I will admit right from the start that this is really a non-story. But I love Star Trek and I like to write about it when I get the chance. So on with the non-news... According to trusted sources, TrekMovie has reported today that the title for JJ Abrams' follow up to his 2009 Star Trek will be.....wait for it....just a moment more.....Star Trek Into Darkness. Yep, there's your title.
Notice the lack of colon in the above title. Every Star Trek film to date has a colon in there. Now I will grant, as did a poster at TrekMovie, that the marketing, specifically the posters and print art, has never included said colons in their titles. So, it could have been that none of the previous films in this series really had a colon. A small matter in a non-story, right?
Do I hate the title? Not really. It isn't horrible and it isn't really that great. I mean to me there is no better title to a Star Trek film than Wrath of Khan. It just rolls off the tongue and more importantly it describes that movie perfectly. That is the main thrust of that film, Khan seeking revenge on Kirk and his beloved Enterprise. Which begs the question here as to how much this title tells us about JJ's sequel?
It has been stated repeatedly by The Supreme Court that Christopher Nolan's Batman film series served as an inspiration to their approach to rebooting Star Trek. One has to wonder whether JJ models his second film on Nolan's second, The Dark Knight? A film that oh made $1 billion dollars worldwide.
Now JJ is not going to throw the Joker into this film, nor is Kirk going to become Batman. So there will be no literal modeling going on, but that seems obvious right? But what JJ and company could do is take the story to a darker place this second go around. They could make the stakes much more graver and the potential threat much more dangerous. Imagine Nero as this series Ra's Al Ghul, then it stands to reason that the villain in this would represent a much graver threat to our heroes. A villain that tests them and causes them to think about compromising their priniciples. I wonder who that sounds like? Hmmm?
So yeah, the villain is....Khan...ahem. No matter how many denials, he is the guy. With that said, I am much more concerned with just how dark JJ is willing to go with this second film. One of the refreshing things about Star Trek and the vision of Gene Roddenberry was how optimistic it was about our future, about humanity in general. It portrayed a future where mankind overcame our differences and united, where humans and alien races could come together to form a federation of planets, where money is no longer the driving force in our lives, and famine and disease a thing of the past. It would seem wrong to me for JJ to take things the other way with Star Trek and make it more dark, cynical, and morally gray.
Yes, morally gray is popular right now. But I would argue that the optimism at the center of Trek is something moviegoers need right now. It is a refreshing change from the post-ironic, bleak, morally ambiguous films that have been released over the last several years. I mean look at The Avengers. $1 billion and counting for a movie that wears its optimism on its sleave. JJ doesn't need to go darker in this second film to make it more successful. He needs to tell a rousing adventure story that stays true to the core themes of Star Trek and presents the characters truthfully.
My hope is that JJ remembers this and this mediocre title does not indicate the tone of this second film. Besides if I see one more interpretation of Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, I am going to kill someone. It has been done to death and done well (see: Apocolypse Now). JJ stick to the universe, stick to the characters, and make an interesting story. Perhaps if he does that he will Star Trek into my heart. Sorry I had to do it.
Star Trek Into Darkness will be beaming into theaters this summer, Khan and all.
No comments:
Post a Comment