Ok, I was avoiding this thread for the last few weeks and I finally have a few minutes to knock out a post about Into Darkness.
Spoilers Within I'm just putting everything inside tags to be safe.
Spoilers Within I'm just putting everything inside tags to be safe.
My initial impression is that Into Darkness was a good, fun sci-fi movie, but the more I think about it, the less I like it. If it was anything but a Trek film, I would have probably loved the film, but I think that Into Darkness was far too much Space Marines and not nearly enough "Trek". To me Trek has always been about exploring the nature of humanity, society, and what might be possible for human growth. I just didn't get that from Into Darkness, there was only one line of dialog at the end that had anything to do with any type of social commentary. Star Trek: TOS was groundbreaking in it's portrayal of women, women of color, interracial relationships and even religion; in Into Darkness the leadership of Starfleet was all old white men - not one woman, not one person of a different ethnicity. It felt very un-Trek to me. There were no strong female characters; we went from Uhura being the only woman to stand up to Kirk's charms to her being Spock's arm-candy and little more than a plot device to humanize him. Dr. Marcus was a completely flat character with no purpose except to be a damsel-in-distress (and not even a very good one). Dr. Marcus in Wrath of Khan was at least clever, resourceful, and stood up to Kirk; this Dr. Marcus is a flat, vapid, weak character who is apparently cast only for her ability to look good in her underwear.
Then there is the portrayal of Spock. I don't know if it's Chris Pine being a mediocre actor or Zachary Quinto being a really good one, but Spock is the strongest character in the film, and also the most emotional. It seems like JJ Abrams is getting far too attached to Spock losing control. Nimoy's strength in the portrayal of Spock was in the subtlety, the minor jabs at MacCoy, the hint of a smile, the slight change in inflection, that let you know he wasn't a robot. Quinto's Spock needs to go through an Anger Management class and possibly be medicated; the guy gets more angry, more frequently than any other character.
There are also a number of glaring plot holes, the biggest one is the fact that they detonated 72 torpedoes inside the secondary hull of the Vengeance and not only is the ship not an expanding cloud of dust, but it was quickly made maneuverable again by a single person. Those torpedoes might as well be party poppers for all the good they did. Then there's the fact that a super-secret Section 31 facility gets blown up by a defrosted super-soldier and the first thing Starfleet does is gather all the leadership together into a building with floor-to-ceiling windows in unregulated airspace after they know Khan stole a gunship. Seriously guys, get yourselves a situation room, or meet in the Admiral's basement or something. Finally, why are you flying your flagship to the Klingon homeworld? Why not just use Scotty's transwarp beaming equation to beam him back, or beam an armed warhead to his location set to detonate one second after arrival? Instead they use this Rube Goldberg reasoning to fly Enterprise past the border, past any patrol pickets, and park it in orbit around the homeworld without being noticed. This doesn't give me much faith in the Klingon reputation for being mighty warriors when they can't even see an enemy ship in orbit over Kronos.
Then there is the portrayal of Spock. I don't know if it's Chris Pine being a mediocre actor or Zachary Quinto being a really good one, but Spock is the strongest character in the film, and also the most emotional. It seems like JJ Abrams is getting far too attached to Spock losing control. Nimoy's strength in the portrayal of Spock was in the subtlety, the minor jabs at MacCoy, the hint of a smile, the slight change in inflection, that let you know he wasn't a robot. Quinto's Spock needs to go through an Anger Management class and possibly be medicated; the guy gets more angry, more frequently than any other character.
There are also a number of glaring plot holes, the biggest one is the fact that they detonated 72 torpedoes inside the secondary hull of the Vengeance and not only is the ship not an expanding cloud of dust, but it was quickly made maneuverable again by a single person. Those torpedoes might as well be party poppers for all the good they did. Then there's the fact that a super-secret Section 31 facility gets blown up by a defrosted super-soldier and the first thing Starfleet does is gather all the leadership together into a building with floor-to-ceiling windows in unregulated airspace after they know Khan stole a gunship. Seriously guys, get yourselves a situation room, or meet in the Admiral's basement or something. Finally, why are you flying your flagship to the Klingon homeworld? Why not just use Scotty's transwarp beaming equation to beam him back, or beam an armed warhead to his location set to detonate one second after arrival? Instead they use this Rube Goldberg reasoning to fly Enterprise past the border, past any patrol pickets, and park it in orbit around the homeworld without being noticed. This doesn't give me much faith in the Klingon reputation for being mighty warriors when they can't even see an enemy ship in orbit over Kronos.