STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS: MADDIE WEIGHS IN

I’ve already gone on at length about Star Trek Into Darkness, so I’m going to keep my own comments to an absolute minimum this time. Suffice it to say that I went to see it again, this time with my wife Ginny and our 10-year-old daughter Maddie, with whom I collaborated on our now legendary “Star Trek Through Fresh Eyes” series of blog posts. Why would I go back to see a film I didn’t particularly care for? The honest answer: I didn’t want to miss out on being with Maddie when she went to see a Star Trek movie in the theater for the first time.

Having seen the film again, I find that my opinion of it hasn’t changed much—but I definitely dislike the last third even more now, and I feel even more strongly that Benedict Cumberbatch is the most miscast actor since John Wayne as Genghis Khan. 

Okay, now I’ll turn things over to Maddie—and yes, these are HER opinions, with no coaching or influencing from me. If you haven’t seen the film yet, note that there are SPOILERS along the way. You have been warned!

“I didn’t love it, but I didn’t hate it. It’s not one of my favorites.

“I liked the special effects—they were really good. I liked the action a lot, and the intensity. 

“It’s 2013, so they can do all this cool stuff with the story and since it’s in an alternate timeline, anything can happen. I think they should have gone with a new villain and not used Khan. They should have done something new and fresh for the audience. This is supposed to be a new timeline, so why use characters we’ve already seen?

“I didn’t like the casting of Khan. He didn’t look like Khan and he didn’t act like Khan. I think the actor tried the best he could to be Khan, but he just wasn’t Khan. 

“My favorite characters were Kirk and Bones. Kirk was very different from the old Kirk—the old Kirk would never have teamed up with Khan. And I don’t think the old Kirk liked to be in fights all the time. He didn’t like to hurt people. He liked to sort things out with words and negotiations. But I like the new Kirk because I think he’s cool—it’s a new way for Kirk to act, which is okay because the stories are being told in a new and different way. And I thought Kirk was funny, especially in the scenes where he was dealing with Spock and Uhura not getting along. ‘Are you two fighting? Oh my God, what is that even like?’

“I’m really disliking Spock in these new movies. I don’t like him being with Uhura—he’s not supposed to be in love. And the old Spock was funny. I find the new Spock just annoying. He filed a report against Kirk after Kirk saved his life! The old Spock would never have done that. The actor plays Spock well, it’s just the writing that’s bad. 

“I want Bones to have a bigger part in the stories. He should have a bigger part than Uhura!

“I like Sulu a lot—I was glad they gave him some stuff to do. It helped the story. And Scotty is really good! He’s very funny, and I like his little friend. 

“And I really enjoyed it when Scotty was running back and forth on the deck of the enemy ship and making those funny noises!

“I didn’t know why the Enterprise was underwater at the beginning—why didn’t it just stay in orbit? As long as the ship was in beaming range, they could’ve gone down to the planet and not have to worry about being seen by the natives.

“I liked the intensity in the last part of the movie, even though I saw a lot of it before in The Wrath of Khan. It was interesting that they did a twist on Wrath of Khan—it was a new way of telling the story. But I knew that Kirk would be all right because of the earlier scene with McCoy and the tribble. And it was interesting that in this movie, Khan wasn’t really the bad guy.

“I wanted to see more done with the Klingons. I think they’ll be a big part of the next movie.

“I want there to be another movie, but I hope it’s more like the one from 2009.” 

And there you have it—straight from the next generation.  

© All text copyright Glenn Greenberg, 2013.