Planet Der Klasse Catastrophe
The film begins with two hooded figures running like crazy through a forest that looks like it is made of red liquorice laces. Its like Hunger Games in Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. A volcano is exploding in the background. Turns out, its Captain Kirk and Bones.
They are being chased by some very obviously papiermached bright yellow and blue aliens:
Seriously? I could do better with twenty minutes, a tub of PVA glue, some kitchen roll and a felt tip pen.
They end up jumping an insane height off a cliff into the ocean and making it onto the ship. Elsewhere, Spock (ei. Silas from Heroes...remember that show? How it was fantastic for two seasons then become some sort of confused, muddled, horrific mess? Sad times) nearly dies as he tries to stop the volcano erupting. We are reminded he is emotionless (sort of) when he falls and says 'I am, surprisingly, alive'. Anyway, he isn't going to die four minutes into the film, but he still does a strange / cool death pose when he thinks he is going to:
Long story short, Spock doesn't want to be rescued because the aliens will see the space ship, Kirk ignores him and rescues him, the aliens see the space ship. This violates the PRIME DIRECTIVE: No interference in the development of primitive cultures. Captain Kirk is ice cool and is just like, no biggie. He is not so cool five minutes later, when he is FIRED by Christopher Pike because Spock reported him (or, more accurately, told the truth in his report). Apparently showing a giant gleaming space ship to a culture which has barely invented the wheel is a complete violation of the rules, which, yes, understandable. However, he gets given another chance, so fine.
London 2259
I'm not sure this section warrants its own paragraph, but hey ho. Grieving parents in London give a sick kid a toy bunny, and Sherlock shows up and says he can save her.
Man, I can never get over how much Benedict Cumberbatch looks like an otter:
(I can't take credit for these hilarious pictures, they are from this tumblr).
Benedict Cumberbatch ('Harrison') tricks the little girl's parents into blowing up an entire section of London with a test tube, and strolls in front of the CCTV camera. A man who wants to be noticed / followed!
San Francisco Explosion and KLINGONS
Back in San Fransico, everyone important is at an emergency meeting about catching Harrison. 'A man hunt, plain and simple'. Too late, Kirk realises Harrison will know where they all are, and BOOM! Giant explosion. Pike dies. His last moments are him being awkwardly patted by Spock, which is a rubbish way to go, being manhandled by an emotionless Vulcan with vertical lines instead of eyebrows and a pudding bowl hair cut. Remember how much Schmidt reminded me of Marcus from About a Boy? (I'm going to very much assume you won't remember). Well now Spock has joined the group:
Scotty figures out Harrison (which reminds me of Harrison Ford, which reminds me that I haven't seen any of the Indiana Jones in AGES) is on KRONOS. KLINGONS!!!!! Turns out Harrison blew up an important area that researched KLINGONS! (I don't know what a Klingon is but I've heard them mentioned a lot, and boy am I excited). Captain Kirk is told by Admiral Marcus (coincidence! See above) to go and kill Harrison, and reinstates Spock. They are planning to fire rockets at Kronos. WAR! Spock is being all annoying and saying it is immoral to kill a man without a trial, and to fire rockets at another planet. Scotty quits because he wasn't allowed to inspect the weapons. Drama. I think he is kind of annoying, so, plenty more weapon inspection officers in the sea. It's quite a sad scene actually, Scotty begs Kirk not to use the torpedoes. DON'T DO IT KIRK! THE KLINGONS!! (Which are...robots? cling film? sea creatures?) Meanwhile, Carol Wallace is introduced. Typical blonde bombshell. Kirk tells Uhura he wants to 'rip the bangs off Spock's head' (hahaha), and she says they are fighting. Can you have a relationship with someone who is emotionless? So many questions. Anyway, Spock and Uhura persuade Captain Kirk to capture instead of kill Harrison, so that moral dilemma was over in about three minutes.
Kronos and KLINGONS
Kirk, Uhura and Spock go to Kronos to get Harrison. Uhura has a massive go at Spock because he didn't think of her when he was about to die. HE IS EMOTIONLESS. Expect it you moron. Spock gives a sad and moving speech about how he joined consciences (?) with Pike before he died, and felt 'anger, loneliness, confusion, fear', and he felt that before when his planet died, so chooses never to feel those emotions again because he cares too much (what is this, The Vampire Diaries?). Anyway, its sad. But then BANG no emotions for long, the ship is in trouble. The ship crashes, and I'm excited to see some KLINGONS. And Uhura can speak Klingon so she goes to talk to them. The tension is killing me!
They kind of look like Orcs. Uhura asks them to release Harrison because they have 'honour' and he doesn't. Suddenly everyone is shooting everyone and its like a play station game. Harrison kills the Klingons (my excitement was short lived) and there is a weird bit where Kirk keeps trying to hit Harrison's floppy hair and falls on the ground over and over again. It was confusing. Harrison surrenders when he realises they have 72 weapons aimed at him. I'm sensing a purposeful surrender here...
Back in the Enterprise
Back in the ship, Harrison and Kirk have a war of words and Harrison gives him a random number and tells him to go and look at the torpedoes. Harrison is basically just Sherlock Holmes without the charming eccentricities and Dr Watson. My favourite character, Bones, goes with Carol Marcus to look at the torpedoes and his arm gets trapped. Queue dramatic shots of him shouting and the people in the spaceship shouting, and all I can think is, how is this an appropriate outfit for the situation?
Answer: It isn't.
Carol Marcus deactivates the torpedo, and it turns out there is a frozen person inside it. Harrison reveals he is 'Khan' (I knew 'Harrison' wasn't a villain name...love you for life Harrison Ford), a genetically engineering SUPER HUMAN who was awakened by Admiral Marcus.
Kirk: Why would an Admiral ask a three hundred year old frozen man for help?
Khan: Because I am better.
Kirk: At what?
Khan: EVERYTHING.
Me: BURRRNNNNNNNN.
It is revealed that Marcus forced Khan to build war weapons for him, holding Khan's 72 crew mates hostage. Hence why Khan surrendered earlier; when he realised there were 72 torpedoes, he deduced that Marcus had put his crew mates inside the weapons, and that they would die if they were fired. Phew, complicated. It gets more complicated...apparently Marcus caused everything that had happened so far in the film to start a war with the KLINGONS. Khan starts crying about the fact he thought everyone inside the torpedoes was dead, that they were like his family and that is why he retaliated, and it is awkward. Is he supposed to be a sympathetic villain? I'm confused.
So basically, everything is Marcus's fault and, speak of the devil, Marcus arrives in a giant fancy space ship called Vengeance and asks for Khan back. Kirk says no. Marcus attacks. Oh, Marcus.
FIGHT!
There are space ships shooting each other all over the place and Carol asks to speak to her dad. She gives some stilted speech about how her dad is 'trying to fix a mistake' (/ trying to kill a lot of people for no reason) and asks him to stop attacking the ship, but then he teleports her over to his ship, which involved her walking around like a zombie with her arms outstretched covered in white glowing string. It was weird.
Bye Carol. Kirk asks for his crew to be spared and for him to be killed instead. Marcus declines. He is about to kill them all, and Scotty somehow breaks his ship! Yey, what a hero! I take back everything I said about him being annoying. Kirk aligns with Khan, because 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend', which reminds me of this :http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_YdGcLci2hU (Dwight Schrute can be referenced to EVERYTHING). Also, because Khan knows everything about Marcus's ship. I love it when the enemy teams up with the good guys to take down the bigger enemy! (That sounds sarcastic, but I actually do).
Kirk and Khan zoom across space (in a very cool scene) to Marcus's ship, and skid across the floor for ages. My only problem with these Star Trek films is that all the action tends to happens on a small number of very similar looking space ships. It can feel a bit samey and claustrophobic. Anyway, Carol is ashamed to be Marcus's daughter. No one cares, Carol. In a way more exciting scene, Spock talks to future Spock on....Skype? How WEIRD would it be to talk to your future self?? Very!
Spock asks Future Spock if he encountered Khan. Future Spock says he made a vow to not give him information. But...wouldn't HIS future self have given him information when he was younger? So he would know he has to do it? Like The Time Traveller's Wife? Surely he CAN'T alter younger Spock's destiny by telling him something, because if he did, he might disappear because younger Spock might die, like in Looper? ALSO, seen as Spock had already seen his Future self, wouldn't he have KNOWN he wouldn't die on the volcano? SO MANY QUESTIONS! Anyway, Future Spock says Khan was the greatest enemy the Enterprise ever faced, and that he defeated him. Apparently in his spare time Khan likes to carry out a genocide on every species not as advanced as him and his crew. Its very clever, because Khan can be both an anti-hero we can sympathise with right now, and an evil nightmare villain in the future, which means he has to be destroyed.
Khan Power
After taking control of the bridge Khan overpowers Scotty, kills Admiral Marcus, knocks out Kirk, crushes Carol's leg (who cares), and takes control of the Vengeance. After negotiating with Spock, and showing he actually is a major douche by threatening to walk over their 'cold corpses', Khan gives beams back Kirk and Uhura, and Spock gives Khan the torpedoes. BUT Spock has removed Khan's crew and fires the torpedoes at him, after reassuring Khan he wouldn't because 'Vulcans cannot lie', ei. he is getting more human or something. On one hand, I feel bad because Khan wants his crew and he did everything they asked. On the other, that is one mass murdering otter, so it is for the best. Thanks for the justification future Spock!
In a long action sequence with plenty of dramatic music, Kirk fixes the ship by jumping up and down. This guy is relieved:
Captain Kirk dies (I am suspicious as to how long for) from radiation poisoning after a heart breaking conversation with Spock.
Spock starts screaming 'KHAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNN'. REVENGE! (Also, human Spock! Bet Uhura will be thrilled).
Final Showdown
Khan is screaming 'SAN FRANCISCOOOOOOOO' at his spaceship and crashes into the Federation headquarters. Spock teleports after him and there is a cool scene where they are both running. I can imagine it being a Nike advert:
After a pretty epic fight scene, Spock and Uhura capture Khan. Spock punches Khan in the face multiple times. I like Spock's character development over this film. Also, Bones (yey!) realises that Khan's blood has healing properties (okay, now this is just The Vampire Diaries) and Kirk is revived. When he wakes up, Bones goes 'your cells were heavily irradiated, I had to give you a transfusion', and Kirk nods sagely and says, 'Khan', and I'm thinking, how did HE know Khan's blood had a miracle cure? Anyway, Spock comes to see Kirk in hospital and calls him 'Jim'.
The End
Khan and his crew are put in storage again and Kirk gives the speech one year later that was used at the beginning of every Star Trek TV episode, the 'where no one has gone before' monologue'. The film ends with Kirk and his crew going into space for 5 years. ADVENTURE TIME!
I thought this was a great movie! Amazing visual effects, great character development, a lot of action. It was slightly too complicated (I'm still not sure I completely understand the Khan / Marcus saga?) and Spock and Kirk's deaths / almost deaths never had any tension, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. It's also nice to finally know what a Klingon is.
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