Star Trek Into Darkness Review

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today, visit www .sfi .org. I am your captain

on the deck, Mike the Birdman God. But I'm joined

by my awesome exo, the man who sits into the

chair next to me. Steve Megatron Phillips. And

of course, we would not be future imperfect without

my resident Star Trek expert, member of the Green

Lantern Corps, and all -around inebriated gentleman.

Thank you, thank you. That sci -fi guy, Leo Thompson.

Oh, it's good to have you back on the show, Leo.

Haven't seen you around in a bit, so... Well,

it's been a minute, but, you know, definitely

had some thoughts to share on this particular

topic. And that brings us to, well, what are

we talking about today, folks? We are talking

about J .J. Abrams' second entry into the rebooted

Star Trek universe with Star Trek Into Darkness.

Now, before we get any further in this show,

this show is remarkably spoiler heavy. And, like,

if you are any good nerd, you don't have to pay

attention to this. If you're a bad nerd... You

should probably turn this off now. Let's be pissed

off. Or you can email us feedback of this week

in Geek .net and tell us to go screw ourselves.

But we're also sponsored by SFI .org, Starfleet,

the world's largest Star Trek online fan club,

who actually, I think... I think did a recruiting

effort at one of the cinemas in Mississauga,

Ontario, Canada. I can't remember which one it

was off the top of my head, but I know they were

there. And also, I do want to send a very special

shout out. Now, if you guys follow Reddit, one

of the things that I do is a thing called Reddit

Gifts, where basically you sign up for a gift

exchange, and you exchange gifts with a random

member that they pair you with. And well, one

of the people I got paired with I did one of

the Star Trek ones to celebrate the new movie,

and I want to thank the sponsors over at offworlddesigns

.com for sending Kevro a couple of different

t -shirts, so hopefully he enjoys those and will

check out offworlddesigns .com more in the future.

He will also have also more stuff coming from

DK Publishing, which will ultimately be our replicator

on the next show, where we look at the Star Trek

visual guide as well as the Star Trek The Next

Generation. Ray for season three. So guys, I

guess let's get started. Star Trek in the darkness.

Let's start with our guest, Leo. What are your

initial thoughts? 30 seconds. Uh, I enjoyed the

movie. I thought it was money well spent. Uh,

the writing was good. The acting was, you know,

or the, the lines are snappy and the, you know,

everything was fun, but I have a lot more problems

with this one than I do the first one. All right,

Steve, your go 30 seconds. I also enjoyed this

film. I was really pumped getting into it. I

saw it in IMAX. There were a lot of things that

I had conceptions of as I walked in and there

were many things that I confirmed as I sat there

and more things that because of some of the campy

nature and some of the throwbacks I was able

to piece the entire story together while I was

watching it. So while I did have more fun with

the action I would say that it fell short compared

to the previous iteration and I have to agree

with Leo. I did find a lot wrong with this film.

Myself, I liked this more than the first film

because to be honest with you, nine times out

of ten this movie didn't feel like a Star Trek

movie and we'll obviously get into that discussion

in just a few minutes. I unfortunately missed

the big showdown between Khan and Robocop because

I had to go to the bathroom. So I don't know

what happened. You didn't miss much. Yeah, that's

what my wife was telling me. Although she did

text me the whole description of the scene. I'm

sure this video Skyped it to you. Man, I kind

of wish I thought about that Um, so but the more

I think about this movie the more problems I

have and it's funny one of our friends of the

show and one of the twig people that I really

trust with this type of stuff Ryan Merkley says

This is a movie that will divide the fandom right

down the middle Some people will love it. Some

people will hate it and judging by the responses

I've seen online. I think he hit it right on

the head I've actually talked to like a handful

of people that kind of have the same opinion

that I have it's like You know that you know,

it was alright. It was fun. I enjoyed it. It

had problems Yeah ones. I mean the big problem

the big elephant in the room is obviously Sherlock

Holmes Cumberbatch, whatever the hell its first

name is Benedict eggs or something And he's playing

John Harrison, the mysterious... Which is a guy's...

Yeah, which is a guy's. It's fucking Khan. We

knew this like three years ago. They really shouldn't

have tried to hide the fact that it was Khan.

Yeah, there was no point to it. Because they

had to outright lie to maintain their secret.

Well, they went so far as to filming an alternate

scene to disguise the fact that it was Khan.

Really? Yeah, they went into in one of the the

spoilery easter egg things that I was looking

up Abrams when he invited the press to come screen

part of the movie Went so far as to reshoot part

of the the Space suit or you know the the battle

where Kirk is with Khan fighting and Kept him,

you know out of out of context. So he stayed

as John Harrison. Hmm See a lot of this a lot

of the performances we got from Cumberbatch.

I did like him as con He's no Ricardo Montabon,

but I do think he's a con for the 2000 -esque

era My main problem with this movie is it was

very inconsistent with tone there actually is

an article which I'm actually gonna link in the

post which you can look into below and it's called

the Star Trek in the dirt and it's the spoiler

FAQ and it talks about when you see the similarities

between this one and the first movie where it's

Kirk is inexperienced enough for command and

Spoonie also made a very similar comment where

wait he goes from cadet to captain in like a

day and With this he goes from being fired to

first officer to being back on the enterprise

in about the same 20 -minute span to be fair

Admiral Marcus was setting him up You know, a

lot of people said that, you know, like when

you're out on the ship and the captain dies,

the first officer is promoted, it's a battlefield

promotion. But when you're back at base, they

put a captain on the ship. Sometimes they change

out the whole senior staff, but he was being

set up for failure. So that is kind of excusable.

OK, yeah, I'm willing to let kind of that one

go. Another thing that I really liked about this,

definitely, I guess we should start with the

kind of positives first. I really like Zachary

Quinto's performance as Spock. I'm really digging

Chris Pine, although I forget who did a video

on this, but watch every time Kirk gets punched

and then watch the original Star Trek movie.

He has the exact same look on his face. I thought

that was actually kind of funny. I'm still convinced

that Karl Urban stood at DeForest Kelly's grave

and sucked out his soul. Uh, you know, you know,

he is a guy I wish that got more screen time

in this. Yeah. Absolutely. He got him and like

Sulu. Uh, you know, yeah. Well, I got more screen

time than even Chuck off who got more than, uh,

McCoy and Sulu. I mean, and they were setting

up some, some decent things with both of them

too. I mean, uh, You have, you know, the drunkard

Scotty in this, you have the introduction of

Sulu liking the captain's chair, foreshadowing

later. You have McCoy operating on a torpedo,

which is Star Trek 6. So, I mean, this film,

I found a lot of it pulls from pretty much every

other Star Trek film. Which is kind of the opposite

of the direction they were going in the first

movie of trying to set their own footing and

do their own thing. I've managed to find, and

whether it be from the various sources that I've

found, because every site I've gone to has found

different things that they've taken from somewhere

else, or caught subtle cues in the dialogue.

Myself, I went from a completely visual standpoint

when I went looking for things, and I've managed

to tie the film back to The motion picture the

the wrath of Khan Whether it be uniforms or technology

the voyage home nemesis I was kind of reminded

of the Millennium Falcon squeeze in between the

Well that even that scene on the Klingon homeworld

that ship is the Defiant right? Oh, that's true.

That's I mean, it looks just like the Defiant

Oh, no, but that was mudship Yeah, well they

hinted at that which actually was I thought that

ship I thought that was a rather nice nod how

they mentioned the whole mud situation and Then

the section 31 thing. I'm not gonna lie in the

theater. I did kind of squeak But then I was

a little bit bothered because you know that they

just told him about section 31 Isn't that like

usually the only time you hear about that is

when you're being inducted and that's like that's

all right Well to be you know kind of fair they

were intending on killing Kirk and crew well

that's true that's true so it was kind of a moot

point for Marcus because he was willing to go

to war it didn't matter um but i was kind of

peeved that they didn't do a little bit more

with the section 31 yeah that would have been

cool oh well yeah it's one of those things i

mean i like the fact that they did a bunch of

nods to stuff in this and i think that was definitely

an advantage they had working for it What else

did I like about this movie? I thought the action

scenes were remarkably well -paced. It was pretty.

It was really well -mixed. I saw it both in 3D

IMAX and regular 2D because just for technical

reasons I wanted to see both. The sound system

in the IMAX is unbeatable. It is amazing. But

I read an article said JJ Abrams shot the movie

for Scope, which is 2 .35 to 1 aspect ratio,

as where IMAX is closer to the 1 .85. I don't

know the exact ratio. But I thought in the IMAX,

it seemed like there was a lot of really awkward

close -up shots of people's faces. And seeing

it in the CinemaScope ratio, it was definitely

shot for a wider ratio. Which is unfortunate

so there's no like golden way to see the movie

how the director intended because man that sound

system is amazing I saw this in 2d IMAX and I

Did like a lot of the sound mixing of this I

thought It's weird. I think this this is a movie

that could have gone 3d or stayed 2d and it really

wouldn't have mattered Except for the Enterprise

warps his sequence where they're fighting the

big juggernaut ship more or less is what I've

called it Well, that's the USS Vengeance, I believe.

Which looks almost like the Enterprise -E from,

like a rugged version of it. But JJ Abrams said

that, you know, he's also, when he said that

he was going in to make it, he didn't really

want to do 3D, and the studio basically said,

well, you're doing 3D, you're not making the

movie. and then they showed him some post -conversion

scenes and he goes like oh that's cool i guess

i'm still making the movie for you know 2d cinema

scope you know if y 'all want to convert it to

3d i guess that's cool was kind of so that's

and honestly in the 3d post -convert which my

eye is kind of attracted to because i have some

work in the field um it was one of the lazier

post -conversions that i've seen And I have not

seen some of the really bad ones out there, but

of the ones that I've seen, which have been for

the most part pretty good, it was definitely

one of the lazier post -conversions. See, yeah,

because it didn't seem like the 3D would have

really added much. Like I said, outside of the

warp scene and maybe some stuff at the end with

the final confrontation, there just wasn't anything

that really popped. Well, I mean, it's not to

me, not so much of an adding stuff scene. I really

like that they've kind of gotten away from the

like, I'm going to poke you in the eye because

it's 3D and kind of just give you a window into

the movie and allow you to, you know, kind of

watch a 3D space, you know, as stuff happens

in it. And I like that. Um, but I mean some of

the rotoscoping in this movie was bad Yeah, yeah,

like I saw a lot of like technically speaking

I did not I did not think of the 3d was done

as well as it could have and should have been

And I as a fan as a fan of 3d now see for me,

I Am not a fan whatsoever of 3d so I could care

less if they did any more movies than 3d I I

saw it in 3D IMAX more or less because I went

with one of our GCRN staff but I just I don't

see the appeal in 3D I just I don't care for

it and then on top of it this movie didn't even

look like anything was particularly 3D compared

to what they've done in the past with other films

so I just I didn't see what it mattered Yeah,

because that's not he made the movie how he wanted

to make the movie and sort of said if y 'all

want to make it 3d That's cool. You know, it

wasn't made with any kind of Taking advantage

of the 3d at all in mind Which is really unfortunate

because I think there could have been some real

fun stuff done with the 3d but they didn't necessarily

take advantage of One thing that I want to point

out once again on the positive side of this movie

I like how Simon Pegg had more to do in this

mm -hmm, which is ultimately I think Someone

else made made this point to Scottie's only really

had a prominent part in Star Trek 4 and this

one I think he had more to do when he did the

guest starring in the in the in the TNG episode

Right, and that's kind of unfortunate it seems

like this movie I'm glad it focused on Kirk and

Spock more or less, but everybody else felt like

a cameo or an extended one Right I would have

liked to have seen just more people get a chance

to do more stuff. Like I said, it was nice that

Sulu got a little bit of foreshadowing there.

The McCoy working on the torpedo. I kind of felt

the girl who played Marcus's daughter was almost

completely pointless. Oh, no, her character was

completely gratuitous. I mean, people talk about

the gratuitous panty shot. I mean, yeah, that

was. But I mean, her entire character was. It

was like, oh, she was in Star Trek 2. I mean,

she actually did stuff in Star Trek 2. Well,

and the thing is, she looked more like the Elizabeth

Diner from Where No Man Has Gone Before. Right.

She looked more like that role than the Carol

Marcus from Star Trek 2. And then she was kind

of like, I guess, kind of completely useless.

Which is really unfortunate because no offense

to the actress because yes, I mean she's good

actress and everything but character was kind

of pointless Well, she did best with what she

had. So yeah, I mean it kind of sucks that you

know, they have to shoe in they have to shoe

horn characters like that and I remember some

of the press leading up to this movie where oh

she's so important to the plot you won't believe

all this shit and Really? That's all we fucking

get I mean, she kind of leaves me scratching

my head with this. I think they handled Captain

Pike's death okay. I'm kind of glad they didn't

draw it out. I would have liked to see them in

a wheelchair. He was kind of borderline close

to that anyway. I don't know, I mean, like I

said, the more I think about this movie, the

more problems I have with it, and I want to love

it, but I can't. Here, I mean, one more positive

kind of thing, you know, before we get into the

negatives, per se, Khan, what I liked, what they

did with this character, because the original

Khan was very much kind of inspired, you know,

Star Trek is often an allegory for various things,

you know, social issues, and Khan back then was...

a World War II, you know, eugenics, how we fear

the future could be, so to speak, you know, character.

And what they did in this movie is the Federation

had found Khan and taken this, you know, this

kind of, you know, evil guy and empowered him

for reasons of their own, who then turned on

them. More like the kind of Saddam Hussein's

and, you know, that are of current social issues.

So they definitely did update the character and

to make it applicable and you know So, you know,

I like that aspect aside from the fact that they

completely whitewashed the character, um But

you know, we won't you know, that's that's neither

here nor there I mean, yeah, I mean I do like

how they updated I like how he did come across

as a badass late late like Recurter Montabon

was a different kind of threat Yeah. Whereas

this guy, Cumberbatch, came across as a physical

threat. Like he wasn't just, I've got my spaceship,

I'm going to fuck you up. And whereas Montalban

is, I know I can destroy you any time I want.

Oh, and I've got your friends. This one, I don't

know. Part of me, I mean, I like both cons equally,

actually. I thought I thought they pulled off

rather well. You know, aside from. Details yeah,

I thought he did a good job. Yeah, I mean like

there are problems with it, but I mean I I love

the fact that he took down Klingon ships and

An entire squadron of Klingons by the super gun.

Oh, can we talk about the fucking Klingons and

Just a minute on that but uh But I found it funny

that he did it all by himself without all the

rest of his his eugenics yeah buddies which leads

me to think if he had time to throw his buddies

and torpedoes why didn't he revive them if he

has that super blood that's the mcguffin of the

movie why didn't he use his blood to revive his

comrades and just take down section 31 by force

or hell if marcus really wanted to take down

the klingons why didn't he just wake them all

up and transport them all over there and just

let them have at it Yeah, I mean it definitely

starts to fall apart pretty quickly I mean the

Where do we start with the negatives and let's

really let this movie Well, we're talking about

the Klingons like one, you know Just kind of

briefly one thing that bothered me was the design

of the Klingon ship and you know I have complaints

as a movie and as Star Trek nerd This is a complaint

as a Star Trek nerd They identified the Klingon

ship as a d4 That was not a D4. The D4 is the

original series classic ship. And what they had

in the movie was kind of Klingon looking. It

should have had a little bit... It was almost

a bird of prey. Almost a bird of prey, but if

they had not said by name that it was a D4, I

would have rolled off my back. But they identified

it as such, and I was like, uh, no. And I understand

that they're trying to go for, you know, new

and renovating everything, but... To an extent,

if you're going to even bother reusing the old

names or old technologies or whatever, they should

at least just update the name or create a new

name for the stuff. Create a name universe. I

mean the enterprise is updated. It still looks

like the enterprise Yeah, but if you look at

the Vengeance that ship is a Dreadnought class

starship, which was totally different in the

original series And this ship is supposed to

be bigger than any of the enterprises galaxy

or sovereign class, right? But I'm just saying

that if they had didn't I mean if they wanted

to call it a d4 They could have updated it made

it look more modern, but it should have been

recognizable as a d4 You know, I don't mind updating

things just you know, if you're gonna yeah give

it some similarity that yeah make it recognizable

to at least to a point I Want to talk about the

design of Klingons themselves, I like they they

personally designed them after the motion picture

but then they added some kind of a freak of nature,

Bajoran, Romulan thing to them. You didn't like

the blingons? Yeah, that's what they're - yeah,

basically they are blingons. There's no other

accurate description I can think of them. Like,

I actually - I didn't mean for this to come out

during the theater viewing. I saw this with probably

a couple hundred Star Trek nerds, and I actually

gave the what -the -fuck hands, and I went, what

the fuck? I had more than a few people look at

me when I said that. To be fair, we only saw

one of them and he may have, you know, been like

jewelry. I don't know. Well, it's like Abrams

likes bald aliens. Like they don't have hair.

I mean, you look at the Romulans and Nero's group,

they all have tribal tattoos and they're bald.

And then you look at the Klingons in this, they

have no, you know, scruffy redneck hair or whatever.

They just. Only the one that we saw. Only the

one that we saw was bald. Actually, if you looked

at the crowd, which, you know, I watched it twice,

and I made sure to pay attention to this, the

rest of the Klingons, they didn't take off their

helmets, but they all had big bushy hair hanging

out. Like, there was plenty of hair on those

Klingons, just not the one that we saw without

a helmet. Okay, that makes me comfortable. I'm

I'm okay with this explanation, but I still think

they look retarded. Oh that one looked really

goofy But we only saw the one maybe the rest

of them weren't quite so goofy looking Just that

fucking derpy looking motherfucker. Um, and I

Should have been Tony Todd Yeah, or maybe you

know, I was hoping against hope they'd get Michael

Dorn That would have been awesome. Although and

I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that noticed

this. Why was Mickey from Doctor Who in this?

In the first couple minutes? I don't know. I

mean, he's not a bad actor. Yeah, it just really

surprised me. Yeah. Although I'm going to lose

some nerd cred here for a second. I actually

thought it was LeVar Burton for a second. So

I'm like, LeVar Geordie? Oh, what? Mickey? And

it kind of took me by surprise. I... As a Star

Trek nerd, I have problems with how they depicted

warp drive in this movie Where they had the the

pixie fairy dust at the end? Well, the pixie

fairy dust is one thing and that wasn't in the

first movie So that's weird, but um, but no it

was depicted as slipstream basically and that's

not how warp drive works That's that's a Star

Wars thing Yeah, but if you look at the motion

picture to it kind of looks like that I mean

But they they create a bubble around the ship

and it compresses space in front of it and extract

and expands it behind it you can catch up to

another ship while at warp and They could have

even done some techno babbly. They're merging

our warp fields or something like that if they

wanted to have that kind of thing but that's

not how that works and then they like knocked

them and like knocked them out of their it's

not even warp drive they knocked them out of

their slipstream early i get it because that's

that's just not how that works um so i don't

know that i realized that they rebooted the franchise

and they wanted to give jj avams freedom to make

his own movie so that it wasn't bogged down with

decades and decades of you know blah blah blah

but there should be certain like Someone on the

production team going guys this violates Part

of the lore that because they did it And I think

it kind of hurts it for the fact that they don't

have any true Trek you know knowledge base hands

in in the production I mean, yeah, some of them

don't care about it. Like Abrams is point -blank

said I'm more of a Star Wars guy Yeah, and I'm

glad that he's moving on to Star Wars. It's clearly

the movie he wants to be making. But I think

it also comes down to Kurtzman and Orsi. I think

they just need to kick them to the curb, too,

and get somebody else. I mean, yeah, they did

great with the first film. This one was kind

of a hash bash, kind of an automation of all

the different films. Was it great? Yes, but did

it have a shit ton of problems? Oh, yeah. I mean,

the first two thirds of it are, you know, I would

forgive most of it if it wasn't for the last

third where they kind of, it was like the, it

was kind of like they went, you know what, my

hand's tired. Let's just take the ending of Star

Trek 2 and switch these couple things around

and there, done. And then they, the part that

killed me is, this is what you would have done,

and this is what you would have done. And, you

know, or Spock calling Spock Prime. a new Vulcan

and asking him, so what do you know about? And

then he's like, well, I shouldn't tell you, but

he's very dangerous. Yeah, that was pointless

for them to call Future Spock. It was gratuitous.

And it's like Young Spock would have thought,

hmm, can we trust him? Probably not. Maybe we

should do this, not, oh, let's call, you know,

me from the future and see what happens. Yeah,

because even if you know how to kill Khan, it's

going to alter the timeline anyhow, so. Well,

I mean the whole timeline screwed up anyway.

I mean, so I mean there's not an alternate timeline

It's an alternate dimension red matter toro fat

hole in the fabric of space -time and into another

dimension Time travel paradoxes don't work that

way in Star Trek And when when in in yesterday's

enterprise when enterprise C showed up Everything

changed and Tashi are was back to life. It didn't

create a split alternate timeline. Everything

changed Yeah So, this universe is a parallel

dimension, not an alternate timeline. Sorry,

that's a, uh... Hey, that makes perfect sense,

though. I mean, they've... But I think it also

hurts the series because Abrams doesn't do...

Him and Kurtzman and Orsi, they don't do the

techno babble that is required of Star Trek.

I mean, it's... Yeah, a lot of it's far -fetched

and it's futuristic, but a lot of it's based

in actual science. There's a technical manual.

It's written like a Haynes book. They should

have gotten the Okudas in there, at least. Absolutely,

yeah. The Okudas should be involved. They should

have been involved the entire time. They were

involved with a lot of the modern truck series.

I mean, that's just kind of a no -brainer there.

You'd think you'd at least get one... One set

of knowledge hands from the previous series.

At least as a creative consultant. You know,

just... It's... I don't know. Now, one of the

things that I gotta say I hated because it seemed

so out of character. You guys know where I'm

probably going with this, I'm guessing. Probably.

That was so lame I once again in the theater

I've faced all so did I I'm like what the fuck

It's I couldn't believe they did it. Oh, I wasn't

surprised. I wasn't surprised It was like don't

you dare don't you do it and I just nobody can

top Shatner Yeah, I mean what shattered made

sense because there was so much history there.

You knew they were buddies They had movies to

to build upon this relationship and like, you

know a television series with here We saw a Kirk

and Spock for like a movie That's it and they

didn't like each other for most of that and this

one they don't like each other for kind of most

of it and just I don't know just I like Quinto.

I really do did I I know he gave it his best

shot, but that just It took me out of it so much

for the last half of the movie. I was just kind

of like well, what are they gonna do next and

The thing that really pissed me off was cons

super blood I'm like come on man. I mean, but

then again, it's not like they can kill Kirk

or Spock yet because this is a new franchise

Oh, and that's what b - I mean, no, they could

have, and like, I almost commended the movie

for having the balls to kill Kirk in the - in,

you know, and yeah, no, he's not gonna stay dead,

he's the star of Star Trek, but they could have

left him dead through the end of the movie, you

know, and that's Star Trek 3, the search for

Kirk, you know, whatever. We have to go - we

have to go get Borg nanoprobes to revive him.

Oh my god, see, that's what I - see that opens

up a whole new kettle of fish and they almost

had the balls to do it and they cut them off

right at the well they they almost they they

you know promoted Chekhov to engineer and go

put on a red shirt he's like uh that was funny

I want to know where does this series go next

because they don't need to do the search for

whatever the video game covered the Genesis device

Yeah. So where do you go from here? Well, I've

heard rumors that the third one is going to be

the Klingon homeworld. Again. And didn't they

misspell that, too? I thought Kwonos was spelled

with a Q. It's been spelled both ways, but I

think the Q is the more official. OK, I was wondering

if I was, you know, I've seen it. It's not the

first time I've seen that, but I believe with

the Q is the. More accepted official spelling

But I just I don't know where I want this series

to go next I hope the fuck they don't do whales

I would almost be fine with a revisit to What

was the fifth one called again? The final frontier.

Yeah, see if they came at it from a different

angle that could actually be really interesting

Why does God need a starship? See, but they could

deal with like weird forgotten gods and it could

be interesting. But just I think with that crew,

it may be in. See, maybe the storyline didn't

fit the crew. I think I think you could pull

it off nowadays if you changed if you kept the

idea, but changed how it came about. If that

makes any sense. I honestly like to see them

tackle the Borg in the original series. That

would be even if it's a small sect of them based

on the fact that Still technically because the

enterprise timeline is intact and It's I don't

know how that would affect the Borg appearing

in the previous timeline And dropping off members

of their crew to Antarctica Like I said, this

is uh, this is technically a parallel universe

in my book and yeah, who knows it's all bets

are off See, I wish they'd maybe use like in

the video game. They fight the gore Right. I

would love to see the Gorn or the Tholians, an

enemy that's only ever really been talked about

once or twice. Make them a big threat. Like,

the Boron we've seen, the Gorn we haven't. We've

never seen the Tholians outside of whatever.

Maybe have them go to war with the Breen or the

Andorians, or something like that. Well, you

know, he's doing the Star Wars thing, and the

Breen are pretty much a clone of the Star Wars

aliens, so yeah, that could happen. Yeah, so

there's that, I mean, or maybe you could do something,

because I know in the original series at least

in a lot of the video games, they talk about

Orion pirates. Make this a pirate movie. Have

people take over the Enterprise and have them

try to get it back. There's a lot they could

do. But will they? And that's the ultimate question.

Introduce Q and have the pirates. And it could

just be John Delante because, you know, he's

Q. He's Q. See, you know what? That might actually

be kind of fun. Have a Star Trek movie versus

Q. or like from the original series there was

the guy um Tremaine I think was the guy maybe

have John Delancey in an extended cameo being

like I'll see you in the future and have him

just snap his fingers and disappear yeah like

there could be a lot of fun they could do this

or even if they had like random flashes and you

could see uh other other crews of other, of other

Federation starships. They could have a lot of

fun with that, actually. Yeah, I mean, just imagine

them flashing to DS9. They see Cisco sitting

in his office or something. They flash to Janeway

in 7 of 9, hanging out in astrometrics or something.

I think it would be hilarious to have Q plopping

them through the prime timeline. I'd say, yeah,

that would be... Yeah, they'd have to come up

with an intro. They could do it. They could do

it. I mean, Star Trek is flexible in that regard

that they can, but I don't know. I mean, the

fact that they did Star Trek 2 into darkness

was basically a remake of Rathicon. I think they're

playing it safe. I don't think this franchise

is taking the risks that it should. Well, and

just what something else about towards the ending

of the movie that really that really bothered

me while I was watching it is like they were

they were on their way back from the Klingon

homeworld. Right. And they get knocked out of

their slipstream. I'm not going to call it warp

drive. It was slipstream. early uh before they

you know so but then and they have their space

battle and if you look you can see it's the moon

that's behind them but you don't know that it

could just be some generic you know vague you

know random planet and then all of a sudden they

start falling into earth's gravity and that at

that moment i went what like like almost like

was out loud like like wait didn't they like

i thought they were knocked out of early like

they uh They're close enough to and they're that

close to earth and nobody noticed. Yeah, no other

starships No either for you know, because Marcus

was there and he could have been saying, you

know, blah blah blah But they could have been

there supporting his ship or either side or like

just no No one no one noticed like it was like

almost a snap of a finger getting from the the

neutral zone all the way to Earth. Yeah, Warpworks

retarded fast in this new universe. And they

could have, like, gotten away with it with a

line, like if Sulu had been like, you know, 10

seconds to, you know, Sir or something like that,

you know, and had like a, like, we're almost

their line. Yeah, because Earth's gravity doesn't

extend out that far. I mean, there's a lot of

physics problems with this movie. That, that,

that, like, while I was watching it, it made

me snap and go, wait, what? I mean just not not

even as a Star Trek nerd so much as just as a

just as a moviegoer yeah as a moviegoer like

wait like huh there is one thing I saw in one

of the articles that I'm going to link in the

article below and it talks about do you remember

when the Enterprise was underwater at the beginning

of the movie that would have snapped the Enterprise

in half like a twig Well, how would the Enterprise

have done that? The only ship that is known to

be able to do that kind of thing is, like, Defiant

or Voyager. Voyager, yeah. I don't know why J

.J. Abrams looked at the design of the Enterprise

and said, now, there's a ship that lands. Yeah,

I mean, hover maybe, land no. Technically, he

said his justification at some point was that

if you look at the original dedication plaque

of the Enterprise on the TV show, it says the

San Francisco Shipyards. So... April didn't orbit

though. Yeah, like I Mean and even then it doesn't

mean they couldn't have built the main hull on

earth and then shipped it up, right? Just no

And like they're just I'm looking at a picture

of the catastrophic damage that the vengeance

did to the enterprise Um, they should have been

dead several times over Just saying. That was

like the search for Spock in the Enterprise being

obliterated. Yeah, I mean, ultimately, you know,

that's something this movie maybe should have

done was maybe destroyed the Enterprise. In fact,

when they rebuilt the Enterprise, I was waiting

for it to see. Enterprise A. Yeah, that's what

I was waiting for. Yeah. All right. They rebuilt

it. Cool. Or at least like, kind of like how

they did the refit, you know, like have it look

different, change the shape of the nacelles.

They did. Did they? In the very end of the movie.

Did it look very... I didn't... They changed

the... And the deflector dish, I think. They

changed the back half of the saucer. The impulse

thing is now like a visor across the back. And

they've revised the nacelles completely or completely

different. I'll have to pay attention to that

again. They only show it from the back shot.

You don't see it from the front. Right. Because

it's about to go to warp, but it's like the last

thing you see pretty much. And then it's, you

know, it fades out and does its cookie cutter

credits from the first movie. But. But yeah,

they did refit the enterprise again by the end,

but I was kind of hoping that, like you guys

said, that they would have destroyed it and had

the Enterprise A come in for the next film. I

mean. Ultimately, I guess, kind of closing thoughts

on this, guys. I'll go first. I'd say this movie's

worth seeing. It's definitely fun. It's action

-packed. If you've got a person who's not in

the Trek, this may be the thing that turns them

into it. But you have to be careful how you progress

down the path to see if you want to get them

more into other Trek things. That being said,

if you think about this movie too much, it falls

apart. It will ruin the experience for you. It's

the second you start thinking I think would be

my problem with it. So I guess let's go to Steve

and then we'll go to Leo I would agree with that

as well. I would say that it's very fun action

-packed movie There's a lot that is left to be

desired mostly from a Trek fan perspective In

things that were botched by Abrams and co Not

saying I didn't like the renovations of some

of the things because it was neat, but it seemed

like there was too much reused footage and lines

from previous films or episodes. And it didn't

feel, I mean, was it original in a lot of the

ways? Yes, but there was a lot that they could

have done that they didn't do. I'm kind of glad

that it's gonna change hands for the next film

so but I'd still definitely recommend it and

Especially to people that don't really know the

continuity Like I said, I I enjoyed it too like

I said most people have talked to they they enjoyed

it but I had a lot of problems with it one and

you know, I kind of feel that they JJ Abrams

likes to use the mystery box they tried to use

it with with you know Khan and like oh it's a

big surprise and you know they had to outright

lie about it to keep their surprise and they

should have I think just said we're doing the

next Star Trek movie Khan is in it and then they

could have had a surprise of oh Khan's a good

guy and you know they could done a Terminator

2 sort of style thing and instead of trying to

hide from us oh no no no it's this other guy

uh john uh harrison yeah um and i don't know

a lot a lot of missteps and things they could

have done that would have made it great but as

it is it's okay you know i just thought of a

fun game for this and here's how it's it's gonna

play out we're gonna play a game i like to call

movie quotes and what it is you are gonna give

a one -line review that would appear on the movie

poster for this and I think that's how we'll

close out the show because hey, it's getting

pretty late where all of us are so To give you

an idea of now. I want you to picture the Star

Trek in the darkness movie poster. You got it

you mind Mm -hmm. Okay my movie quote Mike Dodd

this week in geek Don't think about it too much

Steve go Come And Leo, what is your one -line

summary for the movie poster? Action -packed

and adequate. Steve, can you please make this

for the artwork? Yes. Alright then. So guys,

that has been this episode of Future Emperor.

We hope you've enjoyed our thoughts on this spoiler

-heavy analysis of Star Trek in the Dirt. Like

I said, not a terrible movie, as Leo said, adequate.

Don't think about it too much. So next time on

the show, I don't know, what do we talk about?

What do we want to talk about, guys? I want to

bring Leo back. Leo, if you could talk about

any topic in Star Trek, what would it be that

requires more opinion than actual research? I

don't know. I'm watching the season three blu

-rays right now. You know what? Maybe you know

what? We've never done a show just dedicated

to TNG, have we, Steve? No. Then that's what

we're doing! Next time on Future Imperfect, in

June, we're gonna be talking about Star Trek,

TNG, our favorite moments, our not -so -favorite

movies, the characters, the ships, everything

in between, except the movies, because we've

already done that. So yeah, that'll be airing

sometime in June. Leo will join us again, because

now he has no choice. That's how I roll here.

So anyway guys, on Future Imperfect, we have

been... Steve Megatron Phillips. And that's so

if I go I've been Mike the Birdman Dodd saying

live long and prosper