Star Trek Into Darkness

[Thrifty]

Bad reviews? This is the first place I've heard people say anything bad about it. But, I still haven't seen it. I may have a different opinion in 6 hours.

It's getting a handful, like just about any movie, but it's pulling an 86% average on Rotten Tomatoes.

[Bob]

The ratings I have seen online from critics are 2 out of 4.   But hey, those are just opinions.

Fans will love it, non fans will hate it.  It is the independent people like me they need to shoot for.....just like our last president vote!

So once again, I will decide its fate.

[NRRork]

Well, I had fun. I didn't read any spoilers ahead of time, so while I wasn't expecting it going in, it didn't really catch me off guard because by the time it's straight-up revealed, they'd dropped some hints. But they also didn't insult our intelligence by dragging that out too long. I think they knew a lot of people would pick up on it quickly once the signs started showing up, so, best to reveal it fairly early.

[Sugar Ray Dodge]

Just got back. There were good and bad things about it. But this is all I heard when each of the main characters spoke.

Kirk: "Captain Smug reporting for duty. Are we fully stocked on lens flares, cheesy green screen crap and random alien officers that are totally unnecessary, arbitrary and distracting? Good! We'll need them where we're going."

Spock: "Commander Spock McNoFeelyMan reporting for duty as well. I have no feelings, but I do. This will come up a lot, so you better remember it!"

Pike: "Oh crap, I'm dead. Well, somebody non-expendable has to go in the second movie to raise the stakes, and, frankly, I'm amazed I made it out of the first movie."

McCoy: "Dammit, Jim, speak up! My DeForrest Kelly is hard enough to keep up as it is, and I can barely hear you over the sounds of the cheese factory this script was written in! I'm a doctor, not a whatever-the-hell is funny right this second!"

Uhura: "Hi. Can my hotness help at all? I can? Good. I'll be over here making pouty faces."

Scotty: "I'm the comic relief. Have you met my weird green alien wife? You have? Ach, good!"

Carol: "I'm British! Look at my underwears! Tee-hee! Kirk is gonna knock me up in the next movie."

Robocop: "I'm every right-wing cliché from ten years ago. The screenwriters put me in to represent their naïve, bullshit view of global politics. WAR IS AWESOME! LET'S GO KILL US SOME RIDGE-HEADS!"

Khan: "Hi, I'm not Khan. The producers and writers lied their asses off for two years and told everybody I wasn't Khan. So I'm not Khan. But, it turns out, I am Khan, so I'll just go ahead and be awesome at it and bring a little class to this pathetic group of teenaged angst and horndoggery. God, I hate you all!"

Sulu: (To Chekov) "...are we in this movie?"

Chekov: "Barely. You want to kiss?"

Sulu: "...yes. Yes I do."

[Rainbow Dash]

I thoroughly enjoyed the first 2/3 of this movie.  Then the ending came. 

I REALLY didn't want them to redo Khan.  They've made a new reality, go with it, do something new.  But then the movie started to win me over. 

Section 31 seeks new things after Vulcan was destroyed, great call back to DS9, and it makes sense.  Khan is found and being a more savage person, they hope he can develop weapons.  Makes sense, the Federation is pretty peaceful.  What was really winning me over was Khan and Kirk working together.  I was seeing Khan as a totally new character.  An Anti-Hero.  I was expecting them to reveal that he did not blow up London, but it was Marcus covering his tracks and framing Khan.  While Khan was betrayed by Marcus, I was expecting them to reveal that he has found something worthy in humanity and even respects some of them.  His goal is to save his people.  I was expecting them to give Khan a world on the edge of known space to conquer with his people, much like the end of Space Seed.  It was going so well.

But nope, Marcus dies, Khan takes the ship and proceeds to go batshit crazy.  Making him a poor rehash of Khan, rather than a bold new vision of Khan. 

Overall, I still rank the film as decent.  I liked the first one better, but this one had it's moments.  I actually liked the death reversal with Kirk and Spock, outside of the laughably bad "KHAAAAAAAAAAAANN".  The first two thirds showed great promise, but just stumbled at the end.

[Sugar Ray Dodge]

Your position on the final third is understandable. You are not wrong to fell that way, not in the least, and, to an extent, I agree. However...

I thought the reversal with Kirk/Spock/Khan was clever. Kirk's death scene, I feel, is the best part of the movie. I didn't want them to redo Khan as well, but I found this version of Khan is to Ricardo Montalbaan's Khan what Heath Ledger's Joker is to Jack Nicholson's. They are both inspired by the same character, but they are at they same time their own characters that stand 100% on their own merits, largely because of the performances of the actors who play them. Nobody will ever associate Heath Ledger's Joker with Jack Nicholson's, because other than the name, they are not like each other at all.

That being said, though, I'm hoping the third movie expands on this new franchise with characters that belong to that universe alone. They owe it themselves, their characters and their audience.

[eegah]

I thought the reversal with Kirk/Spock/Khan was clever. Kirk's death scene, I feel, is the best part of the movie.

What??? Really??? I thought that it was ridiculus pandering to the n-th degree and it pretty much ruined the movie for me.

[Sugar Ray Dodge]

Quote

    Spoiler (click to show/hide)


What??? Really??? I thought that it was ridiculus pandering to the n-th degree and it pretty much ruined the movie for me.

I don't see it that way. I think it was the most brilliant thing they could have done. It redeemed the movie in my eyes, which up to that point had been a cheese-fest of one-liners and needless special effects, to say nothing of the bullshit, ham fisted, childish Hollywood lectures on the merits of war. Up until that point I was all "This movie is so f***ing stupid. I can't believe Damon Lindelof had a hand in this script. This is utter garbage." The script really is the movie's weakest link. The story is solid, but Abrams relies way too much on crazy alien monster officers and lens flares to make up for the fact that the script sucks. I also don't think they gave enough screen time to "Harrison" in order to take full advantage of the character he was portraying, but the time they did give him he did a hell of a lot with.

So, in the end, I have to say I liked the film DESPITE its obvious flaws.

[Thrifty]

I expect that within one year Star Trek fans will speak of this movie in the same sort of contempt Star Wars fans speak of all Star Wars movies, and pepper numerous conversations with trite complaints about how it "ruined their childhood" or some such shit.  Can't be a sci-fi fan without a good product to hate 80% of.

[Sugar Ray Dodge]

That's pretty much true. I'm totally guilty of this. I daresay that Star Trek and Comic Book fans are the most demanding and unforgiving of audiences.

[Sugar Ray Dodge]

Quote from: Sugar Ray Dodge on Today at 12:59:34 PM

    lectures on the merits of war. Up until that point I was all "This movie is so f***ing stupid. I can't believe Damon Lindelof had a hand in this script. This is utter garbage."


Wait. You were -surprised- that Lindelof made garbage?

Well, maybe I give him too much credit as a writer. When was the last time he wrote anything without Carlton Cuse? Maybe it's the TEAM that made so many of the best Lost episodes what they were. But even if Lindelof wasn't leaning on Cuse for five years, I think Orci and Kurtzman, who are notoriously horrific writers, probably contributed to how dumb the script was.

[Sugar Ray Dodge]

I haven't seen it, so I don't know. That movie was kind of off my radar.

[Relaxing Dragon]

Quote

    Spoiler (click to show/hide)


What??? Really??? I thought that it was ridiculus pandering to the n-th degree and it pretty much ruined the movie for me.

I don't see it that way. I think it was the most brilliant thing they could have done. It redeemed the movie in my eyes, which up to that point had been a cheese-fest of one-liners and needless special effects, to say nothing of the bullshit, ham fisted, childish Hollywood lectures on the merits of war. Up until that point I was all "This movie is so f***ing stupid. I can't believe Damon Lindelof had a hand in this script. This is utter garbage." The script really is the movie's weakest link. The story is solid, but Abrams relies way too much on crazy alien monster officers and lens flares to make up for the fact that the script sucks. I also don't think they gave enough screen time to "Harrison" in order to take full advantage of the character he was portraying, but the time they did give him he did a hell of a lot with.

So, in the end, I have to say I liked the film DESPITE its obvious flaws.

I'm a bit torn on that part. On the one hand, Pine totally nails it (his "I'm scared" line is perfect), and that gives it a lot of much-needed emotion. But then it just loses itself with the laughable "Khaaaaan!" shout. And overall, besides the whole thing just feeling like a pale retread of the scene in WoK, it just didn't feel like these characters deserved it. I mean that in the sense that Kirk and Spock's relationship in the past two films keeps bouncing back and forth, going from scenes where they love each other to ones where they hate each other, between all the little ones where they keep finding new reasons to love or hate each other some more. There's not enough history between them yet for that scene to really play as it should for the characters (unlike in WoK, where there was decades of friendship on the line). Plus, it doesn't do squat for the audience, since Kirk being revived with Khan's magical blood was telegraphed pretty blatantly back in with the tribble (really, that was some clumsy foreshadowing there. The whole scene just stops dead so Bones can sit down, announce his intentions, and then randomly inject blood into a dead tribble).

Also, a disclaimer, since apparently I need one: I'm not what one would call a Star Trek fan. I've seen WoK, the 2009 movie, and this new one. I liked the first two, an disliked this one more for general movie reasons than any sort of fanboy whatevers.

[Sugar Ray Dodge]

In case anybody cares, here is the comic version of my take of the movie. Spoilers be here.

http://utahgraphicsworld.tumblr.com/post/50859842716

[Sugar Ray Dodge]

Saw it again today. Since I knew what was gonna piss me off, I was able to brace myself for it and not let it make me so mad. And I actually liked it A LOT better this time around. I still say the best part of the movie is what I said it was before, but I get why some people wouldn't like it, but I was a sucker for it even the second time around.