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Re: Star Trek Into Darkness

I just saw it. I went in totally spoiler free, so I didn't even know Kahn was in the movie or that Spock Prime showed up. Very proud I went in pure.

That said, I thought it was a very fun movie, but not a particularly great Star Trek movie. But I guess this is what Star Trek has become: mindless fun with characters occasionally play-acting like the Original Series crew.

The one thing I really disliked was the unearned lifting of Wrath of Kahn. Not just in the concept (one dies to save the ship, the other grieves), but in the sometimes-verbatim lifting of dialogue. I mean over and over in that climax they just took words spoken by McCoy in STII and applied them to Scotty. It felt forced.

As did the entire climax. In Wrath of Kahn, when Spock nerve-pinches McCoy, that's a payoff to 15 years of history between the two frienemies. When Spock dyes in front of Kirk, it's the same decade+ payoff. It is earned.

This was not earned. And I get that the writers were going for the oppisite: kirk dying "establishes" the friendship between them, whereas in STII it's climaxes it. But there was no weight to it; no punch. Especially since everyone in the theater knew Kirk was coming back. Shoot, I immediately thought of Kahn's blood.

When Spock died, he stayed dead for 2 years and didn't return without heavy sacrifice (Kirk's son and the Enterprise itself). Kirk's death wasn't undone, it was undercut. There was no sacrifice to undo it. It was just...reversed.

All that said, it was a very fun movie. It was a great sequel to this new era of Trek. It's just not the Trek I grew up with, and the Trek I grew up with could be fun, adventurous, thrilling, emotional, AND intelligent. This movie was three out of those five things, and tried to be four out of five. I just don't think it ever tried to be intelligent.

Out of five? A very low THREE stars.