Star Trek Into Darkness ::: May 17, 2013

Python wrote:

I'll gladly take Arnold back instead. His scores aren't much, but I thought QOS was a nice improvement from what came before. If he could keep that up or do better I'd welcome him.

Perhaps I would rather have a more talented composer at work, DA had 5 chances and never made one thing that really impressed me mostly he felt like John Barry on Drum 'n bass at best.

Looks like Lindelof is the one to blame for shoehorning Khan.

http://www.blastr.com/2013-5-28/star-trek-writer-reveals-he-argued-against-khan-darkness-villain

Quote :

OK, I’ll do a deep dive with you. In a way, (fellow co-writer and co-producer) Damon (Lindelof) and I were the biggest debaters about this. He argued for Khan from the beginning and I argued against it. The compromise that we came to was, let us devise a story that is not reliant on any history of Star Trek. So, what’s the story? Well, we have a story where our crew is who they are and they’re coming together as a family. Then, suddenly, this villain arrives and his motivations are based on what happens in the movie. They’re not based on history. They’re not based on Star Trek. They’re not based on anything that came before. They’re based on his used by a corrupted system of power that held the things he held dear against him and tried to manipulate him. That story stands alone with or without Star Trek history. That’s how we approached it, and God bless Damon for going down that road.

So, once we had that, that’s when Damon came back and reared his ugly head and said, “OK, now that we have that, is there any reason why we cannot bring Star Trek history into this?” And he was right. So we ended up sort of reverse engineering it. We started with, “What’s a good movie? What’s a good villain? What’s a good motivation? We cannot rely on what’s happened before. Now that we have that, can we tailor this villain into something that relates to Star Trek history?” And that’s what we did. So, step one was “Don’t rely on Star Trek.” Then, step two was “Rely on Star Trek.”

There it is in plain English guys. The hilariously circular logic of the world's highest-paid, least-talented writing team.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhI0OVs_zj0

3 Day Weekend: $37,291,016
4 Day Weekend: $47,187,313


DOMESTIC

1. STAR TREK (2009): $279,346,750
2. STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE: $263,464,670
3. STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME: $232,770,740
4. STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN: $190,150,120
5. STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK: $171,144,160
6. STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS: $156,013,879
7. STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT: $136,387,060
8. STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY: $127,854,490
9. STAR TREK: GENERATIONS: $118,730,450
10. STAR TREK: INSURRECTION: $100,126,710
11. STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER: $97,906,800
12. STAR TREK: NEMESIS: $55,908,260


INTERNATIONAL

1. STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE: $181,736,110
2. STAR TREK (2009): $138,681,630
3. STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS: $102,100,000
4. STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT: $80,029,790
5. STAR TREK: GENERATIONS: $66,527,090
6. STAR TREK: INSURRECTION: $60,486,590
7. STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME: $49,404,350
8. STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN: $43,583,300
9. STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY: $37,560,070
10. STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER: $33,752,620
11. STAR TREK: NEMESIS: $31,096,340
12. STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK: $23,561,950



WORLDWIDE

1. STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE: $445,203,980
2. STAR TREK (2009): $418,028,390
3. STAR TREK IV: THE VOYAGE HOME: $282,177,220
4. STAR TREK: INTO DARKNESS: $258,113,879
5. STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN: $233,735,820
6. STAR TREK: FIRST CONTACT: $216,416,850
7. STAR TREK III: THE SEARCH FOR SPOCK: $194,708,340
8. STAR TREK: GENERATIONS: $185,257,540
9. STAR TREK VI: THE UNDISCOVERED COUNTRY: $165,414,560
10. STAR TREK: INSURRECTION: $160,613,300
11. STAR TREK V: THE FINAL FRONTIER: $131,661,300
12. STAR TREK: NEMESIS: $87,004,600

Held up reasonably well, considering there were 3 heavily advertised new releases against it for Memorial Day. How well it maintains over June will dictate if it surpasses the previous film.

The most awkward part of the whole flick at the end.

I may finally see INTO DARKNESS tomorrow. I'm trying to watch STINO right now. 7 minutes in. It's so difficult to sit through this piece of shit. And as I typed that I decided to give up. I may see STD tomorrow. I'll not see STINO before it. It'll probably help.

Yeah, I didn't bother watching it either before seeing the new flick. I'll probably watch it again later when the XIII comes out, see how it holds up after so long.

I'm currently in the third season of ENT. I've always remembered what shift the series took after the first two seasons, but it's a lot bigger than I recalled. All the problems I had with S1/2 are almost nonexistent by 3. Episodes actually feel like they matter, "Twilight" and "Similitude" hold up really well, Archer comes off much stronger and smarter than the idiot from earlier, Trip is no longer a walking stereotype. Travis is... oh yeah, he just drives the ship as usual. Montgomery may not be much of a compelling actor, but he could do a little more.

I even enjoyed "North Star", despite the episode's place in the season not making any lick of sense. Bad episodes like "Extinction" feel like filler, but you can see how the writers tried to make it thematically relevant to the season. That's the key thing, this season is actually trying and whether it succeeds or not I admire that. Especially after the last two seasons and all of VOY. It's a gutsy direction for the series to take, it's everything nuTrek is not. Such a shame it didn't start off this good.

Taken as one long movie, ENT S3 is a far superior alternative to STINO.

Yeah, I gave up on trying to watch STINO tonight. I put in my DARK CITY Blu-ray instead.


"You will forget STINO. You will be implanted with memories of a Star Trek movie where Jon Hamm plays the captain, and Christina Hendricks is a nude yeoman."

Hamm would make a good captain, actually he would have been a good Archer I think. Hendricks could play an Orion slave girl. January Jones would have made a perfect T'Pol... See what I did there? Slattery would be Admiral Forrest, always with a bottle of vodka visible on his video transmissions.

Actually, I thought about Slattery as a deadpan Vulcan. But yeah, Forrest.

Actually an episode in early S2 of MAD MEN has Mark Moses and Vaughn Armstrong, Archer's father figures, in the same scene. The guy who plays Degra is in S1.

I forgot that Vaughn made an appearance. Guess I'll see him soon. I'm currently watching an episode a day and I just watched the one with Don telling the beatniks how useless they are. Don really makes looking square more hip.

Look out for Yar as the horse lady in S2.

Wow, I don't remember that at all.

Having set up my own TV viewings schedule on Netflix, it just makes me want a new Trek series more and more. Paramount might never make a worthy flick again for a long time, but I hope with CBS holding the TV rights that they'll get some real talent if they ever plan to do anything other than remaster the old shows.

As much as I am sexually attracted to Hendricks, she's a better actress than to just be an Orion Slave Girl or a Yeoman.

What TOS always needed was a bit of a stronger female. Uhura's the strongest on the show and she is, for all intents and purposes, barely in it. Chapel is a total pushover weak woman and Rand is, well, yeah.

And besides, Hendricks with green skin and black hair loses a lot of the appeal, somehow.

I agree, I just don't know what role she would play in ENT hence the guest Orion slave girl thing. If a new role were created for her on any series, I'd make her a no nonsense first officer of sorts. Reminiscent of Kira, withou the whole terrorist baggage.

Fairbairn-Sykes wrote:

As much as I am sexually attracted to Hendricks, she's a better actress than to just be an Orion Slave Girl or a Yeoman.

What TOS always needed was a bit of a stronger female. Uhura's the strongest on the show and she is, for all intents and purposes, barely in it. Chapel is a total pushover weak woman and Rand is, well, yeah.

And besides, Hendricks with green skin and black hair loses a lot of the appeal, somehow.

Hendricks on Star Trek would have to be one helluva character. I still would want to see FIREFLY with Inara thrown overboard in favor of Saffron.

As for Chapel, it's clear in STD that Kirk banged her. :roll:

And with that...

Star Trek Into Darkness

Not sure if I can type up a full review at the moment. Let's do bulletpoints.

-Better than STINO. Flat out better.

-Actually somewhat feels like Star Trek. It seems to embrace being Trek more than the last one.

-I wish the characters were written as adults as opposed to teenagers.
-----Kirk LYING to superiors in his report? And then accusing Spock of being a bastard for filing an honest one? Kirk is a fucking piece of shit. Kirk isn't really shown to be very worthy of redeeming as a character.
-----Spock and Uhura bickering during a dangerous mission to Qo'noS?
-----Kirk beating the shit out of a prisoner who just willfully surrendered? The list goes on.

-Khan is shoehorned in. He should have been John Harrison, a product of illegal 23rd-century genetic engineering. He should have been like a Jason Bourne for Section 31 instead of a weapons designer. That would have been more interesting. He'd have been a stronger character.

-The movie really loses steam in the last third. It reminded me of CASINO ROYALE where I was saying to myself, "Yeah, this movie should be over already."

I'm sure I'll think of more to say. I thought the first two thirds were okay. I liked the pre-titles sequence pretty well. The aliens had a cool design that feels very TOS. I like the spirit of the film. It just turns more and more stupid as it goes. It does sorta work as a Saturday morning cartoon.

EDIT ADDON: Oh yeah, Kirk's death falls completely flat.

I also enjoyed the score this time around. Now to get my hands on it.

*cough*

My thoughts too. Leaps above STINO, but still has issues.

I like the idea of Kirk fucking up in the beginning and having reality crash into his thick skull so that he learns something from it and becomes a better leader in the end, but the film doesn't play with that. Ten minutes after getting demoted he's captain yet again and only because of his superior getting killed. He should have EARNED the chair. Same thing with his quest for vengeance, it's for about 10 minutes and then he suddenly realizes "oh yeah, that's immoral" before they go to warp. I would have let that simmered, and then when he meets Khan face to face that's when he decides to do the right thing and then he starts to put together how sketchy the entire operation that Admiral Marcus gave him sounds. Yeah, it's MINORITY REPORT but better that than STAR WARS. Kirk sacrificing himself for his ship and crew is a nice move, but killing him and bringing him back to life as fan service for TWOK/TSFS is just stupid. If you wanna pull a Lucas with that "it's like poetry, it rhymes" then be more subtle about it. X2 ripped off the ending too but it wasn't word for word. I think Pine does good in it, his "I'm scared Spock", but the fact that his DEATH means nothing just kills it, especially Spock's "KHAAAAN!"

Agreed about it feeling more like Star Trek. It's got a premise I like, I just don't like the way they went about it and Lindelof's shoehorning in Khan "because he's Star Trek's Joker".

He's not even, that's the problem. He isn't Kirk's great nemesis, what gave him.power in TWOK was the context of "Space Seed", because Harve Bennet thought he was the one TOS foe who claim closest to defeating the Trinity. Without that, just intro'd on his own, he had no power. They had to shoehorn Nimoy in just to establish that he is indeed a big deal.

Oddly enough, I wasn't bothered by the Carol Marcus undies shot. I do think the writers saying "sorry" for it is a publicity move, though. To remind people of it to boost attendence.

My biggest complaint when it comes to women in these movies is that they're only there to be oogled or fucked. Uhura's main job in the film is still to be Spock's doting girlfriend. Cuz every big movie needs a romance, of course. Marcus fairs a little better, but not much. And when Chapel gets a mention it's because Kirk fucked her, too.

Yeah its weird that Star Trek has become so backwards in its gender politics considering how it started in "The Cage"

Okay, one more criticism I forgot earlier. I wish they'd not done the profanity. I'm not against profanity itself, but it really classes down the movie when everyone says "shit" constantly. It also would help the Scotty joke when he starts to say it. I actually liked that moment, and it would have worked had the movie not been laced with profanity.

Or colourful metaphors.

That was one thing about the movie, one more thing, Chapel now being a name that Kirk messed with in the past. Hope yet for Tonia Barrows.

STAR TREK XII: DOUBLE DUMBASS

Or perhaps I shall refer to the film as STAR TREK INTO DUMBASS.