BLAARGH! Star Trek’s New Title
Why do bad things happen to good fans? Whether it’s atrocious art, ridiculous writing or something else entirely – some crimes against fandom cannot go unanswered. When that happens, it’s time to say “BLAARGH!”
Star Trek Into Darkness
That is the just-released title of J.J. Abrams’ 2013 sequel to 2009′s Star Trek movie.
I’m not a fan of the new title.
Here’s the thing: if Star Trek’s new title happened in a vacuum, it wouldn’t be that bad, however, darkness-related movie titles are becoming the new trend in Hollywood blockbuster movies. It’s too much. I don’t like seeing Star Trek jumping onto the “darkness bandwagon”.
Here’s a look at all the movies with “dark” titles from 2008 to 2013:
As you can see, the number of movie titles referencing “dark” or “darkness” has jumped from one each in 2008 and 2010 to five in 2012. There is already another movie continuing the trend into 2013, Thor: The Dark World.
An honorable mention is the Broadway musical Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark.
This “gritty” naming trend is bordering on the ridiculous. The Dark Knight makes sense. Transformers: Dark of the Moon was widely laughed at. Its similarity to the train wreck of Spider-Man: Turn Off The Dark helped bring on the ridicule.
Star Trek Into Darkness and Thor: The Dark World not only appear to be jumping onto this pattern, but the titles also don’t say anything about the movies. After a few years of “dark” titles, it’s annoying how transparent the naming choices are becoming. Did you ever have that friend who would always try to give themselves badass nicknames? It’s like the studios are jumping up and down yelling, “Look at how cool we are, guys!”
I BLAARGH! Star Trek Into Darkness for all of these reasons, but mostly because I rolled my eyes when I saw the new title. I’m so excited for this Star Trek sequel, and yet was so disappointed in its naming.
However, I will offer one instance in which I will gladly eat my words with a side of fava beans. If my earlier prediction that Benedict Cumberbatch is Gary Mitchell is correct this could actually be a brilliant literary reference. The original series episode “Where No Man Has Gone Before” has similarities to Joseph Conrad’s novella Heart of Darkness. Gary Mitchell and Kurtz are men driven to madness by godlike powers. They both believe that they represent a higher form of humanity. Their delusions end up killing them.
If Star Trek Into Darkness ends up being a reference to Heart of Darkness, I will gladly mea culpa. Until then, I say BLAARGH!
I agree that is a lot of darkness! Though Dark Shadows is an old soap and that is its original name. It does seem to fit the trend of “dark” movies coming out. Now when Rainbow of Destruction starts making it big I will have lost all hope in Hollywood….what little I have left that is.
I don’t know. Some of those are understandable though (Batman has always been known as the Dark Knight and Thor: The Dark World is a reference to the Dark Elves who will be showing up in that movie and even more so a slight reference to the ancient idea of Africa being called “The Dark Continent” – in other words place unknown = “Dark” (and suddenly I’m having flashbacks to English Lit class and reading Heart of Darkness but I digress)). I’ll admit that often times, it is done as means to create cheap hype and a cheap method to create some sort of mood (that doesn’t always stick and it’s either that or NIN playing in the background).
Personally my issue with Star Trek Into Darkness is that the play on words seems like it would be more appropriate for a Shrek movie as opposed to Star Trek. Star Trek: Into Darkness would honestly be better. In the mean time I will just have to get ogre this Shrek-like naming and hope the movie is good.