The Question
Eternal
It was a cynical, cowardly cash grab.
Troll Kingdom
This is a sample guest message. Register a free account today to become a member! Once signed in, you'll be able to participate on this site by adding your own topics and posts, as well as connect with other members through your own private inbox!
Wacky Reviews: Star Trek
- Thread starter CaptainWacky
- Start date
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Star Trek Into Darkness - A planet iwth lots of red vegetation. Kirk and Bones are running from some aliens (who are making noises like "the natives" in an Indiana Jones moive.) Kirk shoots one of those mouth monsters J.J. puts in all his movies. A volcano is going off. Spock's in a shuttle with Uhura and Sulu and he warns Kirk about the Prime Directive. Then Spock is dropped into the volcano to save the species using a "super ice cube." Err, doesn't that violate the Prime Directive? Kirk distracts the aliens by hanging up a sacred scroll he stole from them for some reason. Kirk and McCoy jump off a cliff and...swim...to The Enterprise...which is under water. Why? Maybe there's an explanation in the rushed exposition as everyone runs around but I missed it if so. Simon Pegg's Scottish accent has not improved. A fish swims by the Enterprise like that Bond movie with the underwater car. Spock doesn't want the Enterprise to expose itself by saving him as that would break the Prime Directive (which he's already breaking by saving the aliens.) The Enterprise rises out of the ocean and the aliens see it. J.J. really likes shots of the Enterprise rising out of things so I guess that's why they were underwater. They beam Spock to safety (I guess the transporter doesn't work underwater.) Spock isn't happy to be alive and instead just tells Kirk off for breaking the PD. Meanwhile the aliens are drawing the Enterprise in the ground, indicated that they now worship it as a God. If you think this is setting up events for the rest of the movie you're mistaken! Noel Clarke (urgh, forgot he was in this) gets out of bed with his wife in future London. They got to a future hospital. Their daughter is dying, probably from a future disease. Benedict Cumberbatch tells Noel Clarke he can save his daughter.
Kirk is having a threesome with two aliens ladies with tails because J.J. still thinks that who Kirk is. Pike tells Kirk and Spock off both for stopping the volcano exploding and for letting the aliens see the Enterprise. So even in movie Spock was breaking the PD. Spock gets sassy and Pike kicks him out. Pike is disappointed in Kirk for breaking the rules and nearly getting everyone killed. Kirk thinks the rules don't apply to him. Admiral Marcus has taken the Enterprise away, and, hilariously, sent Kirk BACK TO THE ACADEMY. After being Captain of the flagship. Noel Clarke heals his daughter using Cumberbatch's magic blood. He goes to his job at Starfleet then does a suicide bombing. Kirk is back at the bar getting drunk again like in the first movie and Pike shows up to give him a pep talk again like in the first movie. Pike is Captain of the Enterprise again and wants Kirk as his first officer (so I guess he's not going back to the Academy.) They're called to an emergency session at the Daystrom Institute. Spock's there too and Kirk blames him for everything because he wrote an honest report to Starfleet. Kirk says he'll miss Spock (he's been sent to another ship) but Spock doesn't say it back and Kirk is sad. Admiral Marcus (it's Peter Weller again) reports that Cumberbatch is "John Harrison" and he was behind the terrorist attack on the Starfleet archive. Kirk wonders why Harrison would attack the archive and figures out that Harrison wanted this meeting called because he's about to attack. Which he does, in a gun-shuttle-thing. Kirk is the only person who manages to fight back against Harrison, destroying his evil helicopter just after Harrison beams out. Pike is mortally wounded and Spock mind melds with him as he dies. Kirk cries. The acting and music are good but killing Pike feels a bit cheap, like they need to kill a father figure to Kirk in every movie.
Scotty figures out that Harrison has beamed to the Klingon homeworld (because of the stupid fucking transwarp transporter), the one place they can't go. The Klingons are preparing for all out war so Starfleet can't do anything to piss them off. The Archive was actually Section 31 (of course) and they were preparing special torpedos to fight the Klingons. Kirk is made Captain again, with Spock as his First Officer (mmmm. the status quo) and sent to kill Harrison using the special torpedos. Spock objects to executing Harrison without a triel and firing torpedos at the Klingon homeworld (which does seem like a remarkably bad idea!) An attractive English lady named Carol Wallace is assigned to the Enterprise as another science officer and Kirk makes no secret of the fact that he wants to bone her. Scotty is angry about the torpedos being on the Enterprise as he doesn't know what's inside them. Engineering looks slightly less like a brewery no. He's also mad that Starfleet stole his transwarp equation and that this is a military mission. He resigns in protest and leaves with his little friend Keenser. He warns Kirk not to use the evil torpedos before leaving. Kirk expresses his annoyance with Spock to Uhura, who is also having relationship problems with the Vulcan. Kirk makes Chekov the new Chief Engineer (what) and tells him to put a red shirt (Chekov looks worried because meta.) Kirk makes a speech to his crew and reveals that he's going to capture Harrison so he can face triel, rather than execute him with the torpedos. It's a shame he didn't decied this before Scotty resigned over the torpedos! Spock confronts Carol with the truth, that he's really Carol Marcus, the Admiral's sexy daughter. Something goes wrong with the Enterprise's engines so Kirk prepares to take a ship they gained in the "MUDD INCIDENT" to Kronos with Spock and Uhura (THE TENSION.) Sulu is left in Command. The Mudd ship looks kind of vaguely Millennium Falcon-like. Sulu warns Harrison to surrender or else they'll shoot him with torpedos. John Cho gets to sound cool briefly so that's nice for him.
Spock and Uhura have a lover's tiff on the way to Kronos, which is pretty inappropriate. She's mad that Spock was willing to die in the volcano and accuses him of not caring about his own life. Spock reveals he experienced the moment Pike died and it reminded him of what he felt when his home planet was destroyed and he doesn't want to feel that again. It's a pretty good scene. A Bird of Prey attacks the Muddllennium Falcon and they have a Star Wars style chase scene. More Klingon ships show up the capture our heroes. Uhura goes out to the talk to the Klingons because she speaks their language (I GUESS the idea is the Klingons only listening when someone is actually speaking to them in their tongue rather than using the Universal Translator?) Most of the Klingons are wearing helmets but one takes his off to reveal a pierced forehead. John Harrison shows up with a big fucking space gun and starts shooting Klingons. Kirk gets into a fight with a Klingo with a bat'leth. More Kingons show up repelling from Birds of Prey. It's all very modern blockbuster and not at all like a Star Trek action scene and that's fine really. Harrison pretty much single-handidly takes out the Klingons. He wants to know how many torpedos there are then surrenders when he hears the number. This is all very unexpected and at least makes for a good moment. Kirk tries to beat the shit out of Harrison but he just stands there like some kind of genetic superman. Spock and Uhura kiss back on the Enterprise so they're back together. Bones takes a blood sample from Harrison, who wants to talk to Kirk alone. He gives Kirk some coordinates and reveals that there's something in the torpedoes. Cumberbatch makes for a compelling mystery antagonist in this scene, it must be said. Kirk calls Scotty (who is on Earth) on his communicator and I'm pretty sure communicators can't just call someone dozens of light years away like that. Scotty appears to investigate the mystery coordinates. Kirk, Spock and Bones have one of their threeway arguments while the camera spins around and the lens flares. Carol is a weapons specialist and qualified to open the torpedoes. She leads Kirk into a shuttle, then tells him to turn around and takes her uniform off. Kirk of course looks at her as she stands in a perfect pose position in her underwear so they can put it in the trailer. WHY did she lead him into the shuttle anyway if she was going there to get changed? It shamelessly awful!
Marcus and Bones beam down to an empty planet to open one of the torpedos (Bones is more qualified than any of the Engineers, I guess.) His arm instantly gets stuck in the torpedo but Marcus disables it in time. Scotty heads to the mystery coordinates near Jupiter and finds the USS VENGEANCE inside a hangar. It's a big black evil starship. There was a man inside the torpedo. He's frozen in some ancient cryo technology and he's three hundred years old. Time for Harrison to reveal his true identity! Starfleet searched space for help with developing weapons after Vulcan blew up and found him. HIS NAME IS KHAN. This name apparently means nothing to Kirk or Spock but it's still said really dramatically. Marcus used Khan to design weapons even though Khan is three hundred years out of time. It doesn't make sense don't think about it. Marcus's plan was for Kirk to provoke the Klingons into war so Starfleet can fight back with their new evil weapons. Khan hid his seventy two friends in torpedos so the'd be safe from the guy trying to start a war where he planned to use those torpedoes. What. Marcus shows up in the USS Vengeance which is just comically evil looking. Marcus is mad that Kirk didn't kill Harrison. He says he made a mistake by waking up Khan. He also knew that Khan's people were in the torpedos(?) but gave them to Kirk hoping that Kirk would fire all 72 and kill them all, I guess. Kirk pretends his going to hand over Khan and runs away at warp instead. Khan says they aren't safe at warp. The Vengeance catches up with them and starts shooting them at warp. People are blown out into space. The Vengeance shoots the Enterprise near Earth (of course there are no other Starfleet ships around.) Carol says the only hope is if she speaks to her father. Marcus just beams her over to his ship instead and she lets out a shrill scream as if the transporter beam hurts her(?) Kirk asks Marcus to spare his crew and take him instead but Marcus is just totally evil and brings the Vengeance's big evil super guns online to blow up the Enterprise. But someone resets the Vengeance. It's Scotty, who was hiding in Vengeance's engineering all along! Why didn't he does this before Vengeance shot the shit out of the Enterprise and killed all those people? Kirk plans to go over the Vengeance and punch Marcus, with help from Khan. He tells Spock he has a gut feeling that he's doing the right thing and leaves Spock in command. Kirk guarantees the safety of Khan's people if Khan helps him. Bones injects Khan's blood into a dead Tribble because Khan's blood has magical properties (foreshadowing!) Can I just point out that the Enterprise and Vengeance have been floating about near Earth for quite a while now and Starfleet still hasn't shown up to investigate.
There's some comedy with Scotty running around the gigantic Vengeance and saying "wee." He calls Kirk a "mad bastard" and it's so random I almost laughed. Almost! Kirk and Khan do a space dive over to the Vengeance, through a debris field. Scotty is discovered by a security guard before he can open the hangar bay door. Kirk and Khan help each other through the debris field and they're bros now. Scotty opens the door in time, blowing the security guy (who was just doing his job!) into space. Meanwhile Spock gets a space video call from Nimoy Spock. Carol is brought to her father (what took so long, it's been like ten minutes since she was beamed) and slaps him. Nimoy Spock says he will never give Spock information about the future...but will tell him that Khan is the most dangerous and evil dude he's ever met. Spocks asks how he beat him and if you haven't seen Wrath of Khan you'd be pretty lost here. Kirk, Scotty and Khan fight their way to the Vengeance's Bridge. Kirk has Scotty stun Khan because they can't trust him. Kirk wants to arrest Marcus who shouts at him evily. Khan was only pretending to be stunned, beats up everyone, breaks Carol's leg and squishes Marcus's head while she screams again. Khan asks for his torpedos pals in exchange for Kirk's life (and Scotty and Carol I guess but who cares about them.) Spock lets Khan beam the torpedos over and Kirk and is saved. Khan starts shooting at the Enterprise, but Spock armed the 72 torpedos and they explode. Strange that super intelligent Khan didn't see this coming, really. McCoy took Khan's crew out of the torpedoes before they blew up (but Khan doesn't know that.) The Enterprise starts to fall out of orbit and Spock orders everyone to abandon ship, but Sulu says they're not going anywhere. Kirk and Scotty head for Engineering as the gravity starts to go offline and people fly about. They run down the side of a corridor and nearly fall to their deaths and such. Chekov saves them because he hasn't really done much this movie. They need to hit a mnaual override switch to save the ship but something goes wrong. The only way to save the ship now is for Kirk to run into a radiation room and do stuff. He punches Scotty to stop him from doing it. This is starting to feel very familiar! The Enterprise falls further into Earth's atmostphere as Kirk kicks a thing to bring it back into alignment. The Enterprise falls through clouds but then rises back out of them because, yep, J.J. loves having the Enterprise rise out of things (it looks cool, it's fine.) Scotty tells Spocks he "better get down here" with none of the gravitas of Doohan. Kirk and Spock talk to each other through a window as Kirk as they repeat dialogue from the most famous Star Trek movie word for word (but with the characters reversed.) It's so dumb! Kirk asks Spock to help him not feel anything but Spock admits he can't do that himself right now. Spock cries, Kirk dies. Spock shouts "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" and it's stupid!
The Vengenance is falling towards Earth too so Khan decides to take Starfleet headquarters out. The Enterprise crushes Alcatraz on the way down, which might be a reference to that shitty tv show J.J. produced. The crash scene certainly is spectacular but maybe a bit uncomfortable in this post 9/11 world? Khan survives the crash because he has magic blood. Uhura tells Spock to "go get him" and the final action scene of this movie is Spock chasing Khan by foot through San Fransisco. A weird choice. Everyone looks at Kirk's dead body and is sad, BUT THEN the Tribble comes back to life. Bones realises that Khan has magic blood and Kirk hasn't even been dead for five minutesbut it's already being undone. Spock and Khan have a fist fight on a flying transport ship thing. It's visually impressive but empty. They jump around different ships. Bones needs Khan alive so his blood can save Kirk. Surely his blood would work just as well if he was dead? It's not like blood just instantly stops being blood when someone dies. Uhura beams down and shoots Khan a lot. Spock is going to beat him to death before Uhura says he can save Kirk. Kirk comes back to life and thanks Spock for saving him. Khan is put back on ice. Kirk makes a speech before Starfleet. He understands the Captain's oath now and repeats it because it's a thing J.J. knows from Star Trek. The Enterprise launches its five year mission with everyone in their familiar positions. Carol is now a PERMANENT member of the crew and I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of her in future movies! The end credits are still listed alphabetically which means a bunch of people probably think John Cho plays Kirk (or maybe I'm just weird about things like that!) Nimoy, weirdly, doesn't get an "AND" credit.
Look, there's a lot of bad stuff in this movie, a lot to rip apart and I'll do some of that later. But, bizarrely to me, this movie has 84% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.7 rating on IMDB. I know, I know, you can't base your own opinions on those ratings, stupid people rate movies too. It's also the highest grossing Star Trek movie of all time.* Given how bad some of this movie was and how well decoumented that badness is, you'd think it would have been more poorly received. So why did so many people like this movie? Well we have to remember that not everyone is a big Trek nerd. I had issues with many of the choices in the prevous movie, but in the end I gave it a pretty good score and found it enjoyable to watch. The general public liked it too. This movie looks similar to the first, it feels the same. It feels bigger in terms of action and effects sequences. It's more dramtic. There's bigger emotional moments and less jumping about. The special effects are great (and hold up well nine years ater), as is the music. So I CAN understand why someone, who doesn't care about nerd shit, would watch this movie once and think "yeah, that was good." It has the feel of a good movie, while not actually being a good movie (in my opinion.) So I can understand why someone would like this though I can't imagine it being anyone's favourite Star Trek movie (unless they've only seen this and, like, Nemesis.)
*But I think the budget was a lot higher than the previous movie so it ended up making far less and Paramount were disappointed with the performance. I can't remember.
Before I go into the obvious complaints (or should I say "KHAAAAAAAN-PLAINTS"!?), I do want to see that I don't think the problems with this movie are just down to nerd whinings. I think objectively the script is pretty bad. Orci and Kurtzman are joined by Damon Lindelof on scriping duties here. Lindelof has written some bad stuff, but he's also written some great stuff (Watchmen and ESPECIALLY The Leftovers. Watch The Leftovers!) I don't think he's much of a Star Trek fan. I remember reading an interview with him after the movie came out where he was asked about the nonsensical script and he pretty much just admitted "yeah, that torpedo stuff made no sense!" and laughed. He also has a habit of inserting shocking reveals of one character being the father of another that don't really add anything to the story. So yeah, there's script issues here. The first one didn't really have a great script either (Nero lol) but it was fun and fresh enough to get away with it. I'm not as willing to give this one a pass. The torpedo shit (seriously why would Khan put them in torpedos, why woudn't Marcus notice there were the same number of torpedos as frozen people) and the pointless reveal of Harrison's TRUE identity are just objectively bad. Marcus is a completely one note evil villain. The don't even try to make us think maybe he's doing all this for the greater good, he's just all "hahaha I'll kill everyone I'm evil!" Peter Weller's less Trek character was far more relatable and he was a Nazi.
AND OH BOY the Trek callbacks are horrible. It's been talked about a lot in the last nine years, but it is worth repeating again how stupid it is that Harrison (a white English guy) turns out to be Khan. If you know who Khan is you'll just think "that's not Khan for fuck's sake!" and if you don't know you'll just think "why does this matter?" Nothing would have been different if he'd just been John Harrsion, a rogue Starfleet special ops guy! They didn't market Cumberbatch as playing Khan in the movie, they instead lied about it for a year, meaning they didn't even get anything out of using the Khan name. And it's a real shame because Cumberbatch does very good work with what he's given. You can tell there's scsenes where he has to hold back because the truth hasn't been revealed yet, but he's always very fun to watch. He just never gets to properly play Khan because he's only Khan becaue Khan's famous.
(Maybe they could have even made Khan a genetically engineered guy created by Marcus using techniques banned because of Khan? that would have been better!)
And recreating the most famous death scene from the most famous Trek film is just insulting and makes the movie feel like a stupid parody. Then Kirk just comes back to life right away! We eat least had a hole movie without Spock before he came back to life.
Bones is underused, only there to disagree with Spock a few times. Pegg doesn't have Doohan's twinkle. Carol is just there for tits and screaming.
The opening scene of the movie has Kirk (and Spcok) violating the Prime Directive and disrupting a planet's development. Yet at no point in the rest of the movie does this come up again, or does Kirk realise that violating the PD is a bad thing to do. The lesson he appears to lear is that he's not immortal and and sometimes Captains have to sacrifice themselves for their crews. Except he does turn out to be immortal thanks to magic blood. If the idea is that he's learned some humility from dying and will be less impuslive now then they should have done more to show that. There's nothing really wrong with the set-up of Kirk having to learn responsibility and become a proper Captain after his unlikely promotion last movie. It should have been resolved in literally any other way than copy and pasting lines from a previous movie that don't even properly apply here. The Kirk and Spock stuff here just doesn't come together enough the way the Shatner/Nimoy stuff did, despite Pine and Quinto's best efforts.
And yes it's dumb when Carol is in her underwear. At least write an underwear scene that makes sense.
SO THEN, it's tempting to say this is the worst Star Trek movie. It certainly made me ANGRIER than any other. But the acting is mostly good, like the first it's very fast paced and never actually boring, it's probably exciting to watch at least once. It is bad though! It's definitely bad!
SCORE: 4.5/10
Kirk is having a threesome with two aliens ladies with tails because J.J. still thinks that who Kirk is. Pike tells Kirk and Spock off both for stopping the volcano exploding and for letting the aliens see the Enterprise. So even in movie Spock was breaking the PD. Spock gets sassy and Pike kicks him out. Pike is disappointed in Kirk for breaking the rules and nearly getting everyone killed. Kirk thinks the rules don't apply to him. Admiral Marcus has taken the Enterprise away, and, hilariously, sent Kirk BACK TO THE ACADEMY. After being Captain of the flagship. Noel Clarke heals his daughter using Cumberbatch's magic blood. He goes to his job at Starfleet then does a suicide bombing. Kirk is back at the bar getting drunk again like in the first movie and Pike shows up to give him a pep talk again like in the first movie. Pike is Captain of the Enterprise again and wants Kirk as his first officer (so I guess he's not going back to the Academy.) They're called to an emergency session at the Daystrom Institute. Spock's there too and Kirk blames him for everything because he wrote an honest report to Starfleet. Kirk says he'll miss Spock (he's been sent to another ship) but Spock doesn't say it back and Kirk is sad. Admiral Marcus (it's Peter Weller again) reports that Cumberbatch is "John Harrison" and he was behind the terrorist attack on the Starfleet archive. Kirk wonders why Harrison would attack the archive and figures out that Harrison wanted this meeting called because he's about to attack. Which he does, in a gun-shuttle-thing. Kirk is the only person who manages to fight back against Harrison, destroying his evil helicopter just after Harrison beams out. Pike is mortally wounded and Spock mind melds with him as he dies. Kirk cries. The acting and music are good but killing Pike feels a bit cheap, like they need to kill a father figure to Kirk in every movie.
Scotty figures out that Harrison has beamed to the Klingon homeworld (because of the stupid fucking transwarp transporter), the one place they can't go. The Klingons are preparing for all out war so Starfleet can't do anything to piss them off. The Archive was actually Section 31 (of course) and they were preparing special torpedos to fight the Klingons. Kirk is made Captain again, with Spock as his First Officer (mmmm. the status quo) and sent to kill Harrison using the special torpedos. Spock objects to executing Harrison without a triel and firing torpedos at the Klingon homeworld (which does seem like a remarkably bad idea!) An attractive English lady named Carol Wallace is assigned to the Enterprise as another science officer and Kirk makes no secret of the fact that he wants to bone her. Scotty is angry about the torpedos being on the Enterprise as he doesn't know what's inside them. Engineering looks slightly less like a brewery no. He's also mad that Starfleet stole his transwarp equation and that this is a military mission. He resigns in protest and leaves with his little friend Keenser. He warns Kirk not to use the evil torpedos before leaving. Kirk expresses his annoyance with Spock to Uhura, who is also having relationship problems with the Vulcan. Kirk makes Chekov the new Chief Engineer (what) and tells him to put a red shirt (Chekov looks worried because meta.) Kirk makes a speech to his crew and reveals that he's going to capture Harrison so he can face triel, rather than execute him with the torpedos. It's a shame he didn't decied this before Scotty resigned over the torpedos! Spock confronts Carol with the truth, that he's really Carol Marcus, the Admiral's sexy daughter. Something goes wrong with the Enterprise's engines so Kirk prepares to take a ship they gained in the "MUDD INCIDENT" to Kronos with Spock and Uhura (THE TENSION.) Sulu is left in Command. The Mudd ship looks kind of vaguely Millennium Falcon-like. Sulu warns Harrison to surrender or else they'll shoot him with torpedos. John Cho gets to sound cool briefly so that's nice for him.
Spock and Uhura have a lover's tiff on the way to Kronos, which is pretty inappropriate. She's mad that Spock was willing to die in the volcano and accuses him of not caring about his own life. Spock reveals he experienced the moment Pike died and it reminded him of what he felt when his home planet was destroyed and he doesn't want to feel that again. It's a pretty good scene. A Bird of Prey attacks the Muddllennium Falcon and they have a Star Wars style chase scene. More Klingon ships show up the capture our heroes. Uhura goes out to the talk to the Klingons because she speaks their language (I GUESS the idea is the Klingons only listening when someone is actually speaking to them in their tongue rather than using the Universal Translator?) Most of the Klingons are wearing helmets but one takes his off to reveal a pierced forehead. John Harrison shows up with a big fucking space gun and starts shooting Klingons. Kirk gets into a fight with a Klingo with a bat'leth. More Kingons show up repelling from Birds of Prey. It's all very modern blockbuster and not at all like a Star Trek action scene and that's fine really. Harrison pretty much single-handidly takes out the Klingons. He wants to know how many torpedos there are then surrenders when he hears the number. This is all very unexpected and at least makes for a good moment. Kirk tries to beat the shit out of Harrison but he just stands there like some kind of genetic superman. Spock and Uhura kiss back on the Enterprise so they're back together. Bones takes a blood sample from Harrison, who wants to talk to Kirk alone. He gives Kirk some coordinates and reveals that there's something in the torpedoes. Cumberbatch makes for a compelling mystery antagonist in this scene, it must be said. Kirk calls Scotty (who is on Earth) on his communicator and I'm pretty sure communicators can't just call someone dozens of light years away like that. Scotty appears to investigate the mystery coordinates. Kirk, Spock and Bones have one of their threeway arguments while the camera spins around and the lens flares. Carol is a weapons specialist and qualified to open the torpedoes. She leads Kirk into a shuttle, then tells him to turn around and takes her uniform off. Kirk of course looks at her as she stands in a perfect pose position in her underwear so they can put it in the trailer. WHY did she lead him into the shuttle anyway if she was going there to get changed? It shamelessly awful!
Marcus and Bones beam down to an empty planet to open one of the torpedos (Bones is more qualified than any of the Engineers, I guess.) His arm instantly gets stuck in the torpedo but Marcus disables it in time. Scotty heads to the mystery coordinates near Jupiter and finds the USS VENGEANCE inside a hangar. It's a big black evil starship. There was a man inside the torpedo. He's frozen in some ancient cryo technology and he's three hundred years old. Time for Harrison to reveal his true identity! Starfleet searched space for help with developing weapons after Vulcan blew up and found him. HIS NAME IS KHAN. This name apparently means nothing to Kirk or Spock but it's still said really dramatically. Marcus used Khan to design weapons even though Khan is three hundred years out of time. It doesn't make sense don't think about it. Marcus's plan was for Kirk to provoke the Klingons into war so Starfleet can fight back with their new evil weapons. Khan hid his seventy two friends in torpedos so the'd be safe from the guy trying to start a war where he planned to use those torpedoes. What. Marcus shows up in the USS Vengeance which is just comically evil looking. Marcus is mad that Kirk didn't kill Harrison. He says he made a mistake by waking up Khan. He also knew that Khan's people were in the torpedos(?) but gave them to Kirk hoping that Kirk would fire all 72 and kill them all, I guess. Kirk pretends his going to hand over Khan and runs away at warp instead. Khan says they aren't safe at warp. The Vengeance catches up with them and starts shooting them at warp. People are blown out into space. The Vengeance shoots the Enterprise near Earth (of course there are no other Starfleet ships around.) Carol says the only hope is if she speaks to her father. Marcus just beams her over to his ship instead and she lets out a shrill scream as if the transporter beam hurts her(?) Kirk asks Marcus to spare his crew and take him instead but Marcus is just totally evil and brings the Vengeance's big evil super guns online to blow up the Enterprise. But someone resets the Vengeance. It's Scotty, who was hiding in Vengeance's engineering all along! Why didn't he does this before Vengeance shot the shit out of the Enterprise and killed all those people? Kirk plans to go over the Vengeance and punch Marcus, with help from Khan. He tells Spock he has a gut feeling that he's doing the right thing and leaves Spock in command. Kirk guarantees the safety of Khan's people if Khan helps him. Bones injects Khan's blood into a dead Tribble because Khan's blood has magical properties (foreshadowing!) Can I just point out that the Enterprise and Vengeance have been floating about near Earth for quite a while now and Starfleet still hasn't shown up to investigate.
There's some comedy with Scotty running around the gigantic Vengeance and saying "wee." He calls Kirk a "mad bastard" and it's so random I almost laughed. Almost! Kirk and Khan do a space dive over to the Vengeance, through a debris field. Scotty is discovered by a security guard before he can open the hangar bay door. Kirk and Khan help each other through the debris field and they're bros now. Scotty opens the door in time, blowing the security guy (who was just doing his job!) into space. Meanwhile Spock gets a space video call from Nimoy Spock. Carol is brought to her father (what took so long, it's been like ten minutes since she was beamed) and slaps him. Nimoy Spock says he will never give Spock information about the future...but will tell him that Khan is the most dangerous and evil dude he's ever met. Spocks asks how he beat him and if you haven't seen Wrath of Khan you'd be pretty lost here. Kirk, Scotty and Khan fight their way to the Vengeance's Bridge. Kirk has Scotty stun Khan because they can't trust him. Kirk wants to arrest Marcus who shouts at him evily. Khan was only pretending to be stunned, beats up everyone, breaks Carol's leg and squishes Marcus's head while she screams again. Khan asks for his torpedos pals in exchange for Kirk's life (and Scotty and Carol I guess but who cares about them.) Spock lets Khan beam the torpedos over and Kirk and is saved. Khan starts shooting at the Enterprise, but Spock armed the 72 torpedos and they explode. Strange that super intelligent Khan didn't see this coming, really. McCoy took Khan's crew out of the torpedoes before they blew up (but Khan doesn't know that.) The Enterprise starts to fall out of orbit and Spock orders everyone to abandon ship, but Sulu says they're not going anywhere. Kirk and Scotty head for Engineering as the gravity starts to go offline and people fly about. They run down the side of a corridor and nearly fall to their deaths and such. Chekov saves them because he hasn't really done much this movie. They need to hit a mnaual override switch to save the ship but something goes wrong. The only way to save the ship now is for Kirk to run into a radiation room and do stuff. He punches Scotty to stop him from doing it. This is starting to feel very familiar! The Enterprise falls further into Earth's atmostphere as Kirk kicks a thing to bring it back into alignment. The Enterprise falls through clouds but then rises back out of them because, yep, J.J. loves having the Enterprise rise out of things (it looks cool, it's fine.) Scotty tells Spocks he "better get down here" with none of the gravitas of Doohan. Kirk and Spock talk to each other through a window as Kirk as they repeat dialogue from the most famous Star Trek movie word for word (but with the characters reversed.) It's so dumb! Kirk asks Spock to help him not feel anything but Spock admits he can't do that himself right now. Spock cries, Kirk dies. Spock shouts "KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!" and it's stupid!
The Vengenance is falling towards Earth too so Khan decides to take Starfleet headquarters out. The Enterprise crushes Alcatraz on the way down, which might be a reference to that shitty tv show J.J. produced. The crash scene certainly is spectacular but maybe a bit uncomfortable in this post 9/11 world? Khan survives the crash because he has magic blood. Uhura tells Spock to "go get him" and the final action scene of this movie is Spock chasing Khan by foot through San Fransisco. A weird choice. Everyone looks at Kirk's dead body and is sad, BUT THEN the Tribble comes back to life. Bones realises that Khan has magic blood and Kirk hasn't even been dead for five minutesbut it's already being undone. Spock and Khan have a fist fight on a flying transport ship thing. It's visually impressive but empty. They jump around different ships. Bones needs Khan alive so his blood can save Kirk. Surely his blood would work just as well if he was dead? It's not like blood just instantly stops being blood when someone dies. Uhura beams down and shoots Khan a lot. Spock is going to beat him to death before Uhura says he can save Kirk. Kirk comes back to life and thanks Spock for saving him. Khan is put back on ice. Kirk makes a speech before Starfleet. He understands the Captain's oath now and repeats it because it's a thing J.J. knows from Star Trek. The Enterprise launches its five year mission with everyone in their familiar positions. Carol is now a PERMANENT member of the crew and I'm sure we'll be seeing a lot more of her in future movies! The end credits are still listed alphabetically which means a bunch of people probably think John Cho plays Kirk (or maybe I'm just weird about things like that!) Nimoy, weirdly, doesn't get an "AND" credit.
Look, there's a lot of bad stuff in this movie, a lot to rip apart and I'll do some of that later. But, bizarrely to me, this movie has 84% Fresh on Rotten Tomatoes and a 7.7 rating on IMDB. I know, I know, you can't base your own opinions on those ratings, stupid people rate movies too. It's also the highest grossing Star Trek movie of all time.* Given how bad some of this movie was and how well decoumented that badness is, you'd think it would have been more poorly received. So why did so many people like this movie? Well we have to remember that not everyone is a big Trek nerd. I had issues with many of the choices in the prevous movie, but in the end I gave it a pretty good score and found it enjoyable to watch. The general public liked it too. This movie looks similar to the first, it feels the same. It feels bigger in terms of action and effects sequences. It's more dramtic. There's bigger emotional moments and less jumping about. The special effects are great (and hold up well nine years ater), as is the music. So I CAN understand why someone, who doesn't care about nerd shit, would watch this movie once and think "yeah, that was good." It has the feel of a good movie, while not actually being a good movie (in my opinion.) So I can understand why someone would like this though I can't imagine it being anyone's favourite Star Trek movie (unless they've only seen this and, like, Nemesis.)
*But I think the budget was a lot higher than the previous movie so it ended up making far less and Paramount were disappointed with the performance. I can't remember.
Before I go into the obvious complaints (or should I say "KHAAAAAAAN-PLAINTS"!?), I do want to see that I don't think the problems with this movie are just down to nerd whinings. I think objectively the script is pretty bad. Orci and Kurtzman are joined by Damon Lindelof on scriping duties here. Lindelof has written some bad stuff, but he's also written some great stuff (Watchmen and ESPECIALLY The Leftovers. Watch The Leftovers!) I don't think he's much of a Star Trek fan. I remember reading an interview with him after the movie came out where he was asked about the nonsensical script and he pretty much just admitted "yeah, that torpedo stuff made no sense!" and laughed. He also has a habit of inserting shocking reveals of one character being the father of another that don't really add anything to the story. So yeah, there's script issues here. The first one didn't really have a great script either (Nero lol) but it was fun and fresh enough to get away with it. I'm not as willing to give this one a pass. The torpedo shit (seriously why would Khan put them in torpedos, why woudn't Marcus notice there were the same number of torpedos as frozen people) and the pointless reveal of Harrison's TRUE identity are just objectively bad. Marcus is a completely one note evil villain. The don't even try to make us think maybe he's doing all this for the greater good, he's just all "hahaha I'll kill everyone I'm evil!" Peter Weller's less Trek character was far more relatable and he was a Nazi.
AND OH BOY the Trek callbacks are horrible. It's been talked about a lot in the last nine years, but it is worth repeating again how stupid it is that Harrison (a white English guy) turns out to be Khan. If you know who Khan is you'll just think "that's not Khan for fuck's sake!" and if you don't know you'll just think "why does this matter?" Nothing would have been different if he'd just been John Harrsion, a rogue Starfleet special ops guy! They didn't market Cumberbatch as playing Khan in the movie, they instead lied about it for a year, meaning they didn't even get anything out of using the Khan name. And it's a real shame because Cumberbatch does very good work with what he's given. You can tell there's scsenes where he has to hold back because the truth hasn't been revealed yet, but he's always very fun to watch. He just never gets to properly play Khan because he's only Khan becaue Khan's famous.
(Maybe they could have even made Khan a genetically engineered guy created by Marcus using techniques banned because of Khan? that would have been better!)
And recreating the most famous death scene from the most famous Trek film is just insulting and makes the movie feel like a stupid parody. Then Kirk just comes back to life right away! We eat least had a hole movie without Spock before he came back to life.
Bones is underused, only there to disagree with Spock a few times. Pegg doesn't have Doohan's twinkle. Carol is just there for tits and screaming.
The opening scene of the movie has Kirk (and Spcok) violating the Prime Directive and disrupting a planet's development. Yet at no point in the rest of the movie does this come up again, or does Kirk realise that violating the PD is a bad thing to do. The lesson he appears to lear is that he's not immortal and and sometimes Captains have to sacrifice themselves for their crews. Except he does turn out to be immortal thanks to magic blood. If the idea is that he's learned some humility from dying and will be less impuslive now then they should have done more to show that. There's nothing really wrong with the set-up of Kirk having to learn responsibility and become a proper Captain after his unlikely promotion last movie. It should have been resolved in literally any other way than copy and pasting lines from a previous movie that don't even properly apply here. The Kirk and Spock stuff here just doesn't come together enough the way the Shatner/Nimoy stuff did, despite Pine and Quinto's best efforts.
And yes it's dumb when Carol is in her underwear. At least write an underwear scene that makes sense.
SO THEN, it's tempting to say this is the worst Star Trek movie. It certainly made me ANGRIER than any other. But the acting is mostly good, like the first it's very fast paced and never actually boring, it's probably exciting to watch at least once. It is bad though! It's definitely bad!
SCORE: 4.5/10
The Question
Eternal
Presumably, "to hide the starship from the natives." Which would have been accomplished a lot better by keeping the ship in fucking orbit. Not like the Zebra People were toting telescopes around. During the day.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Also forgot to say how pathetic it was that Nimoy's last ever appearance is zooming in to say "Khan is really scary you guys!" He obviously deserved a lot better.
Colonel Kira's Left Tit
Bearded Belly of Bajor
I could feel brain cells dying when I saw that turd in the theater.
The Question
Eternal
That's every bit as dumb as what I thought the reason was.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
I don't remember them mentioning that. Usually they'd just hide behind a moon or something.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Star Trek Beyond - Kirk is serving as a pacemaker between two groups of aliens. He offers a piece of an ancient weapon to some CGI guys. The alien leader talks in a comical voice. Turns out his whole species are, like, the size of cats and they all attack Kirk (who seems surprised at how small they are?) I totaly forgot this scene and holy shit it's terrible. The Enterprise is on its five year mission and Kirk is getting bored. We get his Captain's Log in voiceover, which is nice. He complains that everything is starting to feel "episodic." The Bridge looks much less bright now. Less...flarey. Kirk and McCoy have a drink together. It's Kirk's birthday, but also the anniversary of his father's death. Kirk feels like he hasn't lived up to his dad. The Enterprise arrives at the Yorktown station, which is really big, though I don't think the shots we get of it do a great job of conveying just how big it would be on scale with the Enterprise. But it looks nice. McCoy and Uhura have apparently broken up (again) and McCoy suggests it's obviously Spock's fault. Sulu meets up with his HUSBAND and daughter. Some Vulcans bring Spock the news that Old Spock has died. Greg Grunberg picks up a distress call from a ship that has crashed in a nebula. Shohreh Aghdashloo, playing a much less sweary version of Avasaral, tells Kirk of this and we find out he's applied for a Vice Admiral position. She tries to put him off but he's still mopey. The Enterprise flies into the nebula. There's space lightning and stuff. They arrive at a planet where the distress woman claims her ship landed. The Enterprise is instantly attacked by a swam of little bot ships. Enterprise's shields are taken out fast and they "cannae" go to warp because the swarm swipes the nacelles off. The Enterprise is boarded by alien assholes who shoot everyone. Their leader, Krall, is there for the deactivated weapon part from the terrible opening scene. A redshirt mutates into an alien and dies before McCoy's eyes. Krall seems to recognise Kirk. Scotty and Keenser get the Enterprise back to full impulse and try to escape, but the swarm just flies through the ship's neck (oblitary shot of redshirts being blown into space, just like in the previous too movies) and chops the saucer off. Kirk gives the order to abandon ship. The swarm attacks escape pods as they leave the ship (Spock and McCoy are comically miss-matched roommates on one pod.) Scotty escapes in a torpedo. Kirk fights Krall and Uhura fights some bastards as the saucer falls towards the planet. Uhura saves Kirk by trapping Krall with her on what's left off the neck (I don't know what it's called.) Kirk swipes the alien weapon. Sulu, Chekov, and finally Kirk escape just before the saucer crashes on the planet.
Scotty's torpedo crashes on the edge of a cliff but he jumps out in time. Kirk and Chekov confront the alien distress woman (I thought she was a hologram until now, to be honest!) who explains that Krall captured her crew so she had to do what he said. Uhura is taken by Krall to his evil base and she wonders how he speaks English. Spock is impaled by some debris and McCoy needs to remove it to save his life (as they bicker!) McCoy heads up a stick to cauterise Spock's wound and Spock says "horse shit." Some aliens hassle Scotty but a girl alien saves him using holograms of herself. She learned English from "her house." Her name is "Jaylah" because they wanted a Jennifer Lawrence type character (true story.) Spock and McCoy find a metal cave with writing from the same language as the alien weapon thing and Spock collapses again. Jaylah wants Scotty repair her house so she can fly away. It's an NX class starship! Kirk, Chekov and Distress Woman head inside the crashed Enterprise. Keenser sneezes acid (he does that) to help Uhura and Sulu break out of prison. Uhura sends a distress signal and they're captured again. Kirk outsmarts distress woman, who has been manipulating him in an attempt to get the alien weapon (they keep caling it "the artifact" now but I'm sure it was a weapon in the opening scene.) They're attacked by some of Krall's dudes. Kirk blows some of them up by powering up the Enterprise's tractor beams (or something.) Kirk and Chekov jump out of the viewscreen and slide down the saucer as the ship takes off. It squashes distress woman. This whole sequence is fairly fun but would look a lot better if the picture was a bit brighter, so maybe J.J.'s lens flares are good for something.
Krall tells Sulu and Uhara that the Federation thinks conflict should not exist, but it's only in struggle that you find out who you are. He's not a fan of aliens holding hands in the Yorktown and is going to attack it. He sucks energy out of some redshirts like a creep. Spock reveals to McCoy that he split with Uhura because he believes he should be off having Vulcan babies due to his species being in decline. He tells Bones about Old Spock dying. He wants to leave Starfleet for New Vulcan but he hasn't told Kirk yet. Spock laughs when Bones makes a joke and the doctor thinks he's delirous. It's a nice scene! Jaylah is listening to Public Enemy on her NX ship. They find Kirk and Chekov in one of Jaylah's traps. Scotty gives Kirk the history of the USS Franklin, the first Earth ship capable of warp 4. Weird that Archer never mentioned it! They watch security footage of the crew and they're wearing the appropriate 22nd century uniforms. Also there's a convenient motorbike. Jaylah's been disguising the ship with holograms so Krall can't find it. They pick up Uhura's distress call. Spock tells Bones he respects him as they think they're about to be killed by Krall's ships. Scotty beams them to safety in time. Bones treats Spock's wound with old-fashioned equipment. Krall studies Kirk's logs and threatens to kill Sulu if the artifiact isn't given to him. Turns out an alien Starfleet crewmember is hiding it in her fold-out head. Spock tracks Uhura's location using radioactive Vulcan jewellery he gave her. Jaylah doesn't want to go to Krall's base because her family died there, but Scotty thinks he can convince her. He gives her a pep talk while saying "lassie" a lot. He tells her she is part of something bigger now: the crew, and she is convince.
Kirk and Jaylah ride the convenient motorcycle while Krall gives exposition to Uhura and Head Girl. The artifact is one half of a weapon and he repeats all that stuff about peace and unity being bad. He demonstrates the weapon on Head Girl: it create even black clouds that eat her. Kirk creates a diversion by riding around on the motorbike with many holograms of himself also riding on the motorbike. Krall's second in command (who I dont think has even spoken until now) asks to be allowed to take care of the diversion-creators. Spock and Bones free Sulu and the reshirts but Krall still has Uhura. Jaylah fights the second in command and I guess he's meant to be the guy he killed her father. Uhura frees herself from Krall's men. Krall launches his swarm. Kirk does a big dramatic jump with his motorcycle so they have something to put in the trailers. He jumps up to grab Jaylay's hand as she jumps off a building so they can beam out (I guess Krall's second in command died here and she's avenged her father? He falls off the building but we don't see him hit the ground.) Spock reports that Krall could end all life in the Federation with his bio weapon. Kirk gives Scotty the idea to jumpstart the Franklin. The rest of the crew have disappeared again, it's only the main characters we really see. And Keenser. The Franklin falls off a cliff as it attempts to launch but Sulu pulls them up in time. Krall's ships attack the Yorktown where I guess Greg Gunberg is in command? Spock and Uhura tell Kirk they have to disorientate the swam to "kick its ass." Spock beams over to one of the swam to find a solution and Kirk makes him take McCoy with him because he's still injured (a pretty flimsy way to get some Spock/Bones banter.) They find out that the swam is talking to each other and some high frequency communcation can disorient them. Yes, it's Jaylah's music that's the solution!
The Franklin flies into the middle of the swarm and plays 'Sabotage' by The Beastie Boys, another thing they put in the trailer which made Trekkies very angry for some reason (though they could have used a different song than one already used in the first movie.) Yorktown plays music at the same frequency (I guess) and that blows up the swarm real good. But Krall's ship gets through into the Yorktown and the Franklin and Spock/Bones follow. There's lots of stuff with ships flying around inside the Yorktown and the Franklin eventually beats the evil ships by flying up out of water (J.J. would have loved that!) so they crash into it. Of course Krall survives because the movie isn't over yet and they follow the trail of energy-sucked redshirts to find him. Uhura watches the footage of the original Franklin crew and notices Idris Elba among them. She recognises him as Krall. He was human all along! He was a soldier for the MACOs before the Federation was founded. The MACOs were disbanded when the Federation was founded and he was give a starship. We finally get to see Idris without alien make-up, recording his Captain's logs and explaining that the previous inhabitants of the planet left behind immortality technology. He's mad at the Federation for abandoning him. Kirk follows Krall into the Yorktown where he's going to let off the weapon or whatever. Krall gives his villain speech to Kirk about how war is better than peace or whatever. The gravity goes out and they have a gravity-free fight inside a glass box, which then smashes and they fight high up on the Yorktown. Kirk tries to tell Krall that he won the war and they have peace now but he's just too damn angry and tries to jump back to the glass box. He starts up the bio weapon. Kirk says "better to die saving lives than to live taking them" which is the messsage of the movie, I suppose? Scotty explains all the video game-like tasks Kirk has to complete to stop the weapon from killing everyone. Krall tries to stab Kirk with a shard of glass but Kirk kicks him into the bio weapon. He flicks a switch to blow the weapon into space or whatever and nearly falls into space himself before Spock and Bones save him. Krall is finally eaten by the bio weapon in space.
Avasaral tells Kirk that he has the job as Vice Admiral now, but Kirk says Vice Admirals don't fly so he doesn't want to be one. Spock looks at Old Spock's possessions, which include a photo of the original series Enterprise crew (circa Star Trek VI?) This is a nice unexpected sweet moment. The crew have a birthday party for Kirk. Spock and Uhura have a moment together so maybe they're back together AGAIN. Kirk and Scotty tell Jaylah they've got her into Starfleet Academy. Spock never tells Kirk he was thinking of leaving as he's not going to anymore. Also Spock's hair looks different here so I think it was added in reshoots. We then get a time-lapsed scene of the Enterprise-A being contructed and the entire crew make the "space, the final frontier" speech. The credits are STILL alphabetical lol it's not a big deal okay. The movie is dedicated to Leonard Nimoy who died the previous year and Anton Yelchin who tragically died in an accident just a month before release.
The first of this trilogy was a big hit. Star Trek had momentum again! People were excited about Star Trek! Then we had to wait four years for the sequel, and it was bad. Yes, STID made money, but I put that down to the fact that every Trekkie would have gone to see it anyway and it had that big blockbuster gloss that would bring in the general audience at least once. Beyond, three years after STID, ended up losing money. I'm convinced that because STID, despite a seemingly positive reception, put off the core audience, and the general audience had lost interest in Star Trek by now. It's too bad because this movie is pretty good! J.J. is out as director as he was off ruining Star Wars, replaced by Justin Lin. Orci and Kurtzman don't get any credit for the script either, it's written by Scotty himself Simon Pegg and Doug Jung It definitely feels different from the previous too movies. It's less frentic. We get scenes of two characters talking to each other WITHOUT the camera spinning around or things exploding in the background. Right at the start in that drinking scene between Kirk and Bones I thought "J.J. wouldn't have done this." It feels a lot more like an episode of Star Trek on a much larger budget. Even the action bits like the Enterprise destruction play out in longer scenes than J.J.'s quick-cutting ways. That's not to say this movie is perfect, becaue it certainly isn't, but there's a lot to like here so let's celebrate that first!
I like that Kirk is actually like a proper Captain here. He's not being promoted and demoted every five minutes. He, and the crew, feel settled in and familiar. It's nice. Pine gives probably his best performance and there's none of the horndog embarrassing stuff from the previous two. Qutino and Urban work well together in the Spock/Bones scenes and you actually get a feeling of friendship between them, whereas in the previous two it was just Bones being racist. Uhura's part feels a bit cut down but she still gets more to do than Nicols ever did. Scotty is...still Simon Pegg doing a bad accent, but he gets good scenes with Jaylah (who is a fun new character!) Sulu doesn't get much but I liked the stuff where Chekov was teamed with Kirk (and man it's sad about Yelchin.) You can definitely tell that the writers are Star Trek fans who are trying to write a proper Star Trek script. The Enterprise destruction, while possibly not given quite enough weight, is a spectacular sequence.
But yeah, it's sitll not quite great. I think Pegg said they were rushed a bit with the script. Maybe another draft would have helped. Krall, especially, needs something more. Why cast Idris Elba then cover him up completely and distort his voice for most of the movie? It stops him from being anything more than a cartoon villain shouting "PEACE IS BAD!" The whole story with Kirk tempted to leave the Enterprise was added in reshoots (you can tell because Shohreh Aghdashloo was only cast for the reshoots) and it shows: I never once felt like there was even the smallest chance Kirk would leave the Enterprise. It doesn't help that Spock has almost the exact same "will he leave!" story (no, of course he won't.) They should have done more to contrast Kirk and Krall. Maybe Kirk could have actually stopped Krall from releasing the bio weapon by making a great speech about the strength of the Federation? Instead the whole finale is pretty lame, with Kirk and Krall just floating about punching each other a bit.
The movie looks good but the screen is frustratingly dark in some of the action scenes, possibly to cover up lackluster CGI? The spaceship stuff also maybe doesn't look quite as good as in the J.J. movies.
The opening scene is so bad, you guys. It feels like they were trying to make it a bit like Guardians of the Galaxy, except without James Gunn writing and directing that doesn't work!
So yeah, overall I'm glad this movie exists. It shows that it is possible to get that Star Trek feel in the J.J. universe (as long as J.J. isn't directing.) But it could have been better! A bit more polish on the script and this could have been one of the best Star Trek movies. As it is...it's still quite good.
SCORE: 7.5/10
Scotty's torpedo crashes on the edge of a cliff but he jumps out in time. Kirk and Chekov confront the alien distress woman (I thought she was a hologram until now, to be honest!) who explains that Krall captured her crew so she had to do what he said. Uhura is taken by Krall to his evil base and she wonders how he speaks English. Spock is impaled by some debris and McCoy needs to remove it to save his life (as they bicker!) McCoy heads up a stick to cauterise Spock's wound and Spock says "horse shit." Some aliens hassle Scotty but a girl alien saves him using holograms of herself. She learned English from "her house." Her name is "Jaylah" because they wanted a Jennifer Lawrence type character (true story.) Spock and McCoy find a metal cave with writing from the same language as the alien weapon thing and Spock collapses again. Jaylah wants Scotty repair her house so she can fly away. It's an NX class starship! Kirk, Chekov and Distress Woman head inside the crashed Enterprise. Keenser sneezes acid (he does that) to help Uhura and Sulu break out of prison. Uhura sends a distress signal and they're captured again. Kirk outsmarts distress woman, who has been manipulating him in an attempt to get the alien weapon (they keep caling it "the artifact" now but I'm sure it was a weapon in the opening scene.) They're attacked by some of Krall's dudes. Kirk blows some of them up by powering up the Enterprise's tractor beams (or something.) Kirk and Chekov jump out of the viewscreen and slide down the saucer as the ship takes off. It squashes distress woman. This whole sequence is fairly fun but would look a lot better if the picture was a bit brighter, so maybe J.J.'s lens flares are good for something.
Krall tells Sulu and Uhara that the Federation thinks conflict should not exist, but it's only in struggle that you find out who you are. He's not a fan of aliens holding hands in the Yorktown and is going to attack it. He sucks energy out of some redshirts like a creep. Spock reveals to McCoy that he split with Uhura because he believes he should be off having Vulcan babies due to his species being in decline. He tells Bones about Old Spock dying. He wants to leave Starfleet for New Vulcan but he hasn't told Kirk yet. Spock laughs when Bones makes a joke and the doctor thinks he's delirous. It's a nice scene! Jaylah is listening to Public Enemy on her NX ship. They find Kirk and Chekov in one of Jaylah's traps. Scotty gives Kirk the history of the USS Franklin, the first Earth ship capable of warp 4. Weird that Archer never mentioned it! They watch security footage of the crew and they're wearing the appropriate 22nd century uniforms. Also there's a convenient motorbike. Jaylah's been disguising the ship with holograms so Krall can't find it. They pick up Uhura's distress call. Spock tells Bones he respects him as they think they're about to be killed by Krall's ships. Scotty beams them to safety in time. Bones treats Spock's wound with old-fashioned equipment. Krall studies Kirk's logs and threatens to kill Sulu if the artifiact isn't given to him. Turns out an alien Starfleet crewmember is hiding it in her fold-out head. Spock tracks Uhura's location using radioactive Vulcan jewellery he gave her. Jaylah doesn't want to go to Krall's base because her family died there, but Scotty thinks he can convince her. He gives her a pep talk while saying "lassie" a lot. He tells her she is part of something bigger now: the crew, and she is convince.
Kirk and Jaylah ride the convenient motorcycle while Krall gives exposition to Uhura and Head Girl. The artifact is one half of a weapon and he repeats all that stuff about peace and unity being bad. He demonstrates the weapon on Head Girl: it create even black clouds that eat her. Kirk creates a diversion by riding around on the motorbike with many holograms of himself also riding on the motorbike. Krall's second in command (who I dont think has even spoken until now) asks to be allowed to take care of the diversion-creators. Spock and Bones free Sulu and the reshirts but Krall still has Uhura. Jaylah fights the second in command and I guess he's meant to be the guy he killed her father. Uhura frees herself from Krall's men. Krall launches his swarm. Kirk does a big dramatic jump with his motorcycle so they have something to put in the trailers. He jumps up to grab Jaylay's hand as she jumps off a building so they can beam out (I guess Krall's second in command died here and she's avenged her father? He falls off the building but we don't see him hit the ground.) Spock reports that Krall could end all life in the Federation with his bio weapon. Kirk gives Scotty the idea to jumpstart the Franklin. The rest of the crew have disappeared again, it's only the main characters we really see. And Keenser. The Franklin falls off a cliff as it attempts to launch but Sulu pulls them up in time. Krall's ships attack the Yorktown where I guess Greg Gunberg is in command? Spock and Uhura tell Kirk they have to disorientate the swam to "kick its ass." Spock beams over to one of the swam to find a solution and Kirk makes him take McCoy with him because he's still injured (a pretty flimsy way to get some Spock/Bones banter.) They find out that the swam is talking to each other and some high frequency communcation can disorient them. Yes, it's Jaylah's music that's the solution!
The Franklin flies into the middle of the swarm and plays 'Sabotage' by The Beastie Boys, another thing they put in the trailer which made Trekkies very angry for some reason (though they could have used a different song than one already used in the first movie.) Yorktown plays music at the same frequency (I guess) and that blows up the swarm real good. But Krall's ship gets through into the Yorktown and the Franklin and Spock/Bones follow. There's lots of stuff with ships flying around inside the Yorktown and the Franklin eventually beats the evil ships by flying up out of water (J.J. would have loved that!) so they crash into it. Of course Krall survives because the movie isn't over yet and they follow the trail of energy-sucked redshirts to find him. Uhura watches the footage of the original Franklin crew and notices Idris Elba among them. She recognises him as Krall. He was human all along! He was a soldier for the MACOs before the Federation was founded. The MACOs were disbanded when the Federation was founded and he was give a starship. We finally get to see Idris without alien make-up, recording his Captain's logs and explaining that the previous inhabitants of the planet left behind immortality technology. He's mad at the Federation for abandoning him. Kirk follows Krall into the Yorktown where he's going to let off the weapon or whatever. Krall gives his villain speech to Kirk about how war is better than peace or whatever. The gravity goes out and they have a gravity-free fight inside a glass box, which then smashes and they fight high up on the Yorktown. Kirk tries to tell Krall that he won the war and they have peace now but he's just too damn angry and tries to jump back to the glass box. He starts up the bio weapon. Kirk says "better to die saving lives than to live taking them" which is the messsage of the movie, I suppose? Scotty explains all the video game-like tasks Kirk has to complete to stop the weapon from killing everyone. Krall tries to stab Kirk with a shard of glass but Kirk kicks him into the bio weapon. He flicks a switch to blow the weapon into space or whatever and nearly falls into space himself before Spock and Bones save him. Krall is finally eaten by the bio weapon in space.
Avasaral tells Kirk that he has the job as Vice Admiral now, but Kirk says Vice Admirals don't fly so he doesn't want to be one. Spock looks at Old Spock's possessions, which include a photo of the original series Enterprise crew (circa Star Trek VI?) This is a nice unexpected sweet moment. The crew have a birthday party for Kirk. Spock and Uhura have a moment together so maybe they're back together AGAIN. Kirk and Scotty tell Jaylah they've got her into Starfleet Academy. Spock never tells Kirk he was thinking of leaving as he's not going to anymore. Also Spock's hair looks different here so I think it was added in reshoots. We then get a time-lapsed scene of the Enterprise-A being contructed and the entire crew make the "space, the final frontier" speech. The credits are STILL alphabetical lol it's not a big deal okay. The movie is dedicated to Leonard Nimoy who died the previous year and Anton Yelchin who tragically died in an accident just a month before release.
The first of this trilogy was a big hit. Star Trek had momentum again! People were excited about Star Trek! Then we had to wait four years for the sequel, and it was bad. Yes, STID made money, but I put that down to the fact that every Trekkie would have gone to see it anyway and it had that big blockbuster gloss that would bring in the general audience at least once. Beyond, three years after STID, ended up losing money. I'm convinced that because STID, despite a seemingly positive reception, put off the core audience, and the general audience had lost interest in Star Trek by now. It's too bad because this movie is pretty good! J.J. is out as director as he was off ruining Star Wars, replaced by Justin Lin. Orci and Kurtzman don't get any credit for the script either, it's written by Scotty himself Simon Pegg and Doug Jung It definitely feels different from the previous too movies. It's less frentic. We get scenes of two characters talking to each other WITHOUT the camera spinning around or things exploding in the background. Right at the start in that drinking scene between Kirk and Bones I thought "J.J. wouldn't have done this." It feels a lot more like an episode of Star Trek on a much larger budget. Even the action bits like the Enterprise destruction play out in longer scenes than J.J.'s quick-cutting ways. That's not to say this movie is perfect, becaue it certainly isn't, but there's a lot to like here so let's celebrate that first!
I like that Kirk is actually like a proper Captain here. He's not being promoted and demoted every five minutes. He, and the crew, feel settled in and familiar. It's nice. Pine gives probably his best performance and there's none of the horndog embarrassing stuff from the previous two. Qutino and Urban work well together in the Spock/Bones scenes and you actually get a feeling of friendship between them, whereas in the previous two it was just Bones being racist. Uhura's part feels a bit cut down but she still gets more to do than Nicols ever did. Scotty is...still Simon Pegg doing a bad accent, but he gets good scenes with Jaylah (who is a fun new character!) Sulu doesn't get much but I liked the stuff where Chekov was teamed with Kirk (and man it's sad about Yelchin.) You can definitely tell that the writers are Star Trek fans who are trying to write a proper Star Trek script. The Enterprise destruction, while possibly not given quite enough weight, is a spectacular sequence.
But yeah, it's sitll not quite great. I think Pegg said they were rushed a bit with the script. Maybe another draft would have helped. Krall, especially, needs something more. Why cast Idris Elba then cover him up completely and distort his voice for most of the movie? It stops him from being anything more than a cartoon villain shouting "PEACE IS BAD!" The whole story with Kirk tempted to leave the Enterprise was added in reshoots (you can tell because Shohreh Aghdashloo was only cast for the reshoots) and it shows: I never once felt like there was even the smallest chance Kirk would leave the Enterprise. It doesn't help that Spock has almost the exact same "will he leave!" story (no, of course he won't.) They should have done more to contrast Kirk and Krall. Maybe Kirk could have actually stopped Krall from releasing the bio weapon by making a great speech about the strength of the Federation? Instead the whole finale is pretty lame, with Kirk and Krall just floating about punching each other a bit.
The movie looks good but the screen is frustratingly dark in some of the action scenes, possibly to cover up lackluster CGI? The spaceship stuff also maybe doesn't look quite as good as in the J.J. movies.
The opening scene is so bad, you guys. It feels like they were trying to make it a bit like Guardians of the Galaxy, except without James Gunn writing and directing that doesn't work!
So yeah, overall I'm glad this movie exists. It shows that it is possible to get that Star Trek feel in the J.J. universe (as long as J.J. isn't directing.) But it could have been better! A bit more polish on the script and this could have been one of the best Star Trek movies. As it is...it's still quite good.
SCORE: 7.5/10
Last edited:
SAUSAGEMAN
Registered User
... maybe i'll watch it
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
It's definitely not bad.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
Discovered a lost series I need to review.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
The alien helmsman made me laugh.
So, I was thinking about how awesome Voyager: Elite Force (the game) was earlier, and like so much of my life being on a whim, I decided, as an extension of that thought, to rewatch Scorpion 1 and 2. It's, as Wacky says, absolutely Voyager at its peak. The best cold open in Trek history? Might be. I remember being blown away when it first aired, and hey, it still holds up today. Watching it with a more discerning eye, it's yet another flagrant example of how reckless and downright schizophrenic Janeway can be in her decision-making as captain. Hey, we just got buzzed by FIFTEEN Borg cubes; let's follow them! The first of many insane choices she makes in this episode on blind faith and a precursor to her becoming even more unhinged in episodes like Equinox. It's a good thing that Kate Mulgrew is such an excellent actress, or it would be harder to accept sometimes. Chakotay does push back on her and tries to subtly suggest that finding a nice Class M planet where they can play happy families is probably a better idea than being assimilated, but I feel he should have tried harder than looking mildly miffed and then throwing a fable at her!
Also, The Doctor coming up with the nanoprobe solution seems like something the Borg would have figured out pretty easily by themselves, you know, since it's their technology. ANYWAY, despite that, it's a storming two-parter that moves at breakneck speed, so much so that this could have worked even better as a mini-arc instead of just a two-parter, but even so, the way it ramps up the tension and stakes throughout is done very well.
Jeri Ryan is somehow still hot in full Borg makeup. Very fun rewatch, but with Voyager, you always have that annoying realization of how much potential the show had at its best and how much Berman insisting the reset button was pushed so casuals could tune in without much foreknowledge and how much the show would squander going forward as a result.
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
It's so weird that Chakotay used to be a three dimensional(!) character and vital to the plot, when by the end he was just kind of standing there.
Eggs Mayonnaise
All In With The Nuts
It's kind of what happens when the actor decides to just stand there halfway through the run...
CaptainWacky
I want to smell dark matter
He showran the good season of Enterprise, it's sad.
SAUSAGEMAN
Registered User
rip manny. i think it's v beautiful that his family specifically called out trek in his obit