Star Trek Into Darkness - Revisited

 
I'm going to start of by saying that I firmly belive the Star Trek remakes are heavily underrated, and they are all very good to brillaint films. And yes,while Star Trek Beyond isn't quite what the first to are, I think it still holds up, however today I don't want to talk about that one, I want to discuss my favorite of the 3 and a film which or a long time found itself amoung Dunkirk, John Wick and Hot Fuzz as one of my favorite movies.

Starting of I would add quickly that this was infact the first Star Trek movie I had seen, and going in I knew very little the background to the franchise and even the last film. So why does it stand out so much to me? Well theres a numerb of reason that I will get into, but overall I genuinly fele this film gets so much right and manages to do for me what only a few movies do; that is get such a great balance between and adult film and a child-like experience. More on that later though as I want to break down exactly what does it for me.

1. Scope

Now this one willc omes as quite a suprise for most but I will expand. Now I know the first one really goes in hard by making an all out action feature, with aspects like Timetravel, Black-Holes, Massive spaceships, planets destroyed by Black-Holes and so on, but I think that Into Darknesses scope is so much more than that. To start with the trailers show what I think quite a few people would have wanted to see, that is massive spaceships falling out of the sky. Sure not quite a planet destruction but I think most Sci Fi nerds ( myself included ) have wanted to see a live action massive spaceship fall to its doom. Then there is to mention the other thing most nerd would want to see, and that is a massive version of the icon that is the enerprise in what is one of the coolest starships in movies ( I said one of please no anger ). That dreadnought we see at the end is truly menacing, fear inducing and childhood completeting and it brings us onto the point I mentioned earlier, hte idea that it brings a brillaint nemisis to the Enterpise for the adults inerested in story, but brings out the childlike coolness becuase its a massive black version of the enterpirese with flashing lights and rail guns ( that is cool,  no arguments allowed ). Not to mention that we also get to see it fall out the sky which is yet again very cool. I think there is also a lot here in terms of building on the alst one, with the introduction of the Klingons, wider starfleet, an all out war and so on. All in all it doesnt exactly skimp out on awsomeness.

2. Story

This is where it gets tricky as many people would go " its Wrath of Khan ". Now I'm going to put that aside for now as I think this story does have more to offer for this timeline, but what i will say is that I think Cumberbatch is amazing as Khan. he's intimidating, he's cold and caclculating, and overall he is just pure fear for the audience, and the turns he makes thorughout the movie however obvious still elave a mark on the audience. Then we go to the other villain which, while less built up, is still quite shocking and impactful. Admiral Marcus is perhaps the sideshow of the movie but I still think he adds somthing to the film, taking away any last hope the main characters have of actually winning in the story, and I think he work s well given the last film, well written from the events prior to this film. The whole movie then goes at a good pace, with good build up, nice twists and turns and quite suprising outcomes.....

3.Emotion

Coming back to the idea of balance, I think this film does well to replicate that of the last in terms of tonal balancing. I think there is a good amount of humour throughout, the characters are well built from the last movie in terms of their relationships and you do feel a lot for them throighout the whole movie. For me you have this brillaint opening sequence which is both funny, impactful and thrilling all in one, and really does set the tone for the whole movie off of that. going back to Khan as well at osme pints you really can feel for him ( helped tremendously by the acting ) up until the point he goes full meglomaniac and you are thrown right overboard with how to connect to him. While I think that the whole Spock and Uhura storyline is a loittle bit driven at some points ( and much better in Beyond ) overall the feeling of the characters is spot on, especially by the end. So the embarassing part of this for me is that I did infact shed a tear or two by this point, and I mean I thikn its fair, after such a rollercoaster of a ride I think it shows how well the film does to get you to connect with all the characters.

Now I do get why some people don't like this movie, it isn't the best movie ever made no and there are glaring plot holes in it, which I'll get to. The main issuse peopel seem to have is its copy-pasted story from the original Star Trek 2 ( which I must admit I have not seen ). there are bits I'm also not a fan of, some relationships as I have mentioned and some of the plot holes do tend to spoil it. Bearing all this in mind however I would still argue that this film pulls off as one of the few sequels better than the first and stands alone as a brillaint movie. If you ahven't watched it then I would recommend it highly, even after 8 years of age. Do comment below what you thoigh of this movie and if you would like to see more of these sort of editorials in the future !

Images subject and copyright to Paramount pictures. I do not own these Images.