Star Trek Into Darkness: Better In Imax 3-D?

Given that the story is set two centuries in the future, is the latest Star Trek movie ideally should be viewed in Imax 3-D?

By: Ringo Bones 

 Given that America’s love affair with Imax 3-D seems to have waned since the runaway success of James Cameron’s science fiction epic Avatar a few years ago, it seems that the movie buffs in the Far East are still going gaga over Imax 3-D. Especially the Star Trek fans here who a number of which were old enough to remember the original series that starred Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner.

With Star Trek enthusiasts – i.e. Trekkies and Trekkers – around the world now more accepting of JJ Abrams’ reboot of Star Trek, well at least due to the famed director’s sticking to the Gene Roddenberry’s views on the Sino Indian War and the preexisting Tibetan Freedom Movement historicism of Star Trek, the latest Star Trek: Into Darkness is nonetheless a perfect way to showcase how far 3-D cinematography has advanced since the 1960s. 

By probably using a neodymium / lanthanum doped optics to give some shots a green-tinted 1960s look and feel. Abrams managed to subconsciously introduce a feeling of nostalgia on how much the recent Star Trek movie actually seems like homage to the original 1960s series – at least that’s what I saw during the space scenes that reminded me of high resolution Gemini era space-docking photos on a NASA website. And using the National Ignition Facility - or NIF - as the Enterprise’s warp core is quite a nice touch. And so does the shrubbery at the planet Nibiru appearing quite different that of a typical Earth based plant, which is one of the oft made mistakes of previous Star Trek movies and even on TV.  

Spoiler alert to those who haven’t yet seen Star Trek: Into Darkness – the reversal of roles between Spock and Kirk compared to the Wrath Of Khan movie is probably funny to those old enough to have seen the Wrath of Khan first hand – or old enough to form an emotional attachment to the previous Star Trek movies. In any case, despite the whiz bang visuals of Imax 3-D – i.e. somewhat reduced “diorama effect” than the previous generation of 3-D cinematography, it still needs a good movie to sell tickets / attract regular viewers.