Star Trek into Whiteness. No, wait. Darkness. Into Darkness.
So, what did I like?
1) The crew/team/family of The Enterprise. Guys, that was so good for me.
1a) I really liked the other crew members on the bridge. Especially the woman who took over from Chekov. Who I totally recognised but I can't for the life of me remember her name or what I've seen her in and it's diving me mental. Regardless, it gave a good sense of team and I loved it.
2) The hand scene. That was fucking amazing. Just. Well, I cried. Both Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto acted the hell out of that. And it was perfect. And Spock saying he did what Jim would have done and Kirk saying he did what Spock would have done. All the fucking feels right there.
3) Spock losing it and completely whaling on Khan after Jim died. Not going to lie, that was so good for me. And the way he froze when Uhura said keeping him alive was the only way to save Kirk. God.
3a) As an aside, I think film, so much more that the last one, has made me see the merits of the OT3.
4) Everything about Scotty. The looks on both his face and Kirk's when Kirk accepted his resignation killed me. And then he saved the day but his line about only being away for a day was fucking hilarious.
5) Kirk being all genius and being the one to work out 'John Harrison' had a reason for blowing up an 'archive' in London and also knowing that Khan was using them to get on Marcus' ship.
6) Pike finding Kirk in the bar and them reminiscing about how they first met.
7) Kirk and Spock's reaction to Pike dying.
8) How both Scotty being worried about the missiles and Spock quoting the rules at him, made Kirk change his mind and not blow the shit out of a bit of Kronos.
9) I really liked Carol Marcus. Plus, listening to Bones try and flirt and Kirk and Sulu amazed at how bad he is was hilarious.
10) All the banter. So nearly everything that was said between Kirk and Spock. I think the biggest laugh in the cinema came when Kirk said he'd miss Spock and Spock just looked puzzled as Kirk waited for him to say something and there was the longest and most awkward pause that only ended when Kirk threw up his hands and walked away.
11) My favourite was when Kirk, Uhura and Spock were in the shuttle and that entire conversation. Especially when Kirk was like 'don't bring me into this' before turning to Spock and being all 'she's totally right though'.
12) Mickey blew up London. The Doctor would be so disappointed.
13) Spock getting in touch with Spock!Prime and asking about Khan and Spock being all, 'I said I'd tell you nothing. However, Khan I'm happy to make an exception for'. Also, they called it New Vulcan. That made me laugh.
14) Bones had some great one liners but the look on his face when he saw his best friend dead just killed me. And then the look on his face, and the way he jumped into action, when the Tribble became alive - 'you were barely dead' HA!
Now, what I didn't like.
1) I felt like Chekov was pushed to the sidelines in engineering because they didn't quite know what to do with him. I know he went down there because of what happened with Scotty, but even so.
2) Did we really need to see Kirk in bed with those two women? I feel like the writers/JJ Abrams see Kirk in a fundamentally different way to me and it irks me.
3) Is it going to surprise anyone if I say Khan?
And my reasons are twofold.
1) The whitewashing. Oh my God, the whitewashing. Plus, I kept thinking of all the minority actors who could have played this role and been awesome in it.
2) It didn't need to be Khan. It could have been any insane, genetically enhanced person.
Khan is only important/iconic because of the shared history between him and Kirk from TOS going into the film. None of that is present in this film because we're still in the infancy of Kirk's captaincy. So, why did it have to be Khan?
I would have no problem with Benedict Cumberbatch's character as long as he hadn't been Khan.
He was good enough - I'm honestly not getting the reviews saying he was the best thing in the film - but for me, personally, the whitewashing soured the entire role.
And I guess I have another reason - there were SO MANY OTHER STORIES in the Trek universe that they could have explored. Why did it have to be Khan? Or they could have gone for an original story. It was an alternate universe. They could have done literally anything and instead they went with Khan. Damn it.
thisissirius and I re-watched nu!Trek last night after getting home from Into Darkness and, personally, I think I prefer the first film.