Star Trek, Into Darkness

Saw Star Trek. Can't say it agreed with me. Thought it was extremely stupid to have another Kahn story – this one, a prequel. For every moment that is enjoyable where the film snaps itself into the real Star Trek, there are more that are problematic. Thought it was stupid to have Spock talk to himself in the future (Nimoy) as though it were a telephone call. The relationship between Kirk and Spock seems to artificially reverse (is abrupt). Not sure the tension ever should have been written in that way from the begining. The film has a lot of action, but it can degenerate into a carnival. Dialogue is very cheesy in places. Film gets Disneyish too. Overall, there are some good scenes and moments, just not enough. Grade: B/B-.

Comments

[Stuart W. Mirsky]

I don't think Spock's conversing with his future self in the future, in that bit, but with his older self who had been thrown back into the younger Spock's time in the previous film. I think they made the premise that the timelines are different now because, if you recall, Vulcan was destroyed at the end of the last film, leaving the old Spock, who had traveled back in time, stuck in an alternate past with his prior self, thereby opening up the whole narrative to new events in a new alternate timeline. This effectively frees the writers who are developing these stories from adherence to past "facts" established for the old series and its Hollywood sequels. A very convenient narrative mechanism playing on the idea of alternate or parallel quantum universes! What could be better for a writer's freedom than that???

[Wilson]

... Hmm. I'll have to think about that. Thanks for the tip. If I'm still not crazy about the movie, it's probably because I, myself, am not in the universe of the movie, but rather the series. But if I teleport back in time when I am much older, and watch it again with myself, the second try could be completely different, at least for him. Is it an alternate universe or are we just accepting that time itself is being changed? Having trouble accepting the premise, though I do agree its acceptance would change my perception.

[Stuart W. Mirsky]

Honestly, I didn't get it myself at first. Went straight over my head until my wife (a Star Trek fan who dragged me to see the film) explained it! Then I realized that, of course, she was right because Vulcan HAD been destroyed in the prior film AND there had been references to an alternate timeline. There have been a lot of these approaches since the TV series Quantum Leap (another show my wife enjoyed immensely and still does in re-runs on cable) first made use of the Quantum Mechanics thesis that there are an infinite number of alternate universes running parallel with our own. This thesis, by the way, is the alternative explanation of quantum level uncertainty to the one perpetually boosted by Joe Polanik on your Serious Philosophy yahoo list, to wit, that consciousness "collapses the wave function." On that other, and now less popular, view everything at the quantum level of operation is perpetually unfixed, as in uncertain, being everywhere and nowhere simulaneously, until some subject (consciousness) looks at it which, effectively, fixes the phenomenon in time and space. Thus, in the "collapse the wave function" scenario, the universe at its deepest level is forever fluid until the "waves" which constitute that fluidity are "collapsed" by an observation. The alternate universe explanation hypothesizes that it's not that everything is fluid and unfixed but that every possiblity is equally true and that observation in one universe merely captures one of those "truths".

Personally I find both equally strange though the alternate universes scenario is easier to wrap one's head around I think. Plus it's great for writers because of all the possibilities it gives them for telling stories!