The more I think about this
movie the worse it seems to me. Sure it’s fun enough to watch and the action
scenes and special effects are all top notch. But the more thought you put into
it, the more you realise that JJ Abrams has no idea what he’s dealing with and
through that shows no understanding and more importantly no respect to the
original films.
In order to talk about this, I’m
gonna have to spoil the major twists of the film, so don't read this if you
haven’t seen it. Ok, no bitching about spoilers, I’ve warned you.
So John Harrison is actually
Khan. This is the first point at which Abrams pisses all over the fan base. Everyone
thought this was going to be Khan and rather than using that as a hook he chose
to lie about it, then reveal it almost immediately after the character appears
on screen.
Thing is, this isn’t Khan. This
man is the Joker, or Loki or Mr Silver. A man with an elaborate plan which involves
wanting get caught in order to use his opponents as a way of getting what he
wants.
This kind of villain stood up
in other films, like the Dark Knight and the Avengers, because the central
protagonists had a lot of development to do themselves. The central cast of
Into Darkness don’t develop at all.
Closer to home, while Benedict
Cumberbatch is doing the best with what he’s given, he only seems to have been hired
for the job his voice can score 6.5 Ian McKellens on the awesomeness scale.
Wrath of Khan, showed us a villain
who was ten times as intelligent as his adversaries, but massively flawed in
regards of his ego. In that respect, this film also repeats the end of Wrath of
Khan, word for word, with two of the characters swapped. Mr Abrams, that is not
paying homage, that’s just ripping off a far better film.
Wrath of Khan was an inter-textual
story about, ego, aging, sacrifice and overall appreciating what you have. Into
Darkness doesn’t even compare on this, with a thin story about some crazy
admiral in Starfleet and the most important villain of the whole franchise being
used as a name-drop.
In conclusion, while I got along just fine
with the film while watching it, having thought about it now, I can only see it
as an insulting use of a villain, whom the writer/director has no understanding
of.
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