Star Trek Into Darkness ::: May 17, 2013

What kind of villain says he is "bringing darkness" or whatever? I remember Ricardo Montalban saying the trick to playing a villain is that the villain must think of himself as the hero of the story.

Poor London though. Blown up in two big Hollywood franchises this year.

I think it looks good. Cumberbatch should make a good villain.

Python wrote:

So yeah, here's that trailer.

Well, that's two and a half minutes of my life that I won't be getting back. It's like a greatest hits compilation of every successful film in recent years. Which is exactly the same criticism I had last time around, so the real mystery here is why I'm so surprised that nothing has changed.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

Python wrote:

So yeah, here's that trailer.

Well, that's two and a half minutes of my life that I won't be getting back. It's like a greatest hits compilation of every successful film in recent years. Which is exactly the same criticism I had last time around, so the real mystery here is why I'm so surprised that nothing has changed.

Because the first movie has done really well, and is condsidered to be a pretty good movie by the average movie crowd. And compared to the last Next Gen movies they are brilliant.

I will be seeing this with the daughters who liked the 1st movie, and any half decent scifi movie that can be watched with my kids is time well spend with them. I am so glad they finaly left the Hanna Montana and their ilk age. :cheers:

saint mark wrote:

Because the first movie has done really well, and is condsidered to be a pretty good movie by the average movie crowd. And compared to the last Next Gen movies they are brilliant.

Be that as it may, it's just completely unoriginal. When the Enterprise emerges from the ocean like that, it's practically a carbon copy of the helicarrier taking off in THE AVENGERS.

Benedict Cumberbatch's character is basically The Joker, Raoul Silva and Loki.

And so on, and so forth. INTO DARKNESS might be an excellent film ... if it wasn't just ripping off everything that had come before it.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

saint mark wrote:

Because the first movie has done really well, and is condsidered to be a pretty good movie by the average movie crowd. And compared to the last Next Gen movies they are brilliant.

Be that as it may, it's just completely unoriginal. When the Enterprise emerges from the ocean like that, it's practically a carbon copy of the helicarrier taking off in THE AVENGERS.

Benedict Cumberbatch's character is basically The Joker, Raoul Silva and Loki.

And so on, and so forth. INTO DARKNESS might be an excellent film ... if it wasn't just ripping off everything that had come before it.

You are basing everything you say upon a trailer, Hollywood must be glad with you they no longer have to make the whole movie anymore for people to get upset. ;)

saint mark wrote:

You are basing everything you say upon a trailer

No, I'm basing everything I say on a trailer and JJ Abrams' habit of profiting off other peoples' creativity.

Prisoner Monkeys wrote:

saint mark wrote:

You are basing everything you say upon a trailer

No, I'm basing everything I say on a trailer and JJ Abrams' habit of profiting off other peoples' creativity.

Oh it is a personal thing.

JJ Abrams is currently doing really well so your frustrationlevel concerning him is going to keep rising for some time. ;)

What gets me is that Abrams has the clout and support of Paramount to do whatever he wants, and instead of doing something new and bold he's just taking plot points from other movies and putting them in a blender with the label "Star Trek". It's just disappointing, and he clearly doesn't understand Trek. Even NextGen flicks as flawed as they were still felt like Trek to a degree.

Python wrote:

It's just disappointing, and he clearly doesn't understand Trek.

But he does understand "geek". Or at least, the studios think he understands it, as if it's an entire subculture when it is, in fact, a generalisation.

On 'swearing' NuKirk ... doesn't the Shat call the Klingon who kills his son in The Search For Spock 'you Klingon bastard' at least twice?

I don't have much of a problem with Kirk swearing, as long as it isn't excessive. I would love to see the return of "double dumbass on you".

Blunt Instrument wrote:

On 'swearing' NuKirk ... doesn't the Shat call the Klingon who kills his son in The Search For Spock 'you Klingon bastard' at least twice?

The nu-kirk swearing isn't really comparable with previous Kirk profanity, the 'son of Bitch' phrase is a gratuitous slice of modern audience gratification in other words - profanity for its own sake, 'gung-ho' in its most mindless guise being the antithesis of old Trek - in contrast to a shocked outburst predicated by a heart wrenching event. Ironically Nu-Kirk is clearly the result of the type of writing old-Kirk consigns to the history books in Voyage Home.

Python wrote:

What gets me is that Abrams has the clout and support of Paramount to do whatever he wants, and instead of doing something new and bold he's just taking plot points from other movies and putting them in a blender with the label "Star Trek". It's just disappointing, and he clearly doesn't understand Trek. Even NextGen flicks as flawed as they were still felt like Trek to a degree.

Indeed, sadly as a result Trek really is now pretty much indistinguishable from everything else. It doesn't make the new films bad but it does mean in terms of real variety cinema has lost something distinct, an approach/attitude demonstrably different to mainstream film has been homogenised and its identity assimilated.

I'll see this flick and just hope it turns out better than the last one. That's all I can really do. I just wish it didn't look like it was made for people with the mental capacity of a three year-old.

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

What kind of villain says he is "bringing darkness" or whatever? I remember Ricardo Montalban saying the trick to playing a villain is that the villain must think of himself as the hero of the story.

Poor London though. Blown up in two big Hollywood franchises this year.

London can take it.

I saw some critique of the posters for the film showing inaccurate geography for London though -the Guerkhin behind St. Paul's but also pointing out the other week in Dr Who we had the Doctor take Westminster Bridge for the Shard. No one cares. Small fry concerning Into Darkness.

We, locally, are entreated to a midnight showing for the film.

Been watching the MISSION: IMPOSSIBLE movies of late. Watching III at the moment. I'm actually finding it watchable. I only bring it up because of JJ. Even if it REALLY misses the point of the concept (IMF is offically just Tom Cruise playing commando with machine guns while everyone else is on computers), I'm finding it oddly watchable. Certainly more than STINO.

I do hate the cat piss color palette.

For me M:I-3 suffers the same problem that TWINE had. Ethan Hunt is suddenly bad at his job. In just a few seconds he loses his shit over Hoffman and then Rhames foolishly says Hunt's name in front of Hoffman. Oops. They're IMF vets, they should be better than that.

And again, Brad Bird should do STAR TREK XIII.

Python wrote:

For me M:I-3 suffers the same problem that TWINE had. Ethan Hunt is suddenly bad at his job. In just a few seconds he loses his shit over Hoffman and then Rhames foolishly says Hunt's name in front of Hoffman. Oops. They're IMF vets, they should be better than that.

And again, Brad Bird should do STAR TREK XIII.

Yeah, I posted that before that scene. One thing I don't care for is how "domestic" is it. Wrong-headed all around, but sorta watchable, and to me still better than STINO.

Not eager to rewatch M:I-3 to see if it holds up better than STINO anytime soon. But I'll watch M:I-2 anyday. Anytime I talk about M:I with whoever, I just like to throw out "2 is better than 3" like it's nobody's business. The motorcycle chest bump ends the debate for me.

Moore & Braga > Orci & Kurtzman

Hey, another Star Trek/Mission: Impossible connection.

The IMDB message boards are out of sight. I don't know why I'm surprised or even repelled but...well, I am.

Uhura's feet indeed.

Just watched GHOST PROTOCOL . What a fucking fantastic adventure movie. I wish this creative team had taken over the STINO sequel; minus Giacchino, who has the amazing talent of making the classic Schifrin theme about as exciting as a Chris DeBurgh song. Pity he was carried over from MARRIAGE: IMPOSSIBLE.

I also seriously want to frak Paula Patton.

Anyway, let's see what shit AOKL has shoveled our way.

I may try to wrap my TOS marathon. I stopped a couple months ago and have about 30 episodes left.

AOKL is Abrams Orci Kurtzman Lindelof. I'd feel safer leaving the franchise in the hands of SCDP.

Purely on TREK now.

Everything looks like action figures and playsets: http://movies.trekcore.com/gallery/thumbnails.php?album=609

Agreed on GHOST PROTOCOL, I watched that a week ago as I was going through the TV series, and of all the films it feels most tuned in with the show. Very refreshing for the films to put more emphasis on the team. M:I-3 almost brought back that aspect, but mid-way just reverted back to TOM CRUISE: THE MOVIE with the whole "I HAVE TO SAVE MY WIFE" stuff. "MARRIAGE: IMPOSSIBLE", I like that. I think that's what I'll call it from now on, like STINO.

If Brad Bird gets the gig for TREK XIII, I also hopes he learned the same thing from M:I that Nimoy did.

I'd rank them

I
GP
II
III

I still like the feel of the first one. That sorta mid-90's post-Cold War thing. I just wish Tom Cruise had played a character named Jim Phelps. Oh well, I'd welcome a new M:I show. And I've suggested that Bruce Greenwood would make a terrific Phelps.

And STINO sucks.

Oh yeah, I got into a bit of a discussion about STINO in real life. I got that "You just don't like it because it wasn't exactly like the show." I've encountered very few people whom I can convince that my dislike of the film is on it's merits.

I have a friend at work I who I chat with about Trek a lot (he lended me TAS DVDs awhile back). About 30% of our conversations are Trek stuff. We pretty much share the same views in general, although he enjoys nuTrek but more on a schlock kind of level, warts and all. He doesn't surf the net a lot, so I'm always breaking the news to him about the new flick. I remember when I told him about the Enterprise swimming in the ocean, his jaw dropped followed by "Jesus, is J.J. just trying to piss off Trekkies?".