I’m going to start a bit slow here because there is a lot to my writing this piece. Specifically, the fact that I’m going to not just spoil the plot, I’m going to explain why this is a film that a new generation of Star Trek fans will look back on in 30 years when the series is rebooted again and go “The reboot sucks! Into Darkness was better!”

I never liked alternate history fiction, I always frowned and said “But that’s not how it happened.” Then I read Turtledove and Cherie Priest and oooooo now I get it, it’s a crazy new sandbox to play in for interesting ideas.

That’s what JJ Abrams new Trek universe is. As I explained in my non-spoiler review (WARNING THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO AVOID SPOILERS) this new universe has been pretty well and thoroughly messed with. Star Trek Into Darkness is very much like the second episode in the first season of a new show. It is not at all like the 12th film in a continuing series of movies. This is more Daniel Craig’s Casino Royale than it is Superman Returns.

That *should* be enough padding. SPOILERTOWN!

Cumberbatch is Khan, the movie is a retelling of Space Seed with elements of Wrath of Khan. Someone actually screams “KHAAAAAAAAAANNNNN!”

I’ll let you freak out, roll your eyes, or clap your hands for a minute before I deep dive into why it’s awesome.

As a Trek nerd I was seriously upset at the rumors that Benedict Cumberbatch was going to play Khan. It just seemed a dumb choice for the second movie out of the gate. The universe has been rebooted! Why would Khan be angry at Kirk? I would have rather they done a third or fourth movie where maybe Khan and Kirk would have been friends! The first second Star Trek film was about Khan (yeah I know just run with it)!

So let’s dive in! I’m going to discuss the plot linearly time wise, not in the way the movie lays out its reveals.

Shortly after the events of the first reboot film some members of Starfleet begin to realize two things: Klingons and Romulans are threats, and Starfleet is ill prepared to deal with them. The Federation authorizes certain Starfleet members to conduct special programs designed to bolster the military knowledge and capability of the Federation.

This results in Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller, loving every minute of his screen time) conducting an historical research project that uncovers the existence of the SS Botany Bay, filled with genetically engineered military experts. Marcus locates the Botany Bay, thaws out their leader, then proceeds to hold the rest of his followers hostage in cryosleep, threatening to kill them if Khan does not assist Starfleet in developing more warlike ships or improve their military strategy.

Khan proceeds to do this, joining a secret group in London called Section 31 and his work ends up resulting in a new and special class of ship. Along the way he sees the inadequacy and hypocrisy of what StarFleet is doing by claiming to be an agency of exploration while preparing secretly for pre-emptive war. Not to mention the singularly ungentlemanly act of holding his followers hostage. Thusly, Khan plots his revenge against both the specific target of his ire, Admiral Marcus, as well as Starfleet itself. Khan wants this special ship for his own, and he’s got some plans for his future.

(Everything I wrote above is revealed by the fine team over at Exposition Incorporated later in the movie when our villains monologue to Kirk, very little of any of it is shown.)

Ok right off the bat this is a brilliant (and I might say the only way) to introduce Khan back into this universe. It took enormous balls to make the second Star Trek reboot movie about the most iconic character in the series’ history, done so perfectly before.

Wrath of Khan hangs over the entire Star Trek movie franchise like some type of curse. The first film, the original Star Trek The Motion Picture, has been seen by fandom as good, but ponderous. It’s slow and tackles deep philosophical ideas. Wrath of Khan was a bit of a thrill ride where our illustrious crew faced their age, a confoundingly evil adversary, nearly lost the ship, rose to the occasion, and made sacrifices that for once were painful and immediate. The Kirk in Wrath of Khan was a man who had fought for everything he had and had never really failed. He cheated death, tricked his way out of it and patted himself on the back for his own ingenuity. We got our hearts broken, saw real danger in the threat to the crew, and saw two decades of story building get turned on its head. Star Trek suddenly was grown up. Star Trek 2 broke the mold.

Unfortunately it was so impactful that every single film following it except Star Trek IV tried to recapture that lightning in a bottle. “Cold open that has little to do with the ensuing plot? Check!” “Strong Villain with unique personality traits to play foil to the Captain? Check!” “Beat up the Enterprise to the point it’s either destroyed or semi-functional to create dramatic tension? Check!”

Oh don’t get me wrong, it didn’t result in every Star Trek film being bad or anything. First Contact and others were quite good. But they all tried to be Wrath of Khan, and none of them really came close. All of them except Star Trek IV, and more about that in a minute.

Back to spoilers!

The movie opens with a seven or eight minute sequence that could be its very own Star Trek episode. It’s thrilling, fun, and like Wrath of Khan’s cold open it establishes some items that are going to get explored later. Kirk and McCoy, in disguise, have been trying to distract the natives of a planet where their entire population is under threat from a super Volcano. Spock, Uhura, and Sulu are aboard a shuttle attempting to stop the detonation of the Volcano. Kirk and McCoy rejoin the Enterprise which is hidden underwater so the Prime Directive is observed while they try and save the natives.

(A moment here about the people complaining about the ship being under water or in atmosphere: in the original Star Trek series Enterprise could enter atmosphere. See the episode Tomorrow is Yesterday. Now shush.)

Spock gets trapped in the volcano before he can detonate a device to stop it, leading to a quandary for Kirk: disobey the Prime Directive and let the natives see the Enterprise so he can save Spock? Or let Spock die?

This continues the ultimate resolution of the plotline established in the prequel comic Countdown Into Darkness (written by the films creators) where Kirk learns a valuable lesson about letting the Prime Directive doom a civilization. He makes the call his friend is more important than whatever small damage might be incurred to a society doomed anyway and in an amazing sequence where I may or may not have shouted “THERE’S MY GIRL” when my favorite Enterprise arose from the water we get the first nod to Wrath of Khan when Spock protests saying “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

This open was pitch perfect Star Trek. Those who complain this reboot is too action oriented and not big on ideas *really* need to go back and watch all 79 episodes of the original show. The ideas are here. The Prime Directive is explained, albeit a tad breathlessly, the moral choice and character building moment of deciding to rescue Spock is pure Trek, and the consequences of Kirk’s actions to those natives (which I won’t spoil here because honestly it’s priceless and you have to see it) shows that actions have consequences. Very few original series episodes were “City on the Edge of Forever”, a lot of them were “Spock’s Brain”.

Anyways, alas our Captain Kirk has not yet had enough time with Spock to understand he cannot lie. Kirk’s report omits the rescue and violation of the Prime Directive. Spock’s, does not. It is at this point that Kirk is relieved of his command.

Yup, relieved of his command, in a scene conducted by Admiral Pike that squarely addresses the folks whose main complaint about the reboot is how Kirk went from cadet to Captain so fast. Kirk is angry and hurt by Spock’s actions, but at the same time Chris Pine plays him with a wonderful “I guess I should have realized things were going too good” sense of resolution that finally he had screwed up and got caught for it.

I want to go back here to Wrath of Khan’s Kirk. Kirk struggled to achieve what he was losing in Wrath of Khan. This Kirk is still too young, still too brash, and has been given far more than he’s earned. It’s an important character beat. He’s upset at Spock, but Pine does a wonderfully nuanced job of making me think he’s mad at himself too.

So Kirk gets drunk.

Meanwhile, in another movie, a London family is mourning the impending death of their young daughter. A father and mother visit her in the hospital, all hope seems lost. Benedict Cumberkhan appears, saying his name is “John Harrison” promising to save her. He’s escaped the confines of Admiral Marcus. Using the advanced properties of his genetically enhanced bioengineered blood he cures the girl but at a price, he convinced the father to smuggle a bomb into the area for Starfleet in which he works. Ostensibly a library, but in reality it’s Section 31. His plan? Enact revenge on Starfleet and Marcus and rescue his crew.

Admiral Pike decides to make Kirk his first officer and go back to command of the Enterprise, where Kirk can learn what it really means to lead a crew. BeneKhan Cumberharrison’s terrorism in London calls all the smart Admirals and Captains and their first officers into a room at StarFleet headquarters. During the ensuing discussion Kirk doubts the official explanation of a library generating such a high level response and Harrison JohnberKhan appears to try and kill all of StarFleet high command before being foiled by Kirk from killing them all. He escapes.

Admiral Marcus lives, Admiral Pike dies.

Here’s where the movie nailed me, in two key moments. The first is that Khan doesn’t care a whit about Kirk or his ship or anything having to do with him. He’s after Marcus and the Admiralty. The second is when Spock mind melds with Admiral Pike at his moment of death. This was a real Spock moment for Zach Quinto. The depth of the expressions on his face while maintaining a stoic Spock exterior was moving. Here he was, connected to his former Captain, experiencing his last moments. Spock recounts them later in a scene that again, you really have to see to get the full impact. It was a wonderful touchback to “The Menagerie” episode of the original Trek, where Spock risked his career for Pike. This universe is told in movies so it doesn’t have time for that, we get this instead. And it worked. I got that these two men had a bond such that if Pike had not died, later on Spock would have risked his career simply to help the man if he needed it.

Back to the movie!

Khanadict Bumberjohn has escaped to the Klingon homeworld, and Admiral Marcus monologues to Kirk that the Klingons are a dangerous warlike race and John “Harrisonkhan Cumberbatch” Harrison could start a war no one’s ready for. Kirk is enraged at the death of Pike and wants revenge. Kirk is reinstated to Captain of the Enterprise to go kill Harrison. Not apprehend him, kill him. Kirk is incensed enough, manipulated enough by Marcus, and has bent the rules enough in the past to know sometimes you gotta take action.

This is where the movie surprised me. It’s now a Kirk revenge story. A totally believable one. Marcus has issued the Enterprise several of a new class of torpedo, Kirk’s to blanket the uninhabited area of the Klingon homeworld with them, killing Harrison who is hiding there. Few of the crew agree with this course of action, Scotty in fact resigns because no one will let him examine the torpedoes and the integrity of the ship is his responsibility.

Scotty’s resignation felt forced to me. I liked it, it was a stand for principle. Simon Pegg you can see throughout the film is having the time of his life playing this character. But the scene felt a bit rushed, and I was looking for nods to what Scotty went through in Wrath of Khan. I was hoping they would have tied his resignation more to his pride of the ship not his job as engineer. Things shake out ok later though. Scotty gets drunk and calls Kirk “Captain perfect hair”.

So we go to the Klingon homeworld, in which it looks like Praxis has already been destroyed so that’s interesting. Kirk decides after significant and well written angst to go down and capture Harrison instead of killing him or attacking the Klingon homeworld which might cause a war.

I liked the Kirk revenge story moment. Turning a Khan story on its ear and having Kirk be the blinded-by-revenge guy was great. But as the movie played along I was concerned by it. I didn’t like this Kirk. I didn’t want to root for him. The moment where he does the right thing and changes his tactics to bring Harrison in felt right and was a good emotional beat in the film.

The next 15 minutes on the Klingon homeworld are pretty much action filler and a reveal of the new Trek Klingons. They didn’t deviate too much from the familiar and I liked them quite a bit.  KhaniKhan HarrisonKhan shows up and rescues the crew from capture by the Klingons and Kirk gets his revenge moment when KhanKhan “John Harrison” Khan, calmly, surrenders after being informed the number of those special torpedoes the Enterprise has. Kirk beats the crap out of him while Khanikan Skywalkerson just accepts it, not resisting. Also, somewhat telling, our villain doesn’t appear to be in the least bit physically damaged by Kirk’s assault.

Come to find out those special torpedoes? They aren’t really all that special. They’re just super shielded oversized regular torpedoes. Admiral Marcus placed a member of Khan’s crew inside each one, still frozen in stasis, as an ultimate solution to the problem of Khan’s escape and ambitions, and having 72 super geniuses around.

This is all revealed by Khanison Harrison John in the Enterprise brig. He reveals his origins and real name (Thank goodness now I can just call him Khan when he’s in the movie plot now) and the location of a secret construction area near Jupiter where his special class of ship is being built. Kirk contacts Scotty to ask him to go check it out. And Scotty finds something interesting.

Here, plotwise, is where things got really explanatory, and the action slowed down ponderously. Kirk notified StarFleet that he would be taking Khan to the nearest Starbase under custody. Suddenly, Admiral Marcus shows up in Khan’s specially designed ship, the USS Vengeance. It’s an entirely new class, approximately three times the size of the Enterprise but with 1/8th the crew because Khan’s contribution was the design of automating for war versus all the things an exploratory ship has to staff for.

Admiral Marcus monologues his backstory and tells Kirk to hand over Khan and the torpedoes. When Kirk tactfully refuses then warps away (almost reaching Earth), Marcus reveals he’s perfectly fine with destroying the Enterprise. It is at this point that Marcus’ daughter, Carol Marcus (the same character from Wrath of Khan)—

Wait did I not tell you about her? Oh sorry it must have slipped my mind.

And thus is the problem of the entire second act of this film. It’s basically an exposition/reveal vehicle. The Carol Marcus character gets incredibly short shrift in this movie, serving solely as a momentary tense moment with Spock near the end of the first act (Spock, and we, are puzzled as to why there are two science officers aboard) and to maybe maybe not kinda sorta but not really flirt with Kirk. She’s not there for tension because just at the very moment you think she suddenly has a purpose in telling her father he cannot destroy the Enterprise because she is aboard, he beams her off the Enterprise onto the Vengeance.

It’s the first moment in the movie I felt let down. The character pretty much can be removed from the film without impacting a whole bunch at all. It’s one of the first moments when you can see the filmmakers went a bridge too far with the Wrath of Khan references or moments. There’s two more moments in that regard that happen as well. But the Carol Marcus issue is a movie-long problem. She’s not interesting as written (although wonderfully played by Alice Eve even if the accent is a bit odd) and given rather mundane plot duties. I hope she fares better in Trek 3.

Marcus’ USS Vengeance then Wrath of Khans the ever loving snot out of the Enterprise in a fun warp speed battle.

There’s a touching moment where, his ship disabled and about to be destroyed, Kirk pleads for the lives of his crew, pointing out they should not have to pay for his mistake in trusting Marcus’ original motives instead of his true ones, which are to kill Khan, his followers, and anyone who knows the origin of his new supership. Kirk offers himself, Khan, and the torpedoes. Marcus however points out he’s just tying up loose ends, and Enterprise was at the Klingon homeworld in an act of war. Blowing them up is just good housekeeping.

I loved this moment. This felt very much like the culmination of a Wrath of Khan beat, where Kirk would ingeniously outsmart Marcus with a command code or something and escape. Instead he turns to his crew, and he says simply “I’m sorry.”

It’s a wonderful powerful moment. I sat there for a second going “What?” The entire lift of “Federation ship against Federation ship” from Wrath of Khan was building up to this moment where a StarFleet Captain might pull some backdoor command to beat the other ship!

But this isn’t Wrath of Khan. And Kirk’s the inexperienced one here, facing a careered StarFleet Admiral. It was good stuff, the writers here confounded expectations.

It’s at this point the most interesting and unexpected moment in the film happens. They do a callback to Star Trek 3: The Search for Spock.  Scotty has stowed away on the Vengeance and disables this advanced new ship that would make the Enterprise obsolete much like he disabled the Excelsior. If the writers didn’t high five themselves when they wrote that moment I don’t want to work in that writer’s room. With all the Wrath of Khan notes in this film they had the guts to pull in a Star Trek 3 note. They wisely didn’t have Pegg quote any lines from Search for Spock but his panicked glee at what he had done was, again, pitch perfect. He’s having the most fun in this movie, and you can tell every time he’s on the screen.

There’s only one person who can help Kirk, and he’s in the Enterprise brig. Kirk has to use Khan to get aboard the ship Khan helped design before they regain power and destroy the Enterprise. So Khan and Kirk conduct a space jump that forces each one to trust the other in order to succeed. This was a moment I really enjoyed, this was the alternate universe portion of Khan that really shined. Khan doesn’t hate Kirk. In fact he couldn’t care less about Kirk. He’s after one thing: Marcus and taking over the Vengeance. While all this is going on Spock does something that perhaps you get the sense he might not have ever done before, he contacts Spock Prime to learn of Khan.

The moment between Spock and Spock Prime is really awkward because it seems like Spock Prime has some really arbitrary rules for revealing information about the universe he knows, and the information he imparts isn’t particularly damning since he provides no context or backup. Has Spock Prime told anyone about V’Ger? The Borg? The whale probe from Star Trek IV? All of these things are still out there and is he just going to hope that what happened to Vulcan in this new universe won’t happen to Earth because “People must live their own destinies?” I get why the moment was there. But it was awkward and rushed.

Khan wants the Vengeance and Marcus. Needless to say both things happen, Khan betrays Kirk and kills Admiral Marcus to take control of the Vengeance. Once done he negotiates with Spock for the beaming over of his crew for the return of Scotty, Kirk, and Carol Marcus. Having learned about Khan in the other universe, Spock agrees, but keeps Khan’s crew and only beams over the torpedoes, which are then detonated to disable the Vengeance, but not before it gets some shots off and both ships spiral down to Earth below.

I liked the outsmarting of Khan to only beam over the torpedoes and not his crew, and Kirk’s surprise of how Spock thought of that. It’s the beginning of their relationship that will one day result in “Admiral, if we go by the book, hours would seem like days” level understanding of each other.

But, sadly, that wont help an Enterprise in a death spiral towards Earth. The warp core is misaligned, the chamber itself is irradiated. Only a manual realignment can give the ship power to arrest the dive.

In Wrath of Khan Kirk had never been forced into a position to make a sacrifice. He’d cheated death. The entire opening of the film had established how jokingly he took the concept of death. Then, at the end of the film a character had to die to save him and everyone else. It was a decision that didn’t occur to Kirk at all on the bridge at the time, he never thought to run down and sacrifice himself. Death, and at some level sacrifice, had become jaded concepts to him. He wallowed in self pity about his age, but reveled in his outsmarting Khan.

This new universe Kirk had finally been shown what it meant to sacrifice. Through the deaths of Pike, the near death of Spock, his offer to sacrifice himself for his crew to Marcus, all this things build up to the moment when he realizes what he needs to do, what his father did. Do what he can to protect his crew.

And so Kirk goes into the chamber, he realigns the warp core, he has a final moment separated by glass with Spock, and he dies.

The beats here are perfection. I was surprised at how my repeated million times viewing of Spock’s death in Wrath of Khan impacted me while seeing that final scene with Kirk in Into Darkness. The Enterprise is saved, but at great cost.

A brief note here, Spock screams “KHAAAAANNN!” echoing Kirk in Wrath of Khan. It’s an incredibly tone deaf thing to do on the writers’ part. It wasn’t needed and only invites needless comparisons to Wrath of Khan’s iconic moments when what they were striving for was telling another side of that story.

When Spock dies in Wrath of Khan, Kirk slumps against the glass and mumbles “no.” Rather than scream Khan’s name, if they wanted to show Spock lose his emotional control he could have screamed “NO!” (note, not Darth Vader like “NOOOOOOOOOO” just shout out angrily “NO!”)

That would have been better. Spock screaming Khan’s name was a bit too cute to work. Another Wrath of Khan bridge too far.

Ah but remember Khan’s superblood! Why can’t they use the 72 existing crewmembers who would be super likely to have the same blood? Well that would remove the ultimate irony of, by saving Kirk with Khan’s blood, Kirk would always have a little bit of Khan in him.

The Vengeance crashes to Earth, Khan survives, and Uhura saves Spock and helps take down Benedict Khan Harrison Khan (last one I promise). Kirk is revived, Khan put back into stasis and a year later a rechristened (and yet again redesigned, the nacelles and rear of the dish have been changed) Enterprise launches on it’s five year mission.

To say making this second film about Khan is cheeky does a disservice to the word cheeky. There’s a million ways this film could have failed. Very few in which it could succeed.

But succeed it did. I’ve not mentioned the incredible special effects and look of the film. Michael Giacchino’s score is terrific. At times the film tries too hard, but I never faulted it for trying to begin with. I loved it and I can’t wait to see it again.

This film isn’t Wrath of Khan, but Wrath of Khan still hangs heavy over the Star Trek movieverse. I think what they were trying to do here is put Khan to bed. It’s done, they did it. No more conjecture about when Khan’s coming back. Of course Khan being in stasis sets up a sequel down the road but I doubt it’s worth going there. There are plenty of other stories to tell.

The Star Trek movie widely claimed by non-trek nerds as the best was Star Trek IV and is loved by Trek fans as well. It’s the only Trek movie to have a villain who doesn’t talk, doesn’t beat the crap out of the Enterprise, doesn’t have a lot of the tropes that the Star Trek The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek Voyager shows managed to avoid that every movie since Wrath of Khan does. The Voyage Home was about combating a threat not a villain. Along the way it played with some big humanistic ideas like ecology, extinction, spiritualism (in Spock’s resurrection) etc.

I would love for Trek 3 to go down that path.

Actually what I would *really* like is Abrams to forego a Trek 3, work on Star Wars, and executive produce a new Trek TV show. 13 episode seasons broken up like Walking Dead or Breaking Bad so as not to tie the actors up too much.

I can only wish.

So I’ve seen Star Trek Into Darkness, can’t reveal how or why. But wanted to share some thoughts. There are no spoilers here. This review assumes you have not even seen any trailers or posters. Read ahead with confidence I won’t give away anything. This is my thoughts and feelings about the finished product.

The writing crew of JJ Abrams rebooted Star Trek universe have a hard row to hoe. On the one hand, they rebooted the Star Trek universe pretty completely.

The destruction of the USS Kelvin by Nero 35 years before the 1960’s original timeline in the 2009 film sparked a renewed war with the Romulans (that’s where the fleet is when Vulcan is destroyed, leaving Captain Pike with a mere 8 ship armada and Star Fleet cadets to respond to Vulcan’s distress call). Starfleet ships are now larger and heavily armed, hence the new Enterprise being much larger than the original 1701 from the 60’s TV show. The Klingons lost a significant amount of their own fleet when Nero broke out of Rura Penthe and reclaimed the Narada. James Kirk joins Starfleet much later than in the original show’s timeline, and during a time of crisis is given a Captainship due to performance under battle. (Those that claim a Federation Captain would never be promoted from cadet should study the career of General George Armstrong Custer, promoted to General at the age of 23 during the American Civil War and whose performance in the face of crisis earned him a spot as one of the commanders witnessing the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox. Granted, he didn’t end well, but I think we have more faith in James Kirk. Point being, in times of war, yeah stuff like that happens. No spoilers, but Star Trek Into Darkness addresses that complaint somewhat.)

JJ Abrams’ Star Trek universe is in a time of dark conflict. Where the original show’s 5 year exploration mission took place in a time of tense but stable cold war, this new universe might forego five year exploratory science missions because it takes place in an unstable cold war.

Everything I have said so far is canon either explained in the original film or the prequel comic written by the film’s authors. If you didn’t know any of the above, Star Trek Into Darkness doesn’t reveal it, it builds on it.

On the other hand the writers have to deal with Star Trek fans and their accumulated knowledge of decades of Trekdom and canon and their “get off my lawn” expectations thereof. I admit to being in that camp before seeing the film.

When the second Star Trek motion picture was released in 1982 it had approximately two decades of storyline and character development to draw from. Kirk was in his late 40’s. His history with Spock and his crew spanned 20 years. There were 79 hour long episodes and a previous motion picture to draw from. There was a lot of there there. 82 hours to be exact vs…2 for this new universe.

Abrams’ second Star Trek film is very much like the second episode in the first season of an entirely new Star Trek. Not only has the universe been redefined, but the characters are still raw, still like gears grinding together until they mesh more fluidly. This is a baby universe compared to original Trek filmdom.

And it’s awesome. I loved every minute of it. Mainly because I viewed it as a second episode in a completely new series. I went in realizing this is what 1960’s Star Trek fans must have felt like when Star Trek: The Next Generation came out. Some turned it off forever and (thankfully) the vast majority loved it.

Like its predecessor this Star Trek film is not without its flaws. There’s two points in the film where it simply goes a bridge too far in planting its own flag while paying homage to the original timeline. If you love Star Trek in all its forms you will know both moments when you see them.

But in the words of George Takei, “oh my”.  What a ride. This is perhaps the most fun I have had at a movie since The Avengers.

The tagline for the teaser posters for Star Trek 5: The Final Frontier was “This is why movie theaters should have seatbelts.” I think we all remember how that turned out. This movie, that would be a perfect tagline.

Star Trek Into Darkness feels *exactly* like what an original series episode would be like if they just had today’s technology. It’s funny, sad, smartly written, endearing, and even when it tries too hard you want to hug it for even bothering to try at all. There’s one or two moments of actual straight-out-of-the-1960’s show campiness. And when I say that you might crinkle your brow and go “That’s not a good thing”, I will tell you when you see the moments you will laugh like the entire audience did when I saw it. It’s pitch perfect.

This is Trek alive. Don’t get me wrong, I love the big ideas and the deep thinks that TNG and DS9 could bring. But this Trek is hot blooded. The score by the returning Abrams favorite Michael Giacchino is at times stirring and (when it needs to be) heartbreaking.

This is Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek writ large, Horatio Hornblower to the Stars. The film tackles post 9/11 ideas, it questions the concept of loyalty, it applies the very practical point of an enemy of your enemy having to be your friend. It looks great, there’s a fun visual pun on lens flares, and the opening sequence could be an episode all its own.

If you love Star Trek, I mean if you really really love Star Trek, walk into this as if you had the chance to write an episode of the first season of the 1960’s show knowing what you know now about the social messages you want to send.

And if you’re my age, and grew up with Star Trek The Motion Picture, Wrath of Khan, Search for Spock, etc and TNG as your formative Star Trek experiences, I will be shocked if you don’t tear up at least once at how seriously Abrams and crew take their subject matter. I had to say to myself at least once, “God dammit don’t cry.”

Dear JJ Abrams, let’s stop making movies and get me a Star Trek TV show (I’ll settle for 12 episode seasons) ASAP. I love this crew, I love these actors. I love the ship. Take it to the next level.

One very very minor spoiler, well not a spoiler just something to look out for. There’s a Doohan on board the Enterprise. And when I saw him I grinned from ear to ear. Oh and also pay close attention to the ship at the end.

If you have not seen it, watch it now (weirdly embed is broken for me, so you will have to see it at the Youtube link)

I’ve been thinking about this topic for a while and needed a good ad to showcase. Ad agencies and Marketing people pay close attention: I won’t skip an ad if you intrigue and entertain me while showcasing your brand or product. I will skip it in a heartbeat if you don’t, because technology has now made it easy for me to do so. The Audi ad hits and hits big.

Here’s why this ad hits on all levels:

1. It’s entertaining.

It takes two paragons of geek culture and puts them in an intriguing rivalry. Shatner/Pine might have worked, but the Spock on Spock action is far funnier because their characters are unemotional. Add to it Nimoy’s Ballad of Bilbo reference and Star Trek 2 nod, and the fact he wins in the end and you have a narrative I didn’t want to end even though I knew full well it was a commercial. This ad was a million times better than the faux Ferris Bueller ad.

2. It’s effective.

In between the dialogue the ad effectively shows compare/contrast between two major brands and models of car. And it doesn’t take a cheap shot either, in the scene where Quinto calls Nimoy I fully expected Nimoy to pick up a cell phone, something as a Mercedes man I know he would not have to do. But the ad doesn’t take a cheap shot and shows the Mercedes has wireless voice activated call answer. It lends a lot of weight to the other scenes comparing the two cars.

3. It’s clever.

While all the shots of the Audi are stylized to make it look more futuristic, the ad carefully and shrewdly evokes JJ Abrams’ Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness. Did you notice almost every shot with the Audi has a lens flare in it? Clever stuff.

I abhor ads, unless they are clever. I want this type of advertising. In a world of DVR’s and ad skipping, you have to get good, or go home. Now Audi has me intrigued. That’s effective.

I remember right off the bat sitting in my chair in front of my computer and I did something I don’t think I had ever done before: I exited the game and restarted it solely to watch the opening again. The Homeworld saga (I include its mission pack Cataclysm as well as Homeworld 2 to be one storyline much like Halo) is easily in my top five game experiences of all time. It sits comfortably alongside Half Life, Halo, Mass Effect or Bioshock as richly created alternate realities that, when you weren’t floored by the gameplay, you were gobsmacked by the story.

Which brings me to today’s news that Gearbox software has acquired the rights to the franchise. Homeworld will be coming back.

Right off the bat there was Internet skepticism, due to the recent efforts by Gearbox on Duke Nukem Forever and Aliens: Colonial Marines. I played the former, I have not gotten a chance to play the latter between writing and looking for work. DNF’s problem was that it was a perfect sequel to Duke Nukem 3d, had it been released in 2002. Story, and game mechanics, have moved on dramatically from that time. The game that was released was fine for a Duke game, but bringing back a tone and humor from 1997 fifteen years later is tough to pull off when the basis of the tone is around the humor. I remember Leisure Suit Larry fondly, but there’s no way that game is going to work today.

Why wouldn’t the same problem apply to the game mechanics and story of Homeworld, a game from 1999? I’ll answer in two parts.

The gameplay of the original game was ahead of its time, and is seen mimicked today in EVE Online and Sins of a Solar Empire. Designers of modern 3d space tactic games routinely cite Homeworld as their inspiration. The game itself broke stylistic convention with use of wonderful ambient or orchestral music before Halo perfected the formula. The spaceship designs draw obvious influence from famed science fiction artists Chris Foss and Peter Elson. They even contracted with the rock band Yes to make an original song for the game!

Second, the universe laid down in the story is rich and deep. Prophecies are described and fulfilled. Alien races are interesting and their politics are intricate. The first time you encounter the Bentusi is one of my favorite moments in any video game ever. You play the role of a race who never knew they had been subjugated thousands of years before, and that your world is actually not your home. And even that that plotline is resolved you pivot to play along the (reformed) antagonist in an add-on set fifteen years later. Homeworld 2 advances the story to a galactic one, and at the conclusion it is revealed we have entered the age of Karan S’Jet, the scientist who melded her body to the mothership and the Pride of Hiigara. The prophecy of the Sajuuk is revealed to be completely different than what was expected, and the ending is satisfying and makes you want more of this universe.

It’s safe to say that outside of triumvirate universes of Star Trek, Star Wars, and Halo, I know more about the Homeworld universe as presented through the games than just about any other sci fi video game, even Mass Effect.

I’m to understand that this was a personal mission on the part of Brian Martel, the Chief Creative Officer of Gearbox, to secure this for Gearbox. I want to see a whole new generation get introduced to the Homeworld story and universe on iOS, PC, Android, Mac, whatever. I want to see comics, web episodes, and all the things Gearbox has been doing with Borderlands.

I want to see prequel games about the Taiidan Empire, or the original war with the Hiigarans, or even the formation of the Taiidan Republic just before Cataclysm.

More than anything, I want to see a Homeworld 3. Will the Bentusi return? Do the events at the end of Homeworld 2 bode well or ill for the Hiigarans? And what of the Galactic Council? What if the Sajuuk-Khar is attacked or destroyed, what does that do to the hyperspace gates?

There’s so much there. I can’t wait to see what they do with it.

So color me more than pleased.

Gosh, I’ve been sick, sicker than I have been in 15 years. Food poisoning from some bad vegetables. Better now, but bad enough I’m having to miss my grandmother’s funeral because I could not fly. Better now, but wow was that horrible. Better now, and also worse.

I’m coming to grips with the fact there has never been a time I looked at the home I live in when Buddy wasn’t alive. No wall, no ceiling, no anything in this house we’ve made our home for ten years that I didn’t see through these eyes without him being around somewhere.  But he wasn’t ripped from us. He gave us the gift of his life long after we had any reason to expect it.

We’ve been given permission to spread his ashes at his favorite places on earth. (By the way, here’s one of them: Chevy Chase Beach Cabins. A place we go to vacation and heal, and they deserve your business.)

I would have liked my Mee Maw to see Discovery Bay from the cabins too, but that’s not to be.

We have pink flowers for Buddy, a gift from close friends. We had yellow for Remy. My grandmother is gone and thanks to incredible bad luck I cannot be there to say goodbye.

These are things in various lenses everyone deals with. For certain there are worse lenses, and better. We wish we could change them. I mean, certainly I wish I could, not just for me but for anyone who runs into that buzz-saw of circumstance that provokes sorrow. It is what it is.

I don’t know what makes me think of all this, I’ve written parts of it already.

I suppose it’s the fact I’m no longer sad, at least for now. There’s these pink flowers on the table that smell so good, and I can keep a meal down. We’re dog sitting an 8 month old border collie who has infused our routine with peeing to mark his territory, energy, life.

I try to remind myself I live a first world life, all of it every bit of it. I remember to try and make things better for others.

So! Be excellent to each other for starters. I’ll try and help with the rest.

Let me state right off the bat, Bioshock Infinite is a must play game. It’s worth your money and you should play it. No, really I’m dead serious. Stop reading this and go play it then come back so we can talk about it. I’ll wait.

Second point, this post is going to be more spoilery than that sandwich the creepy eye transplant doctor fooled Tom Cruise into eating in Minority Report.

I mean it, I am going to spoil the living hell out of Bioshock Infinite if you keep reading.

Ok?

Ok.

I’m serious though.

Ok.

Endings are tough. As a writer they are incredibly daunting. Sometimes you get lucky and you come up with an ending before you even have a story. That’s the best scenario from a work perspective because you already understand how things turn out. Working backwards is just a matter of giving your ending some justice.

Then sometimes you come up with an ending in the middle of the story, which is harder but also a bit of a relief.

The absolute worst is starting off without an ending. Because holy shit, where is this all going?

And yet the best stories, at least in my mind, are the latter ones. Sometimes when you start off with an ending, you often can’t do it justice because in the working backwards you concentrate too much on that wonderful ending.

Bioshock Infinite has, in my opinion, a bad ending. One that it feels like someone thought was a wonderful ending.

Now, I don’t mean that the ending is cheap, or that it didn’t involve a lot of thought, or that it’s a cop out or anything.

If anything, it’s just a bridge too far. The story builds up to it backwards in a way.

Let me explain, and here is where I will TOTALLY GO INTO SPOILERS.

During the third act of the game it’s beating you over the head that all this time you are Father Comstock. They even mix Dewitt’s voice into Comstock’s voice at a couple of intervals. The Voxaphone extras are equally blunt. As I was playing, I actually said out loud once “Ok I get it I’m Comstock. Jesus, stop already.”

Then at the end, Elizabeth takes your hand and shows you the lighthouses. I was a bit annoyed because at this point I was waiting for her to just go “SURPRISE YOU’RE COMSTOCK!”

But that didn’t happen. That didn’t happen at all. Instead I spent the next few minutes gobsmacked as the game walked me through the alternate worlds and the fact that Elizabeth was my daughter, a daughter I had sold to Comstock years ago to erase my debt. What debt? Well it could have been my debt of guilt over Dewitt’s participation at Wounded Knee, or a financial debt, or perhaps even a dimensional debt required to balance the alternate universes.

I was floored, here I thought it was just going to be this cheap twist ending that I was the bad guy the whole time (which didn’t make sense that Dewitt was Comstock given his guilt over Wounded Knee but ok whatever) and instead I was offered this amazing tantalizing ending that would leave me with philosophical questions and something to ponder. What debt was I paying? The emotional payoff of Elizabeth losing her finger was deep and satisfying. The idea of the amorphous debt, the twins’ manipulations, the baptism metaphor, Dewitt killing Comstock in a rage, and the thrilling final battle sequence before the game’s end reveal left me reeling and thinking I had just played one of the best games ever written.

They had head faked me into thinking I was Comstock with the obvious voice tricks and dialogue and the baptism metaphor etc etc. I mentally congratulated the writers in their ingenuity at giving me a much more satisfying ending than just making me the villain all along and fooling me into thinking they were taking the easy way out.

Then the game continued and NOPE! SUPER DOUBLE TWIST YOU WERE COMSTOCK ALL ALONG!

I don’t think I’ve ever been more let down in a game in a long time in just a few minutes, which is a testament by the way to how good the vast vast majority of the game is.

It just makes no sense that Dewitt is Comstock, even in the multi-universe sense. It’s deeply unsatisfying. Guilt ridden Dewitt over his massacre of innocent Indians at Wounded Knee is, in an alternate universe (or maybe even the same one), racist Hitler-esque Comstock? Comstock who in at least one universe is sterile yet still Elizabeth’s father? Or bounces around dimensions made him sterile but Dewitt isn’t, so what’s the point of that except to make you think you’re not Comstock? I….there’s so much…what? Yes the baptism created a different person yet the drowning at the end…makes Comstock? Or not?

I’ve now played the ending two or three times over again and tried to make sense of it and sorry, it doesn’t work. And what’s worse is that it’s constructed in such a way that it’s somehow proud of its insights. And what are we to make of the coda at the end of the game’s credits? Dewitt is alive? Elizabeth is in the crib? I…what?

Dewitt being Comstock robs the game of some emotion and, I think, is a bridge too far. The coda at the end of the game’s credits compounds the issue.

I hate the ending of the movie Wall-E. It’s one of the best films I think I have ever seen but its ending is a cop out. When Wall-E suddenly for no reason regains his memory it negates the emotional impact of his previous sacrifice for Eve. What would have been a better ending? He loses his memory and then during the credits sequence (which features the story of humanity reclaiming the Earth), we see Wall-E slowly becoming who he was again over time and with Eve’s help. Wall-E is probably the best example I have of a movie that faltered fatally in its ending, for the payoff of not wanting to make the audience work too much. It’s almost like Bioshock Infinite failed in the same way, because the writers felt like the dimensions, the lighthouses, and how Elizabeth lost her finger just wasn’t enough twist.

I’m no expert on ending stories. I have taken that tone here I know. But at the end sequence of Bioshock Infinite when the multiple versions of Elizabeth kill Dewitt through the baptism metaphor I rolled my eyes and put my controller down.

So let me stop and remind you that if you made it this far and yet have not played the game GO PLAY IT. I might hate the ending, but I love the care that went into the game and it is, above all else, fun and beautiful and a piece of art that deserves support.

But having talked to a number of friends who have played it and were blown away by the ending I just wanted to express I think it would have been cleaner and more satisfying to stick solely with the Elizabeth emotional payoff. It feels very much that since Bioshock had a wonderful twist, they needed to one up themselves. Like a third movie from M. Night Shyamalan.

I’m saying all this only because I care about it. For sure if you hate the endings of my own stories please feel free to tell me how I don’t actually get endings at all. 

Oh and one more time, yeah buy this game. I do want to see more like it.

I heard Buddy panting this morning, then realized what I was hearing was silence and my mind was inserting his ever present breathing. We never did know why, but his entire life he panted loudly almost all the time, smiling that Golden grin. Just a thing he did, just a weird part of who he was.

You make slow adjustments towards the end then suddenly after the end there’s no reason for them anymore all at once. Rochelle is taking a nap upstairs in our bed, something she’s not done in more than a month. She had to nap next to him on the couch downstairs. Adia is curled up next to her right now. We slept together last night for the first time in weeks, because before at all times someone had to be downstairs. I was too used to sleeping with one ear open, and was startled awake a couple of times last night to nothing at all, and Rochelle calmed me down.

There’s a pile of medication to return Monday to the vet. Treats specifically designed for taking pills will be put away. No longer will feeding time also involve an ancillary call out to all the dogs for “Medicine time!” because some dogs got jealous that one was getting “extra food.” and everyone had to have treats.

Things wind back a bit, the new normal we had adjusted to becomes the old normal.

It’s quiet. And please allow me this trope: it’s too quiet.

Children outside start shouting and playing, Eowyn stirs and growls and jumps into the front window saying the dog version of “YOU DAMN KIDS, GET OFF OF MY LAWN.” She’s two. And I remember how he used to bark in protection all the time. After he stopped doing that, I suddenly remember, is when we started to refer to him as “old man.”

If I hold Eowyn close, and breath in deeply I noticed something today for the first time.

Her fur smells like stale popcorn. Like him.

Thus life moves on. This crazy Internet thing keeps sending us messages of love and support. Neither myself or Rochelle can make sense of a world where that wasn’t possible because it now means so much to us.  I make some mental plans to take Eowyn and Adia walking or to the park, something we couldn’t do recently. There was a hockey game on today, I didn’t watch it. My team won. That was nice.

It was raining this morning, in a stormy sort of way. Lots of wind and noise. Now it’s calm and the sun struggles to peek through but it was friend zoned by Seattle long ago and won’t break out of there until July with promises of warmth and happiness. I need to find work, there’s bills to pay.

That, as they say, is that. And I suppose I could have it another way. I suppose I could.

But nope, as Eowyn starts barking again, this is fine.

I was walking in the Snoqualmie river valley, by myself with Buddy. The day was a bit dreary, overcast but at least it wasn’t raining. Buddy was wearing his "Help ‘em up!" harness which he actually looked quite high tech in. It would be one of the last times we would actually need the harness for a long while, because he had completely recovered from the stroke that had paralyzed his entire left side two months prior. He was just shy of twelve years old.

The park we visit is a private one called Camp Charlie, and besides Port Townsend is Buddy’s favorite place on earth. It was just me and him, the exercise part of his recovery regimen. In the distance was another dog owner, a man walking with a cane. If Buddy ever saw another person, he had to go investigate and say hello, and to my surprise given his recent problems that day was no different. His gait had changed somewhat after the stroke and although he could run fine, it was more a rocking horse type of motion than his normal full gallop. When I reached the man he was petting a happy Buddy and remarked on his yellow harness, saying he looked handsome in it.

"He had a stroke two months ago. His entire left side was paralyzed so we have the harness just in case while he recovers." I explained.

"You’re kidding," the man said looking after Buddy romping away into the field with his own dog, "I would have never believed it."

That was Buddy. He was a rescue, from a family who simply had no idea what they were getting into when they brought him into their lives.

I was standing outside a steakhouse in Whistler when Rochelle called me from Dallas. She’d seen a flyer of a beautiful Golden Retriever at the laundry mat with the notation "Buddy needs a home." She took it off the wall. "I think he’d be great for your Mom and Ted!" I’ll never know if, secretly, she really wanted him for us all along. At the time we had a cocker mix named Illusion, a cat named Isabeau, and our first dog together: a golden named Hennessey. We were in love with the breed and have only owned goldens ever since. So we took him in with the intent to give him to my parents who at the time were, as they say, in between dogs. They didn’t want the responsibility at the moment and we knew our fallback position was simply to adopt him.

He was a bit chubby when we got him, over 80 pounds, and we took him and his favorite chew rope to the car. Oh he was a rambunctious boy. From the moment he joined our family he asserted himself. He surprised us with his ingenuity, Isabeau would climb up the stairs and taunt him. Buddy had never known stairs, he had no idea what to do with them but he was smart enough to figure out they ended, somehow, above the ceiling of our kitchen. Isabeau would run up to the top of the stairs and hiss, and he would run around the corner into the kitchen one floor below her, stare at the ceiling, and bark. The expression on his face was always "What the…I should be looking at the cat’s ass from down here!"

He was a master of counter surfing, until we attached a cooked chicken breast to a coffee can full of pennies. He never jumped up on the counter again.

We learned early on not to name a dog a common name. Call out "Sport" or "Buddy" at a dog park and see how many dogs you get. But he was our Buddy. And there was no way we were going to change his name.

He flew on an airplane. He swam in the pacific ocean. He loved the Pacific Northwest climate. Except the rain. When it was raining he hated the feeling of the drops hitting his head and he would stand outside, miserably flinching with each drop that hit his head. Oh and while he liked to run around in it, he hated going to the bathroom in the snow. I once had to shovel out a "poop spot" for him because every time he squatted in more than an inch of snow it would touch his butt and he would run away startled.

He scouted the bluffs of discovery bay and the Snoqualmie river valley. He chased an otter once a quarter mile out to sea. I loved everything about him so much I wrote a story about a version of him that lived on forever.

He loved his long gone companions Illusion, Isabeau and Hennessy and Remington Martin. He was our last tie to our life before we moved to Washington state from Texas. He survived a major stroke and recovered to give us another year and a half with him being happy and the king of the house.

He was a good dog. He was our Buddy.

Today I am heartbroken and crushed and all the things you feel when you have to say goodbye to your companion.

And yet I have that most wonderful of sad feelings that when he needed us we were there for him with as much selfless love as he had for us. We guarded against suffering. We ensured his happiness. We gave him brothers and sisters to play with when we were not home. Buddy was not taken from us too early. Just shy of 13 years is great for a Golden Retriever, especially one who had a major stroke a year and a half ago and couldn’t even stand on his own!

In the end, we are our animal’s stewards. They are our companions and we owe them a debt far greater than what they give us. It is our job to give them a life free from pain, full of food, love and happiness.

His eyes were bright. His fur smelled like stale popcorn and warm life.

I will be thankful for him forever, and miss him the rest of my days. Here he is, just after recovering from that stroke, enjoying the beach.

Like a boss.

[EDIT: Rochelle and I are ok, and thank everyone so much for their thoughts and well wishes. We were prepared for this for a while, and we have Adia and her niece Eowyn to comfort us. If you'd like to help us out, please consider buying my work like my comedy album A Geekster's Paradise, or perhaps buying the science fiction short story in part inspired by Buddy called Buddy's Eye.]

Iain Banks has terminal cancer and has less than a year to live. Roger Ebert posted about how he wanted to take a step back to deal with his health then died two days later. My beloved male golden Buddy is sick and we might have to put him down soon.

I am so fortunate to have known my grandparents, members of the greatest generation. All my grandfathers were involved in WW2. All my grandmothers too in their own way both official and not. All the males have died. Mee Maw was the first of the mothers.

Mee Maw, such a silly name for a matron of a large and wondrous family. A name filled with love but somehow diminishing of the scope of her contribution and influence. A child’s name that somehow over time can’t be replaced. I can’t think of her as Joan Toulouse.

She was my Mee Maw.

She made an astounding oyster stuffing that to this day remains a secret from me, and divinity that I would look forward to the entire year as a child. Fluffy white, nutty tan, and a chocolate that was rich and deeply satisfying. I remember the toy drawer in their house, hot wheels cars and puzzle games. Their dog Molly. Family arguments. The sound of her voice above it all. Mee Maw.

Like all humans she wasn’t flawless. No one is. If I be speaker of the dead in this case I can name plenty some grievances I had against her treatment of my mother when my father left us.

And yet I remember her cradling the head of my Paw Paw, her husband, in her hands after he died during a heart surgery.

“He was good.” she said in that moment as her tears spilled onto his face, and I was beside myself at seeing my first dead body and it being my grandfather.

“He was ornery. But good.”

He was ornery. And he was good. She had feared the worst during that terrible moment and it had come true and she simply held his lifeless cheek, yellowed by a death only minutes passed, and spoke the truth. Can I say now grievances are important? They are not.

And so mortality roils, as it does for everyone at some point. We’re here, then not. Those we love and cherish, flaws and all, are here. Then not. Sometimes we know when it can happen and have some time, sometimes not.

I hugged Buddy tonight, and searched for affordable flights to Dallas for the funeral.

I got to see her this October at my brother’s wedding and she was alert and we had a good talk.

I wish, I dearly wish, I had gotten that astoundingly good oyster dressing recipe. I would have liked to have made it for her.

I would KILL to write for Telltale. I’ve already written about why I think their take on The Walking Dead was game of the year for 2012 and the writing talent they have already is incredible. I can maybe think of only one or two other places (Bungie or 343 etc) where I would want to be a part of creating stories.

They wanted screenwriting samples which is perfectly reasonable. However their disclaimer (which I’m sure is industry standard) indemnified them should they ever create something completely identical to my writing samples. Meaning if I gave them something original but unpublished, it was essentially theirs in perpetuity.

Again, this is in a lot of ways a completely industry standard thing for writers. The companies you want to write for have to know you can write. In return should they ever in the history of ever make something slightly similar to what you provide them as a sample, if they don’t hire you they certainly don’t want to get sued. That’s not unreasonable. But it does represent a dilemma for writers who have a published body of work but not in the specific format they are demanding.

My problem, as a writer, was with their particular use of the word “Identical” in their writing sample agreement. To wit from the actual public job application site:

“By applying for the position and submitting any writing sample (the “Sample”) to Telltale, Inc. (“Telltale”), you understand and acknowledge that Telltale is constantly developing in-house ideas, formats, stories, concepts, artwork and the like (collectively, “Creative Elements”), and that many such Creative Elements developed by Telltale now or in the future may be similar to or identical to those contained in your Sample.  You agree that Telltale will not be held liable for any such similarities and that Telltale’s use or development of Creative Elements similar to or identical with any material or elements (including Creative Elements) contained in the Sample shall not obligate Telltale to you in any manner.  In connection with your agreement to these terms, you expressly waive any claims you may have against Telltale arising from or relating to your submission of the Sample.”

Emphasis mine.  Again perfectly standard disclaimer. But I have several unpublished scripts and things in development that I would not want to have put under this disclaimer, but that represent my best work. What to do?

Well it’s been a month, and I’ve not heard a peep from them so I assume it didn’t work out. So I thought I would share with you how I handled the situation. I created two short screenplays that both addressed what I thought was a good representation of my abilities, without the content being something that would ever be a thing that they would make a game out of. Perhaps it was too clever by half, but I sure had fun writing it. I thought readers and other writers might want to see my solution to the “identical” problem. Please to enjoy, The TellTale Tales.

Part 1 (PDF)

Part 2 (PDF)