Star Trek: Alternate Original Series Trilogy (WIP)

Rather than making separate pages for each individual movie, this trilogy gets a three-in-one page for convenience's sake! Star Trek: Beyond case gets put on the DVD Tower itself because it's definitely my favorite movie out of the three :)

Historically, I've been a bigger fan of Star Trek: The Next Generation (Data and Worf my beloveds; perhaps one day I'll dedicate a page to some of my favorite TNG episodes) than Star Trek: The Original Series, but a recent impulsive rewatch of these films caught me at just the right moment to leave me utterly entranced with TOS in a major way. I do have some thoughts about how the Alternate Original Series compares to The Original Series, but won't spend an excess of time on the subject. The AOS trilogy did not set itself up as a remake, it's explicity in that it is a unique alternate timeline that stands independently from TOS, so I don't feel any particular need to have these iterations of the Enterprise Crew justify themselves in comparison to their TOS selves.

And I do like the AOS Enterprise Crew. I keep trying to pin down who my favorites are, but then I realize I'm just continually listing the crew in its entirety instead of successfully narrowing it down at all. I do feel more strongly partial for the 'main trio' of Kirk, McCoy, and Spock; but Uhura, Scotty, Sulu, and Chekov are really not very far behind at all. It would have been fun to get more time with this iteration of the characters and get to see more of those little interactions that the movies do give us -- like Uhura hiking herself up onto her tip-toes to request a kiss from Spock, Scotty's conversations with Keenser, or McCoy's brief exchanges with Sulu. They're a lot of fun!

That's a big reason why I think Beyond is my favorite movie out of the three. I'm fond of the crew being split up into smaller groupings; I feel like it really allows their skills and characters to shine in a way broader crew scenes don't necessarily allow. Being able to cut between independent scenes as oppossed to trying to give everyone a voice in a single one does a lot to let the characters breathe and give them their own time in the spotlight. It's also fun to get a mix of character pairings that you do see a lot in TOS -- like Spock and McCoy -- and character pairings that you don't often see a lot of -- like Chekov and Jim! Not to mention the introduction of the character Jaylah, who is so much fun; I wish we could have gotten to spend more time with her (Although it also would have been nice if her character arc had managed to come to a more complete close in the movie she was in lol).

Star Trek (the first film) comes in as a close second. I think it's interesting to see how the Kelvin Timeline has shifted the characters slightly and changed the way they fell into place on the Enterprise and the ways they interact with each other. (There is something to be analyzed in a Doyalist sense regarding the difference that the decades have made on media and culture that have influenced the shape of the characters as they appear in the AOS films. The filing down of vulnerabilities in favor of being 'tough' or 'strong' -- using Spock and Uhura as examples, Uhura has lost some of her gentle playfulness that was a staple of her TOS character in favor of being more stern and no-nonsence, whereas Spock has lost a decent chunk of his TOS aversion to violence and his unmasked emotional outburst of unconsolable weeping as seen in The Naked Time has been replaced with a violent outburst of anger on the bridge in the 2009 movie. However, from a Watsonian perspective, as I said, I find them acceptable deviations. The Kelvin timeline is a completely deviated timeline -- unlike with Strange New Worlds, there's no need to reconcile the characters shown on today's screen with who they will be as seen in the Original Series, and so I don't feel any particular turmoil over the differences because they aren't Meant to be exactly the same people, if this makes sense.)

There are some aspects of the movies that seem a little less developed than others, but I don't think any of it is egregious enough to be distracting while you watch. I think it's kind of funny all the little convoluted twists the movie takes to get the classic TOS crew into their usual positions on the ship despite none of them being in a position where they should be in those roles yet (such as the usual crewmembers calling out sick, being uniquely unqualified for once, or suddenly dying in the attack).

Star Trek: Into Darkness does rank last. Jessie Gender has a series of videos on this trilogy of movies, and I do happen to agree with her perspective that Into Darkness feels a lot like a completely unnecessary movie in the series -- that the trilogy would have filled itself out a lot better if Beyond had been the second movie and there had been a different, third movie bracketing it. Into Darkness isn't the worst movie I've ever seen, of course, but it does kind of feel a little neglected in comparison to the other two films -- like there are concepts and ideas that it Wants to address but never seems to successfully do so.

Into Darkness is a movie I will compare to The Original Series. I feel like the use of the character Khan in Into Darkness is something of a let down -- Khan works well as a returning character carrying a specific grudge against Jim Kirk and the Enterprise crew, and I feel like culling that aspect of his character makes him somewhat less interesting. The Wrath of Khan worked because it was a gritty, interpersonal conflict that escalated into something dangerous and rancid, and I don't think that Into Darkness dedicates quite enough time to its attempted exploration of the conflict between Starfleet as Explorers VS Starfleet as Military to carry the same weight. I also think that Ricardo Montalbán does a better job in the role of Khan than Benedict Cumberbatch does, but perhaps that's nothing but personal bias lol.

Similarly, the ending scene with the fixing of the Warp Core doesn't work nearly as well for me as it does in Wrath of Khan. For one, I think that the integration of the Kobayashi Maru test into the WoK scene was phenomenally effective, not just as a continued thread, but also as a specific point of tension between Kirk and Spock (Spock specifically calling back to Kirk's 'solution' to the test and how it influenced his decision -- "I never took the Kobayashi Maru test, until now. What do you think of my solution?" -- something that compounds the grief that Kirk is feeling in the moment). Into Darkness does not set itself up for anything nearly as effective, not least because the movies haven't given us Enough of Kirk and Spock interactions for that final interaction between them to carry that much weight. The death feels cheaper because it doesn't feel like it has the Weight of grief behind it; even though Spock nearly beats Khan to death in a fit of rage, the emotionalism is noted as out of character, but it doesn't feel like it carries the weight of thier History behind it. It could have been worse, but it just doesn't work the same way for me.

On another, more specific note, I can't stand the lack of effort put into the death by Radiation Poisoning. Wrath of Khan gets some slack because PG movies in the 80s didn't tend to get gritty with their SFX, but they at least tried to give Spock some notable burns across his face. Into Darkness doesn't seem to give half a shit, and it gets under my skin so bad. I have one of those Weird Hyperfixations on Radiation Poisoning, so this is one of those things that strikes an almost improbable nerve in me lmao. Into Darkness's PG-13 rating could have at least earned it some minor burns and some blood, anything more than Chris Pine just kind of acting dazed and disoriented and them calling it a day. Into Darkness lingers in the core more than WoK does, and it just feels like a missed opportunity to me. The scene would have been a lot more visceral and heavy if it had handled the radiation even slightly more realistically -- Scotty says that they'll be dead before they reach the top of the ladder, and the movie should have made it actually Feel like that was the case. Even little details like Kirk struggling to remain on his feet under the weight of nauseated vomiting, or his grip on the support beam slipping as his palms begin to burn and bleed while he tries to kick the core back into realignment -- anything to make it actually obvious that Kirk was dead the minute he stepped through the door, that you're watching him die to fix the ship and leaving you with no other choice but to Genuinely Wonder if he'll survive long enough to manage it. It should be Horrifying to see his body through the glass and not be able to help him; and frankly all of this would have made the 'We Can Fix Him' revelation hit a lot harder, since the movie doesn't get Wrath of Khan's uncertain tension in an ending without any such reassurances.