Bandersnatch in a Bandit Hat
So here we are. Star Trek has completed its metamorphosis from a science fiction framework built on new and innovative storytelling into a “greatest hits” reboot where the entirety of its narrative tension is derived from the current article’s relationship with the audience’s knowledge of the original version – specifically, in this case, Star Trek II: The Wrath of (spoiler!) Khan. Hey, it worked for Ultimate Spider-Man.
I’m all too aware that for the most part, the Star Trek feature films that “worked” were the ones that went the furthest to transform the thoughtful television series into thoughtless big-screen action movies, so Into comes by its Darkness honestly. But my concerns, for the past four years, about the JJ Abrams regime’s ability to build a long-term strategy for the health of Star Trek as a whole remain unresolved. Star Trek Into Darkness continues straight down the throughline created by 2009’s Star Trek, exacerbating every deviation from the spirit of the original series while convincingly arguing that, at the summer multiplexes, it couldn’t be any other way.
In 2009 I wrote a non-review of the first Abrams film by way of sidestepping the excruciating scope of having to respond to this newfangled property directly; as the guy who’s Blogging the Next Generation every week, I’m far too close to the material to do anything but repeat the trick. So, with apologies again, let’s (boldly) go:
How is it?
Dreary.
Why so glum, chum?
It’s been a very, very, very long time (like, maybe since Star Trek: The Motion Picture) that I’ve had this little fun watching a Star Trek movie.
So the fanboys are wrong?
Not necessarily. I’m not base-jumping Star Trek Into Darkness (in which there is a great deal of base-jumping) below some of the franchise’s weaker efforts, like Nemesis and the like. (Although if you want to haggle, Nemesis and Darkness are basically trying to do the exact same thing, just at radically different budget levels.) Star Trek Into Darkness is an astonishingly pretty blockbuster, competently crafted, and populated by terrific actors. Everyone means well.
Chief qualm, then?
It just never “clicks.” However dumb Star Trek 2009 was, that son’ bitch clicked constantly.
Does it effectively appropriate the bubble gum pop aesthetic of the 1960s TV series?
What does that mean?
Bright colours? Ray guns? Exciting spacefaring swashbuckling?
Nope, sorta, and no. Instead, we get gloomy greys, a bunch of really pissy guns, and one badass sequence where the rather incredible sound of a working transwarp drive is at long last revealed, just before the transwarping ship in question beats the holy hell out of the Enterprise.
What about optimism? The exploration of the cosmos? Big ideas about where we’re going?
You must be joking. Remember all the complaining we did about how un-Star Trek the 2009 film was (in terms of its ideas and core values)? Star Trek Into Darkness makes Star Trek ’09 look like “The Cage.”
So it’s not really Star Trek then?
In an inordinate number of ways, it’s nakedly defiant towards every major principle that Gene Roddenberry built the franchise on. It does, however, cleverly try to have its cake and eat it too, by staging a dark action spectacle with human beings as the villains, and then contextualizing it as a step in the wrong direction by Starfleet – even having Scotty wonder aloud about why the crew of the Enterprise aren’t explorers any more. Deep Space Nine‘s Section 31 is mentioned, which gets brownie points from me.
Is it sexy?
Nope. Well, at one point Kirk wakes up in the middle of a threesome with a couple of alien girls. But the more tantalizing elements of xeno-sexuality from the first film are largely absent here, and nobody ever gets their shirt ripped off, or makes out with someone on a planet, or tugs on his boots after shagging the Queen of the Scalosians.
So no gays?
No. Our sisters and brothers of the queer contingent continue to have no place in Earth’s future.
What about blacks?
Besides Uhura, there’s one Starfleet captain who – you guessed it – gets killed about six seconds after we meet him. There’s also a suicide bomber played (quite nicely) by Doctor Who‘s Noel Clarke, and a Klingon who looks like he’s spent a bit too much time with the Romulans from last time around.
Hispanics? Asians? Arabs?
No, yes, and no.
Jews?
Don’t be ridiculous.
So the galaxy continues to be run by white men?
Even more than last time.
How is our Mr. Kirk?
Pine’s electric energy as the non-Shatner James T. Kirk remains one of the best reasons to watch this version of the franchise. From a narrative perspective, Kirk’s all over the place this time around – fucking up constantly, and not in a particularly likeable way – but Pine remains so freakishly committed that it all stays hellishly watchable. This all boils down into one doozie of a franchise base-tap in the final third, which – while not giving anything away – brings a hell of a pair of performances out of Pine and his first mate.
How are the others?
Quinto has evolved from a bit of a worry for me to one of the rebooted franchise’s greatest players. Simon Pegg’s Scotty, on the other hand, is so irritating that I kept hoping he’d get impaled on something – which is a shame, because of all the actors in the cast, Pegg clearly cares so much about this shit that he’s nearly crying in half his scenes. Karl Urban’s still terrific as Bones, but John Cho utterly fails to make an impression this time around. Zoe Saldana’s Uhura is under-written, but gets two fairly kickass action scenes. Anton Yelchin’s Chekov is little better than a hate crime, and the film flat-out forgets he exists for a merciful hour and ten minutes.
Whose action figure will you be buying, and in what scale?
I’d buy Spock and Uhura in the 6-inch scale, take them into my bathtub, and give the First Couple of Sci-Fi Romance a way better subplot than they are awarded here.
And the fair lady herself?
The Enterprise is a dream in motion, and I appreciate the Star Trek II-era contrails that now stream out behind the warp nacelles as she belts her way across the cosmos. But lookit, if you’re gonna crash the Enterprise into a planet, I’d argue that both The Search for Spock and Generations did it better than it’s done here. Of course Into Darkness has better effects – the shot of the Enterprise pirouetting silently towards the ocean like a bird with a clipped wing is stunning – but you know what the other two films had? Balls.
Is there opportunity to grab dinner while the director indulges in extensive, porny, SFX ship fly-bys?
Nope – like its predecessor, Into Darkness really moves. Unfortunately, also like its predecessor, it moves so fast that it throws the common-sensical rules of the Star Trek universe clear out the airlock, as best exemplified by the fact that the trip from Kronos to Earth can now apparently be managed in – no shit – thirty-five seconds.
How does the flick look?
Ugly, but intentionally so. This is the machine-rock version of the Star Trek universe, and it’s very dark, and very grimy, and not a lot of fun to hang around in. It’s designed beautifully, though, from the nerve-ending-red trees of an alien planet to the swing-winged Klingon attack flyers.
And the plot?
A thin-skinned treatise on how 9/11-level events, like the destruction of Vulcan in this case, turn peaceful societies into monsters. This theme, however competently delivered, is completely undone by the actual stupidest thing I’ve ever seen in a Star Trek movie, when a title card at the end dedicates Into Darkness to the heroes of 9/11 and the American military. This film’s left hand doesn’t know what its right hand is talking about.
At any point, does Kirk talk a computer into self-destructing?
Unless by “a computer” you mean “my brain” and by “Kirk” you mean “the movie,” no.
Does Spock mind-meld with a piece of rock?
He almost mind-melds with the big rock in the sky, thanks to a Jesus moment in a lava pool.
Are there Tholians?
Goddammit! No!
Best part?
Benedict Cumberbatch.
Worst part?
Of all the vulgar Wrath of Khan references throughout, the one big one is an atrocity. Not only is it sacrilege, but having Quinto repeat something that the franchise was bloody lucky to get away with the first time is playing Russian roulette with a two-chamber gun.
Was your fondest fanboy wish (seeing Captain Pike in the chair – BOOP!) answered?
No, they gave him a cane instead, and the cane does not make any interesting sounds – like, seriously, WTF.
Does the limp prequel comic book tie in a little bit, a lotta bit, or not at all?
It is the explanation for the presence of one key ship in the Enterprise shuttle bay.
Is J.J. Abrams the cinema’s new Ganesh?
Goddammit again. Really no. The man who’s directing the next Star Wars movie is now four-for-four on the “three star” filmmaking scale. He just never seems to put one over the top, does he?
Will you go see Star Trek 13?
I have little choice.
What about Star Wars 7?
Even less choice.
The Dark Knight, Quantum of Solace and this flick are locked in a room together with nothing but razor blades and six pounds of plastique. Who gets out first?
It’s always gonna be Batman, kids.
Leave a Reply