Escape to the Movies: Star Trek: Into Darkness

[K_Dub]

The reason you liked this film is because you're not a Trekkie. Only non-Trekkies could enjoy it because that's what Abrams wanted. You can't make money unless you pander to the larger audience and not a niche, and Abrams is a Jew after all.

Way to be randomly anti-semitic, jackass!

Ya well, if Shakespeare and South Park can do it then so can I. Historical stereotyping is great.

Yeah, but where Shakespeare and South Park use stereotyping in a comedic or dramatic sense, often to deliver a political point of some kind, you're just being mean and hateful with your comment.

Don't you dare attempt to justify your statement by comparing yourself to arguably history's greatest writers. Your comment wasn't funny, didn't feature any political satire that I could pick up on, and didn't add any weight to your overall opinion of the film.

It was a hateful remark, pure and simple. And as far as I'm concerned, you're a lesser human being for ever thinking it.

You're kidding, right? Hateful? Am I hateful for thinking black people are better at sprinting? Because they generally are. It's a stereotype but that doesn't make it wrong and it certainly doesn't make it hateful. People with jewish heritage are known for their business acumen. It's a cultural and familial trait that stretches back to biblical times.

I'm aware of what a stereotype is and how it works. I'm also aware that a stereotype is not an absolute fact. That's not what I'm talking about though. I'm referring to your use of the stereotype in your comment.

You spent the first 3/4 of your comment discussing who could enjoy the movie, and began to explain why, then added "Abrams is a Jew after all." There was no lead up to this, and no legitimately valid behind its use. Again, as I stated before, it adds nothing to your overall opinion of the film or to the beginning of your comment. It's an out of place proclamation that has NOTHING to do with this particular forum discussion on the whole.

Now, perhaps you're not a bigot, racist, or hateful person in general. But the way you phrased your comment and used an unnecessary stereotype in a comment thread that doesn't deal with stereotypes, well, you'll have to excuse me for thinking otherwise of you.

If you are going to use a stereotype in a discussion, make sure it's relevant (and preferably funny). To blindly throw around stereotypes with no regard for the consequences will make you seem like an unpleasant individual.

 

[Xavier323]

I've seen reviews of it saying it's a pretty soulless, mediocre action flick from an outsider's perspective; if it wasn't Star Trek it would probably be largely ignored.

This is not true at all. The people that are complaining most about this movie seem to be die hard Star Trek fans. The fact that it doesn't "live up" to what Star Trek is supposed to be is what is holding this movie back in their eyes. If it hadn't been affiliated with Star Trek, I bet these same people would like the movie. I don't think a 190 million dollar movie is ever going to be "largely ignored".


And I think that a lot of people ruined the movie for themselves by actively searching for information about the villain. I only saw a few trailers and never really got the impression that there was going to be a big twist concerning the villain's identity. Conversely, I surmised from the trailer of Iron Man 3 that Guy Pierce would be the real villain in that movie. Comic book fans had their expectations played with in IM3 while the rest of us saw that "twist" coming from a mile away.

 

[soitgoes19]

I agree with almost everything Bob had to say. The acting was great (I disagree about Pine), but the plot was just a mess. I loved the 2009 movie, so I was hoping that I would enjoy this one despite the warning signs.


When I heard they were letting Damon Lindelof actually write this time around I had a feeling the whole thing would end up being terrible. It's crazy because I loved Lost (well, except half the last season), but everything that guy has written since then has sucked. And listening to JJ give interviews was painful. I hope they don't let either of them near the next Star Trek.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Curious, this is the first time I've seen your opinion go absolutely against all the newspaper reviews who insist it to be the best one since... yeah, Wrath of Khan, four stars minimum. I'm not a big Trek guy, having mainly watched Voyager and some TNG when I'm bored, but I must agree throwing the name of a franchise's ultimate most popular villain ever into a reboot without any of their context besides the name sounds rather lame.

I dunno, after both action-y reboot and fanservice-y reboot fails it feels like any attempt to stay even more true to a franchise this old would limit its appeal only to the truly hardcore fans. Do you feel that any future Trek movies/series should try and stick to the 'journey to strange worlds in a starship' format (most of Into Darkness looks to be set on Earth) that made it so ground breaking in the first place? Or after Enterprise do you feel even that would fall flat?

 

[ShadowDude112]

Hahahaha, oh wow. This is the second film that was good to ok that Bob hated in the span of a year. First he hated Amazing Spider-Man for being to "DARK", "EDGY", and "TOO SERIOUS!" But he'll say that the Ultimate Spider-Man cartoon is good and that he thinks Superior Spider-Man is interesting despite Superior trying much harder to be dark and edgy than ASM ever did. Now he hates this. What's next, Bob? If they make an equally terribly Star Trek cartoon, you'll praise that?

 

[Decabo]

Wasn't the whole Khan thing announced long beforehand? I very clearly remember hearing to stated that Benedict Cumberbatch was playing Khan. I had no idea it was supposed to be a twist.

Anyway, I thought it was a really good movie. Bob continues to manifest the baseless fanboy rage of the internet. Calling the movie "sacrilegious" is the hyperbolic bullshit I've come to expect from him.

 

[Vivi22]

snip

I'm going to pretty much agree with this, especially the first point. Honestly, I was never a huge fan of Movie Bob to begin with, but between his specific Mystery Box video, and this review lambasting the movie for something that I completely agree, was not actually presented in the marketing materials the way he seems to think it was, I've got to say I'm done watching Bob's stuff. It's frankly painful to see him look so hard for reasons to tear into films like this and Amazing Spider-Man, either because of his own warped expectations or because he doesn't like the director, or he's simply too close to the source material to not go in jaded, or any other reason that he falls victim to.

I hate to reiterate it again, but I think it needs to be said simply because it proves a point about him: there was no mystery box in the marketing materials. This film was never presented as having some top secret twist relating to John Harrison or any other character. It was inferred by people like Bob, and sure, they may have been right, but that does not mean they were selling the movie on it, nor does become a valid point of complaint about the movie.

Frankly, Bob is a terrible film critic. Not because he isn't even remotely objective (he's not, but that isn't really a requirement of the job to be fair), but because in cases like this he's not actually criticizing the movie. He's criticizing what he thought the movie was going to be, and trying to pretend he's bringing up some glorious all revealing insight in the process.

Sorry Bob, but that's just ridiculous, and you should really be ashamed of how poorthis review is.

 

[bojac6]

I wouldn't call this a movie "good" either...

This movie is GREAT and I wholeheartedly recommend you go see it now, screw whatever bob says and go watch it.

Why? Because it's fun without being stupid.

It's better than Iron Man 3 in every single way, the action is better, the cinematography is nicer, the climax is better the "twist" is better and if it wasn't for RDJ, this movie would blow Iron Man 3 so far out of the water that Greenpeace would have to bring a semi-truck to get it back in. THis is of course my opinion, so feel free to scream at your screen now about how I am wrong etc.

It's better than Wrath of Khan, it's damn well better than every Star Trek movie that came before it (in MY OPINION, bear in mind, I am not a Star Trek fan, nor did I never watch an episode of the Star Trek series).

Hell, I liked it better than most of the Marvel movies that came before it, including The Avengers (yeah yeah, I said Jehova, get your beards ready now). (I never read Marvel/DC comics either).

This movie was everything I wanted it to be.
A fun science-fiction action-romp with a likeable cast, great cinematography, a great score, good performances all-around, some throwbacks to the "original" even complete and utter dolts like me can understand and a good plot. Of course, this is far from being on-par with science-fiction classics, such as Moon and "2001", but then again this movie doesn't try to go that route.



(Also, why did Bob need to "critique" this movie and feels that revealing the "twist" is something he has to do, when in his Iron Man 3 review, he tiptoed around it, telling us how great the twist was, when, in all honesty, the "Iron Man Twist" is just as bad, if not worse than this movie's "twist".)

Well I am a big Star Trek fan. I was the only one in the theater laughing at the guy being from Section 31 (something from Deep Space Nine), and many other references. With those credentials established, let me say I agree with you on so many points.

This movie did references right, unlike Iron Man 3. I'm going to spoiler tag the rest, but know this contains spoilers for both Iron Man 3 and the Star Trek

Spoiler

The big twist of Iron Man 3 is that Kingsley's not the Mandarin. Meaning the commercials lied to me directly. Remember the part when Bob said the Star Trek movie did everything short of lie to you to get you in the seat? Well, Iron Man 3 did lie to me. Directly. And as set up for a stupid twist that didn't mean anything.

The twist, as it were, in Star Trek is so great, because it's an audience based twist. Yes, the new movies haven't gone into the Eugenics Wars, and that's the point. When Khan says "My name is Khan," all the characters go "Yeah? So?" while the audience is going "shit just got real." References to all kinds of Star Trek perforate the movie, and they aren't fan-service like throw away lines in Iron Man 3. The only reason PTSD after the Avengers movie was a problem for Tony Stark was because he told me. There wasn't much character development in that film, it was just there to say "Hey look, it's a follow up to The Avengers." In this movie, it's all references that still mean stuff. If you know what Section 31 is, you go "Holy crap, it's Section 31" and if you don't, they explain it to you. A newbie to Trek may not know of all the times Sisko had to shut that down, but they know enough to know it's basically DARPA meets the NSA with no oversight.

As for the retreat of Wrath of Khan, I loved it. I loved how it was re-imagined. How they dared to do that and pulled it off well. I enjoyed how characters switched roles and places and how so much was the same, but different. Frankly, it gave me so much hope for the reboot Star Trek series, precisely because it showed how it can hit all of the favorite points of Trek, but make them fresh. Would I like to see a new Star Trek tv show that dares to be more about exploration, sure. But as Star Trek movies go, this one did a great job.

In short, highly recommended.

 

[Xman490]

Yeah, I was a bit lukewarm about the reboot(the 1st movie) too.
I never really had any investment into the series, as I never watched it, but I can't imagine how painful it would be for me if I had.

As I am in this situation as well, I was surprised when I saw that this movie - ON IT'S OWN - is quite thrilling and enjoyable. I watched the spoiler half of this review, as I was curious to see what Bob hates about this movie.

I was ready to complain that "I now find Bob's opinion not worth listening to." Now, I say, that he should have mentioned that this movie is a big letdown IF you've seen the Star Trek television episodes and Wrath of Khan.

 

[Caostotale]

I hardly paid attention to any of the news, and I still figured out what the surprise was once I learned that there is, indeed, a surprise.

Going to see it tonight, but I have a feeling Mr. Plinkett will have afield day with this movie.

Bet you anything Mike really liked this movie. He already gave a very positive review of the first JJ Abrams reboot. So no, Plinkett won't be reviewing Into Darkness.

I thought the Plinkett review of the reboot Star Trek was one of the best he's put together. For him, the movie was a net positive, but not unless one views it as a 'guilty pleasure' and divorces it completely from any love for the previous Star Trek canon.

I also quite enjoyed his first 'mini-review' of the movie, where a woman gets abducted and raped in an alleyway by the movie only to ultimately walk off (beaten and bruised) saying, 'ehh, that wasn't so terrible.'

 

[Jegsimmons]

Star Trek: Into Darkness

MovieBob gives us a frank and spoiler filled review of the latest Star Trek film.

Watch Video

Holy fuck movie bob...are minds must have Vulcan mind melded because i thought the same exact thing when i saw this movie.


Spoiler Warning!!!!!


When the revealed Khan was actually Khan i about walked the fuck out. It was stupid, it was wasted, and worst of all....THEY DIDN'T GET KHAN RIGHT!!!!

Khan is supposed to be of Latino decent with a tad bit of European, as opposed to a fucking Brit.
Now don't get me wrong, the guy who played him acted the living hell out of that part, and i'd love to see his work again, but at the same time, no backstory on Khan, not even the fact he was a fucking dictator who owned a third of earth at one point and killed thousands of people.

His battle scenes are pathetic and don't hold as much tension, the two other bits from wrath of Khan were just shoe horned in and pissed on, and worst of all.....NOTHING IS ACCOMPLISHED!!!!

Now the klingons were cool, and the klingon fight scene was awesome, but at the same time, it just opened plot holes.

the Admirals plan makes no fucking sense. too many redundancies and stupid shit.
Its obvious on what shit is going to happen and why.

I don't hate this movie, but i'm disappointed with it.

And im convinced Abrams may not understand sci-fi at all and im worried about what will happen with star wars.

 

[Oroboros]

Having seen the movie, I can say it was just more of the same as the last movie, except of lesser quality. Aside from the horrible plot and hamfisted war on terror plot, there were far too many action scenes that seemed almost 'video game' in character, and there is such *volume* of action scenes that they just blend together after a while and lose all tension- it's all just one big slog to get through for me.

And when it's all said and done? There was almost zero character development. The ridiculous manner in which Kirk was promoted in the first movie is repeated again-in even less time-he goes fro m captain,to cadet, to first officer to captain again in the space of minutes adn the status quo is maintained, and the whole subplot about Kirk beign an inexperienced and arrogant pain in the butt who will get everyone killed is essentially brushed off. The only real character development to speak of is that Kirk and Spock are finally set up as friends-it only took two movies to do so!.

The fanservice was really thick in places, and it really went past homages to other movies into straight up retreads of previous material.

I can't really reconmend it.

 

[Amir Kondori]

I am a huge Trek fan, watched all the original series, TNG, well I've watched everything lets just say that, even the God awful Enterprise, which actually got good its last season just before it was killed off.
I liked this movie. I thought the first movie was a good action sci-fi movie but one that really only used the Trek universe as a dressing, something painted over the movie to pull in more people than it might have otherwise. A lot of what makes Trek Trek, convincing and at least semi-plausible(most of the time) technobable/plot points, missions about exploration and peace where humanity overcame its darker nature, and cooperation and understanding amongst all races and creeds, was completely missing in the first movie.
The second movie, while having a lot of problems, at least trys to work within some of those themes. I understand the problems Moviebob has with the film and I even agree with a lot of them, but the film still worked for me. With Gene gone I don't think we'll ever see any Trek fiction that adheres the bright ideals he tried to convey, but this film at least tried.

 

[Amir Kondori]

I'm really starting to dislike moviebob, because of his general attitude and just the fact that a lot of the time I'm not agreeing with him, as I absolutely loved the new Star Trek. I'm not sure if I'm going to keep watching him, so many of his reviews just seem to be based solely on his point of view and opinion of the movie and not the actual movie (he probably could have done this review without ever seeing the movie), and to me he comes off as a bit of a douche bag.

Really? Your big problem with a guy who reviews movie, a movie "critic" is that his reviews are based on his point of view? Well what else do you expect his reviews to be based on? Your point of view?
Also, how could have done this review without seeing the actual movie? He references specific plot points and twists that you would have to have seen the movie to know. He is a critic. He won't always agree with you. I really liked this movie a lot but it did have some major problems. He is correct that they redid the ending but with a twist. I won't get into more here as I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who hasn't seen it yet.
Can we all agree we will stop attacking critics for expressing opinions we disagree with?

/Watching this movie made me want to go home and watch Wrath of Khan

 

[Amir Kondori]

Ugh...they had to pull that fanservice card, huh? No thanks.

Don't assume you won't like it based on a review. If you are a Trek fan in any way you should still see it. It definitely has its problems but it also does some things very well and is very fun to watch.

 

[Klatz]

I enjoyed it as spectacle, the ships and action were thrilling. But it was like a McDonald's hamburger, tastes good at the time but then it sits uncomfortably in your stomach. That's how this movie was for me. At first I thought it was okay, not bad, enjoyable. Now after some digesting, it's fallen into not good category.

Here's the things that bothered me enough to downgrade the movie

Spoiler

If they needed magic restorative blood from a genetically engineered person why didn't they take it from one of Khan's crew members? Is Khan different somehow?

And what, there's no other ships in the vicinity of the Federation capital to help Enterprise? And there's no way for someone one the planet to beam everyone off the falling ship? What?


The sense of scale seemed awfully small. To get to the Klingon home world it took what seemed like minutes at warp. And then there's the calling Scotty (on Earth presumably) from the vicinity of Klingon home world. The whole galaxy seems to have been reduced to the scale of the solar system.

If Khan was cunning and ruthless why didn't he just destroy their life support and waltz onto the Enterprise to claim his crew?

This things just sort of made the movie dumb to me. Not all what I expect Trek to be.

 

[Zetatrain]

Just saw the movie like 2 hours ago. As a Star trek fan, I was a tad disappointed, but I did enjoy this movie despite the amount of criticism you'll see in this post

WARNING LOTS OF SPOILERS!!!!!!!!!!

Spoiler

The movie's strongest point is its action scenes and its humor, pure and simple.

Story and character wise....its a mixed bag

Characters:
Probably the best part character wise is that the how the movie continues to build upon the friendship of Kirk and Spock, and I did like the scene in the shuttle where Spock explains his fear of death.

However, one problem was the scene were Kirk dies. I don't think scene was done badly, though it could have better, however it didn't move me either. I think part of the problem is that we haven't seen Kirk and Spock as friends on screen enough for the scene to have much impact. The scene from Wrath of Khan was not only written better, but the movie had the advantage of TOS coming before it. Before I saw Wrath of Khan I saw a good amount of TOS and I knew that Kirk and Spock were best friends. Therefore, it made Spock's death all the more devastating and sold me on the fact that Kirk just lost a dear friend. Long story sort the reboot series didn't build upon the friendship between Kirk and Spock enough and opts for a payoff to early.

I know people say that the rest of the crew of the Enterprise are just going through the motions, but then again they always have in previous movies. Not really saying its not a valid criticism, but rather I'm used to this so it does not really bother me.

As for the two villains, Admiral Marcus and Khan, I'll get to them as a explain my thoughts on the overall story.

Story

Well it had some good ideas, but they try to cram too much into the film and the result is a bit messy.

The story was obviously going for a cautionary tale about revenge. In the film there are three people out for revenge, Kirk, Khan, and Marcus(sort of). Kirk wants to avenge Pike, Khan wants to avenge this people (that he thought were dead),and Marcus wants revenge on the Klingons. I know Marcus' desire for a war with the Klingons can be seen more as a "its us or them" situation, but the fact that he names his ship the USS Vengeance (its called that in the credits) makes me think otherwise.

Now this in my opinion was a pretty good set up. Marcus' desire to fight the Klingons leads him to turn to a man he didn't fully understand(Khan)and probably wouldn't have employed under normal circumstances. Khan's desire for revenge gets Pike killed and enrages Kirk. And Kirk's desire for revenge leads to him unwittingly becoming a pawn to start an intergalactic war with the Klingon Empire.

I also like how the destruction of Vulcan and most of the Vulcan race is a huge reason why the Federation has been going down a more militaristic path. Its a nice bit of continuity that shows how the events of the first film are greatly affecting the future of this alternate universe.

Here's the problem. Kirk never really ponders or reflects upon his need for revenge, Khan's desire for revenge is somewhat undermined by the fact that his people aren't dead, and we never get much of a reason why Marcus would want revenge on a personal level.

The movie does not spend enough time showing us how the need for revenge is affecting these characters and the choices they make.

Another problem is the ending in general as it really isn't good enough to sell the message about revenge. Part of the reason is because there doesn't seem to be any significant impact that came about because of Kirk's desire for revenge.

Here are some general changes I feel should have been made

1)More focus on Marcus as a villain and his motivations
2)Kirk fires most or all of those "special" torpedoes (without knowing their contents) in an attempt to kill Khan but fails (somehow)
3)Scrap Kirk's death scene (save it for a later movie) and the whole chase scene on Earth and use the time to develop the characters more...in fact scrap the whole ending
4)In the end Marcus and the USS Vengeance are destroyed, but the Klingon Empire finds out that the Enterprise fired the torpedoes at Chronos and declares war on the Federation (or at the very least pushes the two sides to the brink of war)
5)Khan escapes (along with his people if any are still alive) and convinces the Klingons to let him join them so he can get revenge on Kirk and the Federation

I know this is somewhat of a cliffhanger ending, but it would show how Kirk's inexperience and thirst for revenge has led to dire consequences. It would also tie in better to Pike's speech about how Kirk's attitude will someday get him and a lot of his people killed. This also allows for Khan to have much more screen time and development as a villain in future films. I think this kind of ending would be a lot more fitting considering the title.

Basically, like the first movie, Into Darkness is fun to watch, but still has some problems in the character and story department.

 

[Calibanbutcher]

When the revealed Khan was actually Khan i about walked the fuck out. It was stupid, it was wasted, and worst of all....THEY DIDN'T GET KHAN RIGHT!!!!

Khan is supposed to be of Latino decent with a tad bit of European, as opposed to a fucking Brit.
Now don't get me wrong, the guy who played him acted the living hell out of that part, and i'd love to see his work again, but at the same time, no backstory on Khan, not even the fact he was a fucking dictator who owned a third of earth at one point and killed thousands of people.

Excuse me, but even I know that's wrong, and I have never watched an episode of any Star Trek series in my life.

His full name is "Khan Noonien Sing", according to the new movie, which implies that he is actually of INDIAN descent. And wikipedia confirms that. The mere fact that a latino PORTRAYED an Indian dictator in the original series soesn't make the character a latino.