Movie Review: Star Trek Into Darkness

By Nathan Young on May 20, 2013

I went to see Star Trek Into Darkness last Thursday! The movie was really, really good and I am going to talk about it below. I decided to delay this post to Monday so I would not hopefully spoil it for anybody. So below the poster, I am going to talk about the movie, SPOILER ALERT!

Star Trek Into Darkness begins at the planet Nibiru to observe a primitive civilization. One thing many people were surprised at is the USS Enterprise can operate under water. Captain Kirk is running through the forest to escape the attackers while First Officer Spock is flown into a volcano to save the planet. Spock is so determined to be killed he tells Kirk to not reveal the ship to the civilization. But Captain Kirk does not care about some Prime Directive and reveals the ship to the civilization and rescues Spock. Spock is somehow not happy about being rescued, I would be kissing Kirk’s feet!

Back on Earth at Starfleet headquarters, Kirk is demoted to first officer for violating the Prime Directive. Admiral Christopher Pike has re-assumed command of the Enterprise. Spock has been reassigned to another ship. The talk between Spock and Kirk is funny at this part of the movie! After a scene of the movie where we see Kirk drinking his sorrows away, an emergency meeting is held at Starfleet Command to discuss the bombing of a secret Section 31 installation in London. Before we see some action at this part of the movie, we see a father who will do anything to heal his sick child at a London hospital. Khan gave the father the life saving medicine the child needs in return to going to Section 31 in London and bombing it. Basically he was a suicide bomber.

Commander John Harrison flies a small ship and attacks the people in this emergency meeting with gunfire. Several people including Christopher Pike are killed. Kirk uses some equipment in the building to destroy the ship. But before the ship fails, Harrison teleports himself out. I really enjoyed the action in this part of the movie! Kirk is reinstated as captain of the Enterprise with Spock becoming first officer again. Harrison was discovered to be in the Klingon homeworld of Kronos, Kirk receives special permission from Admiral Alexander Marcus to hunt down Harrison. The Enterprise is supplied with 72 long-range prototype photon torpedoes and Kirk is ordered to fire them at Harrison’s location once he is found. However, Scotty, Spock, Bones and Uhura convince Kirk to capture rather than kill Harrison. Those torpedoes have something in them by the way!

Arriving on Kronos, Kirk, Spock and Uhura set out to capture Harrison but are surrounded by Klingons. Uhura tries to negotiate with the Klingons but the Klingons don’t negotiate with anyone especially humans! The attack between the Klingons and the crew begins with Harrison helping out the crew. This was a brutal part of the movie seeing all the death and destruction. Harrison somehow surrenders after learning that 72 torpedoes are aimed at him. Kirk lets out his anger on Harrison by punching him repeatedly! If I was in Kirk’s shoes, I might have done the same thing. By the way, I noticed no damage from Harrison after all of those punches.

Back on the Enterprise, Harrison reveals his true identity as Khan, a genetically engineered superhuman who was awakened from his nearly 300-year suspended animation by Admiral Marcus to develop advanced weapons for war against the Klingon Empire. The torpedoes are found to contain cryogenic pods with Khan’s colleagues inside, who had previously been held hostage by Marcus. Yep, someone from Starfleet has turned to the dark side! This has Kirk upset, thankfully Spock tries to bring some sense back to Kirk.

The Enterprise is soon intercepted by an unmarked Federation warship, the USS Vengeance, designed by Khan and commanded by Admiral Marcus. Marcus demands that Kirk hand over Khan, but Kirk refuses. I just loved the performance of actor Peter Weller who played Starfleet Admiral Alexander Marcus. He could easily show up in any movie to play the evil person. The Enterprise starts to be attacked but somehow the crew gets the warp drive fixed and starts to warp back to Earth to have Khan stand trial, but the Enterprise is attacked by the Vengeance mid-warp, exiting 237,000 km from Earth. For some crew, their deaths were quick and painless as there were sucked out into space in the middle of the warp.

With the Enterprise severely damaged, Kirk offers to hand over Khan and the 72 pods in exchange for the lives of his crew. Marcus then beams the superhumans into his ship, then he tells the Enterprise he is destroying their ship. He reveals that it was his intention all along to destroy the Enterprise in his plan to dispose of the 73 superhumans and start a war with the Klingons. The Vengeance prepares to open fire, but suffers a power outage caused by Scotty, who had infiltrated the ship after following coordinates given by Khan to Kirk. Earlier in the movie after Scotty quits the Enterprise. Kirk calls Scotty from a bar where yes, Scotty is drunk!

Kirk and Khan works together and flies through space in these pretty awesome spacesuits! They had to use jets to go around the debris floating around in space. Both manage to get aboard the Vengeance with the help of Scotty. Scotty ties himself down and when confronted by a crew member, he hits the button and the crew member flies out while Kirk and Khan flies in. The three gets to the bridge and is confronted by Admiral Marcus. Kirk decides to make Khan incapacitated but it did not work. Khan kills Admiral Marcus and takes control of the Vengeance.

Khan negotiates with Spock, beaming Kirk and his boarding party back to the Enterprise in exchange for the 72 torpedoes. Spock instead beams armed torpedoes to the Vengeance, keeping the cryo-pods on the Enterprise, having learned from Spock Prime of his experience with Khan in his parallel time-frame beforehand. Spock Prime reveals that Khan was tyrannical and could not be trusted in his timeline. Seeing the guest appearance from Leonard Nimoy was also awesome! The bombs explode on the Vengeance before the Enterprise is destroyed. Then, both damaged ships start descending towards Earth. Captain Kirk decides to risk his life by entering the warp core room which is filled with lethal doses of radiation. Kirk somehow aligns the Enterprise’s warp core, enabling the crew to regain control of the ship in the skies above Earth.

Kirk is found right at the door to the warp drive room, but the door can not be opened and Kirk dies. After some sad moments, the audience sees the Vengeance diving towards San Francisco! The ship crashes into Starfleet Command headquarters and causes a lot of damage and death. By the way, did anyone notice the prison Alcatraz being destroyed? Somehow after that spectacular crash, Khan is still not dead! Spock then beams himself down to Earth and finds and attacks Khan. This awesome chase scene through the streets of San Francisco was pretty awesome!

Back on the Enterprise, Bones’s experiment on a Tribble reveals that Khan’s blood contains regenerative properties that may reanimate Kirk. Bones thus orders for Kirk to be immediately cryogenically frozen in order to preserve his brain function. Meanwhile, Uhura beams herself on Earth and aids an enraged Spock in subduing Khan. Seeing Spock angry and attacking Khan just like Kirk did was disturbing. Spock’s human emotions were getting the best of him. After all of that action was over, we see Kirk waking up in a hospital room and he is alive! Khan is back frozen in a chamber and stored away with his colleagues. And the Enterprise is rebuilt and launched for its five-year mission of exploration.

The movie was pretty good! I went to the regular 2D version and did not pay for the 3D version. Actors Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto did a great job in their roles as Kirk and Spock. And director J.J. Abrams did the Trekkies a great favor by keeping the Star Trek story alive! I thought Star Trek Into Darkness was a great movie and yes, you need to go see it! I love seeing the Star Trek franchise keeping the hopes of space exploration alive in America. Yes, science can be cool!

All images copyright from Paramount.