star trek:into darkness (WARNING: SPOILERS as of 4/23/13)

If you like parodies, you might enjoy The Final Frontier.

With the exception of the uniforms I liked TMP. So it's not a shoot them up film.

It's a thinking movie.

The Final Frontier was a terrible movie.

The two Abramsverse movies are terrible as well. The only difference being that they wasted seven times as much money as The Final Frontier.

and that making TFF a decent movie doesn't take that much effort...

The Final Frontier was better than The Motion Picture, which was a colossal waste of time and money.

I liked The Motion Picture but it doesn't feel anything like the original series.

Everything is washed out and sterilized, no one makes a joke, Kirk never gets his shirt ripped in a goofy fight scene...

Of the original movies, I think Star Trek III feels most like the original series. It has humor, adventure, weird looking aliens, great character interactions, a climactic battle... everything that was great about the original series. Even more so if you consider II-III-IV to be one continuous storyline.

Star Trek V and VI (though I enjoyed the latter) felt a bit like parodies of the original series...

I liked the feel of VI, personally. I'd actually be interested in seeing a series set during the time frame soon after that movie, preferably set aboard an old Conny.

There needs to be a Captain Sulu show.

You had me until you mentioned III. I can't stand that movie.

After reading you guy's all-time best Trek movie lists, I get the distinct impression I'm one of the only people who actually LIKED Generations.

Explain... "one of".

Generations had some good things going for it.

Not least of which was they got rid of that misproportioned lump of a Galaxy class.


[edit]There was also the theme of fragility of life, briefness of mortality, pain caused by loss and the passage of time. How do we deal with mortality? The villain, appropriately, is spurred by loss to empower himself to rise above time's grasp with no regard for the death or pain he will cause others. Picard, on the other hand, gives a little speech at the end about embracing the passage of time rather than fearing it. It's a very Star Trek plot, as far as that goes. Data's subplot actually came within earshot of touching on this, with his difficulties in dealing with fear.

Hey, has anyone noticed that ST09 is all of the TNG films mooshed together?

You've got passing the torch from a big-three TOS cast member, like GEN.

You've got the future characters falling through a time hole like FC.

You've got going back to TOS's origins like FC.

You've got a bald Romulan with a super-weapon like NEM.

You've got ejecting the Enterprise's warp core to use as a bomb to seal a spatial rift like INS.

The rift in INS is caused by a magic plot-bomb like the red matter.

Nero is a spazzing rage-aholic like Ruafo from INS.

Planets are blowing up like in GEN.

NuKirk fights bad guys hand to hand on bridges and scaffolding (Narada, and Narada drilling rig) like OldKirk in GEN.

NuKirk skydives like OldKirk in the deleted scene of GEN.

You've got the big meanie ship engaging the entire fleet like in FC.


Hhmmm, wonder if STID can be broken down this way...

Just from what I've seen in the trailers...

NuKhan strikes me as a mashup of Borg Queen and Soren.

Enterprise stares down the barrel of a super-weapon ship like NEM.

Enterprise crashes like GEN.


...um, discuss.

This implies that there are others who enjoyed that film.

You're way off. Why haven't you seen it yet?

I liked Generations, it just wasn't the best Trek movie.

I try to find something to like in every Trek movie.

In Nemesis it was just because they let anyone take the Command speed course doesn't mean you should let the nitwit sit in the center seat

Sounds likely.

not remotely.

No it doesn't, Vengeance does.

I dunno.. what's that in 1982 dollars?

never mind, looked it up myself...
1982->2013, TWoK's 11mill would be 26.6mill
1991->2013, TUC's 30 million budget is now worth 51 million.

Here are the films ranked by their cumulative Rotten Tomatoes scores. (Source: Wikipedia: Star Trek (film franchise))
95 ST
92 FC
91 TWOK
87 STID
84 TVH
83 TUC
77 TSFS
56 INS
48 GEN
44 TMP
40 NEM
21 TFF

Using data from the same site, here's a list on relative profitability (worldwide gross divided by budget)...

Film Gross Budget Prof
TWOK 96.8 11.2 8.64
TSFS 87.0 18.0 4.83
TVH 133.0 24.0 5.54
TMP 139.0 35.0 3.97
TUC 96.6 27.0 3.55
GEN 120.0 35.0 3.43
FC 150.0 46.0 3.26
ST 385.7 140.0 2.76
TFF 70.2 30.0 2.33
INS 117.8 58.0 2.03
NEM 67.3 60.0 1.12
STID (TBD)

It looks like profitability doesn't correlate too well with critical favor, except in the extremes. Both lists put TWOK near the top and NEM and TFF at the bottom. And profitability is impacted by other factors, such as competition.

Also, TFF, INS, and NEM both had relatively huge budgets compared to the films that came before them, but both sucked so hard that they didn't really make anything. Sure, they had competition that utterly crushed them, but when you look at the films themselves, it's doubtful they would have made much money anyway considering the quality of them.

one thing I'm seeing for the first time in I don't know how long... people are going to see STid multiple times in theatre.

Considering it'll be out in all formats by X-mas and fans are still willing to pony up multiple admissions within days of it being released, it sounds like they've managed to raise the bar for quality in Star Trek films.

I bet it will be out on home video before the summer is over.

It's already available for preorder on amazon.com and, even without a confirmed release date, it's the #1 seller in Blu Ray.

Also, I finally got around to seeing the movie this weekend. Real life got in the way of me seeing it on opening weekend.

It kicked major fucking ass. Second-best Trek film, next to TWOK and Trek 2009 (tied for first).

I really liked the bait-and-switch with the villain. In spite of all the spoilers, Khan is clearly not the big baddie in this film. The scene with Kirk begging for his crew's life was gut-wrenching and echoed earlier scenes where Pike admonished him for a lack of humility. Speaking of Pike, Bruce Greenwood gave a stellar performance. If you were paying attention, the film really weaves a complicated narrative and is a not-so-subtle commentary on current world events.

My only real disappointment was the death scene. It's not that it didn't lack emotional punch -- Spock's show of emotion definitely got myself and more than a few people in the audience tearing up -- but it just had a feeling of "I've seen this all before".

Also, the underwear scene with Carol Marcus was beyond gratuitous. Not that I'm complaining and that she isn't masturbatory-worthy, it was just so obviously gratuitous.

Anyway, I'll definitely be seeing this one again before it comes to home video.

Rating: 9/10.

I might go to see it in a couple of weeks more or less.

Can anyone suggest how I can see it with an open mind given all that I already know about it and my preconceived ideas?

If you're determined to dislike it, why bother watching it?

You don't seem like the type of person that keeps an open mind about much of anything... so I don't know what to tell you.



I enjoyed it. Was it as good as classic Trek? No, but I wasn't expecting it to be. Its 2013 and classic Trek is never coming back. These new movies are made with new audiences in mind.

If this bothers you, just fire up the old episodes on DVD and bask in the nostalgia. Nothing wrong with that.

It is not enough.

What's not enough?

Three seasons, six movies, and stacks of novels, comics, and video games based on the property?

And much more than that if you are a fan of any of the other shows....

That is correct.