Made Khan a "good guy" for Into Darkness, to be used as a turncoat in a later film. Of course lots of people would suspect it because of WoK, but I'm sure some people would have bought it. "We're going a different direction with this character" comments from production could have helped.
And it would've been an interesting way to
drive home that this universe is different than the other one.
Made Khan a "good guy" for Into Darkness, to be used as a turncoat in a later film. Of course lots of people would suspect it because of WoK, but I'm sure some people would have bought it. "We're going a different direction with this character" comments from production could have helped.
And it would've been an interesting way to
drive home that this universe is different than the other one.
They wouldn't even have to necessarily make him a turncoat later. Khan had a lot of good points in the film. He was being used, his people were being threatened. They could have just kept him as a morally gray character, never fully a hero but never doing bad enough things that Kirk and crew feel the need to call him out or attack him. And as you say it would have emphasized the difference between the universes. Old Spock would never trust him for obvious reasons, but the very fact that many of the audience "knows" he's a bad guy, it would make it an even more interesting twist.
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
thawing Khan out didn't make much sense. Khan may be super intelligent but he's known for being a great general and leader, not for scientific genius. It would have made a lot more sense if either they had used another augment or if they had used Khan to develop military strategies against the Klingons or maybe even some kind of plan for expanding the Federation's influence.
Also, Khan wasn't a one dimensional villain in Space Seed. He was ambitious and power hungry but he actually did improve the state of the world and tried to rule as best as he could given the dire circumstances the world was facing.
thawing Khan out didn't make much sense. Khan may be super intelligent but he's known for being a great general and leader, not for scientific genius. It would have made a lot more sense if either they had used another augment or if they had used Khan to develop military strategies against the Klingons or maybe even some kind of plan for expanding the Federation's influence.
Also, Khan wasn't a one dimensional villain in Space Seed. He was ambitious and power hungry but he actually did improve the state of the world and tried to rule as best as he could given the dire circumstances the world was facing.
It took Khan a like a day to figure out how to take control of the Enterprise's systems in space seed, he had a working spaceship and cryogenic system in the 1990's.
Its totally plausable that despite being 200 years old he can design a new warship. Even if is ideas were 'make a bigger ship, remove all the stuff that isn't related to powering the weapons and engines and add that power to the guns and engines'
ah, there's me putting the emphasis on the wrong part of the sentence.
My point still stands but now I'm absolutely not interested in the topic.
Everytime I dislike something for straying from the source material you guys basically tell me to deal with it.
Now the boots on the other foot!
Khan's the baddy. Deal with it.
I don't think anyone's upset because ID strayed from WoK. People are upset because ID made no sense on its own, and used WoK as a crutch in a transparent attempt to score cheap nostalgia fan-points.
thawing Khan out didn't make much sense. Khan may be super intelligent but he's known for being a great general and leader, not for scientific genius. It would have made a lot more sense if either they had used another augment or if they had used Khan to develop military strategies against the Klingons or maybe even some kind of plan for expanding the Federation's influence.
Also, Khan wasn't a one dimensional villain in Space Seed. He was ambitious and power hungry but he actually did improve the state of the world and tried to rule as best as he could given the dire circumstances the world was facing.
It took Khan a like a day to figure out how to take control of the Enterprise's systems in space seed, he had a working spaceship and cryogenic system in the 1990's.
Its totally plausable that despite being 200 years old he can design a new warship. Even if is ideas were 'make a bigger ship, remove all the stuff that isn't related to powering the weapons and engines and add that power to the guns and engines'
TOS imagined earth to be much more advanced in the 90's, with manned missions to Saturn and the 6th Voyager probe being launched in 1999.
As for the Enterprise's systems, they are highly automated. Khan really only needed the access codes to take over the computers.
thawing Khan out didn't make much sense. Khan may be super intelligent but he's known for being a great general and leader, not for scientific genius. It would have made a lot more sense if either they had used another augment or if they had used Khan to develop military strategies against the Klingons or maybe even some kind of plan for expanding the Federation's influence.
Also, Khan wasn't a one dimensional villain in Space Seed. He was ambitious and power hungry but he actually did improve the state of the world and tried to rule as best as he could given the dire circumstances the world was facing.
It took Khan a like a day to figure out how to take control of the Enterprise's systems in space seed, he had a working spaceship and cryogenic system in the 1990's.
Its totally plausable that despite being 200 years old he can design a new warship. Even if is ideas were 'make a bigger ship, remove all the stuff that isn't related to powering the weapons and engines and add that power to the guns and engines'
Engineering isn't his wheelhouse, it's only a skill he's good at. Khan excels at leading, once he's made improvements to Starfleet designs Admiral Robocop should have given him a new identity, gave him Starfleet training and made him a captain of a ship. Why depend on Kirk to bait the Klingons into war when you've got Captain Khan on your payroll?
It like how the new timeline exposes the dark underbelly of Starfleet. It is like it has changed for the better.
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AManFromEarthLet's get to twerk!The King in the SwampRegistered Userregular
I was really hoping that Nero's attacks would've had a farther reaching impact on the Federation.
In that sense Khan could've been used a lot better, as the kind of person that not just evil admiral robocop wants, but the people of the the Federation think they need, a hard man for hard times and exploring that through our crew who, Kirk having mind melded with Prime Spock, know that their world could be better, should be better, and it's their job to boldly go and make things better.
They could have dealt more with the internal politics of the Federation. There could have been a lot of fallout from the destruction of Vulcan. Maybe other members of the Federation no longer trust Starfleet to protect them and they start to drift apart. Then you could have the Klingons taking advantage of the tension within the Federation and trying to get its members to leave and join the Klingon Empire with the promise of greater protection.
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
Then Admiral Robocop sees this threat, realizes they are no longer able to be as peaceful as they once were, so he looked to the stars for answers. There he found Khan, and with Khan's expertise, he was able to draft up war plans.
Heck, you could have Admiral Robocop throwing a coup on the Federation, because he believes the Klingons are an absolute end game for the Federation. Everything else be damned because they will annihilate the Federation.
The Enterprise could have gotten caught in the middle.
Khan could have been more sympathetic, but still grey as to where his alliances lie, being his own Protoman to Kirk's Mega Man.
I find this talk of character Kahn's motivation in Into Darkness fascinating because the movie is so poorly written it is impossible to discern any motivation for either Kahn nor Admiral Robocop. Like to everyone who said Kahn was betrayed? Uh how and when and by who?
Everything Kahn does in the first chunk of movie works so much in Robocop's favor I can't see how they are not working together. Like he attacks a random building for some reason (not one that you know might actually have Robocop in it, or as a means of freeing his peeps, only to gather a bunch of Admirals together which Kahn has no beef with directly, only to kill all of them, but Robocop, giving Robocop free reign to do whateverthefuck he wants, and then he flees to the one part of supposed to be big ass, but for this movie is really fucking tiny for some reason, galaxy which he knows is the one place Robocop wants to preemptively attack.
Now you might say later parts of the movie imply they are enemies, but shit becomes so muddled and non-nonsensical you can't tell what the fucks going on or why. Like someone, anyone please tell me who the fuck put Kahn's men in the torpedo and why.
Did Kahn do it? If they are enemies, why wouldn't Kahn just thaw them and go nuts, we saw what Khan can do to those Klingons, 70 more of him would be unstoppable on Earth. Why would Khan hide them there, but still leave the warhead active, and liable to explode while tampered with, like that's pretty dumb thing to do there.
So Admiral Robocop did that? Why? Like the fuck? To kill them? That's the dumbest most convoluted way to kill someone to ever exist, Bond villains are fucking laughing at you dude. Even then, how does that kill them, the cryo-tube things are in place of the fuel supply, the torpedo literally will not fire, his entire plan to attack Q'nos can't work because of that. Like it really seems like he doesn't know their in there, cause how the fuck does he expect these things to fire without fuel? But he must know because he didn't want Scotty to scan them, and Scotty could immediately tell they were missing a normal fuel supply, but couldn't tell without a scan just what was in it's place. So he's clearly hiding them right? I'm sure they fucking scanned them at some point.
There are so many things wrong with this movie, you could do a RedLetterMedia style review that would take 3x as long as the movie was to explain it all. So I'll just end by with the teleporter tech makes the entire plot of the movie irrelevant, like all of it, you don't need magic torpedoes or big ass ship when you can teleport something from anywhere in the universe to anywhere in the universe. And the galexy is stupidly fucking small, like Kirk calls Scotty on his cellphone communicator from the Klingon border to Earth like the ship's in orbit, and the Enterprise flees Admiral Robocops big fuckoff ship for 2 minutes, which somehow is enough time to reach Earth. So maybe the communicator thing makes perfect sense as the Klingon border is somewhere around Pluto.
Also also, somehow Robocop thinks he can get away with blowing up the Enterprise in view of Earth with his secret fuckoff ship, and no one is going to ask any questions about this. Like you can't paint Kirk as some kind of rogue captain when you yourself have a secret fuckoff ship.
I find this talk of character Kahn's motivation in Into Darkness fascinating because the movie is so poorly written it is impossible to discern any motivation for either Kahn nor Admiral Robocop. Like to everyone who said Kahn was betrayed? Uh how and when and by who?
Everything Kahn does in the first chunk of movie works so much in Robocop's favor I can't see how they are not working together. Like he attacks a random building for some reason (not one that you know might actually have Robocop in it, or as a means of freeing his peeps, only to gather a bunch of Admirals together which Kahn has no beef with directly, only to kill all of them, but Robocop, giving Robocop free reign to do whateverthefuck he wants, and then he flees to the one part of supposed to be big ass, but for this movie is really fucking tiny for some reason, galaxy which he knows is the one place Robocop wants to preemptively attack.
Now you might say later parts of the movie imply they are enemies, but shit becomes so muddled and non-nonsensical you can't tell what the fucks going on or why. Like someone, anyone please tell me who the fuck put Kahn's men in the torpedo and why.
Did Kahn do it? If they are enemies, why wouldn't Kahn just thaw them and go nuts, we saw what Khan can do to those Klingons, 70 more of him would be unstoppable on Earth. Why would Khan hide them there, but still leave the warhead active, and liable to explode while tampered with, like that's pretty dumb thing to do there.
So Admiral Robocop did that? Why? Like the fuck? To kill them? That's the dumbest most convoluted way to kill someone to ever exist, Bond villains are fucking laughing at you dude. Even then, how does that kill them, the cryo-tube things are in place of the fuel supply, the torpedo literally will not fire, his entire plan to attack Q'nos can't work because of that. Like it really seems like he doesn't know their in there, cause how the fuck does he expect these things to fire without fuel? But he must know because he didn't want Scotty to scan them, and Scotty could immediately tell they were missing a normal fuel supply, but couldn't tell without a scan just what was in it's place. So he's clearly hiding them right? I'm sure they fucking scanned them at some point.
There are so many things wrong with this movie, you could do a RedLetterMedia style review that would take 3x as long as the movie was to explain it all. So I'll just end by with the teleporter tech makes the entire plot of the movie irrelevant, like all of it, you don't need magic torpedoes or big ass ship when you can teleport something from anywhere in the universe to anywhere in the universe. And the galexy is stupidly fucking small, like Kirk calls Scotty on his cellphone communicator from the Klingon border to Earth like the ship's in orbit, and the Enterprise flees Admiral Robocops big fuckoff ship for 2 minutes, which somehow is enough time to reach Earth. So maybe the communicator thing makes perfect sense as the Klingon border is somewhere around Pluto.
Also also, somehow Robocop thinks he can get away with blowing up the Enterprise in view of Earth with his secret fuckoff ship, and no one is going to ask any questions about this. Like you can't paint Kirk as some kind of rogue captain when you yourself have a secret fuckoff ship.
I find this talk of character Kahn's motivation in Into Darkness fascinating because the movie is so poorly written it is impossible to discern any motivation for either Kahn nor Admiral Robocop. Like to everyone who said Kahn was betrayed? Uh how and when and by who?
Everything Kahn does in the first chunk of movie works so much in Robocop's favor I can't see how they are not working together. Like he attacks a random building for some reason (not one that you know might actually have Robocop in it, or as a means of freeing his peeps, only to gather a bunch of Admirals together which Kahn has no beef with directly, only to kill all of them, but Robocop, giving Robocop free reign to do whateverthefuck he wants, and then he flees to the one part of supposed to be big ass, but for this movie is really fucking tiny for some reason, galaxy which he knows is the one place Robocop wants to preemptively attack.
Now you might say later parts of the movie imply they are enemies, but shit becomes so muddled and non-nonsensical you can't tell what the fucks going on or why. Like someone, anyone please tell me who the fuck put Kahn's men in the torpedo and why.
Did Kahn do it? If they are enemies, why wouldn't Kahn just thaw them and go nuts, we saw what Khan can do to those Klingons, 70 more of him would be unstoppable on Earth. Why would Khan hide them there, but still leave the warhead active, and liable to explode while tampered with, like that's pretty dumb thing to do there.
So Admiral Robocop did that? Why? Like the fuck? To kill them? That's the dumbest most convoluted way to kill someone to ever exist, Bond villains are fucking laughing at you dude. Even then, how does that kill them, the cryo-tube things are in place of the fuel supply, the torpedo literally will not fire, his entire plan to attack Q'nos can't work because of that. Like it really seems like he doesn't know their in there, cause how the fuck does he expect these things to fire without fuel? But he must know because he didn't want Scotty to scan them, and Scotty could immediately tell they were missing a normal fuel supply, but couldn't tell without a scan just what was in it's place. So he's clearly hiding them right? I'm sure they fucking scanned them at some point.
There are so many things wrong with this movie, you could do a RedLetterMedia style review that would take 3x as long as the movie was to explain it all. So I'll just end by with the teleporter tech makes the entire plot of the movie irrelevant, like all of it, you don't need magic torpedoes or big ass ship when you can teleport something from anywhere in the universe to anywhere in the universe. And the galexy is stupidly fucking small, like Kirk calls Scotty on his cellphone communicator from the Klingon border to Earth like the ship's in orbit, and the Enterprise flees Admiral Robocops big fuckoff ship for 2 minutes, which somehow is enough time to reach Earth. So maybe the communicator thing makes perfect sense as the Klingon border is somewhere around Pluto.
Also also, somehow Robocop thinks he can get away with blowing up the Enterprise in view of Earth with his secret fuckoff ship, and no one is going to ask any questions about this. Like you can't paint Kirk as some kind of rogue captain when you yourself have a secret fuckoff ship.
I watched it when it came out, but if memory serves, they pretty much chalk it up to being similar to the first, and really it's not. Half in the bag never does any serious analysis, and just gives some quick thoughts while cracking a few jokes.
Into Darkness is so much worse than the 09' it's absurd. I didn't have much of a problem with that movie, I thought it got held down by needing to bridge the old with the new, but still provided decent set-up for future, better movies. God was I fucking wrong on that one.
STID is the better movie. It's more tightly paced and exciting.
Any attempt to pretend one is less well written then the other seems absurd.
What's his face in 09' still had proper motivation, even if it was bare-bones revenge against Spock, I knew what he was doing, how he was going to accomplish it, and why. There are nits to picks, and holes to find to be sure, but it still has a basic framework of a story.
Into Darkness does not have these things, which is why I don't see how you can call it more exciting. Stuff exploding without context or meaning isn't exciting, it's noise. You need to know what's at stake for there to be tension, and you need tension to create excitement, if all you're doing is throwing shit on the screen then all you end up with is shit on the screen.
STID is the better movie. It's more tightly paced and exciting.
Any attempt to pretend one is less well written then the other seems absurd.
What's his face in 09' still had proper motivation, even if it was bare-bones revenge against Spock, I knew what he was doing, how he was going to accomplish it, and why. There are nits to picks, and holes to find to be sure, but it still has a basic framework of a story.
Into Darkness does not have these things, which is why I don't see how you can call it more exciting. Stuff exploding without context or meaning isn't exciting, it's noise. You need to know what's at stake for there to be tension, and you need tension to create excitement, if all you're doing is throwing shit on the screen then all you end up with is shit on the screen.
But everything is in context in STID. It doesn't always hold together under strict scrutiny of the film as a whole, but the moment to moment logic is always preserved. Your statement about their being no stakes and no tension is silly. There's always stakes and tension throughout the movie, it's why it works. It's why it got reviewed well despite the script problems.
All the issues in STID happen when you sit back and view the film as a whole. But that's not how you watch a movie. You watch it in the moment. Especially the first time. And STID is very well crafted at that level. Largely because Abrahms knows his stuff when it comes to this style of cinema.
STID is the better movie. It's more tightly paced and exciting.
Any attempt to pretend one is less well written then the other seems absurd.
What's his face in 09' still had proper motivation, even if it was bare-bones revenge against Spock, I knew what he was doing, how he was going to accomplish it, and why. There are nits to picks, and holes to find to be sure, but it still has a basic framework of a story.
Into Darkness does not have these things, which is why I don't see how you can call it more exciting. Stuff exploding without context or meaning isn't exciting, it's noise. You need to know what's at stake for there to be tension, and you need tension to create excitement, if all you're doing is throwing shit on the screen then all you end up with is shit on the screen.
But everything is in context in STID. It doesn't always hold together under strict scrutiny of the film as a whole, but the moment to moment logic is always preserved. Your statement about their being no stakes and no tension is silly. There's always stakes and tension throughout the movie, it's why it works. It's why it got reviewed well despite the script problems.
All the issues in STID happen when you sit back and view the film as a whole. But that's not how you watch a movie. You watch it in the moment. Especially the first time. And STID is very well crafted at that level. Largely because Abrahms knows his stuff when it comes to this style of cinema.
That's not really true, because you are judging what is happening now based on what happened before. So when the movie's plot is telling you one thing, and then starts telling you something completely different, your brain is going to go "hey wait a minute" and try to figure out what's going on.
When these things are inconsequential to the movie's plot you are more likely to completely over look them, like in 09' when there is no explanation given (in the movie at least) for what Romuln dude was doing for 20 years while waiting for Spock to show up. You're less likely to notice this while watching because it's mostly irrelevant to the plot, maybe he's having a adventure with the Klingons or just jerking off, who cares.
But when it's pivotal plot points in which the whole movies spins on it's a big fucking deal when they don't make sense.
... there is also a ton more inconsequential shit to nitpick in Into Darkness too. Like why the fuck is the Enterprise underwater at the beginning? Why did they do that and who's idea was it. Scotty says it's bad for the hull... which I would think a spacefaring ship that goes through nebulas and what not could handle a little salt water, but whatever. But why were they down there? They would have been just a visible going down as they were going up, and it's not like a primitive culture that never heard of a telescope before is going to see them in orbit... in the middle of the day no less. Literally the only reason they are there is just so they can be seen.
Edit: And of course they only reason they came up is because they need line of sight to beam out Spock, gee if only there was some way for the ship to be above the planet out of sight of the natives? If only there was a way!
Oh wait, wait, no they need line of sight? Really?! You can beam youself from a flying scooter on Earth all the way to Q'nos like it's nothing, but the Enterprise can't beam through 100ft of fucking rock a few miles away. Dumb.
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ResIpsaLoquiturNot a grammar nazi, just alt-write.Registered Userregular
Edit: And of course they only reason they came up is because they need line of sight to beam out Spock, gee if only there was some way for the ship to be above the planet out of sight of the natives? If only there was a way!
Oh wait, wait, no they need line of sight? Really?! You Khan can beam youhimself from a flying scooter on Earth all the way to Q'nos like it's nothing, but the Enterprise can't beam through 100ft of fucking rock a few miles away. Dumb.
I think one of the things the movie was trying to do (not as well as it could have, but well enough to me) was establish that Khan outmatched everything else out there. So while the Enterprise had to get line of sight and in short range to get through the interference of rock and a volcano erupting, Khan had found a way to teleport across the stars. A little extreme for Star Trek, I'll give you that.
I guess the movie made sense to me; I was willing to suspend disbelief throughout, I knew who I wanted to root for, and I could fill in any blanks myself. It was fun. It wasn't Star Trek as I am accustomed to, but I have 50 years of that to lean on if I prefer it, so it doesn't really bother me.
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STID is the better movie. It's more tightly paced and exciting.
Any attempt to pretend one is less well written then the other seems absurd.
What's his face in 09' still had proper motivation, even if it was bare-bones revenge against Spock, I knew what he was doing, how he was going to accomplish it, and why. There are nits to picks, and holes to find to be sure, but it still has a basic framework of a story.
Into Darkness does not have these things, which is why I don't see how you can call it more exciting. Stuff exploding without context or meaning isn't exciting, it's noise. You need to know what's at stake for there to be tension, and you need tension to create excitement, if all you're doing is throwing shit on the screen then all you end up with is shit on the screen.
But everything is in context in STID. It doesn't always hold together under strict scrutiny of the film as a whole, but the moment to moment logic is always preserved. Your statement about their being no stakes and no tension is silly. There's always stakes and tension throughout the movie, it's why it works. It's why it got reviewed well despite the script problems.
All the issues in STID happen when you sit back and view the film as a whole. But that's not how you watch a movie. You watch it in the moment. Especially the first time. And STID is very well crafted at that level. Largely because Abrahms knows his stuff when it comes to this style of cinema.
That's not really true, because you are judging what is happening now based on what happened before. So when the movie's plot is telling you one thing, and then starts telling you something completely different, your brain is going to go "hey wait a minute" and try to figure out what's going on.
No, it's not. The viewer is often caught in the moment. That's why movies and especially TV shows can get away with often poor overall structuring. Cause the viewer is just going along for the ride. As long as you can justify the current plot in the moment, it'll often work.
For an example from a better movie, look at The Dark Knight. If you really wanted to, you could poke holes all over that plot. But the majority of people don't and it doesn't diminish the movie or keep it from being widely critically acclaimed because the tension and energy of the movie (which have nothing to do with what you are talking about, despite your assertions otherwise) pull us through. Contrivance and coincidence don't matter because the movie keeps the viewer too engaged to care.
Both Star Trek films do this quite well too, despite being on the whole far shoddier overall constructions when it comes to plotting then something like TDK. Because in each moment of the films, there is clear goals and stakes and conflicts and the pacing and directing is good enough to pull us along.
STID is really really good at this for the most part. Better then ST09. Which is why it works despite the fact that each of those individual moments become a fair bit of a mess if you pull back further. The movie simply works so that you never stop and think about that.
Edit: And of course they only reason they came up is because they need line of sight to beam out Spock, gee if only there was some way for the ship to be above the planet out of sight of the natives? If only there was a way!
Oh wait, wait, no they need line of sight? Really?! You Khan can beam youhimself from a flying scooter on Earth all the way to Q'nos like it's nothing, but the Enterprise can't beam through 100ft of fucking rock a few miles away. Dumb.
I think one of the things the movie was trying to do (not as well as it could have, but well enough to me) was establish that Khan outmatched everything else out there. So while the Enterprise had to get line of sight and in short range to get through the interference of rock and a volcano erupting, Khan had found a way to teleport across the stars. A little extreme for Star Trek, I'll give you that.
I guess the movie made sense to me; I was willing to suspend disbelief throughout, I knew who I wanted to root for, and I could fill in any blanks myself. It was fun. It wasn't Star Trek as I am accustomed to, but I have 50 years of that to lean on if I prefer it, so it doesn't really bother me.
What is Star Trek though?
Is it the campy seriousness of TOS?
The almost stage-like morality plays TNG was often famous for?
The action-drama of Wrath of Khan?
The sci-fi comedy of Whale Trek?
The action movie of First Contact or the recent couple?
Star Trek, even within individual series and certainly overall, is a huge sprawling property that's been all over the map in the type of stories it's done.
Edit: And of course they only reason they came up is because they need line of sight to beam out Spock, gee if only there was some way for the ship to be above the planet out of sight of the natives? If only there was a way!
Oh wait, wait, no they need line of sight? Really?! You Khan can beam youhimself from a flying scooter on Earth all the way to Q'nos like it's nothing, but the Enterprise can't beam through 100ft of fucking rock a few miles away. Dumb.
I think one of the things the movie was trying to do (not as well as it could have, but well enough to me) was establish that Khan outmatched everything else out there. So while the Enterprise had to get line of sight and in short range to get through the interference of rock and a volcano erupting, Khan had found a way to teleport across the stars. A little extreme for Star Trek, I'll give you that.
I guess the movie made sense to me; I was willing to suspend disbelief throughout, I knew who I wanted to root for, and I could fill in any blanks myself. It was fun. It wasn't Star Trek as I am accustomed to, but I have 50 years of that to lean on if I prefer it, so it doesn't really bother me.
Actually, Scotty said that Khan used his transporter trick from the first movie to get away. It's possible he improved it, but they never really established any kind of limit to it in the first place. It didn't bother me in the first movie since I treated like all other Trek technobabble that would be forgotten as quickly as it came up, but nope!
At first I just couldn't understand what you were saying Shryke, but I think I get it. You're saying it doesn't matter cause the movie is fun.
But that's my problem, it's not fun. This isn't a fun movie, A Voyage Home was fun, it's a comedy, hijinks ensure. I never looked at A Voyage Home with a critical eye, because it's simply not a movie that demands it.
Into Darkness is trying to be serious, it opens with 9/11 imagery for god's sake. It's about serious business issues with a militarized starfleet, Bush Doctrine parallels, death, and an extremely poorly executed character arc for Spock where he somehow goes into darkness inside himself or something I dunno.
If you want to make a big boy movie like Wraith of Khan that's about something then you need to write like one. If you're trying to make Indiana Jones in space, awesome, love that movie, go for it, but you know, actually do it. Don't staple a bunch of half-baked ideas and tell me it's fun and exciting, because no, it isn't. I don't care about your poorly conceived villains, I don't care about your main characters that are either exaggerated forms of themselves or completely underutilized (looking at you Urban's McCoy), and if I don't understand what's happening and why I can't be invested in it's outcome. This movie is not an adventure like Voyage Home. It's plot, or what I can discern from it is far more in-keeping with Wraith of Khan and Undiscovered Country, two more serious Trek films that had the writing to carry them.
"My name is... Khan".
What Kirk should have said "Who the fuck is Khan?"
That's like some random dude walking up to and dramatically saying "My name is... Phil". Like is that suppose to mean something to you? Unless you watched Wraith of Khan of course, but I assume Kirk didn't.
I'm just gonna keep ending all my posts with a random nitpick from the movie, I should have enough to last me for 3 more threads.
The TNG movies aren't exactly well regarded. First Contact is considered the "best of the bunch" but it still has a ton of issues and is really only passable. Voyager was schizophrenic as all fuck, and Enterprise is just...yikes.
Is it the campy seriousness of TOS?
The almost stage-like morality plays TNG was often famous for?
The action-drama of Wrath of Khan?
The sci-fi comedy of Whale Trek?
The action movie of First Contact or the recent couple?
It's all of these things and none of it. Tthe important part linking all of the older stuff is that there was a point to it all. A message, a vision, a morale whatever you want to call it. Even with as dark as DS9 got it's still about the ideal of humanity triumphing even when having its very foundations shaken via paranoia and war. It's no coincidence that the Trek that gets put on a pedestal is also the Trek that's more than what's on the surface.
Now, can Trek as a less thinky action movie work? Sure! Space battles are fucking awesome yo. I think the real issue is that what we got is Star Trek: Bad Fan Fiction Edition. Good "mindless entertainment" has never truly been mindless. The fact that we have a basic understanding of what makes up a good action movie shows that there's really no such thing as "mindless entertainment." Even the most explosive and silly action movies require a certain level of coherency to them and STID is anything but coherent.
If they want to do a more explodey Trek then I'm totally game. Bring on the space battles because lord knows I spend a lot of time in Bridge Commander designing my own framerate killing fights. However, don't make me want to drill my own brains out after the fact. I can forgive a lot in the name of fun (PACIFIC RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM!) but when a movie is so inherently broken that thinking about it causes aneurysms, I have to draw the line.
I think it's important to add a "for most people" qualifier there. I know I was was sitting there going "fucking really?" for most of the movie.
Some people do that for TDK too. Or for basically any movie.
There's outliers in anything.
Well yeah, I just can't help but nitpick arguments presenting themselves as absolutes when they kinda shouldn't, even accidentally. It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine.
Side note: Isn't there a 100 page rule or something? Methinks we should start a new thread but I'm incapable of writing short OPs (See: All of my G&T threads).
"Khan" is a meaningful name to Kirk even if it isn't yet meaningful to the audience. The guy ruled much of the world in the not-too-distant past. It would be like some guy claiming to be Caesar or Stalin.
Incredulity might have made sense, but I don't think Kirk is enough of a yokel to not understand who Khan is.
"Khan" is a meaningful name to Kirk even if it isn't yet meaningful to the audience. The guy ruled much of the world in the not-too-distant past. It would be like some guy claiming to be Caesar or Stalin.
Incredulity might have made sense, but I don't think Kirk is enough of a yokel to not understand who Khan is.
If he said his full name maybe, but if someone with a mustache dramatically said their name was Joe you probably won't make the connection he was Stalin... especially if he looked like the most English person you could find.
"Khan" is a meaningful name to Kirk even if it isn't yet meaningful to the audience. The guy ruled much of the world in the not-too-distant past. It would be like some guy claiming to be Caesar or Stalin.
Incredulity might have made sense, but I don't think Kirk is enough of a yokel to not understand who Khan is.
Didn't Kirk get an info dump from Old Spock in the first movie?
"Khan" is a meaningful name to Kirk even if it isn't yet meaningful to the audience. The guy ruled much of the world in the not-too-distant past. It would be like some guy claiming to be Caesar or Stalin.
Incredulity might have made sense, but I don't think Kirk is enough of a yokel to not understand who Khan is.
Didn't Kirk get an info dump from Old Spock in the first movie?
I don't think he dumped his entire life story into him, just the bits about Nero.
My joke may have muddled the problem, because the problem with that line isn't really whether Kirk knows who Khan is, it's that Kirk nor Spock actually acknowledge the line at all. It's so obviously a line for the audience he should have been holding up a sign. It gave New Spock a name to call Old Spock even though I'm not entirely sure what prompted him to do so, but in that conversation nor any other is it said whether either character knew anything about Khan at all prior.
STID is the better movie. It's more tightly paced and exciting.
Any attempt to pretend one is less well written then the other seems absurd.
What's his face in 09' still had proper motivation, even if it was bare-bones revenge against Spock, I knew what he was doing, how he was going to accomplish it, and why. There are nits to picks, and holes to find to be sure, but it still has a basic framework of a story.
Into Darkness does not have these things, which is why I don't see how you can call it more exciting. Stuff exploding without context or meaning isn't exciting, it's noise. You need to know what's at stake for there to be tension, and you need tension to create excitement, if all you're doing is throwing shit on the screen then all you end up with is shit on the screen.
But everything is in context in STID. It doesn't always hold together under strict scrutiny of the film as a whole, but the moment to moment logic is always preserved. Your statement about their being no stakes and no tension is silly. There's always stakes and tension throughout the movie, it's why it works. It's why it got reviewed well despite the script problems.
All the issues in STID happen when you sit back and view the film as a whole. But that's not how you watch a movie. You watch it in the moment. Especially the first time. And STID is very well crafted at that level. Largely because Abrahms knows his stuff when it comes to this style of cinema.
That's not really true, because you are judging what is happening now based on what happened before. So when the movie's plot is telling you one thing, and then starts telling you something completely different, your brain is going to go "hey wait a minute" and try to figure out what's going on.
No, it's not. The viewer is often caught in the moment. That's why movies and especially TV shows can get away with often poor overall structuring. Cause the viewer is just going along for the ride. As long as you can justify the current plot in the moment, it'll often work.
For an example from a better movie, look at The Dark Knight. If you really wanted to, you could poke holes all over that plot. But the majority of people don't and it doesn't diminish the movie or keep it from being widely critically acclaimed because the tension and energy of the movie (which have nothing to do with what you are talking about, despite your assertions otherwise) pull us through. Contrivance and coincidence don't matter because the movie keeps the viewer too engaged to care.
Both Star Trek films do this quite well too, despite being on the whole far shoddier overall constructions when it comes to plotting then something like TDK. Because in each moment of the films, there is clear goals and stakes and conflicts and the pacing and directing is good enough to pull us along.
STID is really really good at this for the most part. Better then ST09. Which is why it works despite the fact that each of those individual moments become a fair bit of a mess if you pull back further. The movie simply works so that you never stop and think about that.
You're really suggesting TDK has even half as many plotholes or contrivances as STID? Wow. STID was nothing but contrived and convenient bullshit when it wasn't fanservice. There were no stakes because there were no rules, it's the difference between Harry Potter's use of magic and Game of Thrones use of it. In Harry Potter magic is a plot device, in GoT is very carefully used and controlled. STID had Khan fucking teleport to some Klingon planet because he felt like it and Kirk was resurrected by tribbles. There's also the whole thing that Abrams is a pussy who will never kill off a character, so my friends and I knew the moment Kirk "died" he'd be brought back because of reasons. That's another thing that diminishes stakes.
TDK on the other hand - I didn't see Rachel's death coming. That was a genuinely shocking and terrifying moment, and yes The Joker always being a step ahead of everyone might be unrealistic but that's the point of the character, and everyone knows Batman is a stylized world where the police sucks ass. Every crazy ass thing The Joker pulls off is in line with his character. Khan was also supposed to be an unstoppable badass, yet he became unbelievably stupid at the worst moment possible because the script needed him to go down. The Joker was suicidal and won, the TDK script never betrayed his character.
"Khan" is a meaningful name to Kirk even if it isn't yet meaningful to the audience. The guy ruled much of the world in the not-too-distant past. It would be like some guy claiming to be Caesar or Stalin.
Incredulity might have made sense, but I don't think Kirk is enough of a yokel to not understand who Khan is.
With Into Darkness I can't remember Khan being meaningful to Kirk. I can't even remember Spock talking to him in detail about Khan, other than he can't be trusted.
STID is the better movie. It's more tightly paced and exciting.
Any attempt to pretend one is less well written then the other seems absurd.
What's his face in 09' still had proper motivation, even if it was bare-bones revenge against Spock, I knew what he was doing, how he was going to accomplish it, and why. There are nits to picks, and holes to find to be sure, but it still has a basic framework of a story.
Into Darkness does not have these things, which is why I don't see how you can call it more exciting. Stuff exploding without context or meaning isn't exciting, it's noise. You need to know what's at stake for there to be tension, and you need tension to create excitement, if all you're doing is throwing shit on the screen then all you end up with is shit on the screen.
But everything is in context in STID. It doesn't always hold together under strict scrutiny of the film as a whole, but the moment to moment logic is always preserved. Your statement about their being no stakes and no tension is silly. There's always stakes and tension throughout the movie, it's why it works. It's why it got reviewed well despite the script problems.
All the issues in STID happen when you sit back and view the film as a whole. But that's not how you watch a movie. You watch it in the moment. Especially the first time. And STID is very well crafted at that level. Largely because Abrahms knows his stuff when it comes to this style of cinema.
That's not really true, because you are judging what is happening now based on what happened before. So when the movie's plot is telling you one thing, and then starts telling you something completely different, your brain is going to go "hey wait a minute" and try to figure out what's going on.
No, it's not. The viewer is often caught in the moment. That's why movies and especially TV shows can get away with often poor overall structuring. Cause the viewer is just going along for the ride. As long as you can justify the current plot in the moment, it'll often work.
For an example from a better movie, look at The Dark Knight. If you really wanted to, you could poke holes all over that plot. But the majority of people don't and it doesn't diminish the movie or keep it from being widely critically acclaimed because the tension and energy of the movie (which have nothing to do with what you are talking about, despite your assertions otherwise) pull us through. Contrivance and coincidence don't matter because the movie keeps the viewer too engaged to care.
Both Star Trek films do this quite well too, despite being on the whole far shoddier overall constructions when it comes to plotting then something like TDK. Because in each moment of the films, there is clear goals and stakes and conflicts and the pacing and directing is good enough to pull us along.
STID is really really good at this for the most part. Better then ST09. Which is why it works despite the fact that each of those individual moments become a fair bit of a mess if you pull back further. The movie simply works so that you never stop and think about that.
You're really suggesting TDK has even half as many plotholes or contrivances as STID? Wow. STID was nothing but contrived and convenient bullshit when it wasn't fanservice. There were no stakes because there were no rules, it's the difference between Harry Potter's use of magic and Game of Thrones use of it. In Harry Potter magic is a plot device, in GoT is very carefully used and controlled. STID had Khan fucking teleport to some Klingon planet because he felt like it and Kirk was resurrected by tribbles. There's also the whole thing that Abrams is a pussy who will never kill off a character, so my friends and I knew the moment Kirk "died" he'd be brought back because of reasons. That's another thing that diminishes stakes.
TDK on the other hand - I didn't see Rachel's death coming. That was a genuinely shocking and terrifying moment, and yes The Joker always being a step ahead of everyone might be unrealistic but that's the point of the character, and everyone knows Batman is a stylized world where the police sucks ass. Every crazy ass thing The Joker pulls off is in line with his character. Khan was also supposed to be an unstoppable badass, yet he became unbelievably stupid at the worst moment possible because the script needed him to go down. The Joker was suicidal and won, the TDK script never betrayed his character.
Hell, the moment they brought that Tribble back to life I knew it was going to be used in a stupid reactor scene later on. It was pretty much a saturday morning cartoon scene.
STID is the better movie. It's more tightly paced and exciting.
Any attempt to pretend one is less well written then the other seems absurd.
What's his face in 09' still had proper motivation, even if it was bare-bones revenge against Spock, I knew what he was doing, how he was going to accomplish it, and why. There are nits to picks, and holes to find to be sure, but it still has a basic framework of a story.
Into Darkness does not have these things, which is why I don't see how you can call it more exciting. Stuff exploding without context or meaning isn't exciting, it's noise. You need to know what's at stake for there to be tension, and you need tension to create excitement, if all you're doing is throwing shit on the screen then all you end up with is shit on the screen.
But everything is in context in STID. It doesn't always hold together under strict scrutiny of the film as a whole, but the moment to moment logic is always preserved. Your statement about their being no stakes and no tension is silly. There's always stakes and tension throughout the movie, it's why it works. It's why it got reviewed well despite the script problems.
All the issues in STID happen when you sit back and view the film as a whole. But that's not how you watch a movie. You watch it in the moment. Especially the first time. And STID is very well crafted at that level. Largely because Abrahms knows his stuff when it comes to this style of cinema.
That's not really true, because you are judging what is happening now based on what happened before. So when the movie's plot is telling you one thing, and then starts telling you something completely different, your brain is going to go "hey wait a minute" and try to figure out what's going on.
No, it's not. The viewer is often caught in the moment. That's why movies and especially TV shows can get away with often poor overall structuring. Cause the viewer is just going along for the ride. As long as you can justify the current plot in the moment, it'll often work.
For an example from a better movie, look at The Dark Knight. If you really wanted to, you could poke holes all over that plot. But the majority of people don't and it doesn't diminish the movie or keep it from being widely critically acclaimed because the tension and energy of the movie (which have nothing to do with what you are talking about, despite your assertions otherwise) pull us through. Contrivance and coincidence don't matter because the movie keeps the viewer too engaged to care.
Both Star Trek films do this quite well too, despite being on the whole far shoddier overall constructions when it comes to plotting then something like TDK. Because in each moment of the films, there is clear goals and stakes and conflicts and the pacing and directing is good enough to pull us along.
STID is really really good at this for the most part. Better then ST09. Which is why it works despite the fact that each of those individual moments become a fair bit of a mess if you pull back further. The movie simply works so that you never stop and think about that.
You're really suggesting TDK has even half as many plotholes or contrivances as STID? Wow. STID was nothing but contrived and convenient bullshit when it wasn't fanservice. There were no stakes because there were no rules, it's the difference between Harry Potter's use of magic and Game of Thrones use of it. In Harry Potter magic is a plot device, in GoT is very carefully used and controlled. STID had Khan fucking teleport to some Klingon planet because he felt like it and Kirk was resurrected by tribbles. There's also the whole thing that Abrams is a pussy who will never kill off a character, so my friends and I knew the moment Kirk "died" he'd be brought back because of reasons. That's another thing that diminishes stakes.
TDK on the other hand - I didn't see Rachel's death coming. That was a genuinely shocking and terrifying moment, and yes The Joker always being a step ahead of everyone might be unrealistic but that's the point of the character, and everyone knows Batman is a stylized world where the police sucks ass. Every crazy ass thing The Joker pulls off is in line with his character. Khan was also supposed to be an unstoppable badass, yet he became unbelievably stupid at the worst moment possible because the script needed him to go down. The Joker was suicidal and won, the TDK script never betrayed his character.
TDK has a ton of contrivance and coincidence. Alot of what The Joker pulls off sorta makes sense, but not quite. The whole case through the streets in the middle of the film is full of spots where any real hard look at the logic here leads to questions of "How'd they get so perfectly positioned?" or "Where's everybody else?" or whatever. The point though, is that no one cares. You can find tons of people picking apart the logic of virtually any film, but it's meaningless as to whether there's stakes or tension in the movie because those things are about things like directing and editing and the way those create pace and tension within the narrative. The viewer doesn't care if it fully makes sense, they care that in the moment they feel the excitement of the scene. Conflict is happening and we want it to work out well and so we are watching to see if it does and OMG, how are they gonna get out of this and all that.
And what you are talking about isn't a lack of rules, it's you not liking the rules. STID very clearly establishes both the things you mention within it's plot. IT does so, frankly, ham-handedly when it comes to the magic blood. But that's not a lack of rules at all. It's the opposite. They establish the Chekhov's gun and then they fire it. The fact that you cite GoT here is rather hilarious since GoT explicitly has no rules. It never tells us what is and is not possible. All it gives is the vaguest ideas about the general nature of magic (it's rare and hard) and then deploys it only when the plot requires. There are no rules here. Anything could happen at any time because none of us have any clue at all what the limits of what's possible are. This whole part of your argument is a jumbled mess frankly. Harry Potter still effectively generates drama too. Most dramatic works largely exist without overt structure for what is possible. That doesn't mean they can't generate tension.
Another thing that isn't necessary for tension or stakes btw? Character death. That's why TV can still be tense.
You are searching around for things you don't like about the film and trying to jam them into this argument, but the things you are talking about are not the same as the ability of the movie to generate tension and drama.
Look, stakes and tension and all those other words, those are drama. They are generated by the work establishing the conflict, the goal, the things in the way of that goal, etc. STID does this at every turn. It's always clear at any moment what the characters are after and who or what is opposing them. That taking a step back causes you to notice that all these separate little conflicts don't always make sense in a larger context doesn't change that. Those are not the same thing.
At first I just couldn't understand what you were saying Shryke, but I think I get it. You're saying it doesn't matter cause the movie is fun.
But that's my problem, it's not fun. This isn't a fun movie, A Voyage Home was fun, it's a comedy, hijinks ensure. I never looked at A Voyage Home with a critical eye, because it's simply not a movie that demands it.
Into Darkness is trying to be serious, it opens with 9/11 imagery for god's sake. It's about serious business issues with a militarized starfleet, Bush Doctrine parallels, death, and an extremely poorly executed character arc for Spock where he somehow goes into darkness inside himself or something I dunno.
If you want to make a big boy movie like Wraith of Khan that's about something then you need to write like one. If you're trying to make Indiana Jones in space, awesome, love that movie, go for it, but you know, actually do it. Don't staple a bunch of half-baked ideas and tell me it's fun and exciting, because no, it isn't. I don't care about your poorly conceived villains, I don't care about your main characters that are either exaggerated forms of themselves or completely underutilized (looking at you Urban's McCoy), and if I don't understand what's happening and why I can't be invested in it's outcome. This movie is not an adventure like Voyage Home. It's plot, or what I can discern from it is far more in-keeping with Wraith of Khan and Undiscovered Country, two more serious Trek films that had the writing to carry them.
But the movie is alot of fun.
But that's not my argument anyway because "fun" is so vague and personal most of the time. The closest this gets to the point is that I'm kinda, I guess, saying one of the reasons it's fun.
I'm saying it doesn't matter because while the overall plot of the movie isn't that logical, every individual moment is very well done. It's pretty and well directed and well acted. It's kinetic and tense and well paced and every moment of the film has an established point within the current conflict. It's always clear why we have to do this right now and what's in our way and everything works to make this urgent so we gotta zoom along. That's what gives the film it's character and I guess what makes it, for many, "fun". More to the point, it's why the film still works. It's why critics gave it the old thumbs up.
Frankly, I'm not even sure what your problem with the film on any large scale. You are kinda all over the place with this nitpick or that nitpick. And, I mean, there's alot of nit to pick apart in the film. It's Lindelof/Orci/Kurtzman after all. You can tear this plot apart if you want, but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad movie (though it does, say, keep it from being a great movie)
But when you say shit like "It's just not fun", it's not clear at all why you think that.
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L Ron HowardThe duckMinnesotaRegistered Userregular
I know exactly what you're saying, @shryke
You're not completely insane.
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
"Khan" is a meaningful name to Kirk even if it isn't yet meaningful to the audience. The guy ruled much of the world in the not-too-distant past. It would be like some guy claiming to be Caesar or Stalin.
Incredulity might have made sense, but I don't think Kirk is enough of a yokel to not understand who Khan is.
Kirk probably knows who Genghis Khan is, too, but he's not just going to assume that's who is in his brig for lots of reasons!
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
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CambiataCommander ShepardThe likes of which even GAWD has never seenRegistered Userregular
I feel myself caught between the two sides here, because on the one side: I did find it fun! On the other side: it could have been a way better film, it tried too hard to connect to WoK in an deep, emotional way when all it could accomplish was a silly/campy connection, and it seemed like it wanted to be dark and meaningful when with the way they wrote it, it could never really be that. It's almost a tonal clash... but because I came into my adulthood with anime, I think the one moment silly, one moment deadly serious tone not only doesn't bother me, but is something I relish. (To be fair to anime, it's not the only form that does this. Shakespeare did that shit all the time)
"If you divide the whole world into just enemies and friends, you'll end up destroying everything" --Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind
STID is the better movie. It's more tightly paced and exciting.
Any attempt to pretend one is less well written then the other seems absurd.
What's his face in 09' still had proper motivation, even if it was bare-bones revenge against Spock, I knew what he was doing, how he was going to accomplish it, and why. There are nits to picks, and holes to find to be sure, but it still has a basic framework of a story.
Into Darkness does not have these things, which is why I don't see how you can call it more exciting. Stuff exploding without context or meaning isn't exciting, it's noise. You need to know what's at stake for there to be tension, and you need tension to create excitement, if all you're doing is throwing shit on the screen then all you end up with is shit on the screen.
But everything is in context in STID. It doesn't always hold together under strict scrutiny of the film as a whole, but the moment to moment logic is always preserved. Your statement about their being no stakes and no tension is silly. There's always stakes and tension throughout the movie, it's why it works. It's why it got reviewed well despite the script problems.
All the issues in STID happen when you sit back and view the film as a whole. But that's not how you watch a movie. You watch it in the moment. Especially the first time. And STID is very well crafted at that level. Largely because Abrahms knows his stuff when it comes to this style of cinema.
That's not really true, because you are judging what is happening now based on what happened before. So when the movie's plot is telling you one thing, and then starts telling you something completely different, your brain is going to go "hey wait a minute" and try to figure out what's going on.
No, it's not. The viewer is often caught in the moment. That's why movies and especially TV shows can get away with often poor overall structuring. Cause the viewer is just going along for the ride. As long as you can justify the current plot in the moment, it'll often work.
For an example from a better movie, look at The Dark Knight. If you really wanted to, you could poke holes all over that plot. But the majority of people don't and it doesn't diminish the movie or keep it from being widely critically acclaimed because the tension and energy of the movie (which have nothing to do with what you are talking about, despite your assertions otherwise) pull us through. Contrivance and coincidence don't matter because the movie keeps the viewer too engaged to care.
Both Star Trek films do this quite well too, despite being on the whole far shoddier overall constructions when it comes to plotting then something like TDK. Because in each moment of the films, there is clear goals and stakes and conflicts and the pacing and directing is good enough to pull us along.
STID is really really good at this for the most part. Better then ST09. Which is why it works despite the fact that each of those individual moments become a fair bit of a mess if you pull back further. The movie simply works so that you never stop and think about that.
You're really suggesting TDK has even half as many plotholes or contrivances as STID? Wow. STID was nothing but contrived and convenient bullshit when it wasn't fanservice. There were no stakes because there were no rules, it's the difference between Harry Potter's use of magic and Game of Thrones use of it. In Harry Potter magic is a plot device, in GoT is very carefully used and controlled. STID had Khan fucking teleport to some Klingon planet because he felt like it and Kirk was resurrected by tribbles. There's also the whole thing that Abrams is a pussy who will never kill off a character, so my friends and I knew the moment Kirk "died" he'd be brought back because of reasons. That's another thing that diminishes stakes.
TDK on the other hand - I didn't see Rachel's death coming. That was a genuinely shocking and terrifying moment, and yes The Joker always being a step ahead of everyone might be unrealistic but that's the point of the character, and everyone knows Batman is a stylized world where the police sucks ass. Every crazy ass thing The Joker pulls off is in line with his character. Khan was also supposed to be an unstoppable badass, yet he became unbelievably stupid at the worst moment possible because the script needed him to go down. The Joker was suicidal and won, the TDK script never betrayed his character.
Hell, the moment they brought that Tribble back to life I knew it was going to be used in a stupid reactor scene later on. It was pretty much a saturday morning cartoon scene.
They had to add something in to bring Kirk back. They don't have magic Vulcan mysticism to bring him back as he is human. Lets face the old movies/TV show had a ton of magic in them hidden around technobabble. I enjoyed the film because it presented itself very well. Scenes melded together and it didn't try to get heavy handed with nerd speak. Don't get me wrong I love me some Trek technobabble but for an action/drama this movie was spot on in its offering for entertainment.
If I want a heavy handed, well put together movie, I will look for one with the Independent Film Award leafy symbol.
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And it would've been an interesting way to
Also, Khan wasn't a one dimensional villain in Space Seed. He was ambitious and power hungry but he actually did improve the state of the world and tried to rule as best as he could given the dire circumstances the world was facing.
Its totally plausable that despite being 200 years old he can design a new warship. Even if is ideas were 'make a bigger ship, remove all the stuff that isn't related to powering the weapons and engines and add that power to the guns and engines'
Exactly.
TOS imagined earth to be much more advanced in the 90's, with manned missions to Saturn and the 6th Voyager probe being launched in 1999.
As for the Enterprise's systems, they are highly automated. Khan really only needed the access codes to take over the computers.
In that sense Khan could've been used a lot better, as the kind of person that not just evil admiral robocop wants, but the people of the the Federation think they need, a hard man for hard times and exploring that through our crew who, Kirk having mind melded with Prime Spock, know that their world could be better, should be better, and it's their job to boldly go and make things better.
Idk.
I'm just some guy.
Heck, you could have Admiral Robocop throwing a coup on the Federation, because he believes the Klingons are an absolute end game for the Federation. Everything else be damned because they will annihilate the Federation.
The Enterprise could have gotten caught in the middle.
Khan could have been more sympathetic, but still grey as to where his alliances lie, being his own Protoman to Kirk's Mega Man.
Now you might say later parts of the movie imply they are enemies, but shit becomes so muddled and non-nonsensical you can't tell what the fucks going on or why. Like someone, anyone please tell me who the fuck put Kahn's men in the torpedo and why.
Did Kahn do it? If they are enemies, why wouldn't Kahn just thaw them and go nuts, we saw what Khan can do to those Klingons, 70 more of him would be unstoppable on Earth. Why would Khan hide them there, but still leave the warhead active, and liable to explode while tampered with, like that's pretty dumb thing to do there.
So Admiral Robocop did that? Why? Like the fuck? To kill them? That's the dumbest most convoluted way to kill someone to ever exist, Bond villains are fucking laughing at you dude. Even then, how does that kill them, the cryo-tube things are in place of the fuel supply, the torpedo literally will not fire, his entire plan to attack Q'nos can't work because of that. Like it really seems like he doesn't know their in there, cause how the fuck does he expect these things to fire without fuel? But he must know because he didn't want Scotty to scan them, and Scotty could immediately tell they were missing a normal fuel supply, but couldn't tell without a scan just what was in it's place. So he's clearly hiding them right? I'm sure they fucking scanned them at some point.
There are so many things wrong with this movie, you could do a RedLetterMedia style review that would take 3x as long as the movie was to explain it all. So I'll just end by with the teleporter tech makes the entire plot of the movie irrelevant, like all of it, you don't need magic torpedoes or big ass ship when you can teleport something from anywhere in the universe to anywhere in the universe. And the galexy is stupidly fucking small, like Kirk calls Scotty on his cellphone communicator from the Klingon border to Earth like the ship's in orbit, and the Enterprise flees Admiral Robocops big fuckoff ship for 2 minutes, which somehow is enough time to reach Earth. So maybe the communicator thing makes perfect sense as the Klingon border is somewhere around Pluto.
Also also, somehow Robocop thinks he can get away with blowing up the Enterprise in view of Earth with his secret fuckoff ship, and no one is going to ask any questions about this. Like you can't paint Kirk as some kind of rogue captain when you yourself have a secret fuckoff ship.
/end rant for now
Enjoy.
I watched it when it came out, but if memory serves, they pretty much chalk it up to being similar to the first, and really it's not. Half in the bag never does any serious analysis, and just gives some quick thoughts while cracking a few jokes.
Into Darkness is so much worse than the 09' it's absurd. I didn't have much of a problem with that movie, I thought it got held down by needing to bridge the old with the new, but still provided decent set-up for future, better movies. God was I fucking wrong on that one.
Any attempt to pretend one is less well written then the other seems absurd.
What's his face in 09' still had proper motivation, even if it was bare-bones revenge against Spock, I knew what he was doing, how he was going to accomplish it, and why. There are nits to picks, and holes to find to be sure, but it still has a basic framework of a story.
Into Darkness does not have these things, which is why I don't see how you can call it more exciting. Stuff exploding without context or meaning isn't exciting, it's noise. You need to know what's at stake for there to be tension, and you need tension to create excitement, if all you're doing is throwing shit on the screen then all you end up with is shit on the screen.
But everything is in context in STID. It doesn't always hold together under strict scrutiny of the film as a whole, but the moment to moment logic is always preserved. Your statement about their being no stakes and no tension is silly. There's always stakes and tension throughout the movie, it's why it works. It's why it got reviewed well despite the script problems.
All the issues in STID happen when you sit back and view the film as a whole. But that's not how you watch a movie. You watch it in the moment. Especially the first time. And STID is very well crafted at that level. Largely because Abrahms knows his stuff when it comes to this style of cinema.
That's not really true, because you are judging what is happening now based on what happened before. So when the movie's plot is telling you one thing, and then starts telling you something completely different, your brain is going to go "hey wait a minute" and try to figure out what's going on.
When these things are inconsequential to the movie's plot you are more likely to completely over look them, like in 09' when there is no explanation given (in the movie at least) for what Romuln dude was doing for 20 years while waiting for Spock to show up. You're less likely to notice this while watching because it's mostly irrelevant to the plot, maybe he's having a adventure with the Klingons or just jerking off, who cares.
But when it's pivotal plot points in which the whole movies spins on it's a big fucking deal when they don't make sense.
... there is also a ton more inconsequential shit to nitpick in Into Darkness too. Like why the fuck is the Enterprise underwater at the beginning? Why did they do that and who's idea was it. Scotty says it's bad for the hull... which I would think a spacefaring ship that goes through nebulas and what not could handle a little salt water, but whatever. But why were they down there? They would have been just a visible going down as they were going up, and it's not like a primitive culture that never heard of a telescope before is going to see them in orbit... in the middle of the day no less. Literally the only reason they are there is just so they can be seen.
Edit: And of course they only reason they came up is because they need line of sight to beam out Spock, gee if only there was some way for the ship to be above the planet out of sight of the natives? If only there was a way!
Oh wait, wait, no they need line of sight? Really?! You can beam youself from a flying scooter on Earth all the way to Q'nos like it's nothing, but the Enterprise can't beam through 100ft of fucking rock a few miles away. Dumb.
I think one of the things the movie was trying to do (not as well as it could have, but well enough to me) was establish that Khan outmatched everything else out there. So while the Enterprise had to get line of sight and in short range to get through the interference of rock and a volcano erupting, Khan had found a way to teleport across the stars. A little extreme for Star Trek, I'll give you that.
I guess the movie made sense to me; I was willing to suspend disbelief throughout, I knew who I wanted to root for, and I could fill in any blanks myself. It was fun. It wasn't Star Trek as I am accustomed to, but I have 50 years of that to lean on if I prefer it, so it doesn't really bother me.
No, it's not. The viewer is often caught in the moment. That's why movies and especially TV shows can get away with often poor overall structuring. Cause the viewer is just going along for the ride. As long as you can justify the current plot in the moment, it'll often work.
For an example from a better movie, look at The Dark Knight. If you really wanted to, you could poke holes all over that plot. But the majority of people don't and it doesn't diminish the movie or keep it from being widely critically acclaimed because the tension and energy of the movie (which have nothing to do with what you are talking about, despite your assertions otherwise) pull us through. Contrivance and coincidence don't matter because the movie keeps the viewer too engaged to care.
Both Star Trek films do this quite well too, despite being on the whole far shoddier overall constructions when it comes to plotting then something like TDK. Because in each moment of the films, there is clear goals and stakes and conflicts and the pacing and directing is good enough to pull us along.
STID is really really good at this for the most part. Better then ST09. Which is why it works despite the fact that each of those individual moments become a fair bit of a mess if you pull back further. The movie simply works so that you never stop and think about that.
Some people do that for TDK too. Or for basically any movie.
There's outliers in anything.
What is Star Trek though?
Is it the campy seriousness of TOS?
The almost stage-like morality plays TNG was often famous for?
The action-drama of Wrath of Khan?
The sci-fi comedy of Whale Trek?
The action movie of First Contact or the recent couple?
Star Trek, even within individual series and certainly overall, is a huge sprawling property that's been all over the map in the type of stories it's done.
Actually, Scotty said that Khan used his transporter trick from the first movie to get away. It's possible he improved it, but they never really established any kind of limit to it in the first place. It didn't bother me in the first movie since I treated like all other Trek technobabble that would be forgotten as quickly as it came up, but nope!
At first I just couldn't understand what you were saying Shryke, but I think I get it. You're saying it doesn't matter cause the movie is fun.
But that's my problem, it's not fun. This isn't a fun movie, A Voyage Home was fun, it's a comedy, hijinks ensure. I never looked at A Voyage Home with a critical eye, because it's simply not a movie that demands it.
Into Darkness is trying to be serious, it opens with 9/11 imagery for god's sake. It's about serious business issues with a militarized starfleet, Bush Doctrine parallels, death, and an extremely poorly executed character arc for Spock where he somehow goes into darkness inside himself or something I dunno.
If you want to make a big boy movie like Wraith of Khan that's about something then you need to write like one. If you're trying to make Indiana Jones in space, awesome, love that movie, go for it, but you know, actually do it. Don't staple a bunch of half-baked ideas and tell me it's fun and exciting, because no, it isn't. I don't care about your poorly conceived villains, I don't care about your main characters that are either exaggerated forms of themselves or completely underutilized (looking at you Urban's McCoy), and if I don't understand what's happening and why I can't be invested in it's outcome. This movie is not an adventure like Voyage Home. It's plot, or what I can discern from it is far more in-keeping with Wraith of Khan and Undiscovered Country, two more serious Trek films that had the writing to carry them.
"My name is... Khan".
What Kirk should have said "Who the fuck is Khan?"
That's like some random dude walking up to and dramatically saying "My name is... Phil". Like is that suppose to mean something to you? Unless you watched Wraith of Khan of course, but I assume Kirk didn't.
I'm just gonna keep ending all my posts with a random nitpick from the movie, I should have enough to last me for 3 more threads.
It's all of these things and none of it. Tthe important part linking all of the older stuff is that there was a point to it all. A message, a vision, a morale whatever you want to call it. Even with as dark as DS9 got it's still about the ideal of humanity triumphing even when having its very foundations shaken via paranoia and war. It's no coincidence that the Trek that gets put on a pedestal is also the Trek that's more than what's on the surface.
Now, can Trek as a less thinky action movie work? Sure! Space battles are fucking awesome yo. I think the real issue is that what we got is Star Trek: Bad Fan Fiction Edition. Good "mindless entertainment" has never truly been mindless. The fact that we have a basic understanding of what makes up a good action movie shows that there's really no such thing as "mindless entertainment." Even the most explosive and silly action movies require a certain level of coherency to them and STID is anything but coherent.
If they want to do a more explodey Trek then I'm totally game. Bring on the space battles because lord knows I spend a lot of time in Bridge Commander designing my own framerate killing fights. However, don't make me want to drill my own brains out after the fact. I can forgive a lot in the name of fun (PACIFIC RIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIM!) but when a movie is so inherently broken that thinking about it causes aneurysms, I have to draw the line.
Well yeah, I just can't help but nitpick arguments presenting themselves as absolutes when they kinda shouldn't, even accidentally. It's a bit of a pet peeve of mine.
Side note: Isn't there a 100 page rule or something? Methinks we should start a new thread but I'm incapable of writing short OPs (See: All of my G&T threads).
Incredulity might have made sense, but I don't think Kirk is enough of a yokel to not understand who Khan is.
If he said his full name maybe, but if someone with a mustache dramatically said their name was Joe you probably won't make the connection he was Stalin... especially if he looked like the most English person you could find.
Didn't Kirk get an info dump from Old Spock in the first movie?
I don't think he dumped his entire life story into him, just the bits about Nero.
You're really suggesting TDK has even half as many plotholes or contrivances as STID? Wow. STID was nothing but contrived and convenient bullshit when it wasn't fanservice. There were no stakes because there were no rules, it's the difference between Harry Potter's use of magic and Game of Thrones use of it. In Harry Potter magic is a plot device, in GoT is very carefully used and controlled. STID had Khan fucking teleport to some Klingon planet because he felt like it and Kirk was resurrected by tribbles. There's also the whole thing that Abrams is a pussy who will never kill off a character, so my friends and I knew the moment Kirk "died" he'd be brought back because of reasons. That's another thing that diminishes stakes.
TDK on the other hand - I didn't see Rachel's death coming. That was a genuinely shocking and terrifying moment, and yes The Joker always being a step ahead of everyone might be unrealistic but that's the point of the character, and everyone knows Batman is a stylized world where the police sucks ass. Every crazy ass thing The Joker pulls off is in line with his character. Khan was also supposed to be an unstoppable badass, yet he became unbelievably stupid at the worst moment possible because the script needed him to go down. The Joker was suicidal and won, the TDK script never betrayed his character.
With Into Darkness I can't remember Khan being meaningful to Kirk. I can't even remember Spock talking to him in detail about Khan, other than he can't be trusted.
Hell, the moment they brought that Tribble back to life I knew it was going to be used in a stupid reactor scene later on. It was pretty much a saturday morning cartoon scene.
TDK has a ton of contrivance and coincidence. Alot of what The Joker pulls off sorta makes sense, but not quite. The whole case through the streets in the middle of the film is full of spots where any real hard look at the logic here leads to questions of "How'd they get so perfectly positioned?" or "Where's everybody else?" or whatever. The point though, is that no one cares. You can find tons of people picking apart the logic of virtually any film, but it's meaningless as to whether there's stakes or tension in the movie because those things are about things like directing and editing and the way those create pace and tension within the narrative. The viewer doesn't care if it fully makes sense, they care that in the moment they feel the excitement of the scene. Conflict is happening and we want it to work out well and so we are watching to see if it does and OMG, how are they gonna get out of this and all that.
And what you are talking about isn't a lack of rules, it's you not liking the rules. STID very clearly establishes both the things you mention within it's plot. IT does so, frankly, ham-handedly when it comes to the magic blood. But that's not a lack of rules at all. It's the opposite. They establish the Chekhov's gun and then they fire it. The fact that you cite GoT here is rather hilarious since GoT explicitly has no rules. It never tells us what is and is not possible. All it gives is the vaguest ideas about the general nature of magic (it's rare and hard) and then deploys it only when the plot requires. There are no rules here. Anything could happen at any time because none of us have any clue at all what the limits of what's possible are. This whole part of your argument is a jumbled mess frankly. Harry Potter still effectively generates drama too. Most dramatic works largely exist without overt structure for what is possible. That doesn't mean they can't generate tension.
Another thing that isn't necessary for tension or stakes btw? Character death. That's why TV can still be tense.
You are searching around for things you don't like about the film and trying to jam them into this argument, but the things you are talking about are not the same as the ability of the movie to generate tension and drama.
Look, stakes and tension and all those other words, those are drama. They are generated by the work establishing the conflict, the goal, the things in the way of that goal, etc. STID does this at every turn. It's always clear at any moment what the characters are after and who or what is opposing them. That taking a step back causes you to notice that all these separate little conflicts don't always make sense in a larger context doesn't change that. Those are not the same thing.
But the movie is alot of fun.
But that's not my argument anyway because "fun" is so vague and personal most of the time. The closest this gets to the point is that I'm kinda, I guess, saying one of the reasons it's fun.
I'm saying it doesn't matter because while the overall plot of the movie isn't that logical, every individual moment is very well done. It's pretty and well directed and well acted. It's kinetic and tense and well paced and every moment of the film has an established point within the current conflict. It's always clear why we have to do this right now and what's in our way and everything works to make this urgent so we gotta zoom along. That's what gives the film it's character and I guess what makes it, for many, "fun". More to the point, it's why the film still works. It's why critics gave it the old thumbs up.
Frankly, I'm not even sure what your problem with the film on any large scale. You are kinda all over the place with this nitpick or that nitpick. And, I mean, there's alot of nit to pick apart in the film. It's Lindelof/Orci/Kurtzman after all. You can tear this plot apart if you want, but that doesn't necessarily make it a bad movie (though it does, say, keep it from being a great movie)
But when you say shit like "It's just not fun", it's not clear at all why you think that.
You're not completely insane.
Kirk probably knows who Genghis Khan is, too, but he's not just going to assume that's who is in his brig for lots of reasons!
They had to add something in to bring Kirk back. They don't have magic Vulcan mysticism to bring him back as he is human. Lets face the old movies/TV show had a ton of magic in them hidden around technobabble. I enjoyed the film because it presented itself very well. Scenes melded together and it didn't try to get heavy handed with nerd speak. Don't get me wrong I love me some Trek technobabble but for an action/drama this movie was spot on in its offering for entertainment.
If I want a heavy handed, well put together movie, I will look for one with the Independent Film Award leafy symbol.