Star Trek Vengeance

Star Trek: Into Darkness is the second entry into the rebooted franchise by J.J. Abrams, released in 2013 with mostly positive responses. As time went on with multiple viewings, myself included, cracks began to appear in the form of forced references, similarities and many dumb character choices. While the majority still see this film as a harmless, fun summer blockbuster, they agree that it is a step down from the '09 predecessor and the recent 2016 'Beyond'. TM2YC is back again with his take on the flawed sequel, looking at it with a mostly positive outlook when in the editing room.

I'll just say, this edit imo is geared towards those on the "liked it" side of the fence more so, and that's how I will review the project. And long story short it is a really good effort put forth, with a few "Wrath of Khan" references and dialogue lines cut, bad characterization and retreaded ideas snipped and the whole film regraded to a more saturated experience. For the most part, the color regrade works very well, I just found a few areas that left too much teal left in say the skin tones. Visually, there are no editing flaws in jump cuts or flash frames, and the quality has little artifacts with some banding but without distraction. Audio wise, it's over all good with a few noticeable problems. Around the 30 minute mark, the audio/video syncing starts to veer off slightly for about the next 3 minutes, then fixes itself seamlessly. It's not terrible nor is it a deal breaker since what was edited does work really well and again had a lot of time put into it. All IMAX footage flows along nicely with the rest, seeing that it's a really nice visual contrast and a nice touch, that reminded me of watching ''The Dark Knight'' all over again, it's a great creative and well executed choice.

Do I recommend this edit? Yes, I wholeheartedly do and I congratulate TM2YC and everyone else involved in the edit one way or another!

A necessary edit of one of the weirdest Star Trek films. TM2YC clears up a lot of the oddities in the script, particularly the bizarre conflict between Kirk and Spock. Reducing Khan's fan service elements makes the whole experience move much more smoothly. Unfortunately, I will always have issues with core elements of this film, but TM2YC has done a great job at making this movie significantly more watchable and in line with the tone of the other Kelvin universe films.

This is an excellent example of making a disappointing movie better. I never hated "Into Darkness" since it's at least entertaining for the most part. TM2YC's fanedit removes the absolute worst parts and tightens the pacing throughout while retaining the core spirit of the film. It's still a cheesy flick with a horrible villain and contrite writing, but hey no it's no longer sexist and dumbo.

Into Darkness is a mess of a film. Lots of great moments and scenes and characters, but its bogged down by fifty extra sub plots, a main plot that doesn't make much sense, a lack of overall focus, and a really contrived and awful ending (I don't know about you, but its totally in Spock's character to beat a man within an inch of his life). So I haven't seen the original film in maybe a year or more, so I was ready to be blown away by TM2YC as I often am. Star Trek Vengeance fixes and improves upon most of Into Darkness' original problems!

I was surprised at how much I found myself enjoying the edit. I was trying to remember any differences between this and the original movie (beyond obvious omissions like the strip tease scene, the Kirk bedding two cat ladies scene, and the Nimoy scenes). One specific thing I remember in the original film was that Spock and Kirk were always at each other's throats, which made no sense and was clunky and confused. TM2YC has streamlined that friendship and made them so much more believable! I had to look at the cutlist and rewatch parts of the original film to get a full sense of how this relationship was changed. Also, I had forgotten about the terribly awful Spock/Uhura sub plot, and its omission is a blessing. Now they both feel like real people and not a movie-couple! So much effort was put into this edit, and every single cut made payed off. Vengeance is a great follow-up to 2009 Trek.

I think my only criticism is something that might not have been fixable. I absolutely despise the final action scene, Spock chasing down Khan and punching him forever (and my brain is telling me that Spock starts swearing at Khan). I'm curious if there may have been a way to omit this sequence and somehow end the movie differently. That being said, the small but amazing cuts made to this sequence made it much more enjoyable for me, though I still wasn't a fan. That might be personal preference, and it might not be possible to change that ending. But I must reiterate, this edit is great and needs to go into any modern-Trek lover's library.