Friday 31 May 2013

One reason to hate and a lot of reasons to love Star Trek Into Darkness

Contains spoilers


One reason to hate

The movie did not end with a long shot of Captain Kirk sat in the Captains chair with a tribble on his head. Looking fed up as he surveys an Enterprise bridge which is covered in tribbles.

Lots of reasons to love

Nostalgia Value

The movie starts on a planet with a population and style very reminiscent of the original series. The effects are much improved over those of the 1960s but the quirky design and sense of adventure are still there.

Beautiful shots of the  USS Enterprise

They did a fantastic job in designing the new Enterprise.  Keeping a lot of the elements that fans like and then adding their own style. The movie takes full advantage of the design with new and  imaginative shots. A particular favourite of mine was when the Enterprise rose out of the water. These shots are well made, whilst avoiding the over indulgence that happened in Star Trek The Motion Picture.

Development of characters
The movie is action packed but still spends a lot of time to focus on the characters. The interaction between the cast captures the  feel of the old TOS crew well. The film also spreads the screen time around the cast so that they each get a good amount of story. Instead of focusing on the traditional 3 of Kirk, Spock and McCoy.

A new female character
The addition of Carol Marcus to the Enterprise was a clever and necessary move. Each of the Star Trek series had an unbalanced male-female ratio  in the crew. Even Star Voyager, with a female Captain had this problem. Although Dr Marcus was only seen in one movie, Star Trek The Wrath Of Khan, she left a lasting impression with the audience and showed herself to be an equal of anyone around her. The characters return is welcome as interacts well with the crew and adds another female presence alongside Uhura.

New and Excting Action scenes.
For a space faring show Star Trek hasn’t always embraced it’s environment and has often had a repetitive style of space battle. Star Trek Into Darkness Has an exciting scene where the ships gravity has been messed up so that the characters are tumbling around the cat walk and walk ways.
It was also good to see another spacesuit seen, which always makes the action feel more close and dangerous. The movie makes good use of it's unique setting for action whilst always giving a good reason for the action to take place.

A complex and moral story

The story was well thought out and has the characters considering important issues of morality. I appreciated that the story wasn't about revenge even though that was how it appeared to be at first. The moral questions of how to handle Khan and what was happening to Star Fleet as an organisation were well handled. The movie succeeded where Star Trek Insurrection failed in exploring the ethics of Star Fleet.

1 comment:

Thoughts of a Nobody said...

I loved that movie and especially the development of Spock's character. There were several Spock scenes I thought were awesome. I watch the TV show Sherlock so I recognized the guy that played Kahn right away. I thought he did an awesome job by the way. He is an amazing actor.

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