Is Star Trek Into Darkness appropriate for kids?
Like so many movies these days that should be good family fun, Star Trek Into Darkness is rated PG-13 instead of PG. The first two thirds of the movie, you’ll probably wonder why. There’s an odd moment when Captain Kirk is called out of bed, and his two bedmates happen to be saucy types with tails, but it happens so quickly that it’s really nothing to be squeamish about. There’s also a bit of bad language, but as parent, I’m not concerned with bad language. Our kids hear it anyway, and they know not to use it. Most of the film features some pretty good humor, some interesting action, and lots of eye candy.

But then, in the final third, there’s an incredibly long (and boring) fight scene with full-on machine gun warfare. It’s the bad, not to mention tone-deaf, spot in an otherwise good movie. In terms of narrative, the outrageous violence is utterly unnecessary. Remember the good old days of the original Star Wars franchise? Remember how the plastic white robots would get hit by lasers, not bullets? Star Trek is not Star Wars, of course, and the characters in Star Trek are largely human. The endless machine gun sequence is not only entirely gratuitous; it also limits the audience of what is otherwise a family-friendly movie. You see lots of humans getting shot and dying. You don’t see a lot of blood, but there is a great deal of loss of life and little to no reflection on the horrors this entails.

As a parent, I’m not too concerned about a little kissing or some four-letter words. Extremely violent fight scenes involving guns are another thing entirely. My son, who is eight, is good about asking, “Should I not watch this?” when certain things come onscreen. For example, there’s scene in which the villain crushes someone’s head between his hands. You don’t see any blood, but the suggestion of the crushing is enough to make it a hide-your-eyes moment. As for the long, utterly inexplicable gun melee, this would be a good point to take the kids to the bathroom. It goes on for so long that most kids are unlikely to be able to cover their eyes for the whole thing.

There were a few not-entirely-explained bits (like the elder Spock’s cameo, which inspired cheers from the audience but seemed to have just been stuck in the film at the last minute when Leonard Nimoy agreed to clear his schedule for an afternoon), but I was totally willing to go with it. There were some really funny lines throughout, and the writers did a good job of embracing Spock’s weirdness. Both Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura get some good comedic traction out of Spock’s robotic personality, and, as was often the case with the original television series, the moments in which Spock’s human nature wins out over his Vulcan genes make for good emotional traction.

As an adult moviegoer, my main thought on Star Trek Into Darknesss is thumbs up. But as a parent, I am disappointed by a movie industry that seems intent on inserting senseless brutality into films that are clearly targeted toward children. Is it because they fear that a PG rating would be a death knell at the box office? Wouldn’t you love to see directors take a stand and say that gratuitous gunfire does not make a better movie? Most of the movie posters (as seen above) play up the violence in the film, with the characters holding guns aloft or emerging out of scenes of death and destruction. I think Star Trek is more interesting than that. Placing the emphasis on gun violence is a disservice to the original series, which intriguingly explored subjects like overpopulation, loyalty, and friendship.

Bottom line: the film is probably inappropriate for children under 12 unless you are willing to take the kids out of the theater for the long gun battle.

One more thing: the celebrity sighting.
We got a bit of a surprise yesterday at the 1:00 showing of Star Trek at the Century Theater in downtown Redwood City. We weren’t the only ones catching the latest Captain Kirk flick on Memorial Day. Neil Young was there too. Yes, that Neil Young. We saw him again in the hallway, high-fiving his son after the movie. Either no one noticed him, or folks around there are just too familiar with Neil Young sightings to make a thing of it (he lives in nearby Woodside).

Read more about the film at IMDB.com.