Star Trek Into Darkness Watch

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Rayna Benincase

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Aug 5, 2024, 10:11:30 AM8/5/24

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Sequelsare a tricky thing. In the best cases, they transcend the original work by adding emotional depth and context, elevating the entire story arc. In the worst cases, they're a carbon copy of the original with perhaps a bigger "wow" factor. Star Trek Into Darkness, like many sequels, falls into the middle ground. It expands and broadens the scope of the original while duplicating most of the elements that were already in place from the 2009 film.

To follow his first Trek revival, director J.J. Abrams has made a much more visually impressive and exciting action film, and one worthy of the Star Trek franchise. It simply lacks the inspiration that made his first film so special.

The biggest addition to Star Trek Into Darkness is the introduction of a new villain named John Harrison, played by Benedict Cumberbatch. In this character screenwriters Damon Lindelof, Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman create a much more engaging, formidable and ambiguous villain than Nero of the '09 Trek. Into Darkness fires on all cylinders when Harrison is playing both sides of the moral line. We aren't quite sure where his head is at, and neither is Captain Kirk. This eventually changes but we'll leave that substantial reveal for the cinema.

A great villain is nothing without great heroes, and the best part of Into Darkness bar none is the expansion use of an incredible cast. Everyone, from stars Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto and Zoe Saldana, down to more secondary crew members played by Simon Pegg, John Cho and Karl Urban, is really allowed to spread their wings. Instead of just the one or two prerequisite catch phrases, each character's position is molded and suited to the story at hand, giving them all a few moments in the sun. The standouts are Urban, who has the best lines out of the bunch, and Quinto, who takes Spock on the film's most complete journey. If you go into the film simply to see these characters again, you'd be happy.

The film's pace is also quite good, largely in part to the near perfect distribution and variety of large action set pieces and visual effects. Everything looks beautiful (especially in IMAX 3D), and sounds wonderful (composer Michael Giacchino's work is solid as usual). Yet there's always the knowledge we're watching a franchise film, and truly putting the characters in peril is challenging. Attempts are made, with varying degrees of success, to convincingly threaten the heroes. But therein lies the emotional disconnect between the sequel and the original film. In the first movie we weren't quite sure where everyone stood. Now that we do, it's a bit harder to pull the heart strings.

Explaining more of why Star Trek Into Darkness never quite reaches the heights of its predecessor would require giving examples you don't want to read yet. In broad terms, the surprises (of which there are many) never resonate as much as they're meant to. At times they work, but they're not the highlights of the film they should be. Those highlights come in the form of small character moments as portrayed by the fine cast, and the jaw-dropping visual effects sequences.

In the first set of Star Trek movies, the second film exceeded the first in every way imaginable. Star Trek Into Darkness is not Wrath of Khan. It's more like The Voyage Home; a fun but frivolous sequel. Even if that comparison means nothing to you, there's a good chance you'll enjoy Star Trek Into Darkness a ton. The goods are there; unfortunately they don't have more impact.

We've been talking a lot about this upcoming 'Star Trek Into Darkness' preview, hitting IMAX theaters starting December 14, but the question of exactly where you can view the footage was left up in the air... until now. With the first official movie poster and teaser trailer already making the rounds, it's time to gear up for this in-depth preview. Click ahead to find out where you can watch it.

Thanks to the official 'Star Trek Into Darkness' website, which also states that this nine-minute footage is actually the "first nine minutes of the film," you can locate the closest IMAX theater to your location that'll be screening the preview. And if that doesn't get you all amped up, here's what IMAX Filmed Entertainment Chairman and President Greg Poster had to say about it:

Benedict Cumberbatch, who plays the film's mysterious villain, joins the cast from the first flick -- including Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana and Karl Urban -- for 'Star Trek Into Darkness.' The 'Sherlock' star is rumored to be playing Khan in the sequel, but no official statement has been released, and the recently debuted poster and trailer have only furthered our suspicions. Give us your theories on what we might see from the preview in the comments, and click the below link to find a nearby participating IMAX theater.

In this question the person only wanted to watch the TV series. I want to watch every movie and TV series there is about Star Trek but I don't know where to start. I found this page on Wikipedia which is about a time line. Do I need to watch it in this order? Are the movies and TV series related?

You have to be aware that TNG is how Roddenberry actually intended Star Trek to be like. Well, the part of TNG until he died, after that his vision was muddied (to varying degrees) by other people taking over. So, TOS has a lot of stuff in it that Roddenberry added to appeal to the station executives and possibly to the main-stream audience. His core ideology is in there, but you have to see past the occasional Cowboy-allusions and the depiction of gender roles (from today's point of view the latter is terrible, but for the time it was syndicated, it was actually progressive, but I digress).

So, if you watch TOS, you might not "get" it (well, chances are equally, you do), but don't despair in either case --- TNG is much better, but I'd still recommend having watched TOS first. The reason for this, is that you would have to watch TOS anyway, to watch Star Trek: Generations (Film #7). And by doing it first, you see how Humanity evolved between TOS and TNG. So, this is my suggestion;

If you insist, you could watch DSN (Star Trek: Deep Space Nine) before Voyager (where it chronologically belongs), but I found it rather dry, and very distant from Roddenberry's Star Trek. Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion; a lot of people will tell you that VOY is awful and DSN is great.

And if you really insist, you may then watch Star Trek: Enterprise (ENT), which is the prequel to TOS, shot after VOY. It kind of goes in the opposite direction than TNG, starting from TOS. (Note that TOS, TNG and ENT take place on a ship called Enterprise, so don't confuse the series (ENT) with the ship.)

Finally, avoid watching the "new" films and expecting Star Trek. They are called Star Trek, but they decidedly have nothing to do with the classical franchise. They're action movies, and they work as such. But they're devoid of plot and meaning. So, watch them, if you really want to have watched everything, but do it only after having watched everything else above. Also, be careful with Into Darkness as it tries very hard and partially succeeds (IMO, obviously) to retroactively destroy the second film (Wrath of Khan).

For a modern viewer, consider what you're looking for. If you want fantastic adventure, begin with Season 2 of Star Trek: The Next Generation. First watch the pilot (Encounter at Farpoint) - it establishes the characters and will tell you 90% of what you need to know about them. Season 2 is where the show 'grew the beard' (and originated that term) and started getting good.

If, instead, you are more interested in character-driven drama, begin with Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. This show splits the Trek fans somewhat - they either love it or hate it. It centers around a space station, not a starship, and is less episodic in nature than other shows in the Star Trek franchise.

Once you've started down the road, you will likely end up watching everything Star Trek if it catches your interest. Rather than give you a viewing order, which others have already done, I'd like to give you a brief synopsis of each show and movie grouping.