It's extremely baffling to me that so-called Star Trek purists have a growing disdain for this film. I don't get it. For my money, this film has everything a Star Trek film should have: Thoughtful allegory, great acting, two good villains, visually stunning action scenes, and most importantly, the theme of friendship amidst the core characters of the crew. Just to be safe I went and saw it on the big screen recently, during the double-header re-release Paramount Pictures put on over the holiday weekend. Sure enough, I still love this movie. It has replay value, and more importantly there truly is some substance at the core of its entertainment value. And with that, I'm going to dive into five reasons as to why I feel this is a great Star Trek film....
5. Allegorical Message
I'm beginning to think a lot of the film's critics, namely the die-hard Trekkie's who voiced displeasure with the movie, completely let the allegorical message of this film go right over the top of their heads. I can only assume the intense action scenes, coupled with a fairly relentless pace is what caused some to miss the overall theme of Into Darkness. Specifically, it was a message about the dangers of a once peaceful organization losing its way, and getting sucked into the war mongering methodology that much of our own humanity has fallen prey to. The concepts of using fear to scare people into changing for the worse is alive and well in storyline. Honestly, can that message be any more relevant than right now, let alone the past 50 years of certain countries essentially doing everything they can to ignite a war with another government? Additionally, if you look at many of the allegorical messages of the Original Series, and Gene Roddenberry's vision, this film absolutely remains faithful to the old show in that regard. An important example is Peter Weller's character, Admiral Marcus, who mirrors some powerful figures in world history who used cover-ups and blatant lies to advance an agenda that only served to facilitate war and empire building versus peaceful co-existence with other organizations across the globe. So the film's allegorical message is not only a powerful one, but it's as faithful to Star Trek's core as you can get for a feature length film! Let's take a look at another reason Star Trek Into Darkness is a great Star Trek film...