Star Trek Into Darkness: Initial Impressions

• SPOILERS!!! You've been warned.
• "He wanted to get caught!"  Yes, of course he did.  I have, after all, seen The Dark Knight, The Avengers, Dark Knight Rises, Mission Impossible III and SkyFall!  I think we need a new trope.
• Simon Pegg really does have a sprinting scene in every single film he's in, doesn't he!  You'd think he'd get tired of that; maybe watching a pasty, nerdy, English comedian go running is inherently funny?
• You know, we've had so many "gritty" reboots over the past decade--Batman, James Bond, Battlestar Galactica, Spiderman, etc--that it's frankly kinda jarring to get a bright, shiny, polished reboot with Star Trek.
• They rebooted a sequel.  A sequel!  Seriously, we just got a second Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn, complete with Carol Marcus, self-sacrifice to save the ship, "I think you better get down here," and "KHAAAAAAAN!"  They based the second Star Trek II...off the first Star Trek II!  Wasn't the whole point of the reboot to clear the slate for new stories??
• Though I will admit that there is an interesting inversion in the themes of the two Star Trek IIs--in the first, the focus is on older characters, feeling their age, trying to re-find their place in life; the reboot is all about young people trying to prove themselves, trying to find their place for the first time.
• JJ Abrams is apparently intent on making the Beastie Boys Kirk's favorite band: he plays "Sabotage" in the reboot, "Body Movin'" in this one.  I guess Kirk just loves Classical music? I'm hoping for a more eclectic choice next time--maybe "Bodhisattva Vow?"
• A friend in Grad School once claimed that in every single Star Trek movie, Kirk is trying to get back command of the Enterprise.  That streak remains unbroken by this film.
• Is there a specific reason why London keeps getting all the cinematic terrorist attacks lately?  First SkyFall, now this.  (London at least felt relevant in SkyFall, since, you know, Bond is British.)  (What's more, though I liked SkyFall, I didn't love it to box-office-record-breaking levels, like it was in the UK.  But then, a tired, past-his-prime, unsure-of-himself Bond would deeply resonate with a fallen British Empire, wouldn't he!)
• Speaking of relevancy, McCoy felt like a real, important character in this one, and not just an obligatory call-back to the original cast.
• I'm delighted that they remembered to fire all the Chekhov's guns this time around--Kahn's regenerating blood, the cryo-tube torpedoes, etc.  (Serious, how could the lazy reboot introduce time-travel but never use it?!)
• This outing wasn't just more logically consistent and less lazily-written than the infuriating first reboot film--it was also just straight up more fun.
• Nice fake-out from the previews: from the trailers, I assumed that the Enterprise would crash into San Francisco bay, then rise again from the ocean.  Didn't happen like that at all; well played marketers, well played.
• Yes, yes, it was all very post-9/11, what with the drone strikes on terrorists hiding in desolate mountain areas behind enemy territory, and the questions of the legality and ethics of killing enemy-combatants without trial or due process, and of revenge vs justice and military expansionism and etc; in fact, frankly, along with the "He wanted to get caught!" trope, I would like to, well, not get rid of these ideas, but at least try to move beyond them.
• I did like the image of Kirk beating mercilessly on an unperturbed Kahn, not even leaving a scratch--just like when Batman beat up a laughing Joker in Dark Knight, it was a subtle comment on the futility of revenge, and that in a film often lacking in subtlety.  
• Please don't misunderstand--I thought this was a fun, enjoyable movie....that also made me want to re-watch Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn again.
• I've realized I find extended action pieces to be kind of tedious nowadays, e.g. Spock chasing Kahn through San Francisco is something I've already seen much better, many times, in many other movies.  Basically, when star-ships aren't doing star-ship things in Star Trek, I get bored.
• Arbitrary rankings time!  The top-tier classic Star Trek films remain: II, VI, and III.  (That's right, III!  Suck it, idiot only-the-even-numbered-films-are-good rule, Star Trek III is a stone-cold classic and I will fight anyone who disagrees).
• Second tier, good but not quite classic: IV, First Contact, and Into Darkness.
• Third tier, mostly watchable, mostly forgettable: Star Trek reboot, Generations.
• Fourth tier, problematic but fail in fascinating ways: The Motion Picture, V.
• Bottom tier, wretched, not even interesting failures: Insurrection, Nemesis.
• On second thought, the next film's Beastie Boys song needs to totally be "Ch-Check It Out!"  

ALL YOU TREKKIES AND TV ADDICTS!/DON'T MEAN TO DISS, DON'T MEAN TO BRING STATIC/ALL YOU KLING-ONS IN YOUR GRANDMA'S HOUSE!