{"id":23500,"date":"2013-05-20T13:02:56","date_gmt":"2013-05-20T17:02:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=23500"},"modified":"2013-05-20T13:02:56","modified_gmt":"2013-05-20T17:02:56","slug":"star-trek-into-darkness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2013\/05\/star-trek-into-darkness\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cStar Trek Into Darkness\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is commonly accepted that of the original \u201cStar Trek\u201d movie series, 1982\u2019s \u201cStar Trek II: The Wrath of Khan\u201d is about ten times better than 1979\u2019s \u201cStar Trek: The Motion Picture\u201d. Applying the same logic to J.J. Abrams\u2019s reboot of the franchise, \u201cStar Trek Into Darkness\u201d should be ten times better than 2009\u2019s \u201cStar Trek\u201d. Now I really liked the 2009 \u201cStar Trek\u201d. I wasn\u2019t doing star ratings at the time, but I would have given it three and a half, maybe four stars. Let\u2019s be conservative and say three and a half. This means \u201cStar Trek Into Darkness\u201d should get thirty-five stars out of a possible five. That isn\u2019t really my expectation, but the pressure is on the new film to outdo its predecessor, even if that predecessor is far more beloved than its 1979 equivalent.<\/p>\n

The film once again stars Chris Pine as James T. Kirk, reckless captain of the Starship Enterprise. Pine\u2019s an agreeable enough leading man, but he doesn\u2019t bring the gravitas to the role that William Shatner did. Kirk\u2019s best friend and biggest annoyance is his ultra-logical First Officer Spock (Zachary Quinto, much better cast in the role originated and retained by Leonard Nimoy). Other familiar characters include grouchy doctor McCoy (Karl Urban), steadfast third officer Sulu (John Cho), compassionate love interest Uhura (Zoe Saldana), rookie navigator Chekov (the perpetually pubescent Anton Yelchin), and comic relief tech-er Scottie (Simon Pegg). At least I think I\u2019m supposed to call the tech guy a tech-er and not a tech-ie.<\/p>\n

Following a deserved demotion and begrudged re-promotion, Kirk volunteers the crew for a mission to stop a terrorist named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch). They\u2019re sent by Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) to neutralize Harrison with military weapons on a hostile Klingon planet. By the way, if you think \u201cJohn Harrison\u201d is too vanilla a name for a \u201cStar Trek\u201d villain, don\u2019t worry, he doesn\u2019t stay \u201cJohn Harrison\u201d for long. The plot features multiple betrayals, and more betrayals on top of those betrayals. I\u2019m pretty sure some characters kept betraying the same characters over and over again.<\/p>\n

In a film with so much betrayal, it\u2019s remarkable that so many of the film\u2019s best scenes are ones of loyalty. It should go without saying that in this action-adventure film, many of the characters risk (or give?) their lives for the greater good. But more specifically I\u2019m referring to scenes where characters show their respect for each other. Kirk and Spock are especially effective in these scenes, sharply in contrast to other scenes where they\u2019re at each other\u2019s throats. Even if Kirk isn\u2019t suited to be a starship captain, he\u2019s more than suited to be a team leader in general. The people serving under his command all share a professional chemistry that makes me want to come aboard the Enterprise again and again.<\/p>\n

I hope I get the chance to come aboard again soon because I want to see a film that improves upon \u201cStar Trek Into Darkness\u201d. The action and special effects are high-quality, but they\u2019re about what I\u2019ve come to expect from summer blockbusters. Many of the secondary characters (Sulu and Uhura come to mind) are given very little to do and are clearly only in the movie because their absence would be conspicuous to fans. Perhaps most distractingly, the film keeps trying to compare itself to \u201cWrath of Khan\u201d when it should be trying to compare itself to the 2009 \u201cStar Trek\u201d to keep up the interest we had in the characters. It\u2019s still a good movie with intriguing characters and relationships, in fact it\u2019s the best film of the summer blockbuster season so far. It just suffers in comparison to the superior original, and it doesn\u2019t help that there are two films that qualify as the superior original.<\/p>\n

Three Stars out of Five.<\/p>\n

\u201cStar Trek Into Darkness\u201d is rated PG-13 for intense sequences of sci-fi action and violence. Its running time is 132 minutes.<\/p>\n

Contact Bob Garver at rrg251@nyu.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Bob Garver   \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 It is commonly accepted that of the original \u201cStar Trek\u201d movie series, 1982\u2019s \u201cStar Trek II: The Wrath of Khan\u201d is about ten times better… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[108],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23500"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}