Star Trek Into Darkness (spoiler review)

I guess meaning depends on how you look at it. I don't see that there is so much of a difference between TSFS and STID in this regard. Maybe that is because I give STID more credit than you (or than it deserves), or maybe it's because I give TWOK/TSFS less credit than you (or than it deserves).

I don't see how there is any more of a connection between the themes of TSFS and the Genesis device than there is between the themes of STID and Khan's blood. Both are mechanics by which the writers can cheat death.

It may be that you find the former more acceptable than the latter because you feel like the former allowed a more meaningful exploration of the themes there. But it seems to me that the themes in STID are prominent and were still explored in a meaningful way through Kirk's death, Spock's seeking vengeance and Kirk's resurrection.

For me, the STID arcs for Kirk and Spock (and to a lesser extent McCoy) are about a few things: when should you disobey regulations and how to balance emotions; how to come to terms with the consequences of your actions and the need for vengeance on the one hand with logic and the need for law & order on the other.

Spock has long been known as the epitome of logic, someone who suppresses his emotions, someone who follows regulations almost slavishly. When faced with the consequence of Kirk's death, he throws all that out the window. His Khan! scream, as cheesy as it was, given the TWOK reference, is a pivotal moment. Spock is completely consumed with emotion. He doesn't take a second to form a plan. He doesn't enlist the numerous other officers aboard the Enterprise or in Starfleet to help in Khan's capture. He isn't thinking any more about how the proper approach would to take Khan into custody so he can have a fair trial. He wants Khan's blood.

That Uhura could beam down and reach through Spock's berserker rage and bring him back to himself to me speaks to the power of love to overcome fury, and within Spock a recognition that all strong emotion should not necessarily be overpowering.

Further, would the Spock of the beginning of the movie who essentially would have preferred to have been left for dead to avoid breaking the Prime Directive have endorsed McCoy experimenting on Kirk's body without going through the various hoops that Starfleet must have in place about such a thing? Not at all. In the end he comes to a similar place to where Kirk starts -- regulations and orders that stand in the way of what's just are not ones that need be followed.

Certainly, the Genesis planet resurrection had more time to be built up as it took place across two movies. But it definitely introduced concepts that were brand new -- the notion of Vulcans passing their katra to someone for preservation, protomatter being used to make the matrix unstable and thus not repeatable, the notion that someone dead would be reborn from childhood and have accelerated growth.

And as I touched on above, I think that the Kirk resurrection is in accordance with the themes and arcs of STID.

I guess I don't see much of a meaningful difference between Spock's resurrection via Genesis planet and Kirk's resurrection via Khan blood. If you consider one to be deus ex machina, then I don't know how you wouldn't consider the other.

What does that have to do with anything? I don't have to be a chef to know when the food has been undercooked and/or made from pre-packaged ingredients. And I'm not saying that my palate is so sophisticated that I demand absolute perfection and freshness to enjoy my meal. But, if your sauce and overall presentation isn't good enough to distract me from the fact that you've used frozen ingredients, then you're not a very good chef.

I would argue that lazy writing is making the last 1/3 of your movie a nearly point-for-point reshoot of the last 1/3 of a movie in the same series that came out 30 years earlier.

Why bother killing him if you're going to bring him back in the same movie?

I think the criticism the death scene earns is because it has no emotional impact whatsoever. Old Trekkies know why the same scene in TWOK worked: because they didn't know how it would turn out. Took an entire bad movie to bring the character back and another one to get him back to his old self. In STiD it's just there for the sake of it, just to be resolved five minutes later.

Also, in TWOK Kirk and Spock had a connection that had endured almost 20 years by then. In STiD there's pretty much none, to the contrary. There's been much more animosity than genuine friendship up to it.

For me it's there as a tribute and nothing else. They could simply take it out in the director's cut and the movie wouldn't suffer for it.

Actually, I think that's pretty stupid, and that whole movie is wretchedly awful.

You make a very good case. I guess the heart of the matter is that this movie did not inspire me to come up with such a good case in its favour, whereas TWOK/TSFS both did.

I've only got one thing to add here: To me, resurrection opens up a specific can of worms. It's not any old adventurous last-minute save. It's a save after the last minute. For Genesis, this was part of the main theme: Life from lifelessness. You get the computer animation (expensive in the day!) to show off the technology. You've got Carol's pride, and later her satisfaction at her creation, and David's still greater pride and concern, and McCoy's condemnation of the whole idea as being more than man should be able to do, and Khan's fascination with death and life being combined in one device.

Can we make dead things live? is a proper SF question, and it runs all through TWOK/TSFS. It is there, not just as a functional plot element mentioned in preparation of the final twist, but as one of the main themes. It connects to Kirk's midlife crisis, to Spock's attempt to adopt a new generation both professionally and personally, to Kirk's deceit in the Kobayashi Maru and even to the storytelling deceit of the first few minutes, when a movie-going audience that had heard rumours of the whole crew being replaced saw them die, one after the other, and then saw them all get up again: Physician, heal thyself.

For STID, that theme isn't there. What is there are other themes: coming of age, rules and disobedience, friendship, saving your friend's life as well as learning from him. If they had had Kirk become very sick, mortally so, from radiation poisoning, and spent a bit more time on Khan's blood (which, after all, was introduced as a cure for sickness, not death, up to this point), and thus have Spock save Kirk in the very last minute just as he had done for Spock at the beginning of the movie, that right there would have made this plot work much better for me.

This movie doesn't care all that much for the blood's meaning beyond its function. We're talking about breaking the rules in order to save the people you love -- and yet not once does this movie even invite a more detailed comparison between what Lt. Mickey did at the beginning and what Spock does in the end.

I agree it would have probably been better if Kirk had been 99.9 percent dead as opposed to 100 percent dead.

But I think at least part of the difference is that in TWOK/TSFS and most other Trek, they foregrounded the theme much better. You could not faithfully watch those movies without noticing the issues that it raises about mortality, friendship, the needs of the many vs. needs of the one, rules and regulations.

STID actually has many of the same exact themes, if you think about it. And then it has twists in so far as TWOK/TSFS are about Admiral Kirk toward the end of his career and STID is about not-yet-ready-for-prime-time Captain Kirk at the beginning of his.

But I think many of those get lost in the shiny visuals and the much more intense action. It's been a while since I've seen TWOK, but really in terms of actual action sequences, there is the Reliant's initial ambush of Enterprise and the nebula fight. (I'm not including the Kobayashi Maru sequence, but I suppose one could.)

By contrast, in STID, there's the opening sequence, the attack on Starfleet HQ by Khan, the chase by the Klingons of the Mudd shuttlecraft, Khan (and the crew's) beating up the Klingons, the Vengeance's initial attack on the Enterprise, Khan and Kirk manuevering on the Vengeance, the fight to take the Vengeance, and the Spock-Khan chase and fight.

With all that action, there's not as much time or breathing room to think about the greater themes. In fact, it's really only been on post-viewing reflection that I have come to the conclusions that I have. Which makes me want to see the movie again.

Yeah, Iron Man 3 resurrected one of its main characters through magic at the end too - comic book stories and fantasy do that all that time.

JMS used to require in his stories some corresponding cost to balance the universe or something whenever life is restored or bestowed through extra-physical means (i.e. magic). JMS could write a mean story, but he could also be a bit of a blowhard.

One thing I loved about Star Trek: Vanguard (the novel series) was that people that were killed stayed dead.

And drunks stayed drunk, and ........

because they would alienate a huge chunk of the potential customers?

I'm not as much a fan if Pine as of Quinto and Urban but kill off any of the big three and I'm OUT.

But that is manifestly NOT what happened.

In TWOK, for starters, the whole character motivation for making the sacrifice is different but, laying that aside...

1. what kirk had to do physically is much different
2. there's no "remember" mysticism
3. the context of the discussion (emotions and dealing with death) is completely different
4. and most importantly...after Spock died, they "buried" him and mulled quietly over the nature of the loss, in this movie their was an enraged cry and a passionate pursuit of the villain AND a dramatic moment for McCoy AND an extended epilogue setting up the future of these characters.

You can argue the latter is weaker, I guess - but you can't sensibly argue they are just the same.

Why bother killing him if you're going to bring him back in the same movie?[/QUOTE]

Because you needed the character development of the arrogant "I cannot fail" cowboy facing his own mortality and the reality of the potential consequences to himself AND his crew of his choices.

Aurora said you can take that whole bit out and the movie wouldn't suffer for it but i passionately disagree. IF the whole movie is about NuKirk becoming THE kirk, then that sequence, or one very much like it, is the most essential scene in the movie.

Now, I believe a fine argument can be made that they ought to have created some entirely different sort of way for kirk to give his life to save his crew - absolutely you can make that case.

But Kirk HAD to chose to give his life for his crew in order for the whole character-line of the film to be completed.

I really don't see how "I'm immortal" cures "I can't fail".

I saw it, I loved it. Most of the "plotholes" did have something to back them up.

Oh yeah, Khan was a total fucking badass!! He took out a freaking battalion of Klingons and made it seem like it was nothing to him.

Pretty unreasonable..

The original Khan was beaten by Kirk with a club.

Yet it manifestly took many of the same notes as TWOK including Spock's bitch-tits rendition of "Kaaaaaaaaahn!" which now rivals Darth Vader's scream from ROTS for biggest facepalm ever. Is this homage? Is this playing the same tune on a different instrument? Either way, it's lazy, it's lame and it could have been done better. As it stands, it feels like fanwank.

You can achieve the same result without having his death.

Hey!!
...don't argue with it.

I think the character of Captain James T. Kirk would "learn" a lot more about character, sacrifice and leadership if the situation had required him to ORDER people to their certain deaths to accomplish a greater good.

Sometimes sacrificing yourself is the easy way out.

Do you even read what you post any more?

He did order Chekhov to put on a red shirt. What more could you ask?

I don't know why YOU read it anymore, everyone, put him on ignore.
Are your lives that boring?

Hmm, after thinking about this a bit more, the Kirk death scene is pretty lame. They could have made it so whether he was dead or not was unknown through the protective glass, but Spock assumed he was dead and the scene played out the rest of the movie the way it did. Khan's blood would fix radiation poisoning. What the death scene does is puts a big emotional moment at the climax of the film and then turns it meaningless. And now it gives this universe a cure for death.

This movie had a lot of easily fixable mistakes and things they overlooked. Analyzing the movie after watching it makes me like it a bit less, and these problems could have been easily avoided with a bit of added dialog.

But that was true of the 2009 movie as well.

when such a pattern of errors is repeated by roughly the same group of creative people you have got to wonder if they are

1) Doing it deliberately

2) Just lazy.

I think the Kirk death scene plays pretty well, really. I think Pine and Quinto both carry the weight dramatically.

And, no, Khan's blood isn't a cure for death, although it is a potential cure for otherwise life-ending diseases and injuries. It's pretty clear that if Kirk isn't put on ice pretty quickly, his brain function will be permanently lost. Will this miracle treatment continue to be used? Probably not. Manufacture your own reason: Khan's on ice and so there's limited supply, 23rd Century bioethics, unseen complications or limitations, etc.

As I said elsewhere, possibly in this thread, the transporter already is that can of worms.

You ought to be able to bring people back to life from the mental and DNA scans from a tricorder sweep run through the thing.

When you cross-reference enough episodes, it's not even an "ought", they can.



How did they resolve it?
They didn't, they just ignore it with their hands in their pockets whistling.

only if you (i.e. Kirk) is a moron who doesn't realize he dodged a bullet via an essentially non-repeatable twist of fate.

"a nearly point-for-point reshoot" != "many of the same notes"

Also, since you mention it, the enraged scream in the original had nothing to do with Spock's death. (to be clear, I could have done without that little "homage" myself)

possibly, maybe, but you need him to THINK he's going to die and choose it anyway...which, ya know, is what actually happened.

they've always had a cure for death in the transporters. At least, any sort of death this blood would fix.

Shep you defend this movie almost as much as you defended the Bush administration. Almost.

Aside from Kirk using, basically, racial slurs against Spock a few times . . .

Absolutely yes.

Kirk with a toothpick and the ship on the line > freaking battalion of Klingons.

Maybe he got it from Jonathan Archer.

You mean the kind of person who would believe they cannot fail in the first place?