Star Trek: Into Dumbness

I saw the new Star Trek movie this weekend with The Wife, and feel that I should add my 2¢ worth to the ongoing conversation about it. I will say that I didn't hate it, but I can't recall the last time a movie pissed me off so much. Probably the original Mission Impossible when they made Phelps the bad guy. This ranks up there with that. In the hierarchy of Trek films, I rank it on par with Generations, another film that should've been better but spun out of control with nonsensical plot contortions and an over-inflated sense of self-importance. That puts it ahead of the abyssmal Nemesis and Insurrection, for what it's worth.

If you don't want spoilers, then stop reading here, because everything in this film has been so thoroughly telegraphed in advance by the filmmakers that even a half-blind monkey that's never seen a single second of Star Trek in any incarnation will figure out what's coming. First and foremost, the movie fails utterly by bringing in Khan Noonien Singh as the villain. Star Trek II is still universally hailed as the gold standard for all Star Trek films, and the high-stakes, to-the-death battle between Kirk and Khan is a huge part of that. Ricardo Montalban's portrayal of Khan--both in the original "Space Seed" episode of the series and in the film--is transcendent and iconic. The fact that the "big reveal" of Khan as the bad guy halfway through Star Trek: Into Darkness depends entirely on actor Benedict Cumberbatch 1) looking nothing like Ricardo Montalban in any way, shape or form, 2) being neither Hispanic, as Montalban was, nor northern Indian Sikh, as Khan was, or 3) neither speaking nor acting like the character, you know there are some serious problems with the script. Despite taking great pains to cast actors who vaguely resemble their older counterparts for the reboot, it seems this time that director J.J. Abrams took great pains to cast an actor as ethnically unlike the older predecessor simply to preserve his "GOTCHA!" moment, which never was a gotcha moment at all. Had Abrams seriously considered casting a Latino actor or Indian or Pakistani for the role, fans would view that as defacto confirmation that Khan was the villain. As it was, most people still thought Cumberbatch was playing Khan, only they were somewhat puzzled, in a "how do they explain this?" way.

For a film series so desperately trying to strike out in a new direction and establish its own identity, Into Darkness went out of its way to trade heavily on emotional payoffs based on earlier Trek films. It shamelessly apes or invokes Star Trek II, III and VI, but not as homage. Rather, it's ham-fisted manipulation, basically telling the audience, "See, this was really poignant and emotional 20 years ago, so you have to react the way we want you to. Not only are we reminding you how Spock died saving everyone and getting you all weepy at the memory, Captain Kirk is doing THE EXACT SAME THING THIS TIME! How awesome is that? And in case you are so stupid as to not pick up on the parallels, we're going to quote the exact same lines from Star Trek II and beat you over the head with them." From the opening volcano sequence in which Mr. Spock says "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few" (in a rather forced delivery, I thought) I had a sinking feeling. Subtlety was not part of this film's bag of tricks. But when the U.S.S. Enterprise is hurtling to its doom unless Kirk can brave lethal amounts of radiation to restore power to the ship's systems, the film becomes a parody of itself. As Kirk dies (yes, he dies) I grew more and more uncomfortable. When Spock cries (cries!?) I grew offended at the blatant manipulation on display. But when Spock unleashes an embarrassing echo of Krik's much-referenced scream of "KHAAAAAN!", I threw up my arms in disgust and damn near walked out. This is not good writing. It's cheap and lazy. The original movie earned its brutal emotional payoff the hard way, building on the history of the original TV series episode and an intense character arc running throughout The Wrath of Khan. That movie brought a lot of new material to the table as well: Kirk's old love, Carol Marcus, their son, David, the Genesis Device, fear of aging, emotional isolation... I mean, nothing like that movie had ever come to Star Trek before, and it was a heady experience. Into Darkness manages none of that. It introduces Carol Marcus (inexplicably British in this altered timeline) but gives her absolutely nothing to do other than look good in her underwear. Cumberbatch's Khan is particularly uninteresting as a villain. He's bent on revenge, mostly because Starfleet won't defrost his cryogenically frozen followers. There's no sympathetic villain here--in II, Khan had a very good point, in that Kirk never bothered to check up on the supermen he'd marooned on Ceti Alpha V, so that when that garden world turned into a hell hole, Khan was very much justified in nursing a homicidal grudge. Here, he's just kind of pissy for a homicical maniac. To make matters worse, Khan doesn't really give a shit about Kirk one way or another, although the film tries desperately to make this a Kirk-Khan grudge match, and failing that, a Spock-Khan grudge match. At which point the film copies the flying-car-chase scene from Star Wars: Attack of the Clones, which in turn was copied from the flying-car-chase scene from The Fifth Element--neither of which particularly impressed me to begin with. The film can't draw on the historical baggage from "The Space Seed" because this film preempts those events. When Cumberbatch first hisses his name, "I am Khan!" it's supposed to be an "Oh shit!" moment, but I didn't see anyone in the audience give a shit. Kirk and Spock certainly didn't. Had he said, in a haughty, regal manner "I am Khan Noonien Singh, master of all I survey" or somesuch, that would've come close to being in character. Alas, they couldn't even get that right.

Oh, and Kirk comes back to life at the end. Yeah. See, he dies of radiation poisoning, but early in the film they establish that Khan's blood cures cancer. And later, Dr. McCoy draws some of Khan's blood and instead of running tests or putting it in storage, decides to inject it into a dead tribble he just happens to have lying around. To see what happens, I guess, because doctors are always injecting tissue cultures into dead things they find. And the tribble comes back to life (at which point I was hoping for a brain-eating zombie tribble, because that would at least be interesting and follow existing tropes) so naturally, injecting Khan's blood into Kirk will miraculously save the captain. But it creates a nonsensical need to keep Khan alive, because Kirk will die without a hot-blooded Khan injection (nevermind that they have 72 other genetic supermen in suspended animation they could pull a blood sample from. Duh). I still want killer, zombie tribbles though.

There's a lot they didn't get right in this film. There's a throwaway battle on the Klingon homeworld, random elements of false jeopardy and a conspiracy to start a war that's straight out of The Undiscovered Country. In short, it's a mess. Abrams tipped his hand when people online complained about the Enterprise hiding underwater in the trailers. The Enterprise, being a whopping huge aerodynamically unsound space ship, can't land on a planet. Yet Abrams responded "It's a cool visual. If you're going to get upset about that, then my movie's not for you." Truer words, etc. This is a director who has never overly concerned himself with logic or continuity in his projects. Abrams famously planned to turn Lex Luthor into a king-fu-fighting Kryptonian sleeper agent in his proposed Superman relaunch. To quote from the Turkey City Lexicon the man isn't interested in telling stories, he's interested in eyeball kicks. String enough dazzling eyeball kicks together and you've got a movie and/or TV show. Dazzle the audience enough and they won't notice you've presented them with a house of cards that has no foundation or substance. But sooner or later it all comes crashing down. This happened with Alias and it happened with LOST. Super 8 and Cloverfield? Ditto. Strong, glossy opening acts that begin to crumble and fall apart when anything resembling resolution is called for. Hell, in one of Abrams' very first projects, the pseudo time travel movie Forever Young, the entire finale was one excruciatingly idiotic crash and burn. This is what he does.

And can someone explain to me why Damon Lindelof is still getting these high-profile writing jobs in Hollywood? Damon, listen, a word of advice. I heard your interview on NPR where you talk about how your father tore out the back pages of your Encyclopedia Brown books, freeing you from the tyranny of established endings. Look, man, that wasn't your father teaching you about the nature of creative insight. What he did is called asshole parenting. Your father pulled a dick move on you, Damon, and judging from your unwillingness to write scripts that reach coherent and logical conclusions, he really messed with your head. I strongly recommend counseling, because seriously, the general movie going public would dearly love for you to stop inflicting your childhood psychological trauma on us. Thanks.

So, was there anything good about this film? Well, yes, believe it or not. The opening sequence with the primitive alien tribe and the erupting volcano was a great deal of fun and echoed episodes of the classic series, despite the stupidity of the Enterprise being underwater and a pointless chase scene. I really, really liked those aliens, and felt more thought went into them than almost any other element of the film. The action sequences are slick and well-done. There are a lot of them, and they'll generally dazzle you enough so that you don't have to think too much about what's going on with the plot. Zoë Saldaña was fantastic as Lt. Uhura, getting a lot more or consequence to do than Nichelle Nichols ever did. Does she a better Uhura? No, but her Uhura is better, if that makes sense. Likewise, Karl Urban does such a good job of channeling DeForest Kelly that it borders on scary. It's a shame that even though he has a bit more to do in this film than the previous one, he's still underutilized. Trek works best when Kirk, Spock and McCoy interact to make a id-ego-superego analog, and thus far the revamped Star Trek doesn't care about that, only the Kirk-Spock dynamic matters, to the exclusion of McCoy.

I think that's the biggest problem with the revamped series as a whole. Abrams is not shy about telling interviewers he was never a Star Trek fan, and I think that very much remains true. He is not a fan. He is a fan of his version but remains indifferent to everything else. This is why it so often descends into self-parody or strikes tone-deaf notes with disturbing frequency: Neither Abrams nor his writers really care about Star Trek or the characters. I suspect there's a degree of contempt at work as well, and that's problematic.

I viewed the 2009 relaunch film as a decent popcorn movie that wasn't great (what were those people smoking who clamored for it to get an Oscar nomination?) but a decent reset to the franchise that acknowledged what had come before without dismissing it or being terribly condescending. But I didn't want Abrams associated with the next film. After Into Darkness bore my concerns out, I have to say I'm very happy he's leaving Star Trek to take over Star Wars (not that I think he'll do a good job there, but at least his sloppy storytelling and love of eyeball kicks will fit in with the precedent Lucas set with the prequels. It'll be a seamless transition, I'm sure). Who will replace Abrams at the helm of Star Trek then? The franchise is pulling in huge amounts at the box office, so there's no doubt Paramount will want to have another film out around 2016-17 or so, and want to keep the action-oriented approach Abrams established. That's fine, but I'd like my Trek to be a little smarter. Brad Bird's a great director who excels at character work, so he'd be a top choice for me. While I've started seeing flaws in his work, Christopher Nolan has shown the ability to weave mind-twisting plot challenges into big action pieces. And then there's Peter Weir, whose Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World is, in my opinion, one of the very best Star Trek movies of the past 25 years, even though it obviously has no direct connection with Star Trek. Any of those directors would instill me with a great deal of confidence in the direction of the franchise going forward. Someone like Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich... well, we'll always have reruns.

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About that new Star Trek...

For the first time in however long, I saw a movie on opening weekend. Mainly because I didn't want to be the only person I knew who hadn't seen the new Star Trek film. So I met my brother at the theater and we sat back to take in two hours' worth of rip-roaring space adventure.

So, my final verdict? It's a good film. It's not the end-all, be-all of cinematic bliss, however. The Wrath of Khan is still the tops in Trek films, however. I even tend to rank The Voyage Home (you know, the one with the whales) as a notch higher. Star Trek, to me, is on par with The Undiscovered Country. I kept finding myself reminded of that earlier film time and again throughout the new flick. Sure, Kirk's exile on an ice planet was an obvious parallel, but the overall feel and mood between the two had a distinct resonance for me. I hold Undiscovered in high regard, so that's no knock against the new film. And clearly, Star Trek boasts more action and adventure than any previous film in the series, with the budget and special effects far and away the most dazzling yet.

But Star Trek isn't flawless. Karl Urban's excellent McCoy is given the short shrift in the Kirk-Spock-McCoy triumvirate, which always works best as a three-way interaction. Wunderkind Chekov still seemed very out of place--the filmmaker's impulse to shoehorn every single character and reference into the first installment of the reboot is one reason why I generally despise prequel/flashback narratives (as a point of reference, I hated the "Young Indy" sequence to Last Crusade which everyone else seemed to go gonzo over, for this specific reason). I was actually startled they hadn't included Janice Rand in the mix, although I have to admit I was disappointed Captain Pike didn't have a female brunette "Number One" officer on the Enterprise. So I'm wishy-washy. Sue me.

Eric Bana's Romulan Nero was a disappointment. Bana made the most of a vastly underwritten part, and had the potential to be awesome, but the lack of any substance and real depth to his character undermined the movie a great deal.

My biggest problem with the film, however, came via the very conspicuous hand-waving the popped up at various key points throughout the film. This is a recurring problem I've had with other J.J. Abrams projects, and when Nimoy-Spock said "And then the unthinkable happened" I went WTF? How was that unthinkable? You forgot to change your watch to daylight savings time or something? There's a good bit of handwaving here, in addition to Scotty's on-the-fly invention of transporters that have no distance limitations. Am I being picky? Maybe, maybe not. I just hate it when writers write themselves into a corner and cheat to get out of said corner, hoping nobody will notice. And while I'm ragging on the writers, let me say I am sick to death of this nonsensical "Destroy the entire galaxy" riff writers pull out of their collective asses whenever they want to up the "Oh no!" factor, when their script and narrative clearly aren't threatening anything of the sort. Sheesh.

I won't rip them too hard for the alternate universe changes that clearly didn't stem from the destruction of the Kelvin early on in the film. Those were design decisions and dramatic license for emotional impact, and were effective as such. Diverging timelines and alternate reality is a bone thrown to the existing fan base to tie this film into existing continuity. Strictly speaking, that wasn't necessary, but it works well--probably better than the movie would've worked without it, so I'll cut 'em some slack here. But if Starbuck is suddenly rewritten as a girl in the next movie, all bets are off.

What's good about the film? Lots of things. The space battles between the Enterprise and Nero's heavily-armed Romulan mining vessel are dazzling, although not quite enough to be fully satisfying. The acting across the board is quite good, and even if Zachary Quinto's Spock and Chris Pine's Kirk don't make you forget the originals, they are solid in their own right and never grating. Kirk's eating an apple during the Kobayashi Maru simulation was quite an interesting choice, deliberately echoing Shatner's more casual apple munching while discussing "No-win scenarios" whilst marooned in the Genesis cave within Regula 1. Captain Pike was excellent--SPOILER ALERT!--I honestly expected Pike to be killed off, and when he wasn't that was one of the biggest surprises of the film. I'd definitely love to see him as a returning supporting character in future films.

And speaking of Pike, it was wonderful to see the various captains and officers of Star Fleet acting in competent, professional manners. I can't count how many times I've seen writers take the shortcut of building up their protagonist by making everyone else blithering idiots. That the original captain of the Kelvin, George Kirk and later, Pike, suffer greatly and in some cases die because of their encounters with Nero ennobles them. They took the best course of action available to them for the greater good, as opposed to blundering into the situation through arrogance or stupidity, which is so often the case in films like this.

Finally, the Spock-to-Spock encounter at the end of the film was quite a nice touch. It dispense with the tedious "grandfather paradox" questions and established the "new" alternate reality as a solid, irreversible fact not to be undone by a reset button, as had happened so often in the various TV series (and was it just me, or did Leonard Nimoy seem to be having tremendous difficulty enunciating through his dentures? I've seen him on several talk shows and such doing promotional work for the film, and that clear baritone voice of his was uncharacteristically slurred and lispy). It'll be quite interesting to see which elements and events of the previous series' timelines are retained or jettisoned, because although this is something of a reboot, by pulling the classic crew back together so quickly in such a manner strongly implies the hand of "fate" at work, that the timeline of the universe is destined to unfold in a certain fashion. It's as if the divergent time stream of the alternate universe is working to redirect itself to that of classic Trek, the Next Generation and the like. If so, this raises the spectre of re-telling incidents from the original series, up to and including the Trek films with Khan, etc. Which wouldn't be a good idea, but that pressure will always be there.

But yeah, good film. Go see it.

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