Star Dreck: My Journey into Darkness.

I guess you could say that this isn't a review more like a run down of the movie and everything that upset me about it. If you haven't seen it, reading this will SPOIL the movie's plot. It is my very biased personal opinion. I almost feel guilty writing it. If you have seen the movie and disagree, just write a comment and we can discuss it. So here we go.

It's Khan. The bad guy, played by actor Benedict Cumberbatch, is Khan. There, if you haven't seen it yet, I "spoiled" it for you. You know what "spoiled" the movie for me? A shitty script filled with nothing but action movie clichés and bullshit fan service "wink-wink" moments. Fuck this movie, fuck every one of the 133 minutes I spent cringing at the screen, and fuck the trio of awful writers (Orci, Kurtzman, and Lindelof) for not having burnt this piece of shit scrip to ensure that it would never again be gazed upon by the eyes of man.

Here is the deal: I've got so much bile to spew onto this movie that I needed to compile a list. So I have broken it down into categories that I think will more accurately display what I did not like about this movie. But before all that here is what I did like about the movie:

The Good

Let’s see, I liked the special effects. That seems like a very vague compliment but the "look" of the movie was pretty great all around. The effects are sharp and glossy and after seeing Iron Man 3 I can really appreciate decent-looking CGI. I mean, none of the camera work is especially stellar, and the only stylization to speak of is Abrams’ continually baffling fascination with lens flare. In fact, a lot of shots were ruined by the lens flare. I would love to ask him what he thinks is wrong with just a simple wide-angle shot - they show grandeur and cinematics. Every time I saw that lens flare pop up it reminds me I'm watching some movie J.J. Abrams made instead of really being inside the Star Trek universe. Shit, do you see what I mean? I can't even talk about what’s good about this without it being taken over by the cascading moments of its ineptitude.

I liked Simon Pegg's performance as usual, although even Scotty has some really bad lines in this movie. Cumberbatch was decent as Khan, but the character was so unabashedly terrible that I can't really give any praise to him in good conscience. I mean when the camera zooms in on his face and Michael Giacchino's over-the-top-dramatic score swells up, I started cracking up laughing. Cumberbatch is good actor but he has absolutely no presence in this! And he is Khan! Plus they gave him two bullshit action sequences that look as though he is a character in a video game doing combo moves. He has super strength for God’s sake! He does not need to do martial arts, I'm pretty sure he kills a bad guy by chest bumping him into the air at one point. He could probably kill these guys with one punch and it would look much cooler. Plus he never uses his genetic perfection to do anything smart, it's always just the fighting. Is this what this generation's version of physical perfection is? Anyway, I really can't even think of anything else I liked about it, which I think speaks for itself.

Lack of Originality

All right, my number one problem with this movie is its lack of originality. And by saying that, I'm not talking about the generic banter or the uninteresting series of events that unfold on screen. I am solely referring to Khan. Now, just picture this. They made the 2009 Star Trek and whether or not you liked it, the best part was that it got to start over. From that movie on they could do whatever they wanted to. I mean, people are guaranteed to go see this movie regardless of what it is about so the studio is basically insured on this picture. So these supposed "artists" had complete freedom, they could do whatever they wanted and still make a hit. With nearly 200 million dollars in budget and complete artistic freedom, you’d think they could have come up with something better than just doing the villain from the second movie.

Because of this, the whole point of the revision is lost. Why do this again if the creative team in charge can't even come up with a single new idea? So they had to take large plot points from Khan's appearance in both the episode "Space Seed" and the movie Wrath of Khan. I mean it's not like Khan is that important to the Star Trek universe; he was just in that one episode and movie. So why bring him back? Because he is the one villain any moviegoer would know about. This is mostly due to the "Khan scream" and that Wrath of Khan is the best and most well-known of the Star Trek films.

So why would they redo Wrath of Khan? Well, that movie is the perfect template for the outside director coming into the Star Trek world to make a film that can appeal to people who haven't seen the original show while still pleasing the die-hard fans. Ironically, Into Darkness fails on both accounts. It cannot please many Trek fans because it has a horribly crafted script that seems so content with itself that it presumes it has the right to "revision" the classic ending to the 1982 original. And it can't please many non-fans because of the constant throwaway nods to the original show. I can't even picture fans liking the "fan-pandering" in this movie. It's all so horribly obvious. For example, there is a Tribble in the movie and after showing it they pause for a moment to let you go "Aw, I know what that is". Who is that meant for? Non-fans don't get it and most die-hard fans would scoff at such obvious attempts to win them over.

Needless Complexity of a Simple Plot

One of the great things about the Wrath of Khan is that it has a fairly simple story. It is basically an old-time nautical battle set in space. Two men have a battle of wits as they fly spaceships outside an uninhabited planet. The story is simple but the emotions are huge. The tale evokes that of classic literature such as Hornblower, Moby Dick, Paradise Lost, and King Lear. This gives the movie a timeless feel to it. Into Darkness, not so much. The movie's plot is filled with needless twists and turns that only exist to make the viewer think the movie was clever. Well, it wasn't clever. The movie is filled with so much needless bullshit that just in regards to script structure it is a lesson on what not to do. I can only assume that this is Damon Lindelof's doing. Forcing irrelevant and needlessly confusing events into what is unmistakably an action movie seems to be his modus operandi (See Prometheus).

Take, for example, the action sequence in the beginning of the movie. An unrelated action sequence to open a film is now de riguer in this sort of movie and it is pretty hard to mess up. And yet, this one still manages to do it. In the opening scene they manage to rip off the opening of Raiders of the Lost Ark, freeze a volcano, refuse to beam anyone aboard, and park a space ship underwater. This first moment is an excellent example of what this movie is built on: plot contrivances on top of more plot contrivances. "Why is the ship under water? That doesn't make any sense." This plot point happens because J.J and Company wanted a cool scene where the Enterprise came out of the water. It doesn't matter if that event makes no fucking sense; screw it, they don't care.

Now don't get me wrong, the original show had plot holes as well, but they were almost always used to tell an interesting story that show off the characters’ personalities and help richen the universe. Essentially every one of these gaping plot holes is completely arbitrary and could have been avoided if anyone on the creative team had cared about the subject matter. But they don't, so we get a character like Carol Marcus (yes, like Kirk's baby mama in Wrath of Khan). Carol Marcus' character in this movie is completely unnecessary. She does things in the movie, but all of them could have been done by another character. Just from a writing standpoint, I am baffled that somebody wrote a character like this into the movie. Her motivation never makes sense, she has no personality, and after watching this movie I doubt that anyone in the theater could tell you one thing about her other than that she had nice boobs.

Kirk's Character

Kirk's character is the most important in the show. He is a warrior-intellectual who is both an idealistic creation of the show's creator and undoubtedly human. And frankly I think he gets a bad rap. Sure Shatner hams it up, and sure a lot of episodes end with him punching people, but the original Kirk was done with a lot of style. Sometimes Kirk can get larger than life and a little too boisterous to carry much realism, but a lot of the time his character is written and performed with a lot of nuance. He is everything a great hero should be - he is brave, an inspiration to those who follow him, and both logical and caring. Most situations he handles delicately, showing both maturity and grace under pressure.

The Kirk in these two new films is none of these things. Now, people have said to me this is because of his father's death caused by Nero. I ask them that if they were to so alter his character, why use Kirk at all? Chris Pine (who is awful in the part) plays a mere imitation of Kirk, a version of what people think Kirk is like just by cultural osmosis. Kirk was once the perfect leader in the eyes of the idealistic Roddenberry, and now he has been reduced to a cliché. This new Kirk is nothing but a formation of other movie heroes. He has a little Luke Skywalker, a little Ferris Bueller, and a lot of Maverick from Top Gun. I think he is what Orci and Kurtzman think an action hero is. Look at their three original script's heroes (in The Island, Transformers, and Eagle Eye). Each of these film protagonists is as bland as bland can be. They are boring white bread characters who seem as though they have been cranked out by some machine. This is what they have done to Kirk.

Here is just a little event in the film that bothered me. A couple times in the movie, Kirk insulted Spock’s being half-human, half-Vulcan, and mocked his ears and temperament. The insults aren't in the movie to create dramatic tension or to teach Kirk a lesson, they are just lame jokes thrown in to make schmucks laugh. Now, do you remember that episode from the first season called "What Are the Little Girls Made of"? Well, if you do, you might recall that Kirk was taken prisoner and had an identical robot version made of him. Kirk tricked the robot into making fun of Spock being half-human, half-Vulcan. This is SO strange of a thing for Kirk to say that Spock investigates. Just this one comment was SO out of place that Spock questioned if this identical copy of Kirk was really him. Other than the obvious error in the writing of Kirk's character, there are two things that really trouble me about this. The first is that I believe the message Roddenberry wanted to leave has been completely forgotten. It genuinely makes me sick that these hacks can go around shilling out this cinematic trash like Transformers or Eagle Eye, and afterwards be considered some of the highest-paid screen writers in the world. Secondly, this is just basic Trek information. Kirk is not a racist prick, it's that simple. This character resembles Evil Kirk more than he does the actual James T. Kirk. I mean how do you fuck up THAT badly? And yet, we are supposed to believe that this guy is a great leader. He shows nothing of the sort, with the exception of having one self-sacrificing moment that feels so out of character I thought it was a joke.

Khan

Speaking of a character going against his previously established morals by performing actions that make no sense and only serve to further the plot, Khan's character also does that. Khan is perhaps the all-time greatest Star Trek villain and is being played by a fine actor, yet his character in this movie is completely forgettable like the rest of this movie. Now, Khan was never all that deep of a character. He was a genetically created Nietzschian superman who is a natural tyrant. Like the best Villains it is what he brings out of his hero that is important. The original Khan showed Kirk's weakness through years of retirement then showed how Kirk's experience and devotion can trump Khan's genetic perfection. It is a classic use of a villain that is in many ways as all-purpose as the battle of wits that takes place.

In the new films, Khan is merely used to further the plot along. He is filtered through the post 9-11 "terrorist-antagonist" format that was used to perfection in Dark Knight. Using Khan as a terrorist-like character that can take down the highly organized Star Fleet does not sound too bad. But the plot never becomes dark enough to hold any stakes. I feel that had the third act been handled differently, this could have been a passable "second movie" in the series. This could have been the movie where things reach their lowest point, akin to Empire Strikes Back. But they steer away from this and Khan is cheaply tricked by Spock and an anti-climactic chase scene ensues. 

The Ending

Now the third act is basically where the film goes from a decent summer blockbuster that annoys Trek fans (i.e. The 2009 reboot) into something much worse. Most moviegoers who are only familiar with Star Trek through passing references and general knowledge will probably just write it off as a typical action movie ending. And I really don't mean for this to sound pompous, but those who have scene Wrath of Khan and the original series will understand why they are wrong. This is not just an ending to a Star Trek movie; it is a re-writing of Wrath of Khan without any actual loss or genuine emotion. Let me run down the ending: Kirk sacrifices himself to save the crew of the Enterprise, Spock finds out and screams "Khan!", Khan crashes his captured ship into the Starfleet headquarters, Spock beams down and chases after him, Bones realizes Khan's blood can save Kirk's life, and Spock gets into a fist fight with Khan. Spock is about to lose his fight when Uhura beams down and stuns Khan. They put Khan back in his cryogenic tube and Kirk is brought back to life and gives a speech about how revenge is bad. Then just like at the end of the '09 movie, Kirk lists everyone's names and they all smile at the camera and they fly off into the distance. 

Simply from a storytelling standpoint, this is an absolute failure. None of these characters learn anything that they didn't already learn in the first movie. After the film ends, you don't feel that any of the characters have grown or that the plot of the movie has changed anything at all. This is a horrible thing to do in a series and was one of the many problems with the Next Generations movies. These characters just had action sequences and nothing else. 

But it's not just a bad ending; it also has to retool the most famous moments from Wrath of Khan. They do all these references to it but they don't understand what made it so great. After Wrath of Khan, we felt that Kirk was really back at his prime - although he was nearly 50, he felt as though he was "young again". But his rejuvenation came at a price, his longing for the glory days had led to him facing the no-win situation he had always feared. He had lost his best friend. We felt that Spock was really dead, and by giving his life he had breathed new life into Kirk. Kirk had learned things about life's realities and so had the audience. What we get at the end of Into Darkness is a rip-off without the purpose. Kirk is almost immediately brought back to life and he feels no consequences. The audience doesn't even get a moving death scene because we already know that Khan has the magic blood. So the viewers don't feel empathy with Spock and the crew because we are just waiting for them to discover that there is a cure and to bring Kirk back. 

Plot Holes?

On a technical level, plot holes do not bother me. I am not obsessed over what is actually plausible in a science fiction film because if you dig deep enough then almost none of it makes sense. It is when they introduce a truly unnecessary element that in no way furthers the plot and serves only to make for a cool shot when they lose me. But this movie introduced a device that really upset me. In this movie there is a portable transporter that allows you to teleport across the galaxy. This device is only mentioned once and is really unnecessary to the plot, when you think about it. So if you are able to transport across the galaxy instantly, what is the purpose of most of the transportation ships? Why are they never using these? Granted, this is just a little detail, but how did they not consider this while writing it? This is a perfect example of what J.J. and Lindelof do, they throw in a cool gadget to be used once and then sweep it under the carpet. I assume they will do a similar thing with Khan's blood. They have a cure for death, but do you think that they will ever use it again? I doubt it.

Summary

Perhaps I have taken this film too close to heart. After all, it is JUST a summer blockbuster, right? Well no, it is a Star Trek film. They have taken the name of a respected and treasured franchise and it should be judged as such. Plus the filmmakers have the audacity to not only decline to do what they promised (delivering an original story for the Enterprise crew), but they have also had to screw with the high point of the Star Trek movies. Yes, I know all the old Star Trek stuff will always be there but these movies are using the Star Trek legacy to sell tickets, so why shouldn't they have to be judged as such? If Abrams had taken his time and made an original science fiction film of a similar budget to this it could have been a pleasant summer action romp that upset no one and pleased more people all around. But instead the studio system is so set on selling movies through name recognition instead of quality that we are left with this movie, a movie that is both longing to ditch its nerdy roots yet still please the hardcore fans as lazily as possible. The result is a jumbled mess that is an insult to the movie it apes from and a disappointment in comparison to the previous installment. 

-SP McDonald