2013 star trek into darkness

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Star Trek Into Darkness

• After the crew of the Enterprise find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction.
• When the USS Enterprise crew is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction. As our space heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew. — Paramount Pictures
• The latest mission of the USS Enterprise crew takes them into deep space to rescue an endangered species from an active volcano. However, once again Captain Kirk's reckless behavior compromises the mission and nearly gets him booted from Starfleet. Turning back to his mentor Admiral Pike, Kirk is demoted to an academy cadet and has to start over. However, when a ruthless warlord attacks Starfleet and shoots Admiral Pike in the process, Kirk takes command and takes the Enterprise deep into the neutral zone and the Klingon homeworld. Unknown to the crew, a Starfleet renegade is manipulating the Federation and the Klingons into a possible war. Kirk, Spock and the rest of the crew must stop the war before all hell breaks loose. And what awaits the crew of the USS Enterprise on their forthcoming five-year mission? — Blazer346
• The USS Enterprise is sent to Planet Nibiru to observe a pre-warp civilization. Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine) and Spock (Zachary Quinto) attempt to save the inhabitants from an imminent volcano eruption which would wipe out the civilization. When Spock's life is jeopardized, Kirk breaks the Prime Directive, exposing the Enterprise to the planet's civilization during Spock's rescue. A number of indigenous people begin to worship the ship as it leaves. Called back to Earth, Kirk is demoted to First Officer and Admiral Christopher Pike re-assumes command of the Enterprise. In London, Starfleet agent John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) bombs a secret "Section 31" installation. In San Francisco, Pike and his first officer attend an emergency meeting of high-ranking officers at Starfleet headquarters. The meeting is attacked by a gunship piloted by Harrison, who kills Pike. Kirk destroys the gunship, but Harrison flees. With Pike dead, Admiral Alexander Marcus authorizes Kirk to hunt down Harrison, who has used trans warp beaming and fled to the Klingon home world of Kronos. Since Kronos lies deep in Klingon territory and the Federation is on the brink of war with the Klingon Empire, the Enterprise is supplied with 72 long-range prototype photon torpedoes and is ordered to fire them at Harrison's location once he is found. Thinking that the torpedoes could be dangerous to the ship, Montgomery "Scotty" Scott refuses to take them aboard and tenders his resignation (which Kirk accepts), whereupon Pavel Chekov is promoted to Chief Engineer. Admiral Marcus' daughter, scientist Carol Marcus (Alice Eve), joins the crew under a false identity. Arriving at the Klingon home world, the Enterprise's warp core malfunctions. With repairs underway, Kirk, Spock and Uhura use a previously commandeered trader ship to reach Kronos. After being detected by Klingon patrol ships, the three are forced to land. Despite Uhura's attempts to negotiate, the Klingons prepare to kill the trio. Harrison wipes out the Klingons in a show of superhuman strength and confronts the landing party, but surrenders after learning the precise number of photon torpedoes aimed at him. Returning to the Enterprise, Harrison reveals his real identity: Khan Noonien Singh, a genetically augmented superhuman, who has been in Cryo sleep for 300 years after his unsuccessful war to have his superhuman comrades rule the Earth. He advises Kirk to examine the 72 prototype torpedoes and also tells him a set of spatial coordinates. Kirk orders Leonard McCoy to examine the torpedoes, and contacts Scotty on Earth to check the coordinates. The torpedoes are found to each contain a genetically engineered human in Cryo sleep - the remaining members of Khan's colleagues. Khan explains that Admiral Marcus awakened him to use his superior intellect and savagery to develop advanced weapons for a war with the Klingons, keeping his colleagues as hostages. He also says that now Marcus wants to kill Khan to erase every trace of his association with a known war criminal. Kirk realizes that the Enterprise's warp core had been sabotaged on Admiral Marcus' orders, making the covert operation to kill Khan a one-way ticket. Scotty arrives at the coordinates and finds a secret Starfleet shipyard, which he infiltrates. The Enterprise's warp core is repaired, but the ship is soon confronted by an unregistered Federation battleship, the USS Vengeance - a massive vessel built for combat which dwarfs the Enterprise. Admiral Marcus reveals himself as the commander of the Vengeance, demanding Kirk hand over Khan. Kirk refuses, and the Enterprise warps toward Earth, to have Khan stand trial. In Earth's orbit, the Enterprise is attacked by the Vengeance. With the Enterprise severely damaged, Kirk offers to hand over Khan and the 72 bodies in Cryo sleep in exchange for the lives of his crew. Marcus refuses, beams his daughter to the Vengeance, and orders the destruction of the Enterprise-when the Vengeance suddenly suffers a complete power outage, caused by Scotty who had boarded the ship at the secret shipyard. As the Enterprise weapons are too damaged to continue the fight and knowing that Khan was the designer of the Vengeance, Kirk allies himself with Khan and boards the ship. They reunite with Scotty and take the bridge. Meanwhile, Spock contacts Spock Prime to learn of Khan's history and how to defeat him. Khan betrays Kirk and takes control of the Vengeance, killing Admiral Marcus. Khan negotiates with Spock, beaming Kirk and his boarding party back to the Enterprise in exchange for the 72 Cryo torpedoes. Khan plans to destroy the Enterprise, but Spock reveals that real - and armed - torpedoes were beamed to the Vengeance, keeping the Cryo pods on the Enterprise. The torpedoes incapacitate the Vengeance and anger Khan, who believes that his 72 colleagues have been killed. Both ships start descending towards Earth's surface. At the cost of his life, Kirk re-aligns the warp core, enabling the crew to regain control of the Enterprise. The Vengeance crashes into downtown San Francisco but does not kill Khan. Khan tries to escape in the chaos but is pursued by Spock. McCoy discovers that Khan's blood may reanimate Kirk and Uhura prevents Spock from killing Khan, capturing him instead. In the aftermath, Kirk is revived and returns to duty as Captain of the Enterprise. Khan is sealed into his Cryo pod and stored away with the rest of his crew. As the film ends, a restored Enterprise is re-christened and departs for a 5-year mission of exploration.

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Star Trek Into Darkness

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Watch Star Trek Into Darkness with a subscription on Apple TV+, Paramount+, rent on Fandango at Home, Prime Video, or buy on Fandango at Home, Prime Video.

What to Know

Visually spectacular and suitably action packed, Star Trek Into Darkness is a rock-solid installment in the venerable sci-fi franchise, even if it's not as fresh as its predecessor.

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J.J. Abrams

Capt. James T. Kirk

Zachary Quinto

Dr. Leonard McCoy

Zoe Saldana

Nyota Uhura

Anton Yelchin

Pavel Chekov

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Film Review: ‘Star Trek Into Darkness’

J.J. Abrams sets his filmmaking to 'stun' with a sequel in every respect equal or even superior to its splendid 2009 predecessor

By Scott Foundas

Scott Foundas

• Film Review: ‘Black Mass’ 9 years ago
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J.J. Abrams sets his filmmaking to “stun” for “ Star Trek Into Darkness,” a sequel in every respect equal or even superior to its splendid 2009 predecessor, which lovingly and cleverly rebooted Gene Roddenberry ’s long-running space opera following the black hole of 2002’s “Star Trek Nemesis.” Markedly grander in scale, although never at the expense of its richly human (and half-human) characters, “Into Darkness” may not boldly go where no “Trek” adventure has gone before, but getting there is such a well-crafted, immensely pleasurable ride that it would be positively Vulcan to nitpick. Global box office cume should easily warp past the prior pic’s $385 million for this sturdy Paramount tentpole, which opens overseas May 9 before beaming down Stateside one week later.

Abrams, whose last pic was the lyrical “E.T.”/“Close Encounters” homage “Super 8,” here tips his hat to the “Indiana Jones” series, opening with a thrilling setpiece that finds Kirk ( Chris Pine ) and Bones (the sly, loose-limbed Karl Urban ) on the run from a tribe of very angry natives on the planet Nibiru. The natives, decked out in head-to-toe clay body paint, shimmer like human ceramics as they chase the Starfleet officers through a crimson forest, the lush colors of returning d.p. Dan Mindel all but searing the screen. Meanwhile, Spock ( Zachary Quinto ) toils away nearby, attempting to insert a high-tech ice cube into the raging volcano that threatens to destroy Nibiru and its inhabitants — a dangerous mission that quickly goes awry, building to a classic “Trek” standoff between stubborn Vulcan logic and impulsive human emotion.

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The Enterprise crew has scarcely recovered from that one when, back on Earth, a terror bombing lays waste to a top-secret Starfleet intelligence facility and brings to the fore a new galactic baddie: a rogue Starfleet officer named John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch) who claims credit for the attack and, after an equally brazen follow-up, hightails it deep into Klingon-controlled space. The hawkish Adm. Marcus ( Peter Weller ) dispatches the Enterprise in hot pursuit, with this familiar-sounding objective: Shoot first, ask questions later, and avoid starting a war with the locals. Welcome to “Star Trek Into Zero Dark Thirty.”

Only, this John Harrison is a slippery sort who, when given the chance, claims not to be the villain at all, but rather a pawn in someone else’s deadlier scheme. And for much of its running time, “ Star Trek Into Darkness ” makes a good guessing game out of whether this mysterious stranger with the glacial glare and bones seemingly made of steel is friend, foe or — like the “old Spock” of Abrams’ first “Trek” — a little bit of history repeating. It hardly matters, because whatever Cumberbatch is playing, he’s wonderful to watch, infusing the movie with the kind of exotic grandeur Eric Bana’s wan Romulan henchman (arguably the weakest link in the 2009 film) largely lacked. Also making her maiden “Trek” voyage is the lovely Alice Eve as an ambitious science officer who lies her way on to the Enterprise deck and makes goo-goo eyes with the good Captain. She is not, it turns out, the ship’s only stowaway.

Having previously established an alternate “Trek” timeline in which all the events of prior series and movies still happened, but aren’t necessarily doomed to recur, Abrams and returning writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (now joined by “Lost” co-creator Damon Lindelof) here take that idea and run with it, invoking prior “Trek” lore when it suits them, freely branching off into new directions when it doesn’t. (Hell, there’s even some trouble with a tribble.) It’s a tricky business, balancing reverence with reinvention, but like the young Kirk, Abrams seems altogether more comfortable in the captain’s chair this time — not just in the large-scale action scenes, but particularly in the quieter ones, where you can sense his real investment in these characters and his confident touch with actors.

SEE ALSO: ‘Star Trek’ Premieres in London (Photos)

The film builds particularly well on the burgeoning Kirk-Spock friendship, with Pine showing reserves of vulnerability and doubt beneath his cocksure exterior, while Quinto adds gravitas to Spock’s eternal inner conflict — and his deepening romance with Lt. Uhura ( Zoe Saldana ). But make no mistake: The action, when it comes, is superbly executed, whether it’s giant vessels making mincemeat of one another, or the simpler excitements of old-fashioned hand-to-hand combat and foot chases through crowded promenades.

The best, even-numbered films in the original “Trek” film franchise were shaped by the guiding intelligence of writer-director Nicholas Meyer , who laced the Starfleet jargon with high-toned literary references and a gently self-mocking sense of humor. Abrams, too, manages to keep the mood buoyant even when the fate of the universe is hanging in the balance, more than earning his tears when he finally decides to milk them. But if Meyer’s primary references were Shakespeare, Dickens and Conan Doyle, Abrams’ are Spielberg, John Hughes and Cameron Crowe. In defiance of the self-congratulatory snark that has become de rigueur in Hollywood franchise fare, he brings a shimmering pop romanticism to “Trek’s” stalwart ideals of friendship, heroism and self-sacrifice. There’s something bold about that, indeed.

“Into Darkness” is a beautifully modulated and sustained piece of work across the board, with visual effects that seamlessly meld live-action and computer-animated elements, given further texture by old-fashioned celluloid lensing (with 65mm Imax used for key action scenes). Post-production 3D conversion by Stereo D ranks among the best of its kind. The Enterprise has rarely looked sleeker than it does on production designer Scott Chambliss ‘ sets. Adding the cherry to the top of this cinematic sundae, composer Michael Giacchino ‘s soaring score once again revives Alexander Courage’s immortal Trek theme for the closing credits.

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Paramount Pictures

Reviewed at AMC Loews 34th Street, May 2, 2013. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 132 MIN.

• Production: A Paramount release presented with Skydance Productions of a Bad Robot production. Produced by J.J. Abrams, Bryan Burk, Damon Lindelof, Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci. Executive producers, Jeffrey Chernov, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg, Paul Schwake. Co-producers, Tommy Gormley, Tommy Harper, Ben Rosenblatt, Michelle Rejwan.
• Crew: Directed by J.J. Abrams. Screenplay, Roberto Orci, Alex Kurtzman, Damon Lindelof, based on “Star Trek” created by Gene Roddenberry. Camera (Deluxe color, Panavision widescreen/35mm/Imax, 3D), Dan Mindel; editors, Maryann Brandon, Mary Jo Markey; music, Michael Giacchino; production designer, Scott Chambliss; supervising art director, Ramsey Avery; art directors, Kasra Farahani, Michael E. Goldman, Andrew E.W. Murdock, Harry E. Otto, Lauren Polizzi; set decorator, Karen Manthey; costume designer, Michael Kaplan; sound (Dolby Atmos/Datasat), Peter J. Devlin; sound designer, Ben Burtt; supervising sound editors, Burtt, Matthew Wood; re-recording mixers, Will Files, James Bolt; visual effects supervisor, Roger Guyett; ILM visual effects co-supervisor, Patrick Tubach; ILM visual effects producer, Luke O’Byrne; visual effects, Industrial Light & Magic, Pixomondo, Kelvin Optical, Atomic Fiction; stunt coordinator, John Stoneham Jr.; assistant director, Tommy Gormley; second unit director, Guyett; second unit camera, Bruce McCleery; casting, April Webster, Alyssa Weisberg.
• With: John Cho, Benedict Cumberbatch, Alice Eve, Bruce Greenwood, Simon Pegg, Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana, Karl Urban, Peter Weller, Anton Yelchin, Leonard Nimoy.

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Movie Reviews

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Less a classic " Star Trek " adventure than a " Star Trek "-flavored action flick, shot in the frenzied, handheld, cut-cut-cut style that’s become Hollywood’s norm, director J.J. Abrams’ latest could have been titled "The Bourne Federation."

The plot pits the Enterprise crew against an intergalactic terrorist named John Harrison ( Benedict Cumberbatch , giving his honeyed baritone a workout), who’s waging war on the Federation for mysterious personal reasons. There’s a joke, an argument, a chase, a spaceship battle, or a brutal close-quarters firefight every five minutes, but all the action is intimately tied to character. The major players, particularly Chris Pine’s James T. Kirk and Zachary Quinto ’s Mr. Spock, are as finely shaded as the incarnations played by William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy . This new voyage of the starship Enterprise is brash, confident, and often brutally violent, and features the most lived-in production design I’ve seen in a Hollywood sci-fi blockbuster since " Minority Report ." 

Why, then, is the film ultimately disappointing? I suspect it’s the pop culture echo chamber effect: Abrams and his screenwriters ( Robert Orci , Alex Kurtzman and Damon Lindelof ) are so obsessed with acknowledging and then futzing around with what we already know about Kirk, Spock, McCoy, Uhura, Scotty and company that the movie doesn’t breathe. "Star Trek Into Darkness" is peppered with nods to past films and episodes: Kirk’s impetuous decision-making and horndog sexual proclivities; Spock’s denial of his half-humanness; Dr. McCoy’s cranky witticisms; Scotty’s protestations of what he and the ship “canna” do; references to tribbles and neutral zones and the Harry Mudd incident. The central plotline refers to one of Trek’s most celebrated storylines — a callback that alternately seems to honor the original, then turn it on its head, then honor it again. The final act includes an homage to one of the most famous scenes in the entire Trek canon — but this, too, is an inversion, or appears to be, until the script springs another whiplash reversal.

The story starts with a " Raiders of the Lost Ark "-like action sequence: Kirk, Spock and the gang are embroiled in a secret mission on a red jungle planet filled with superstitious tribespeople whose lives are threatened by a volcanic eruption. The correct thing to do is leave Mr. Spock behind, because going back to rescue him would violate the Federation’s Prime Directive against messing with the natural development of primitive cultures. It’s in this opening sequence, for better or worse, that the movie establishes a vexing narrative pattern: The characters have urgently necessary arguments about the morally, ethically, and procedurally correct thing to do in a crisis, then one character (usually Kirk) makes a unilateral, straight-from-the-gut decision that worsens everything; and yet somehow at the end he’s rewarded, or at least not seriously punished.

We’re given to understand that it’s always a good thing to prize personal friendship and loyalty above the concerns of one’s crew, ship, federation or species. Sometimes the reward is quite deliberate — as in the end scene, which finds Kirk being celebrated as a hero after making what looked to me like a series of catastrophic rookie mistakes that ended dozens of lives. Other times it’s as if the cosmos itself is rewarding or at least protecting Kirk, as when he loses command of the Enterprise for his behavior on the primitive planet, then gets it back thanks to another sudden plot twist. A good alternate title for this movie would be the name of one of Steven Soderbergh ’s great books about filmmaking: "Getting Away With It: Or, the Further Adventures of the Luckiest Bastard You Ever Saw." The Federation itself seems to have plenty in common with Kirk: Both the opening mission and a subsequent intergalactic act of aggression are presented as having grave consequences if they fail, then the film just sort of writes them off with a shrug, as if to say, “Well, that’s all in the past, and as long as it doesn’t happen again, no harm, no foul.” (Has anyone in the Federation actually honored the Prime Directive?)

Yes, the film’s stumblebum plotting comes from a desire to give the audience what it wants: Kirk in command, flying by the seat of his tight pants; Spock learning it’s OK to acknowledge and act on his emotions, and that there’s more to life than following rules; etc. But surely there were more elegant ways to get us there! Abrams makes the 23rd century look like a place of actions and consequences, in which humans and other creatures might actually live, think and feel, in a world in which a fall of more than ten feet could break a leg, lava can melt flesh, and people who are dead stay dead. But he also tells stories in which various practices, rules and laws, including Starfleet tactical procedures, the Prime Directive, and gravity, have no narrative weight. Too much of "Star Trek Into Darkness" has what I call a “playground storytelling” sensibility: “Lie down, you’re dead. Never mind, you’re alive again — now fight!” This narrative flailing-about isn’t merely amateurish, it’s at odds with the gritty production design and pseudo-documentary camerawork and references to 9/11 and the War on Terror. It takes a great artist to be both serious and silly. Abrams, for all his enthusiasm, ain’t it.

For all its sloppiness and blind spots and fanboy pirouettes, though, "Star Trek Into Darkness" is still an involving film with more heart than most summer blockbusters. Abrams’ roots in TV ( Felicity , Alias , Lost ) seem to have made him attentive to the dynamics of groups, and to the repeated phrases and gestures that bond viewers to characters. Pine’s beefy frat-boy Kirk is appealing, especially when he’s being called on the carpet; Pine has several strong scenes opposite Cumberbatch’s Harrison and Bruce Greenwood ’s mentor-father figure, Capt. Pike, in which Pine is overmatched as both character and actor but uses the imbalance to enhance the scene. Sometimes you see terror in Kirk’s eyes as he blusters; his vulnerability makes you root for him even though his “I gotta be me!” philosophy destroys careers and ends lives.

Quinto’s Spock is equal to, but different than, Leonard Nimoy’s incarnation, and it’s a relief to see that Abrams has made the destruction of Vulcan in the first film a key component of the character’s psychology. As Spock explains to communications officer Uhura ( Zoe Saldana ), his main squeeze, it’s not that he can’t feel any emotion, it’s that he’s decided he’s better off not feeling it: this Spock is a Holocaust survivor who has adopted numbness as a survival strategy. Uhura, Simon Pegg ’s Scotty, John Cho ’s Sulu, Anton Yelchin ’s Chekov, and Karl Urban ’s “Bones” McCoy have their moments, too; they behave like plausibly real people even when the script is asking them to do and say things that common sense tells us is horse manure, and their presences lend the film a dignity it doesn’t earn.

* Edited 6/22/18 to remove a reference to a "forthcoming" detailed blog post on the film that the reviewer ended up not writing.

Matt Zoller Seitz

Matt Zoller Seitz is the Editor at Large of RogerEbert.com, TV critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in criticism.

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Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)

Rated PG-13

129 minutes

Chris Pine as James T. Kirk

Benedict Cumberbatch as John Harrison

Zachary Quinto as Spock

Simon Pegg as Scotty

Zoe Saldana as Nyota Uhura

• J.J. Abrams
• Alex Kurtzman
• Damon Lindelof
• Roberto Orci

Original Music Composer

• Michael Giacchino

Cinematography

• Daniel Mindel
• April Webster

Production Design

• Scott Chambliss
• Gene Roddenberry

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Star Trek Into Darkness is 7207 on the JustWatch Daily Streaming Charts today. The movie has moved up the charts by 2790 places since yesterday. In the United States, it is currently more popular than Young Royals Forever but less popular than Left for Dead.

When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass destruction. As our heroes are propelled into an epic chess game of life and death, love will be challenged, friendships will be torn apart, and sacrifices must be made for the only family Kirk has left: his crew.

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Published Dec 26, 2013

2013 In Review: Star Trek Into Darkness

Star Trek Into Darkness came, saw and conquered. However, despite earning a galaxy of rave reviews from fans and critics alike, and even though it beamed up a whopping $467 million at the worldwide box office, the latest big-screen Trek adventure polarized the fan base.

Many fans loved the film. They considered it a fast-paced action movie that built upon the camaraderie of the characters as established in Star Trek (2009) . For them, it had plenty of political intrigue, and timely intrigue at that. Supporters also appreciated the performances, particularly those of Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Benedict Cumberbatch, Peter Weller and Eve, and the surprise appearance of Leonard Nimoy elicited cheers. The aliens (and their primitive/exotic world) in the opening sequence were visually spectacular, as were the visual FX throughout the film. The U.S.S. Vengeance was an awesome sight to behold. And composer Michael Giacchino nailed the score, many moviegoers felt, complementing the action and the pathos perfectly.

Other fans, meanwhile, disliked the film’s title and/or didn’t appreciate the intense secrecy surrounding the project, particularly as it pertained to John Harrison… or Khan. Upon seeing it, there were fans who didn’t care for a storyline that paralleled the events of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , insisting that this new incarnation A) should have forged a new path and/or B) that it hadn’t earned the right for Spock to scream “Khaaaaaaan!” following Kirk’s demise. And there were complaints about the lens flares, Keenser, the Alice Eve underwear scene, the new-look Klingons, the Enterprise-rising-out-of-the-water sequence, and so on.

Whatever anyone's feelings about the film, several things are certain: Millions of people worldwide trekked to theaters to experience it and a large portion of them saw it more than once. J.J. Abrams and his team have clearly reinvigorated the franchise. Many longtime Trek fans embraced it and, just as importantly – quite possibly more importantly, in fact – younger moviegoers have been exposed to Star Trek as a result and are dipping back into the past to check out The Original Series , The Next Generation , Deep Space Nine , Voyager and Enterprise , as well as the TOS and TNG features.

Now we look to the future and look forward to seeing what writers Roberto Orci, J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay -- and the next film's director to be named -- have in store for Kirk, Spock and the rest of the Enterprise crew. Will they boldly go where no one (and no film) has gone before?

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Star Trek Into Darkness: how it was made, by the people who made it

You know how it went: in 2009 JJ Abrams – creator of Lost, director of Mission: Impossible 3 – exhumed the rotting corpse of Star Trek , not only bringing a dying franchise back to life but making it cool. He achieved this without giving it a radical spin, without going dark and gritty, as is the way these days. He just made it really, really good, rescuing Star Trek from sweaty convention halls, making its niche universe universal.

A key factor was his non-allegiance to Star Trek . He wasn't a fan, thus went to work purely as a storyteller, without having to deal with any emotional baggage or nostalgic attachment. It paid off – the film took $385m at the box office and gave the galactic horn to fans and non-fans alike. But the shock of the new is so 2009, and with this week's sequel, Abrams was not dealing with a reboot but just another Star Trek film. Once again he assembled his crew, blockbuster brainiacs who are constantly in high demand. The good news is that, once again, the film delivers; it's as beautiful as it is breathtaking. We spoke to some of the key players to discuss how they did it.

'The band's getting back together'

Neville Page (creature designer) I got the call from the producers saying, "The band's getting back together." I was so excited. JJ puts together such a great team that it's a family reunion like few other films I've ever had. For that alone you just knew it was gonna be a great experience.

Scott Chambliss (production designer) Since the first film all of us had done different projects, and we all came back with this tremendous appreciation for JJ and collaborating with each other. The first Trek was an experience; it was tough, we had no idea how it was gonna turn out. So it was amazing that we came back with this spirit of, "I just wanna hug you and kiss you and work with you for the rest of my life, I'm so happy to be back!"

NP When I read the script I was so thrilled, because it was all the things the first one had, with the volume turned up to 11.

SC It definitely had a different tone. It had the potential for exciting environmental contrasts and really different story and action beats like the first one did, but new ones; new worlds to define and play off of each other.

'We didn't want to mess with the Enterprise'

Dan Mindel (director of photography) The Enterprise's look and feel has been established, and we didn't want to mess with it. The primary colours in the Enterprise, the uniforms, the healthy look of the actors: it's important. JJ said to me early on that Star Trek was all about positivity and people finding the best in bad situations. He's very driven by that, and we tried to keep that in the movie.

Michael Kaplan (costume designer) In the original TV show they would get beamed up, travel, do everything in those uniforms. In this film there are a lot of high-powered meetings with Kirk and officers, and I wanted to add a level of sophistication, where – like any military service uniform – there would be different parts. So they now have dress uniforms, and shuttle suits, which they travel in.

Mary L Mastro (hair department head) Because it's set in the future, I wanted to give it a little futuristic twist. You can't have a futuristic movie and have period hair, it can be distracting. If you look at old westerns, they have hairstyles from the period they were shooting. JJ's very particular about that sort of thing.

MK The wetsuits the crew wear at one point were really difficult to make. I wanted all custom colours, but we looked and they just didn't exist, so we ended up dyeing them, and through a lot of trial and error we found dyes that would work. Zoe Saldana looked pretty stunning in her red wetsuit, JJ's favourite costume. It was a big success putting her in a red wetsuit.

Jack White (food stylist) We did drinks for a bar scene that light up and glow. We used a lot of nice reds, and one black drink. Propmaster Andy Siegel and his crew found some floating light bulbs that glow then go off and come back on again. You drop them in the glass and the glass lights up. A fun thing we found was an ice cube ball, a round ice cube that fits perfectly into the cocktail glass. They're found in traditional Japanese restaurants, a good-luck thing they serve with desserts.

'We built a piece of the red planet in California'

SC Everybody wanted to do some blissful tropical island planet, but nobody wanted it to look like a standard blissful tropical environment we're familiar with here on Earth, because that doesn't feel like you're going any place special, it just feels like vacation. So I thought, "Well, we don't want it to be green." I constantly go to Hawaii, and one of the things I love there is lipstick bamboo. Portions of the trunks are this beautiful magenta. I took a photograph of timber bamboo, a beautiful jungle of it, and played with it in Photoshop and turned it really deep ruby red, and it was beautiful. I thought, "My God, if we put that with the turquoise water of Fiji and then pure white sand, what does that feel like?" That's when the ball started rolling.

DM JJ loves to use as much real set and world as possible. We built a piece of the red planet, including the volcano, outside in Marina del Rey [in California]. We shot it all at night so we could control the lights and manipulate it so that the steam that we were making would block out the sun and give us a lot of texture. All the sparks and fire is real.

MK Spock's suit is to protect him from the heat of the volcano. I'd never seen a space suit in copper, and I think copper's very beautiful. I went for the look more than the correct reasoning. Copper is probably the worst material to use when you're trying to protect yourself against heat. There needed to be ventilation in the helmet so that it didn't fog up, so that Zachary Quinto wasn't perspiring. It's a little bit scary because you have to be screwed into it, and if an actor's claustrophobic he could really start to panic, so I think you have to keep your mind away from those thoughts.

NP The Nibirans are an indigenous culture of people, and the thing that really drove it was the find of a particular guy to play our main Nibiran. His physical state is so interesting and unique that it allowed us to do very little makeup work to create a really unique creature.

MK We tried lots of different things to come up with the right feeling for the natives, and in the end it was draped and dyed fabric. We wanted something that was not too sophisticated, so that it would be very recognisable as a primitive race. The planet is all red, so I chose saffron gold, because it pops out.

'Some actors dwant to be action stars on't want to put in the work. Benedict was the opposite'

MLM Benedict Cumberbatch was one of the last to be cast. He's our bad guy, and we wanted him to have dark hair, the opposite of our blond Captain Kirk. The day he flew in, JJ called a meeting with the creators involved in what he was going to look like and he walks into the room with super-short blond hair. My mouth dropped open, like, "Oh, great." We had two weeks before we started shooting, so we had to darken and lengthen his hair. I think they changed the schedule a little to give us more time. There was so much for him to work out for his character; having the look helped him to figure that out.

Martin De Boer (Cumberbatch's stunt double) I trained one-on-one with him. We did basic martial arts training, showing him how to punch, how to move. He's very receptive to learning. I've had actors who want to be an action star but don't want to put in the work, and he was the opposite, he said, "I want to train as much as I can." He was very committed. Besides working with us, he was working with his personal trainer five, six days a week; he really got in shape.

MK For the most part he wears civilian clothes, and I wanted him to be pretty dapper. He wears a number of very long, elegant coats. It's nice, even in the distance, to be able to recognise a character right away. He's pretty high fashion-looking.

MDB I had to train him in the movements we'd come up with, to make sure we were compatible. Everyone moves differently, so we have to translate those moves, maybe change them so he can get comfortable. A lot of stunt performers make the mistake of trying to put the fight on to the actors, but you want them to make the fight their own. His character is very strong and powerful so he wanted to have more static and powerful movements. That strength changes the rules of the martial arts we use. You don't have to do five punches, you just have to use a couple of moves and he takes out the guy already.

MLM Alice Eve plays Carol Marcus, who was in a previous Star Trek. Alice doesn't look anything like the person who originally played that role, but we wanted to give her a sensibility that was similar, yet not have it be that period.

MK Last time, Zoe needed to wear underwear, and this time it was Alice Eve's turn. You know, it's a rather large male fanbase, and JJ wanted to appeal to that.

'I tried to make the Klingons sexy: an ugly-beautiful group of men'

NP Of all the characters in Star Trek lore, the fanbase for Klingons is ginormous. Not even fanbase: a culture of people that live, breathe, eat and conduct themselves as Klingons for real. With that in mind, that design had to be dealt with with a great deal of consciousness. Otherwise, JJ gets serious bad press because he's "destroyed" the Klingons. As much as we wanna bring something fresh to the table, we also want to make sure that it is respectful to the culture. I studied Klingon quite a bit, and spoke to a lot of people, the Klingon people at Comic-Con , people who role-play that world. There was this one treatment, a piercing element that the Klingons have, and few would recognise it, but those who are serious fans will catch it.

MK The helmets address a lot of the features the Klingons have without having to show them. You kind of know they're Klingons because they have those foreheads … even when they're wearing their helmets you can tell.

NP One thing I tried to do with the Klingons, which was a tough one, is make them sexy: a beautiful-ugly group of men. I think we got it. Not that the previous actors were ugly, but it was a very conscious choice of who we cast, a very conscious sculpting of the Klingon form to make them look sexy. In a way.

MLM The Klingon costumes have very high collars, but the hair helps to distinguish between one from another. I took human and synthetic hair and made it into dreadlocks, matted, all different textures. Because they were so laden with costumes and helmets and makeup, I just attached it to the back of their helmets, it's more of an adornment. There was no way we were going to put wigs on them, it was already hotter than Hades on the set.

MDB Benedict wanted to do a lot of stunts himself, but there are some liabilities and risks the studio will not allow. If something happens to him we're all screwed. That's why I'd be on the wire, not him. There's a big fight on Kronos where his character is fighting Klingons. There was a lot of jumping involved, he's flying through the air, and we couldn't do that with him. JJ likes to shoot in one take. We'd start the sequence with the wirework and go straight into a whole fight, which makes it more challenging; we can't do one move, cut and pick up again. We jump off a bridge, up about 30ft, fly through the air, land, go immediately into fighting with weapons, knife-throwing, cutting each other open, then we cut. It's not just one person's timing, it's a team, and everyone has to be exactly in tune with the camera moves, movements, reactions. And that is challenging. The result is that it looks cool.

SC Kronos has quite a classical influence. The quadrant of the city where the action takes place is sort of an interpretation of the Roman Colosseum, the warrens below the Colosseum floor.

'On the last day I though: this might actually be a good movie'

SC On the last day we were shooting, and I've never had this experience before, I was thinking, "Wow, this might actually be a good movie." I've never in my entire career felt that way at the end of a project.

MK It's so great to work on a JJ film. The crews go to great lengths that they wouldn't necessarily for another director.

DM I'm incredibly proud and happy to do this kind of work and work with JJ, because he's a phenomenal force. His vision is incredible, and it's a gift to be able to translate it to film.

Star Trek Into Darkness is out in the UK now

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Screen Rant

Chris pine reveals j.j. abrams’ biggest star trek captain kirk direction: “less shatner”.

Chris Pine dipped into the deep well of William Shatnerisms as Captain Kirk in Star Trek until director J.J. Abrams pulled him back.

• Chris Pine admits needing to tone down his William Shatner-style acting in Star Trek (2009) to make the role his own.
• J.J. Abrams directed Pine to embody Captain Kirk with "less Shatner" to avoid mimicking the original actor too closely.
• Pine acknowledges the challenge of balancing homage to William Shatner's Kirk while also bringing his own flair to the character.

Chris Pine reveals J.J. Abrams' biggest direction when filming Star Trek (2009) was "less Shatner." Pine took over the role of Captain James T. Kirk in Abrams' rebooted Star Trek movie trilogy, which includes 2013's Star Trek Into Darkness and 2016's Star Trek Beyond . To play Kirk, Pine researched William Shatner's iconic performances as the original Captain Kirk, and he may have adopted too many "Shatnerisms" at the onset of Star Trek (2009).

Chris Pine appeared on NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! podcast to promote Poolman , a new film he wrote and directed. Host Peter Sagal asked Pine about playing Captain Kirk in J.J. Abrams' Star Trek , and how much of his performance was based on William Shatner's . Read Pine's response and listen to the podcast (Pine joins around the 20-minute mark) below:

I think the biggest correction that J.J. [Abrams] ever had for me was ‘less Shatner.’ Because it’s so deliciously fun. I mean, anything from how he sits in the chair to how he does a double take. There are many… the Shatnerisms are long and deep, and they’re beautiful. They’re beautifully crafted.

Star Trek 2009 Ending Explained

Chris pine made captain kirk his own, but will he return in star trek 4, pine is waiting to play kirk again.

With J.J. Abrams reining in Chris Pine's "Shatnerisms", the actor evoked William Shatner's essence in his performance while making the role of Captain James T. Kirk his own. Pine embodied Kirk's youth, vitality, and daring, balancing his mistakes and recklessness with incredible acts of heroism. But Pine's version of Captain Kirk also matured throughout J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movies ; in Star Trek Beyond, Pine's Kirk was more seasoned and commanding as the Captain of the Enterprise.

The next Star Trek movie is an untitled Star Trek Origin Paramount officially announced will hit theaters in 2025.

Along with the rest of the Star Trek cast , Chris Pine has been waiting for the chance to play Captain Kirk again. Nearly a decade after Star Trek Beyond hit theaters, Paramount Pictures is mounting new Star Trek movies. Star Trek 4 now has a new screenwriter in Steve Yockey ( The Flight Attendant ), and this next prospective sequel is looked at as the "final chapter" of the Starship Enterprise led by Pine's Captain Kirk . Since Captain Kirk would now be in his 40s in Star Trek 4 , it will be fascinating to see how Chris Pine plays him and whether he will lean into any William Shatnerisms.

Source: NPR's Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me! podcast

J.J. Abrams' Star Trek movies are streaming on Paramount+

Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) | Download Mp4

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Star trek into darkness (2013).

After the crew of the Enterprise find an unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization, Captain Kirk leads a manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one-man weapon of mass destruction.

Genre:  Action | Adventure | Sci-Fi IMDB Rating: 7.7/10 from 497k users Metascore: 72/100 Directed by:  J.J. Abrams Starring:  Chris Pine, Zachary Quinto, Zoe Saldana

Release Name:  Star.Trek.Into.Darkness.2013.UHD.BluRay.2160p.TrueHD.Atmos.7.1.HEVC.REMUX-FraMeSToR Video:  MKV Audio:  English Runtime: 02:12:06 Subtitles:  English IMDB:   https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1408101/

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Commander Rayner (Callum Keith Rennie) isn’t thrilled by this prospect, pointing out before she leaves that it’s too dangerous a mission for a captain to undertake. But Burnham disagrees that this is enough of a reason to stop her; it’s a nice reminder that this is a show and a character that originated in the time of James T. Kirk, a time when captains didn’t stay behind in the face of danger.

But it’s not only that, there’s something else going on. Burnham gives Rayner permission to be blunt, quoting a classic work on Rayner’s native Kellerun , The Ballad of Krull , asking him to “serve it without a crumb of ossekat .” (As far as made-up Star Trek idioms go, that’s a pretty good one.)

It’s also the beginning of a sudden and relentless onslaught of references to Rayner’s culture, but more on that later. What’s Rayner’s problem? He’s uncomfortable with the prospect of being left in command of a ship and crew that aren’t “his.” Welcome to being second in command, buddy.

Book and Burnham take off, heading into the wormhole and finding it to be an inhospitable place. They quickly drop out of communication range with Discovery , there’s ship debris everywhere, including the wreckage of Moll and L’ak’s ship…. and what’s that, the  ISS Enterprise ?!

(A side note before we get too excited about that: what is the deal with all the empty space in the new shuttlecraft set, introduced in last season’s “All Is Possible”? The two pilot seats looked like they were crammed into the corner of a huge unfurnished room.)

Okay, Enterprise time. Burnham and Book rightly surmise that this is where Moll and L’ak must have escaped to and beam to the ship, which of course turns out to be a redress of the Strange New Worlds  standing sets. A quick scan identifies that no one else is aboard — though the clue, which Moll and L’ak have found, does also have a lifesign, hmm — and that Moll and L’ak are holed up in sickbay. Burnham takes a few moments to ponder her visit to the Mirror Universe back in Season 1 and wonder what the alternate version of her half-brother Spock might have been like (bearded, for one).

And aside from some brief storytelling about Mirror Saru’s role as a rebel leader, that’s about it for the Terran Empire of it all. Star Trek: Discovery has spent plenty of time in and around the Mirror Universe already, and I personally don’t think they need to revisit it again. But introducing the  ISS Enterprise — the ship that started it all with The Original Series ’ “Mirror, Mirror” — and then not doing anything momentous with it? Strange decision, and one that makes it ultimately feel more like this was a way for the show to get to reuse a set on the cheap than it does a materially significant addition to the episode.

In fact, in some ways it’s actually a detriment to the episode. If the action had been set on any other ship it would have been fine, but being on the ISS Enterprise I kept expecting something — like seeing Paul Wesley as Mirror Kirk slinking around, or finding Anson Mount camping it up as Mirror Pike in a personal log. If they’d set the action on a generic derelict ship, what we got wouldn’t have seemed like a let down. As it is though, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop… and it simply never did.

Maybe in a subsequent episode, it’ll turn out that there’s an advantage in having an entire functional starship composed of atoms from another universe at Starfleet’s disposal — or to have a convenient collection of Constitution -class sets available for that Starfleet Academy show to borrow once in a while — but until that happens (if it even does) the use of the ISS Enterprise just seems like a name drop and a “We have to set the action somewhere , why not here?” instead of a significant use of the setting and the huge amount of lore and history that comes with it.

It’s like setting something aboard the Titanic without ever mentioning any icebergs.

As Burnham and Book make their way down to sickbay they do find evidence that the ship was being used in a way that seemed unusually gentle for a Terran Empire vessel: signs that children and families were aboard at one time, and that they were the kind of people sentimental enough to have keepsakes and favorite stuffed animals. But again, nothing about this seems like it needs the Mirror Universe connection. Ships of people trying to escape adversity are already a Star Trek staple.

Burnham and Book find Moll (Eve Harlow) and L’ak (Elias Toufexis) in sickbay, and after a valiant but ultimately unsuccessful attempt at getting them to surrender, everyone starts shooting. Moll and L’ak have a Breen blood bounty — an erigah — on their heads and surrender is simply not an option. During the firefight a lockdown is triggered, forcefields coming down that split the group into pairs: Burnham and L’ak stuck in sickbay, while Book and Moll able to go back to the bridge to try and reset sickbay.

Pairing off also gives Book the opportunity to continue his efforts to connect with Moll, and I have to say, I don’t think I’m a fan. Setting aside the portion of this that’s purely a strategic attempt to forge a connection with someone who is very to keen to kill him, my first reaction to the way Book talks to Moll about her father (and his mentor) was distaste.

I don’t think Book meant it this way, but the way he’s written in these scenes feels unpleasantly close to the “Well, he was a great guy to me , I never saw him do anything bad” response that’s sometimes made to accusations of misconduct. A person can be wonderful to some people in their life and terrible to others; both experiences are true for the people who received them, but they’re not mutually exclusive.

Book is preternaturally empathetic, and yet he doesn’t seem to see how continually assuring Moll that her father loved her is an act that’s both unwanted and actively painful for Moll to hear. I understand that Book is just trying to bring a sliver of comfort to Moll – but in the process he’s dismissing her own experiences of her father and his place in her life. Unless Moll asks him for this, it’s really none of Book’s business.

I suspect they’re setting up Moll’s character for a nice, cathartic arc where she comes to terms with her life, forgives her father, releases her past, whatever. And when that happens in real life that’s great — but it doesn’t always, and that’s okay too. If Moll never sees in her father the man Book saw in his mentor, it’s not a character failing. Discovery is really hammering home the theme of confronting one’s past in order to take control of one’s present and future, and I think it would be valuable if they included an example of a character learning to do the latter… without having to be okay with the former.

And to return to a question I posed in my review of “Under the Twin Moons,” I know Book is isolated and excruciatingly lonely after the destruction of Kweijan and his split with Michael, but the weight he’s placed on his relationship with Moll as “the closest thing he has to family” seems like he’s setting himself up for disappointment. Maybe I’m just a cynic, but this does not feel like a hopeful storyline to me. Not everyone wants to be family, and right now it doesn’t seem like Moll’s been given much of a choice in the matter — despite her frequent and very powerful explanations of why she’s not interested.

Clearly frustrated with Book’s topic of conversation and desperate to return to L’ak, Moll makes a reckless decision to brute-force a solution and overload some circuits. It works, and the forcefields in sickbay come down, but it also sends the Enterprise onto an unstoppable collision course with the too-small-to-pass-through and also going-to-be-closing-forever-soon wormhole. They’ve got eight minutes to figure this out.

Meanwhile aboard Discovery , we see Rayner’s struggles to interact with the crew. This thread could have gone so many different ways, Rayner seeming “too good” for a temporary command, him seeing this as his chance to do things “better” than Burnham or show how it’s “really done,” but instead the show takes the much more subtle and satisfying route: Rayner is deeply respectful of the captaincy, as a rank and a role, and really doesn’t want to step on Burnham’s authority.

He’s more than willing to disagree with her on command decisions , but he doesn’t question her command . And more personally, he doesn’t want his gruffness and lack of experience with this crew to cause problems. He’s trying, in his own Rayner way, and more importantly he’s succeeding — and, as we see as he shepherds the crew through figuring out how to communicate with and then rescue Book and Burnham, the crew does their part and meets him halfway.

Rayner is learning that he needs to tone down his temperament just enough that he doesn’t come across as an actual asshole to this crew, and the crew is learning that his gruffness isn’t a sign of disrespect but simply a desire to cut to the chase and get to direct, actionable information with a minimum of fluff. There are shades of Nimoy’s Spock or Voyager -era Seven of Nine here, but couched within a distinctly different temperament, and it’s fascinating to watch. I’d love to have seen him interacting with the crew of the Antares , where he presumably felt more comfortable.

The interpersonal stuff with Rayner and the crew is great; where Rayner’s thread feels distractingly like a box being checked is the explosion of “Rayner is a Kellerun!” being shouted from the bulkheads. I could practically hear the writers yelping out a panicked “Oh crap, we forgot to say what kind of alien Rayner is!”

Again, Discovery is back to its old self with the clunky, heavy-handed, and oddly paced character work. Rayner goes from having zero cultural touchstones to having about five in the span of the 15-20 minutes of screentime that his story gets this week. They’re good touchstones, don’t get me wrong — I’m skeptical of Kellerun citrus mash, I have to be honest, but I’d give it a try; not so sure about boiling a cake though — they’re just very present .

As with Rayner’s alienness, the frequent flashbacks throughout the episode to Moll and L’ak’s meeting and courtship feel like a “We forgot to explain this and now we’re trying to reference it!” correction. The content of the flashbacks is fine, there’s a lot of interesting Breen worldbuilding for a species that’s been mysterious from the start — and watching Moll and L’ak’s relationship grow from one of mutual convenience to one of true love is genuinely moving. But the way it’s woven into an episode that, again, feels like it’s composed of bits and pieces of storyline, makes it hard to shake the sense that I was watching a To Do list get checked off.

By the time the season is over it might be clear that there was simply no extra room to give a full episode over to Moll and L’ak’s meeting, or maybe an episode without any of the main cast wasn’t something they were willing or contractually able to do, but I would have loved if these flashbacks were pulled out and expanded into a full-length episode of their own. Some of the worldbuilding felt hasty to the point of hindering the emotional beats — at times I wondered if I’d forgotten a whole bunch of Breen lore and at others I was just trying to keep up with what was going on.

For example, my confusion about L’ak’s comment about having two faces, which Moll seemed to completely understand — “Duh, everyone knows the Breen have two faces” — was a distraction in the middle of an otherwise nice and significant moment. This is later clarified as the translucent face and the solid face, but again I was distracted from fully appreciating an interesting bit of Breen culture because I was busy applying what I’d just learned back to the previous scene.

The quickly (and maybe not totally clearly articulated notion) that Breen deliberately restrict themselves to their translucent form for reasons that are entirely to do with avoiding any perception of weakness is a potent if hasty bit of social commentary, and as I said I nearly didn’t catch it.

Whether holding the translucent form requires the armor for protection or the armor necessitates the translucent form — it seems like it would be more comfortable wearing that helmet all the time if you were the texture and consistency of lime jello — this is surely a metaphor for the increasingly rigid, isolating, and emotionally and sometimes physically unhealthy things men in certain circles feel they must do to be appropriately masculine. Seeing L’ak free himself from that rigidity is powerful.

With the forcefields in sickbay down, Burnham and L’ak immediately spring into action:  Burnham trying to get the artifact from L’ak and L’ak simply trying to get away. They fight, and Burnham impressively proves she can hold her own against a Breen. When L’ak accidentally falls on his own blade, Burnham grabs the clue and speeds to the bridge where she manages to get a message to Rayner through some tractor beam trickery. The message? Another reference to that classic of Kellerun literature that gives Rayner the info he needs. Hey, did you know Rayner was a Kellerun?

The ISS Enterprise makes it through the wormhole, Moll and L’ak zip away in an escape pod, and it’s time to wrap things up. We head to Red’s for a quick but significant moment between Tilly (Mary Wiseman) and Culber (Wilson Cruz), as Tilly offers advice and an ear to a Culber who’s going through a quiet existential – maybe also spiritual? – crisis.

OBSERVATION LOUNGE

• In addition to the dedication plaques on the bridge, the ISS Enterprise has an additional plaque in its transporter room — one which, despite recounting the heroism of rebel action hero Mirror Saru, still states “Long Live the Empire.”
• The transporter room plaque is marked with “Stardate 32336.6,” which is about 9 years before the events of “Encounter at Farpoint.”
• The plaque describes the fate of Mirror Spock, who was killed after instituting the reforms which later led to the fall of the Terran Empire (as described in DS9’s “Crossover”).

The full text of the ISS Enterprise transporter room plaque:

The new High Chancellor presented hope and justice as if they were natural to our world. His words, “The light of hope shines through even the darkest of nights” became our rallying cry. He spoke of reform, and changed many of us. But some saw this as weakness. They killed him, and we sought help from an unlikely ally: A Kelpien slave turned rebel leader.   He spoke of visitors from another world… a near perfect mirror cast our darkness into light. With his aid we secured the Enterprise and stayed behind to continue his work. We bear scars from our escape, but our hope remains. May it carry us into a pristine, peaceful, and just future.

• Not counting L’ak’s previous appearances this season, this episode marks the first time we have seen the Breen in live action since their involvement in the Dominion War in Deep Space Nine.  (The species has appeared in  Star Trek: Lower Decks three times.)
• The 32nd century Breen wear updated encounter suits clearly based on the designs introduced in  Deep Space Nine ; their digital speech is extremely faithful to the incomprehensible noises Breen soldiers have spoken in past appearances.
• Given the fact that Moll appears to be just fine in the environment of the Breen ship, I guess Weyoun was right when he said the Breen homeworld was “quite comfortable” in “The Changing Face of Evil.”
• When L’ak is stabbed he gently oozes some green goo — but as we learned in “In Purgatory’s Shadow,” Breen do not have traditional humanoid blood.

• During his time in command of Discovery , Rayner never sits in the captain’s chair.
• This episode closes with a dedication plaque that reads “In loving memory of our friend, Allan ‘Red’ Marceta”. Marceta was, I presume, the namesake for Discovery’s bar.
• Someone aboard Discovery keeps a Cardassian vole as a pet. Going by Tilly’s reaction, and what we know from  Deep Space Nine , this is not a good thing.
• Linus (David Benjamin Tomlinson) plays a mean piano.
• Owosekun and Detmer get the off-screen cherry assignment of flying the ISS Enterprise back to Federation Headquarters, alone. I’m thinking that’s going to inspire some fanfic…

We don’t learn what this week’s clue is, though we know there’s a blue vial tucked away inside it, but we do learn that the crew of the ISS Enterprise did indeed make it to our universe. The scientist responsible for hiding this particular clue there was one of them, a Dr. Cho, who eventually made it all the way to branch admiral.

They strove for something positive and succeeded against all odds. Hopefully Discovery will be able to do the same as they continue their pursuit of Moll, L’ak, and the Progenitors.

Star Trek: Discovery Season 5 returns with “Whistlespeak” on Thursday, May 2.

• DSC Season 5
• Star Trek: Discovery

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