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

Dennis Bailey would have loved that if he'd lived.

According to CaptainX, that reboot was already made. I did see a reboot back in the 80s titled Sex Trek. Although Uhura and Janice Rand did get it on, homosexuality was restricted only to their lesbian scene.

What did everyone think of that final space battle anyways?
Two capitol ships firing broadsides seemed really awesome to me!

It was good.

A little one-sided, but good.

I like that all the bits blown off the Enterprise subsequently became obstacles when Kirk and Khan did their Buck Rogers routine.

I'd like to see an exchange between two more closely matched ships. That could be awesome.

I was going to go see it Saturday but couldn't find a theatre anywhere that wasn't showing it in 3D. I wanted to get off as cheaply as possible.

Don't we all.

Dayton you need to try the mass effect games one day.

Both ships were firing like it was space invaders. Not cool.

We saw it Thursday, 2D (our neighborhood theater doesn't have 3D and honestly I prefer 2D).

Very entertaining. Most everything has been said. Liked it better than ST09. It's either my first or second favorite Trek movie (with TWOK fittingly).

So when did you end up seeing INTO DARKNESS?

He hasn't.

Finally got around to seeing it tonight.

I enjoyed the hell out of it. Not a perfect movie, but it worked for me.

Like Lanzman, I had misgivings and a little disappointment that they went to the Khan well again, but I liked what I saw. I like how they took elements of the 1982 movie and kind of turned them on their head.

Nothing much to say that hasn't already been said by others here, but watching the film tonight I realized that (hero ship design aside) the overall production value of the last two films make them seem to be the most "real", in many ways, of all the Trek movies. At least to me. I've mentioned it before, but little touches like the shuttles having scratched paint (like any workhorse vehicle would) really sells that "world" to me more than any of the previous series or movies ever did. Everything always looked too clean and perfect in the Trek universe, even on the "grittier" DS9.

Nice callbacks to previous series throughout ("the Mudd incident") and the ship's deflector being broken and askew near the end was reminiscent of how the TOS Enterprise's deflector looked. At least once I noticed a Dutch angle shot of Kirk in the captain's chair that really made me think of TOS.

And Urban absolutely is young Leonard McCoy. Just fucking nails that character.

The bus driver hats have to go, though. Too anachronistic, I think, and they just look dumb.

I also think it's cool that apparently people still drive cars in this timeline. Personally, I'd probably transport wherever I wanted to go, but it was cool seeing streets with traffic on them.

The lens flares have to go, too. While they were noticeably fewer this go around, the ones there were still a distraction. I don't understand Abrams' fetish for them. At times there were practical lights visible on screen that weren't causing lens flares, yet some off camera (or digital?) source was causing those moving horizontal "bands" of lens "flare" (or whatever it is). At one point during a Steadicam shot on the bridge, you could even see spots on the front of the lens (either real or added in post). Really took me out of the moment. Enough already, JJ.


As the movie was just getting started and I was still retaining a tiny bit of skepticism, this quote wandered through my mind:

I'm a long time Trek fan (around 40 years ) but as with other franchises, I'm open to new ideas and interpretations.

In this case, I may go see Into Darkness at the theater again. Something I've rarely done for any movie and never done for a Trek film.

IIRC, on the last film he and the FX guys got into it because Abrams kept wanting more and more lens flares added in. Someone pointed out that in the last film, because of Abrams fetish for lens flares, you can see a member of the crew aiming a light at the camera lens during a scene to make sure there's a lens flare.

You know, there are movies where lens flares actually work, but they're done only in a few scenes, and aren't the focus of the scene, so you don't feel like you're being blinded by a searchlight. (John Carpenter used them to good effect in Christine.)

Joss Whedon specifically asked that Firefly be shot with older lenses that had either lost their flare-eliminating/minimizing coatings (or were so old that they never had them in the first place) so he'd get the occasional lens flare to give the show a bit of a documentary feel. You can see some in the pilot when Mal, Zoe, and Jayne first arrive on Whitefall.

Because the military would never wear anything dumb, ugly and ridiculously outdated? (not me, just a picture google found)

Are those lens flares 'real'? Always thought they were inserted in post production

Some are, some aren't. The all CGI shots are, of course, inserted in post, but the shots with live actors have ones that are real, and if JJ decides there's not enough of them, he inserts more later on.

One of the pictures I saw on google showed the zipper on the side of the top. I always heard the 13 button pants were "13 chances for the girl to say no. A lot of people who had to wear them regularly would sew most of the buttons to the flap and just hold it closed with velcro. Luckily I didn't have to wear the "cracker jacks" too often.

Just got back from seeing it.

It was a great movie. Better then the first one.

And the nitpicks? The movie was good enough to ignore them. They weren't big enough to mess the movie up. I do think the phone call to Spock was wasted since it seems it had no effect on the movie other then to tell Spock that Khan is an evil guy.

Klingons looked kinda funky......

The one thing that I thought was pushing it was when Kirk put Chekov in charge of engineering. I know Scotty was just put off the ship but he doesn't have a assistant chief engineer? No other engineers can step up? Chekov was 17 in the last movie and this movie takes place a year or so after it and you drop him in to Engineering as Chief Engineer? He's not even a lieutenant yet.

I also liked Scotty. I know some don't like Simon Peg as Scotty but I believe he nailed the character pretty well. Karl Urban was great again as McCoy.

Really liked the Warp Core set. Also seeing the cities in the future and even the cargo ship looked cool. It was futuristic enough without looking too futuristic.

I'm glad I didn't skip it and saw it in the theaters.

The little alien was his assistant . Zombie it's nice seeing the amount of work Karl Urban in general gets.

Actually it was used for the marketing of both.

In nuTrek, Sulu wasn't thrown in an internment camp so he turned out straight.

Oh well.. at least they've improved on a good thing.

First off, I liked this movie quite a lot. I was mixed on the 2009 movie; I thought it was fun, but overly complicated and had a goofy villain (I would have preferred a straight reboot that simply jettisoned continuity and started over). But overall it was okey dokey.

The newest movie has a more straightforward plot, a much improved antagonist but kept the stuff I liked from the 2009 film. So, good on them for getting it right. However...

My brother (who has never seen Trek of any kind) wants to see the new Star Trek movie. Naturally I suggested he watch the 2009 movie first. Then I thought about it and said, no you had better at least see Star Trek II first, because of the many references to that movie that you'd simply miss - plus there are references in Trek 2009 to Star Trek II as well.

Plus, you'd not know who Spock was or what the other Timeline was even like. But then I realized if he saw STII he'd see Spock die, then see him inexplicably alive in ST2009. So I said, you'd better watch at least 2, 3 & 4. And throw 6 in while you're at it. (Not necessary, but it's a good movie).

Then I thought, well you need to know about Space Seed a little to understand STII, and also you should be a little familiar with the story of Vulcan/Romulus and the later events of TNG to fully grasp all that caused Spock to create the alternate timeline in nuTrek… and so on...

Anyway, I figured I'd post this to see what you all thought about what someone would need to know to really understand the bulk of what the new movies have going on.

(It does suck that one major event - the destruction of Vulcan - will never be really appreciated by someone not truly steeped in Trek lore, because without having that you can't know what a HUGE event that was and how important that planet and it's people have been.)

Well, when you pile up the homework, it stops being fun, and turns people off.

'09, and TWOK would be good enough, and just go ahead, and give a brief verbal spoiler summary to fill in the gaps.

Good review. Also, I am able to look past the whole Chekov wunderkind Engineering thing just for the look on Chekov's face when he's told to put on a red shirt. Also funny (IMO) was the scene where Scotty's in the bar, getting drunk, and complaining about "Captain James Tiberius Perfect Hair." Priceless.

Yeah, I remember watching the first Abrams Trek movie with a non Trekkie friend.

The car ride back was an endless stream of questions about the Star Trek backstory.

The simplest response was, "don't worry about it, that stuff isn't relevant"

It's why I would have preferred a hard reboot like Batman Begins...

That's what we settled on. He's watching STII, then '09 & '13. I said I'd fill in the blanks as needed. I knew what I said originally was way, way too much.

I pretty much agree, but as I said to my wife, we didn't hear OldSpock's answer to NuSpock's question of "How?" they defeated Khan.

I'd like to think OldSpock said something along the lines of,"He is intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking", which could've been what led NuSpock to play his wild card with the sleeper tubes.

But, yeah, it was kind of a wasted scene.

Saw it again today with the wife. Her first time seeing it. I liked it better the second time. It's really, really hard for me to rank it above TWoK just for nostalgia's sake, but it's definitely replaced TUC as my second favorite. I'd say:

ST: TWoK
ST: iD
ST: TUC
ST: FC
ST
ST: TMP
ST: TSFS
ST: TVH
ST: TFF
ST: INS
ST: NEM