Well, I finally saw STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS. I missed it when it was in theaters this past summer so I decided to wait and see it when it came out on Blu-Ray. Now I won’t get into the latest brouhaha over the disc’s paltry extras and how many (myself included) feel that this marketing strategy by Paramount just might rank up there with the Edsel and New Coke-no, this is about the actual film itself. I enjoyed it. Now, I realize that, to a lot of people in the STAR TREK universe, what I typed above is the equivalent of saying that Hitler had some good ideas or Ted Bundy was misunderstood or that I just signed the order to have all copies of the Bible burned and purged from people’s memories. To those people I have this as a reply: STAR TREK V. At a recent ST con, a poll was taken of the attendees and STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS was chosen as the all-time worst of the ST films. You heard that right-it is considered the worst of ALL THE STAR TREK MOVIES. Now I am not one of the acolytes of Gene Roddenberry’s legacy and I probably should describe myself thusly: I only saw some fleeting glimpses of the original series when it originally aired (the best remembered being “Spock’s Brain” [I know]); I caught up with some episodes when the show went into syndication and enjoyed what I saw but I did not get as caught up in this as I was with STAR WARS in the beginning; I was really looking forward to the first film when it came out and was totally captivated by pretty much all of it (and still am, although I thought then and, to a lesser degree still think that Shatner had some of the worst line readings in movie history: “Bones-I need you! BADLY!”); saw all the rest of the films with both the original cast and the TNG cast on opening day; and only missed opening days for J. J. Abrams reboot and this new one due to circumstances beyond my control, the death of my mother the main reason for not seeing the 2009 film for a month. I do love a good sci-fi story well told and well produced, and for the most part all of the ST series and films have pretty much satisfied my wants and needs. The idea of mankind having a future out there in space is still a pretty cool idea, and compared to much of the pessimism and angst present in so much speculative fiction both on the printed page and in visual media these days, Roddenberry’s idealism and optimism is a pretty wonderful thing, and I can understand the devotion that so many have to what he charted out and nurtured over 40 years ago. Except in this case-THE WORST OF THE FILMS? Really? Seriously? Nope, nope, nope, nope, nope and nope. I guess this is the movie that had Spock do some goofy turn in gravity boots and spooking Kirk while he free climbed El Capitan. Oops-my mistake-that was STAR TREK V. Maybe this was the movie that had Kirk, Spock and McCoy singing “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” around a campfire, proving that those recordings that Shatner and Nimoy made were pretty good after all…oh, dopey me, that was also STAR TREK V (They also sing the song again at the end-a reprise of sorts-nice). I got it-this is the film where Scotty turns and walks right into a bulkhead on the ship he knows better than the back of his hand and that he loves more than life itself and everyone watching went “Wha? Oh…that’s right-STAR TREK V, again. A pattern seems to be forming…well, this certainly is the film where Uhura does a fan dance to distract some people so that Kirk and his men can accomplish a mission while the audience buries their face in their hands or slides down in their seats because they can’t believe what Nichelle Nichols was talked into doing. What was that? V again? No! OK-last chance…this has to be the movie where the Enterprise, in an attempt to find some phantom planet that will be impossible to reach due to a barrier in space that looks impenetrable, manages to smash through that barrier…like someone opening a door and stepping into a hallway immediately…right? No? V…again? Dammit! So-all the above took place NOT in STID (easier than typing it a lot) but a film that came out in 1989, got the worst reviews of all the ST films that I have read (it also has the lowest rating of all the films by Leonard Maltin-**, admittedly not a fan of the series but that does stand out), abruptly reversed the financial windfall of the fourth film, which until the 2009 film was the most financially successful of all the ST films, even taking into account ticket price inflation, and even caused one of the featured actors in it-David Warner-to remark to me when I asked him about it after the 6th film came out: “Oh, please-I would rather talk about the GOOD STAR TREK film I was in.” Now let me say this-STID is not, in my opinion, a great ST film-not comparable with WRATH OF KHAN, THE VOYAGE HOME, THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY, FIRST CONTACT or even THE MOTION PICTURE. Some things from a story angle were really hard to swallow- SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!! SPOILER ALERT!! -how does a pitched battle between two Federation starships over Earth not get seen by the Federation or even people on the ground without some form of intervention? -for someone with the last name of Khan, whom we have been told in previous incarnations was from India, Benedict Cumberbatch looks rather pasty and pale for someone from that area (although I do not recall any mention of his heritage in this film, so that might get a pass) -how does a ship in the vacuum of space not totally implode when a bunch of explosives go off? This happens more than once in the film, and how does a massive ship, crashing towards Earth, not cause more destruction as it tears into a huge city than what appears in this film? -exactly why does the Carol Marcus character have a shot where we (and Kirk) see her in her underwear? There might be some other minor quibbles but I cannot remember them at this time. Much griping and grousing has been made of the reversing of the roles Kirk and Spock play in the big emotional scene toward the end. I found myself trying not to wince when I head some familiar lines from WRATH OF KHAN, but I felt that there were not too many to make me feel like they lifted the entire scene line-for-line from it, and Zachary Quinto’s reading of the ‘KHAAANNN!” line easily eclipsed Shatner’s faux apoplexy in WOK. The only problem I had with the scene is that this Kirk and Spock are not as emotionally invested in each other as with the other cast, so the feelings that are expressed felt a bit forced to me. But getting back to my original point-there is no way that this film is worse than Shatner’s misfire. For one thing, the characters in V that we know and love do things that just make no sense when you compare how they were in the series and the films before and the one after. Seriously-making Spock and Scotty comic relief? I am surprised that Leonard Nimoy and James Doohan did not walk away from this film when they saw what was being done to their characters or request serious rewrites (I can understand now why Doohan had little nice to say about Shatner in later years) as well as Nichelle Nichols, who has a lovely voice but…a fan dance? Secondly, the idea of the ST crew either going to find God (or some higher power) or running across someone in their travels who thinks they are A or The God is not new-the TOS episode “Who Mourns For Adaonis?” comes to mind, but if you tell the audience that to reach someplace where “God” is supposed to be, you will be taking a great risk getting there, then don’t begin the journey and almost in the blink of an eye-you are there! If there was a reason to have something like the V’ger flyover from TMP reprised and perhaps jazzed up a bit, this plot point cried out for it. Having the characters see their own lives flashing before their eyes and what they hope to achieve when they would actually meet God would have been an interesting visual as their ship travelled to their destination, and having Kirk ask “What does God need with a starship?” pretty much negated what the whole reason for going was about-if God is so all-powerful, using a starship to get somewhere would seem awfully slow to me. My main complaint about STID is this: why do a remake of what many consider the best film of the franchise instead of just sending the crew out on the 5-year mission? After all is said and done, this film is pretty much a time-filler until the crew actually sets out exploring those “new worlds and civilizations,” which looks like what they were doing at the beginning of the film anyway. Maybe Abrams and his crew felt they needed to clear the decks of everything and make sure this new crew was firmly set in the public’s mind before doing so, but to me and I would think to many, the 2009 film, in giving us an alternative timeline pretty much did this. Whether the filmmakers felt that they had to make this film in order to lay new groundwork (the RAIDER OF THE LOST ARK/Khan shot feels like both an homage and a rip-off and an elbow to the ribs-I guess we’ll see him again, cripes) is beyond me, yet I did not feel like this was a vanity project like STV was. I found the story compelling, many of the visual effects shots really cool (I love the vapor trail when the Enterprise goes to warp and the shot of the ship dropping and dropping then hitting the clouds and finally rising up through them just gorgeous), the actors filling the shoes of the characters in most respects (Urban, Pegg, Cho and Quinto are really growing on me; Pine, Saldana and Yelchin..we’ll see), and a real sense of a futuristic Earth that we only got glimpses of in the other incarnations. What I find so fascinating about the people who do not like this film, and again-I also think it has faults, is the vehemence against it. The way I have seen some people rail against it you would think that Abrams had made a minstrel show onboard the Enterprise (calling McCoy “Bones” seems apt for that) or that all previous ST TV series and films and anything connected to them would now be taken to a big bonfire on the Paramount lot and incinerated and all who loved them would be lobotomized or sent to camps run by Michael Bay. Folks, that ain’t gonna happen. Everyone who loves STAR TREK has had at least a few moments when they thought the franchise was dead: when the original series went off the air, when the new TV network that was supposed to have a new series as the cornerstone didn’t work out, when the first film came out, when V came out, when the original cast made the sixth film, when TNG had a sputtering first season, when DEEP SPACE NINE came out and many thought it perverted Roddenberry’s vision, when NEMESIS came out and did badly, when ENTERPRISE first aired and when it last aired, when Abrams made the 2009 film, when Abrams made this film….kee-ripes! The great thing about STAR TREK is its resiliency-it has gone through so many iterations, deaths, rebirths, and resurrections as to make Jason Voorhees seem like a piker. You know, I remember when people were begging George Lucas to make more STAR WARS movies-they did that for so many years that it seemed whenever he blew his nose there was speculation that a new film was in the offing. Then, when he did make his next three films the fans turned out in droves but those same people also hated a lot of those films (even if they saw them over and over in a theater then at home) with a passion-because they weren’t the STAR WARS films they wanted. Now George Lucas is vilified for those three films and so many complain of how he ruined the franchise-hey guys, it was his franchise and he could do what he wanted with them… So J. J. Abrams didn’t make the STAR TREK movie everyone wanted-hey, he could have made it a burlesque show but he didn’t; he could have made it with everyone just sitting in a room around a table talking about what they would do but he didn’t; he could have had Kirk and Spock doing their own version of BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN but he didn’t. He made his own STAR TREK movie because the first one did well and that is what the studio wanted, so they had him make another one. This isn’t Uwe Böll, or Michael Bay, or McG or even Alan Smithee-this is someone who has made many things that people love and are as devoted to almost as much as STAR TREK. The way things are going with the entertainment business-which is exactly that, a business-and how those in the offices either base their decisions solely on what the public wants (another RESIDENT EVIL movie?) or face a hue and cry when the public doesn’t get what they want (a White House petition about Ben Affleck as Batman-God…), is it any wonder that we either keep getting sequels or recycled stuff and then people complain about it? This franchise will survive and-I hope-be going long after all the original “Trekkers” are long gone and are buried in their photon torpedo tubes. As William Shatner put it-get a life.
Posted on: Thu, 12 Sep 2013 23:58:29 +0000
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