Watch Star Trek Into Darkness (2013), Story, Stars, Reviews & All You Want To Know About A Great Movie
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
After the crew of the Enterprise find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction.
Star Trek Into Darkness is a 2013 American science fiction action film directed by J. J. Abrams and written by Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, and Damon Lindelof. It is the 12th installment in the Star Trek franchise and the sequel to the 2009 film Star Trek, as the second in a rebooted film series.
It features Chris Pine reprising his role as Captain James T. Kirk, with Zachary Quinto, Simon Pegg, Karl Urban, Zoe Saldana, John Cho, Anton Yelchin, Bruce Greenwood, and Leonard Nimoy reprising their roles from the previous film. Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve, and Peter Weller are also in the film’s principal cast.
It was Nimoy’s last film appearance before his death in 2015. Set in the 23rd century, the film follows Kirk and the crew of USS Enterprise as they are sent to the Klingon homeworld seeking a former Starfleet member-turned-terrorist, John Harrison.
After the release of Star Trek, Abrams, Burk, Lindelof, Kurtzman, and Orci agreed to produce its sequel. Filming began in January 2012. Into Darkness‘s visual effects were primarily created by Industrial Light & Magic. The film was converted to 3D during its post-production stage. It premiered at Event Cinemas in Sydney, Australia, on April 23, 2013,[5] and was released on May 9 in Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, Europe and Peru, with other countries following.
The film opened at IMAX cinemas in the U.S. and Canada on May 16, and in standard-format cinemas the next day.
Into Darkness was a financial success and received positive reviews from critics. Its gross earnings of over $467 million worldwide have made it the highest-grossing entry in the Star Trek franchise. It was nominated for Best Visual Effects at the 86th Academy Awards. It was followed by Star Trek Beyond in 2016.
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) Trailer
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) Reviews
The story starts with a “Raiders of the Lost Ark”-like action sequence: Kirk, Spock and the gang are embroiled in a secret mission on a red jungle planet filled with superstitious tribespeople whose lives are threatened by a volcanic eruption. The correct thing to do is leave Mr. Spock behind, because going back to rescue him would violate the Federation’s Prime Directive against messing with the natural development of primitive cultures.
It’s in this opening sequence, for better or worse, that the movie establishes a vexing narrative pattern: The characters have urgently necessary arguments about the morally, ethically, and procedurally correct thing to do in a crisis, then one character (usually Kirk) makes a unilateral, straight-from-the-gut decision that worsens everything; and yet somehow at the end he’s rewarded, or at least not seriously punished.
We’re given to understand that it’s always a good thing to prize personal friendship and loyalty above the concerns of one’s crew, ship, federation or species. Sometimes the reward is quite deliberate — as in the end scene, which finds Kirk being celebrated as a hero after making what looked to me like a series of catastrophic rookie mistakes that ended dozens of lives.
Other times it’s as if the cosmos itself is rewarding or at least protecting Kirk, as when he loses command of the Enterprise for his behavior on the primitive planet, then gets it back thanks to another sudden plot twist. A good alternate title for this movie would be the name of one of Steven Soderbergh’s great books about filmmaking: “Getting Away With It: Or, the Further Adventures of the Luckiest Bastard You Ever Saw.”
The Federation itself seems to have plenty in common with Kirk: Both the opening mission and a subsequent intergalactic act of aggression are presented as having grave consequences if they fail, then the film just sort of writes them off with a shrug, as if to say, “Well, that’s all in the past, and as long as it doesn’t happen again, no harm, no foul.” (Has anyone in the Federation actually honored the Prime Directive?)
For all its sloppiness and blind spots and fanboy pirouettes, though, “Star Trek Into Darkness” is still an involving film with more heart than most summer blockbusters. Abrams’ roots in TV (Felicity, Alias, Lost) seem to have made him attentive to the dynamics of groups, and to the repeated phrases and gestures that bond viewers to characters.
Pine’s beefy frat-boy Kirk is appealing, especially when he’s being called on the carpet; Pine has several strong scenes opposite Cumberbatch’s Harrison and Bruce Greenwood’s mentor-father figure, Capt. Pike, in which Pine is overmatched as both character and actor but uses the imbalance to enhance the scene.
Sometimes you see terror in Kirk’s eyes as he blusters; his vulnerability makes you root for him even though his “I gotta be me!” philosophy destroys careers and ends lives.
Quinto’s Spock is equal to, but different than, Leonard Nimoy’s incarnation, and it’s a relief to see that Abrams has made the destruction of Vulcan in the first film a key component of the character’s psychology.
As Spock explains to communications officer Uhura (Zoe Saldana), his main squeeze, it’s not that he can’t feel any emotion, it’s that he’s decided he’s better off not feeling it: this Spock is a Holocaust survivor who has adopted numbness as a survival strategy.
Uhura, Simon Pegg’s Scotty, John Cho’s Sulu, Anton Yelchin’s Chekov, and Karl Urban’s “Bones” McCoy have their moments, too; they behave like plausibly real people even when the script is asking them to do and say things that common sense tells us is horse manure, and their presences lend the film a dignity it doesn’t earn.
- Matt Zoller Seitz – Roger Ebert
- Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) Credits
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
129 minutes
Cast
Chris Pine as James T. Kirk
Benedict Cumberbatch as John Harrison
Zachary Quinto as Spock
Simon Pegg as Scotty
Zoe Saldana as Nyota Uhura
Director
- J.J. Abrams
Producer
- J.J. Abrams
Screenplay
- Alex Kurtzman
- Damon Lindelof
- Roberto Orci
Original Music Composer
- Michael Giacchino
Cinematography
- Daniel Mindel
Casting
- April Webster
Production Design
- Scott Chambliss
Characters
- Gene Roddenberry
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) Plot
In 2259, Captain James T. Kirk is removed from command of the starship USS Enterprise for violating the Prime Directive after exposing the ship to the primitive inhabitants of the planet Nibiru in order to save them, and Spock, from a cataclysmic volcanic eruption. Admiral Christopher Pike is reinstated as commanding officer with Kirk demoted to first officer.
Spock is transferred to another ship. Shortly after, Starfleet officer Thomas Harewood, sent by Commander John Harrison, bombs a Section 31 installation in London. During an emergency meeting on the situation, Harrison uses a ship to ambush and kill Pike and other senior officers, before transporting to Kronos, homeworld of the hostile Klingons.
Admiral Alexander Marcus reinstates Kirk and Spock to Enterprise with orders to kill Harrison using a new long range stealth torpedo. Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott objects to allowing untested torpedoes on board without knowing their specifications; when he is overruled, he resigns. Kirk assigns Pavel Chekov to replace Scotty.
En route to Kronos, Enterprise‘s warp capabilities become disabled. Kirk leads a team with Spock and Uhura to the planet, where they are ambushed by Klingon patrols. Harrison appears and kills the Klingons. Harrison surrenders when he learns the precise number of torpedoes on board Enterprise.
Dr. Leonard McCoy and Marcus’s daughter, Dr. Carol Marcus, open a torpedo at Harrison’s urging, revealing the torpedoes contain cryonically-frozen humans. Harrison is taken to Enterprise‘s brig, where he reveals his true identity as Khan Noonien Singh, a genetically engineered superhuman, awoken by Admiral Marcus from centuries of sleep and forced to develop advanced weapons.
Khan reveals that Marcus sabotaged Enterprise‘s warp drive, intending for the Klingons to destroy the ship after it fired on Kronos, sparking war with the Klingon Empire. Khan also gives Kirk a set of coordinates, which Kirk asks Scott to investigate. Scott discovers the coordinates lead to a covert Starfleet facility.
Enterprise is intercepted by a much larger Starfleet warship, USS Vengeance, commanded by Admiral Marcus. Marcus demands that Kirk deliver Khan, but Enterprise flees to Earth to expose him. After Vengeance disables Enterprise near the Moon, Carol reveals her presence aboard Enterprise to stop the attack.
Marcus forcibly transports Carol to Vengeance before ordering Enterprise‘s destruction. Vengeance loses power after being sabotaged by Scott, who infiltrated the ship. With transporters down, Kirk and Khan, with the latter’s knowledge of the warship’s design, space-jump to Vengeance.
Meanwhile, Spock contacts his future self on New Vulcan, who tells him of his own encounter with Khan and warns that he cannot be trusted. After fighting their way to the bridge, Khan overpowers Kirk, Scott, and Carol, kills Marcus, and takes control of Vengeance.
Khan demands that Spock return his frozen crew in exchange for the Enterprise officers. Spock complies, having McCoy surreptitiously remove Khan’s frozen crew from the torpedoes beforehand. When Khan starts shooting at Enterprise, Spock detonates the warheads, crippling the ship. With both starships caught in Earth’s gravity, they plummet toward the surface. Kirk enters Enterprise‘s radioactive reactor chamber to realign the warp core, sacrificing himself to save the ship.
Khan crashes Vengeance into downtown San Francisco in an attempt to destroy Starfleet headquarters, while McCoy discovers that Khan’s blood has regenerative properties that may save Kirk. Spock pursues Khan through the city and the two engage in hand-to-hand combat. Uhura beams down and stuns Khan.
Spock prepares to kill Khan, but Uhura stops him, explaining he’s their only chance to save Kirk. Khan’s blood revives Kirk and Khan is sealed in his cryogenic pod and stored with his compatriots. One year later, Kirk speaks at Enterprise‘s re-dedication ceremony. The Enterprise crew embarks on a five-year exploratory mission.
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) Box office
Into Darkness earned $13.5 million on its opening day in the United States and Canada, lower than Star Trek‘s $30.9 million. The film earned $21.6 million the following Friday, also lower than its predecessor’s earnings four years earlier ($26 million).
It earned $70.6 million during its opening weekend, finishing in the US box-office top spot (above The Great Gatsby and Iron Man 3). Total weekend earnings were $84.1 million, including the early-showing grosses. Although these were lower than Paramount’s projected box-office earnings, studio vice-chairman Rob Moore said he was “extremely pleased” with the sequel’s performance.
Several weeks after release, the film grossed $147 million at the foreign box office, surpassing the lifetime international earnings of its predecessor.[113] Into Darkness reached the top spot of China’s box office with a $25.8 million gross, tripling the overall earnings of the previous film during its opening weekend.
Star Trek Into Darkness ended its North American theatrical run on September 12, 2013, with a box office total of $228,778,661, which places it as the 11th highest-grossing film for 2013.[115] It earned $467,365,246 worldwide, ranking it in 14th place for 2013, and making it the highest-grossing film of the franchise.[4]
Scott Mendelson of Forbes contends that the film’s box office performance was the result of Paramount’s inability to sell the basic components of the film’s story, and inclusion of Khan “for little reason other than marketability and then spent the next year or so lying to everyone and claiming said villain wasn’t in the picture…
With no added value elements to sell, Paramount was forced to craft a generic campaign based around Benedict Cumberbatch as “Generic Bad Guy”, so the excitement never took hold… This was adding to the idea that merely withholding basic story elements is tantamount to promising stunning plot twists… and it made fans and general moviegoers less excited about Star Trek 2 than they were four, three, or even two years ago.”
Calculating in all expenses, Deadline Hollywood estimated that the film made a profit of $29.9 million.
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) Critical response
On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 84%, based on 292 reviews, with an average rating of 7.43/10. The site’s consensus reads, “Visually spectacular and suitably action packed, Star Trek Into Darkness is a rock-solid installment in the venerable sci-fi franchise, even if it’s not as fresh as its predecessor.”
On Metacritic the film has a score of 72 out of 100, based on 43 critics, indicating “generally favorable reviews”. Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of “A” on an A+ to F scale.
Critics called it a “rousing adventure”[121] and “a riveting action-adventure in space”.[122] Cumberbatch’s performance attracted praise from critics, with Peter Travers of Rolling Stone calling it a “tour de force to reckon with” and his character “a villain for the ages”.[123] Joe Neumaier of the New York Daily News wrote that Cumberbatch delivered “one of the best blockbuster villains in recent memory”.
Jonathan Romney of The Independent noted Cumberbatch’s voice, saying it was “so sepulchrally resonant that it could have been synthesised from the combined timbres of Ian McKellen, Patrick Stewart, and Alan Rickman holding an elocution contest down a well”.[125] The New York Times praised his screen presence: “He fuses Byronic charisma with an impatient, imperious intelligence that seems to raise the ambient I.Q. whenever he’s on screen”.[126]
However, not all of the reviews were positive; The Independent said the film would “underwhelm even the Trekkies”.[127] Lou Lumenick of the New York Post gave the film one-and-a-half stars (out of four), saying it had a “limp plot” and the “special effects are surprisingly cheesy for a big-budget event movie”.
A.O. Scott dismissed the film in The New York Times: “It’s uninspired hackwork, and the frequent appearance of blue lens flares does not make this movie any more of a personal statement”.[126] Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan director Nicholas Meyer (from which the film borrows and remakes some scenes), revealed in 2018 that he had been disappointed with the film.
He was quoted as saying: “In my sort of artistic worldview, if you’re going to do an homage, you have to add something. You have to put another layer on it, and they didn’t. Just by putting the same words in different characters’ mouths didn’t add up to anything, and if you have someone dying in one scene and sort of being resurrected immediately after, there’s no real drama going on. It just becomes a gimmick or gimmicky, and that’s what I found it to be, ultimately.”
The film was criticized for a scene with actress Alice Eve’s character Carol Marcus in her underwear, which was called “wholly unnecessary” and “gratuitous”.[130] Screenwriter and producer Damon Lindelof apologized on Twitter for the scene: “I take responsibility and will be more mindful in the future”.
On Conan, Abrams addressed the matter by debuting a deleted scene of actor Benedict Cumberbatch’s character Khan taking a shower.[132] Eve addressed the underwear controversy at a 2013 Las Vegas Star Trek Convention and said, “I didn’t know it would cause such a ruckus. I didn’t feel exploited.”[133]
Despite an acclaimed performance from Cumberbatch, Christian Blauvelt of Hollywood.com criticized the casting of the actor as Khan Noonien Singh, saying that the character had been “whitewashed into oblivion”, since Khan is an explicitly non-white character in the Star Trek canon (introduced as a Sikh and former ruler of much of eastern Eurasia).
There have been similar accusations of whitewashing by fans and American Sikhs with Star Trek: Voyager actor Garrett Wang tweeting “The casting of Cumberbatch was a mistake on the part of the producers. I am not being critical of the actor or his talent, just the casting”.[138] George Takei, the original Hikaru Sulu, was also disappointed with the casting, as he thought it would have been better to cast Cumberbatch not as an established villain like Khan but as a new character.
On Trekmovie.com, co-producer and co-screenwriter Bob Orci addressed Khan’s casting: “Basically, as we went through the casting process and we began honing in on the themes of the movie, it became uncomfortable for me to support demonizing anyone of color, particularly any one of Middle Eastern descent or anyone evoking that. One of the points of the movie is that we must be careful about the villain within US, not some other race”.
An in-canon comic book has subsequently been created to retcon Khan’s hitherto unexplained change in ethnicity in the film.[140]
In an interview with Buzzfeed two years after the film’s release, Abrams addressed some of the film’s shortcomings. He thought that the dynamic for Kirk and Spock’s relationship in the film “wasn’t really clear.” For keeping the identity of Khan a secret prior to the film’s release, Abrams felt he “was trying to preserve the fun for the audience, and not just tell them something that the characters don’t learn for 45 minutes into the movie, so the audience wouldn’t be so ahead of it.”
In the end, Abrams recognized that “there were certain things I was unsure of…. Any movie…has a fundamental conversation happening during it. And [for Into Darkness,] I didn’t have it…. [The problems with the plot] was not anyone’s fault but mine, or, frankly, anyone’s problem but mine. [The script] was a little bit of a collection of scenes that were written by my friends…. And yet, I found myself frustrated by my choices, and unable to hang my hat on an undeniable thread of the main story.
So then I found myself on that movie basically tap-dancing as well as I could to try and make the sequences as entertaining as possible…. I would never say that I don’t think that the movie ended up working. But I feel like it didn’t work as well as it could have had I made some better decisions before we started shooting.”
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) Accolades
| Award | Date of ceremony | Category | Recipients | Result | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Academy Awards | March 2, 2014 | Best Visual Effects | Burt Dalton, Ben Grossmann, Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach | Nominated | |
| ADG Excellence in Production Design Award | February 8, 2014 | Best Production Design – Fantasy Film | Scott Chambliss | Nominated | |
| Annie Awards | February 1, 2014 | Outstanding Achievement, Animated Effects in a Live Action Production | Karin Cooper, Ben O’Brien, Chris Root, Lee Uren | Nominated | |
| Amelia Chenoweth, Jay Cooper, Jeff Grebe, Dan Pearson | Nominated | ||||
| ASCAP Film and Television Music Awards | June 26, 2014 | Top Box Office Film | Michael Giacchino | Won | |
| Britannia Awards | November 9, 2013 | British Artist of the Year | Benedict Cumberbatch | Won | |
| British Academy Children’s Awards | November 24, 2013 | Kid’s Vote – Feature Film | Star Trek Into Darkness | Nominated | |
| British Academy Film Awards | February 16, 2014 | Best Special Visual Effects | Burt Dalton, Ben Grossmann, Roger Guyett, Patrick Tubach | Nominated | |
| California on Location Awards | October 28, 2012 | Location Team of the Year – Features | Star Trek Into Darkness | Won | |
| Critics’ Choice Awards | January 16, 2014 | Best Visual Effects | Star Trek Into Darkness | Nominated | |
| Best Action Film | Star Trek Into Darkness | Nominated | |||
| Best Sci-Fi/Horror Film | Star Trek Into Darkness | Nominated | |||
| Empire Awards | March 30, 2014 | Best Sci-Fi/Fantasy | Star Trek Into Darkness | Nominated | |
| Golden Trailer Awards | May 5, 2013 | Best Summer Blockbuster TV Spot | Paramount Pictures, AV Squad for “Return (Superbowl) (sic)” | Nominated | |
| May 30, 2014 | Best Action | Paramount Pictures, TRANSIT for “Illusion” | Nominated | ||
| Best Fantasy Adventure | Paramount Pictures, AV Squad for “Destiny Trailer 3” | Nominated | |||
| Best Fantasy/Adventure TV Spot | Paramount Pictures, AV Squad for “Go :30” | Won | |||
| Hollywood Film Festival Awards | October 20, 2013 | Best Hollywood Film | Star Trek Into Darkness | Won | |
| Hollywood Post Alliance Awards | November 7, 2013 | Outstanding Color Grading – Feature Film | Stefan Sonnenfeld | Nominated | |
| Outstanding Editing – Feature Film | Maryann Brandon, Mary Jo Markey | Nominated | |||
| Outstanding Visual Effects – Feature Film | Jay Cooper, Dan Pearson, Alex Prichard, Adrien Saint Girons | Nominated | |||
| IGN Awards | January 9, 2014 | Best Sci-Fi Movie | Star Trek Into Darkness | Nominated | |
| Best Sci-Fi Movie – People’s Choice Award | Star Trek Into Darkness | Won | |||
| IFMCA Awards | February 20, 2014 | Best Original Score For a Science Fiction/Fantasy Film | Michael Giacchino | Nominated | |
| Key Art Awards | October 14, 2013 | Best Trailer – Audio/Visual | AV Squad for “Destiny Trailer 3” | Bronze | |
| October 16, 2013 | Best Audio/Visual Technique | Pusher for “Trailer 2” | Silver | ||
| MTV Movie Awards | April 13, 2014 | Best Villain | Benedict Cumberbatch | Nominated | |
| People’s Choice Awards | January 8, 2014 | Favourite Movie | Star Trek Into Darkness | Nominated | |
| Favorite Movie Duo | Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto | Nominated | |||
| Favorite Action Movie | Star Trek Into Darkness | Nominated | |||
| Satellite Awards | December 2, 2013 | Best Overall Blu-ray Disc | Star Trek Into Darkness | Won | |
| Saturn Awards | February 25, 2014 | Best Science Fiction Film | Star Trek Into Darkness | Nominated | |
| Best Director | J. J. Abrams | Nominated | |||
| Best Supporting Actor | Benedict Cumberbatch | Nominated | |||
| Best Costume | Michael Kaplan | Nominated | |||
| Best Special Effects | Burt Dalton, Ben Grossmann, Patrick Tubach | Nominated | |||
| St. Louis Gateway Film Critics Association Awards | December 16, 2013 | Best Visual Effects | Star Trek Into Darkness | Nominated | |
| Teen Choice Awards | August 11, 2013 | Summer Movie Star: Male | Chris Pine | Nominated | |
| Summer Movie Star: Female | Zoe Saldana | Nominated | |||
| Visual Effects Society Awards | February 12, 2014 | Outstanding Visual Effects in a Visual Effects Driven Feature Motion Picture | Ron Ames, Ben Grossmann, Roger Guyett, Luke O’Byrne | Nominated | |
| Outstanding Models in a Feature Motion Picture | Thomas Fejes, John Goodson, Bruce Holcomb, Ron Woodall | Nominated |
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