Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)

[Samari]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Spoiler for Reply to plot point from the movie:

Well, there's the point that they don't look the same/have the same voice/etc., but this you have to accept as artistic license. But in terms of their motivations, this is a bit of a "nature vs. nurture" point. The idea here is that the circumstances behind Khan's revival changed, and this in turn changed his ambitions and point of view. Many things in this timeline were created with that principle in mind.

But also, I would say... this is also a bit of an cultural issue for the audience of the movies. In 2013, a villain who wants to enslave "inferior" people just doesn't make sense to today's generation. In fact, slavery itself probably doesn't make sense to most of them in this futuristic context. If you have technology, why do you need people? The ship was specially designed so that it could be run with a minimal crew (and particularly by Khan alone), so why would he want or need slaves? (Even the idea of wanting to "reign" like some sort of king from the middle ages seems really old-fashioned.)

We can go back to the original point that in alternate dimension, perhaps the thought would occur to him, but I think his attitude here makes more sense: he can just get rid of those who are in his way, because he doesn't need them anyway. Continuity is important to some degree, but I think it's more important for the audience of today to be able to relate to the motivations of the characters, and in that sense Abram's Khan is (arguably at least) a more believable villain.

Spoiler for Into Darkness:

In this film, the Augments are picked up in 2258 following the destruction of Vulcan. Only Kahn is woke up and used to make weapons and tactics for a war with the Klingons. He has had resentment and vengance on his mind since they took his people from him. He was beyond the idea of ruling people by this point.

In "Space Seed", Kirk finds the Augments around 2266 and treated Kahn well. Kahn decides he and his people can go and use this starship and their superior (everything) to take over the Galaxy. What use is it to rule if you have no subjects? Kirk eventually defeats him and offers him a planet to rule instead of taking him back to the Federation for trail or anything else. Only cruel fate turn Kahn to vengance against Kirk in this timeline. Without the destruction of Ceti Alpha VI, Kahn and his followers probably would have been busy for a long time building up their civilization from scratch. There may have been resentment, but the appeal of proving them all wrong by making a viable world would probably been enough for Kahn's ego.

Spoiler for ...:

I don't mind the artistic license like some people have been complaining about. I mean if the starships look radically different, then personally I don't mind if any of the non seven main characters are a little different with accents or whatever.

As for Khan and his motivations, I don't think it's beyond an audience to grasp that Khan wants to rule. I think it's a better direction and has more dimension than having a 23rd century Stalin or Hitler, someone who just wants to destroy everyone because they believe humanity is inferior. Khan wanted to reshape the world in his own image and had no racist genocidal ambitions. That is what he wanted to do in the 1990's. He was a conqueror. And the fact that Kirk and/or the other part of Starfleet awoke him shouldn't have mad a difference to what he wanted to do. Kirk treating him well on a starship shouldn't matter. Spock Prime even stated that Khan would murder everyone on the Enterprise, which quite frankly just wasn't true from that original Khan we know. Yes his people were captured, but at the same time I just feel that with how intelligent he is in Star Trek Into Darkness, he would be beyond getting revenge on an entire planet. But I will say that you have a great point and I could easily see that as a reason for why he has changed. I have to watch the film again to see how I feel about it.

[SeijiSensei]

Spoiler for Federation HQ:

I found it rather absurd that the top brass of the Federation would hold a meeting in a glass room high above the city and not in an underground bunker. Both the White House and the Pentagon have bunkers. Why not these guys?

[Ithekro]

When you are that deep into Federation space, who is going to attack you without having to go through Starfleet first?

[AnimeFan188]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

When you are that deep into Federation space, who is going to attack you without having to go through Starfleet first?

Spoiler for Plot:

Anyone with one of those super-transporters that let you travel interstellar
distances instantly? Assuming other powers besides the Feds have this tech.
If not, they'll soon be trying to beg/borrow/steal it from the Federation,
considering what a huge advantage it conveys.

I wonder if Khan made it all the way to Kronos in 1 transport, or if he needed to
use multiple stops to get there?

I wonder what effect the introduction of that technology will have on this Trek
timeline?

[Kyuu]

Originally Posted by AnimeFan188

Spoiler for Plot:

Anyone with one of those super-transporters that let you travel interstellar
distances instantly? Assuming other powers besides the Feds have this tech.
If not, they'll soon be trying to beg/borrow/steal it from the Federation,
considering what a huge advantage it conveys.

I wonder if Khan made it all the way to Kronos in 1 transport, or if he needed to
use multiple stops to get there?

I wonder what effect the introduction of that technology will have on this Trek
timeline?

Seriously. That kind of tech. was way beyond the 24th century stuff.

[Samari]

John Harrison may have refined that technology.

[Traece]

Spoiler for More movie talk.:

Keep in mind that Earth is touted as this utopia of peace and prosperity. Crimes aren't supposed to happen there, nor terrorist acts. They collected together some top officials and captains in they way that they're normally expected to do, according to what they know about life: Earth is safe and stuff. Even though an entire block was completely decimated it doesn't change the fact that they're still humans who are accustomed to living in safety on their home planet.

As far as the Transwarp goes, that was technology that has existed in Star Trek for some time (although not in ToS). According to the previous movie that technology was conceived to a point. I suppose the idea behind it is that Khan, being ultra-intelligent, made that theory into a reality.

All in all, I thought the movie was OK. It had its moments and I enjoyed a fair bit of what was there. Honestly though, I think the complaint that kept coming into my mind as I was watching it, was that it just didn't feel like Star Trek. I know the major issue here is that this is a big-budget movie compared to a TV show from decades ago, but some of that style should have remained. All of the big-budget camera cuts and dutch angles, the constant effects, makes the movie feel far too quick. Star Trek was more operatic. It was slow, and paced. People actually talked about stuff sometimes. Honestly, I wish that they would just take a moment to develop an interesting plot and then actually explore it, instead of picking a plot and then force-feeding the audience the most fast-paced experience possible.

[YF19EX]

Spoiler for Transwarp Beaming:

I believe the concept of Transwarp Beaming was born out of the 2009 movie. Although Scotty was said to have theorized it, I do not think it existed through most of the 23-24th century in the prime universe. One of the things Star Trek always used was the issue of transporter range when it came to encountering situations in regards to a planet or another starship. Transwarp beaming would eliminate that problem all together.

Scotty is alive in Picard's time due to the transporter preservation he conducted on himself in TNG episode "Relics". Maybe at that time Scotty perfected Transwarp Beaming in the 24th century.

And like how Mr. Scott in Star Trek IV gave the "formula" to Plexicorp to make transparent aluminum, Spock did the same when giving the Transwarp Beaming formula to Scotty.

[ReddyRedWolf]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Spoiler for Federation HQ:

I found it rather absurd that the top brass of the Federation would hold a meeting in a glass room high above the city and not in an underground bunker. Both the White House and the Pentagon have bunkers. Why not these guys?

Images

Star Trek VI Starfleet HQ meeting

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

[Obelisk ze Tormentor]

^ J.J., Rob Orci and Alex Kurtzman should've done their homework. It's even sillier if what happened in Into Darkness is intentional.

[Ithekro]

Setting up how things were so you can get to things like we remember them....sort of.

[james0246]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

Spoiler for Federation HQ:

I found it rather absurd that the top brass of the Federation would hold a meeting in a glass room high above the city and not in an underground bunker. Both the White House and the Pentagon have bunkers. Why not these guys?

Spoiler for stuff and things concerning possible spoilers that happened during the course of the film...:

To be fair, they are not a pure military institution/culture so their rules may be a little more transparent, but the real problem is the lack of shielding on the meeting. We created bunkers not just to protect the individuals, but to protect the secrets we don't want to become public knowledge. In the future, they should have the proper shielding and technology not only to make meeting area highly defensible but also highly secretive (in so far as you shouldn't be able to sense what is occurring inside). So why the meeting didn't have such a shield system in place is a little baffling...then again I guess it's possible that it did have shielding, but Khan could break through it somehow...or maybe Robocop deliberately staged the massacre? Whatever the case, I had less of a problem with the area in which they were discussing the situation; it's the lack of defense that bugged me...

[Ithekro]

If one looks back on the technology angle of Star Trek, and the care put into the older series film's starship Enterprise, you find that if the writers and directors followed the procedures and used the ship's technologies, there would be almost no way to have drama within the ship. Their are lots of safety features. Sickbay has everything up to and including cold storage bays for those that are almost dead. They have transporters for sickbay, cargo, people, and food. Supposedly the older film era Enterprise had transporters in the Food Processors that were only a tad bit inferior to those used in the Next Generation shows (same results, it just took longer to make stuff).

But because one needs to write what they write, things get ignored or redesigned.

The new movie does have some interesting features for the Starship Enterprise.

[monster]

Originally Posted by relentlessflame

Spoiler for Reply to plot point from the movie:

But in terms of their motivations, this is a bit of a "nature vs. nurture" point. The idea here is that the circumstances behind Khan's revival changed, and this in turn changed his ambitions and point of view. Many things in this timeline were created with that principle in mind.

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Spoiler for Into Darkness:

In this film, the Augments are picked up in 2258 following the destruction of Vulcan. Only Kahn is woke up and used to make weapons and tactics for a war with the Klingons. He has had resentment and vengance on his mind since they took his people from him. He was beyond the idea of ruling people by this point.

Spoiler:

I was under the impression that Khan did plan on killing inferior beings even before being revived.

There was that one scene where Khan said what he would continue doing after getting his crew back. Also, if his intention of killing inferior beings is only as a result of the manner of his revival, Spock wouldn't have known about it as it wouldn't be in any of the data given to the Enterprise.

[Kirarakim]

I mostly really liked the movie. Could have done with less action more talking but I am not the target audience so Ill just have to deal.

I never saw the original Khan stories but I thought Khan was a great villain (and Benedict was great). I loved the moral questions the series brought up.

Still not completely sold on Kirk but I do love Spock, the Doc, & Scotty.

Also like Uruhara's role and that she gets to do stuff not just look pretty (although still not a fan of her relationship with Spock)

Overall I liked it more than the first movie.

[kyp275]

Just saw the movie a couple days ago, gotta say, Benedict played the role so well, it alone would've been worth the price of admission.

[ReddyRedWolf]

Just something I realized.

Spoiler:

The irony of Spock fighting and beating the crap off Khan.

Khan Noonien Singh is a pure Human genetically engineered Augment.

Spock is a genetically engineered Vulcan-Human hybrid. Note Spock is more intelligent than the average Vulcan.

In Enterprise during the Terra Prime arc it has been established without some genetic engineering conceiving a Human-Vulcan hybrid would be impossible. Tucker and T'Pol's baby did not survive due to shoddy genetic engineering by Terra Prime.

[ReddyRedWolf]

This is interesting. While we think Section 31 paints the Vengeance black to distinguish them from regular white Starfleet it seems not all Starfleet ships are white.

The USS Excelsior painted red in ST Into Darkness.

Images

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Official chart for ST 2009 ships.

Images

Sorry; dynamic content not loaded. Reload?

Found this at ex-astris-scientia.

[Ithekro]

Ah, so that's were they put her.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

I never saw the original Khan stories but I thought Khan was a great villain (and Benedict was great). I loved the moral questions the series brought up.

I recommend Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. It was carried "on-demand" on my cable system, so I watched it with my daughter after we saw Into Darkness. She had not seen the movie or the original ST episode with Montalban. All the ST films are on Amazon Instant and are free to "Prime" subscribers like me.

I wonder if Khan reupholstered the seats of his spacecraft in "soft Corinthian leather."