Welcome to Coffee Talk! Let’s start off the day by discussing whatever is on your (nerd chic) mind. Every morning I’ll kick off a discussion and I’m counting on you to participate in it. If you’re not feelin’ my topic, feel free to start a chat with your fellow readers and see where it takes you. Whether you’re talking about videogames, Anderson Silva’s impersonation of Mr. Fantastic, hoping that Sierra breaks up with Alex, or the best type of donut, Coffee Talk is the place to do it.
Now that we’ve discussed the 2013 game of the year, it’s time to talk about the 2013 movie of the year. There were a lot of nerd movies released in 2013: The Wolverine, Kick-Ass 2, Iron Man 3, Thor: The Dark World, and more. Most of these movies were okay for me; I liked a lot of them, but didn’t really love any of them…except for one. Despite being panned by many longtime fans and despite getting shredded by butt-hurt science fundamentalists, I super-enjoyed Star Trek: Into Darkness. I went over most of the reasons in my review, but since I’ve watched the movie several times since then (and also for the purposes of this column), I’ll fawn over the movie some more.
JJ Abrams’ reinvigorated the Star Trek franchise in his initial reboot and his fun take on the beloved sci-fi universe continues in Stark Trek: Into Darkness. I really love his modern twist on Star Trek; it’s fun, clever, and current. Thanks to some space-time manipulation, the new Star Trek isn’t beholden to the previous works. This has freed the new writers and directors, and I’ve been digging what they’ve come up with.
Star Trek: Into Darkness is fun and fast. It doesn’t confuse the audience with overly complicated science fiction. The cast is great and I could write a paragraph about each of the leads. Naturally, Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto are the top dogs. Those cats excel as Kirk and Spock (though I will always think less of Chris Pine for sleeping with the dreadful Olivia Munn). Simon Pegg is a wonderfully hilarious Scotty. Newcomer Alice Eve…is one of the sexiest humans that ever existed; she’s beautiful, she’s incredibly smart, and she has that alluring accent — just…wow.
A few of my friends have bagged on the actual science in Star Trek: Into Darkness, especially in the opening scene. To this I say, “Who gives a sh*t?!?” The opening scene was so much fun! The action and humor were fantastic. I don’t care that you can’t stop a volcano from exploding with a cold-fusion bomb and that you shouldn’t submerge a spaceship. That scene rocked and set the tone for the movie.
To sum it all up, Star Trek: Into Darkness was my 2013 movie of the year because of its clever writing, deft directing, strong performances, sweet special effects, and outstanding use Alice Eve.
Now it’s your turn! What was your 2013 movie of the year? Kindly share your feelings in the comments section.
Star Trek for me as well.
2nd place: Pacific Rim
I liked the Star Trek Movie too. Pine and Quinto are perfect. Never thought I would say or see that but I want more of this franchise. The rest are getting a little stale.
I’ve been neglecting my movie-watching duties this year, but I did see Anchorman 2 on Friday, so since I can’t remember the movies I saw earlier this year, I’ll just go with Anchorman 2. It was pretty damn funny and (*gasp*) it actually had a plot! That’s way more than I was expecting.
Iron Man 3 was a bit on the “dark” side for me. Normally, I wouldn’t mind, but it really bucked the trend from the first two movies, which were more “fun.” I get that Tony is reeling from the events of “The Avengers” movie (love that these Disney Marvel movies have that comic book “action-reaction” feel to them) but I just thought the movie got too weighed down with all of it. Also, I did not like what they did with The Mandarin. Definitely a “think-outside-the-box” moment, but I wasn’t impressed. Good slight-of-hand, though.
As for “Into Darkness,” I am highly disappointed. I had high expectations after I found myself liking the first J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek movie. The first one was credible and fun, establishing characters true to their original selves. It really was the best (or one of the best) methods for acknowledging their roots (which was not necessary) and telling a new story with past characters relevant for today’s audience. I really thought it bordered on “genius.” How Abrams did a complete 180 for Into Darkness is beyond baffling. Even if you have never seen anything Star Trek before this movie, it should still be mediocre at best. The reason, I suspect, that some people can’t see that is because the movie was racing at a break-neck speed in a likely attempt to discourage people from thinking about it. The tone of the movie was pretty much “go, go, go, shoot, shoot, run, run, run, hurry-up, go, life-and-death, move, don’t stop to think about this, go, go!” And I’m not even thinking about the nitpicky stuff like the lava or the ship submerged in water. That stuff just gets chalked up to crazy, science fiction suspension of disbelief (see “Revenge of the Sith”). What is flawed with this movie is it’s duality. It seriously seems like Abrams wanted to capture the near-genius aspect of appealing to both young and old Trek audiences that the first film had, but totally screwed it up in the sequel. He was trying WAY too hard and ended up insulting both audiences because of it. I would have liked it better if he were to have just picked one audience (even if it was the “new” audience because he had already established the characters in the first movie). Unlike the clever “Easter Eggs” old fans got in the first movie, Into Darkness wielded it’s past references with all the grace of an ice-skating bull. Abrams threw references to past shows, movies and characters arbitrarily (Khan, Pike), incorrectly (death scene, Spock’s emotions), and gratuitously (Carol Marcus, Scotty running, Spock). With a lot of references to Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan, it makes me wonder if J.J. wanted to tell his own tale with references to the original sequel or if he was just trying to “reboot” the older movie. I can’t tell because it’s so freaking bad. This movie would have been WAY better if he would have just created new characters instead of re-hashing random names from the Star Trek Encyclopedia and “copy & pasting” them into his story’s characters. Newer audiences should also feel insulted because Abrams did this because the feel like they are being left out with so many references to past (or I should say “alternate universe past”) references. For example, in order to REALLY follow the plot, you would have had to watch the original Star Trek episode “Space Seed” (1967) and then “Wrath of Khan” (1982). Had they just gone with a new, random bad guy with less complex motivations it would have made the whole movie a lot better. Likewise, the whole “death scene” was a reference to a similar death scene in “Star Trek II,” but reversed. I’ll bet you $100 that Abrams thought he was pretty clever and patted himself on the back for that one. “Hey guys, you know that really powerful and moving scene from ‘Wrath of Khan’ that everybody remembers because it has 15 years of an enduring relationship between two people finally ending? Well, I’m going to do that same exact scene with characters that have only known each other for a couple of years, but IN REVERSE! Then I’ll just bring him back to life after 15 minutes.” If you were in front of me now, Abrams, I would slap you across the face. The movie would have actually been better if Kirk were to have died. Having him live cheapens his sacrifice (see Transformers 2: Revenge of the Fallen). Also, if you are going to have Spock get super emotional in every movie you do, it defeats the purpose of his character. You got a free pass in the first one because of the whole “death of his planet and mother” thing. It was a one-time thing that made it so powerful. But if you are going to have him get riled up in every movie (getting more emotional over the loss of your buddy you’ve known for a few years more than the loss of your entire planet and mother makes no sense) then you’ve essentially established a character that does not follow the parameters you’ve established for him in your first movie. Contradicting characters you, yourself have established never makes for a good sequel. That would be like Luke Skywalker joining Darth Vader at the end of “Empire Strikes Back.”
Man, I could go on and on about what went wrong with this movie (both nitpicking and plot-breaking stuff), but I’ll stop here. People praising this movie only gets me pissed off because the collective bar is being set lower. Don’t be surprised if the next Abrams Star Trek movie has a flashy, jaw-dropping space battle with the Enterprise crew fighting an enemy Klingon starship controlled by humpback whales.
Don’t believe me? Watch Star Trek IV.
-M
I couldn’t agree more with your points. Didn’t care for how it seemed to insult older fans by pretending to cater to their wants while disgracing them in reality.
Older fans? Aren’t you like 19? :p