1,966 Reasons Star Trek Into Darkness Was Great

You’ll never guess what they are

I watched Star Trek Into Darkness today, and despite my forebodings it was not a terrible film. I'm not the only one who thinks so – the Rotten Tomatoes score for the film stands at a remarkable 87%, and at Metacritic the film did well too, hitting a respectable 72. Even the IMDB has it at 8.0, and this based on 176,643 users illustrates just how well J.J. Abrams has managed to win over the hardcore crowd with his reboot.

There was a lot to admire about the film. I can forgive the lack of a colon in the title, and how Spock’s locks flapping around when he ran made him look like Randy Quaid in Kingpin; I can even forgive the deus ex machina ending because the writers did at least lay the groundwork earlier in the film (adding a reference to ‘The Trouble With Tribbles’ for good measure).

The film was well executed with the production values of a full-blooded blockbuster. The action was commendably done, and I could follow the logic of the fight sequences in most instances – although the Klingons did seem to get dispatched all too quickly.

Yes, that’s him again.

The acting is generally as good as you could hope for it to be in a film that features a character with no emotions, but it is Benedict Cumberbatch who steals the show. All of my favourite moments feature his character, including the scene where Kirk and Cumberbatch’s ‘John Harrison’ are about to launch themselves out of one spaceship and into another. Kirk bashfully explains that he has done this before; his confidence and swagger is replaced with embarrassment. Cumberbatch is pitch perfect: unimpressed and coolly professional.

But none of this is why I liked the movie, or more specifically, why I think Star Trek Into Darkness was great. The reasons why I will now proceed to outline, though you may wonder initially at my numbering system.

2. Yes, the film is a remake, as well as being part of a reboot. Star Trek Into Darkness should more properly be called Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. ‘John Harrison’ is soon revealed, to the surprise of nobody familiar with Star Trek, to be Khan Noonien Singh. The backstory is different but no less effective at giving the man some motivation for revenge.

But this doesn't seem like a film remade for the sake of it. When Khan’s character is first introduced, there are astonishing parallels between his story and that of first Chelsea Manning and later Edward Snowden (although the movie pre-dates the latter’s revelations). He is introduced as an agent gone rogue, though as we see part of the reason for this is an emerging government conspiracy to engage in an illegal war. This lends the film a great of-the-moment-ness that most sequels and reboots tend to lose (Robocop reboot, I'm looking at you).

3. The magical resurrection of Kirk in the momentum-killing finale served its own useful purpose: in just five awkward minutes, J.J. Abrams has removed the possibility of there ever being a remake of Star Trek III: The Search for Spock. Perhaps he realised that there is no actor capable of stepping into the shoes vacated by Christopher Lloyd -better to end it there and then.

(Furthermore but somewhat tangentially, it’s interesting to note that both Into Darkness and Search for Spock have Scotty sabotaging a bigger, faster, stronger version of the Enterprise; so I suppose Into Darkness really is a remake of two films for the price of one.)

4. Since Search for Spock has been dealt with, there will likely be no need for any time travel escapades; besides, J.J. Abrams has already done that with the first Star Trek. Well, not the ‘first’ one… I’m sorry; this is all making me a touch confused. Let’s move on.

Weller is so often a bad guy that it’s easy to forget that he’s excellent as the hero. Why have these roles dried up for him?

6. The government conspiracy plot line involving Peter Weller mirrors that of Star Trek 6: The Undiscovered Country. In that film, the Klingon High Chancellor is assassinated in an attempt to draw the Klingons into a war with the Federation. In Into Darkness, Weller’s Admiral Marcus sends Kirk off to hunt down and terminate Khan, who is hiding out on the Klingon homeworld Kronos. Kirk is meant to blow Khan to smithereens with a set of long-range Photon Torpedoes (another nod to the ‘war on terror’ and how drones are used more than boots on the ground these days) but Marcus’s actual goal, of course, is to provoke the Klingons into attacking the Enterprise.

The best part of all of these shenanigans is that there is no need for a remake of Undiscovered Country; Abrams has done it already.

Can you imagine Abrams adding more lens flare to this?

7. The good news keeps piling up. I was wondering why Admiral Marcus should have been given that particular name, but this became clear with the information that his daughter is Carol. Why is this such good news? Shatner’s Kirk had a child by Carol Marcus but did not make a family with her, and so dreamt of finding her again in Star Trek: Generations. There is a telling moment in Into Darkness when Kirk welcomes Marcus into ‘the family’ of the crew, and since this theme, of family lost and regained, is the central concern of Generations, we can now relax, safe in the knowledge that we won’t have to sit through a remake of that film.

9. It gets even better! Though Into Darkness never fully explores the implications, it turns out that Khan’s blood is a life-saving, indeed life-restoring, substance. And since Khan is not killed in the reboot, but rather returned to cryostasis, Abrams or his successors won’t need to invent new characters if they ever feel the need to remake Star Trek: Insurrection. They can simply bring back Benedict Cumberbatch. So if we do have to suffer a remake of the second-worst Trek film, at least it’ll feature Sherlock Holmes.

1966. There’s one other great thing about Into Darkness, and it’s so great it makes up for the film’s acronym looking like an off-putting medical term. Right at the end of the film we are treated to Alexander Courage’s theme tune from the original Star Trek TV show; and this comes, too, after Kirk and crew set off on their new ‘five year voyage.’