Kirk wants to set off to take down John Harrison personally. He’s told by a superior officer that “Starfleet is not about vendettas.” “Maybe it should be, sir!” Kirk apparently takes a squad of his best and brightest on a private mission…which includes utilizing a ship that looks veeerrrry similar to a certain hamburger-shaped YT-1300 freighter owned by a scruffy-looking Corellian pilot. Director J.J. Abrams’ Star Wars fixation was well-documented even before he stepped up to direct the next film. What’s interesting about Into Darkness is that it seems to be explicitly following the structural model established by Empire Strikes Back: For the second movie, things need to get a whole lot bleaker.
