I want to preface everything that I say here by first saying that I do enjoy the entertainment value of the JJ-verse Star Trek. I like explosions, gorgeous women, and cowboy & indian gunfights as much as the next person. "Into Darkness" features all this and a conspiracy subplot to give the feel of a well rounded movie. I enjoyed it as an entertaining popcorn film.
I read a quote from Director JJ Abrams in which he described previous iterations of Star Trek as being plagued with "too much philosophy"and that he wasn't really a Star Trek fan. While I once thought that future Skeletor actor Ann Coulter's comments that there were "too many minorities in Star Trek" were off base I couldn't help but be more offended by the fact that a man that accepts the paycheck and the accolades for his work on the films would make such ignorant remarks. Only after I watched "Into Darkness" did I truly understand how he really feels about the project and the Trekkie/Trekker fan base.
I warn you now that I will be heading into spoiler territory to make my point about this film..If you do not want certain "reveals" SPOILED for you do not under any circumstances read any further......
YOU HAVE BEENWARNED*******************************************************************************************************************************
While I found the film to be entertaining I felt that it was too much sizzle and not enough steak. It seems like JJ's go to in this case is to use nostalgia and familiarity with certain characters and concepts to keep people from finding fault with the film. Old Spock, Klingons, Tribbles, and the unfortunately named John Harrison (but we will get to him in a bit) all get added to give the movie an old fashioned feel. JJ's take on Star Trek comes off more to this viewer as Big Budget Fan Fiction rather than a significant contribution to the mythos of the vast and expansive Star Trek universe.
In the interest of full disclosure I am not the biggest Star Trek fan around. I watched reruns of the show and the movies with my Dad in my youth; however, I lost interest in it until JJ's first aptly named "Star Trek" movie came out.
That said "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" is one of my favorite movies (not just Star Trek movies) of all time. It may be an unfair and unrealistic comparison but given the choices that JJ made in the making of "Into Darkness" I find it completely appropriate to compare these films to one another.
"Wrath of Khan" isn't just a movie about a Eugenic-produced ubermench wreaking havoc on Admiral Kirk and the rookie crew of the flagship of Starfleet. It's not just about the life produced by the Genesis project, and it's not just a movie about a bunch of ships shooting one another in space. At it's heart "Wrath of Khan" is about our formerly cocksure Captain facing down his own mortality. It's about friendship. Its about loss and it is most definitely about vengeance. We see the Kobiashi Maru in it's virtual reality form, and then we see it play out tragically when Spock pays the ultimate sacrifice. We learn that "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few". Most of all we learned to cringe when we see the only surviving species of Seti Alpha Five produce it's offspring to coil around Checkov's brainstem.
"Into Darkness" attempts to take all the great parts of "Wrath of Khan" and use them to placate the fans of the series. We learn about midway through the movie that John Harrison is actually Khan Nooien Singh. While there is no previous beef with Kirk he does have quite the issue with Starfleet command and he very quickly visits his vengeance upon them. Add a little intrigue, a little conspiracy, some back stabbing and we quickly get to the climax of the film which sees Kirk make the ultimate sacrifice in an homage to the movie that was so shamelessly picked clean for the purposes of this film.
My issue with what JJ is trying to do is that instead of braving out into new uncharted territory with this alternate timeline he instead chose to tell a generic intrigue story and garnish it with a few tidbits from Star Trek lore. Instead of introducing new concepts or radically different outcomes he decided to try to reinvent the wheel. The wheel that worked perfectly fine the first go round by the way. He could have told the same story with a completely different antagonist instead of attempting to put his own stamp on the Khan character.
I realize that it sounds that I'm dogging the film, but I really was entertained by it. I actually will likely see it again; however, I just wanted to state my issues with this project. I think it will be interesting to see what happens when JJ sets sail over to Disney to take over the Star Wars empire, and someone else steps into the director's chair for the likely third movie in the new Star Trek series.
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