Why I Hated Star Trek: Into Darkness

I will say that I probably should not have gone to this movie. I didn’t like the first reboot in 2009. But my oldest daughter has become a firm Trekkie since then and I wanted to share the movie with her. My general feeling is simply that the movie has become so Hollywoodized that most of the things that originally drew me to Trek were taken out of it. It was dumbed down.

1. Stupid action sequences

The sequence with Spock in the volcano? I felt no sense of suspense because it was just so ridiculous. So deeply stupid. Also the sequence with Kirk and Khan in skin suits shooting through a debris field to the other ship. Hello? Transporters? And the final battle between the two Enterprises—deeply boring to me. No one dies who matters because the franchise can’t allow it. No suspense to me at all.

2. Lack of any interesting idea

To me, the original Khan had some really great scientific ideas at its base. The genesis project was a great one, and so was the idea of Khan and his people. I suppose here we have the idea of Khan and his people, but completely recycled and not added to, but rather stripped back.

3. Stupid female characters

I like Zoe Saltana, and I really wished they had let her scene with the Klingons matter. Here she is, supposed to be brilliant with languages, and she’s got this chance to really show the Klingons who she is. And they blow it. They use it as just another chance to show Kirk and Khan using their fists. Why couldn’t one scene with diplomacy work? And Carol Marcus? She was the most damsel in distress of anyone ever in a Star Trek movie. And why is Christine Chapel missing? It seems so disrespectful to Majel Barrett and Gene Rodenberry.

4. Predictability

Is there anyone on the planet who believed that Kirk would be sent back to Star Fleet Academy? Or that Pike would survive the movie? Is there anyone who didn’t immediately know that the Tribble would survive and provide the solution to Kirk’s death?

5.Tiny details that made no sense

Why would Kirk, Spock, and Carol Marcus discuss a top secret mission on a shuttle where anyone could overhear? How was Kirk able to contact Scott when he had apparently resigned his commission? (Wouldn’t he have turned in his communicator?) Why doesn’t anyone worry about the enemy listening to their comm when they are in Klingon space? Why were Khan’s people in the photon torpedos? This made no sense at all.

6. Fight scenes

How many times did this movie have people using hand-to-hand combat? And when it made no sense at all, because they all had phasers? Is this supposed to please some part of the population that demands hand-to-hand combat for men to be manly? I just did not understand or like this.

7.The “bigger, badder” Enterprise

Um, mine is bigger and badder than yours? Seriously, this was the only new idea in the whole movie, and it was dumb. Was anyone excited by a Starfleet ship that was bigger than the Enterprise and simply had more firepower and speed? Why couldn’t there be something else about the ship that made it cool?

8. Predestination

So the thing that is supposed to be fun about these movies is the idea that it’s a new time line with the same people. We’ve got a chance to do a “retelling,” where you mix up the original elements and make them interesting. But to me, it felt like we were talking about predestination. The world may be completely different, but people will always act the same. In particular, this bothered me with Khan. I thought the whole movie would have been far more interesting if he had ended up a good guy rather than just the same old bad guy as before, with Spock telling Spock to stop him.

I know there were good things about this movie. I liked many of the actual scenes in which the characters were allowed to interact. I think the actors here are wonderful. For instance, I loved the scene where Khan is in the brig and Kirk goes back to talk to him. I loved that manipulation and that Kirk opens himself up to it, not Spock. I also loved the argument between Spock and Uhura in the shuttle down to Klingon. Great, great writing!

Maybe this is just a case of me being too much of an old-school Trekkie, but this felt like Transformers to me. Not even Star Wars, which while it doesn’t pretend to smart science, at least has an interesting mythic base. I don't think this movie has anything other than expensive pyrotechnics and that's just not enough to keep me watching.