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Comment by zzalpha | Hacker News Reader

They're mostly generic action in space with some familiar names and Starfleet uniforms.

You've just described the Wrath of Khan, considered one of the finest films in the franchise.

Hell, a good number of episodes in every series in the franchise were just action in space... the Best of Both Worlds is literally just Us vs The Borg.

Fans have incredibly rose tinted glasses regarding ST. For every City on the Edge of Forever or The Inner Light there's at least one The Doomsday Machine or, worse, Spock's Brain...

Edit:

BTW, I actually think Into Darkness was pretty interesting. It reminded me of The Drumhead or similar, where they used an enemy or a crisis to examine the nature Star Fleet itself. It's just a pity they, once again, didn't actually use someone of Indian descent to play Khan...

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To call "The Wrath of Khan" generic action is pretty unfair, especially when compared against it's clone/reboot "Into Darkness". TWOK opens with Kirk pondering his own mortality and some of the universal concerns of aging. ID opens with a Spock apparently deciding to off himself, with no real motivation or development of that decision given. We can quibble about the intervening parts but for my part I find the action and suspense in TWOK much better, and more importantly, logically motivated. What was the point of the entire battle on Q'onos in ID, other than to just look cool? What sort of character development occured between Kirk and Spock?

Finally, we get to the end, and the most egregious difference between the two. In TWOK we get a tense cat and mouse chase through the nebula, which is won, CRUCIALLY, by out-thinking your opponent. The whole "2d thinking" thing and what not. I admit it's probably not the most air-tight of plot points, but it perfectly demonstrates the difference between the two movies, because ID ends with a loud (visually and sonically) fist-fight that is won by the person who punches hardest. Yay I guess.

Anyway, Star Trek is definitely not all sunshine and rainbows but it is crucially several things that the new movies are not: It prioritizes communication and curiousity over violence and dominance. It is not trying to be cynical or "edgy" in an attempt to be mature. The struggle of people working together to overcome a problem and find a positive solution or compromise can and is every bit as exciting as a phaser battle. And finally, that it is fundamentally optimistic, not in a the sort of "magic technology makes everything awesome" way that the new series seems, but that humans can come together and make things better for each other, the no-win scenario does not exist (mostly) and that we have to work hard to make this come true, but it is do-able.

It prioritizes communication and curiousity over violence and dominance.

In the context of the series, sure, where you have an hour a week to wax philosophical.

The movies are far more uneven in that respect. They attempted it in The Motion Picture. Result: total snoozer.

Khan is an action/revenge flick.

Search For Spock is another action/revenge flick.

Voyage Home is far more in the original mold, humans trying to make peace with an unknown alien force. But it also wavers between comical and absurd... no character development to be found here.

The Final Frontier... I'm not even sure where to begin. It's terrible. :)

The Undiscovered Country is, to me, the best mix of the lot... a bit action, a bit politics, the origin story of the Federation and the Klingon peace, commentary on racism, etc...

But that's one film out of five.

So be fair: you're comparing two movies to an entire franchise and then complaining they aren't what you want them to be. If you more fairly compare them to just their film contemporaries, my opinion is that they stand up reasonably well.

That's not to say they aren't clearly designed for more mass-market appeal. The Undiscovered Country, for example, is pure fan service, whereas Star Trek or Into Darkness are clearly aimed at a broader audience. I just don't think they're significantly worse than their peers simply because they don't talk it out... ;)

Into darkness is worse because it's a shallow ripoff of a better movie.

Wrath of khan had much better execution.

Best of both worlds also showed Picard becoming the enemy, riker as captain having to try to stop the Borg at the cost of his friend, and some more good background on the Borg.

Plus the effects of that episode lasted into ds9 and first contact.

How could The Drumhead remind you of Into Darkness? It is a incoherent action movie with plot points that function as an "homage" (read: shameful copy) to the original movies or they serve as a plot device, versus a courtroom drama. The only connection between them is that they both happen mostly in space and on a spaceship.

It seems you aren't diffentiating between the narrative structure versus the narrative themes.

Structurally, yeah, obviously they're very different.

However, thematically, they share a lot of similarities.

In The Drumhead, Starfleet begins a witchhunt to track down a suspected spy they believe is working with the Romulans.

Into Darkness involves a group of people who attempt to manufacture a war with the Klingons, whom they perceive as a fundamental threat to the Federation.

Both examine racism, fear, and xenophobia in the context of the Star Trek universe, and the lengths people will go to if they feel they're morally justified based on those perceived fears.

The movie doesn't examine anything. There are some themes are shared, but they are in no way addressed in the same depth as in the episode. A plot device about racism in an action movie does not equal developing that theme an hour long well written court drama. And the punctuation just makes it even more clear, the episode is ended by a moral speech while the movie ends with an action scene.

The movie doesn't examine anything.

Well, I can tell you're open minded and not too critical. I'm sure continuing this conversation will be incredibly productive and enlightening...

Words of a person without any arguments.

Although I have a hard time knocking the decision to cast Benedict Cumberbatch as a genetically enhanced villain.

Wrath of Khan is only good because of Mantalban. The movies didn't really pick up until the fourth one, when they stopped taking them so seriously and just had some fun making a movie.

And at least a handful of good episodes exist. There are no such specimens among the (two) new movies.

Wrath of Khan is only good because of Mantalban. The movies didn't really pick up until the fourth one, when they stopped taking them so seriously and just had some fun making a movie.

So you're a "Trouble with Tribbles" kind of a guy/girl.

Nothing wrong with that at all, everyone has different tastes!

But we'll agree to disagree. While Khan is clearly an action film first, it's an exploration of Kirk as a character, which is interesting. And that ending...

Frankly, I'll put myself in the minority by stating that I personally think The Voyage Home was frickin' awful... really, a fish-out-of-water tale (well, mammal-out-of-water...) via time travel? sigh

But that's just my opinion. :)

Star Trek IV is definitely a lazy, dumb (object) story serving as a thin layer to make some point about 80ies environmentalism. But it's still a lot of fun, and thus one of my favorites.

It's not like space operas ever made sense :)

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