Star Trek Into Darkness [ SPOILERS FROM POST 452 ]

Outkast_IRE · 15-05-2013 11:47AM

Josey Wales wrote: »

I clicked into this thread so I could write up a few words to describe how much I enjoyed this film. From the very first moment to the last I thought it was excellent.

Unfortunately I read back a few pages and see that the thread is descending into the same nitpicking idiocy that detailed The Dark Knight Rises thread from last year. I don't understand why someone would care so much that it took the Enterprise five minutes screen time to reach Kronos? The fun, for me at least, is in the story and not the need to have everything sync up with real world logic. I find it best to suspend my disbelief while watching a movie featuring aliens, starships and transporters.

Amazing film, shame about the thread. Although I guess I've just added to it. Damn!

The nitpicking happens on almost any sci-fi or fantasy world film, i remember someone bringing up the same arguments about prometheus and how fast they travel through space to the destination.

I wont even respond to such posts, its a film with aliens and space ships and all manner of made up stuff, yet you complain about the length of time it takes to travel from A to B .

Pepe LeFrits · 15-05-2013 11:57AM

Star Trek was much better. The AICN review summed it up pretty well.

The emotional segments didn't work, the plot was tired and familiar and many of the action scenes contributed to the film feeling more like a Star Wars prequel than the rebooted Trek. There were also way too many nods and winks to the fans.

Oregano_State · 15-05-2013 12:00PM

The doctor ruined the film for me, everything he said made me want to punch him. There is no way someone saying stupid shít like that ad nauseum could ever be a doctor, let alone a space doctor.

knucklehead6 · 15-05-2013 12:03PM

pah wrote: »

In relation to the time it takes to get to Kronos, there was similar nit picking in ST09 when the enterprise warped to Vulcan from Earth in the time it took Kirk to run from sickbay to the bridge. At least they're consistent with the shortness of it.

Remember at the start of that sequence, was Kirk not unconscious??

johnny_ultimate · 15-05-2013 01:02PM

Still chuckling at "dammit man, I'm a doctor not a torpedo technician" TBH.

stevenmu · 15-05-2013 01:18PM

Outkast_IRE wrote: »

I wont even respond to such posts, its a film with aliens and space ships and all manner of made up stuff, yet you complain about the length of time it takes to travel from A to B .

The problem is internal consistency. If you lay out a universe with aliens and space ships and teleporters and what not, then that's fine, you have a universe with all those things in it. They should have made up stuff in it, because real life is boring and we're paying good money to see something interesting and exciting.

But, you need to stay consistent with the stuff you made up. If you can travel from A to B instantly, but it then takes days or weeks to travel from B back to A, then that's just getting ridiculous and they're clearly making stuff up to cover plot holes. It would be the same if they decided half way through the film that there was no such thing as space travel or aliens, even though the first half was all in space and had plenty of aliens.

PhiloCypher · 15-05-2013 02:58PM

Devins review pretty much nails it for me

I walked into Star Trek Into Darkness worried that this film would be the death knell for Star Trek as I knew it. It isn’t. It’s definitely a bad movie with an objectively bad and idiotic script, but it’s not a franchise killer. That said, it does have some elements that feel like they’ve broken Star Trek. Khan is able to beam himself from Earth to Qo’noS using a personal hyperwarp transporter device. The fact that such a device exists calls into question the need for space ships at all. The device can be carried in your hands, and it can beam you sixteen light years without a problem. The film actually abuses the hell out of the transporter; there’s a reason why the transporter is generally limited in the Star Trek universe*.

The bolded bit : brings to mind the equally daft decision by the writers of Iron man to have Jarvis be able to control 42 iron man suits simultaneously for the sake of an action scene , which is fine if that becomes apart of his armory of tactics when the **** hits the fan , but if things look grimm when Thanos attacks in avengers 2 and he doesn't call in the Cavalry then that's a major logic fail for me.

FutureGuy · 15-05-2013 03:22PM

PhiloCypher wrote: »

Devins review pretty much nails it for me

The bolded bit : brings to mind the equally daft decision by the writers of Iron man to have Jarvis be able to control 42 iron man suits simultaneously for the sake of an action scene , which is fine if that becomes apart of his armory of tactics when the **** hits the fan , but if things look grimm when Thanos attacks in avengers 2 and he doesn't call in the Cavalry then that's a major logic fail for me.

I came out of the film with the second-half of the bolded part, and the paragraph below it, running around in my head and it angered the fcuk out of me. It was acually ruining the fact that I enjoyed the film immesely. But I just decided to let it slide because I have a feeling it will be explained away in a canon situation in the next film. A simple joke by Scotty can resolve why Starfleet is not beaming everything everywhere and Bones can quip about the blood. I have to believe this because otherwise I get angry. In fact, they HAVE to explain why this blood revived Kirk but can never be used again. Otherwise death is not a factor anymore.

EDIT: Actually, having just read the same guys review of IM3, he seems delightfully happy to simply cover over the glaring, and quite frankly, idiotic sh!te that happens in IM3, but is simply thrilled to pick STID apart for similar things. It's actually rediculous!

Potentially Toxic · 15-05-2013 04:35PM

Oregano_State wrote: »

The doctor ruined the film for me, everything he said made me want to punch him. There is no way someone saying stupid shít like that ad nauseum could ever be a doctor, let alone a space doctor.

Yep exactly, for example take the doctor in Voyager. That's an example of an intelligent doctor, you see a doctor when you watch him. When you watch this doctor you see an actor making an awful attempt to play a doctor. Things like that ruin the experience for me and make it hard to enjoy the movie and to "forget" that what im watching isn't real.

The one thing I liked about the movie was the depiction of 23rd century London. Thought they did that well.

B.A._Baracus · 15-05-2013 05:37PM

Just back from seeing this with my mate. We both agreed that Star Trek (2009) was the better film. The first half of the movie is good but then dips.

I see alot of people are talking about the transporting ability of Khan from Earth to Kronos being an noteable minor issue/plothole - I would agree. It was silly that he could transport all the way but yet a few times later in the movie the enterprise couldnt transport anyone due to some external factor.

I also felt Benedict Cumberbatch's performance wasn't amazing. Ricardo Montalban was great as the original Khan and in my eyes is the better of the two. But to sum Star Trek Into Darkness? a remake of wraith of khan. In more ways than one.

Mitch Connor · 15-05-2013 05:40PM

From that review...

The movie barrels forward into an over-complicated conspiracy plot that’s harebrained and dopey. On some level it’s tempting to give Star Trek Into Darkness credit for being a movie that tackles current events - the evil conspiracy to start a war with the Klingons is painfully, totally, obviously inspired by the war in Iraq - but perhaps praise should be saved for times when a movie tackles current events well. The film is in such a rush to get from set piece to set piece that it never takes the time to really examine the political thought it is supposedly engaging. Previous JJ Abrams films have revolved around a MacGuffin; this might be the first time in an Abrams film where the plot itself is a MacGuffin.

All of that might have worked if screenwriters Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof had stuck to it, but they’ve decided to add Khan into the mix. John Harrison, you see, is actually secretly Khan, who has been thawed from his cryosleep by the head of Starfleet and pushed into servitude, designing weapons and ships and, for reasons that are unclear and probably nonsensical, actually personally engaging in terrorist activities. Because if you suddenly had Napoleon or Genghis Khan on your team you would send them off to do drive-bys.

THe Iraq bit - not buying it - the war isn't being started for Oil or some other natural resource, writer getting ahead of himself there - bollix to his assumptions there.

He also didn't pay any attention to the Kahn storyline, to the point he has got it all wrong:

Kahn was employed to build war ships for the war by the head of Star Fleet - a war he was certain was coming. The terrorist activities ARE NOT planned by the Starfleet guy, they are all Kahn's doing so he could kill the important people in Starfleet.

Stopped reading at that point - the guy is a freaking moron.

pah · 15-05-2013 06:24PM

Finding it hard to disagree with most of what Devin has said tbh. After sleeping on it and reading that review I think I know why I left the cinema feeling dissapointed but not being sure why. I think long serving trek fans will dislike this more than new fans.

In TOS Kirk and Khan first met in 2267 after being captain of the enterprise for 3 years. TWOK events didnt occur until 2285 when Kirk was an admiral. Why the fcuk did they have to use Khan in this timeline in 2259?? The more I think about it the more it pisses me off. Especially the death scene

Technocentral · 15-05-2013 06:59PM

pah wrote: »

Finding it hard to disagree with most of what Devin has said tbh. After sleeping on it and reading that review I think I know why I left the cinema feeling dissapointed but not being sure why. I think long serving trek fans will dislike this more than new fans.

In TOS Kirk and Khan first met in 2267 after being captain of the enterprise for 3 years. TWOK events didnt occur until 2285 when Kirk was an admiral. Why the fcuk did they have to use Khan in this timeline in 2259?? The more I think about it the more it pisses me off. Especially the death scene

Absolutely, as one I don't really recognize the Star Trek universe I grew up watching, its an entertaining enough action adventure film but the ethos of TOS, TNG, Voyager etc is gone, the Spock character punching the fcuk out of your man was nasty, he was always a pacifist character who would do the minimum to disable a character not batter them to almost death, this and the last one are basically the enterprise against a super powerful baddy, the last one from the present, this one from the past, hard to see where they can go with the next one (let me guess a super powerful bad guy from the future?). 2.5/5.

FutureGuy · 15-05-2013 07:07PM

pah wrote: »

Finding it hard to disagree with most of what Devin has said tbh. After sleeping on it and reading that review I think I know why I left the cinema feeling dissapointed but not being sure why. I think long serving trek fans will dislike this more than new fans.

In TOS Kirk and Khan first met in 2267 after being captain of the enterprise for 3 years. TWOK events didnt occur until 2285 when Kirk was an admiral. Why the fcuk did they have to use Khan in this timeline in 2259?? The more I think about it the more it pisses me off. Especially the death scene

Ok. In the film, they stated that because of the Narada/Kelvin incident, Starfleet began a very aggressive search of space to find technology that might help them overcome a similar threat which meant that, in this Universe, Starfleet had explored far more territory than the prime universe by the same time. It just so happened that they stumbled upon the Botany Bay a lot earlier than the prime universe, because of exploring strange new worlds, they were scouring as much space as possible instead.

Look at the Klingon home world. Praxis (a moon) was destroyed much much earlier for an unknown reason. That was deliberate and I'd love to know why.

Potentially Toxic · 15-05-2013 07:14PM

Mitch Connor wrote: »

From that review...
The movie barrels forward into an over-complicated conspiracy plot that’s harebrained and dopey. On some level it’s tempting to give Star Trek Into Darkness credit for being a movie that tackles current events - the evil conspiracy to start a war with the Klingons is painfully, totally, obviously inspired by the war in Iraq - but perhaps praise should be saved for times when a movie tackles current events well. The film is in such a rush to get from set piece to set piece that it never takes the time to really examine the political thought it is supposedly engaging. Previous JJ Abrams films have revolved around a MacGuffin; this might be the first time in an Abrams film where the plot itself is a MacGuffin.

All of that might have worked if screenwriters Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof had stuck to it, but they’ve decided to add Khan into the mix. John Harrison, you see, is actually secretly Khan, who has been thawed from his cryosleep by the head of Starfleet and pushed into servitude, designing weapons and ships and, for reasons that are unclear and probably nonsensical, actually personally engaging in terrorist activities. Because if you suddenly had Napoleon or Genghis Khan on your team you would send them off to do drive-bys.

THe Iraq bit - not buying it - the war isn't being started for Oil or some other natural resource, writer getting ahead of himself there - bollix to his assumptions there.

He also didn't pay any attention to the Kahn storyline, to the point he has got it all wrong:

Kahn was employed to build war ships for the war by the head of Star Fleet - a war he was certain was coming. The terrorist activities ARE NOT planned by the Starfleet guy, they are all Kahn's doing so he could kill the important people in Starfleet.

Stopped reading at that point - the guy is a freaking moron.

You missed out, he made some very good points.

FutureGuy · 15-05-2013 07:14PM

Technocentral wrote: »

Absolutely, as one I don't really recognize the Star Trek universe I grew up watching, its an entertaining enough action adventure film but the ethos of TOS, TNG, Voyager etc is gone, the Spock character punching the fcuk out of your man was nasty, he was always a pacifist character who would do the minimum to disable a character not batter them to almost death, this and the last one are basically the enterprise against a super powerful baddy, the last one from the present, this one from the past, hard to see where they can go with the next one (let me guess a super powerful bad guy from the future?). 2.5/5.

What people seem to be missing is that these characters are very very raw. Much more so than what we see in the first episode of the original series. Spock prime led a very normal life for many many years which allowed him to develop into the calm Vulcan we know, one that is very capable of hiding his emotion.

The new Spock has witnessed the destruction of his entire planet, the death of his mother before his eyes and has a different relationship to his father (one where he openly admits he also feels).

His greatest outburst in the film came when his captain died as a result of sacrificing himself.

I would expect no other reaction from Spock given these circumstances.

BTW, Nero WAS from the future as was his ship.

FutureGuy · 15-05-2013 07:19PM

Mitch Connor wrote: »

From that review...
The movie barrels forward into an over-complicated conspiracy plot that’s harebrained and dopey. On some level it’s tempting to give Star Trek Into Darkness credit for being a movie that tackles current events - the evil conspiracy to start a war with the Klingons is painfully, totally, obviously inspired by the war in Iraq - but perhaps praise should be saved for times when a movie tackles current events well. The film is in such a rush to get from set piece to set piece that it never takes the time to really examine the political thought it is supposedly engaging. Previous JJ Abrams films have revolved around a MacGuffin; this might be the first time in an Abrams film where the plot itself is a MacGuffin.

All of that might have worked if screenwriters Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof had stuck to it, but they’ve decided to add Khan into the mix. John Harrison, you see, is actually secretly Khan, who has been thawed from his cryosleep by the head of Starfleet and pushed into servitude, designing weapons and ships and, for reasons that are unclear and probably nonsensical, actually personally engaging in terrorist activities. Because if you suddenly had Napoleon or Genghis Khan on your team you would send them off to do drive-bys.

THe Iraq bit - not buying it - the war isn't being started for Oil or some other natural resource, writer getting ahead of himself there - bollix to his assumptions there.

He also didn't pay any attention to the Kahn storyline, to the point he has got it all wrong:

Kahn was employed to build war ships for the war by the head of Star Fleet - a war he was certain was coming. The terrorist activities ARE NOT planned by the Starfleet guy, they are all Kahn's doing so he could kill the important people in Starfleet.

Stopped reading at that point - the guy is a freaking moron.

yeah the more I read it the more I think he's a bitter biased idiot. Yes some of his points are very valid but they are drowned out by the clear fact that he wasn't paying attention and he Is clearly biased. Otherwise he would have tore IM3 apart.

Oafley Jones · 15-05-2013 08:10PM

FutureGuy wrote: »

yeah the more I read it the more I think he's a bitter biased idiot. Yes some of his points are very valid but they are drowned out by the clear fact that he wasn't paying attention and he Is clearly biased. Otherwise he would have tore IM3 apart.

Devin can be a fairly toxic prick of a man, but he's a fairly decent critic. My only criticism is that he'll often give some complete piece of **** a pass in the name of it being "fun". I fear that word when I see it in a Faraci review. Long time readers of Chud will be familiar with this phenomenon - where every six months or so, some excrement will dragged up and deemed a great misunderstood "fun" movie. If Devin loves a movie, I can be pretty sure I'll hate it. I will say, that he's fantastic at picking apart why a movie doesn't work structurally, thematically or logically and that review is a great example.

On STID, I actually enjoyed it... and I went in wanting to hate on it. Sure the writing is ****ing woeful and the whole things falls apart if you even slightly glance at it, but I had a good time. I wasn't so keen on the first one, but as with that, the cast really do elevate the material they've been landed with. I even didn't mind Alice Eve, whom I ****ing hate. I just wish they hadn't gone anywhere near Khan and the call-backs/fan service were just irritating. Also, the main theme still feels like a first pass to me. It's just swells with no subtlety, otherwise the score is fine.

I've said it many times, but J.J. Abrams biggest failing (and it's a biggy) is that he seems incapable of judging the quality of a script. I'd love for him to be barred from working with the likes of Orco/Kurtzman and Lindelof. Another thing, someone needs to punch him in the balls if he suggests another "mystery box".

Technocentral · 15-05-2013 09:22PM

FutureGuy wrote: »

What people seem to be missing is that these characters are very very raw. Much more so than what we see in the first episode of the original series. Spock prime led a very normal life for many many years which allowed him to develop into the calm Vulcan we know, one that is very capable of hiding his emotion.

The new Spock has witnessed the destruction of his entire planet, the death of his mother before his eyes and has a different relationship to his father (one where he openly admits he also feels).

His greatest outburst in the film came when his captain died as a result of sacrificing himself.

I would expect no other reaction from Spock given these circumstances.

BTW, Nero WAS from the future as was his ship.

Fair enough I forget what time period he was from, I just think that it doesn't feel like Trek anymore, basically no one was going to those films anyway apart from Star Trek fans so they had to get rid of basically 80% of what made it what it was to turn it into the sort of big action adventure blockbusters that appeal to the masses. For me even the Enterprise tv show still felt like Star Trek in a way that this doesn't, the last actual good Trek movie on the other hand was First Contact (very good actually), but thats the way the cookie crumbles, time for me to move on and leave it to the "next generation", live long and prosper (at the box office).

pah · 15-05-2013 09:45PM

I get it and like I sad for the most part I enjoyed it. I just think abrahms tried to be too clever dragging in elements of TWOK as an homage and ended up giving it the finger.

Branoic · 16-05-2013 11:07AM

Enjoyed it immensely. Silly things like transwarp teleports to Kronos or warp travel times do not bother me in the slightest.

I'm a massive trek fan, loved TOS, TNG, DS9, not so much Voyager or Enterprise, but they have their moments. Been to numerous conventions wearing uniform costumes, made model ships, have played pretty much all the trek video games (A Final Unity probably my fav) and i even have a bit of time for the MMO.

I say all this to dispel the silly idea that some people have that their dislike is somehow representative of all other "true" Trek fans. These are often the same people who moaned about how the 2009 Trek somehow destroyed the legacy and history of everything that came before it.

jpm4 · 16-05-2013 11:07AM

Question:

When Spock asks the alternate timeline Spock how Kahn was defeated originally, do we ever find how what he was told? In TWOK I seem to remember that Spock somehow deduced that Kahn was suseptible to "2 dimensional thinking" - so the Enterprise "dives", then resurfaces behind Reliant and blows the living snot out of it.

How is that relevant to anything in the present timeline though?

The Kirk death was awful - a lazy crib of a genuinely affecting scene from Wrath and demanded no emotional investment from the viewer at all (unless you are lobotimised and missed the very obvious way they were going to bring him back - so I guess death will no longer be a problem back on Earth with Kahns blood to go around?)

Some of the dialog was really bad. Uhurah: "You brought me with you because I speak Klingon......so let me speak Klingon".

On the whole only a little worse than the first one which wasn't too bad, but the freshness has worn off now and I couldn't care less where they bring this in the future.

FutureGuy · 16-05-2013 11:57AM

jpm4 wrote: »

Question:

When Spock asks the alternate timeline Spock how Kahn was defeated originally, do we ever find how what he was told? In TWOK I seem to remember that Spock somehow deduced that Kahn was suseptible to "2 dimensional thinking" - so the Enterprise "dives", then resurfaces behind Reliant and blows the living snot out of it.

How is that relevant to anything in the present timeline though?

The Kirk death was awful - a lazy crib of a genuinely affecting scene from Wrath and demanded no emotional investment from the viewer at all (unless you are lobotimised and missed the very obvious way they were going to bring him back - so I guess death will no longer be a problem back on Earth with Kahns blood to go around?)

Some of the dialog was really bad. Uhurah: "You brought me with you because I speak Klingon......so let me speak Klingon".

On the whole only a little worse than the first one which wasn't too bad, but the freshness has worn off now and I couldn't care less where they bring this in the future.

I really really wish they put one some make up on Kirk to show he was actually dieing instead of leave him looking a little sweaty :rolleyes:

Potentially Toxic · 16-05-2013 02:56PM

This is a very good article highlighting the nonsense in the movie.

http://whatculture.com/film/star-trek-into-darkness-10-things-that-make-no-sense.php

Branoic · 16-05-2013 04:20PM

Potentially Toxic wrote: »

This is a very good article highlighting the nonsense in the movie.

http://whatculture.com/film/star-trek-into-darkness-10-things-that-make-no-sense.php

Actually I find that article weak in the extreme and clutching at petty and pedantic straws, particularly when it comes to the demands of plotting and pacing an enjoyable blockbuster film.

If everything in that article played out in the manner in which the author thinks it should of, the movie never would have worked.

Also, the same types of "MAJOR OMG HOW COULD THEY!?" plot holes can be picked out in any film, ever. For a quick example let's look at the esteemed Wrath of Khan itself. Now, I adore this film, just like pretty much everyone else. But Khan's (unstoppable super soldier!) weakness is that he thinks in 2D, so the Enterprise....flies down? Really? If that doesn't smack of lazy writers trying to figure out how to move the story on I don't know what does. Does it mean Wrath of Khan is not a fantastic film? Of course not.

DrumSteve · 16-05-2013 04:25PM

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.

kaimera · 16-05-2013 05:09PM

just back from it & loved it.

better than IM3 - more enjoyable.

johnny_ultimate · 16-05-2013 05:24PM

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.

who_me · 16-05-2013 06:32PM

One thing confused me - since all Khan's crew are genetically engineered, couldn't they have used any of their blood to resurrect Kirk? Why did it have to be specifically Khan's?

And, does this mean Starfleet now has a "raise dead" syrum to bring back any characters killed from now on? If so, booooh.

PhiloCypher · 16-05-2013 06:52PM

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.

Complex intellectually rewarding films are generally better written and less seen, thus don't warrant the level of critique/engagement a film like this does.

I'd be willing to forgive the film its flaws if this was a standalone film, as who cares how they get from A to B or how close the planets are to each other in that scenario but this is an ongoing franchise there has to be some level of planning and logic in their world building. You don't introduce the klingons, as an aggressive expansionist race and to be feared and then have their ships shot out of the sky with a pistol and you don't inexplicably have Qo'nos 15seconds at warp from earth, I mean come on how expansionist can they be if they haven't attacked yet.

The original films weren't perfect by any means the amount of times the enterprise was the closest ship to earth when it was attacked stretched credulity but on the whole it all hung together in a solidly logical fashion insofar as these things go these new films just don't.

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

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Star Trek Into Darkness [ SPOILERS FROM POST 452 ]