Star Trek Into Darkness

The last time that we saw Captain James T. Kirk and his crew aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise they were attempting to halt an assault by Romulans from the future for a supposed act of war by Spock. This time around, Captain Kirk and his crew are on a peaceful observation mission at an unknown world to study the primitive people there. As they are in the process of gathering data they discover a volcano which will destroy the planet and its inhabitants once it erupts. Kirk makes a decision to break the Prime Directive and make their presence known so they can save the planet. Once the volcano is safely made dormant the ship returns to Federation headquarters. Captain Kirk is promptly reprimanded for his actions against his orders and is demoted while his crew is disbanded and assigned to other ships. Before Kirk can properly say goodbye to his crew, however, an explosion rocks the Federation headquarters killing many high ranking officers - including Kirk's mentor Captain Pike. Kirk angrily offers up his ship's services to track down and take out the fugitive responsible: a man named John Harrison. Unfortunately Harrison has taken refuge on the one place in which the Federation is not allowed to enter - the Klingon home world of Kronos. Kirk must secretly travel to Kronos and capture John Harrison if he wishes to bring justice for his fallen comrades without igniting a war against the Klingons.

I'm not a die hard "Trekkie", though I did enjoy watching the Deep Space Nine and The Next Generation series as a kid. I'm more of a Star Wars fan than anything. I also honestly wasn't all that impressed with the first J.J. Abrams Star Trek movie; I liked it but wasn't completely blown away. All that said, however, Star Trek Into Darkness shattered my expectations. I loved it. The action sequences were completely breathtaking despite the fact that the attacks on the Federation headquarters briefly brought up memories of past terrorist attacks on American soil such as 9/11 and the most recent bombings. The sarcastic banter between the main characters on the Enterprise can get pretty hilarious. My favorite thing about Star Trek 2 is the positive messages about standing up for your beliefs, discerning what is right vs. wrong and also putting the needs of others ahead of yourself. Not very many films nowadays seem to have such blatant messages they are trying to get across to viewers; most of the time viewers have to dig deep to find even a small piece of the message(s). Rarely do I look forward to a sequel so much, but in this case I hope there is a Star Trek 3. I'm also looking forward to see what J. J. Abrams does with the Star Wars franchise.