Star Trek: Into Darkness, A Compendium of Whining
Okay, as requested, here is my take on 'Why I did not like Star Trek: Into Darkness.' It contains spoilers and justified whining, you've been warned.
Before I begin, I want to take this moment to pre-empt the general replies to 'I didn't like this' that new parts of famous franchises tend to get, really quickly.
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1. 'You didn't like it because you wanted it to be Old Star Trek. The point of a reboot is something NEW!'
No, I did not like it because it was bad. :( This is my sincere opinion, and no amount of saying 'you didn't like it because it's NEW' will change the fact that it's an argument makes no sense. I liked the first film; it was NEW! I liked Voyager, when it was new! I didn't like Deep Space 9; not because it wasn't new and it was certainly STAR TREK-- it just didn't resonate with me. I am capable, as a human, of liking things that are new and unexpected, under an old banner. So no, that is not the fundamental reason I didn't like it.
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2. 'You didn't like it because you wanted it to be LIKE Star Trek, but this took it in a new direction, exploring new things.'
Yes, because it was called 'STAR TREK: Into Darkness.' Not 'London 3060: An Action Movie Where EVERY Film Has Gone Before.' I was indeed expecting something resembling the heart of Star Trek.
So you're right. I did go in expecting the fundamentals of Star Trek-- a philosophical debate, a moral dilemma, characters undergoing difficult decisions, moral grayness, a dialogue about positive change.
But, okay, I didn't get any of that, and JJ wanted to make a totally different film. My issue with this is: then why call is Star Trek? Or if you're calling it Star Trek, why use the TOS characters? Why not make your own? When you ascribe to a series that has an agenda, and a fully formed set of characters, then I'm sorry-- you don't get the excuse of 'but it's a new direction, so I can change everything'.
Well, sure you can. That's called /making a different movie/. o_O
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3. 'See! You went into this overly critical!'
Not true at all. I went in wanting to like it. It was like watching Revenge of the Sith, but x500. I sat there going 'OMG THIS IS GOING TO BE SO GOOD...' Then about 45 minutes in I was like 'This is good... yeah... right?' 55 minutes... 'This MUST be good. You're totally enjoying it.' 70 minutes in... 'Okay. Okay so it's not great, but it'll get better and this is still so exciting, and--...' 80 minutes in... '...I have a feeling this isn't good.;;;'
I spent the film trying to convince myself. Which I had ample time to do, since the film kept taking me out of its reality with elongated running scenes, science that made no sense, plot holes, quickly dropped plots, bad characterization and a thousand little things which made me have to stop and think because the continuity made no damn sense half the time.
I even had a moment mid-film where I said 'Okay, if you can't enjoy it as Star Trek? Enjoy it just as a film! Great!' But I couldn't. Because it being 'just a film' didn't change any of those bad factors for me. Instead, looking at it as 'just a film' took away its only good aspects; that I was watching Kirk and Spock (but not McCoy, because fuck canon, right?) on screen again and that's awesome.
The folks I went with weren't ST fans. They went because they'd enjoyed the first new film. They didn't love this film either, and that's from a non-fan perspective.
In fact, the first words I heard after the movie ended? The guy in back of me got up and said sternly: "That was terrible."
That's when I knew that regardless of my best attempts to brainwash myself, I thought so too.
So, without further ado, here are my...
~~~~~~ISSUES WITH THE FILM~~~~~~~
(in somewhat cinematic order)
1. It begins with a WHACKY CHASE SCENE in which the logic is so bad, you have to wonder what Spock's purpose on the ship is. Point A of the Prime Directive is not to be seen... so what do Kirk and McCoy do? SHOOT SOMETHING WITH A PHASER while being chased, then TAKE OFF THEIR MASKS revealing that they look nothing like anyone else on the planet. This kind of dulled the whole immanent sense of 'Prime Directiveness' to me, as there are two points to it-- Point 1: Don't let them know advanced tech exists. Point 2: Don't let them know aliens exist. So uh. Oops? For me, this ruined the tension of the upcoming scene, because why not keep breaking a rule you just broke.
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2. This is nitpicky and more of a 'lol oops!' than a legitimate issue, but: Where did the robes Kirk and Bones were wearing magically go in between jumping off of the cliff and landing in the water? They jumped in robes, but were in swimsuits when boarding the Enterprise. And while in the water. Omg are Kirk and McCoy Professional Sky Dive Strippers? That's a certification story worth telling. (JJ, get on that in film 3.)
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3. Failure of Logic Again: The Enterprise can't withstand sea water, can't take heat exposure (I'm not a scientist, but really? A ship that goes through the atmosphere, breeches warp speed and fends off advanced missile attacks can't /hover above a volcano/? REALLY?), AND can't maintain... an altitude. ...What even WAS YOUR PLAN, GUYS? 'Oh we just thought that this rope we dangled Spock off of and our on-planet shuttle could withstand the Volcano, even thought our Constitution-class starship can't.' ...Great. So you basically wanted to kill Spock. Got it.
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4. So, back on earth, 'John Harrison' trades a man his daughter's life in exchange for blowing up a facility. The man blows it up with a ring (which is given no explanation? was it the green lantern ring? was it pepto bismol?) and it looks like it LITERALLY exploded in his face. Take a moment to take this in: His face was ground zero. In a later scene, the Admiral informs us that that man is alive and well, able to speak, knew and ID'd John Harrison as the culprit (despite that man not knowing who Harrison was a scene before.) ...What? What is his face made out of? And if the medical tech is that advanced, how did anyone else die? Their faces were further away!
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5a. Completely superflous plot device of having Kirk lose command of the Enterprise. (I'll take a moment here to talk about PIKE as well: First, what happened to his wheelchair? That was an effective throwback in the first film of what happens to Pike in TOS. ST:ID was filled with ineffective throw-backs, and this retcon was confusing. Secondly, Pike had the rank of Admiral. Admirals in SF are in charge of fleets of ships-- so there's literally no reason why they should have demoted him to Enterprise rather than PROMOTE a first officer. Like, say, SPOCK. Or idk, someone who could run.) The film invested time in saying where Spock was reassigned, making us wonder how Kirk will get the team back together... and then five minutes later... he gets it back because EVERYONE DIES??? They were reluctant to make him a 1st officer under Pike, but suddenly he gets the Enterprise instead of, say, Spock-- who is also a 1st? Or any other first officer? Or anyone else? A day ago, they demoted him back to STARFLEET ACADEMY... then arbitrarily posted him to first officer... after which, because the new captain died, all sins were forgotten and he was Captain again. WHY??? This was so pointless. (We can't even say it was because the Evil Admiral was just using him-- Kirk is a loose canon, he proved that. The Evil Admiral could have used a less ridiculous Captain to carry out his Evil Plans. One who actually follows orders.) --TL;DR: what even was this plot device and how does it possibly make any sense?
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5b. On that note, let's take a moment to think about how Kirk was Demoted from Captain back to Starfleet Academy. That baffled me. That's like saying: "Hey, Phoenix Wright! You lost your law case, so now instead of saying you can't practice law, or be a partner, or you have to pay a fine... you have to GO BACK TO LAW SCHOOL!' Can you imagine if that happened in reality, anywhere? 'You messed up on this Japanese grammar, do your BA in Japanese language over.' This took me out of the film because I didn't understand the logic of it, and as a grad student nearly finished, it drove an icy terror into my heart.
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6a. This is my 'KHAAAAAN' section. First up, I didn't think of this one, but my friend brought it up to me and now I share her confusion. Ok, so Khan was smart enough to use transwarp theories to figure out a way to send himself lightyears away... the question still remains, how did he end up on Kronos if to beam to someplace, there has to be the technology in place? Khan did beam onto a pad, it was shown. So who built that? Khan did? How did he get there the first time? Did he take a holiday to go build the pad and both Starfleet and the Klingons didn't notice his vacay? They clearly aren't his FB friends.
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6b. Khan is super white. Cumberbatch did an amazing job, I hand it to him-- he was the best part of the film imo, and his acting was flawless. But 'he was white' is a legitimate concern, even in a reboot series, because the AU timeline started like 2 years ago in the film and Khan is 300 years old. JJ tried to make everyone else fit their counterparts, so wtf happened there?
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6c. Why does Khan have the name 'John Harrison'? The dude was a member of a top secret project from 300 years ago, he was being kept under wraps ANYWAY except to the high brass involved, and it's not like Khan is a perfectly acceptable name of Central and Western Asian origin OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT-- oh wait, yes it is. This felt like something totally superfluous purely created to hide who the villain was before the film's release, and took me out of the world of the film when I realized that. There was no good reason for covering up the name by the Admiral.
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7. When Kirk decides to go after Khan, he says that Starfleet can't go to the Klingon Home Planet, but he can. W...hat? Is he magically not Starfleet? Why does he say that? He probably shouldn't have taken the Enterprise, if he was trying not to be Starfleet.
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8. Klingons who were bad at fighting.
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9. No, REALLY. The Klingons were really bad at everything in this film! It's tossed in as a plot device that the Klingons will notice the disabled Enterprise at the edge of their space, and used as a reason for incredible tension when the ship breaks down. Which, as with everything in this plot full of dead-ends... evolves... into nothing. Aside from that one scene where they all die like Power Ranger Putty Men, they are never heard from again. A second, much scarier ship shows up in their space and they don't notice. One of their patrols goes missing, dozens of their men die, and they don't notice. You mean to tell me that I have to believe they were out patrolling their backyard, but failed to notice a fiesta on their front door? o__O There was nothing to worry about after all; take your time, Chekov, all of this tension is leading to nothing.
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10. Characterization. Can we take a moment to pause here and mourn everyone's characterization?
-Kirk was a total unsympathetic asshole for the entire film, which goes against everything ST since there was no moral struggle. Khan saves his life, he beats Khan up. Khan tells him a terrible truth about how Star Fleet manipulated and used him in hopes of starting a mass war and even CRIES, and Kirk gives exactly 0 shits. Kirk then uses him, Khan saves his life AGAIN, he betrays Khan and then is all SHOCKERS??? when Khan betrays him back uhhhh. (Also, way to just let Scotty go and basically tell McCoy to stfu in every mutual scene? Douche.)
-SPOCK NEEDED TO CALM THE F*CK DOWN. Who WAS that? He was constantly contentious, often angry, sometimes angry to the point of LOSING IT, cried, confessed to deep loving and sad feels on a vessel full of red shirts... holy crap, what happened to the effortlessly charming Vulcan who finds your humanity illogical? Literally, okay. He decided to talk about his sobby feels mid-mission on a vessel filled with strangers. /What/?
-Uhura was a useless bucket of feels that was supposed to represent ~women's empowerment~ by replacing McCoy as the third wheel, but spent the entire film being unprofessional and worrying about her love life.
-McCoy was 100% relegated to comic relief, giving him zero opportunity to actually be the heart of the ship or to help guide Jim in any way-- all he was were badly-timed one-liners. Was he even Southern still? I don't know. I do know that they screwed him and screwed him hard and I'm sick of all the excuses as to why 'it has to be done' because even though he was a primary co-star in the original, today we need to see more powerful women in films! Then idk, make him a girl. If Khan can be white, then we can have Leonora H. McCoy if it's the only way to get a huge portion of what made the series /interesting/ back. (I also don't believe uhura filled that role at all. She was only expanded as a love interest; she's exactly as badass as she always was in the original, otherwise. <3)
-Scotty was made OVER-THE-TOP ridiculous, instead of just charmingly befuddled and slightly huffy. Sulu was cool but had exactly 1 facial expression (that smile aside) and Chekov apparently is not a genius because his only scenes were of him going 'I don't know, keptin.' Which makes sense, because you probably should have promoted someone IN ENGINEERING to HEAD ENGINEER (WHY was your weapons expert shadowing Scotty???)
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11. Spock's total lack of logic, during the battle scene with Khan's shiny new ship: 'I'm going to contact New Vulcan to ask about the future, instead of asking them to relay information to Star Fleet, get help, and explain to them that they have a possible war with the Klingons, murderous super soldiers, and a traitor admiral on their hands. Oh! But I did learn how to kill Khan. Surprise! I want to kill Khan now, rather than have him stand trial, because of my BUTTHURT FEELS. Yes, that's right-- my feelings changed my mind on a matter of legality. This makes sense.'
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12. I found the Tribble scene bizarrely random (uh, why does McCoy just keep a tribble carcas around?) until I realized mid-way through Kirk's death scene what that odd scene meant. And it ruined that death for me because it took me out of being sad about Kirk when I realized McCoy was just going to fix him by realizing that what cures a long dead tribble can also apparently cure an irradiated human who has been dead for an hour. SCIENCE, ladies and gentleman. "You're dead, Jim, but that's okay because Miffy just returned. I haven't run any tests on her or anything yet, but I think a zombie apocalypse would make for a good third film, so let's do this!"
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13. So, in an earlier scene, it is explicitly mentioned that they don't know how to open the freezer-pods. Because the technology was too 'ancient'. However, when Kirk's dead body was decaying-- and without any explanation-- McCoy tells them to open a freezer pod, which they then do with no trouble at all, right away. WHAT???
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14. The above means that McCoy has 72 genetically engineered people in his med bay, literally. They all have the alteration that can cure death (apparently). So why does he need KHAN'S blood? He doesn't. That entire ending was thereby pointless.
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15. But then McCoy CURED DEATH. He CURED. DEATH. Not only is Jim an ASS about it (really? Spock saved his life? /Really?/ UHURA went and got Khan, McCoy figured out how to CURE DEATH. Spock only stopped having feelings long enough not to murder the man who he insisted should stand trial, that giant hypocrite. Now I get you're giving McCoy the shaft because this is Kirk&Spock hours, JJ, but jesus, that's a little MUCH.) Kirk aside, WHY IS THAT NOT INTERESTING TO LITERALLY /EVERYONE EVER/ THAT HE JUST. CURED. DEATH. NO ONE IS CURIOUS? Let me repeat: 'Bones finds a sustainable cure for all death and disease ever. And no one is really amazed or even faintly interested in this.' This is Sci Fi and NO ONE CARES.
I guess for every Star Trek film to come I won't have any mortal worry about anyone, because worst to worst, they still have Khan on ice-- if anyone remembered to write down a memo that death is easily curable now. (Which they may not have.)
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16. Bad Throwbacks. If you're making something 'new', don't throwback. If you're making something new and want to throwback? Don't do it badly. Don't aggravate fans by having Nurse Chapel transfer over her gooey feelings when she stayed despite her unrequited gooey feelings in TOS. Don't just say her name just to say it; leave it out. Don't have dead tribbles in McCoy's locker just because people love the tribble episode; this makes no damn sense. Don't use 'the good of the many outweigh the good of the few' in a throwaway scene at the beginning; that is a line that embodies the best of Star Trek. At least bring it back at the end, do something more with it. Don't have Spock yell 'KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!' just because Kirk did. Spock is not Kirk. It was cheesy. It didn't give me shivers, it gave me second-hand embarrassment because it was trying too hard. It took a scene I was almost sad in and made me melt with discomfort and took me out of the moment.
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17. The plot just... abruptly ends? What about the follow-up about all of those new weapons Khan created, a Klingon response to everything that occurred, some info. on what will happen to those clone bodies (no trial for Khan after all, just going to let him freeze until he becomes someone else's problem?), the admiral traitor situation, the war situation, Kirk's captaincy? Who commends Kirk and forgives him for what he was FIRED for in the past, when is the golden moment that they get assigned the 5-Year mission? Who fixes that ENTIRE BROKEN CITY and their RUINED HQ? Anything? No? Not even how that girl feels after seeing her father die? Really, no? The entire plot didn't matter? Oh, okay. Cool. Let's all go home now.