made it pretty much impossible for them to mess with one the best episodes ever by doing a Tribble first-contact kind of story later.
And that is a good thing.
It’s a bit disappointing that Abrams decided to destroy all stories that take place after Star Trek: Enterprise-and then can’t have the common sense to go forward with his own stories instead of referencing the work he ruined. I just want him to forget all the names we have already heard and go off in his own direction.
The more I think of it, the lamer the Kirk almost death thing and Spocks bellow KHAAAAN becomes.
Modern writers are all pussies-well except for George R.R. Martin.
Kirk’s fake death is just par for the course these days. The BBC did the same thing with Sherlock, faking killing Holmes for all of ten minutes-where Conan Doyle at least let his body rot for a couple of years before bringing him back to life. It’s commonplace now to ‘kill’ a character and have them show up again. Tasha Yar was pretty much an immortal by the end of STTNG