J.J. Abrams' Star Trek Into Darkness

[thenammagazine]

LOL


I think that was a problem. They obviously weren't catering, at all, to fans of the older TV shows and films. Yet they kept making these throwback references that the youngsters wouldn't have understood. So what was the goal there? And even when they did attempt the throwbacks, they took such extensive liberties (i.e., Khan) that they woudln't make a lot of sense to anyone. Kind of a disjointed approach IMO.

That was my big critique to the wife when it got to the "sacrifice." It lacked the emotional impact Shat and Nemoy had after the tv show, years of press and the first film. Someone jumping on with the reboot would be looking around the theatre thinking, "I don't get it. Spock's been a ****** the whole time. Why are all these people crying?"

Khan was a WTF. I don't know why they didn't just stick with the OG name and have him be someone else. It would've worked just as well and wouldn't have made the Nemoy cameo an entirely worthless plot device to sell the ending.

 

[Gates70]

I'm in the same boat. Abrams does action/spectacle very well, but I hope the new Star Wars is more than just that.

It can only go uphill after those aweful prequels...or can it

 

[karamazov80]

I think that's true, but it would be nice if the prevailing sentiment walking away from theaters isn't, "Well, not great, but a hell of a lot better than those ****ty prequels! Am I right?? *high fives*"

 

[Kamandi]

Like Nam said, JJ's rebooted Kirk and Spock don't have the history to give that scene the proper emotional weight.

Star Wars supposedly uses characters we've known and grew up with since 1977. If one of them died and it was well written it would be everything the scene in "into Darkness" was missing. The death of Han Solo would be some heavy sh-t, especially if Ford was moved enough to actually get into character.

 

[karamazov80]

Very possible. I'm honestly a fan of most Abrams stuff I've seen. This movie was the first one I've seen that was a real disappointment (I didn't like Cloverfield either, but I had no expectations going in about it). So I hope he learned something positive from his experiences with Star Trek that he might carry over to Star Wars, while not focusing so much on the "audience spectacle" angle to the detriment of telling a compelling story. Unlike certain other filmmakers who are making movies about Superman nowadays. . .I think Abrams certainly has the potential to make a really great film.

 

[a-dev]

My problem with killing Han Solo is they've already subjected him to the carbon freezing and missing a year of his life thing. You can't do all the bad $h!t to the one character. Spread it around. Kill Luke instead.

 

[karamazov80]

Opening scene--R2 gets wasted by Boba Fett.

 

[Kamandi]

My problem with killing Han Solo is they've already subjected him to the carbon freezing and missing a year of his life thing. You can't do all the bad $h!t to the one character. Spread it around. Kill Luke instead.

If Han is married to Leia it would be a mercy.

 

[CollectorNC]

Well Montalban was Mexican. It was a bit of an odd choice, but for me, more that he lacked any of the style or mannerisms of Montalban than skin color. He was like a completely different character, only similar in their supposed backgrounds of being genetically engineered supermen.

Which even with their alternate timelines b.s., wouldn't explain how the man would be that different. lol So he gets waken up sooner than when Kirk and crew found the Botany Bay. But he gets woken up as a tight-arse super white Brit?

 

[karamazov80]

In some ways, Montalban Khan was like an evil Kirk. He was so non-chalant and cool all the time. Cumberbatch wasn't that. He was more like an evil Spock.

 

[shockwave]

Khan being white, and looking and acting NOTHING like the original is my only flaw with this movie. Otherwise, it was my most entertaining flick of the summer.

 

[thecapn]

Interesting side note, from the commentary, specifically J.J. himself: They originally had a wig made for Cumberbatch that, based on his description, pretty closely matched Khan's hairstyle from "Space Seed," but they decided that he looked silly in it on the first day of filming. Not that that would have helped all that much, but it's an interesting point.

On another note on the commentary, it's surprising just how much rewriting went into this one. Maybe they were over-sharing, but especially the editors and J.J. seemed to indicate that almost every scene went through rewrites and changes, and reshoots, especially the space-dive sequence and Pike's scenes. That's pretty much all of interest that I can recall that isn't just neat facts about how they did this or that.

 

[Mad Old Lu]

Other than that, I thought they were taking a lot of liberties with "emotional impacts" in the film, hoping to capitalize off of the older generation. The newer generation (those who jumped on board with the reboot) must be thinking, WTF?! I don't see this as having near as much meaning to them.

LOL


I think that was a problem. They obviously weren't catering, at all, to fans of the older TV shows and films. Yet they kept making these throwback references that the youngsters wouldn't have understood. So what was the goal there? And even when they did attempt the throwbacks, they took such extensive liberties (i.e., Khan) that they woudln't make a lot of sense to anyone. Kind of a disjointed approach IMO.

That was my big critique to the wife when it got to the "sacrifice." It lacked the emotional impact Shat and Nemoy had after the tv show, years of press and the first film. Someone jumping on with the reboot would be looking around the theatre thinking, "I don't get it. Spock's been a ****** the whole time. Why are all these people crying?"

Khan was a WTF. I don't know why they didn't just stick with the OG name and have him be someone else. It would've worked just as well and wouldn't have made the Nemoy cameo an entirely worthless plot device to sell the ending.

Like Nam said, JJ's rebooted Kirk and Spock don't have the history to give that scene the proper emotional weight.

Star Wars supposedly uses characters we've known and grew up with since 1977. If one of them died and it was well written it would be everything the scene in "into Darkness" was missing. The death of Han Solo would be some heavy sh-t, especially if Ford was moved enough to actually get into character.

Well said, everyone. That's the biggest problem I had with the movie: it didn't earn the right to do that with the characters. The original WOK had 3 season, and decades worth of service and camaraderie to get to the point where Kirk and Spock had that brotherly connection. And even in the movie, neither of them had such an over the top reaction to the situation. The most emotion Kirk showed was when he was speaking to Spock through the glass (without shedding a tear, but still showing great pain and sadness in his face) and during his eulogy saying "his was the most…human", a line that still makes me well up every single time I see it. Fantastic.

In this version, they've only served for a couple of years (maybe), but you're expected to think that they share a strong enough bond that would make Spock break out of his Vulcan emotional suppression? They even go out of their way early in the movie that Spock still doesn't "get it" (regardless of his weird speech he gives Kirk and Uhura).

And like I pointed out earlier in the thread, the whole Kahn thing was indeed an afterthought:

That Big Star Trek Into Darkness Reveal Wasn’t The Original Plan, According To The Writers

Excerpt:

...here’s where the really interesting details come in – the writers already had a story, they shoehorned Khan in. “Once we had that standalone story, we wondered: are there details from Khan’s history that fit?” Orci told Yahoo, ”If we can use the details of Khan’s backstory given our structure to make the movie more specific and more relevant, then that works.”

...and

I also think that the sequence where Kirk literally KICKS the machine to fix it is a little dumb. Like, come on, he couldn't have moved something? Done something a little more than kicking? It just seemed very low-brow.

My wife couldn't stop laughing and rolling her eyes for this one. She gave me so much **** for it on the car ride home! I mean, it's a 25th century warp core the size of a fridge that can be "kicked" back into place when it gets dislodged?

Regardless, I still enjoyed the movie overall. The bad parts really do seemed so tacked on that it makes it easy to ignore. I'm looking forward to watching it again when I get the Blu Ray.

 

[The Ween]

I was thinking Scotty had done something similar in one of the original series shows.

Hell, I've done it before and it worked.

 

[Deckard]

Batman retiring and Kirk dying were absolutely two of the biggest emotional moments that come to mind in recent movies that the filmmakers/lore itself had not earned and therefore simply did not work. Batman was Batman for 2 months, Kirk and Spock had been on 2 missions.

And the saddest part is that's still more human interaction than most of this generation who've grown up on the internet have probably seen.

 

[screamingmetal]

Same way I feel about the phasers that now have to blatantly SHOW us their setting with the rotating nozzle. Just very preschool.

The phasers aren't just showing us what setting they're on, they're showing the people who are firing them as well as those around them. If I had a weapon where on one setting it can harmlessly stun someone and on the other it can completely vaporize them, I'd want a very obvious indicator what setting my weapon was on too.

And despite the fact that the book does a great job of explaining how Khan rigged the transwarp transporter to get to Kronos, and why they couldn't just beam after him, it's still a little odd to me that we'd still send out tons of spaceships to "explore strange new worlds" when they could just beam there ala Stargate. I guess sometimes there's stuff they come across that you couldn't just "beam to," but it's still a stretch for me.

True, it does change the situation considerably, they no longer have to really "Trek" anywhere.
It has been established in ST before (Next Gen.) that warping causes damage to the universe, so hopefully they can use that to stop the use of Transwarp beaming.

 

[screamingmetal]

I was thinking Scotty had done something similar in one of the original series shows.

Kicking the Warp Core does seem to very easily fit into the Original Series. I didn't have much of an issue with it.

Khan being white, and looking and acting NOTHING like the original is my only flaw with this movie. Otherwise, it was my most entertaining flick of the summer.

Specifically, Montalban was of European Spanish ethnicity born in Mexico. Nobody has a issue with that white guy playing Kahn Noonien Singh.
True Cumberbatch is about as pale as you can get, (maybe they should've given him a tan like Montalban had) but I think they hired him more based on his acting ability than his skin color; acting ability being far more important to portray Khan than skin color imo. Cumberbatch's Kahn was more let down by the script then he was by the actor's portrayal.

I don't care if he was purple with pink polka dots.

If you spend half the movie saying how clever and evil Khan is (and even Skype Nimoy-Spock just to confirm it) and then have Robocop be the actual villain, you blew your opportunity, IMO.

Also, I hated magic Khan blood.

I felt Admiral Marcus was a poorer villain than Kahn was in STID.

Hopefully the next ST film will focus more on the Federation/Klingon war and have either Kor or Kang as it's main villain(s).

 

[Kamandi]

Also, I hated magic Khan blood.

So does Kirk have super strength now?

Khan had genetic therapy centuries ago. It does not mean he has midiclorians in his blood.

 

[Adolfo]

They shoulda had Kirk in the cryo tube with the ressurected tribble in his mouth

 

[hunnipot85]

I really enjoyed this film, I don't get all the hate. I'm a bit worried now that Abrams dumped this for Star Wars, but hopefully Star Trek continues on with the cast and has a great third film at least.

I'm a little bummed Hot Toys didn't pick this line up. I would've loved to have a Kirk and Carol.