Star Trek Retrospective: Star Trek & Star Trek Into Darkness

The rebooted Star Trek franchise is one of the most talked about properties in internet nerdom. Many die-hard Trek fans view the new take and new cast as a potential betrayal of the original's tone and goals, while others were thankful that it brought others into the fold and updated the material for a new generation of potential fans. These movies were also the ammunition that people would use to determine whether or not Star Wars: The Force Awakens would be any good. So before this crew makes its third ride together in Star Trek: Beyond let's wrap up our Star Trek retrospective with the two films from the new (old) crew.

Star Trek (2009)

The rebooted series starts with a tragedy as a small Star Fleet vessel is attacked by a rogue Romulan ship that traveled through a wormhole looking for someone named Spock. After a brave sacrifice by George Kirk, however many of the crew survive including George's newly born son James. Years later, James is a gifted but aimless troublemaker that gets goaded into duty in Star Fleet just in time to hop aboard to U.S.S. Enterprise with Spock, Uhura, and Dr. McCoy during a crisis possibly involving the Romulan ship from years ago...

I have to be honest, aside from the omnipresent lens flare and some faulty logic, I have trouble finding big problems with this movie. The story is an interesting new direction for the characters without sacrificing their roots, the effects are amazing, its still has time to be both dramatic and funny, and the action is phenomenal as well.

One thing JJ Abrams is really good at is turning in a diverse collection of action scenes. In this case it's less about frequency, and more about different kinds of action. In this movie we have space battles, hand to hand combat, phaser shootouts, and even some good old-fashioned deep space sky diving. This constant shift both keeps things fresh and forces some degree of creativity in regards to staging, which this movie does really well.

As someone with a base level knowledge of Star Trek I also really liked this movie's nods to the original canon. McCoy gets to be angry and spout "I'm a doctor" lines, there's a legitimate red shirt experience, and we even see Kirk trying to get busy with an attractive alien woman.

Interestingly enough, though, the best character arc in the film belongs to Zachary Quinto's Spock. It's odd but once Kirk signs up for Star Fleek he's pretty much in the right. He's brash and arrogant but he spends most of the second and third acts just being right. Thus the weight falls to Spock who is attempting to rectify his dual heritage, simmering emotions, and his conflicting worldview with Kirk. Complain all you want about Chris Pine but Quinto nails this.

Fast and fun the first outing from Abrams delivers a solid adrenaline rush into the old crew with a fun new spin.

Star Trek Into Darkness

The second film finds the Enterprise crew on shaky ground. After an ill-advised intervention on an alien planet, Kirk is set to be stripped of his command. That all changes when a renegade Star Fleek agent begins a series of terrorist attacks. Eager for revenge, Kirk and company rush to find this agent, but his power and influence may be far greater than they had anticipated...

Into Darkness is a movie that would've been relatively fantastic in a bubble. That is to say, if the other Star Trek films and canon didn't exist this would be an interesting direction to go and a number of the big reveals would be fantastic. But it doesn't and that's what leads to most of this film's biggest problems.

The most obvious difficulty is this movie's attempt to be Wrath of Khan. I like Benedict Cumberbatch in the role and Khan as a threat in general but this movie really misses the boat in terms of motivation. Khan in Star Trek II is driven by revenge, specifically aimed at Kirk, so his malicious intent all makes a ton of sense. This version is just a super-powered megalomaniac because that's just who he is, and though there's some personal motivation for his short-term team up with Kirk his villainous deeds just don't land as hard as they should. Which leads to our second big problem.

There's a very obvious political allegories throughout this movie about preemptive strike weapons, blindly following orders, vengeance vs. justice that don't work because it conflicts with the character. Sure it makes for Kirk to be ruled by his emotions and want revenge but having him blindly follow command orders? That's not in his wheelhouse at all, especially considering his history in the last movie. He's a renegade so why would he abandon that now? Also since we've seen pretty much nothing but peaceful interaction in the galaxy, aside from some rogue elements, there's really no reason for the audience to even mildly believe a Star Fleet commander saying they're on the precipice  of a mass war.

Finally, we've got some structure problems. Like before there's a great diversity of action with another space jump, a shootout, some space battling, and hand to hand combat. Ideally in a movie like this you want your action finale to come in with a vengeance. The combination Nero destruction and warp jump at the end of the first film is a perfect example. Big stakes, big effects, emotionally satisfying. The finale here is, a chase and fist-fight between Khan and an angry Spock? Throwing aside how Spock could even hold his own in this fight, this fight is really the only thing for the audience for focus on (I mean at least have a planet about to explode in the background), and doesn't have the stakes an encounter like this should.

I know I've spent almost the entirely of this explaining what's wrong with the movie, but I still enjoy it. The action beats are thrilling, the cast is still fun, and the effects are great as well. But the narrative problems within this film and its attempts to ape arguably the best Star Trek film of all time, put this below its predecessor.