# Star Wars 7 vs Star Trek into Darkness



## MineOwnKing (Jan 3, 2016)

Star Wars VII vs Star Trek into Darkness.

I'm interested in what forum members see as strengths and weaknesses of both the movies and for those reasons alone, versus box office sales, weigh in pound for pound as a better story from the perspective of writer vs fan.

My vote is for Star Trek. I thought it was more interesting and complex.


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## Devor (Jan 3, 2016)

I thought Into Darkness's complexity was as much a weakness as it was a strength.  It created loopholes that really stood out to me.

In Star Wars 7 I had a few moments where watching the characters take action I thought, "What?  They're doing this kind of stuff already?"  That was 90% of my criticisms, and I felt them mildly for a grand total of 30 seconds of screen time, all of it during the "fun and games" part of the film where the tension is also pretty light.  That is, my criticisms may sound significant when voiced out loud, but they didn't really detract from the film.

With Into Darkness, my issues were with the plotting, and I felt them during key moments of the movie, including the resolution.  Despite all the good stuff that might on the face of it be argued as "better," Into Darkness just didn't deliver at the moments in the film where it needed to.

The Force Awakens was fun that built up into some emotional moments.  Into Darkness was intensity that built up into an eye roll.


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## Ophiucha (Jan 5, 2016)

Despite the fact that I love _Star Trek_ and don't really like _Star Wars_... I utterly loathed _Into Darkness_ and found a lot of elements of _Episode VII_ to be charming, even if it wasn't really my thing.

SW7 had some great new characters, used the old cast members pretty well (I didn't like Han Solo much, but other than him they were great), had an atmosphere very reminiscent of the old series while improving upon more dated elements, and just looked and sounded great in general. STID was a boring action flick with 0% of the charm or themes of the TOS, a largely poor cast (_especially_ Benedict Cumberbatch) with an almost eye-roll inducing scene with old!Spock, and just... nothing much going for it beyond some very nice looking explosions and a couple of decent action scenes. But I think _Star Wars_ had better action, too, so I don't think it even gets ahead in that.


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## MineOwnKing (Jan 5, 2016)

Thanks to everyone for these great comments.

Analyzing both films from a writer's perspective is certainly challenging. I was thinking less review wise and more craft wise. 

I think Star Wars is meant to be more serious yet enjoyable for both genders and all ages.

Star Trek has always used sex to sell. Showing Dr. Carol Marcus in her undies was certainly pushing the envelope but I've come to expect and enjoy that in modern Sci-Fi. 

Star Trek is also more slapstick and I love the way they blend it into the more serious scenes. The character Scotty has always been played very silly and I think Simon Pegg is perfect for the part.

Looking at it as pure craft though, I would love to have an opening for a novel such as Into Darkness. I also found the scene with the father saving his sick daughter very moving.

Presentation aside, I find the Star Trek script to be better written. The clichÃ©s in Star Wars would never pass mustard in a modern Fantasy novel. 

The Star Wars dialogue is improving though. I swear if I hear "Search you feelings" one more time, I'll scream.


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## FifthView (Jan 5, 2016)

Ophiucha said:


> I utterly loathed _Into Darkness_



Me too, pretty much.  That hit-ya-over-the-head parallelism with the original _Wrath of Khan_, near the end, was horrible.


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## Devor (Jan 5, 2016)

FifthView said:


> Me too, pretty much.  That hit-ya-over-the-head parallelism with the original _Wrath of Khan_, near the end, was horrible.



For the sake of discussion, why was the hit-ya-over-the-head parallelism in TFA any better?  I agree with the notion that they needed to ground it after the prequels, but I think there's got to be more to why it worked in one movie and not the other.


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## FifthView (Jan 5, 2016)

Devor said:


> For the sake of discussion, why was the hit-ya-over-the-head parallelism in TFA any better?  I agree with the notion that they needed to ground it after the prequels, but I think there's got to be more to why it worked in one movie and not the other.



For the sake of full disclosure....I haven't watched TFA yet.   I was just commenting on Into Darkness because it's something that irritated me greatly about that movie.  I love the Star Trek movie before that; it was the best Star Trek movie ever made, in my opinion.  But Spock's death/sacrifice was always so iconic for me, the best scene and most emotional scene in any of the original Star Trek movies, the parallel in Into Darkness seemed like an extremely cheap shot.  A total deficit of creativity, quackery.


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## Sheilawisz (Jan 5, 2016)

I enjoyed Star Trek _Into Darkness_ for the most part. It's a decent and entertaining movie, even though it's not exactly what a Star Trek film should be. The space battle and explosions were great, and my favorite part of the movie is when the Vengeance falls and crashes into the city of San Francisco.

The problem with Into Darkness is that it evokes almost nothing of the classic feel of the Star Trek universe.

There are many Star Trek fans that dislike Into Darkness because of that reason, like Ophiucha has explained before. These new re-imagined ST movies feel more like Star Wars stuff, which is good in some ways but very bad in others because they are trying to create a completely new thing.

I think that the same factor is what ruined the Star Wars prequels for most fans: Episodes 1-3 lacked the classic feel of the Star Wars original trilogy, especially because they offered a highly stylish and digital presentation instead of the more physical style that is seen in episodes Four to Six.

The new SW film _The Force Awakens_ is being incredibly successful because it has brought back that classic Star Wars atmosphere. It's exactly what the Fans were hoping for, and it's a very cool movie as well despite the fact that it's an obvious remake of _A New Hope_.

Into Darkness suffers from similarities to the classic _The Wrath of Khan_, but at least it's not the same cat wearing a different sweater...


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## FifthView (Jan 5, 2016)

Another point about Into Darkness:  The world is supposed to be an altered timeline, in which things happen differently than they did in the previous timeline.  So I was perfectly fine with the crew having an encounter with Khan—although, given the butterfly effect of altering major features of a timeline, I could as easily have imagined that Kirk & Co. would not have run into Khan in this timeline.  Then again, the fact that Khan's nature means he would have challenged Star Fleet at some point, this naturally brings him into conflict w/ the Enterprise crew.

But the oh-so-neat and exact parallels at the end of the movie were like completing a Perfect Circle, or bending the new timeline back toward the first.  It seemed like an absolutely artificial, mechanical addition, and not at all organic.

It's possible to imagine that, because these are the same characters, whatever is innate in them could force some recurrences in a new timeline or bend some encounters down similar paths.  (Although I'm fine with some changes in characterization, e.g. Spock being shown to be more emotional in the new timeline.  It's a nature vs nurture thing.)  So if Abrams had shown Spock sacrificing himself again, I might have bought that.  However, if he wanted to use parallelism, a better and more subtle way to have done it would have Spock not sacrificing himself in exactly the same type of situation—a toxic environment aboard-ship in which some part of the ship needs repairing.  That was a too-neat double-whammy for me.  What are the odds?  But no, having Kirk do it instead of Spock was squaring the circle, or making Kirk "pay back" the old timeline Spock for his sacrifice, so they are now even.  (For us viewers.)

Edit: I'd written something confusing, so edited it.  The old timeline Spock, who is now in this new timeline, did in fact go through the sacrifice.  But the new timeline Spock never did.  Yet, anyway.  So this whole balancing of the scales meta is a bit muddled.  But that's rather irrelevant because the whole farce was mechanical and even world-breaking for me as a viewer.


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## MineOwnKing (Jan 6, 2016)

Sheilawisz said:


> I enjoyed Star Trek _Into Darkness_ The problem with Into Darkness is that it evokes almost nothing of the classic feel of the Star Trek universe.




I think this is what turns me on to the new movies.

The inside of the ships look like real star ships.

In the old movies it looked like they filmed in a hotel. 

In the television series with Captain Picard, it looked like the inside of a nursing home or even an 80's fashion nightmare.

Now everything looks crisp and modern.

Patrick Stewart will always be my favorite captain.


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