The Case for Dark Stars

As Off-Black put it, Star Trek: Into Darkness is Star Trek 2.2.

Not that this is a bad thing.  There are lots of nods to things that happen in that camp classic (large torpedoes, threats to Galactic peace, a Marcus romance), but the story is quite different and the whole tone is less sit and talk and more action.

This is not a surprise considering J J Abrahms last Star Trek outing.  That was all running and leaping and lens flares:


And Star Trek: Into Darkness is pretty much the same thing, eschewing sense (Trans-galactic transporters?  When travelling at warp, how far away is Earth from the Klingon homeworld again?  And what Klingon fleet threatens the Federation, considering there are apparently no battlecruisers in or near Empire space at all?) for a chance to have things explode and people beat each other to a pulp.

It helps to have a great cast distracting the audience from the nonsense to concentrate on the spectacle.  Chris Pine is still fine as Kirk, but as the film progresses, it becomes Zachary Quinto’s Spock’s show, and that is not a bad thing at all.  The secondary characters get given a little more than the original Uhura, Sulu and Checkov would have had, and Karl Urban continues his amazing DeForest Kelly impression as McCoy, though Simon Pegg’s comic relief Scotty is the real winner as his role is bumped up dramatically.  

Joining the cast is Benedict Cumberbatch, all steely cold blue eyes and menacing angular features as the main villain, Peter Weller as the badest cop in the Starfleet Admiralty, and the incredible curves of Alice Eve as a young weapons specialist who of course has to get her blue miniskirt off to saunter around in minimal black underwear for reasons entirely critical to the plot (I think).

Also back is the Enterprise, all retro chrome 1960s American car on the outside, and looking for the most part like a very sterile TARDIS (where do they fit all those big empty spaces in that little hull?) with terrible lighting (the flares, the flares!) within.  It gets hammered a lot in this film, with pieces blowing up left right and centre though magically avoiding the bridge area, though it could just be that there was damage and I just couldn’t see it due to the poor illumination.  

A brief plot summary then: a terrorist blows up a few Federation facilities, flees to Klingon space (for no rational reason, from his perspective anyway), is captured by Kirk and his crew – and then the plot thickens and lots of things go boom, or get blown out into space.  There seemed to be a few moments inspired from Blade Runner tossed in amongst the mix of “new spin” plot and some scenes that are played almost word for word from the original Trek timeline.  And through it all, the pace doesn’t let up, nor does the action, and nor do the lens flares.

It’s hard to be too picky with this Star Trek as it is just so much fun.  In my head, I have managed to separate this version from the original timeline, seeing it more as a fan fiction Trek and a very accessible one at that.  Not “real” Trek as such, just an interesting and amusing attempt to sexy things up a bit – and judging by the way people are going to this film, it appears to be working.

So it’s a big, no brain actioner film, with barely a moment to pause for breath.  It seems a little sad when Kirk is quietly shunted aside for Spock (Pine is a good boyish Kirk, but I wasn’t convinced by his attempts at depth), but it also seems quite logical too.  Not logical is quite why, as the film nears resolution, one person’s blood becomes so critical when there are over 70 other specimens with similar blood that are much more easily accessible, but the needs of the many (the audience) outweigh the needs of the few (critical thinkers).  And the many, I think, will like this film.

Verdict: Star Trek: Into Darkness is just like the first rebooted Star Trek movie, but more so.  The cast are all around likeable (even Scotty, this time around) and the fact none of it makes any real sense doesn’t get in the way (too much) of the film being a rip roaring good time.  I couldn’t watch it as “real Trek” and be satisfied, but from an action space adventure, it pushes all the right buttons.  8.5 lens flares out of 10.