Star Trek Into Darkness: A Review

I have said many times that Star Trek has always belonged on TV, and is at its best in that format. There have been twelve Star Trek films now and three of them have been really good, and the rest have ranged from good to okay to really bad. On TV Star Trek can be about exploring new worlds, but apparently the movies have to be about fighting some sort of super powered spaceship. And that's the real problem with the Star Trek films; they are stale and boring. The first six Star Trek films were all mostly trying to do different things, some succeeded and some failed but they all tried. But at some point they all became a bunch of action movies that tried desperately to be Wrath of Khan. The last five films have had revenge as the primary motivator of either the antagonist or protagonist. The last three films have not only been about revenge, but have also had basically the same plot.

Star Trek Into Darkness has the same plot as Star Trek: Nemesis and a very similar one to Star Trek (2009). All three movies are about some guy with a massive ship threatening the federation. The Federation sends only the Enterprise because that's what the plot needs, and the Enterprise engages the big ship. The villain leaves the Enterprise to go destroy the Earth, the Enterprise chases it down and at the very end manages to destroy the big ship. All three movies have essentially the same plot, just with different jokes, and a different British guy playing the villain. Could we please have a new movie now? Could you please stop repackaging the same boring plot over and over again?

The Scimitar...  I mean the Narada... Um... The Vengeance! That's it. 

Before I start talking about this film directly I'm just going to say what I did like about it since I have a lot more complaints than compliments, and once I start going on about it's flaws I will probably forget to mention its positive aspects. I thought the Enterprise crew were considerably better than last time around, and they mostly all had their chance to shine. McCoy was as good as he was last time, and most of the others were improved. Scotty was funny without being too over the top, and Kirk and Spock both seemed much closer to their original counterparts. I also thought the humour was pretty good this time around. In the last film the humour was campy, annoying, and distracting, but here it seemed much more natural and just fit into the film better. The special effects were good of course but I kind of wish they weren't. If they had a lower budget then maybe they would try to write better scripts since they would be less concerned about attracting everyone to see it.

Star Trek Into Darkness starts with a terrorist attacking the Federation and then running off to Qo'nos (spelt Kronos for some reason) by using a magic teleporter. Why he chose to go to the Klingon home world is never explained in any way, but get used to that since the writers preferred to not even pretend to explain all the stuff that happens. Kirk is given 72 torpedoes by the federation so he can fire on Qo'nos, which Kirk doesn't seem to think is weird at all. Eventually Kirk is persuaded by Spock to capture the terrorist rather than kill him. He captures him only to discover the "shocking" twist that I am now going to reveal so that I can rant about it. If you want to not be spoiled than please read no more.

There are two villains in this film. One of them is Khan and the other is Admiral Marcus. It turns out that Admiral Marcus decided to wake up Khan early so that he can help him build a massive ship in order to attack the Klingon Empire. This whole massive ship plot seems to have become a Trek staple so of course they had to have one. The ship is huge, can go to warp nine, and has massive weapons. It can also be piloted by one person, and they explain that these are attributes they only put in warships since there is no reason an exploratory vessel would need to go fast, or be piloted by one person. The real problem I have is that there is no explanation for how the Federation could have made a ship this powerful, and there is absolutely no reason they wouldn't start using it in all their ships. But this movie does not believe in explaining things but rather they just put stuff in because they think its cool.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan

So I'm going to rant about Khan for awhile now since it seems as good a spot as any. There is no reason to think this guy is Khan Noonien Singh other than that the movie tells us to. First of all he's very clearly English. Yes, I get that Ricardo Montalban was a Spaniard playing an Indian but I missed the bit where people being racist in the past made it okay to be even more racist now. Khan Noonien Singh was an genetically engineered Indian Sikh, but this movie casts an English guy with no explanation whatsoever. And the reboot excuse does not work since the previous film made it very clear that this was not a reboot but rather an altered timeline that veers off directly at Kirk's birth, meaning that a man born in the 1990s should be no different in any way.

Ricardo Montalban as Khan

The other excuse for this casting is that Benedict Cumberbatch was so good that they decided to go with the best actor rather than the correct race. There is obviously the problem that is clearly silly since there are many Indian men who are equally good at acting to Cumberbatch, but let's ignore that so that I can talk about Cumberbatch's performance. I know that it is a crime to ever criticize Cumberbatch these days but I honestly thought he was pretty bad. Cumberbatch has great stage presence and always seems very intimidating but that's about all he brought to the role. He had no emotional range at all, he had no depth, and he over enunciated every syllable so much that sometimes I wondered what was going on with his face. At one point his character cries but he had showed so little emotion at all that it seemed almost laughable to see a tear fall down his cheek. I honestly do not see what every one saw in his performance, I thought it was easily the worst in the movie. When Montalban played Khan he clearly showed a depth and sophistication  as well as a clear intelligence and charisma, with an anger and pride hidden behind his more friendly charade. Cumberbatch's Khan was really strong, and seemed angry all the time, but that was about it.

Ricardo Montalban as old Khan.

I also didn't get why they changed him so much. Khan used to be very strong and very smart, but here he heals, is super strong and has magic blood. In Original Star Trek, Khan desired to rule over all people, he was described as an Alexander or a Napoleon. He was a cruel dictator but he was not insane. In this movie Khan apparently desires to stamp out all life that he considers inferior to himself. In original Star Trek, Khan is described in the following way:

Kirk: They were hardly supermen. They were aggressive, arrogant. They began to battle amongst themselves.
Spock: Because the scientists overlooked one fact: superior abilities breed superior ambition.
Kirk: Interesting, if true. They created a group of Alexanders, Napoleons...

Superior ambition. Not a desire to wipe out all inferior life, but rather a desire to rule it. Why change it? Why is Khan now a Hitler rather than an Alexander? The only reason I can come up with is that they thought it would be cool.

The main writing style for this movie seemed to be that they would try to come up with stuff that they thought was cool and shove it randomly in the movie.  Qo'nos is shown at one point with an exploded moon? Why would its moon have exploded 30-40 years early? Because they thought it looked cool. Why do the Klingons look different again? Because they thought it would be cool. Why is there a super powerful ship? Because they wanted there to be one. Why does Carol Marcus take off her clothes in one scene? To please their predominately male audience. Why is the Enterprise under water? Because it looks cool. Nothing in this movie is explained properly because there never was a reason for anything. The majority of events in this film were simply done for the sake of doing them, without even pretending to have a reason. The whole film was just a series of action sequences and cool explosions with no thought behind it.

Klingons have pointy ears now for some reason.

I'm trying to finish up here but it would be wrong not to briefly talk about the end. I will spoil it since it would be difficult to discuss it without doing so. Kirk dies in the same exact way that Spock dies in Wrath of Khan. They even include most of the same lines that are in Wrath of Khan. There is a thin line between homage and direct rip off and in my opinion this crosses it. Its not their own writing, its sloppily inserted and it has little reason to be in the movie. Kirk is then resurrected five minutes later with pretty much no reaction from anyone. And how do they resurrected Kirk? By using Khan's blood. Apparently Khan's blood can raise the dead. So there had better be a reason in the next film for why Star Fleet does not have warp nine capabilities, Starships that can be manned by one person, and the secret to immortality. Because there is no way people would find a way to resurrect their officers and not start to immediately synthesize and mass produce it.

What I would have done if I had to do a film adaptation of Space Seed, is actually adapt Space Seed. I would have had the Enterprise encounter the Botany Bay floating in space and bring the leader of the cryogenically frozen crew aboard. I would have them at first think maybe Khan could be trusted and then have Khan turn against the crew and take over the ship. I wouldn't do the terrorism angle, or the massive conspiracy plot. But what I would rather them do is neither. Why reuse plots that already worked? All I ask of them is that they try to write their own stuff. Come up with your own ideas and create your own stories. Use Kirk and crew but don't have them flying through a series of the greatest hits of Star Trek.
I have been told many times that if I want more Star Trek then this is the only way I can have it. People say constantly that the franchise would be dead if it wasn't for these movies. But the truth is that this movie was dumb, sloppy, and stale. And people should feel insulted that this is apparently the only way everyone will like Star Trek. If its this or nothing then I would gladly take nothing.

The Other Q Source Hypothesis: A Different Interpretation of Star Trek

Nest week the new Star Trek film will be released, and even though I do not have high hopes for it I still feel an odd excitement. This shows that all you have to do to interest me in a movie is throw the name of a franchise I like on the cover, since these Star Trek movies don't really share a lot in common with Star Trek other than the character names. But since this movie is coming out next week I have decided to do Star Trek themed posts in honour of it (Judging by how often I post, this will probably be the only one). I would like do one before the movie comes out, explaining my problem with the portrayal of James T. Kirk in the new film but who knows if I will get to that. I may also do a review of Star Trek Into Darkness after I see it. So the next while may only be Star Trek posts, but this is my blog and I can obsess over Star Trek for a couple weeks if I want to. But none of this is certain to happen, so we shall see.

The Enterprise represents the current state of the Star Trek  franchise.

If there is one thing that people universally respect and admire it is fan theories. And so I give to you my only "fan theory" or at least the one I have put the most thought into. I call it the Q Source Hypothesis¹ because I think I am funny, but unfortunately that may only be a delusion. The hypothesis itself originates from a scene in Star Trek: Enterprise² which closely mirrors the final scene in the movie Star Trek: First Contact. Basically what happens is that humanity is greeted by Vulcans and instead of reciprocating the greeting they shoot all the Vulcans and rob their ship. This of course turns out to have happened in the Mirror Universe, which is a alternate universe in Star Trek in which everyone is a jerk.

So lets forget about the whole Mirror Universe thing for a second and instead go to Star Trek: The Next Generation. In the very first episode, the Enterprise encounters a being who claims to be omnipotent. He is referred to as Q. He also claims that humanity is a dangerous savage child race. This is very offensive to the Enterprise crew since if there is one thing that the Next Generation characters are sure of it is their general superiority over everyone else. So they explain that humanity is good and progressively getting better. Q drags them off to a barbaric trial from the dark ages in Earth's 21st Century. They are given a chance to prove that they are better than they appear and Q lets them go. After this Q appears in two distinct modes; he sometimes comes to the ship as a trickster and other times as a teacher.³ For the sake of this interpretation, I will maintain that even when he was being a trickster he was actually testing the crew. In his second appearance, for example, he offers Riker a chance to become a Q. Eventually Riker turns him down when he realizes that his powers are already corrupting him. One could interpret this as Q actually inviting him to become a Q, but I think it makes more sense to see it as Q testing his resolve and convictions in the face of absolute temptation.

"Judge Q, to you."

The next time Q appears it is to introduce them to the Borg. The Borg are made up of many alien species who have been made into cybernetic organisms and seek to add all technological and biological distinctiveness to their own. They seek out anything that they think will make them stronger and add it to their collective. The Enterprise escapes the Borg without much trouble but later runs into them again when they invade Federation space. This time Picard is briefly assimilated by them and while he does get restored back to his former self, it is not without a certain amount of emotional damage.⁴ I'm now going to skip to Q's final appearance on the show in which he tests Picard by sending him backwards and forwards through time so he can fix an anomaly before it prevents life in the universe from coming into existence. This isn't too important except for the way that Q's test's penalty is the destruction of the universe.

Alright, I am almost done here. This now brings us to Star Trek: First Contact in which Picard chases the Borg back in time to prevent them from destroying the human race. Once there they send Riker to help Zefram Cochrane bring a ship to warp speed. While there Riker teaches him about all those wonderful Federation values.

Locutus of Borg: For some reason a hive mind with no concept of
individuality still thought Borg Picard needed a name.

Which brings us to the whole point of this post. My theory is that the Star Trek universe is not the prime universe but rather the Mirror Universe is. The Mirror Universe is the natural progression of events from where we are today, but Q was unhappy with the way the Galaxy was so he created a Utopian pocket universe. Then he introduced himself to his creation and challenged their right to exist. Q needed to know that the Utopia he created was as good as he thought it was and so he did it by choosing a ship of people and tormenting them. First he tempted Riker to ensure that he could change Zefram Cochrane into a man who wouldn't murder Vulcans, and then he introduced Picard to the Borg so that he would become obsessed with them. By doing so he set up the events that would eventually lead to Star Trek: First Contact. But first he still needed to be certain, so he created a final test for Picard that if failed could destroy the universe he created. Picard passes the test meaning that Q is now ready to allow the universe he created to cause its own creation, as circular as that may be. The Borg invade Federation Space and Picard chases them backwards in time, in which they meet Zephram Cochrane and help him to become a better person thus leading to the creation of the Star Trek Universe itself.

Only through divine intervention could this man create a Utopia.

The truth is that the Star Trek Universe is somewhat silly. At some point humanity became so great that they no longer had poverty, greed, or crime, and had no need for primitive things like currency. I maintain that this could not come about naturally and could only exist through some form of intervention. In conclusion, the Star Trek Universe only came into existence because Q wanted it to.

1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_source
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z9TdvN07ZWI
3.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kBwoEXlTph0
4. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LuzoxcErOc8

One Star: A Culture of Negativity

What I have often noticed about myself is that I do not always understand the reasons for the things I do. I have recently taken up reviewing every book I read and posting those reviews on goodreads. At the time I only did this because I felt like it, but over time I realized the reasons I kept reviewing books. The first reason is that by keeping track of every book I read I am actually forced to finish every book I read (or at least most of them). I usually have a terrible habit of getting distracted and stopping to read books before I am done. The second reason was that by taking the time to review a book I actually force myself to think about the book, and to consider both the good and bad aspects of it. This actually forces me to consider the themes contained in the book, but also to consider whether a book I hated had good qualities.

Often through this reviewing process I will be forced to change the star rating I had expected to give the book. Goodreads works on the regular five star scale with one star being labelled as "hated it", and five stars as "loved it". I reviewed a book recently and had every intention of giving it two stars but by the time I was done I realized that it was a three star book (and the reverse has happened as well). I have also recently started to read other people's reviews on goodreads and I have noticed something that I think is very unfortunate. People seem to rate books one or five stars more than any other amount. I noticed this phenomenon at first when I was reading a one star review that only really said positive things about the book. So I did the only logical thing a person could do in this situation; I looked at the reviewer's account and proceeded to read all of their reviews. The reviewer had given every single thing they reviewed either one star or five stars, meaning that if they liked a book they would give it five stars and if they didn't they would give it one. Then I noticed that this is an incredibly common trend on goodreads, chapters, imdb, and any site where people can rate things. I have dubbed this the "one star/five star phenomenon" because naming things is clearly my strength.

What I think is happening with these reviews is that people see something in a book that they do not like and therefore invalidates the rest of the work. So lets say that I were to read a book and I loved the first four hundred pages of that book, but then I got to page four hundred and one and hated the events that took place on that page. This should lead me to lowering my rating of this book because I would not give a book five stars if I hated the conclusion. But I would be crazy to think that that should mean that the book is only worth one star since I really did enjoy four hundred pages of that four hundred and one page book. So why is it that so many people will let a flaw absolutely destroy an entire work for them? I think it comes from that lack of objectivity that lets them give a book that they thought had obvious flaws five stars, but it also comes from a judgemental attitude that I think will inevitably permeate to other aspects of life.  If I start a book loving it, but don't love the ending then I may feel betrayed or even angry towards that book. My initial impressions were clearly deceptions from that nefarious author! I would possibly get so mad that I would want that book to be punished for deceiving me so, or even to cut that book out of my life entirely. Or maybe I meet a book and I don't like that book already but I read it anyway and as I read it I look for anything that will confirm my pre-established hatred of this book. In either case I then angrily go onto the internet and give it one star, and then I write a bunch of good stuff about it so people will see how silly I am. I am not saying it is wrong to give a book one or five stars, but I am saying that you are ridiculous if you only give books one or five stars.

I think its become fairly obvious at this juncture that I am suggesting that the way we treat books is the same way we treat people. Our attitudes often extend to all parts of our lives and what is the prevalent attitude of people on the internet?  Blogs and Vlogs both seem to commonly be dedicated to pointing out why things suck, comments sections are notorious for being abusive, angry places dedicated to trashing whatever is being commented on, and facebook conversations devolve into ad homonyms incredibly quickly. I think that we look at people as walking merchandise that we are dying to review and give that dreaded one star to. I'm not saying everyone on the internet is angry and mean but I do think it has become a culture that views judgement and superiority as the chief virtues and compassion and understanding as outdated sentiments. I am sure that the people who act this way are probably a minority and that they themselves may have many positive qualities that just do not become apparent in this medium, but I am concerned about a world where we get so angry over media that we don't like. I am also concerned about how we treat those who disagree with us. Chiefly, I am concerned that we will be willing to view people as wretched simply because we didn't like one aspect of them.

Ashamed of the Gospel: A Confession

             I recently found out one of my coworkers was a Christian. Its not a very big deal really except that she seemed to be fairly surprised that I was. I started noticing little things afterwards such as the Wednesday night group she had was now the Wednesday night bible study. And this made me wonder whether I act in such a way that suggests I am not a Christian. What I think it is more is that Christians in general have a habit of assuming everyone around them is not a Christian. But we do not react by trying to talk to these people, learn their beliefs, and explain our own. Instead we just don’t mention it and try to avoid it. We act as though Christians are still fed to lions. The question is what makes us so afraid of admitting our faith? For me I think it is embarrassment or even shame.
           
             If its shame than what is it shame of? It is not shame of Christianity itself, at least not directly. But I’m not convinced that matters. No matter how innocent and just one’s reasons are for not sharing the gospel and declaring their beliefs are, they are still not allowing others to know what they believe. Jesus was pretty clear about what he thought of people who were ashamed of him. In Mark 8:9 Jesus said, “If anyone is ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man will be ashamed of him when he comes in his Father's glory with the holy angels." And Paul said in Romans 1:16 “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile.” But if I will not mention in public that I believe in the Gospel, than I am effectively acting ashamed of the Gospel.
           

So what are the reasons that I will not tell others of my beliefs? I think it boils down to two things for me. These two things may also be effectively the same thing but they are different enough for me to babble about both of them separately. 

The first reason is that I don’t want people to think I’m stupid. I believe Christianity is a very rational and intellectual religion with an incredibly impressive history of intellectualism. But I’m not really going to get into that here since it’s not really the point. The point is that there are very vocal people who think it is stupid to believe in God (Christian or otherwise) and others who just think believing in a specific religion is stupid. Still there is a whole host of Christians who have made Christianity look stupid. As a result I sometimes fear that people will think I am stupid if I tell them I am a Christian.  Now why do I actually care what they think of me? And why does looking smart matter to me so much? I don’t know. I tell myself its Christianity I don’t want people to misunderstand and think stupid. But I’m not correcting peoples’ misconceptions, which means that it’s me that I’m worried about people judging. This is something I often struggle with though and it basically boils down to arrogance. For those keeping score this is now to sins; shame of the Gospel, and arrogance. 

             The second reason is that I don’t want people to think I’m mean. Christians seem to have this reputation these days of people judgmental, hypocritical, psychotic hillbillies. That may be a slight exaggeration but not by a lot. People think that Christians are mean people who are always telling them what’s wrong with them. And the problem is that there are Christians who then further this reputation by publicly acting like jerks. The kneejerk reaction of many Christians to this is to deny those who they think are mean. Some rename the religion; “I’m a Christian Spiritualist” or “I’m a Christ Follower”. And others just state that those Christians they don’t like are not Christians. This is not based off of whether they have faith in Jesus Christ but rather how good of a person they seem to be. This is bad. First of all we all fail at being Christians. We are incapable of being good on our own and only through Christ can we do good. We all have sinned and all fallen short of the glory of God.  But for some reason we think its okay to judge and dislike those who we deem judgmental. Now, it is good to correct our fellow Christians when they accredit to Christ philosophies and views that are not Christians. But it is not good to hate them or be ashamed of them for they are also children of God. And I can only correct peoples’ misconceptions of Christianity if they know I am a Christian.

             I am sure that there are many other reasons people feel nervous to tell people they are Christians but I can’t think of any that are good. We are not called to hide who we are, and are in fact told not to. I have felt ashamed of my Christian brothers and sisters and have thought myself better than them and for this I repent and ask that Christ would help me to stop judging my fellow Christians, and would give me the strength to not hide my beliefs, but rather to proudly tell them to others.