*THIS POST DOES CONTAIN SPOILERS*
Star Trek Into Darkness... Growing up, I was never a fan of Star Trek. My dad watched it for hours on end on TV, and whether it was the original saga, TNG, Star Trek: Enterprise... didn't matter to him. I scoffed at him for watching it constantly. Then, 2009 happened, and J. J. Abrams shut me up.
I get it that it's not the same feeling as the older movies or tv series, but I have come to appreciate them more because of Abrams, and I was as giddy as a schoolgirl when the first trailer was released for the second film. It looked dark, it looked exciting, it looked new, and more importantly, it had Benedict Cumberbatch (more on him later) The following bolded text is a summary of the film, so skip to the normal text for my thoughts.
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Star Trek Into Darkness picks up a year after the events of the first film, and opens on the planet Nibiru where Kirk and Bones have gotten themselves into a pickle; Kirk has stolen an ancient scroll, and the natives now want their heads. In the volcano behind them however, is Uhura, Sulu and Spock, who are trying to save the planet by freezing the magma and preventing and eruption. Spock gets trapped inside the volcano, and Kirk against Federation orders (to NOT get seen by natives) flies the USS Enterprise right over the natives to beam Spock out before eruption.
Back on Earth, a man named John Harrison promises a father he can cure his sick daughter for a price... To blow up the Federation Archives, which he does, all for the sake of his child. When Kirk and Spock are confronted by (now) Commander Pyke, he informs them that Kirk has been relieved as Captain, and the Enterprise is his to Captain. When all USS Federation Captains gather to discuss Harrison's attack, John shows up and opens fire on all of them, killing Captain Pyke. Hellbent on revenge, Kirk asks the head honchoAdmiral Marcus to reinstated as Captain of the Enterprise, and to have Spock assigned as First Officer, and it is so, on one condition. Kirk must track John Harrison (who is hiding out on the Klingon planet, Kronos) and destroy him.
The missiles that Kirk is instructed to use are loaded onto the Enterprise, and when Scotty is refused access to analyze them, he resigns. Kirk, now desperate, assigns Chekov to Chief Engineer. So, the crew (along with newcomer Carol Marcus) head to the edge of the Neutral Zone (for those who aren't Trekkies, the Neutral Zone is basically like a border, and if the Federation crosses it into Klingon territory, the Klingons can exercise their own form of law...mostly death) The Enterprise however, gets stalled when the warp drive mysteriously fails in the neutral zone. Taking a shuttle down to Kronos; Kirk, Spock and Uhura are chased, and eventually confronted by Klingons (again, more on them to come) until hell breaks loose and John Harrison shows up, wiping the floor with Klingons, yet, he surrenders to Kirk when he receives a transmission from acting Captain Sulu informing him 72 armed torpedos are locked onto his location.
Back on board the Enterprise, Bones takes a blood sample of Harrison's blood, and Harrison tells Kirk he can help him with his ship, and seems to know a lot more about the ship than anyone who was actually on it when it broke down. Weary to trust him, Kirk refuses. Harrison gives Kirk coordinates to look into, who asks the now unemployed Scotty to look into. Harrison informs Kirk that Commander Marcus is not who he says he is, and that the 72 torpedos are all filled with his crew from a past life. To test this, Bones and Carol attempt to dissect a torpedo, and discover that there is indeed, a human inside. Sick of the games, Kirk asks Harrison who he really is. John Harrison's real name, is Khan.
Admiral Marcus shows up in a larger, and deadlier version of the Enterprise, and demands that Khan be handed over. When Kirk refuses and jumps to warp speed, Marcus chases them down and opens fire, destroying half of the ship. Carol is able to hold him off momentarily since she is the Commander's daughter (in case the same last name was eluding you all this time) however he beams her off the Enterprise, and to his ship, where the final assault prepares, but not before being shut down by Scotty! The coordinates Khan provided led to the construction site of Marcus' ship, so Scotty slipped on board.
Keeping Marcus' ship offline, Scotty coordinates to have a hanger bay hatch open for two crew members to space jump over. Kirk decides to go, and he brings Khan with him. Once there, the three make their way to the bridge, and Khan kills Admiral Marcus for keeping his people inside weapons all this time. Khan beams Kirk, Scotty and Carol back to Enterprise. In the meantime, Spock has contacted Spock Prime to get information about Khan. Spock Prime informs them that Khan is the most dangerous man he had ever seen, and that great sacrifice is what allowed the crew to defeat him.
Back aboard the crumbling Enterprise as it plummets to Earth, Kirk and Scotty make their way to the warp core to try and fix it, the diagnosis; the core is misaligned. Against Scotty's advice, Kirk renders him unconscious and climbs into a highly radiated core to kick the machine back into position, and the ship regains level. On the black Enterprise, Harrison scrambles to make one final assault on Earth, and sets his collision course for London. The ship rams into the city, wiping out buildings and streets and people.
On the Enterprise, Spock is called to the warp core where he finds a dying Kirk, sick from radiation. After a heart felt moment, Kirk dies. Now feeling emotion, Spock beams down to Earth and engages Khan in a deadly fight. Before Spock begins to beat Khan senseless, Uhura beams down and informs Spock that Khan's blood can be used to bring Kirk back to life. Aboard the Enterprise, Kirk wakes up to discover that Khan has now been frozen into one of the torpedos, and his crew, saved for proper defrosting.
The film ends with Kirk giving a speech in memory of Admiral Pyke, and how he has gained much respect for his position of Captain. The crew is once again reunited as they begin a new, five year journey together. As did the first film, it ends with the infamous words, "Space, the final frontier. These are the voyages of the Starship Enterprise. It's five-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations, to boldly go where no man has gone before".
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So, that's the end of that summary. Phew. That's a lot to type. So, for me to analyze the film, let me start with the bad.
The Bad:
1) The Use of Music: Now, don't get that confused with the score in general, it's the way it's used. When Khan is shown for the first time in the first act of the film, the music goes for the cheesy, irritating approach of being SUPER LOUD, SO THAT THEY CAN ESTABLISH THAT THIS IS THE VILLAIN... IN CASE THERE WAS ANY CONFUSION. Like I said, the score itself, great. Micahel Giachinno, who has worked with Abrams before as the composer for the TV series Fringe did the score for Into Darkness so it's not like it sucks, period. It just could have been used differently.
2) Lens Flare: "Ohh, a review of a J. J. Abrams movie and he's going to talk about lens flare"... Yes. Most of it I didn't mind. The shots in space? I'm fine with that. Shots where lens flare make sense, like the sun's in the background, that checks out. But I'm pretty sure that there was one shot where it was either Spock or Khan, and they completely engulfed in lens flare, before refocusing on the character, as it should be. All I'm saying is, just use it where it makes sense... Kinda makes me worry for Star Wars Ep. VII.
3) The Klingons: Now, since I admitted to not being a huge Trekkie, I know important elements when I see them, and I felt a little cheated when it came to the Klingons. We only saw one. ONE. Technically, you see seven or eight, but they have Predator-esque helmets on the whole time, only one unmasks himself. I know (I HOPE) that if/when Abrams revisits for a third instalment, that the Klingons are focused on a lot more. The Federation broke the peace treaty by landing on Kronos and bypassing the Neutral Zone, so hopefully the Klingon War is coming...
The Good:
1) Benedict Cumberbatch: Yeah... Him. If he made a movie with Tom Hiddleston (Loki from Thor and The Avengers) every female and a majority of males would swoon. He plays Khan to the point that in every scene he's in, you think to yourself "...Hmm...Were there other people in the scene?"... Yes, apparently there are other people in the scenes. Cumberbatch has such a fresh, suave take on Khan that Ricardo Montalban's Khan Noonien Singh is a completely different character.
2) Kirk & Spock: Do they still bicker? Yes. Is it a fresh form of bickering? Absolutely. In the first film it's more of a unfriendly bicker and fighting for control. This time around, it's more about decision making and doing the right thing. Spock has accepted that Kirk is Captain, and even refers to him as 'captain' after Kirk is demoted in the beginning of the film. A lot of the comedy comes from the arguing, and it's terrific.
3) The VFX: I'm not just crediting these people because of the fact that others don't, I always credit the VFX crew, and because they deserve it. Tons of movies I've seen (and haven't seen) have VFX teams that go unnoticed, and it's a shame. The Avengers, The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey (Shut up, I loved it) Life of Pi, Prometheus (Sadly, the only thing good about it) and tons of others, and Star Trek Into Darkness is another one. All of the space sequences are beautiful, and the planets are just as great. Nibiru, Kronos, Earth... They're all distinct, and they're all awesome.
4) The Music: I told you the use of it was bad. The score itself was really good.
5) The Setup For A Third Film: I mentioned this with the Klingon point, but the "war" is mentioned many times, and left unanswered. Khan is put to cryo-sleep at the end of the film, so this means, as far as the Klingons know, it was the Federation who came in and murdered their people. So... third film, Klingon war. Do it. If that happens (or unless Abrams has something up his sleeve) then this trilogy could be up there for me with The Lord of The Rings (The Dark Knight Trilogy is eh, Batman Begins is radically different from the other two, The Dark Knight is terrific, and The Dark Knight Rises, to me, just feels... strange. It's awesome, but strange)
So all in all, Star Trek Into Darkness was a great time, and I'm glad I saw it at the Fan Screening two days ahead of release here in North America. I look forward to your work, Mr. Abrams, on Star Wars VII and Star Trek III hopefully (Please do the Klingon War...Please)
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zoë Saldana, Jon Cho, Alice Eve, Karl Urban, Simon Pegg, Anton Yelchin & Peter Weller
Written & Directed by J. J. Abrams
Overall Score - 8.8/10
