Delving Deeper into the Darkness

A few days back, I wrote a review of Star Trek Into Darkness that tiptoed around revealing any details of the plot. That preserved the surprises for people, but made it incredibly difficult to articulate exactly what shortcomings I perceived in the film. So here's Take 2, or my "Captain's Log, Supplemental," if you will.

Just to be crystal clear here: this post is going to spoil absolutely everything about the movie. If you haven't seen it yet, and you keep reading this anyway, that's on you.

Let me start by reiterating that I gave the movie a B in my first review, and I do stand by that. It has problems, but is pretty good overall and worth seeing. I begin with this because there really isn't much more I need to say about what I liked in the movie; those things I could talk about before without giving anything away. Still, it's worth saying again that the cast is exceptional. This new ensemble playing Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Scotty, Sulu, Chekov, and Uhura are all absolutely perfect for the job. I would eagerly watch a weekly television series starring this group -- though the film careers of enough of them are taking off that you'd never actually get them all onto the small screen. My point is, they're all such perfectly credible incarnations of the characters that I feel like having a new series with them would be like getting all new episodes of the original Star Trek.

And that's the real problem with Star Trek Into Darkness. It's not new.

J.J. Abrams' previous film took a huge risk in upending everything that longtime fans knew about Star Trek. We all know that the crew didn't "meet as kids," if you will. But that was only the beginning of the changes. The movie set up an alternate timeline in which Vulcan was destroyed and anything could happen. And it did it so well that even me, a life-long Star Trek fan, was completely on board. Let's do it! Let's boldly go where no one has gone before!

Instead, they went straight back to where we've already been, by telling an alternate version of the story of Khan. They missed the opportunity to take their spiffy new universe out for a spin. But more to the point: if they absolutely felt they had to do a remake of a classic Star Trek storyline, why not choose one that could have benefited from being remade? There are plenty of classic, middle-of-the-road episodes. Don't retell, say, "Spock's Brain," because nothing is going to shine that turd. But on the other end of the spectrum, don't retell "Space Seed" and "The Wrath of Khan," because you aren't going to do any better with it.

Star Trek Into Darkness was at its best when it was in its most original territory. The idea of a bloodthirsty Admiral capitalizing on the destruction of Vulcan to try to militarize Starfleet was great. We've never seen anything quite like that on Star Trek. (We also never would have while Gene Roddenberry was alive, because he never would have gone for such corruption within Starfleet under any circumstances.) Still, the story concept in fact is classic Star Trek, because it's an allegory for a moral question very relevant in today's world: when facing a terrifying new enemy, how much are you willing to compromise on your core values in pursuit of a sense of security? Sure, this topical message got buried a bit in the constant action sequences, but at least it was there. So far, so good.

But then Khan was brought into the mix -- and for a rather flimsy reason. Apparently, a savage mind was needed for savage times (overlooking the fact that Khan was defeated in Star Trek II precisely because, as brilliant as he was, he was not capable of thinking beyond his own time and making full use of space combat's third dimension). We got virtually none of Khan's back story in this movie, seemingly because the movie was banking on us already knowing that back story from having seen Khan before. It even had Leonard Nimoy show up in a fun but unnecessary cameo to tell the audience what the movie had not effectively shown for itself: Khan's as bad as they come. I just don't think this was a good way to go, making the audience reflect on one of the best stories classic Star Trek ever told.

Worse, this story then took us to essentially the same ending. Yes, the role reversal of having Kirk sacrifice his life to save the Enterprise instead of Spock had a certain cleverness to it. And it was a bit fun (to a point) to hear some of the exact same lines of dialogue. But here again, as with Khan's back story, the film is trading on years of Star Trek history to supplement what it's not providing itself. When Spock died in Star Trek II, it was the culmination of a decade-long friendship between him and Kirk, three-plus years of which we saw depicted on screen. The emotional reaction was entirely earned, and we the audience felt it too. In this case, Spock and Kirk have only known each other for about six months, and it's been a rather contentious relationship the entire time. We're asked to believe Spock is moved to tears when he didn't even break his stoic facade when his entire homeworld was destroyed -- a torture that included seeing his own mother die right in front of him. Spock's emotional reaction is only believable if the court accepts facts not in evidence: the vast background of the original Star Trek timeline.

And it was a huge mistake to have Spock scream out Khan's name in rage. It worked -- barely -- in Star Trek II, even though we all realized how borderline hammy William Shatner's performance was. But I think somewhere around the time George Costanza screamed it in a Seinfeld episode, it stopped being a moment that could be taken seriously. If Kirk's death scene had been able to generate any real emotion, that moment totally undercut it.

While trading on Star Trek's past was the movie's big flaw in my mind, there were other little problems along the way. Most of them had to do with sacrificing logic on the altar of things that looked cool. For what reason was the Enterprise hiding underwater in the opening sequence? (Because it would look cool when it rose up out of the ocean.) How exactly did the ship fall to Earth from an orbit roughly the distance of the moon? (Does it matter? Cause, you know, great moment when the ship plummets through the cloud layer, then rises back up.) Why does Khan stop to grab a trench coat when he's fleeing Spock in the final chase? (Because it will look neat flapping in the wind.)

There were a few plot holes too. For me, the biggest was the conceit at the end of the movie that Khan's blood was needed to save Kirk's life. Spock has to take Khan alive, we're told, even though there are 72 other genetic supermen in stasis available for McCoy's use. In fact, they're scooping one of them out of a tube to put Kirk in it at literally the moment McCoy says they need Khan alive. (So pay no attention to what's going on in the background!) And as a side note, I shudder to think at the repercussions of McCoy having possibly created an unkillable Tribble.

It's also a bit disappointing that a movie which includes Klingons, Khan, and more action sequences than any previous Star Trek film somehow managed to essentially have no ship combat. The Enterprise got the crap beaten out of it in the space of a few seconds (seriously marginalizing its role as the unofficial "eighth character"), and that was about it.

Having now read me going on quite negatively for so many paragraphs, you may be asking yourself: he gave the movie a B? It sounds like he hated it! Well no, I really didn't. The action, though illogical, was generally quite exhilarating and fun. And (though I've said it before, it's worth saying again) the cast is absolutely superb in their portrayal of the classic characters. Overall, I did feel like I was watching Star Trek. And not bad Star Trek. Just Star Trek that was too familiar.

When the next Star Trek movie rolls around, I will remain eager to see these actors in action. I just hope that the script steps out from the shadow of the original series. They really don't need to earn their "Trek cred" with me anymore. Move on and tell a new story, please.

(With less lens flare, please. Seriously, "Star Trek Into Darkness" is about the most ironic title they could have chosen.)