Follow Up Into Darkness

Or, “Where Some People Take Phil To Task”

Last week, I posted my review of Star Trek Into Darkness, and then I shared it on my personal Facebook account.  That started a whole discussion in the comments, with people agreeing with me and others saying I was completely wrong.

Never let it be said that I won’t listen to criticism.  I will quote some comments with permission and summarize others.  (Again, FULL SPOILERS after the jump.)

1) The character moments — Daniel said, ” I was disappointed at how Phil’s review *completely* ignored Kirk’s development…..  Not to mention that by the end of the film, he and Spock are genuine friends.”

I will grant you that. There were some superb character moments in this film.  But, the first Star Trek movie already did the hotheaded Kirk learns how to be a better person and be in command of a ship.  Sure, there’s room for character improvement, but this was basically the same storyline we had seen.  Ignoring that, though, yes, there are great moments between characters, including Kirk and Spock, and perhaps my review should have touched on that.  However, in my mind, the negative was of more importance to the review than that.

2) Khan’s magical blood —  Daniel also said, “…it makes perfect sense. You have a genetically enhanced human being: super strength, super stamina, super intelligence. Why *wouldn’t* his DNA have other super properties?”  Tim said, “To be fair, nobody ever drew blood from Khan to study its regenerative properties. And really it ties nicely in with Genesis.”

I will grant you that we did not see anybody study Khan’s blood in either The Original Series (TOS) or The Wrath of Khan (TWoK).  Still, we do have evidence of how Khan’s body behaved in those appearances.  If Khan’s blood was so fantastic, why in the hell did he not get better at the end of TWoK?  He seemed to have a damn near fast regeneration time in STID thanks to his blood, which contradicts his enhanced-yet-still-vulnerable appearances in TOS and TWoK.

Taking a tangent on the magic blood line of thought, if we leave out those contradictions, from a pure plot point of view, it is deus ex machina on a wild level. Suddenly, we have this magic blood that can cure death!  And it worked in a Tribble which… probably doesn’t have compatible DNA with a human, but what the hell, let’s do it anyway!

And why did they need Khan’s alive anyway at the end? They had seventy-one other bodies in cold storage.  They even thawed one out to put Kirk in!  Sloppy, sloppy writing.

3) The obvious homage to The Wrath of Khan —  Some people said they could ignore TWoK when watching this film, because it’s an alternate universe.

More power to you, because the writers made sure that you knew exactly what they were doing, so I feel you can’t just arbitrarily not compare the two if the writers are doing it.  The characters may live in an alternate reality; the audience doesn’t.  Using basically the exact dialogue from TWoK means Abrams, Lindelof, Kurtzman and Orci obviously want you to think of TWoK when watching this movie, so they don’t get a free pass by ignoring it.

4) Using someone other than Khan as the villian — Daniel said having Khan’s name gave the villian more weight.

I stand by my opinion that using someone other than Khan would have made for a better movie.  First off, Benedict Cumberbatch doesn’t look at all like Ricardo Montalban, and you can’t blame that on Eric Bana.  When Khan is such a memorable villian because of how he looked and talked, you can’t just make him a Brit.  So.. don’t make him Khan; instead, like I proposed, make him a supersoldier that Starfleet has been working on since the U.S.S. Kelvin was destroyed.  You can even reference Khan by saying that Admiral Marcus was involved in a eugenics program modeled after the process that created Khan in the 20th Century.  Even so, super blood is a bad MacGuffin and lazy writing.

I really, really wanted to love this movie.  I still love the orignal Star Trek, and Into Darkness had a lot of stuff I truly enjoyed.  I still think the acting ensemble does a great job with these iconic roles.  I just wish that there was a better plot and no Khan.