Star Trek: Into Darkness (2013)

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

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 actually watched it, and Search for Spock and Voyage Home quite recently.

Let's just say I've become a bit obsessed with the original series. But strangely enough what really got me into it was the relationship between the main 3: Spock/Kirk/McCoy. I especially really love Spock/McCoy.

Sadly the new movies seem to reduce McCoy to a secondary character unlike his importance in the original series.

[Blaat]

Make sure to watch Star Trek V while it is correctly lambasted as an awful movie it has some excellent Kirk/Spock/McCoy interaction.

[Parasol Lady]

Watched the movie with friends. In general, I enjoyed Into the Darkness better than the first movie. Seriously loved the chase/confrontation scene between Spock and Khan. (Side note: Benedict was a pretty good Khan, IMO).

On a not-so-completely different note, Star Trek: The Middle School Musical: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIkgcWtK_rQ

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by Blaat

Make sure to watch Star Trek V while it is correctly lambasted as an awful movie it has some excellent Kirk/Spock/McCoy interaction.

Thanks I watched it, actually I don't think it is an awful movie just a very flawed one. I am not sure if that was because Shatner was not up to the task of directing or something else but I actually think the movie is a bit underrated.

Spoiler for Final Frontier:

Well first of all I am going to say I am more into the TOS TV series than the TOS movie series as I prefer the feel of the 60's to the 80's/early 90's. The one thing I do like about the movies is the characters are allowed to be older and we see how the relationship of the main crew has matured and strengthened over the years. That is still very much true in this movie. As you said there was some excellent Spock/Kirk/McCoy stuff but even the limited moments between Scott/Uhura and Chekov/Sulu were great. You can really feel the bond between all the characters which I loved. And I definitely loved that Spock/Kirk/McCoy were pretty much joined to the hip the entire movie (I don't think I would have minded an entire movie of them camping actually )

As the plot of the movie well the execution was very flawed but I thought there were a lot of interesting themes and unlike a lot of sci-fi films today it was focused not on battles but on intriguing questions. Yeah the search for God might be overused but I liked that it was not necessarily religious (although the main villain was stupid). And I really liked the moment where Kirk said he didn't want to give up his pain because it was a part of him.

The worst part of the movie for me was probably Spock's emotional Vulcan brother. It lead to a couple humorous lines but it just didn't work for me, not for the character history of Spock or the Vulcan race as a whole. I did like the moments where Spock said he found his place though.

Ok sorry for talking so much about something other than Into to Darkness but I had a lot to say about this movie.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Kirarakim

Let's just say I've become a bit obsessed with the original series. But strangely enough what really got me into it was the relationship between the main 3: Spock/Kirk/McCoy. I especially really love Spock/McCoy.

Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a washing machine repairman!

Sadly the new movies seem to reduce McCoy to a secondary character unlike his importance in the original series.

I agree, he does seem underutilized, but then I think he was always the least-favorite of the three. Since most of the nerds watching sided with Spock, McCoy didn't get much support there. And the non-nerds would have picked Kirk over McCoy with Jim's two-fisted approach to dealing with aliens. (Except for the episodes where he seduced them instead. My favorite was the scene where Kirk and some alluring female alien step into his quarters for a bit, and the director then cuts to a scene where he is putting his shoes back on.)

[Ithekro]

McCoy is bascially Kirk's human side and conscience. McCoy is there if the logical responce is something they shouldn't do, but Kirk needs a push to come up with another course of action.

Or for when they have a medical problem.

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by SeijiSensei

I agree, he does seem underutilized, but then I think he was always the least-favorite of the three. Since most of the nerds watching sided with Spock, McCoy didn't get much support there. And the non-nerds would have picked Kirk over McCoy with Jim's two-fisted approach to dealing with aliens. (Except for the episodes where he seduced them instead. My favorite was the scene where Kirk and some alluring female alien step into his quarters for a bit, and the director then cuts to a scene where he is putting his shoes back on.)

I don't know what that makes me because McCoy is my favorite. I absolutely adore Deforest Kelley too.

I admit I was most familiar with Spock/Kirk as a kid and I still enjoy their characters a lot but there is just something about an old country doctor.

Originally Posted by Ithekro

McCoy is bascially Kirk's human side and conscience. McCoy is there if the logical responce is something they shouldn't do, but Kirk needs a push to come up with another course of action.

Or for when they have a medical problem.

McCoy is the Id (emotion) Spock the ego (logic) and Kirk the super ego (the balance of the two). I think this is one of the things that make the original series so fun for me to watch. The three characters were really an embodiment of one person.

Everyone talks about the Spock/Kirk bromance (or romance in some corners) and I am not discounting that but McCoy was definitely an important part of the equation too. I don't think the series would have worked as well without him.

In the new movies Pine's Kirk is way more emotional and impetuous than Shatner's Kirk (this I guess is because he is supposed to be young). Uhura also seems to be taken the "emotional" role away from McCoy since she is now in a relationship with Spock and has him think about his feelings.

But I think Kirk and Uhura's "emotional" sides don't work as well as McCoy's emotion in the original series. I mean McCoy can lay it on Spock and Kirk quite thick when he thought they were making a bad decision. McCoy wasn't even always right, in fact he was a lot of times wrong but he tried to make Kirk and Spock think of the human element. It goes a bit beyond "do you love me" which is what the new movies seem to focus on in terms of emotion.


edit: Just found this about the new movies:

According to co-writer Roberto Orci, the 2009 Star Trek film maintains this trope, but swaps Kirk and McCoy:
"McCoy in a way represents for us, or represented for us, the extremes of Kirk and Spock. If Spock is extreme logic, ... extreme science, and Kirk is extreme emotion and intuition, here you have a very colorful doctor, essentially a very humanistic scientist. So he, in a way, is literally and figuratively a representation of two extremes that often served as the glue that held the trio together."

I honestly just don't see that in the new movies or necessarily think it is even a good idea that they switched McCoy and Kirk. After all Kirk is meant to be the balance because he makes the decisions.

[Ithekro]

If one follows how the plot goes, it seems more that the main character is Spock rather than Kirk in these new movies. That would be one reason to change the dynamic as a reason to insert Uhura rather than McCoy into the mix.

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

If one follows how the plot goes, it seems more that the main character is Spock rather than Kirk in these new movies. That would be one reason to change the dynamic as a reason to insert Uhura rather than McCoy into the mix.

I personally don't see that, both Kirk and Spock seem to be main characters here (which is no different from the original)

And still if we are following any character's personal journey it still seems to be Kirk in watching him become Kirk the Captain.

I think the movies do a pretty good job with the development of the Kirk/Spock relationship. It's enjoyable to watch but there isn't anything about it that hasn't been seen before: characters who at first don't get along grow to care about each other. It's also very typical buddy cop (which I admit I enjoy) but it is just missing the spark & chemistry of the original Kirk/Spock/McCoy for me.

I will say that while I am not completely sold on Uruhara/Spock, it is certainly better than any romance the TOS writers tried to write for Spock. But then this Spock already shows way more emotion than Nimoy's Spock. For Nimoy's Spock to show movie!Spock emotion he had to be drugged

[Vexx]

The Original series was very much a triangle between Kirk Spock and McCoy. Roddenberry consciously designed them that way.

Modern triangle does seem to be Kirk-Spock-Uhura in some degree. Also neo-Spock got specific go-ahead from old timeline-Spock to try things differently since Vulcan is no more.

I thought the Uhura-Spock romance as amusing because when I was watching Star Trek back in the 60s I thought Uhura and Spock had an interesting vibe going all those times they were working together to solve technical problems (neck deep in piles of transtators).

[Ithekro]

Spock as a character did show more emotions in the first pilot: "The Cage". He was much younger then as it was 13 or so years before the Original Series. However that would be only about five or six years before events in the new films. Younger Spock means he has less control over his emotions. Add to this the fate of Vulcan and he's a bit more emotional than we are use to seeing him in the Series and films.

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by Vexx

The Original series was very much a triangle between Kirk Spock and McCoy. Roddenberry consciously designed them that way.

Exactly and this is my opinion what made the original series so special. Not Spock/Kirk but Spock/Kirk/McCoy. Heck there are even tropes named after their relationship.

Modern triangle does seem to be Kirk-Spock-Uhura in some degree. Also neo-Spock got specific go-ahead from old timeline-Spock to try things differently since Vulcan is no more.

I do get that this is a parallel universe and things will be different but at least in this case the difference doesn't seem to be an improvement. I don't think the differences are horrible just not as good as the original chemistry of the main 3.

And I miss Spock/McCoy banter. Somehow this Kirk and Uhura don't really have it in them.

I thought the Uhura-Spock romance as amusing because when I was watching Star Trek back in the 60s I thought Uhura and Spock had an interesting vibe going all those times they were working together to solve technical problems (neck deep in piles of transtators).

There were a couple episodes where Uhura flirted with Spock (one where she asks him about the Vulcan moon) he seemed completely uninterested though.

The kiss that was between her and Kirk was also supposedly between them as well.

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Spock as a character did show more emotions in the first pilot: "The Cage". He was much younger then as it was 13 or so years before the Original Series. However that would be only about five or six years before events in the new films. Younger Spock means he has less control over his emotions. Add to this the fate of Vulcan and he's a bit more emotional than we are use to seeing him in the Series and films.

Well I guess that is also because Nimoy hadn't fully developed Spock's character yet.

Somehow though I don't think I can see Younger Nimoy!Spock being this emotional either. It doesn't fit with his character and how he reacts to Kirk and McCoy or how they react to him. It seems the logical (no emotion) Spock is what they always knew and only in the movies do I think Spock starts to change as he becomes older and wiser.

But yeah a destroyed Vulcan I guess could explain a different Spock.

[Ithekro]

Well he was with Pike for the first episode since Kirk had not been written yet and McCoy wouldn't be around until after the second pilot.

Karl Urban though...he plays a perfect McCoy. Of all the cast and characters, he was the most believeable.

[Kirarakim]

Originally Posted by Ithekro

Karl Urban though...he plays a perfect McCoy. Of all the cast and characters, he was the most believeable.

This I completely agree with. I feel he really gets McCoy's character. That is also why I think it is a shame that McCoy has been regulated to secondary character in the movies when Urban plays him so perfectly.

[walkofshane]

Originally Posted by Parasol Lady

Watched the movie with friends. In general, I enjoyed Into the Darkness better than the first movie. Seriously loved the chase/confrontation scene between Spock and Khan. (Side note: Benedict was a pretty good Khan, IMO).

Agree with you! I loved Benedict as Khan. Heck, I love Benedict, period