Star Trek Into Darkness

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) by J.J. Abrams

This film is awful.

It took 3 viewings to realize it without any doubt whatsoever, but this is an awful, awful movie. This is like Star Trek V level bad. This film is so bad it actually makes me a bit angry thinking about it, not Tron Legacy or Serenity levels of mad, but mad nonetheless. And that's something I've never felt watching a Star Trek film the first time out. In retrospect I learn to see the flaws in a Star Trek film (especially the Next Generation films), but I never have walked out of a theatre thinking "Jeez, that was awful". There is so much wrong with this movie that I'm afraid this is going to be quite a long one (me, over-analyze and write much more about a film than should be acceptable in any reasonable circumstance? No!) From the first scene it was clear that this was not only a film that ignored the intelligence of Star Trek fans, but also of the audience itself in general.

The film opens with Kirk (Chris Pine) and Bones (Karl Urban) on the run from primitive inhabitants on the planet Nibiru (which is actually the name of a "hidden" planet in our solar system, according to some conspiracy theorists...*sigh*), having stolen some artefact or some such thing. Simultaneously, Spock (Zachary Quinto) is deep inside a volcano on Nibiru, attempting to detonate a cold fusion device that would prevent the volcano from exploding and thus destroying the planet. For whatever reason, the transporters on the Enterprise can't beam Spock aboard, and Kirk orders the entire ship over to the volcano to do a line-of-sight transport of Spock aboard.

Kirk hides the Enterprise under water, mere meters away from a Nibiru village, in order to keep it hidden from the natives, but allows the natives to see it fucking rising from the water. Sadly, at this point, mere minutes into the movie, I was immediately taken out of the film.

Let's try to ignore, for a minute, the fact that the Enterprise would be unable to withstand the pressure of being underwater (and it'd have to be underwater pretty damn deep to cover the entire thing and keep its lights and whatever bubbles are produced from its nacelles and ports and whatnot from being visible. There is a line from an episode of Futurama where the Planet Express ship is dragged underwater: "The pressure's too great! We'll implode!" "How much pressure can the ship withstand?" "Well, it's a spaceship. So anywhere between zero and one." Star Trek is currently less logical than a cartoon comedy series.) Again, even if the ship could hide underwater, why would it be parked so close to a primitive village? It could have parked like eight miles out to sea, away from any land whatsoever, and still achieved its goal.

There is absolutely no reason for it to be submerged, aside from the admittedly cool shot of it rising from the water.

And that's something that I sensed throughout this film; events and actions occur not because it advances the plot or characters, or even make sense, but simply because they look "cool". The complications inherent with the plot (as well as the "mysterious" twist thrown in regarding one of the characters) also work to make the film appear much smarter and cleverer than it really is. At the end of the day, it's an exercise in futility, and makes the film and, ultimately, the characters that much more stupid. Sure, the fact that the ship is underwater neither adds nor takes away from the plot, but that is the point: events and scenes shouldn't be thrown in for no reason. They should advance the plot and story. And the problem is that with this film, nothing seems to occur for the sake of advancing whatever story there is.

I am going to spoil the entire movie, but seeing as it's been out for nearly 2 months, if you haven't seen it by now, it's safe to assume you aren't going to see it. So, it turns out that there is a "mysterious" figure named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch), an agent of Starfleet's secretive Section 33, and he's blown up an archives in London, as well as the meeting of several Starfleet admirals (including Kirk's mentor, Christopher Pike). Kirk and the crew track Harrison to Kronos, the Klingon home planet, and they arrest him to bring him back to Earth and answer for his crime.

In a twist that surprised no one, John Harrison is actually Khan Noonien Singh. He was found floating in his derelict frozen by Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller), who has secretly been building a massive starship, the subtly-named USS Vengeance, the first Federation starship built specifically for battle. Marcus, working on his own, has been blackmailing Khan by commandeering his crew and threatening to...start a war with the Klingons by bombarding their homeworld with special torpedoes that...house the frozen pods containing Khan's crew.

Or some shit like that.

Nothing in what could only be fleetingly called the plot makes sense. So, aside from the opening scene that doesn't make sense, there is section where Khan beams himself from Earth directly to Kronos, and there is a chase between Kirk and his away team, and several Klingon fighter-type vehicles, and they chase each other over and through pipes and tunnels and some industrial machinery, and then they land and go through some firefight and then Khan shows up in the nick of time and does some crazy kung-fu type fighting and just...surrenders. And that was all part of his plan. His plan was to get caught and reveal Admiral Marcus' plan.

However, the revelation of Khan's identity holds absolutely no weight. Nor does the scene later on, when the Vengeance disables the Enterprise, and it's falling into the Earth's atmosphere, and Kirk struggles to get the warp reactors realigned. First, he literally kicks it back into place. And, secondly, he dies. Normally that would be a source of deep emotional resonance: Kirk dies. He sacrifices himself for his crew, and Spock is there next to him, separated by a protective shielding, but unable to touch him, and Kirk is lamenting about how scared he is to die.

But his death isn't earned.

The emotions it is supposed to elicit are trite and shallow. Here in this instance we have known this incarnation of the crew for only one-and-a-half-films, separated by four years, and during their first adventure together they spent more time arguing with each other and trying to figure out how to work together for any real friendship to develop. Kirk is dying and scared, and we're supposed to feel sad because, hell, we're supposed to feel sad. I, for one, didn't genuinely feel sad. When Spock died in Wrath Of Khan it mattered: the friendship between Kirk and Spock had developed over the course of over 15 years by that point, spanning a television series, and one-and-a-half films. Khan, as a threat, was similarly looming and dangerous because of his appearance in the original series. In this film, when his identity is revealed to Kirk and company, no one bats an eye or even shrugs with a "Huh. Well, nice to meet you." He says that he is Khan, and then a few scenes later Spock calls up Spock Prime (Leonard Nimoy) and asks about Khan, and we are told that Khan is dangerous. Only then is he approached as a threat. This is a film that tells us so much about characters and motivations, but never allows a character to show us; there is a literal deus ex machina moment with Spock Prime explaining Khan's viciousness that it is almost insulting to not only the audience, but to the characters themselves.

Barring the nonsensical psuedo-science present herein (the aforementioned submersed Enterprise; Khan beaming himself literally halfway across the galaxy and then finding the main characters seemingly by random; the fact that the Vengeance, a massive vessel several times larger than the 1200+ meter long Enterprise, was built in secret and can for some reason be controlled by a single person; the fact that the Enterprise drops out of warp mere miles from the moon and then floats to Earth in a matter of minutes when in actuality it would take at least 60 hours; the fact that the Enterprise literally falls to Earth, as if someone dropped it, as opposed to it falling from a decaying orbit like it should...**sigh**), the drama of the film (and, by extension this new Star Trek universe) is ultimately hollow. Khan's blood has the ability to cure disease and bring people back from the dead; so, of course, a mere 10 minutes after Kirk dies he is brought back to life, thus undoing whatever emotion his death scene might have earned. People in this universe still have the ability to beam from one planet to the other, thus rendering the need for starships moot (especially miles-long starships that could be flown by one person!).

The first Star Trek reboot had plot holes and inconsistencies, but what it lacked in  solid plotting it made up for in sheer fun, spectacle, and charm. Each actor had their moment to shine in the film, and the chemistry was palpable. The core of each character was present, even if it was in a slightly ramped-up pace. Nothing in this sequel feels earned or real. If the first film placed emotions above plot, this sequel does the opposite, and does so at the expense of a solid story and earned sacrifices. It is as if this film is more concerned with throwing in as many references to the official canon as possible, and hoping that it would congeal into a coherent gripping story; but with no emotional connection to the characters, and without an ounce of earned emotion, it is all sound and fury. Kirk dies for nothing. Khan is thrown in for nothing. Alice Eve's Carol Marcus is thrown in for nothing. This is a film that is, ultimately, inconsequential. Even Michael Giacchino's score (a composer of whom I am a moderate fan) is forgettable.

JJ Abrams' "mystery box" method of filmmaking, while admirable, does him a horrible disservice here. Khan's presence adds nothing to the film. He'd be better off learning about the subtlety of a big twist from Iron Man 3.