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.