Shedding Light onto Darkness - Star Trek Into Darkness Review

Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)

***THE SPOILER ALERT LIGHT IS ON***

I attended an evening showing of Into Darkness one week ago this evening with my wife and daughter, and then again the following Saturday with a small group of students from the school where I teach.  So as of this writing, I have viewed the film twice.  I was blown away both times and have to say that I do love this movie.  That being said, I also have to say that there are some things that did bother me a little, which I will address later in this post.

The film opens with Kirk and McCoy running through some heavy underbrush while being pursued by a primitive group of people.  Kirk has stolen some icon belonging to this civilization and prompted this pursuit to divert the primitive’s attention from what Spock is about to do, which is quell an active volcano that threatens to wipe out those indigenous to the planet.  Spock lowers himself by tether into the volcano, but the tether breaks.  Spock, determined to carry out his mission, decides to sacrifice himself.  Meanwhile, Kirk and McCoy escape to the Enterprise waiting at the bottom of the ocean.  Despite Spock’s protestations that he will violate the Prime Directive by rescuing him, Kirk orders the ship to fly out of the ocean in full view of the primitives and rescue Spock.

The Enterprise is recalled to Earth, Kirk is informed by Admiral Pike that he is relieved of command and that he will serve as First Officer under Pike because he is not experienced enough to command a starship.  Kirk is also informed that Spock is being transferred to another command.  The ink on the new orders doesn’t have time to dry before a secret installation belonging to Section 31 (a clandestine arm of Starfleet Security dedicated to protecting the interest of Earth and the united Federation of Planets, introduced in the Deep Space Nine series), is destroyed by one of their own agents known as John Harrison.  This prompts a meeting of several high ranking officers at Starfleet H.Q. including Pike, Kirk, Spock and Admiral Marcus.  Kirk figures out that the bombing of the Section 31 facility was staged to bring these officers together and then Harrison appears on the scene in a gunship in an attempt to kill everyone in the meeting.  Pike is mortally wounded while Kirk manages to disable the gunship, but Harrison escapes to an unpopulated area on Qo’noS, the Klnigon home word.

Kirk persuades Admiral Marcus to give him back command of the Enterprise, reinstate Spock as his first officer, and to go after Harrison.  While Marcus does give Kirk back his command, he also orders kirk to kill Harrison rather than try to bring him to justice.  He is to use 72 prototype photon torpedoes being delivered to the ship.  Upon arrival on Enterprise, Chief Engineer Scott is refusing to take delivery of the weapons because he cannot find out what is inside the casings.  Kirk Orders Scotty to take delivery which prompts Scotty to resign from the crew.  Chekov is promoted to Chief Engineer and the crew is joined by Carol Marcus, daughter of Admiral Marcus, under a false identity.

Upon arrival at Qo’noS, the Enterprise’s warp drive malfunctions leaving the ship stranded.  Kirk, Spock and Uhura depart for the planet’s surface to apprehend Harrison in a small, non-Starfleet ship.  The small ship is forced to land, and the trio is confronted by Klingons.  In an attempt to negotiate with the Klingons to let them apprehend Harrison, things go wrong and the Klingons indicate that they are going to dispatch the three Starfleet officers.  Enter John Harrison who adeptly dispatches the Klingons and then turns on Kirk and company.  Kirk tells Harrison that he will apprehend him or their location on the planet will be attacked with a photon torpedo barrage.  Harrison asks how many torpedoes, and when Kirk tells him that there are 72, Harrison immediately disarms and surrenders.

While in the brig, Harrison reveals himself to actually be Kahn.  He explains that he is a product of genetic engineering and was chronically frozen for waging an unsuccessful war to wipe out all those that were inferior to him and his fellow genetically engineered followers.  He then tells Kirk to open one of the torpedoes, and gives him a set of Spatial coordinates.  Kirk orders McCoy and Carol Marcus to take a torpedo and see what’s inside and then contacts Scotty to investigate the coordinates given him by Kahn.  Kirk learns that the torpedoes actually contain 72 of Kahn’s compatriots.  Kahn explains that Admiral Marcus awakened Kahn to help use his superior intellect to help develop weapons to wage war against the Klingon Empire, and that Marcus was using Kahn’s compatriots as hostages to force Kahn to cooperate.

Kirk figures out that the warp drive of the Enterprise was actually sabotaged on the orders of Admiral Marcus, and that his trip to Kill Kahn was supposed to be a one way mission to cover up Marcus’ complicity in the matter.  In the meantime, Scotty takes a shuttle to the coordinates indicated by Kahn and discovers a shipyard housing a massive vessel.  Scotty stows away on the ship that is getting ready to launch from the shipyard.

Checkov manages to repair the warp drive bus discourages Kirk from using it.  Just then, the massive ship, the USS Vengeance, arrives on the scene with Admiral Marcus in command.  Marcus demands that kirk turnover Kahn to him.  Kirk refuses stating that Kahn needs to face justice for his crimes and orders the Enterprise to warp to Earth against the advice of Chekov.  Marcus pursues the Enterprise, catches up with Kirk and crew in earth orbit and begins pummeling the Enterprise.  Being outgunned and severely damaged by the Vengeance, Kirk agrees to hand over Kahn and his 72 compatriots in exchange for the lives of his crew.  Marcus refuses and prepares to destroy Enterprise.  Kirk reminds Marcus that his daughter, Carol, is on board and Marcus has her beamed onto Vengeance, and orders Enterprise destroyed.  There is suddenly a power outage on the Vengeance caused by none other than Scotty.

While Enterprise is too damaged to take the fight to Marcus, Kirk allies himself with Kahn, knowing that Kahn designed the larger ship, the two of them board the Vengeance, unite with Scotty and take control of the bridge.  In the process, Kahn betrays Kirk, kills Admiral Marcus and injures Carol.  In the meantime, Spock contacts Spock Prime on “New Vulcan,” to learn what Spock Prime knows about Kahn.  He is told basically not to trust him.  Kahn negotiates with Spock to exchange the 72 torpedoes for the boarding party and the exchange is made.  But Kahn does no know that his compatriots have been removed from the torpedoes and they are armed.   A battle ensues, the torpedoes aboard the Vengeance are detonated and both ships begin to plunge toward earth.

Kirk goes to engineering, enters the warp core to effect repairs.  He manages to re-align the components in the warp core, but he takes a lethal dose of radiation.  The Enterprise, with power back on line manages to regain orbit while the Vengeance plows into downtown San Francisco.  Spock is called to engineering where he attends the last minutes of Kirk’s life, and upon Kirks death, flies into a rage and goes after Kahn.  McCoy discovers that Kahn’s blood can reanimate the dead, thanks to a tribble he injected with Kahn’s blood, and Uhura follows Spock who is in pursuit of Kahn to make sure that he does not Kill Kahn.

The scene cuts to McCoy treating Kirk in Sick Bay, who has been revived.  The Enterprise then departs on a five year mission.

Roll credits.

While I stated at the outset that I love this film, there are a few things that I found mildly problematic in my mind.  Star Trek, in my humble opinion has always been about two things; good stories and characters one cares about.  While I think the story of Into Darkness is good, even if it is a rip-off and retelling of the Wrath of Kahn story, I think that the characters lost some of their depth that was laid down in the 2009 film, so perhaps it might have been a step backward for the Trek universe according to JJ Abrams.   As a long time Star Trek fan there are a few points that I think need to be addressed:

• Carol Marcus: Why?  From what I can see, the only reason for Alice Eve being in the film was for her value as eye-candy.  While she is admittedly a very attractive woman, the gratuitous underwear scene did nothing to advance the story, and was unnecessary.  Beyond that, the only other reason for her was as a bargaining chip for Kirk in an attempt to keep Admiral Marcus from destroying the Enterprise.

• Kirk’s Sexuality: Kirk is being painted as a sex maniac in Into Darkness.  His bedroom scene was just as unnecessary as Alice Eve’s underwear scene.  People who know Star Trek joke about Kirk’s sexual appetite all the time, but we all really know that when Kirk seemed to be gratuitous, it was usually to distract an adversary and gain the upper hand in a situation, or if he was under the influence of things beyond his control.  Watch the original series, you’ll find Kirk behaving in a very professional way almost all of the time. (No I am NOT a prude, just for the record.  Sex in movies is just fine with me, if and when it is appropriate to the story.)

 

• Spock’s Emotionalism: I am feeling uncomfortable with Spock’s recent tendencies for sustained emotional outbursts.  Upon Kirk’s death in the film, Spock launched into an uncontrolled sustained rage that would have resulted in the Death of Kahn had it not been for the intervention of Uhura.  This is so unlike a Vulcan that it causes me a degree of distress.  While I understand that in the more recent incarnations of Star Trek, Vulcans are not devoid of emotion, they spend their lives learning to control their emotions.  The complete loss of this control would deeply humiliate a Vulcan, even one that is half human.

• Scotty: As I mentioned before, Simon Pegg is brilliant, but I think that Mr. Scott is laying down a few too many quips and seems to me to be more comic relief.  He needs to be written better.  His role in this film reminds me of that scene in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier when Scotty hits his head while bragging about how well he knows the enterprise.

• The Chemistry: Where is the chemistry between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy?  I am not seeing it in Into Darkness.  Kirk and Spock always seem to be at odds and argue about almost everything, and McCoy was all but absent in this film, just popping in every now and then with a McCoyism.  There are some things that you just cannot change in Star Trek, and this is a big one.

I am thinking that JJ Abrams, while a brilliant film and television director and producer, and his writing staff for Star Trek don’t really understand what Star Trek is about, and as a fan of Trek, I am so hungry for something new that I will take anything.  The flaws I mentioned above are actually minor as far as I am concerned, but should be addressed.  I am wondering if perhaps JJ shouldn’t step aside for the next one, concentrate on Star Wars, and let someone who knows what Trek is all about take over the reins.

Well, there it is...

Q'aplaH!

The Buzz on How to get to MARS...

Mission to Mars: My Vision for Space Exploration by Buzz Aldrin with Leonard David (2013)

I recently read Buzz Aldrin’s new book, Mission to Mars on my Kindle.  One doesn’t have to be a rocket scientist to understand what Buzz is proposing in his vision of the future for manned space exploration, but it sure wouldn’t hurt.

After mothballing the Space Shuttle, and hitching rides with the Russians to get to and from the ISS, NASA has pinned all of its hopes on the future of space flight on the new Orion capsule, and their most powerful launch system to date, the SLS (Space Launch System).  Touted as a deep-space exploration vehicle that could carry up to seven passengers, the Orion capsule’s construction is well under way and a test flight is scheduled for 2015.  According to Buzz, this is a shortsighted and time wasting endeavor when there are practical and achievable options out there that will eventually lead to a permanent presence on our sister planet, Mars.

We already know of Buzz’s many accomplishments during his life.  Receiving his Ph.D. from MIT, his doctoral thesis outlines the methods that have been used by NASA since the Mercury program that allow vehicles to rendezvous and link up in in orbit around the Earth, and later allowed the Apollo LM to return to the CM following a moon landing.  During the Shuttle days, his methods were used to retrieve and repair satellites, the Hubble telescope, and today are used to get Soyuz craft to the ISS.  His methods earned him the name Dr. Rendezvous in his early days as an astronaut with NASA.

Buzz’s most notable accomplishment, of course, was as a member of the Apollo 11 crew that touched down on the moon and successfully returned samples of lunar material to the earth for future study in July of 1969 (I was twelve years old).

What Buzz proposes is an economical and efficient way to begin to reach beyond low Earth orbit, leave the shores of the cosmic ocean, and take those first tentative steps into the depths of space.  He proposes what he terms a Unified Space Vision headed by a non-governmental space council made up of scientists and engineers that have a vision encompassing all nations of our planet to work for a single goal, which is a permanent human presence on Mars.  He doesn’t discuss the economics of his proposals very much, but rather the purpose of his essay is to possibly inspire the vision of future space travel in those who would be dealing with the financing of such a project.

Mission to Mars opens with a brief look back to the history of space flight and how the policies of space exploration have changed in the four to eight year cycle of the U.S. presidents and their policies.  In other words, our exploration of space has in the past, and continues to depend on the vision of a single person who proposes and sets policies based on the political climate of the times.  For instance,  JFK proposed that by the end of the 1960’s, the U.S. would land people on the moon and return them safely to the Earth, but the reasons for this endeavor were not solely fueled by the need for exploration and scientific understanding, but rather as an outcropping of the Cold War between the U.S. and the then Soviet Union.  We had to beat those Russians to the high ground of space to remain on top.  He also points out that explorations of our own planet have been tied to similar motivations throughout history.

The most intriguing parts of Buzz’s writing is on the how to do it that is being proposed, and some of that is already under way.  First, low Earth orbital activities need to be left to private enterprise.  As many of us know, efforts are already underway thanks to the efforts of companies such as SpaceX, and Orbital Sciences Corporation are already either making, or will be making flights to the ISS with supplies and returning cargo to Earth.  The future promises that these companies will also be ferrying astronauts within the next few years.  Next, he asks why NASA is planning to go to the moon again.  Why not leave the moon to other entities to explore and bring back resources while we set our vision to the future?  We’ve been to the moon, it is time, in Buzz’s vision, to move beyond the Earth-moon system and continue on to Mars and the asteroid belt.

Buzz proposed that we set up a system of vehicles that move between the moon and the Earth, and between the Earth and Mars called Cyclers.  These Cyclers will be constant motion between celestial bodies to ferry people to and from destinations.  These cycling vehicles could be further supported by craft that are permanently “parked” at points called Lagrangian Points where gravitational forces and the orbital motions of bodies balance.  These proposals, for one thing, would eliminate the need for having to constantly lift the bulk needed to reach bodies in space, which most of that bulk consists of fuel and water.  The moon, Mars and asteroids could be mined for those vital resources that are needed for propulsion to and from the cyclers.

Buzz has consulted with numerous experts in many fields of study to put together his Unified Space Vision and presents it in a way that is understandable to the layman and is a good read for those that are interested in the future, as well as some aspects of the past of space exploration.

It is my sincere hope that Mission to Mars gets into the right hands as an inspiration to future policy makers to see that it doesn’t necessarily take a cold war to spark exploration and scientific discovery.

Well, there it is…

Q’aplaH!

A Short Into Darkness Advisory... (No Spoilers)

Diane, Chrissy, and I just got home from seeing Star Trek Into Darkness.

I cannot think of words that would adequately describe how much I love this film, for so many reasons.  All I have at this time is a word of advice...

DON'T LOOK FOR OR READ, OR LISTEN TO ANY SPOILERS BEFORE YOU SEE THIS FILM!  IT WILL RUIN THE FILM FOR YOU IF YOU SEEK INFORMATION.

For now, I will leave this review from Chrissy:

A Resounding Thumbs Up From My Daughter!

I am going to wait a few days, then I will write a review that will spoil the hell out of this film.  But first I want to see it again at least once, maybe twice.

Until then...

There it is.

Before After Earth, Read A Great Book: A Perfect Beast - After Earth...

A Perfect Beast – After Earth by Michael Jan Friedman, Robert Greenberger, and Peter David (2013)

While checking my Facebook account, one of the authors that I have friended, Mike Freidman announced the release of A Perfect Beast and mentioned that it is the official prequel to the film due for release on May 31, 2013, After Earth starring Will and Jaden Smith.  After seeing the trailers of this film, I definitely decided that it was worth a watch and was very excited to read this book.  I downloaded it for my Kindle and started reading.  I am glad I did because this is a great read for many reasons.

The story is set on a planet that humans have inhabited because the Earth was no longer able to support humanity.  Unbeknownst to the human population of the planet Nova Prime, they had chosen to live on a planet that was considered sacred to an alien race calling themselves the Krezateen.  The planet, known by the Krezateens as Zantenor.  To the Krezanteen, this world is so sacred that they do not even set foot on it, and they were extremely upset that human “vermin” had dare to attempt to populate it.  The Krezateens tried to eradicate the humans by bombing them out of existence, but the humans were quite resilient and repulsed the Krezateen attempt.  So they had to hatch an alternate plan.

 576 years after the humans land on Nova Prime (576 AE), the story follows several important characters, but one in particular becomes the hero of the story.  His name is Connor Raige.  Connor is the descendant of a long line of Rangers (a military organization charged with protecting Nova Prime from threats within and from without the planet) who are a very dedicated force.  At this point, Connor is a cadet in training at the Ranger Academy, he displays skills that will be useful in his future, and indispensable for the survival of Nova Prime.

Nova Prime’s government is a tripartite system that is democratically ruled by the Ranger Prime Commander, the Primus (a spiritual leader), and the Savant (the leader of science and technology).  After the urging of a rabble rousing broadcaster named Trey Vander Meer, the people of Nova Prime, the Primus, and the Savant are all convinced that far too much of the human resources are being spent to maintain the Rangers since there hasn’t been any trouble from the Skrel (the human name for the Krezanteen) for hundreds of years.  Well, just as the decision was being made, the Skrel unleash their plan to completely eliminate humanity from Nova Prime.

This plan comes to Nova Prime in the form of a Beast the humans call Ursa; a sightless animal that was created by the Skrel for one purpose; to devour every human they can find.  The Ursa is described as having no sight and hunts humans by smell and hearing, and being sightless is no disadvantage to the beasts because they have a layer of armor just under their hide that can repel the best weapons the humans have.

By means of attrition, and the way he demonstrates his skill at killing Ursa, Conner eventually rises to lead the Rangers in the fight with the help of a new weapon.

A Perfect Beast is full of fast paced action that never slows down.  It is full of characters that really mattered, and many of them were killed during the course of the story by the Ursa.  I simply could not stop reading this book and finished it in five days.  Those that are familiar with Star Trek novels will recognize the author’s names and know of the quality in their usual writing.  Well Friedman, Greenberger, and David pull out all the stops on this one and have penned a brilliant story that has only served to pique my desire to see the After Earth Film.  I give this book my highest recommendation and would have to say that it is amongst the best stories I have read in quite some time, and perhaps a must to help with the understanding of the film.

Michael Jan Friedman, Robert Greenberger, and Peter David

A Perfect Beast also includes three Ghost stories.  The ghosts are not departed spirits of Nova Prime, but they are very special Rangers that can foil the Ursa’s abilities to locate and kill them as they attack.  I think that the three shorts stories might be a key component to the understanding of the upcoming film as they take place 400 years after the events of the novel.

If you are planning to see After Earth, I would urge you to pick this book up, but even if you are not planning to see the movie, it would still be worth reading as it stands well on its own as a fine piece of sci-fi literature.

Podcasting News

I have been negligent on promoting the sci-fi podcasts that I listen to.  I’m sure that you know how it is when real life demands time that could otherwise be spent on leisure pursuits.  In the life of a small school music teacher, the months of March, April, and May can be harrowing with concerts, contests, and other performance obligations.  But things are slowing down and I should have more time to write the blog, and write and record comments for the various podcasts I listen to regularly.

Anyway, on the SciFi Diner Podcast, the latest episode #171, Scott, Miles and their guest host M talk about various science fiction subjects and we get to hear an interview with John Billingsley (Phlox from ST: Enterprise) and Bonita Friedericy (the General from Chuck, also a Borg on Ent.).  This was a fun interview to listen to as Billingsley and Friedericy play off of one another to give a fun interview to listen to.

I also noticed that the Diner released a Conversations episode with comments from me on Iron Man 3 and Defiance.  I haven’t listened to this one yet, but will be listening very soon.

I also listened to an excellent episode of Trek News and Views in which they discuss all things Klingon.  That would be Episode #71.  Colin again gathers a great panel of people who are quite expert on the Klingons and they share ideas and discuss facts that are both known, and some that may not be so widely known.  Definitely worth a listen.

Well, there it is…

I remain,

Kahless

Q’aplaH