Star Trek Into Darkness [** SPOILERS FROM POST 452 **]

Potentially Toxic

I wonder how willing people here would be to over look the flaws in a movie movie whereby you can fly from London to New York in 30 seconds or roll your tank up the the front door of the White House without anyone noticing so that the writers can lazily advance the plot the way they want.

Like it was said in the post above, if you want to build a new long term Star Trek franchise it really needs to be logically consistent to at least a certain minimum standard. The last two Star Trek movies are so far past that standard it's ridiculous. These movies will be forgotten about in 10 years time. They have no substance. They are the McDonald's of movies. They look great and sound great but that is not nearly enough.

Antar Bolaeisk

DrumSteve wrote: »

I personally thought it would have been a cool touch if, when the klingons removed their helmets (with the ridges), the looked like the klingons from TOS.

I thought it was a great move up until the point they removed their helmets. It was one of the major items that Enterprise was derided for and one they went to great lengths to fix only for the new film to ignore it, again.

I don't understand why they went to such great lengths to do silly stuff (Spock Prime's skype call, the reversal of the hero scene and Spock's almost parody like Khaaaan! which can only be there to appease the older fans) to then go and not pay attention to things that older fans are more likely to care about (such as misspelling Qo'noS).

They're enjoyable action films dressed up in the trappings of Star Trek, a lot of fun in their own right but that's it. On the plus side, they're encouraging a brand new generation of fans to take notice of the older Star Treks, that can only be a good thing.

Oafley Jones

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

I was going to post a long response about the futility of these increasingly prevalent pedant critics, but what's the point? If only the same writers spent half as much time engaging with those truly complex, intellectually rewarding films out there rather than attempting to deconstruct the inherently silly surface plots of frivolous blockbusters, online film criticism would be so much richer and satisfying.

Ah go on. There's a pretentiousness to this post that really bugs me.

Edit: Which writers are you referring to.

johnny_ultimate

Oafley Jones wrote: »

Ah go on. There's a pretentiousness to this post that really bugs me.

Edit: Which writers are you referring to.

The many articles and hour long videos that pick away at every single plot point in an attempt to deconstruct them. Ones like the What Culture article linked above, or the plethora linked in this article about the Dark Knight Rises. There's a certain point to which such things are justified, sure, and no doubt Star Trek takes a few liberties here and there, but it's become a trend recently and IMO more potentially interesting discussion of the film gets drowned out (although perhaps the greatest irony is a lot of these films don't really deserve the attention!). It most often occurs when there's a film that's part of a long running series with a particularly dedicated fanset.

I say this both as a fan of good film writing, but probably more than anything as the moderator of this forum. Both the Prometheus and Dark Knight Rises threads descended into the most mindless bickering and name-calling over attempts to nitpick to death - and that's really all it was - and I have to admit I'm saddened to see a few posters reluctant to contribute to this thread because they fear the same thing will happen People had issues with the film, fair enough, even as someone who enjoyed it thoroughly it's far from perfect. Can easily see why someone would dislike it. But when the plot pedantry begins, a lot of good discussion is lost in the process. It always just creates a palatable sense of frustration among posters both for and against, and really when you're dealing with 'plot holes' no-one ever wins. I've linked it before, but this AV Club article absolutely nailed it more articulately than I ever could. As it perfectly states, "the movie clearly wasn’t working for them. Whether it was failing because of bad plotting or because of some more esoteric reason doesn’t matter. The fact is that writer-director lost those people somewhere along the way—which is worth noting" - but ultimately many of the plot holes and logical 'inconsistencies' are simple, straightforward editing and pacing choices.

This is all IMO of course.

Nervous Wreck

DrumSteve wrote: »

I personally thought it would have been a cool touch if, when the klingons removed their helmets (with the ridges), the looked like the klingons from TOS.

Or if the main Klingon were played by Michael Dorn.

Oafley Jones

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

The many articles and hour long videos that pick away at every single plot point in an attempt to deconstruct them. Ones like the What Culture article linked above, or the plethora linked in this article about the Dark Knight Rises. There's a certain point to which such things are justified, sure, and no doubt Star Trek takes a few liberties here and there, but it's become a trend recently and IMO more potentially interesting discussion of the film gets drowned out (although perhaps the greatest irony is a lot of these films don't really deserve the attention!). It most often occurs when there's a film that's part of a long running series with a particularly dedicated fanset.

I say this both as a fan of good film writing, but probably more than anything as the moderator of this forum. Both the Prometheus and Dark Knight Rises threads descended into the most mindless bickering and name-calling over attempts to nitpick to death - and that's really all it was - and I have to admit I'm saddened to see a few posters reluctant to contribute to this thread because they fear the same thing will happen People had issues with the film, fair enough, even as someone who enjoyed it thoroughly it's far from perfect. Can easily see why someone would dislike it. But when the plot pedantry begins, a lot of good discussion is lost in the process. It always just creates a palatable sense of frustration among posters both for and against, and really when you're dealing with 'plot holes' no-one ever wins. I've linked it before, but this AV Club article absolutely nailed it more articulately than I ever could. As it perfectly states, "the movie clearly wasn’t working for them. Whether it was failing because of bad plotting or because of some more esoteric reason doesn’t matter. The fact is that writer-director lost those people somewhere along the way—which is worth noting" - but ultimately many of the plot holes and logical 'inconsistencies' are simple, straightforward editing and pacing choices.

This is all IMO of course.

Pedantry regarding how far Kronos is too Earth falls into the who gives a **** category for me. Plot holes for the most part I tend not to have a problem with, it's part of the sleight of hand a good director should be able to get away with. It's when the writers and director seem to have contempt for the audience that I get annoyed. Whether it's 300 million dollar blockbuster or a college film it's not unreasonable to demand that we have the fundamentals down.

I've toyed with the idea of starting a thread on this... Movie scenes that insult your intelligence. Given the easy shots on my list I'd fear it'd be borderline trolling. Plus, I'm lazy.

pah

Plot holes are forgivable almost by definition but disregard of common sense just to get to the next scene pisses me off.

Id love to see Joss Whedon get a crack at the trek whip.

Mickeroo

Thought it was great though it wasn't without it's flaws. Had Khan's presence spoiled in here so I had twigged about the torpedoes, but it didn't ruin the film since thats all revealed quite early.

Cumberbatch was great. Really would have been no harm if he had had even more screen time and I'd love to see him return in the role at some point.

I didn't really like how much of Wrath of Khan they put into it towards the end though but once i got over that i liked how they reversed the roles and had Jim sacrifice himself rather than Spock. It was a massive cop out to have him resurrected ten minutes later though of course, and is probably the only thing in the film I find it hard to forgive. Thought it would have been great if it just ended without Khan showing up again and just have had Jim's funeral but on the plus side at least the next one won't be The Search for Kirk. I did like Spock getting angry though.

I liked the bit where the klingons were chasing the Millenium Falcon and I was pretty kiddy when Uhuru was negotiating with them, but tbh it was pretty lousy to put klingons in this and not have them be the main antagonists in the film. Moar Klingons next time please.

I'm looking forward to the inevitable next one, hopefully they will actually be exploring strange new worlds when that happens though. As much as I liked this it would be nice to have the crew doing a bit of actual star trekking next time.

Oh and I did have to laugh that they basically had Young Spock ring up Old Spock to ask him what happened in Star Trek II though

DrumSteve

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

Or if the main Klingon were played by Michael Dorn.

Oh yeah,I mean, to use pro wrestling parlance, I would have marked the **** out if that happened.

PhiloCypher

johnny_ultimate wrote: »

The many articles and hour long videos that pick away at every single plot point in an attempt to deconstruct them. Ones like the What Culture article linked above, or the plethora linked in this article about the Dark Knight Rises. There's a certain point to which such things are justified, sure, and no doubt Star Trek takes a few liberties here and there, but it's become a trend recently and IMO more potentially interesting discussion of the film gets drowned out (although perhaps the greatest irony is a lot of these films don't really deserve the attention!). It most often occurs when there's a film that's part of a long running series with a particularly dedicated fanset.

I say this both as a fan of good film writing, but probably more than anything as the moderator of this forum. Both the Prometheus and Dark Knight Rises threads descended into the most mindless bickering and name-calling over attempts to nitpick to death - and that's really all it was - and I have to admit I'm saddened to see a few posters reluctant to contribute to this thread because they fear the same thing will happen People had issues with the film, fair enough, even as someone who enjoyed it thoroughly it's far from perfect. Can easily see why someone would dislike it. But when the plot pedantry begins, a lot of good discussion is lost in the process. It always just creates a palatable sense of frustration among posters both for and against, and really when you're dealing with 'plot holes' no-one ever wins. I've linked it before, but this AV Club article absolutely nailed it more articulately than I ever could. As it perfectly states, "the movie clearly wasn’t working for them. Whether it was failing because of bad plotting or because of some more esoteric reason doesn’t matter. The fact is that writer-director lost those people somewhere along the way—which is worth noting" - but ultimately many of the plot holes and logical 'inconsistencies' are simple, straightforward editing and pacing choices.

This is all IMO of course.

Plot is the skeletal structure of any film, why should it be exempt from criticism? didn't have you pegged as a style over substance guy JU tbh .

If there was greater substance to this movie and it was more like the movie it attempts to ape in Wrath of Khan which tackled a captain facing middle age,mortality and the sins of the past I'd understand your complaint, but this film is nothing if not a case of style over substance, so your complaint just reads as a film snob using the thread of a popular film as a soapbox to voice his views on film criticism in general.

IGN Podcast

Sad Professor

Nice little review that concisely sums up why harcore Trek fans have such a problem with these films but why mainstream audiences love them.

The point is that we've been thrust into a story that owes a lot more to Raiders of the Lost Ark and Star Wars than to Gulliver's Travels. And there, in a nutshell, is what drives many old-school Trekkers so batty about the new iteration of the classic sci-fi series. It also happens to be why Abrams' 2009 reboot worked so well — and why Into Darkness, for the most part, does too.

The cheap sets, simple characters, and goofy, self-important dialogue of the original Star Trek were in the service of episodic morality tales whose surreal, intergalactic backdrops often helped clarify the issues and ideas at stake. It was only later, after the popularity of Star Wars, that Trek gained a more epic dimension, particularly in the film series. At their best, as with 1982's Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, the films mixed the allegorical qualities of the show with the imaginative possibilities of new generations of F/X wizardry and just enough soap opera to keep viewers emotionally engaged.

But Abrams basically completed the Star Wars-ification of Trek, with the moral dilemmas taking a backseat to operatic tales of fathers and sons and intergalactic combat. These were no longer fables, but myths.

http://www.nashvillescene.com/nashville/maybe-star-trek-into-darkness-feels-familiar-but-this-new-enterprise-gets-an-upgrade-from-its-action-andmdash-and-its-acting/Content?oid=3401341

knucklehead6

Nervous Wreck wrote: »

Or if the main Klingon were played by Michael Dorn.

that would have driven the pedants here bat sh1t crazy!!

PunkFreud

Potentially Toxic wrote: »

I wonder how willing people here would be to over look the flaws in a movie movie whereby you can fly from London to New York in 30 seconds or roll your tank up the the front door of the White House without anyone noticing so that the writers can lazily advance the plot the way they want.

Like it was said in the post above, if you want to build a new long term Star Trek franchise it really needs to be logically consistent to at least a certain minimum standard. The last two Star Trek movies are so far past that standard it's ridiculous. These movies will be forgotten about in 10 years time. They have no substance. They are the McDonald's of movies. They look great and sound great but that is not nearly enough.

Did you get really irked by the ending of The Shawshank Redemption so? In the last 20 minutes: the film skips to the end of Morgan Freeman's jail term, he travels to Texas in no time, followed by another "short" bus journey to Southern Mexico. I don't think the film would have been better if we'd watched Morgan Freeman travel on his own for the final hour, so the film was "consistent" with time. While I don't think Shawshank is the greatest film ever made, it certainly is a well rounded picture that has so far stood the test of time.

I thought STID (abbreviated, it looks like a disease ) was good well-paced action film with a stellar performance by Benedict Cumberbatch. Unfortunately, I felt the film sacrificed character development for action setpieces. I didn't care when Pike died, it seemed too soon into the movie and I hadn't invested in his character. I also though Chris Pine was brutal. During the death seen it felt like Abrams was avoiding pointing the camera at him for fear of his awful acting ruining the poignant bromance moment with Spock.

I thought its one of the better action movies, particularly compared to Iron Man 3.

krudler

Mickeroo wrote: »

Thought it was great though it wasn't without it's flaws. Had Khan's presence spoiled in here so I had twigged about the torpedoes, but it didn't ruin the film since thats all revealed quite early.

Cumberbatch was great. Really would have been no harm if he had had even more screen time and I'd love to see him return in the role at some point.

I didn't really like how much of Wrath of Khan they put into it towards the end though but once i got over that i liked how they reversed the roles and had Jim sacrifice himself rather than Spock. It was a massive cop out to have him resurrected ten minutes later though of course, and is probably the only thing in the film I find it hard to forgive. Thought it would have been great if it just ended without Khan showing up again and just have had Jim's funeral but on the plus side at least the next one won't be The Search for Kirk. I did like Spock getting angry though.

I liked the bit where the klingons were chasing the Millenium Falcon and I was pretty kiddy when Uhuru was negotiating with them, but tbh it was pretty lousy to put klingons in this and not have them be the main antagonists in the film. Moar Klingons next time please.

I'm looking forward to the inevitable next one, hopefully they will actually be exploring strange new worlds when that happens though. As much as I liked this it would be nice to have the crew doing a bit of actual star trekking next time.

Oh and I did have to laugh that they basically had Young Spock ring up Old Spock to ask him what happened in Star Trek II though

Ha I thought that shuttle looked very Falcon like alright, the chase through the cavern thing was pure Empire Strikes Back.

I saw it again last night in 2D, yeah am done with 3D, it was a blurry dark mess in the action scenes in 3D, gorgeous looking thoughout in 2D. The bringing Kirk back a few mins later still robs that scene of any emotional punch, and it was like the writers forgot they had a whole med bay full of Khan's crew to extract blood from.
They're going to have to do some serious explaining to get past the life giving super blood in the next one, if McCoy can formulate a serum to bring people back from death then medical history has been changed forever. They'll probably write some morality/destiny changing guff into it.

Sad Professor

krudler wrote: »

They're going to have to do some serious explaining to get past the life giving super blood in the next one, if McCoy can formulate a serum to bring people back from death then medical history has been changed forever. They'll probably write some morality/destiny changing guff into it.

No, they'll just ignore it. Star Trek has always been guilty of stuff like this. See Forgotten Phlebotinum on TV Tropes. TOS pretty much invented it.

There's never been much internal consistency in Star Trek's science and technology. In TNG it was possible to reconfigure the deflector dish or transporter to do just about anything. Create time vortexes, change DNA, you name it. Anything was possible if the plot demanded it.

krudler

Sad Professor wrote: »

No, they'll just ignore it. Star Trek has always been guilty of stuff like this. See Forgotten Phlebotinum on TV Tropes. TOS pretty much invented it.

There's never been much internal consistency in Star Trek's science and technology. In TNG it was possible to reconfigure the deflector dish or transporter to do just about anything. Create time vortexes, change DNA, you name it. Anything was possible if the plot demanded it.

Yeah I dunno why people are being so pedantic about travel times and tech and the like, the tv shows are littered with stuff like that "why if we reroute power to the thing and reverse the polarity of the other thing it might work!"

jpm4

krudler wrote: »

Yeah I dunno why people are being so pedantic about travel times and tech and the like, the tv shows are littered with stuff like that "why if we reroute power to the thing and reverse the polarity of the other thing it might work!"

Yeah but shouldn't each iteration of Star Trek at least strive for some internal consistency? Also, having a antidote to death as humans understand it is perhaps harder to overlook than some technical gobbledegook that no one really understands anyway.

krudler

jpm4 wrote: »

Yeah but shouldn't each iteration of Star Trek at least strive for some internal consistency? Also, having a antidote to death as humans understand it is perhaps harder to overlook than some technical gobbledegook that no one really understands anyway.

"It's death Jim, but not as we know it"

boom, problem solved :pac:

kraggy

Should I go see this or Iron Man 3? Damn all else in the local cinema.

johnnysmack

kraggy wrote: »

Should I go see this or Iron Man 3? Damn all else in the local cinema.

Ironman 3 definitely

Mickeroo

kraggy wrote: »

Should I go see this or Iron Man 3? Damn all else in the local cinema.

They're both very enjoyable imo. Iron Man 3 is a bit more on the comedy side of things whereas this is more intense/epic. Depends on what you're in the mood for. I'd probably just go see both of them.

Mitch Connor

PunkFreud wrote: »

Did you get really irked by the ending of The Shawshank Redemption so? In the last 20 minutes: the film skips to the end of Morgan Freeman's jail term, he travels to Texas in no time, followed by another "short" bus journey to Southern Mexico. I don't think the film would have been better if we'd watched Morgan Freeman travel on his own for the final hour, so the film was "consistent" with time. While I don't think Shawshank is the greatest film ever made, it certainly is a well rounded picture that has so far stood the test of time.

I thought STID (abbreviated, it looks like a disease ) was good well-paced action film with a stellar performance by Benedict Cumberbatch. Unfortunately, I felt the film sacrificed character development for action setpieces. I didn't care when Pike died, it seemed too soon into the movie and I hadn't invested in his character. I also though Chris Pine was brutal. During the death seen it felt like Abrams was avoiding pointing the camera at him for fear of his awful acting ruining the poignant bromance moment with Spock.

I thought its one of the better action movies, particularly compared to Iron Man 3.

I didn't think the issue was not sticking with the story for the hours/days it should have taken to get to Kronos - i thought it was that it appeared they got to Kronos in minutes while sticking with the scene - and the 20minute trip to Kronos from The Enterprise also seemed to take about 30seconds from leaving the ship to getting to the planet (my recolection is you see them leave the enterprise, but I could be wrong on that.

Maybe I am wrong, but it isn't that they cut boring time from the movie - but that the journeys were too quick in the first place.

ScumLord

krudler wrote: »

They're going to have to do some serious explaining to get past the life giving super blood in the next one, if McCoy can formulate a serum to bring people back from death then medical history has been changed forever. They'll probably write some morality/destiny changing guff into it.

I don't think they would, they put him in cryo to keep him fresh which implies he was still just about alive.

The same thing is done today, if you keep the body cold enough in a dead state so that you can get them to the treatment they need you can save their life.

FutureGuy

kraggy wrote: »

Should I go see this or Iron Man 3? Damn all else in the local cinema.

STID. There were times about halfway through IM3 that I was actually bored stiff.

Sad Professor

Agreed, see this. I liked IM3 - it's easily the best of the series - but it's a bit all over the place and isn't sure what it wants to be. I look forward to Black's next film when he has bit more freedom. He's too constrained in Iron Man.

Mind you, I'm not a Marvel fan and have found all the films (with the exception of The Avengers) pretty boring.

PhiloCypher

Mitch Connor wrote: »

I didn't think the issue was not sticking with the story for the hours/days it should have taken to get to Kronos - i thought it was that it appeared they got to Kronos in minutes while sticking with the scene - and the 20minute trip to Kronos from The Enterprise also seemed to take about 30seconds from leaving the ship to getting to the planet (my recolection is you see them leave the enterprise, but I could be wrong on that.

Maybe I am wrong, but it isn't that they cut boring time from the movie - but that the journeys were too quick in the first place.

Exactly a simple scene transition like them being in their Qo'nos disguises getting into a turbolift the doors closing then opening with say Kirk alone emerging in his normal Starfleet uniform onto the bridge would be enough to suggest and undetermined amount of time had past .

krudler

ScumLord wrote: »

I don't think they would, they put him in cryo to keep him fresh which implies he was still just about alive.

The same thing is done today, if you keep the body cold enough in a dead state so that you can get them to the treatment they need you can save their life.

They could have just written it so Kirk still goes into the radiation chamber, gets himself nearly killed but isn't dead yet, just near death with not long left, Bones realises Khan's blood heals cells, but the people they have on ice will take hours to come out of the cryo statis as everything internal is frozen and he did mention earlier they don't know the exact sequence to reanimate their bodies yet so don't have time to get the blood that way.
So Spock decides to go after Khan and get him back to the Enterprise as the only way to stop Kirk dying in the first place. You still get the self sacrifice aspect of Kirk knowing he's putting himself in mortal harm to save the crew, and the footchase after is now a race against time not a revenge thing.


As for people whinging about the whole redoing the end of Wrath of Khan with Kirk instead of Spock dying, well think about it, even with an altered destiny two friends are always destined to sacrifice themselves to save the other no matter what reality, sounds sci-fi enough for me.

Potentially Toxic

I'd love to see some new interesting races being introduced as potential foes in these Star Trek movies. I don't imagine that will happen though.

Looper007

I have to say I taught it was a great blockbuster, Pine and Quinto are excellent as Kirk and Spock plus the whole crew especially Urban as Bones were top notch. I taught Alice Eve was under used but damn she looked good in that uniform. The end fight between Kahn and Spock was brilliant and the nod to Wrath of Kahn was nice. Peter Weller a.k.a Robocop was good. Cumberbatch was brilliant as usual.

Mickeroo

Potentially Toxic wrote: »

I'd love to see some new interesting races being introduced as potential foes in these Star Trek movies. I don't imagine that will happen though.

I don't think there's any need with all the established races that are there. I'd rather see them invlove one of those next time round, and I don't mean a ten minute cameo like the Klingons got here.