Star Trek 2

I've always thought "Into Darkness" was a stupid title since I first heard it, and I still think it's bad. Anyway I saw the film this weekend. It was okay, though I didn't remember much about the previous movie and found it hard to recall stuff about the characters, like Scotty's alien friend. Or why "transwarp" beaming technology looked weird and got stolen from Scotty. Might have to do a rewatch.


When the sequel began I was already annoyed by the starship being hidden in the ocean. Whose stupid idea was that? Why wouldn't you keep the ship in space where it belongs, and only send shuttles down with your landing party (or use the transwarp stuff if you've got it)? You can still violate the Prime Directive by having your shuttle be seen flying about. So basically I was just distracted by the stupidity of that nonsense for a while.

Then when Captain Kirk got stripped of command and Spock was reassigned, only for them to regain those jobs mere minutes later, it struck me as a cheap plot device. Captain Pike had to die for that? I'm not sure I liked the look of the Klingons, and I'm sorry they didn't have more to do with the plot. I thought surely they would follow the Enterprise back to Earth to get revenge for the Klingons who were slaughtered, but nope. There seemed to be a bunch of different alien life forms glimpsed in the background of scenes, but they didn't do much either. It was mostly a human and Vulcan show.

I was already spoiled about John Harrison being Khan, so I was more surprised that there was a secondary villain in the warmongering admiral. When the story focused on such ethical discussions, or on character moments, I liked the movie. However, I found the battle scenes to be just meaningless sound and fury. Glad I didn't pay for the 3D version.

It seemed that they were introducing Carol Marcus to do more or to continue in the next movie, but I'm not sure what she's going to be. At least she did get to display some scientific knowledge regarding the weapons, and that she confronted her father, so she didn't have just a generic bimbo personality.

Overall I think I would have liked the movie better if I'd just waited to rent it on Netflix. But it has been a while since I've seen Benedict Cumberbatch, so at least there was that performance to enjoy.

Edit: I just realized where I've seen the security guard I recognized on Admiral Marcus's dreadnought ship. He's a Secret Service agent on The First Family. He's good there, and I still enjoy that show quite a lot.