STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - So, not a Star Trek movie. Feels more like a mission or two in Mass Effect 2. I was into that! It was dumb, and full of of Roberto Orci's awful 9/11 truther bullshit, but it was fun despite all of these things. UNTIL THE LAST TWENTY MINUTES.
So, in STAR TREK 09, when they had Zachary Quinto basically look at the camera and say, "This is a new timeline. We can do whatever we want," I took that to mean that this reboot series wasn't going to bother with the past of Star Trek and just do their own thing. And I was fine with that. But, based on this sequel, what it really meant was "We're going to take a bunch of elements/characters/scenes from your favorite Trek moments and rearrange em and throw em all in and hope they all work together!" And I am NOT fine with that. The WRATH OF KHAN ending redux was the worst. What was even worse than that was that I knew the second Scotty said something about the warp coil being busted that they weren't even gonna let Kirk stay dead and they were gonna cop out with the Magical Khan Blood. AND SURE ENOUGH. I do think Kirk sacrificing himself works in terms of his arc in this movie, but I really have no interest in seeing the exact same self sacrifice scene just played out with a different character. I don't want to see scenes, ICONIC SCNES, again just played out slightly differently. That is the opposite of interesting to me. That is the opposite of dramatic to me. This scene is obviously meant for fans, but do fans really want that? I love WRATH OF KHAN more than some of my family members and that scene had me rolling my eyes and sighing heavily. And the Magical Khan Blood is one of the dumbest plot devices ever.
I'm going to put this in spoiler tags even though I don't think it's a spoiler, but the "reveal" that Cumberbatch is Khan is retarded. None of the characters care that John Harrison is Khan because they've never met him before. It's a reveal meant to excite the fans, which is the wrong motivation for reveals. This is more of an issue with the marketing/JJ Abrams mystery box bullshit than it is with the movie though.
In the end, this movie left me really unexcited about EPISODE VII. Based on this movie and SUPER 8, it appears Abrams is only capable of making cool looking but ultimately hollow re-appropriations of past classics without doing anything new with them. Or, to be mean about it, really expensive fanfic. The only thing I take solace in is Kathleen Kennedy is an excellent producer and, based on Michael Arndt's past work, the EPISODE VII script will very easily be the best script Abrams has worked with. So hopefully they do a good job.
PS - I realized the other day that it was barely more than three years ago that I loved Damon Lindelof. Now? I don't think that guy could write his way out of a paper bag. THAT GUY WROTE "THE CONSTANT", AKA ONE OF THE BEST EPISODES OF ANY TV SHOW IVE EVER SEEN. What the hell happened?! Was it all Carlton Cuse?!