Not Again! Gotta Finish. Boldly Going Where Everyone Has Gone Before?
Alright, so the teaser for the upcoming
Star Trek into Darkness (2013) has appeared today. Check it out
here and we'll talk. I've linked to the Japanese version as it contains around 15 seconds of extra footage. I would have linked to the official trailer on Apple, but they won't let you link directly to files, sorry about the ad. Back? good. In general, I admit it's looking pretty cool and I'll definitely be there on opening day as
Star Trek is one of my favorite things. In fact, if they hadn't decided
Star Trek was a universally appealing summer-type franchise now, the movie would likely already be out (
Trek films were historically a November affair until the studio execs apparently liked Abrams' new take on the series so much they delayed it to the summer of 2009). It also, once again, seems like we're back on the road to Khan territory, which by no means is the end of the world, I just feel like something could have been done in a similar vein (Gary Mitchell?) but the new subject might have been more interesting. However, what I really wanted to talk about is this, my fanboy plea for all those who make movies for fanboys: can we get a new type of plot please? Alright, hear me out:
Yes,
The Dark Knight (2008) was amazing, due, in no small part, to Heath Ledgers' brilliant performance. It also made a ton of money and I get that. The Joker was a great character and was the epitome of the new grim and gritty/reboot world that most of these films now inhabit. Then we had
The Dark Knight Rises (2012) which, while certainly alright, tweaked the whole 'mad man of chaos' motif into more of an anarchist/revenge one. I know some people really enjoyed it but it really didn't do anything for me personally. Bane (Tom Hardy) was certainly an amusing antagonist though no Heath Leger. But that's fine - honestly Bane was probably my favorite part of that movie. If anything, I felt like Batman himself just wasn't as interesting as the previous films. However that's neither here nor there, something to be addressed in its own review. Once again, though, that's fine, especially as it's Nolan's followup to his own movie. He can do whatever he wants. Great.
But then we had
Skyfall (2012), the newest Bond film, which feels like more of the same. Yes, it was a good movie, but I'm starting to get a little tired of the same plot now. The whole time my first thought was 'wow, this is basically like a James Bond version of one of Christopher Nolan's Batman movies'. Again, I still felt it was a good movie, it looked amazing and had some great action set-pieces, but it didn't enthrall me the way it seemed to do with others.
Further, we now have the
trailer for Shane Black's
Iron Man 3 (2013) which presents the Mandarin (Sir Ben Kingsley) in a very similar, Bane-esque society challenging/revenge light. Their voices even sound vaguely similar. Basically, the trailer consists of the Mandarin warning us not to be too comfortable with society and the he's going to break
Batman er, Tony Stark. And now, at least from the poster/trailer, the next
Star Trek film seems to be going down the very same path. Note, the very same narration combined with a personal/societal vendetta and the very same montage of destruction. This is not to imply that I don't think either film will be good. Far from it. I'm just concerned that every film of this genre that appeared over the last couple years (with the exception of
Marvel's The Avengers (2012)) has fallen into this mold. We've been here before guys, show us something new.
Not Again! Gotta Finish. Boldly Going Where Everyone Has Gone Before?
