2020-06-16

This day in (blog) history

Remember when the worst excess of nuTrek was Star Trek: Into Darkness? Seven years ago today I posted my infamous recap/review of the film:

This movie begins with Spock literally flaming.
And then I ended with:
2009's Star Trek was a high speed action adventure with a pretty weak plot that made no sense and spit continuity-wise on everything that had made the Star Trek serii and movies great. But it got butts in seats and that's what counts. Into Darkness isn't as much adventure, the plot's even weaker (and mostly stuff you remember from earlier movies), and spit on some more continuity. In the end it wasn't even as popular, attracting a little bit more backlash from the community at large. That, beyond all else, gives hope that the third JJ Abrams reboot movie will be a little bit better than the first two, and that he won't ruin Star Wars VII. It sure is looking less likely like that film is going to be the kickass success everybody's talking about though, isn't it?
Star Wars: The Force Awakens did turn out to be a huge hit and re-invigorating the soft reboot: but its empty reliance on nostalgia and rehashing things we've already seen (just like Into Darkness) left the Star Wars media empire intellectually bankrupt which has continued to affect the quality and popularity of the films.

Star Trek Beyond of course was popular with critics and the audience but following this film the audience was a fraction of what it had previously been. And it led to...well...you know.