Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

SPOILERS BELOW THIS MARK!!!

To the Summary!
Kirk and the crew of the Enterprise are dispateched to catch the terrorist known as John Harrison.

To the Cast!
Chris Pine - James T. Kirk
Zachary Quinto - Spock
Zoe Saldana - Uhura
Karl Urban - McCoy
Simon Pegg - Scotty
John Cho - Sulu
Anton Yelchin - Chekov
Benedict Cumberbatch - Khan
Bruce Greenwood - Pike
Peter Weller - Marcus
Alice Eve - Carol Marcus

To the Deeper Thoughts!
There was a lot of trepidation approaching this movie.  Would they go there?  Would they dare?

Well, they did.  For the longest time, I was convinced that Gary Mitchell was going to be our advesary for the second adventure of the crew of the Enterprise.  And why not?  They were styling Alice Eve to look a hell of a lot like Elizabeth Dehner.

But no, they went Khan.

Which... I'm ok with.  I know there was all the denial about Khan was going to be in the film.  And that was kind of bullshit.  But I can't compare this film to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

I felt this was a great follow up to the reboot from 2009. (My thoughts for that film can be found here)

We see a Kirk that is still fairly untested in the command chair.  He's more arrogant and sure of himself than we are used to.  He has yet to truly taste failure.  So when Khan reviles himself, it is easy to see how he is manipulated by Admiral Marcus into going after Khan.

Straight to Qu'onos.  Which  YAY!  Klingons.  They looked kinda awesome.

So there's some double crosses, triple crosses.  Hell, I think there might have even been a quad cross in there somewhere.  I mean Section 31 was involved, so that was the reason for all the crosses.  It was a great ride.

And I understand why they did some of what they did with the dialogue and switching of major events.  And I'm still ok with that.  If there was one moment that took me out of the film, it was Spock Prime.  I don't really think he was needed.  Added nothing to the film really, other than foreshadow what we all kinda knew was coming.  But, they don't pay me the big bucks to make these decisions.

I liked it.  I look forward to future viewings of it.  I'm curious as to what they are going to do for the 50th anniversary of Trek.  Will they bring Khan back?  Develop the romance between Kirk and Carol Marcus?  War with the Klingons?  Romulans?  Who knows.  What I know is that I can't wait to find out.