Star Trek: Into Darkness

Ben’s Review of Star Trek: Into Darkness

4 years ago JJ Abrahams did me a big favor.  You see I have always been a Star Trek fan and have seen all of them, including the Next Generation movies.  My wife did not share my passion. She’s more of a Sweet Home Alabama person.  It took me two weeks to convince my wife to go see Star Trek but she wife finally agreed to go and I was very worried.  If this movie stunk, I would never hear the end of it and, worse yet, would not be able to choose movies to see for a long time.  The Star Trek franchise had too many movies, too many shows, and with movies. These next generation movies tried very hard to create their own villains and story lines that they lost several fans who simply did not want to get to know someone new.  So enter JJ Abrahams who waited seven years after the last Generations movie and was supposedly going to do a prequel that was following in the footsteps of Star Wars and the Batman Reboot.  Instead, JJ presented an origins story of the characters of Star Trek that was a sequel to the previous movies.  The beauty of Star Trek is it did not require that the viewer know anything about the previous movies or television shows, while at the same time rewarding those diehard fans who were steeped in Trek lore.  The best part of 2009’s Star Trek was that it was cool. The technology was cool, the characters were cool, but most importantly, the story was cool.  Not geeky, not goofy, not severely complicated but cool.    My wife was in and I was able to choose movies going forward.  So, after pulling off this creative and worthwhile reboot of the Star Trek franchise, what would Hollywood want?  A sequel to the sequel of course.

This sequel did not come immediately.  The usual formula is that a sequel comes within two or, at the latest, three years after the original movie.  Also, ever since Star Wars, everything has to be a trilogy. This creates a problem because, like Pirates of the Caribbean or the Matrix movies, the second movie is just one very long and complicated set up for the third movie.  Like Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight Rises, JJ waited four years to write the sequel. The result was Star Trek: Into Darkness.  But are there new ideas to be had?  Would the Abrahams formula sputter out?  Could the sequel possibly compare to the original… well… sequel?  Is the almost $16 IMAX 3D ticket price worth it?

Into Darkness, finds Captain Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Scotty, Checkov, and Sulu doing what they do best which is trying to pull off an impossible mission under impossible circumstances.  The assignment is to stop a Volcano from killing a planet without letting the indigenous people know what was happening.  The crew of the enterprise stops the volcano but not before revealing the Enterprise to the indigenous people during the process of saving Spock’s life.  Spock, claiming he cannot lie because of his Vulcan heritage, submits a report detailing the event and as a result Kirk is demoted to first mate and Spock is reassigned to another ship.  Meanwhile a mysterious figure helps a member of Star fleet cure his child’s sickness but in return this Star Fleet member commits an act of terrorism against the federation.  Kirk is given back commission of the Enterprise with the sole mission of chasing the down the mysterious figure onto the volatile Klingon planet of Kronos and killing this person without the Klingons finding out. When arriving at the Klingon planet not everything is what it seems and the mysterious figure holds a secret that may completely change the face of the federation.  So what was this mission successful or a waste of $33 at the movies?

Go see this movie now!!!  JJ Abrahams’ background is not in Sci Fi movies.  He was most famous for writing and directing the television show Felicity and the Harrison Ford sob fest Regarding Henry.  He ventured into the action genre with television shows like Alias and his take and Mission Impossible III.  What this gives the viewer is a person who is much more interested in the characters and the story then whether the phasers have the right triggers or Enterprise deck has the correct scanners.  This movie, once again, is smartly written, well performed, and only requires that the viewer has seen the previously film.  Oh, and if you are a lifelong fan, you are once again rewarding by recalls to previous Trek references but in a very believable presentation.  This movie is over two hours but it moves along at a lightning quick pace and is full enough action, comedy, scifi, decent acting and PLOT to make this work.  This movie stands on its own and is not one big set up for a third movie, although a third, fourth, or fifth would be welcomed. All movies should have this level of care put into them.  Go see this movie in an IMAX 3D theatre.  Well worth it.

I give this movie 5 Tribbles out of 5.   

Elisa’s Review of “Star Trek Into Darkness”

Until the release of the 2009 reboot of the Star Trek movie franchise, I hated everything Star Trek: the endless TV shows, the movies, the ships, Khan, Klingons, Deep Space, everything about the Star Trek franchise just seemed too complicated for me. Mostly, I hated Star Trek because it was not Star Wars. I understood how “Star Wars” worked, but “Star Trek” was just a weird show without Harrison Ford or Muppets.  Even though so much of Star Trek is a huge part of pop culture, I was intimated.  After a huge protesting fit to the Husband’s request to watch the new 2009 Star Trek movie, I was turned.  While not a Trekkie, I was sucked into the madness.

We watched the movie on a Saturday afternoon, hoping to avoid the sugared-up children and obnoxious teenagers that liter comic book movies.  We paid the premium to watch the movie in IMAX 3D. It was totally worth the $16 per person ticket: no one pays $16 a ticket to hear their child scream during the movie, and the special effects “were totally awesome.” The movie was action-packed and had a great story line that will show well in regular theaters and flat-screen 60-inch televisions, but the experience of watching the incredible graphics, and feeling the sound, is what a theater-movie-experience is all about.  The opening scenes may have been made just to convince the audience the ticket price was money well-spent.

Apart from cosmic explosions and panicked-teleporting, the writing of the movie captures the essence of the beloved characters and their reincarnation through Chris Pines (Captain Kirk), Zoe Saldana (Uhura), and Zachary Quinn as Spock keep the hard-core Trekkies happy while hooking a new generation of fans. I am holding back from writing a play-by-play of the plot, for a few reasons. First, I really do not know enough about traveling into Space, beaming-up, and physics to adequately describe what happened during the film. Second, there is a big reveal during the movie that is a pretty big deal, and I do not want to blow it in this review. While I do not feel ‘Tekkie’ enough to properly discuss the plot in Sci-Fi terms, ultimately, the movie is about the relationships of these characters that are more than 30 years old, their interactions, nuances and dedication to their peaceful “mission to explore strange new worlds.” Whether you know enough to laugh with Doctor/Bones McCoy when exclaims “Dammit I’m a doctor,” or you have no idea what that means, but you recognize the trumpet fanfare introduction of the theme song, as Captain Kirk gives the purpose of the USS Enterprise, you will find something to connect to the Star Trek contribution to Americana.