INTO DARKNESS

Okay, here’s the ground rules.

1) Spoilers for STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS. Stop reading if this is an issue.

2) I didn’t like it and am not likely to change my mind if you get in my face about it.

Right. Either you’re still reading or you’re not.

 

So, INTO DARKNESS. Not a very good movie. Not even a very entertaining one. Plenty of spectacle to look at, though. But you know, that’s not always enough.

I guess that I’m never going to like any of the rebooted TREK movies. I’ll live and so will you.

My biggest problem with them (aside from the producers deciding that Kirk really needed to be an ass not not just bold) was the reliance on the whole “Well, this TREK universe is really connected to the original TREK universe because it’s a pocket dimension and see here’s ‘real’ Spock telling you so. That’s cowardly writing right there. I suppose they might have felt obligated to do so, but then it’s all about a character acting as the puppet-string-pulling deus ex machina telling Spock that he has to get with Kirk no matter how much of an asshole he is because that’s how it’s supposed to be.

I could have overlooked it if they’d just let it rest in the first movie and never brought it back again. I could have been persuaded, maybe, that this was a spin-off that was ready to stand on its own two legs. They were a little nervous in the first movie and had to bring the hardcore into the fold. I get that.

But then they doubled-down on it in the second movie. After everyone’s gotten their asses kicked, what does Spock mk 2 do? He calls up Spock mk 1 (the real Nimoy, not McCoy) and uses his lifeline call to see if he’s making the right decision. What the actual fuck? Yep, they did it. They had to remind us that, hey, see, this is the real TREK universe still.

Ugh. If it was a book, I’d have thrown it, but as it was, I was still in the movie theatre having paid for my ticket (and that of the rest of the family).

Then the movie continues and like the remake of WRATH OF KHAN that it really was, the reactor core needed to be rebooted but was leaking radiation and the twist! Kirk, not Spock was going to fix things. Besides, Spock had nearly hung everyone out to dry at the beginning of the movie when he was stuck in the volcano, so having him be the Dude In Peril a second time would just be funny, right?

And Kirk dies.

And miraculously, because he’s made a habit of injecting dead tribbles with the blood stolen from space terrorists, Doctor McCoy figures out that, hey, I’ll just put Cumberkhan’s blood into Kirk and he’ll perk up from his state of “just mostly dead.” Because there was a good reason for him to do that. Just stick some blood in a tribble. It just happened. Miracle blood resurrection.

Then the movie continues, right? Spock chases Khan down through the streets of San Francisco and catches him so the miracle blood can be extracted and Kirk can be saved. Because we need a Kirk in TREK3.

Well, I figured out something that might have actually made the story work.

What if, McCoy doesn’t know about the blood? What if Khan, finally cornered by Spock, realizes that his Miracle Blood is the bargaining chip that gets him out of jail? “Hey, pity about Kirk, but I’ve got the sauce that can get him up and chasing co-eds again. All you have to do is let me go once  the deed is done.”

Now it becomes a dilemma. A choice. Spock actually has to do something rational instead of the rrrrargh KHAN KILL KIRK MUST KILL KHAN thing.

But no. Not gonna happen.

I won’t even get into the myriad of other ways that the movie could have been improved. If you liked it, great, you liked it. There was plenty of stuff to look at, but when the story that’s being serviced is hollow, it’s a little harder for me to get into it.