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A fluffy souffle that quickly goes flat.
(but Benedict is good, in the screen time he gets, yeah, for the villian, he's not in this as much as you'd think.
(but Benedict is good, in the screen time he gets, yeah, for the villain, he’s not in this as much as you’d think.
Note: I did like the 2009 movie, I did see that it took what was great about TOS and reboot it, so this film puzzles me, rather than putting WOK in a twist, it grabbed a few elements and made it less than before, while constantly making nods to the past.
Suffice to say, when you realize it’s a remake of Wrath of Khan, Into Darkness comes up sadly lacking (WOK for all its cheeseball glory, had heart) This Kirk and Spock haven’t known each other long enough for the emotional resonance of the reactor scene, in WOK there was a palpable sense of danger and risk which never appeared here (Spock really died! with a bagpipe send off and everything!) due to the clunky ‘inject dead tribble with Khan’s blood’ scene which tipped us off that Kirk was never in any danger.
to have Spock yell out William Shatner’s famous KHAN!’ was a complete failure. I could hear groans from the audience
Benedict did his damndest with what he had, which was very little, look dark and brooding, fight a lot, but there wasn’t the great rivalry between Khan and Kirk from the first film, you really felt sympathy for Khan in the first film being ‘buried alive’ on a dead planet, but here, you never really get to feel that, as Khan is alone with his crew are in cryostasis, and honestly, what villain would ever house his family in live torpedos? It’s completely nonsensical, as is defeating Khan in the end, so easily, (with Spock and Uhura double teaming him, Uhura pounding lazer shots into him) after all this, Kahn gets shoved back in deep freeze to be thawed out for a sequel.
There were two villains here, the excellent Cumberbatch and the equally capable iconic Peter Weller, so neither villain was given enough screen time, or enough to work with, their characters merely sketches, whereas the original Khan was given plenty of scenery to chew - so you had a connection to the character and you cared what happened,
Another peeve was the awful costume and set design. Instead of going with the sleekness of the original uniform, they’ve imposed a design on the shirts which looks like scales, but it’s the awful grey ‘dress’ uniforms with the plastic windows I can’t stand, they look bulky and boxy and ugly, made of upholstery remnants, and to me, wouldn’t pass muster on an episode of Project Runway. During Peter Weller’s scenes I was too distracted by his strange lumpy epaulets to pay attention to what he was saying.
The bridge of the starship Enterprise is literally a mess, it’s original design was sleek and efficient to the point in was studied and copied on bridge decks for the US Navy, here extraneous crew were added, and what appeared to be little phone kiosks, and the bridge crew also multiplied as the film progressed, adding in ‘random alien’ in the last half hour, alien amounting to facemasks and makeup.
We know that the first film was shot in a ‘real warehouse’ (engine room scenes) but I have to ask myself, ‘why?’ it can’t be to save costs, the design literally slaps random tubes and wires on the originals to ‘update’ them, so the bridge looks it’s been in an explosion before it goes into battle. Pick any starship design from any of the previous incarnations for an improvement. Or take a transporter trip over to the black Dreadnought in the film.
I was sorry there was no nod to the Klingon Bird of Prey ship in the designs here. It was also distracting to hear sounds in the film reminiscent of Star Wars, rather than Star Trek. I’ve heard that the director here JJ Abrams is no fan of ST, and maybe here it’s showing, he’s also going to direct further Star Wars films, so maybe now ST will get someone who loves it.
(but Benedict is good, in the screen time he gets, yeah, for the villian, he's not in this as much as you'd think.
(but Benedict is good, in the screen time he gets, yeah, for the villain, he’s not in this as much as you’d think.
Note: I did like the 2009 movie, I did see that it took what was great about TOS and reboot it, so this film puzzles me, rather than putting WOK in a twist, it grabbed a few elements and made it less than before, while constantly making nods to the past.
Suffice to say, when you realize it’s a remake of Wrath of Khan, Into Darkness comes up sadly lacking (WOK for all its cheeseball glory, had heart) This Kirk and Spock haven’t known each other long enough for the emotional resonance of the reactor scene, in WOK there was a palpable sense of danger and risk which never appeared here (Spock really died! with a bagpipe send off and everything!) due to the clunky ‘inject dead tribble with Khan’s blood’ scene which tipped us off that Kirk was never in any danger.
to have Spock yell out William Shatner’s famous KHAN!’ was a complete failure. I could hear groans from the audience
Benedict did his damndest with what he had, which was very little, look dark and brooding, fight a lot, but there wasn’t the great rivalry between Khan and Kirk from the first film, you really felt sympathy for Khan in the first film being ‘buried alive’ on a dead planet, but here, you never really get to feel that, as Khan is alone with his crew are in cryostasis, and honestly, what villain would ever house his family in live torpedos? It’s completely nonsensical, as is defeating Khan in the end, so easily, (with Spock and Uhura double teaming him, Uhura pounding lazer shots into him) after all this, Kahn gets shoved back in deep freeze to be thawed out for a sequel.
There were two villains here, the excellent Cumberbatch and the equally capable iconic Peter Weller, so neither villain was given enough screen time, or enough to work with, their characters merely sketches, whereas the original Khan was given plenty of scenery to chew - so you had a connection to the character and you cared what happened,
Another peeve was the awful costume and set design. Instead of going with the sleekness of the original uniform, they’ve imposed a design on the shirts which looks like scales, but it’s the awful grey ‘dress’ uniforms with the plastic windows I can’t stand, they look bulky and boxy and ugly, made of upholstery remnants, and to me, wouldn’t pass muster on an episode of Project Runway. During Peter Weller’s scenes I was too distracted by his strange lumpy epaulets to pay attention to what he was saying.
The bridge of the starship Enterprise is literally a mess, it’s original design was sleek and efficient to the point in was studied and copied on bridge decks for the US Navy, here extraneous crew were added, and what appeared to be little phone kiosks, and the bridge crew also multiplied as the film progressed, adding in ‘random alien’ in the last half hour, alien amounting to facemasks and makeup.
We know that the first film was shot in a ‘real warehouse’ (engine room scenes) but I have to ask myself, ‘why?’ it can’t be to save costs, the design literally slaps random tubes and wires on the originals to ‘update’ them, so the bridge looks it’s been in an explosion before it goes into battle. Pick any starship design from any of the previous incarnations for an improvement. Or take a transporter trip over to the black Dreadnought in the film.
I was sorry there was no nod to the Klingon Bird of Prey ship in the designs here. It was also distracting to hear sounds in the film reminiscent of Star Wars, rather than Star Trek. I’ve heard that the director here JJ Abrams is no fan of ST, and maybe here it’s showing, he’s also going to direct further Star Wars films, so maybe now ST will get someone who loves it.
