So what I got from this was that Mickey Smith had a really sick daughter and Sherlock Holmes offered to help him in return for him becoming a domestic terrorist, and the Enterprise (plus Lara Tyler, the beloved of the Tenth Doctor before he ran off with Merida) is sent after Sherlock in response to the terrorism?

...well, then.

Since I've absolutely no actual knowledge of Star Trek I liked it well enough. I mean, I hear that the roles of Spock and Kirk were switched in regards to the warp drive scene and my friends and I all laughed at the 'KHAAAAAAN' shouting (mostly because I have friends who will shout that anyway, out of the blue) and enjoyed the occasional lens flare, but yeah. I'm pretty okay with the film despite it not passing the Bechdel test and stuff and I'm not entirely sure where the Cumbershower scene was supposed to come in (He doesn't look like he's enjoying it very much).

So.

That being said, I'm not sure how it played out in the Wrath of Khan but I feel like Benny!Khan was almost a parody Stu at times. Could've been that line when he said he was better at everything, could've been his special blood, could've even been the Single Tear. But I get the feeling that if anyone wanted to write a Sue-villain in anything in the future, they could easily refer to Benny!Khan.

I really liked it. My only issue was that the pacing was bad. All the intensity was at the end. Kahn is a fantastic villain, but there wasn't enough set up for his evilness before he started helping them out. My mother thought they should have set up the guy with the sick daughter near the beginning a bit more, as it would emphasized the whole "doing anything for your family" theme. Plus a few of the characters were a bit underused.
Good things were much more plenty, however, and that sold it for me. Lots of jokes and nods to the prime universe kept me spurting random giggles throughout the film. I was kind of freaking out, because as soon as Kirk went thought that glass door, I was thinking "Oh, goodness, it's going to be like Wrath of Kahn. Only with Kirk on the opposite side of the door." I almost yelled "KAAAAAHHHHNNN!" with Spock. But people in the theater would have gotten mad.
Anyway, now I want to go watch Wrath of Kahn again. *loads up Netflix*

To start with something positive, as a complete and total Trekkie, I also enjoyed the references to various TOS things (I love me some tribbles). I also enjoyed just about everything in the movie until the big reveal. I think Benny Cucumberpatch did very well with what he was given.

Now on to my (what will probably become very long) opinionated review.

Honestly, this movie proves to me that I can't trust JJ Abrams to give us nice things. I loved the 2009 movie because it was completely original and started fresh with the TOS characters. Keenser and Scotty will forever skip off to a rainbow sunset while holding hands. Anyways, on to Into Darkness. I like that we got to see Kirk get some rather serious consequences for his actions. (And we can ignore the painfully bad science with regards to 'stopping' the volcano.) I always enjoy seeing Pike because I love the original pilot (ignoring the ridiculous sexism, etc). His relationship with Kirk makes me go all fuzzy inside and his death really hit me. Go JJ for that one, I guess.

I like the mystery surrounding John Harrison. Kirk does his usual hint-of-Wesley-Crusher for the movies by noticing random things during the meeting after Harrison blows up the Archives. People have pointed out that there were some women in that meeting, but JJ obviously didn't spend enough time pointing the camera at them for me to notice. This is one of my huge issues with these movies- the lack of women. We get Uhura, whose only purpose seems to be to whinge about Spock while having occasional awesome moments (such as her interaction with the Klingons and later when she helps recapture Harrison). Carol Marcus was only 'useful' for an unnecessary scene in her underwear. I mean, they even wrote Bones hitting on her after she disarmed the torpedo. Way to undermine what she just did. I would have liked it if the writers put more thought into her character and let her have some interaction with Uhura (that isn't a conversation about men). I also grew fond of that one navigator who took over for Chekov. She seemed pretty cool for all her 30 seconds on screen.

Still on the topic of Carol Marcus, I knew that Khan was going to be involved because Marcus was only in The Wrath of Khan. I was hoping that it wouldn't be true, but of course it was. The writers could have used the opportunity of the AU to get really creative, but they decided to rehash an already great movie and whitewash it some more in the process. Look up some of John Cho's interviews where he takes every opportunity to slam JJ about the lack of PoC in the movie and you will see what I mean. Others have written about this issue, and probably even more eloquently, but I just about flipped when I heard Benny say he was Khan. Ricardo Montalban is Mexican, so of course in the sixties they did the all-the-brown-people-are-the-same crap, but at least Khan was an intelligent villain who happened to be a PoC. Many reviewers on the internet have commented about how intelligent villains are rarely PoC and you can probably find those on LJ among other places.

There isn't much to say about the plot because most of it was already done in Wrath of Khan. The random cameo of Nimoy!Spock really threw me out of the movie and didn't seem necessary. I suppose Admiral Marcus was an interesting villain. His death was gruesome and fitting to Khan's feelings about his betrayal. The contrast between a warmongering admiral and a largely peaceful Starfleet makes for interesting conflict and I think Marcus could have been the villain for a completely different story. I mean, this plot could have been done with many tweaks without Khan. One thing about Khan that is so interesting is his relationship with Kirk and how the events of Space Seed affected Khan and lead him to want to get revenge on a character that we actually care about. I think a problem with the movie is that I don't care about Marcus and there isn't really much between Kirk and Khan besides some manipulation.

What was up with the Klingon design, though? I mean they looked something freaky.

TLDR; the whitewashing, lack of women, and a thrown away opportunity to do a new story really make this movie a disappointment. They should have just repeated the deleted shower scene on a loop for two hours.

Because I loved it! I mean, seriously loved it. After it was done, I fell to my knees like a religious person after they'd gotten a revelation from their God. (Yes, I just compared Star Trek to religion. It's not like the fandom is anything like a cult, right?) I nearly cried. You see, I had such high expectations: a Star Trek movie with Benedict Cumberbatch, supposedly an iconic TOS villain, and I had been so afraid that it wouldn't meet my expectations.

And it did! It was everything I hoped and wished, and...

I should probably stop gushing and actually say what I loved. It's just...it was a profound experience.

I too loved all the references to prime universe Trek. They helped me feel like this was Star Trek, the universe I was used to. Rewatching the first reboot after watching lots of prime universe Trek, it took until McCoy's "Dammit man, I'm a doctor, not a physicist!" line to make me feel like it was Trek. This one, it was pretty early on when they mentioned the Prime Directive. And just catching all the references made me feel smart...let's see:

-Offhand reference to Gorn
-Tribble
-KHAN!!!
-Section 31
-An evil admiral
-Scotty's a miracle worker
-Sulu being captain
-Redshirt

I'll probably get more after I see it again tomorrow evening.

Also, I loved how the main moral of the movie was that Starfleet was exploration, not military. Most of the previews before it were apocalypse movies, and it was wonderful to see it affirming Star Trek's vision of a peaceful future.

And Benedict Cumberbatch, is, as usual, fabulous. The only thing I can say is that he doesn't look much like Ricardo Montalban, and most reboot characters look like their prime counterparts. But he acted well, as expected.

And speaking of acting, I think that the actors were getting closer to their TOS counterparts. Dare I say, Chris Pine plays Kirk better than Shatner - the same character, but with less...scenery chewing and...excessive hamminess. And random...pauses. But everyone was much closer to their original counterparts. My theory is that they tried to lure in new Trekkies with the first reboot, which was not as close to original Trek. Now, they know they've converted people, so they're making this one closer. Or the actors have had more time to study up.

Also, TOS didn't develop characters other than Kirk, Spock, and McCoy, and this seems to be going towards developing them more. Special mention goes to Scotty and his heroism. I'm much more of a Scotty fan than I was.

Sadly, no movie is perfect. There was one thing I didn't like, and didn't like about the first one: Spock/Uhura. It lacked development, which made it feel very strange. Like, a female character can't just be a well-rounded, interesting person. She has to be the love interest just because she's the one female main character? Deanna Troi and Riker end their relationship because they're serving on the same ship. Wouldn't Spock see the same logic? Uhura as love interest is a step back for Star Trek. You go from B'Elanna and Tom, whose relationship developed over several seasons of Voyager, to this. It makes me sad to think that there's still this prevalent idea in our society that male characters can stay single, but female characters must be the love interest. And don't get me started on Carol Marcus's blatant fanservice. You know, writers, Star Trek fans aren't all straight guys anymore.

But I hate to end on that note, so I'll end with how this is the first Star Trek movie where I've really understood where the Spirk shippers are coming from. I'm pretty sure it's just my squicked out reaction to shipping anything with Shatner, combined with my dislike of Spock/Uhura, but for some reason the reverse scene to the one in Wrath of Khan felt much more slashy this time around. I really felt the depth of their feelings for each other much more than I did when I had to wade through Shatner-speak. That scene choked me up in the best possible way.

Overall, it was awesome, and I'm looking forward to seeing it again tomorrow night.

And now anyone reading this is probably glad I'm done rambling.