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Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Started by The Region Legion, December 03, 2012, 06:13:43 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

daf

Quote from: Dark Sky on December 06, 2012, 08:38:58 AM
Remember there's only ever seven unique stories.  And six of them involve a mad bloke out for revenge.

Base under Siege
Mad Scientist
Parallel Earth
Alien invasion
The Aliens were already here all along (Silurians)
The Master pretends to be a Vicar
Yeti in a Loo

Thomas

Benzyl Carbamate.

Ah, new page. The Benedict Cumberbatch renaming session is over.

Nuclear Optimism



Nuclear Optimism


Blumf


checkoutgirl

Eggs Benedict Cumberlandsausage'n'mash


Still Not George


Just saw it at a 1 minute past midnight showing here in Brighton.

Fuck me. That was absolutely incredible.

Not posting any spoilers. Just a message to say you should ignore the really very shit trailers and see this thing if you have any love at all for the first Trek reboot film. This one blows it out of the water.

I'll be back here with spoilery thoughts in a few days time.

chocky909

The main thing I didn't like about the 1st film was the plot. I really dislike time travel stories if they gloss over the logic and they really did that. Is this a stronger, more solid plot? I really enjoyed everything else about it bar Simon Pegg and the vague feeling that it was shitting all over Roddenberry's original vision.

No spoilers mind, just vague hints.

Quote from: chocky909 on May 09, 2013, 03:20:30 AM
No spoilers mind, just vague hints.

Plot is solid, although I can't really say a lot more than that, but I will say it's not as convoluted and doesn't rely so heavily on a MacGuffin device. Simon Pegg as Scotty is much improved. Roddenberry's original vision is beautifully realised by the end, so much so that I'm wondering how many people are going to miss the extremely blatant allegory being drawn. This is real deal Star Trek with a modern sheen.

spock rogers

It was entertaining enough, but like all of Abrams' other films there's just something a bit empty about it. You can spot the work of certain directors by the way they compose an image, but Abrams' one visual characteristic is that he has a lot of lens-flares. That's it.

As for the film;
Spoiler alert
what is the point of coming up with a conceit which allows you to restart a franchise from scratch if you're just going to use emotional beats, characters, and lines from the 2nd original Star Trek film? If you've seen Wrath of Khan there's really no point in watching this.

* Yes, Cumberbatch is Khan.
* It's now Spock who shouts "KHAAAN!" And cries. Fucking cries!
* It's now Kirk who dies from radiation whilst saving the ship (but don't worry, he comes back to life after Bones injects some of Khan's blood into him).

Also:
* What was the point of the original Spock cameo?
* The Klingons were basically just in the film so people could go 'oh, look, Klingons.'
* Tribble (see above)
* That Starfleet uniform that Noel Clarke wears is so ripped off the uniforms that are worn by the officers on the Star Destroyers in Star Wars.
* All the monsters in Abrams' films look vaguely the same and have no character. That one from the first Trek that chases Kirk on the snow planet, the one from Super 8, the Cloverfield one, the one at the start of this.
* These Abrams Trek films move way too fast. Give the characters some time to breathe for fucks sake. Just when you think they're gonna start talking to each other something happens and they're back off running down another corridor.
* At the end of the film the bad guy crashes a ship which is ten times the size of the Enterprise into buildings in San Francisco (presumably killing tens of thousands of civilians), but this is just brushed aside because the only thing that matters is the survival of the Enterprise crew.
[close]

Black Ship

Saw it. Loved it. Benedict Cumberbatch as magnificently sharklike[nb]He looks like a shark. Seriously.[/nb] as ever.

Acceptable

So all that remains of my pages-long rant, after many revisions is:

"It's Star Trek for an emotionally shallow or generally psychopathic audience, but not the obsessively meticulous kind: because the story also doesn't make much sense."

Which after seeing it, seems like a completely reasonable unreasonable opinion.

Quote from: Acceptable on May 11, 2013, 02:16:03 AM
So all that remains of my pages-long rant, after many revisions is:

"It's Star Trek for an emotionally shallow or generally psychopathic audience, but not the obsessively meticulous kind: because the story also doesn't make much sense."

Which after seeing it, seems like a completely reasonable unreasonable opinion.

Much more interesting would be the original post I think, because I definitely disagree. It's played with broad strokes to appeal to the widest audience, but there's astonishing depth to it for what it is.

Acceptable

"Astonishing depth" would be the fairly ham-fisted metaphor for the 'War on Terror'? It's nice that they tried, I guess? It would be better if that idea didn't hinge on motifs, characters, and whole scenes being appropriated from the original series then unrecognisably reformatted to fit the story. If only Star Trek was a franchise that had some sort of method of introducing whole new casts of characters and locations built into its central premise...oh well!

You also said it 'realises Roddenberry's original vision' which is an incredibly generous reading of that ending. The story smash cuts to a year later specifically to avoid consequence, grief or anyone learning any lessons because it would risk ruining the summer blockbuster happy ending. It's having its cake and eating it: we can have 2 hours of violence, action and people being angsty if right at the very end they say "Peace is best, yo. Boo baddies!".

It's not even a particularly exciting action movie. The editing is weird, it's like whenever something isn't on screen time just freezes for it. How long does it take to reboot a futuristic starship? What was Khan doing whilst the Enterprise was falling out of the sky? How long did that guard just stand in front of Scotty saying "what are you doing here"? Everything just plods along with no sense of escalation or progress and it's so massively predictable you're just sat they're waiting for the next major plot point to appear. The Kronos set looked cheap.

Point of reference: I actually liked Iron Man 3. It is possible to entertain me. This film is just...really really sub-par.

Quote from: Acceptable on May 11, 2013, 03:07:32 PM
"Astonishing depth" would be the fairly ham-fisted metaphor for the 'War on Terror'?

Absolutely, a metaphor that has gone over everyone's heads so far because I see no reference to it anywhere. The ship crashing into an American city, the moral choice to take someone into custody instead of executing him, the plea to put aside feelings of revenge... these are strong, increasingly unpopular stances to take for a Hollywood blockbuster in modern America. This film nearly outright says that killing Bin Laden was wrong. Not even Jon Stewart has the balls to say that.

QuoteIt's nice that they tried, I guess? It would be better if that idea didn't hinge on motifs, characters, and whole scenes being appropriated from the original series then unrecognisably reformatted to fit the story.

I think they walked an extremely fine line doing that, and I'm not entirely convinced by Spock's
Spoiler alert
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN
[close]
but that was the choice they made. It kind of goes along with the concept introduced before that
Spoiler alert
the timeline attempts to correct itself
[close]
, as well as some things just being destined that the first film played off. Destiny was never a part of Trek before, and I was fine with that. This version has it. Fine, I can live with it.

QuoteIf only Star Trek was a franchise that had some sort of method of introducing whole new casts of characters and locations built into its central premise...oh well!

Not really sure what you mean by this. Is your problem that they didn't have this movie be about travelling through the galaxy meeting new races, and those races teaching us that lesson? Those days are over. This is big-budget Hollywood we're talking about. Take what you can get out of it. Not to mention, no Trek film has been about that since The Motion Picture (lets just pretend The Final Frontier never happened).

Also, as they say in the film, they're
Spoiler alert
not on the 5 year mission yet, and no one has gone deeper into space than they will now
[close]
- considering what a big deal they made about that, I hope they intend to follow up on it. Although they probably won't - they've only got one more contractual film, and they're bound to want to do a Klingon story (although I'm not sure how much mileage that has for the general audience).

QuoteYou also said it 'realises Roddenberry's original vision' which is an incredibly generous reading of that ending. The story smash cuts to a year later specifically to avoid consequence, grief or anyone learning any lessons because it would risk ruining the summer blockbuster happy ending. It's having its cake and eating it: we can have 2 hours of violence, action and people being angsty if right at the very end they say "Peace is best, yo. Boo baddies!".

I think Roddenberry's original vision needs to be re-considered. Roddenberry's Star Trek was gung-ho, fun, and if it could teach you something about the world along the way then all the better. These new films fit that description almost perfectly.

Quote
Spoiler alert
How long does it take to reboot a futuristic starship?
[close]

Long enough to suit the story.

Quote
Spoiler alert
What was Khan doing whilst the Enterprise was falling out of the sky?
[close]

Spoiler alert
Also falling out of the sky. He targets San Fran as a last ditch attempt for revenge against the family he thought were just all wiped out.
[close]

Quote
Spoiler alert
How long did that guard just stand in front of Scotty saying "what are you doing here"?
[close]

Spoiler alert
Ages. This was really stupid. Also pretty dumb was how they said they were going to "burn up in the atmosphere" but they've already plunged through the cloud layer before they appear to have any control. So I guess they'd have been fine really?
[close]

Also, could have done without
Spoiler alert
the Spock Prime cameo. He had a great exit in the last film and while it was nice that they nodded to the fact that he is still in this universe and hasn't just disappeared because he's no longer required, it came at a very weird time in the film. Why would Spock even bother trying to contact himself on the off chance he had encountered Khan?
[close]

Bad Ambassador

The previous poster's attempts to defend this shitstack are like trying to bail out the Lusitania with a fucking thimble. The War on Terror analogies are so blindingly obvious it's insulting. The script is a fucking joke, and I can only agree with what Acceptable said. It's basically Star Trek: Prometheus. I wonder who wrote it OH THAT'S RIGHT FUCKING LINDELOF

The worst part was that the first hour-and-a-bit was pretty good, and then it's revealed that
Spoiler alert
John Harrison is Khan
[close]
and the whole film goes over a fucking cliff.

Did we need that shot of Alice Eve in her undies? Or all the swearing? Was this written by a fucking 13-year old FUCKING LINDELOF

Spock should have shouted out "
Spoiler alert
CUUUUUUUUUUUUNT
[close]
!"

You're all mental. I'd be intrigued to see how you think this film could have been improved considering its budget and target audience.

Sam

#80
I hope that Benificent Cuntingtwat stares at stuff blankly and speaks in a posh voice.

I hope the TV writer makes it all episodic.

I hope the TV director makes a really televisual film, with boring camera set ups and conventional coverage.

I hope Jay Jay 'JJ' Jay Ibragimova finds just the right mushy consistency of 'something for everyone' smoothed over product.

I hope it doesn't have its own voice, lost in a wormhole of dilution.

I hope...

Bad Ambassador

Quote from: The Region Legion on May 12, 2013, 05:27:26 PM
You're all mental. I'd be intrigued to see how you think this film could have been improved considering its budget and target audience.

Spoiler alert
Not recycling The Wrath of Khan and telling an original story.
[close]

Jumble Cashback

I enjoyed it, and, while I did find it a little too self-referential, it didn't really spoil it that much for me.  The War on Terror stuff wasn't too bad, in fact I was never a 100% that that was what they were going for.  But, on reflection, I suppose it probably was.  That kind of thing normally comes out in the wash, though.  Even something like Capricorn 1, which is so obviously a product of its contemporary politics, still works as a cracking film in its own right now.  There were some things about it that bugged me
Spoiler alert
(Scotty basically killing that security guard, for instance.  Particularly when one of the things I so admired about the film was its promotion of the value of life.  And Spock crying.  He didn't react nearly so strongly when his planet and mother were killed in front of him.  You'd think he could hold it together a bit more when his mate carks it). 
[close]
I think what I found most miffing was that they missed a rather good opportunity. 
Spoiler alert
Namely, why couldn't Bendoverand Cuminbum have been one of the other 80-odd genetically altered super-humans in the little space cribs?  Like Peter Lupus or somebody.  I know Khan's supposed to be dead smart and that, but I'm sure they could have come up with some expository waffle that would make it all plausible.  Then they could have teased at the end of the film that Khan was in one of the other pods.  Could have been written in massive bloody letters on the side of his cryo-thing for all it would have meant to the Enterprise Crew.  That way, it wouldn't have seemed quite so much like they were just trying to relive past glories.
[close]
Overall, I did really enjoy it, but I think they should keep Spock's character more consistent and stop trying to deliver familiar events.  Familiar characters, yes.  Familiar visuals, yes.  But not familiar events.  Hell, just look at Wrath of Khan.  It followed on from an episode of the original series and was just as much of an attempt to evoke the spirit of that from which it grew as this, but its story and its emotional beats were its own.  That's why it has become so iconic.  There is more money, time and talent at the disposal of these new movies than there has ever been in Trek history.  It's time to start creating magic, not borrowing it.

Beagle 2

I loved it. To be honest, I can't really disagree with many of the criticisms that have been outlined so far, but the whole thing was just so much fun that none of it ultimately spoiled the experience. Even Pegg was decent this time. The first half of the film is definitely better, the second half moved far too quickly, but I was expecting that. It's a modern action film, and it seems to go that way in all of them these days.

The only two things that really got on my tits were
Spoiler alert
old Spock
[close]
and
Spoiler alert
the needless deaths of countless civilians
[close]
. I thought Cumberbatch was brilliant, as were the whole crew. I think I prefer Karl Urban to DeForest Kelley. It's the first film I feel like going back and watching again this year.

I wish they'd make a series with this lot.

Beagle 2

Hey trekkies, I'm in the mood for more Star Trek. I was a big fan of the original series and TNG, but I never bothered my arse with Voyager or Deep Space 9. Which is best or are they both baba?

Blumf

Quote from: Beagle 2 on May 13, 2013, 10:25:57 AM
Hey trekkies, I'm in the mood for more Star Trek. I was a big fan of the original series and TNG, but I never bothered my arse with Voyager or Deep Space 9. Which is best or are they both baba?

I think the consensus is DS9 is way better than Voyager.

Personally, I'd rather watch Babylon 5 than DS9 if I want a long arc space opera. DS9 just seemed too light to me, never really felt the world they were building with that show unlike B5. I think there's a lot of good stuff dotted through Voyager, a lot of utter shit too, but I there are more interesting things tried in it.

TL;DR - Watch Babylon 5

George Oscar Bluth II

I quite enjoyed this but suspect, like last time, a second watch will ruin it. JJ Abrams does brilliantly entertaining stuff that if you look at it too long, or think about it too much, falls to bits. This is no different.

Also agree that it doesn't need to be
Spoiler alert
so MASSIVE. They didn't have to destroy half of San Fran at the end, if anything it raised the stakes too much.
[close]

Still, the uniforms are sexy. And Cummerbund is good. And I agree that the message was pretty bold for modern America, the obvious allusion for me was
Spoiler alert
Kirk opting to bring Khan back for trial, rather than torpedoing him in a reference to the US's use of extra-judicial drone strikes
[close]
.

Mr_Simnock

Watched it last night and it was poooooo. It seemed to suffer from all the problems of (certain parts of) current cinema. I'll explain in more detail when I'm not at work and have more time. I did wonder if the script and directing for this film was done by cinebot 3000 and not a person at all it was so totally predictable and empty. Wifey says I show almost no interst in films these days, she is right but thats because 99% of films now are boreingly predictable and seem to have a massive need to be rammed full of certain tropes that the audience might understand.

checkoutgirl

Quote from: Mr_Simnock on May 13, 2013, 01:53:01 PM
Wifey says I show almost no interst in films these days

Like me, you're probably too jaded to be a reliable reviewer.

Cohaagen

Quote from: Beagle 2 on May 13, 2013, 10:25:57 AM
Hey trekkies, I'm in the mood for more Star Trek. I was a big fan of the original series and TNG, but I never bothered my arse with Voyager or Deep Space 9. Which is best or are they both baba?

blumf is right. DS9 is far better than Voyager and Babylon 5 is somewhat superior to both, although let down now and then by heavy-handed allegory and occasionally dodgy acting. DS9 only really gets going when the Dominion appear and has one of the great Trek characters in Garak.

I find it difficult to put into words just how much I hate Voyager. If Enterprise was about flying around the galaxy getting beaten up then Voyager was about flying around the galaxy helping people and getting burned for it. If Janeway turned on the viewer to be confronted by an alien with latex face ridges, huge shoulderpads, standing in front of a wall of mounted skulls, you could bet her first words would be "how may we be of assistance?".