Its one of the biggest feuds in nerdom, your either a Star Wars fan or your a Trekkie. I grew up as a Star Wars fan because it was so much cooler! I felt that Star Trek was for nerds! Tim (my husband) is a rarity because he love both franchises equally. So he always defended Star Trek when I trashed Trek. When the first J.J. Abrams reboot of Star Trek came out he dragged me to the theater and I begrudgingly watched the movie. Boy did I feel pretty stupid when the movie turned out to be awesome. I was so taken with it that I even dressed as Spock for Halloween that year.
I was very excited for the next installment! So after much anticipation I finally got to see Star Trek: Into Darkness! This time around the crew of the enterprise is a little bit more experienced and about to embark on a five year mission to explore unknown space! However there is a little hiccup when a very dashing, John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) starts to mess things up. He targeted a Star Fleet archive (Mickey from Doctor Who works there!) and shoots up Star Fleet headquarters taking a few starship captains down in the process. For Kirk, now its personal.
The story I felt wasn't completely solid and there were a few plot holes here and there. Despite this shortcomings it didn't ruin the movie for me and I still loved it.
It was pretty faced paced, one thing happened after another. There was barley anything breathing room before the next big thing happened. With the over abundance of action I thought all of it was really amazing. From the Klingon fight scene to the final showdown it was pretty intense. My favorite action sequence was when the Enterprise was getting its butt kicked. The gravity is malfunctioning and as the ship tumbles we see Kirk and Scotty try to manurver their way through the ship. Some of the scenes got me really excited for what J.J. Abrams is going to bring to the new Star Wars trilogy, especially when pursuing the bad guy on foot while jumping from moving vehicle to moving vehicle.
After falling in love with them in the first film I was excited to see the crew back together again. Despite being friends Spock and Kirk were still going at it, Dr. McCoy (Bones) laid down a bunch of ridiculous metaphors and deliver the "Damit Jim I'm a Doctor not a (insert wacky occupation)!" Scotty is perhaps my favorite, perhaps its because of my fondness for Simon Pegg. The comic relief is my usually favorite character. The only character subplot I could do without was the fight between lovers, Spock and Uhura. She's mad at him because he can't feel anything but he says its because he's Vulcan. Well he's only half and he really loved his mom so you'd think he wouldn't be so robotic all the time. Also wouldn't Star Fleet have some sort of regulation on intercrew dating? At least this relationship didn't get to much screen time. A good part of the movie is spend trying to figure out whats up with this John Harrison guy. Then he reveals that (SPOILER ALERT!) he's Kahn.
What I really loved about the first film is that the reboot made it really accessible to non-Trekkies. It did so by actually changing the time line creating an alternate Star Trek. That said, I thought they would be adventures that would be completely new and not try to duplicate one of its most iconic villains. I had actually never seen Wrath of Kahn (I know losing nerd cred, but I told you I'm a Trek noob) but after talking to Tim about it, he pointed out all of the similarities and how how things were altered. This is apparent in one of the final scenes in which Kirk sacrifices himself to repair the damaged warp drive, and Spock screams the iconic "Kahhhhhnnn!" While in the original it was the other way around. So I was a little disappointed with that.
Despite loving the movie, I had one big gripe with it. As a fan of time travel I learned the basic rules, don't contact yourself and especially don't disclose information that could alter the space time continium! So when Spock is in some trouble he contacts the other Spock (we were introduced to him in the first one) and he starts hitting him up with questions. Older Spock tells his alternate younger version that he can't reveal anything (because of time travel rules!) but then he proceeds to tell him! That drove me nuts.
Despite its shortcomings I still enjoyed it. I wasn't totally blown away like I felt when seeing the first one, however its still worth the watch. I hope the trilogy closes with something totally new to the Star Trek universe. Till then live long and prosper.
