Tuesday, November 27, 2012

The Depository of Geek: Star Trek Into a Summary


We are a mere 17 days away from the premiere of both the first 9 minutes of Star Trek Into Darkness and the film's first trailer.  But Paramount decided to go ahead and release an official synopsis for the film today.  The JJ Abrams mystery box is starting to open and here is what has come out:

In Summer 2013, pioneering director J.J. Abrams will deliver an explosive action thriller that takes Star Trek Into Darkness.

When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis.

With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction.

As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.


Well first let me just say that is a pretty badly written synopsis.  But let's not dwell on that and get into the content of this synopsis, shall we?



It is clear that the villain in this film is going to be someone who is in Starfleet.  The reference to a terror from "within their own organization" makes it clear we are looking at an officer in Starfleet.  Now the question is, who could that be?  Gary Mitchell was a lieutenant in the original series episode Where No Man Has Gone Before.  Finnegan is also a possibility as he was a classmate of Kirk's, one who tormented him when they were in the academy together.  Finnegan showed up in the original series episode Shore Leave, where he and Kirk got into a fight of sorts.  These two are the obvious ones that come to mind based on the fact that the villain is someone within Starfleet, and most likely an officer.

Another possibility is one Captain Robert April.  April was, in the original continuity, the very first captain of the USS Enterprise.  He was featured in an episode of the original series in which he and his wife somehow possessed the ability to grown younger.  But other than that he has not been featured at all.  This makes him an appealing choice to the creative team as he is not widely known, expect for those devoted fans, and is able to be molded into what the production and story needs.  With Gary Mitchell in particular there are certain expectations when it comes to his character and his overall arc.  There are none of those things with April.  In addition, it would be easy to tie April to Pike, as I suspect this film will do.  Perhaps April and Pike served together previously.  Or April was a promising officer, like Kirk, who was rising through the ranks until he decided to turn against Starfleet.  I mean the options are pretty broad when it comes to using April as your villain.   

"Detonated the fleet" does not make much sense at all when you look at it at face value.  However, I don't think we are talking about a literal destruction of a fleet of starships, but rather more a moral one.  The whole "everything it stands for" line makes it clear that the villain's actions go against the principles of Starfleet, most important among them the Prime Directive.  It is this defiant action and/or actions that could send Starfleet into some murky territory morally and threaten the very solidarity and stability of the Federation and Starfleet as a whole. 

It is clear that the villain and Kirk have some personal matters to settle.  This coupled with the reference made in the following paragraph to Kirk only having his crew left as family makes for a strong case that the villain kills Kirk's mother and brother, Samuel.  At the end of Star Trek it seemed clear that Kirk's brother and mother were both alive. Although we see neither of them during Kirk's award ceremony. Regardless,  it would seem due to the attack made by the villain Kirk's family is killed. 

Or perhaps it is Admiral Pike who is killed by the villain.  Star Trek worked hard to establish a father/son relationship between Kirk and Pike.  It would make sense that Kirk would come to view and love Pike like a son to his father.  It would be devastating to Kirk for him to lose Pike, his mentor and surrogate father figure.  It would likely reopen the wound and pain Kirk still harbors over the loss of his own father, George Kirk.  The idea of Pike being the family Kirk loses also makes a great deal of sense when you look at the synopsis as a whole.  

Personally I feel it is a cheap and lazy approach to use the death of Kirk's mother and brother at the hands of the villain as a way to create personal stakes and tension between Kirk and the villain.  With that said, it will all depend on how it is executed by JJ and company.  They may be able to make this angle of the film compelling and intregal to the story without it seeming to be created simply to give a "personal" reason for Kirk to seek out the villain, something which turns STID into more of a revenge story.

I am not sure which "war-zone world" JJ and company will be using here.  There are a few from the original series that could work.  My guess would be is that it is one we have yet to see, a brand new planet perhaps. Otherwise, the Klingon homeworld of Kronos or Neural would fit as well. 

The villain is described in the above synopsis as being a "one man weapon of mass destruction".  In my mind only Gary Mitchell seems to fit that description well.  Khan is still in the mix here too, but he is hardly a weapon of mass destruction himself.  Khan uses his superior intellect to obtain weapons of mass destruction, as he did in TWOK.  It is this idea that the villain is he himself a weapon that casts doubt on Khan being the villain.  However it doesn't kill the idea of Khan entirely.  

So we have Gary Mitchell, Khan, Captain April, and Finnegan as possible villains based on the above synopsis.  We do know that the writers of this film have made it clear the villain is an established character from canon.  All four of these characters are from canon, so it works. 

My money is still on Khan as the villain in this film.  Here is my rather unsupported and slightly crazy theory on how Khan will work and what the overall plot of Star Trek Into Darkness may be:

Spock Prime decides to warn the Federation about a certain late 20th century ship that contains some super soldiers from Earth's past.  Starfleet retrieves the Botany Bay and revives its crew, going against Spock Primes's request that they leave them in sedation.  Given the new threats Nero's attacks have exposed for the Federation, it is decided to train Khan's men to be elite fighters for Starfleet.  They become like the Navy Seals or Special Forces.  They are lead by an eager and ultimately corrupt admiral, played I am sure by Peter Weller.  Their missions are to eliminate threats or potential threats to the safety and security of the Federation. 

Khan realizes the knowledge and skills he now possesses about Starfleet and 23rd century technology can be used to allow him to seize control.  He acts quickly and either disables or destroys several ships. During the attack, either Kirk's mother and brother or Pike are killed.   Khan seizes a starship and heads off .  He finds a war torn world and rises to power there, declaring himself their supreme ruler.   I wonder if the war torn world could be Kronos, the Klingon homeworld. That could be how the Klingons play into this story. 

Kirk seeks out Khan and leads a task force to find him.  Coming along for the ride is one Dr. Carol Marcus.  Kirk falls in love with Marcus and by the end of the film she becomes pregnant with David.  Kirk finds Khan and they fight and have a space battle perhaps.  Khan is captured, the threat is over.  But at a high cost, Chekov sacrifices himself to save the Enterprise. 

The story ends with Kirk deciding his starfleet career and his family on the Enterprise need him more than his son and Carol do.  He and Carol decide it best for him to stay away as she raises the baby alone.  Chekov is buried and the Enterprise receives a new bridge officer.  Kirk visits Khan one last time in his holding cell on Earth and then heads back to the Enterprise.  Story ends with Carol looking out of a window of spacedock watching the Enterprise warp off in the distance. 

Not a strong outline, particularly at the end.  But alot of what is here seems to still fit the film's officially released synopsis pretty well. 

You could sub in Gary Mitchell instead of Khan and Dr. Elizabeth Dehmer instead of Marcus and you would basically be able to keep the same outline, minus the whole romance angle with Kirk.  Instead, the romance between Gary and Elizabeth would be play center stage, just as it was in Where No Man Has Gone Before. 

In alittle over two weeks we will have a much better idea who the villain is and what the direction is they are taking for this sequel. I am very much hoping for the best here.  I felt the first film was alot of fun and fairly well made.  I hope they carry alot of what made that film work into this sequel.  By the looks of the synopsis above, we may be in for a fun ride. 

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