The Cheapening of Star Trek

Rating: 4/10 (26 May 2013)

There have now been twelve Star Trek movies, including "Into Darkness." The "re-boot" Star Trek of 2009 that preceded this movie was probably the 2nd worst out of all twelve movies. Into Darkness was a definite improvement. Instead of being the 2nd worst out of 12, it moved up to being only the 3rd worst out of 12. At least JJ Abrams is moving in the right direction - sort of. A little.
Into Darkness is a re-vamping of the classic Khan story from the 1980s movie, "The Wrath of Khan" (which many fans would call the greatest Star Trek movie ever made), which was also a continuation of the story from the 1960s episode, "Space Seed", both of which starred Ricardo Montalbahn as Khan Nunien Singh. The Wrath of Khan featured a highly personal conflict between Kirk and Khan that made the sci-fi and the special effects take a back seat to a very powerful story. Audiences were inevitably shattered emotionally by the time that movie was over.
Into Darkness, unfortunately, reduces Khan to merely another sci-fi villain who needs to be knocked down. There is a very lackluster attempt to insert a "personal" conflict between Kirk and Khan in this movie by arranging for Khan to be responsible for the death of a senior officer that Kirk looks up to, but it's so shallow compared to the decades-long story in the 1980s version that it actually would have been better if JJ Abrams hadn't even tried.
Then there is the biggest problem with the previous 2009 "re-boot", which continues unabated in this movie: Before 2009, Starfleet, supposedly the most elite military force the Earth has ever seen, was always presented as (mostly) impeccably professional soldiers who followed strict military protocol (in a Star Trek way), and held to a very high moral standard of personal conduct. Even William Shatner's Kirk, as much as a renegade as he sometimes was, had certain moral principles that he would die before he would compromise them. Subsequent captains, Picard, Janeway, Sisko, and Archer, took those moral principles and standards of conduct and raised them to an even higher level, giving Starfleet a consistently very high moral ground throughout the franchise.
The re-booted Starfleet, however, is nothing at all like this. Regulations are routinely treated as if they were written for the specific purpose of being ignored or outright violated. The Federation's Prime Directive, not to interfere in the development of younger civilizations, is treated by "Into Darkness" as if it's just some pesky playground rule that has no business stopping Kirk and his gang from doing whatever they want - and the senior admiralty seems to feel the same way! Orders are issued and routinely ignored. A commanding Fleet Admiral makes a personal decision to destroy one of Starfleet's finest capitol ships to cover up a "mistake" (his word) that he made, and nobody in his entire crew seems to have the thought occur to them that hmm, it might be wrong to go along with the admiral's decision to unilaterally murder the entire crew of the other ship.
Senior officers who, in the old Starfleet, took their responsibilities to their crew and the Federation very seriously, now seem to have a very difficult time thinking about anything other than finding their next bed partner. (There's a scene where Alice Eve strips down to her underwear in front of Kirk, but the story gives no reason whatsoever for her to do this. They're not even sleeping together! She just takes off her clothes for no reason, and then the story abruptly, bewilderingly moves to the next scene. Don't get me wrong, she looks great, but it's one of the most gratuitous, badly written scenes that I can recall seeing.)
So while Into Darkness is visually very impressive (especially with the 3-D), it still profoundly fails in its understanding of what the 23rd/24th Centuries are supposed to be all about in the Star Trek universe. It IS possible, after all, to still make a JJ Abrams movie while keeping the moral high ground that Starfleet was always so good at in the past. But this sure didn't happen with Into Darkness.
I give it a 4/10 - and that's being very kind.