Hi. What follows below are my thoughts on Star Trek: Into Darkness. It is lousy with spoilers. If you have not seen the movie, I urge you not to read further. This is not some random post in your Twitter or Facebook feed. This is the website for a writer with only one published story. What I’m saying is that if you are here reading this, you are here by choice. You’ve been warned.
First, I’m going to state what I like about the film. If you take the movie at a gut level, it is immensely entertaining. The action, humor, and dialogue all hit the right notes for a crowd pleasing film. Much of that is due to the cast. I adore the cast of the reboot. Star Trek holds a very special place in my heart. It was the third science fiction series I discovered as a child, after Star Wars and Doctor Who. Yet I feel that the new cast has done a tremendous job of capturing the essence their iconic characters. The crew of the Enterprise is a great big pair of mother-fucking shoes. And, in my opinion, Chris Pine and company have filled them with aplomb .
And then they added Benedict Cumberbatch to the cast. Holy shit. I’ve been a fan of Mr. Cumberbatch’s work for years. His portrayal of Sherlock Holmes stands toe to toe with Jeremy Brett’s. Anytime he’s on the screen, I cannot take my eyes off him, even in a slow boiling thriller such as Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. He made The Last Enemy watchable for me. When his true identity in Into Darkness was revealed, I didn’t care that he wasn’t remotely Indian, as Khan Noonien Singh should be. I’d been sucked in by that point. I think his portrayal of Khan should go right up there in the Villain Hall of Fame next to Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs.
Benedict Cumberbatch gets his own paragraph, but I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the supporting turns given by Noel Clarke, Peter Weller, and Bruce Greenwood. The acting in this film was excellent across the board.
Unfortunately, acting and action cannot carry a movie by themselves. The story has to come first. And that’s where Into Darkness collapses under the slightest bit of scrutiny. As the film progressed, the writer part of my brain kept shouting “Bullshit!” louder and more often.
I’m writing this because I feel the need to discuss it. I’ve seen the film twice. Once, on the spur of the moment with friends. The second time because my wife wanted to see it. During the second viewing, I paid special attention to see if my concerns during the first viewing held up. They did. And new ones were found. I really wanted to like this film, but I can’t because:
1. Despite some fine, comedic and dramatic moments, the first quarter of the film is a waste of time. The entire first movie dealt with Kirk’s struggle to reign in his arrogance and assume the mantle of captain of the Enterprise. Yet the sequel rehashes the same themes. We see Kirk break the rules, lose his command, and then regain it again within minutes in a convoluted series of events. I would have liked that time to have been spent developing the mystery of John Harrison further, or perhaps showing me that Kirk and Spock were friends, rather than just telling me.
2. How is it that a random, Starfleet engineer (Scotty) gets access to a high profile crime scene? Was it left open to the public? Shouldn’t security have blocked off the location and done the detective work?
3. A portable transporter device is capable of shooting a single person across the galaxy, from the driver’s seat of a crashing aircraft. Yet throughout the rest of the film, a little bit of movement makes transporter technology unreliable. Why?
4. After John Harrison slaughters a number of high ranking Starfleet officers, Kirk declares “Starfleet can’t go after him. But I can!” And the head of Starfleet agrees. Yet, the Venn diagram on that logic doesn’t hold up. Kirk is Starfleet. He attempts the mission with a full Starfleet crew and ordinance. Sure, Marcus was playing him, but Kirk’s line still struck me as dumb.
5. Admiral Marcus recruits Khan so that Khan can develop high-tech weapons for him. I’m not buying it. To put that into perspective, that would be like resurrecting Napoleon Bonaparte today and expecting him to design a kick-ass, top-of-the-line, aircraft carrier.
6. Since when can a communicator send a signal across the galaxy and allow people to speak in real time? Yet Kirk makes a call from the edges of the Klingon Empire and manages to reach Scotty, who is sitting in a crowded bar in the middle of San Francisco. On Earth.
7. Why isn’t a top secret military installation on the edge of Jupiter guarded? Scotty putters right on in without a hitch.
8. When chasing Khan on foot near the end, why is a communications officer sent to assist? Surely one of the dozens of security personnel on board are better qualified for the job.
9. Bones treats Khan’s blood like the Frank’s RedHot Sauce of the medical world. (Frank’s slogan is “I put that s*** on everything!”). A medical doctor injects human blood into a tribble? Was he drunk at the time? Should I donate a pint of my blood and keep it on hand in case one of my puppies needs a blood transfusion?
10. The blood. Oh, Jesus, the blood. Khan’s blood should be the most significant medical find of all time. Yet in the epilogue, it’s a side note. I’ll tell you what else it is, though. A problematic deus ex machina that’s going to stink up the franchise unless it is dealt with.
11. Kirk’s death is meaningless. Unless you didn’t start watching the movie until right before he died, you had to have known how they were going to resurrect him. Whether it’s Marvel Comics, Legend of the Five Rings, or Star Trek, when you make death infinitely reversible it ceases to have any dramatic impact.
12. Instead of punishing Khan for his actions, they put him back in cryo-sleep and store him away in a warehouse like the Ark of the Covenant. Are “top men” in Starfleet on the case? Do the filmmakers mean to say that, after killing hundreds, if not thousands of people, the citizens living in the United Federation of Planets were ok with just putting the guy back to sleep?
Those are my main concerns with the film. Note that not a one of them has to do comparing the original series with the reboot. It all has to do with the story we were given. Perhaps I should take heed to the theme song of Mystery Science Theater: 3000 and repeat to myself, “It’s just a show/ I should really just relax”. But as a fan of science fiction, it is my hope that, someday, I will see a big-budget, science-fiction film that takes story, science, and the limits of the human body seriously. Because Star Trek: Into Darkness certainly didn’t.