Star Wars: The Force Awakens

For F*** Magazine

STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS

Director : J.J. Abrams
Cast : Harrison Ford, Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac, Adam Driver, Carrie Fisher, Gwendoline Christie. Lupita Nyong’o, Domhnall Gleeson, Andy Serkis, Peter Mayhew, Anthony Daniels, Mark Hamill, Max von Sydow
Genre : Sci-Fi/Action
Run Time : 2 hrs 16 mins
Opens : 17 December 2015
Rating : PG (Some Violence)

We’re well aware that this is one of the most pointless reviews we’ll ever publish. You’re all going to see this movie, you want to stay spoiler-free, you don’t want to read on regardless of how much we promise to consciously omit crucial plot details. It doesn’t matter; we’ll be okay. We love you; you know, yadda yadda.

            Still here? Awesome! Okay, so it’s 30 years after the events of Return of the Jedi and an evil regime following in the footsteps of the Empire named The First Order has arisen. The astromech droid BB-8 is carrying vital information that Kylo Ren (Driver), a dark warrior who is the tip of the First Order’s spear, is in pursuit of. Scavenger Rey (Ridley), defecting Stormtrooper Finn (Boyega) and ace pilot Poe Dameron (Isaac) are all drawn into the conflict. Our heroes meet up with Han Solo (Ford), Chewbacca (Mayhew), General Leia Organa (Fisher), C-3PO (Daniels) and R2-D2. Leia is the leader of the Resistance against the First Order, who are developing a deadly superweapon in the form of Starkiller Base. General Hux (Gleeson), the leader of the base, is itching to unleash its power. Secrets will be uncovered and destinies will be fulfilled as good rises against evil in the grand Star Wars tradition. 

            The very microsecond this new Star Wars film was announced, expectations and hype began building, reaching critical mass over the last few months. Even in this age of mega-blockbusters, few movies have arrived bearing such an enormous burden, with so much to live up to and so much to atone for. Ideally, The Force Awakens should sweep the audience up, taking them along for the ride, making them look beyond the labour that has gone into its conception and execution. In this regard, the film is largely successful. Director J.J. Abrams has strived to recapture the magic of the original trilogy, and its essence has been preserved. Where the prequel films belied a preoccupation with gee-whiz technology over compelling storytelling or genuine thrills, The Force Awakens possesses a crucial forward momentum, a genuine emotional core and a welcome humanity.

Abrams is fully cognisant of the honour bestowed upon him, yet this doesn’t feel like a film made by a director who is scared. The Force Awakens is very respectful of the venerated original trilogy and if anything, sometimes echoes A New Hope and bits of The Empire Strikes Back too strongly. There are many scenes that mirror ones from those earlier films almost beat for beat, but the exuberant energy that permeates The Force Awakens helps to keep it from feeling too slavish. Where the prequels were criticised for often jarringly stilted dialogue, the screenplay by Abrams, Lawrence Kasdan and Michael Arndt absolutely works. Han and Leia sound like we remember them, the nods to iconic lines are just obvious enough and there’s a wit and tonal assurance with the humour that comfortably eases the audience back into that wonderful original trilogy mode. Hearing those John Williams motifs again, plus new music from the master composer, brought the chills on big time for this reviewer.   

Just as it is with the story, there must have been multiple considerations to bear in mind with regards to the design. It’s got to be close to what we remember, what we love, but not too close. There is a satisfying tactility to The Force Awakens and Abrams’ decision to favour practical in-camera approaches to the effects work whenever possible does pay off. Elaborate animatronics, guys in suits, special effects makeup, that’s the good stuff. The digitally-rendered characters portrayed by Lupita Nyong’o and Andy Serkis via performance capture do not stick out as jar(jar)ringly as some of the characters in the prequels did.

The spherical astromech droid BB-8 is a true triumph of design, becoming an iconic character even before the film’s release because of how cleverly it’s been conceived. BB-8 was an actual physical prop on set, and the dynamism in its movement and how much expression the droid can convey via beeps and whistles and a slight tilt of its head does feel authentically Star Wars-y. Since most of the ships riff on established designs, we don’t get any particularly inventive spacecraft, but that’s fine because everything just looks so good. The action sequences are kinetic but easy to follow and a chase scene between the Millennium Falcon and a TIE Fighter squadron in the planet Jakku’s atmosphere is one of the most gripping of the entire series.

There was a simplicity and purity about Star Wars that made it so easy to get into, before the cinematic universe expanded to a daunting, intricate extent. The new characters introduced are archetypes through and through, but that doesn’t mean they’re boring ciphers. Ridley’s Rey is a resourceful, capable female lead and it’s to the relative newcomer’s credit that her performance doesn’t yell “look at me, I’m a resourceful, capable female lead!” every other second. Her hardscrabble existence and dusty home planet remind us of Luke Skywalker in A New Hope, but she comes into her own at a quicker pace. As the Stormtrooper who decides he no longer wants to be in service of the bad guys, Boyega has a likeability about him and displays some excellent comic timing. Isaac has often been cast in villainous roles, but he wears the part of the old-fashioned swashbuckling hero well, relishing the chance to yell “woo-hoo!” as his X-Wing swoops out of the sky.

Seeing Ford reprise the role of that loveable scoundrel and seeing him do so with such willingness and conviction is an almost unspeakable joy. This is exactly the same Han Solo we know and love, with all the smirking and wisecracks feeling entirely appropriate. At the same time, there is a sweetness, sincerity and maturity in his interactions with Leia that is actually touching. Fisher brings a dignity and a quietly commanding presence to General Leia and seeing the pair back on the screen does feel like a big warm hug. Chewbacca is on hand to provide actual big warm hugs, too. Where is Luke Skywalker (Hamill)? We’re not going to answer that!

            In the villains’ camp, Driver’s Kylo Ren has been shrouded in mystery, his true nature a closely guarded secret. There is the danger that he comes off as an ersatz Darth Vader, but this is somewhat justified in that Ren feels it is his duty to fulfil Vader’s legacy. There is a petulance to Driver’s portrayal of the character that sometimes veers dangerously close to Hayden Christensen’s pouty temper tantrums, but one can tell that there’s more going on beneath the surface with Ren. As General Hux, Gleeson does a lot of supercilious sneering and it harks back to Peter Cushing’s Grand Moff Tarkin in the most wonderful way. Christie’s Captain Phasma is a visually striking right-hand woman, but the character doesn’t have too much to do. Similarly, Indonesian martial artists/actors Yayan Ruhian, Iko Uwais and Cecep Arif Rahman make only the briefest appearance as members of the criminal Kanjiklub Gang. There are many characters to juggle as it is, but the film’s woeful underuse of Max von Sydow in particular is a shame.

            This is Star Wars in the same great original flavour we know and love. While there’s some rehashing going on, there are just enough new moves to keep audiences on their toes, while reminding them of what made those original three movies so spellbinding. This being the starting point for a new trilogy, there are plot threads that remain unresolved and there are tantalising hints of what’s to come in the sequel. While perhaps not 100% satisfying, Abrams has crafted a movie that is truly worthy of the name “Star Wars”. There are bound to be audiences this won’t please, but for this reviewer at least, The Force Awakens is quality entertainment.

Summary: The story beats and character types are familiar, but in embodying the soaring adventure and heartfelt simplicity that made the original trilogy so great, The Force Awakens is worth the agonising wait.

RATING: 4.5 out of 5 Stars

Jedd Jong

Jedi Jedi Abrams

For Issue #71/72 of F*** Magazine

---

Text:

J(EDI) J(EDI) ABRAMS
F*** tracks the career of the man chosen to reawaken the Force

By Jedd Jong

Getting the gig to direct the first Star Wars film in ten years is at once an incredible honour and a daunting, Herculean task. After all, we’re talking about one of the most beloved, iconic film franchises in history, and one with a massive, passionate fanbase. Said fans have been burned before – once bitten, twice shy and all that. The man taking the Starfighter controls behind the scenes of Episode VII just so happens to be a huge self-confessed Star Wars fan himself. This is the voyage that the writer/director/producer embarked on which led him to that fabled galaxy far, far away.

Jeffrey Jacob "J.J." Abrams was born in 1966 to TV producers Gerald W. Abrams and Carol Ann Abrams. This would make him 11 when the original Star Wars film was released. “11 is a great age to have your mind blown,” Abrams said at the Star Wars Celebration convention in Anaheim earlier this year. “I will never forget that feeling of seeing ‘Long time ago, in a galaxy, far, far away’ fade out. It was the first time a movie made me believe in another world that way.” He recalled that the title ‘Star Wars’ struck him as an odd one when he first came across it in the classic sci-fi culture magazine Starlog. He saw the movie on opening day, and left the theatre “never being the same again”.

At age 13, Abrams’ grandfather gave him a Super 8 camera which he used to create his own homemade movies. “I would take anyone who was available — my sister, my mother, any friends — and I would kill them in crazy ways," he told NPR’s Fresh Air program. As a teenager, Abrams entered a short film of his into a festival showcasing Super 8mm movies made by kids. Other contestants included Matt Reeves, who would go on to direct Cloverfield and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, as well as Larry Fong, who would become the cinematographer for 300 and Watchmen. Steven Spielberg read an article titled The Beardless Wonders of Film Making in the Los Angeles Times and hired Abrams and Reeves to restore and edit his own childhood 8 mm films. A couple of years later, a 16-year-old Abrams composed the music for Don Dohler’s low-budget sci-fi horror movie Nightbeast. This was the beginning of a very promising career.

Abrams had planned to enrol in a film school, but attended Sarah Lawrence college instead. The advice given to him by his father was that “it’s more important you learn what to make movies about, than how to make movies.” In his senior year, Abrams co-wrote a feature film treatment with Jill Mazursky that became the 1990 movie Taking Care of Business, starring Charles Grodin and Jim Belushi. Abrams and Mazursky also wrote the comedy Gone Fishin’, starring Danny Glover and Joe Pesci. In between those two films, Abrams wrote the amnesia drama Regarding Henry, starring none other than Han Solo himself, Harrison Ford, and the sci-fi romance Forever Young, starring Mel Gibson. Abrams was one of four credited writers on Michael Bay’s sci-fi action film Armageddon.

In 1998, Abrams and Reeves created the TV series Felicity, starring Keri Russell and set at a fictional New York university. "I miss writing for a show that doesn't have any sort of odd, almost sci-fi bend to it," he told The Hollywood Reporter in 2012, noting the difficulty inherent in devising stories for a show without a villain or high-stakes intrigue. Abrams co-founded the production company Bad Robot with Bryan Burk, and created the spy action show Alias in 2001. Now, here was a show that was wall-to-wall high-stakes intrigue. On Sydney Bristow, portrayed by Jennifer Garner, Abrams said "She was a character with a secret, and that is always a fun place to start. But she wasn't a superhero; she was terrified at almost every step. But still, she would do the right thing. I think we would all like to believe we would behave like that when the going gets rough."

In 2002, Abrams wrote the screenplay for Superman: Flyby, a project that eventually failed to materialise. Abrams’ script contained many deviations from established Superman lore, including a Kryptonian civil war between Jor-El and his evil brother Katar-Zor, Krypton remaining intact and Lex Luthor as a UFO-obsessed CIA operative who is revealed to be have been a Kryptonian sleeper agent all along. The leaking of this script played a large part in Abrams’ desire to keep as tight a lid as possible on later projects. “To have a script that is nowhere near the latest draft, let alone the final draft, being reviewed online, it frankly made me a little bit paranoid,” Abrams told NPR. “There are certain things that are, I think, important to keep quiet." He further explained that “it's not a Machiavellian sort of thing”, but that the secrecy stems from a desire for “people to have a good time and to have a little bit of a surprising time.”

2004 saw the premiere of Lost, which Abrams co-created with Jeffrey Lieber and Damon Lindelof for ABC. The network thought that Alias was too serialised in its storytelling, and Lindelof and Abrams promised the network that the show would be self-contained, with no ‘ultimate mystery’ to be solved. This might well be one of the great ruses in TV development history, as Lost was all about ‘ultimate mystery’, the show and its complex mythology soon becoming a pop culture phenomenon. Busy with other projects, Abrams left the show in the hands of Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, though it is a common misconception that he was involved throughout Lost’s six season run.

To return to the topic of secrecy, Abrams explained the appeal he finds in this practice in a TED Talk in 2007. During the presentation, he brought out a “magic mystery box” that he bought 35 years ago from a magic shop and which he refused to open. “It represents infinite possibility. It represents hope. It represents potential,” he declared. “What I love about this box — and what I realized I sort of do, in whatever it is that I do — is I find myself drawn to infinite possibility and that sense of potential. And I realise that mystery is the catalyst for imagination...What are stories besides mystery boxes?"

Abrams’ first feature film directing job was 2006’s Mission: Impossible III, starring Tom Cruise. In an interview with IGN, Abrams said he was able to create elaborate set-pieces, the likes of which he would love to have done on Alias but “we could never in a million years afford.” Mission: Impossible III proved that Abrams could handle explosive spectacle with sequences like an ambush on a bridge, a helicopter chase, the IMF team breaking into the Vatican and a heart-stopping leap off a Shanghai skyscraper. Abrams also set out to “see who these characters were as people not just as spies,” showing Ethan Hunt’s home life and his relationship with his wife. Abrams would take a stab at the spy genre again with the 2010 show Undercovers, which was cancelled after a season.

In 2008, Cloverfield, which was produced by Abrams and directed by Reeves, was released. The found-footage monster movie was promoted using a viral marketing campaign that captured the curiousity of many moviegoers. Abrams said the seeds of the project were sown when he was in Japan to promote Mission: Impossible III and was visiting toy stores there with his son. "We saw all these Godzilla toys, and I thought, we need our own American monster, and not like King Kong,” Abrams said at Comic-Con in 2007. “I love King Kong. King Kong is adorable. And Godzilla is a charming monster. We love Godzilla. But I wanted something that was just insane and intense."

Later in 2008, the sci-fi procedural television series Fringe premiered. Abrams co-created Fringe with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, citing The X-Files and The Twilight Zone as inspirations. Abram’s favourite TV series is The X-Files, and there is a large collection of memorabilia from the show on display at his Bad Robot offices. The show’s overarching mythology involves the presence of a parallel universe, similar in some respects to the “mirror universe” of Star Trek.

Speaking of which, Abrams directed the 2009 Star Trek reboot in what is likely his most high-profile feature film directing gig prior to The Force Awakens. Co-writer Kurtzman said "I always think of it as, Star Trek is beautiful classical music and Star Wars is rock 'n' roll, and it felt like Star Trek needed a little more rock 'n' roll to connect to a modern audience.” Abrams certainly brought the rock ‘n’ roll with a kinetic, exciting and action-packed take on Star Trek, which alienated some stalwarts of the original series but which opened what had become a slightly stodgy franchise to audiences at large.

Abrams has been upfront about being far more of a Star Wars fan than a Star Trek one. "I was never really a fan of Star Trek to begin with but the idea of working on something that is not necessarily your favourite thing can actually help, because it forces you to engage with it in a way an outsider can appreciate,” Abrams told The Sunday Times. “My love of Star Wars, the energy of it and sort of the comedy and rhythm of it I think affected Star Trek,” he said in a separate interview with PBS. Naturally, there were many ardent Trekkers who weren’t on board with this new take on the material and they felt further maligned with the sequel Star Trek Into Darkness, but both films received an overall positive critical reception. While Justin Lin is taking over the director’s seat for Star Trek Beyond, Abrams is remaining as a producer.

Beyond his early screenplays, Abrams has dabbled in comedy, directing an episode of The Office and starring in the musical sketch Cool Guys Don’t Look At Explosions alongside Will Ferrell and Andy Samberg. Abrams also got to perform a rockin’ keyboard solo in the video which spoofed the “unflinching walk” cliché seen in many an action movie.

Abrams was contemplating two ideas for an original movie: a coming-of-age movie about a group of kids making their own movie, drawing on his childhood love of film, and a thriller about the Air Force transporting an alien creature to a secret facility, with said creature naturally escaping. He combined both these ideas into Super 8, which was an unabashed love letter to his childhood idol Spielberg. Things came full circle in a way, from Abrams editing Spielberg’s Super 8 home movies to having Spielberg produce a film about the Super 8 movement in the late 70s-early 80s. Abrams told The Guardian that he loved how Spielberg’s films carried “a sense of unlimited possibility,” but that way lay around the corner “could be terrifying, it could be confusing, it could be disturbing, or it could be wonderful and funny and transportive."

Interestingly enough, it was super-producer Kathleen Kennedy, now the head of Lucasfilm, who suggested to Spielberg that he should hire the then-teenaged Abrams and Reeves to restore and edit his home movies. “We followed J.J.’s career, so when he committed to Star Wars, it was this kind of fantastic coincidence of fate, I guess—preordained destiny or something,” she said. Abrams was handpicked by Star Wars creator George Lucas over directors including David Fincher, Brad Bird and Guillermo del Toro.

In 2008, Lucas told Total Film that he’s “left pretty explicit instructions for there not to be any more features. There will definitely be no Episodes VII–IX." In 2012, after the acquisition of Lucasfilm by Disney, Lucas said “I always said I wasn't going to do any more, and that's true, because I'm not going to do any more. But that doesn't mean I'm unwilling to turn it over to Kathy [Kennedy] to do more."

As a mega-fan taking the reins of a storied, long-lived franchise, there is the danger of being self-indulgent. Abrams addressed this in a Vanity Fair interview, saying he resisted the temptation to make The Force Awakens “meta-Star Wars” as that would be “an ironic approach, which feels anti–Star Wars,” saying he was focused instead on “inheriting and embracing the elements of Star Wars that are the tenets of what is so powerful.”

Like all Star Wars fans, Abrams was enamoured of the iconic John Williams score. In the era before home video was readily available, the biggest piece of the movie Abrams could take home was the soundtrack, which he would often buy before the movie was even released. “I would lie on the floor in my room with my headphones on listening to the soundtracks which would essentially tell me the story of the movie that I didn’t know,” he said. For Abrams, the most surreal moment in the making of the film was getting to meet the legendary composer. “I can’t describe the feeling. All I will say is, just to state the facts of it: I am about to show John Williams 30 minutes of a Star Wars movie that he has not seen that I directed.”

While Abrams won’t be sticking around to direct Episodes VIII and IX, which are being helmed by Rian Johnson and Colin Trevorrow respectively, there is no doubt that The Force Awakens will shape the franchise in a monumental way. “I do feel like there’s a little bit more of a burden on [co-writer] Larry [Kasdan] and me to come up with a story that could at least be the beginning of what transpires over three films,” Abrams told Wired. The framework has already been planned, the foundation for the new trilogy been laid, and, according to Abrams, Episode VIII has already been written.

As Yoda said in Empire Strikes Back, “always in motion is the future.” Abrams has set a course for the future of the Star Wars franchise and there’s no stopping the jump to hyperspace now. 

Star Trek Into Darkness

For F*** Magazine, Singapore

STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS

Director: J. J. Abrams
Cast: Chris Pine, Benedict Cumberbatch, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, John Cho, Simon Pegg, Alice Eve, Peter Weller, Bruce Greenwood
Genre: Sci-Fi, Fantasy
Run Time: 123 mins
Opens: 16 May 2013
Rating: PG-13

With 2009’s Star Trek, director J. J. Abrams had set a course for the future of the series with a film that thoroughly invigorated what was, up to that point, largely seen as a flagging franchise. References to Star Trek in popular culture had been relegated to jokes about basement-dwelling man-children squinting through coke-bottle glasses, and it was a widely-held stereotype that “Trekkies” (the preferred term is apparently “Trekkers”) just weren’t ‘cool’. Love it or hate it, Star Trek ’09 made the series accessible to the masses and perhaps the sexy young cast, the action sequences and the lens flares were just a way of helping the movie-going public at large let down their collective guards and learn to appreciate this cornerstone of science fiction through new eyes.

With Star Trek Into Darkness, Abrams and his cast and crew continue to blaze a trail through the cinematic cosmos. We begin right in the middle of the action, just as the preceding movie did – only this time, we follow the crew of the Enterprise as they embark on a misadventure on the planet Nibiru. Kirk (Pine) and Bones (Urban) get pursued by angry spear-wielding natives as Sulu (Cho) and Uhura (Saldana) lower Spock (Quinto) into an active volcano on the brink of eruption in order to neutralize it with a cold fusion device. Just another day in the office for them, then.




Kirk and company return to Starfleet Headquarters in San Francisco, where the higher-ups are none too happy about the recklessness they displayed on Nibiru. This is interrupted by a new threat: an unstoppable one-man terror cell who goes by the name of “John Harrison” (Cumberbatch). Kirk leads the crew of the Enterprise in pursuit of Harrison, armed with 72 photon torpedoes and with newbie Dr Carol Marcus (Eve), daughter of Starfleet head Admiral Marcus (Weller), on board. Chief Engineer Scotty (Pegg) is suspicious of the contents of said weapons but his concern is initially unheeded. What follows is a dangerous quest that takes our heroes to the Klingon homeworld of Kronos (or Qo'noS), leading them to the discovery of the torpedoes’ secret payload and the truth behind John Harrison’s beef with Starfleet.

Now, this is how you make a summer blockbuster. A tentpole sci-fi action flick doesn’t have to be two hours of mind-numbing, cacophonous dross. Abrams, along with writers Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof and the countless others involved have brought us a film that is fresh, relentlessly exciting and overflowing with white-knuckle action, and none of this at the expense of a compelling story or well-drawn characters. From the very first minute, this reviewer was yanked right into this fantastical world. Abrams all but announces “buckle up, because it’s going to be one hell of a ride” – and what a ride Star Trek Into Darkness is.




The Star Trek series has a magnificent legacy and has had an immeasurable impact on the genre, and to chuck all that away for all flash and no substance would be something of a crime. That’s not the case here. Sure, there seems to be barely a minute to stop and catch one’s breath, but that’s probably preferable to a film that drags on and on any day of the week. The film has no shortage of pizazz in the form of stunning visual effects work, witty banter and edge-of-your seat near misses galore. Despite having “darkness” in its title, this flick is far from dour or depressing. References, homages and shout-outs are skilfully weaved into the fabric of the story and some may disagree, but this reviewer feels this iteration of Trek actually is very respectful of what went before – just not slavishly so.

One of the many things the first film got right was its casting, with the Enterprise staffed not by a troupe of impressionists, but by actors who got the spirit of the characters they were portraying but weren’t afraid to put a bit of a spin on things. The opening sequence is a brilliant way to reacquaint audiences with the characters without an exposition-heavy recap. We get the sense that these guys are family now, and like any family they have their idiosyncrasies, but they certainly feel more at home on the bridge, in the engineering bay or wherever than they did as fresh faces in the first film.



In this movie, Captain Kirk truly comes into his own as leader of a starship crew and father to his men, Pine further proving there’s more to him than just his handsome mug. Sure, Kirk’s still the brash, womanising guy we all love (we catch him in bed with two be-tailed alien sisters) but there is character growth to be had. The ever-uneasy friendship between Kirk and Spock also gets a fair amount of play, and there are some great moments between the two, ranging from casual brickbats to a pretty dramatic bit near the end of the film. Quinto conveys Spock’s struggle to get in touch with his human side, his resistance to emotion driving a wedge between him and Uhura, but never hits us over the head with this.




Just as in the earlier film, everyone gets a chance to strut his or her stuff – for example, Sulu even gets to be acting captain. Simon Pegg as Scotty and Karl Urban as Bones in particular stand out in this one, both bringing different brands of comic relief to the proceedings while functioning as far more than merely “the funny guys”. Bones mentions that he once performed a Caesarean on a Gorn and delivered octuplets. It’s a funny bit that’s also a nice nod to the original series.  Speaking of alien species, there’s a tribble which turns out to be integral to the plot. This is also brilliant.

Of course, the attention is square on Benedict Cumberbatch as the villain of the piece. Suffice it to say that fangirls of his (who call themselves “Cumberbitches”) will not be disappointed. The guy is a riveting actor, one who knows when to chew just the right amount of scenery in order to not come off as silly. There has been a spate of more “intellectual” villains in blockbuster movies as of late, but Cumberbatch does enough to differentiate himself from the bunch and Harrison isn’t just all brains and no brawn – he single-handedly takes on a Klingon patrol in one action sequence.




Star Trek Into Darkness is such a thrill that this reviewer left the theatre kind of breathless, but also really pumped. It’s a big, big movie, but not the kind that’s an extravagant insult to the intellects of audiences everywhere. Abrams has crafted a sequel that ups the game and elicits cheers, laughter, goosebumps, excited fist-pumping and even a tear or two at all the right moments. And isn’t that warp effect just so sparklingly beautiful?

SUMMARY: J. J. Abrams has assembled everything needed for an involving, supremely entertaining big-ticket picture and somehow made it even more than the sum of its parts. It’s such an impressive ship that even Scotty would be jealous.

RATING: 5 out of 5 STARS

Jedd Jong

Star Trek Into Darkness: All Hands on Holodeck

As published in F*** Magazine, Issue 39 (April 2013)

---

(Text)

ALL HANDS ON HOLODECK

The key personnel of Star Trek Into Darkness report for duty
By Jedd Jong 14/3/13

What good is a ship without its crew? Not very much. Yes, even the sleek and shiny Constitution-class USS Enterprise NCC-1701 wouldn’t be able to get a lot done in the name of the Federation with an empty bridge (or an empty engineering section, transporter room, sickbay and so on, for that matter). F*** takes a glance at the men, women and aliens who get stuff done aboard the ship – plus the new villain they’re taking on, and the man at the helm behind the scenes.

CAPTAIN JAMES T. KIRK
Played by Chris Pine

One of the most iconic characters in science fiction history, the role was originated by the inimitable William Shatner, and as the younger iteration, Chris Pine had his work cut out for him. In Star Trek (2009), we witnessed Kirk’s beginnings, from his birth aboard a medical shuttle in the midst of a space battle (in which his own father bravely sacrifices his life) to his rebellious childhood and even more rebellious young adulthood, until the responsibility of captaining a starship was thrust upon him. Kirk is brash and headstrong, but is dedicated to his post and to his ship and will eventually become a father to his men.

On Kirk’s role in the new film, co-star Karl Urban comments, “in the first movie Kirk earns his captaincy, in this movie he has to own it”.  It looks like Kirk won’t be allowed to get too comfy in that nice big chair of his after all.

Pine explains that “Kirk really has to face his self-worth in this film. If he’s capable or not of leading, and from the first one at least, is a big, big transition and gives him a lot of different places to go, I think he experiences and sees absolute evil in this film and a lot of that is related to his deep fear and sense of vulnerability.”

JOHN HARRISON
Played by Benedict Cumberbatch

So, what is the “absolute evil” Pine refers to? Speculation is rife as to the true identity of “John Harrison”, the villain whom the crew of the Enterprise will be pitted against in Into Darkness. Is he Khan? Is he Gary Mitchell? A Klingon is disguise? Everyone is intent on keeping mum, but from the trailers we do know that this formidable foe is an ex-Starfleet member turned brilliant extremist hell-bent on revenge.  English actor Benedict Cumberbatch describes the character as having “a real Hannibal Lecter quality to him” and promises his portrayal will be “genuinely intense and scary”. The fact that he recorded his audition tape on a friend’s iPhone in his kitchen will probably do nothing to diminish that.

“In terms of Benedict, he’s an incredible actor if you’ve ever seen Sherlock, he’s unbelievable,” director JJ Abrams enthuses. “And he’s someone whom I think just brings an entirely new and intense energy and yes, he’s angry in certain moments, but he’s also remarkably rational and wildly, insidiously brilliant and part of the fun of this bad guy is he’s not just a raving lunatic, he’s someone who actually, you have conversations and can get seduced by.”

Sequels usually place the focus on their villains, and Eric Bana’s Nero in Star Trek (2009) was a more primal, rage-filled tyrant, it seems that John Harrison will be a cerebral, manipulative mastermind to be reckoned with. Pine sums it up like this: “he is just as intelligent and logical as Spock, but he is also one very bad mother***er.” Yikes.

COMMANDER SPOCK
Played by Zachary Quinto

The rational, cool-headed half-human half-Vulcan science officer of the Enterprise has always been the perfect foil to Captain Kirk. Spock was memorably portrayed by Leonard Nimoy – the actor was initially uncomfortable with the pop culture icon status the character had taken on and wanted to distance himself from it, but grew to embrace the character and appeared as the older Prime Universe counterpart of Spock alongside Quinto in Star Trek (2009).  Nimoy was impressed with Quinto’s take on Spock and the two have since become friends.

A key action sequence in Into Darkness will see Spock descending into a volcano to attempt to neutralize it before it ends up destroying a planet. Kirk and Spock’s relationship has been similarly volatile, with Spock taking an immediate dislike to the Captain who would eventually become his best friend, after Kirk cheated on the “unwinnable” Kobayashi Maru test Spock had programmed. According to Quinto, their bond will grow stronger in this film. “Kirk really earns his leadership; Spock really earns an understanding of friendship.”

A brief section of the Japanese trailer for the film has led fans to wonder if Spock might face a fate similar to the one in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. So, will Spock be able to live long and prosper past this one? On his Twitter account, Quinto says “simmer down kids. Rumours are rumours for a reason…Let’s let the second movie come out before we talk about a third...”

LT. NYOTA UHURA
Played by Zoë Saldaña

As the Enterprise’s communications officer, Uhura is an expert in Xenolinguistics with a keen ear for alien languages. The part was originally played by Nichelle Nichols in what was considered a landmark for women of colour on television. Nichols was personally affirmed by Martin Luther King Jr., a big fan of the original Star Trek series who felt Uhura served as an important role model for African-American women and children across the United States. Nichols graciously said of Zoë Saldaña, “not only is she one of the most beautiful women on the planet, she’s an incredible actress. When I met her, it just clicked like that.”

Star Trek (2009) officially made a romantic pairing out of Uhura and Spock, something which fans either hated or decided to roll with. Saldaña hints that the relationship may not go all that smoothly, saying “whether they’re together or not in this movie, that will remain to be seen.”

Commenting on the dynamics between the two, JJ Abrams remarks, “it’s a challenge I think to be a modern, strong-willed intelligent woman dating a Vulcan who is, above all, logical and rational and so while he may be reliable and loyal and intelligent and true, he’s also someone for whom logic might get in the way of other things, and so many things are tested in this movie; so is their relationship.”

Saldaña adds that “there’s a lot of humanity that she provides to his character in this film, it warms it up more and there’s a lot of precision that Spock provides to Uhura. Kirk and I are in the same position where we learn the same lessons from Spock and we’re also able to teach him the same lessons, which is “loosen up man, loosen up a little bit!””

DR. CAROL MARCUS
Played by Alice Eve

New to the team is English actress Alice Eve as Dr Carol Marcus. The character previously appeared in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, played by Bibi Besch. In that film, she was among the Federation’s foremost molecular biologists, working on the ambitious Project Genesis that was central to the film’s plot. Marcus was romantically involved with Kirk and bore his son, David.

“Kirk loves his blonde women,” Chris Pine observes.  However, it seems that not too much emphasis will be placed on the potential romance. “There’s much flirting and there’s definitely a connection there but what I would say is that this film is so big and the plot moves so fast and there’s such action to be had that there’s not really much time to explore (the relationship)”. According to him, Carol Marcus is “a hyper-intelligent doctor and it’s her scientific knowledge that really plays a key role in this film.”

Carol’s father Admiral Marcus will also appear in the film, played by Peter Weller (aka RoboCop).

JJ ABRAMS
The Director

Jeffrey Jacob Abrams returns to the director’s chair after resurrecting the Star Trek franchise with the 2009 film. Pretty much cementing his status as modern day geek god, he’ll also be taking on Star Wars Episode VII, which might force fans from both sides of the galaxy to sit around campfire and begrudgingly sing “Kumbaya”. It remains to be seen if it’s too much power for one Hollywood super-nerd – but odds are JJ will do just fine. After all, he has admitted to growing up a Star Wars fan, not a Star Trek one.

Speaking about reconciling the scope of the sequel with the smaller character dynamics, Abrams says “this movie is infinitely bigger than anything I’ve been involved (with), this feels like everything I’ve done before times ten, rolled into one. The biggest challenge in doing this movie was figuring out how to do it because the script was so big, but the thing that made me want to do it was how intimate it was, it was a simultaneously huge thing in scope and then a small thing in terms of emotionality and interactions and relationships.”

The director is not about to get on a high horse – far from it. “The original series…is still the platform we stand on and the shadow we stand under. We are respectful of it and see it as something to aspire to. But at the same time we don’t just want to be a great impersonation of what has gone before.” He also hints that audiences should expect the unexpected. “In the first film we find our own separate offshoot timeline and anything can happen here without ever affecting that (the Prime Universe), so the fate of these characters is much more in flux.”
While some Trek purists may turn up their noses at the reboot, there is no denying that under Abrams’ guidance, the franchise has become a lot more accessible to the public at large, and it can be said that he’s made Star Trek cool again. Maybe the needs of the many do outweigh the needs of the few after all.

Also returning are Karl Urban as Dr Leonard “Bones” McCoy, Simon Pegg as chief engineer Montgomery “Scotty” Scott, John Cho as helmsman Hikaru Sulu, Anton Yelchin as Ensign Pavel Chekov and Bruce Greenwood as former Captain of the Enterprise, Christopher Pike.

And yes, we know the Holodeck originated with Star Trek: The Next Generation.