Scotland Into Darkness, and other thoughts on Star Wars

“(Star Trek) always felt like a silly, campy thing. I remember appreciating it, but feeling like I didn’t get it. I felt it didn’t give me a way in. There was a captain, there was this first officer, they were talking a lot about adventures and not having them as much as I would’ve liked. Maybe I wasn’t smart enough”

“"I had no idea there had been 10 movies! I still haven't seen them all. I didn't want to become a student of Star Trek. I felt that was actually one of the few advantages I had. I was trying to make a movie, not trying to make a Trek movie." ”  

 - J.J. Abrams - just as well he isn't making any Star Trek films, right?

I had some other thoughts on it.  I could do the Energiser Bunny on this with my criticisms, but I'll just keep it to this post. If I think of anything else, I'll just add it here, and not clutter up the rest of the blog.

CONDITION GREEN

OUTSIDE THE SPOILER ZONE

It's Not All Doom And Gloom

I did say I enjoyed the film, after all. However, there are some aspects that I think aren't just a good idea for a Star Wars film, but for a Star Trek one, should we get one after 2002's disastrous Star Trek: Nemesis. Here are some:

• The inclusion of aliens that aren't just "humans with bumpy foreheads." The latter was unfortunately unavoidable given time and budget constraints, even up to the early days of Deep Space Nine, but in this day and age it's much easier to present truly alien lifeforms. Star Trek: The Animated Series didn't have these constraints, which is where we get such gems as the ancient aliens of "Beyond the Farthest Star," the Kzinti, the Vendorians, the Phylosians, the Skorr, Kukulkan, and my personal favourites, the Lactrans. Some, such as the Edosians and Caitians, were crew members on the Enterprise. This film has a good number of beasties in its cantina sequence, and as part of the crew. Star Trek has a long, proud history of non-humanoid lifeforms, so it would be nice to see a film that has more of them.
• The variety of space. Space is frequently depicted as a starry field, with the occasional planet, star, or nebula in the background. This film goes even further, and provides a dizzying array of gorgeous visuals: nebulae, stellar nurseries, fragmented moons, debris fields, you name it. My benchmark for this sort of thing is the Homeworld series of video games, which depict an incredibly colourful, appealing and varied view of space.
• Humour and panache. While I love Star Wars, it's undeniable that it could sometimes suffer a bit of the old awkwardness and humour failure. This film may have many faults, but I think the humour succeeds alright: a Star Trek film wouldn't go amiss with the tightness of some of the film's best fun moments, though it should strive not to be quite as flippant.

The Parts That Don't Matter

I can't tell you how much I hate this shot.

 "Was there any reason for this? Any at all?"

See, contrary to what some people might think, there's a way of doing sexy without objectifying. A woman who is sufficiently confident to display her body because she wants to is sexy without being objectifying: a woman who is caught in undress against her will and self-consciously asks the viewer to stop ogling her is not. Considering the explicit point of this shot is that a male character is actively ogling while a female character is getting changed, it's hard to argue that. There are ways of visualising sexy women in various states of undress without either infringing on their sense of privacy, reducing them to a tension relief aid, or dehumanising them to the point where it doesn't matter if they asked you not to look, you're gonna look, 'cause you're a mahn, dammit.

When William Ware Theiss did sexy costumes, that was daring and dangerous for the '60s, and, you know, he was a costume master. All the most revealing costumes were as spectacular for their engineering and design as they were for their models. Even Leia's slave outfit, one of the most obviously "inspired by classic pulp SF" elements of Return of the Jedi and most certainly not something Leia chose to wear, was at least beautifully designed. This? What in blazes is so daring and unusual about a woman in her underwear in this day and age? You cannot even appreciate the artistry and costume, such as it is, removing the one thing that put Theiss' work above pure voyeurism.

Imagine a remake of Return of the Jedi, but instead of putting Leia in the famous outfit, they just reduced her to her underwear - obviously from Venusian's Secret catalogue, rather than any practical or unflattering garments - yet still had the gall to play it as "sexy." It would be tawdry, cheap and insulting, right? That's the problem I have with this film's attempts at "sexiness": not that attempts at sexiness exist, but the context in which they happen.  Similarly, there are more than a few shots where the camera seems to be focusing deliberately on the female characters' bodies, even in situations where that is completely unwarranted and unnecessary (Oohoorah gets this the worst, though at least she doesn't strip to her underwear like in the previous film - evidently Alice Eve's character met the quota for "see a female character in her underwear as the male lead ogles uninvited" which is apparently essential nowadays.)

YELLOW ALERT

RETURNING THROUGH THE SPOILER ZONE

Memory Leak

Pyc and Curc meet up in a bar again, obviously reminding the audience of how the two originally met in the first film. Then, for the three people who for some reason went into a sequel without seeing the first one's benefit, they spend a good twenty seconds talking about that time they originally met. I cannot believe the screenwriters/director/producers thought the audience was that thick.

But even more baffling to me is that many of the problems of the script are the opposite: throwing in things that would mean something for people who would've heard of them, but not everyone else. Case in point, Doctor Makhoi remembers the time he delivered a brood of what I assume are some sort of alien creature, but only people who know what that word means will get anything from it. It's almost as if they're referencing other films, but none of the names seem familiar to me as a Star Wars fan (though a lot of them are uncannily similar to various things I've seen on Star Trek). Yet isn't this supposed to appeal to a wider audience, not just die-hards? How can you have so much of the plot hinge on things that only die-hards will know, and yet deliberately set out to make things accessible for a broader audience?  Schrodinger's Cake: it is had, and it is eaten, according to the screenwriters.

Alas, Poor Praxis

The destruction of Praxis at the beginning of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is a pivotal and vital moment in the history of the Star Trek Universe. The destruction of a planet's moon is naturally a big deal, and would normally be a major part of the narrative, especially when the planet in question has been the enemy of the heroes for decades if not centuries. Star Trek VI took this clear analogue to Chernobyl and its role in the end of the Cold War, and explored how its characters reacted - particularly Kirk, who was strangely threatened and anxious about this brave new world of peace with the Klingons. In Star Wars Into Darkness, we get a moon of the Klyngaun homeworld - apparently enemies of the Federation - blown to smithereens as a backdrop detail in a narrative about an evil renegade attempting to start a war with the Klyngauns - though how the Klyngaun Empire could possibly be in any shape to even consider war with their greatest foe when their moon has exploded is beyond me. It's just as well this is in Star Wars, because if a Star Trek film showed an exploded moon of Qo'noS earlier than 2293 and used it in a context that was completely the opposite as in Star Trek VI, then that'd be rather an insult to one of the best Star Trek films of them all.

And speaking of which, isn't it interesting that for an empire which apparently threatens the heroes' civilization, their home planet appears to be practically deserted? Not just the "uninhabited province," but Curc and his little crew can fly to the Empire Homeworld and not encounter a single enemy ship on the journey - and even act surprised when a paltry three patrol ships do encounter, and by that time they were already in the planet's atmosphere!

Does Not Compute

There's a droid serving on the bridge of the Enterprise, a very convincing humanoid aside from the mechanical voice: he's more reminiscent of Lobot from The Empire Strikes Back than, say, Data. Just as well this is in Star Wars and not Star Trek, otherwise the idea of diluting the impact of the first android in Starfleet and one of the most beloved characters in The Next Generation would be - well, I'd be rather offended, actually.

Trek Wars

While the film has an awful lot of references to Star Trek, I get the distinct feeling that the creators... well, they don't actually like Star Trek. An awful lot of the references are the sort that, if put into an actual Star Trek film, would be less Easter eggs than mean-spirited snipes. The first time we see Curc after the prologue, he's involved in a threesome with two cat-lady aliens; an obvious allusion to Kirk's extremely overstated reputation as a lady's man. It's irritating, because Kirk was a gentleman who actually treated women respectfully: he didn't ogle, grope or engage in voyeurism like a drunken college student. Curc is less Jim Kirk and more Otter Stratton. There are tons of these - Spauk is the recipient of a number of jokes referring to his ears, Makhoi gets McCoy's famous "I'm a doctor" line, and a lot of the aliens & planets are like caricatures of Star Trek stalwarts. Even the Enterprise, which in Star Trek is as beloved a member of the crew as any of the humans & aliens, is given a terrible case of the glass jaw (how can a ship that can withstand the pressure of an ocean and the heat of an exploding volcano be in danger of burning up in the atmosphere?). You'd almost think Abrams, Orci, Kurtzman and Lindelof had something against Star Trek, deliberately making it look stupid by taking elements the public generally recognises and twisting them into parody.

Scotland Into Darkness

.3 SECONDS OF NATIONALIST RAAAAGE

(For the purposes of this part, I'm going to slip into a weird alternate universe where this film actually is meant to be Star Trek, even though such an idea is highly absurd).

The above shot only appears for a fraction of the second in the final film, but if there's one thing being a Trekkie has taught me, it's that the tiniest little thing, on screen even for a second, can be nitpicked to death by a suitably motivated fan.

Hey, I'm a suitably motivated fan! Let's nitpick!

What you're seeing, of course, is a scene in Abram's alternate future London.* Now, according to the brass, this universe occupies the same set of "trousers of time" as the original series: the difference is that the time-travel incursion of the previous film has changed the legs. The original series was the right leg, and we're now in the left. However, since the incursion happens in the future, that means Star Trek history up to that point (the "waist" of the trousers) is - or should be - exactly the same. Ergo, while something that happens in 2374 may not happen in this timeline, something that happened in 2149 happened in both timelines - as it preceded the point of divergence.

Sooo, the presence of the Union Flag in a Star Trek film has connotations I'm positive the filmmakers did not remotely intend. Did Abrams, Orci, Kurtzman et al even know that Scotland was holding the most important referendum in the country's centuries-long history in just over one year's time, and that the mere act of including the Union Flag is effectively making a prediction that is somewhat uncertain? I doubt they were that far thinking - and if they were, I wouldn't blame them for going with retaining the famous Union Flag simply for convenience. After all, everyone's familiar with the Union Flag, it's an easy way to tell everyone "hey, we're in London, so even though we've used subtitles twice in the last five minutes to indicate we're in London maybe these flags will make sure you know we're in London, right?"

But "little" things like state flags carry a lot of meaning, and no property has more evidence of this than Star Trek.  Case in point, here's the American Flag from the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "The Royale":

"There are only 52 stars on that flag!"
"I'll be deep in the cold, cold ground before I recognize Samoa!"

A close look reveals that this flag has two extra stars on it, confirmed in dialogue as Data notes this version of the flag was in use between 2033 and 2079. So, in Roddenberry's Star Trek, the number of US states increased by two: whether that meant - for example - Puerto Rico and Guam became states, other states split, or otherwise is not noted, but the mere fact that something as iconic as Old Glory has transformed in the future shows a basic truism - that even the familiar is subject to change. And considering the US flag had 49 stars as recently as 1959, and has changed - since its iteration as the Star-Spangled Banner - over two dozen times in two centuries, it seems natural that it would change in the decades to come.

The Union Flag, too, has undergone changes in its four centuries, albeit far less often than the Colonies': the only major change was the addition of St. Patrick's Flag to incorporate Ireland in 1801. Certainly there isn't as much scope for changes, unless they finally acknowledge the presence of Wales and incorporate St. David's Flag or the red dragon. That is, of course, if the union still exists by next year.

You could argue the same rules as Soviet-era science fiction apply: how in blazes were they meant to know that the Soviet Union would be dissolved by the end of the 20th Century? Works written at the height of the Cold War had no idea of where this race would end, much less the direction they would take. The difference, of course, is that most stories which posit a perpetuated Soviet Union into the future weren't written in 1989, when the writing was clearly on the wall for the possibility of that future. Scottish Independence is certainly a controversial issue in Scotland, but to make such a seemingly blanket statement as portraying an upside-down Union Flag of 1801 is pretty precise.

Remember the 52 star Old Glory? There's a rather ominous clue in the dates Data gives. 2033 was the age of the New United Nations, and the earth was still in the grip of World War III - 2079, twenty-five years after the war ended, was the time of the Post-Atomic Horror so vividly recreated by Q in his trial of humanity. Since World War III was sufficient to wipe most nations from the map (600 million dead, even) to the point where a United Earth government was only established almost a full century after the end, it must've been a true cataclysm. Then again, if a telecommunications company could survive such a disaster into the 23rd century, perhaps the UK could.

And he piled upon the Nokia product placement the sum of all the rage and hate felt by his whole race. If his chest had been a cannon, he would have shot his heart upon it.

Only there's a problem: there's a distinct absence of any mention of the UK in Star Trek. There are references to Great Britain and its constituent countries (except poor old Wales, whose national dish is the only evidence the country even existed in Trek's timeline), but in all five series and ten pre-Abrams films, not a single one ever mentions the United Kingdom. That's a bit odd, to say the least. Could it be that, in the original timeline at least, the United Kingdom no longer exists?

Spock mentions John Burke, chief astronomer at the Royal Academy of "Old Britain" in "The Trouble with Tribbles," who operated in the 2060s. If Old Britain refers to the United Kingdom, then presumably "Old Britain" ceased to exist in the 2060s according to Gene Roddenberry's timeline - though it's also possible Spock is referring to Britain in a geographical rather than political sense. This is corroborated by Bashir in "Our Man Bashir," where he specifically describes Great Britain as a nation state of the 20th Century, in the manner one would describe the Kalmar Union as "a nation state of the 15th Century." Of course, this could be a result of a misconception (Great Britain is not analogous to United Kingdom for the same reason North America is not analogous to the United States), but it's worth considering.

The other major British constituent is Northern Ireland, which presents another problem: it was confirmed to have unified in 2024 (a mere ten years, jings!) in what is possibly the most ill-advised dialogue in the history of Star Trek:

"Captain, I am finding it difficult to understand many aspects of Ansata conduct. Much of their behavioral norm would be defined by my program as unnecessary and unacceptable.

"And by my... "program" as well, Data."

"But, if that is so Captain, why are their methods so often successful? I have been reviewing the history of armed rebellion, and it appears that terrorism is an effective way to promote political change"

"I have never subscribed to the idea that political power flows from the barrel of a gun."

"In most instances, you would be correct. Yet there are numerous examples when it was successful... the independence of the Mexican state from Spain, the Irish Unification of 2024, the Kenzie Rebellion..."

"Yes, I'm aware of them..."

"Then, would it be accurate to say that terrorism is acceptable, when all options for peaceful settlement have been foreclosed?"

"Data, we cannot condone violence."

"Even in response to violence?"

"These are questions that mankind has been struggling with since creation. I am afraid your confusion, Data... is only Human."

This episode wasn't shown in the UK for many years, for obvious reasons given the airdate. Since a certain subset of the US viewed the IRA's motivations - if not necessarily actions - sympathetically, it suggests that the terrorist acts which unified Ireland did so as an independent Ireland, rather than being part of the UK. But then, how to explain St. Patrick's flag? And what was that "Kenzie" rebellion in reference to - Kenzie's a Scottish name...

Of course, this is far from the first time Star Trek has slightly skewed reality: remember the great Eugenics Wars of the 1990s? Me neither - though perhaps that's what they want you to think. Similarly, it's strange that at least two ships launched from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan in 2123 and stardate 40291.7 include the USSR on their dedication plaques - unless, of course, the 22nd/24th Century USSR is a different acronym. Union of Soviet Space Researchers?

So we have a few possibilities as to why a building in London would be flying the Union Flag in 2259:

• The Scottish Referendum never took place, and never did in the 245 years between next year and the events of Star Trek Into Darkness.
• The Scottish people vote no, and either there is never another referendum, or there are, and they vote no again: a tactic the Puerto Ricans seem happy with, but not the vast majority of former British Empire nations.
• The Scottish people vote yes, but at some point in the future reform the union, either through economic disaster forcing their hand, or outright conquest as with Ireland
• The Scottish people vote yes, and retain independence up until World War III. In the aftermath, the traditional governments of Scotland and the rUK are destroyed, but in the spirit of working together, form a new, more equitable United Kingdom: this short-lived New UK may have been absorbed into the European Hegemony, one of the first steps in the road to a United Earth Government. As such, they keep the flag as a historical curiosity, rather than any official purpose.

Again, my political stripes are easy to find, so I won't comment on the political ramifications, merely the historical ones. Still, I note the remarkable lack of histrionics going on about this from the "cybernats," more of an amused curiosity than any outrage at the pro-Union bias of the American Media. Yet even so, the marriage of independence and unity of number 4 seems most fitting to the world of Star Trek.

Of course, back in the 1960s it seemed pretty reasonable to presume that the United Kingdom would remain united up until at least the 2060s - but again, it also seemed pretty reasonable to presume the USSR would last beyond the 1990s.

Though lest you think I'm the only one to bring the question of independence into this film's discussion, let me just say the Tele started it.

RED ALERT

APPROACHING HEART OF THE SPOILER ZONE

Incredible Technology That Nobody Bothers To Use Again

Example: Harussen has a super-duper magic transwarp transporter which can take him from Urth to Kronos (not to be confused with Earth and Qo'noS from Star Trek). The Star Fleet has been developing this technology based on Sgawdy's designs, used in the previous film. So instead of, say, using this exact technology, for which they have the coordinates to Harussen's destination, to transport - say - a whole army of troopers to take Harussen down, why even bother with the whole rigmarole of sending their finest spaceship to the Neutral Zone in the first place? Beam in, shoot Harussen, beam back. Or beam in some of those lovely torpedoes, detonate them, beam back. Heck, with this sort of technology you wouldn't need to have a war with the Klyngauns: if you can teleport to any point on their home planet from light years away, then there is nothing they can do to stop you! You wouldn't even need a big mega ship o' doom - heck, you wouldn't need any ships at all. Teleporters like this completely and utterly change the very nature of travel.

Not only that, but the entire idea of hunting down Harussen is ludicrous - for if he has access to transwarp teleportation, what makes the Admiral, Curc, or anyone think he wouldn't use it again? Sooloo's ultimatum may have seemed badass (and I wonder if it's a nod to the fact Star Trek's similarly-named Sulu gains his own command in the future, I cannot tell because IT'S SO INCREDIBLY SUBTLE) but it's completely worthless if Harussen could just beam off to another location. And if he couldn't actually do it, then his much-vaunted "superior intellect" was seriously lacking if he actually thought nobody would try following him after he left the coordinates - if he was, under the idea that the Admiral would use his own torpedoes to assassinate him, then that's quite the leap of faith in the Admiral's imbecility, as well as the entire rest of the Star Fleet as a result.

In fairness, Star Trek has a history of doing stuff like this, but at least they don't forget about it within the space of one movie.

Let's Not Get Paranoid, Guys

Earlier in the film, it's very strongly stated that the Federation are moving towards a more militaristic direction. The chaos of Volkun's destruction, the devastation of the Star Fleet, and the Empire's invasions have led to the development of much technology. 3D video recording devices, teleportation that spans light years, gargantuan battleships of doom. The Star Fleet is paranoid, a hive of conspiracies and secret dealings, a society where everything is recorded and observed in minute detail... that seems to have no security whatsoever.

Let's look at some examples of what can be done on a planet in this society:

• A man can inject his daughter with an unknown substance in a children's hospital, and not a single doctor, nurse, or camera catches him in the act
• A man can enter the depths of a secret operation centre - the one responsible for this paranoid militarisation in the first place - located under one of the most populous cities on the planet with an untraceable explosive
• A man acting alone can assault Star Fleet Headquarters in a small vehicle, and shoot at an emergency meeting of Star Fleet's best and brightest (which is being held in a skyscraper with glass windows as opposed to, say, deep underground under heavy shielding like what you get on modern earth) with impunity for five minutes before any support ships arrive despite being at Star Fleet Headquarters (the fact that said man didn't use torpedoes or an explosive - like the one he used earlier in the movie - being another matter)
• Another man acting alone can sneak into a top-secret hanger housing weapons of mass destruction by surreptitiously joining a convoy with no apparent difficulty, encountering no guards or checkpoints - evidently the top-secret hanger doesn't bother with checking who goes in and out of their top-secret installations
• That other man can infiltrate a top-secret warship and deactivate its weapon systems and remain completely undetected aboard despite the clear evidence of lifesign-detecting technology
• Two gigantic starships can do battle together, for half an hour, only minutes away from a heavily populated planet, with absolutely no assistance from the rest of the Star Fleet despite the explicit presence of a massive space station seen earlier in the film in orbit, as well as the clear establishment of other spaceships in the general area (does the admiral have such power that he can block communications and ensure not a single Star Fleet or even civilian ship sees what's happening in their own star system? Apparently not, as the Enterprise can apparently contact "New Volkan" without problem to talk to Old Spawc - so why, exactly, didn't they call every other Star Fleet ship for help against imminent annihilation?)
  
• Despite the major disaster which resulted in the death of 42 people in one of the most populous cities on the planet, apparently not a single citizen on the planet was aware of the massive space battle occurring until one of the ships starts crashing into the city Star Fleet headquarters

For a society that's apparently reeling from the threat of war and acts of violence, that has incredibly sophisticated tracking, observation and detection technology, it sure doesn't seem that fussed about safety.

It's A Kind of Magic

This film seems to be an interesting mirror to Kirk's journey in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and indeed the entire series. One of the main themes of TWoK was Kirk coming to terms with his age, and of death: the revelation that he cheated the Kobayashi Maru showed that he was determined to find a way, that he didn't believe in the no-win scenario. This was in opposition to Spock, for whom "the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one," which led him to his sacrifice.

If we imagine for a moment that Curc and Spawk are, indeed, Kirk and Spock (a stretch, I know, but let me go with it), it's almost as if the two switch roles. In this case, Spawk does what Curc would do by tricking Cahn, while Curc does what Spawk would do by sacrificing himself. It's a nice idea completely undermined by the fact that Curc lives by the end of the movie, and thus the consequences of his actions - a theme drummed in since the last film - are still never truly felt. The whole point of II is that in Kirk's constant "cheating" and subversion of situations, he never had to experience death - that's why Spock's death was so powerful, because Spock made the decision Kirk could not - would not. Kirk could have spent every last minute until Genesis' detonation agonising for a solution, anything other than sacrificing even one member of his crew, let alone his best friend and brother.

There isn't a lot of evidence for the Force in this Star Wars - I guess Luke really was the last of the Jedi, and the order died with him - but between Cahn's acrobatics and durability, I do think he's the closest we'd get to a Jedi/Sith Lord, and it's most evident in his blood. Simply, his blood is magic: not only does it have incredibly healing properties, those properties can be transferred across species. Not only that, but it actually has the capability of raising the dead! Makhoi was experimenting with a little dead furry creature - baby ewok? - and miraculously, the creature comes back to life!

So Cahn is not only a Jedi, his very blood is so infused with the Force that it can heal any lifeform and raise the dead. There's a theory going around some fringe theory of "Midichlorians" (some Star Wars fans attempt to "explain" the force using these microorganisms, but luckily such a weird idea hasn't made it into the films as of yet) which I was afraid they were going to use, but luckily they didn't. Indeed, there's a cheeky setup: when Curc fixes the Enterprise, the crew is relieved, one calling it a "miracle": Spawc says "there's no such thing" - setting up, of course, the very clear miracle of Cahn's magic blood bringing Curc back to life with the Force.

Again, it's a good thing this is Science Fantasy, because if the idea of such incredible blood was in a Science Fiction movie like Star Trek, then why on earth wouldn't it be one of the first things investigated by the agency that brought Cahn back? Blood that can raise the dead across multiple species is kind of a medical breakthrough, and you'd think that an organisation looking for ways to advance their culture and protect themselves from Imperial threats would do that. I mean, can you imagine if, in "Space Seed," Khan apparently had this magic blood, and McCoy either somehow missed it, or failed to see its applications? Could you imagine how that would completely warp Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, knowing that if McCoy had the wherewithal to discover Khan's blood's magical properties, he would know there was a way of saving Spock after he sacrificed himself? In the name of the wee man, that would be one of the most grievous insults of the intelligence I could possibly imagine.

Thank the wee man that isn't the case, though.

EDIT: An anonymous user over at The Spoony Experiment makes a laundry list of flaws in the film, albeit he seemed under the misapprehension that this was a Star Trek film.  Even so, it's worth a look.

Did they watch a different cut of the movie that made more sense then the one i saw in theaters? Lets start the list of things that dont make sense:

• why did they hide the starship underwater when as a starship they could just orbit the planet safetly out of sight?
• how is gettting closer to the volcanoe supposed to allow them beam spock through the electromagnetic field when they werent that far away to begin with?
• why does spock need to be in the volcanoe when the bomb has a timer on it and can resist the heat? 
• why did kirk need to steal the scroll when the aliens cant see spock or shuttle anyway? 
• why did we have a huge scene with this no name family we know nothing about just fr the sake of introducing khan when we could have gotten more to the point through dailouge exchange? 
• what the hell was in that ring? why did the have no moral problem killing hundreds of his friends and coworkers? 
• how the bejigger does the transwarp transporter work? 
• why cant superhuman khan aim since he cant seem to hit half the poeple in that room even when they are right in front of him? 
• where was starfleet security for this building and two guys with rifles arent security, how about some shuttles or copters or fighters? 
• how did khan approach a military command faciility undetected? 
• how can they send kirk back to the academy when he clearly graduated? 
• why make the second on the ship you just yanked from him? 
• why did khan bother attacking all those captains if he could easily trasnport away and starfleet couldnt stop him? 
• cant the dead captains be immediatly replaced by their seconds? 
• WHAT PURPOSE DID CAROL MARCUS HAVE IN THIS MOVIE OTHER THAN LOOKING SEXY? 
• Why does admiral marcus want war with the klingons, we know nothing about him so his motivations seem unclear as to why he went as far as he did? 
• How does warp drive work since you can apprently warp anywhere at anytime regardless of gravity, sensors, or even time itself since apparently the trip from earth to kronos can be done in mere hours? 
• how did the klingons not detect the enterprise at any point and send no ships to deal with them at any time in the movie? 
• where did the other two klingons ships go after khan destroyed the one? 
• why did the klingons bother talking to humans at all since they started shooting when they first found them anyay? 
• how did khan find them all? 
• why fight the humans on foot when you have ships with big guns? 
• why did khan store his people in torpedoes WITH ACTIVE WARHEADS THAT COULD EASILY DETONATE when they were sheilded so he couldve faked it? 
• how did a 300 year old superman who has only been awake for one year managed to completly catch up in knowledge and than surpass the greatest scientific minds of the day? 
• WHO THE HECK DESIGNED THE STARSHIP WITH CAVERNOUS FACTORY LIKE SECTIONS OF THE SHIP AND RALINGS THAT PEOPLE CAN EASILY FALL OFF OF? 
• How can the hull be damaged if they still have sheilds? If the admiral knew his ship had been boarded why didnt he seal off decks or seal the bridge or magnetically seal all bulkheads and doors? 
• HOW CAN EVERYONE IN THIS MOVIE KEEP GETTING HURT AND YET BARELY HAVE A SCRATCH ON THEM? 
• Why did the simoultanouse explosion of 72 torpedoes not instantly vaporize khan's ship? 
• Why did the enterprise mysteriously lose all power for no reason? 
• HOW DID NO ONE ON EARTH KNOW NOTHING WAS GOING AND NOT SEND A SINGLE TRANSMISSION OR SHIP TO DO ANYTHING? 
• HOW THE HELL DID THE ENTERPRISE GET PULLED INTO EARTH WHEN IT IS OUT BY THE FREAKING MOON? 
• HOW DID IT GET PULLED INTO EARTH PERIOD, EVEN IF IT WAS DRIFTING UNDER NO POWER IT WOULD TAKE DAYS TO REACH EARTH? RIPPING OFF A BETTER MOVIE BECAUSE YOU CANT WRITE YOUR OWN SCENES AND DAILOUGE IS THE DEFINITION OF LAZY. 
• how does kicking the warp core make sense as a vaible repair method? 
• Why does half of san fran act like nothing has happened after the bay area has been wiped out by a crashing starship? 
• why did the water not stop it? 
• why did both ships act like atmospheric friction isnt that big a deal? 
• how could they not beam up khan when the could been uhura onto a moving platform literally ten feet away from khan? 
• How the hell does the regernative blood thing work and how is anything but a cheap cop out. Im done now but dear god spoony, for someone who nitpicks and tears plots to hell like in your final fantasy stuff can you not see how terrible this film is?

*Evidently he looked at a popular science fiction franchise which was mostly about going off and having adventures in deep space and decided "you know what we need? Earth!"