Illogical, Fan-boy Rehash. Abrams Please Leave us Alone...

Rating: 1/10 (10 June 2013)

Though Trek is better suited to the small screen than the big, don't classic Trek fans deserve something better than fan-boy rehash? JJ Abrams is undoubtedly better-suited to lead Star Wars. I wanted to believe I could enjoy new Trek but I can't. This is the hill I choose to die on.Whereas I came to terms with ST2009 and saw it 8 times, I regret I saw this once. In brief:
The first hour was basically enjoyable except for the opening sequence. The prologue to ST2009 was stunning, but here it was just stupid. I'm glad the "Prime Directive" was mentioned. But, in the "let's insult the audience's intelligence but have a pretty visual" department (should we even compliment sci-fi movies on good visuals anymore in an era of CGI?) why was the Enterprise underwater in the first place? If you don't want the ship to be seen at all by the primitive natives, it isn't rising from the sea I'd be worried about...it'd be diving into the sea in the first place. Was there any purpose to that scene other than providing one of J.J. Abram's now signature Enterprise-in-sexy-lingerie shots? The Enterprise fly-by has always been part of big screen Trek and Abrams honors that by ascending from Saturn's rings, Niribu's water, and Earth's clouds. I concede it's a great idea, but couldn't it have been used in another way? Hiding from an enemy ship on a water planet, or something? I found this somewhere in between "why was Nero just hanging around deep space for 25 years waiting for Kirk and Spock to grow up" plot-hole dumb and "how can Spock see Vulcan implode from Delta Vega?" common sense dumb in ST:2009. Even cartoon Scotty noted it was bad for the ship.
Next, "John Harriman" or whatever white bread name gets off to a good start. A Section 31 operative, I'm thinking. And I dig it all the way through the meeting of Starfleet minds in the Godfather III glass room. It's there that the lazy writing stunned me again. Kirk figures out it's a setup, and that's great, but how does he figure it out? Apparently it's public knowledge that if a terrorist attack happens on Earth that all of Starfleet's key personnel will meet at the 78th floor of the Mandarin Oriental Hotel at 8:30pm for surf and turf. Was this published somewhere? Seriously, add two sentences to the dialog to say something to the effect of "how would he know the time and place of this meeting?" and build some tension about his real identity. Sloppy.
From there I am pretty much digging it until the big reveal. The Admiral was obviously going rogue, and the enthusiastic Kirk is playing right into his hands to start a bigger, more profitable, war against the Klingons (as in Star Trek VI). He equips the Enterprise with 72 strange warheads that Scotty refuses to sign for – nice touch. What are they? Are they unmanned attack drones? Or, is this more like Ender's Gamean attempt to preemptively genocide the Klingons, unknown to Kirk? Are we going to go into post-9/11 mode for some proper application of human rights commentary? A long time ago Star Trek used to be relevant and controversial like that. I'm thinking this could be something
But no, it's just Khan. Cumberbatch was the best actor in the flick, although he was less traditional Khan than Hannibal Lector. The sexual charisma of Ricardo Montalban (which drove Kirk to jealousy) was missing, but what he lacked in libido, he made up for in methodical ambition. And, it was nice to see Khan and Kirk united a bit. BUT, the replaying of the Star Trek II sacrifice scene, in reverse, was one of the saddest moments of my life. That sequence was the defining moment of original Trek. Spock sacrificed himself, came full circle with his humanity, and all of the "we're friends" dialog made sense because Kirk and Spock had a relationship we saw develop for 20 years on TV, in cartoons, and in a previous movie. In this movie we're just told they are friends, that somehow they patched up their antagonistic relationship, and that's that. Deal with it. Worst of all, the entire scene was superfluous and unnecessary, seemingly cut and paste in just for the hell of it.
Furthermore, we really thought Spock was dead. People cried. No one thought Kirk was dead for a second, not with Khan's magic Chuck Norris blood out there. We had magic cancer curing blood before in the hybrid child Hera in Battlestar Galactica. Again, just as there, isn't that a huge problem: if a character has magic blood, don't you siphon it? Yea, human rights violation, but the BSG crew weren't exactly known for their adherence to the rule of law, and neither is Section 31. Even McCoy was willing to dabble in it. Isn't this blood more useful to them than a battleship?
Next, I liked the idea of Spock vs. Khan. That was overdue in Trek lore. But, did it have to take place jumping around and hanging by one hand from Star Wars floating cars? It was tedious to watch.
Lastly, Khan and his crew are frozen again, all in the same place at the same timeas if Khan himself weren't hard enough to deal with. I hope there is no power outage, or no more crazy Admirals. Starfleet has a death penalty. TOS established you could be executed for violating General Order 7 and visiting Talos IV. Apparently crashing a stolen ship with malice aforethought into downtown San Francisco on a workday doesn't qualify. So... shouldn't he go to Gitmo, or at least to jail? Instead, the Federation Criminal Code permits Khan to stay forever young until someone has to deal with him again. Maybe all criminals in the future receive a suspended sentence of immortality instead of jail?
Terrible.