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So did you, like, get so excited to present a rebuttal that you didn't bother to read the next paragraph? I think it would be great if the film emphasized that Nimoy was wrong. I think a better film would show him to be wrong. I don't think this film did. And regardless, I don't think adopting a "the canon was wrong" approach is a reasonable excuse to whitewash a role. Supercar Gautier fucked around with this message at 01:22 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 01:18
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Supercar Gautier posted:So did you, like, get so excited to present a rebuttal that you didn't bother to read the next paragraph? The truth is obvious and in front of us - these are, obviously, not the same character regardless of the state of the "universes". I don't know how much more clear that can be.
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May 27, 2013 01:22
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This fixation upon the description of Khan from Space Seed is ACTUALLY ridiculously racist. Because all it was was some noble savage bullshit, demonstrably a lie by the very first lines the character speaks upon being awoken. All of that, anyway, is ignoring the context of Khan. To be a ruler in the modern era you pretty much have to be, at best, morally gray. To rule (in secret) a quarter of the inhabited globe and then get fought, chased, and exiled off-planet, you'd have to be a significant shade darker than even that, which is, connotatively, part and parcel with the words used to describe him, despot being the most neutral, denotatively, of those. The part where STID is a remake of Space Seed is where it shows you Khan's plot, as the Enterprise crew discovers it. You really think Khan put his people in a bunch of torpedoes to smuggle them out? gently caress no. His original plan is pretty obvious--smuggle them onto the new warship, upon which he stages a mutiny against Marcus and takes it over and basically enacts his original plan out of Space Seed. Kirk realizes what it is when Khan tells him how few people are necessary to crew Vengeance, and Spock, without even that information, clues in on it while aboard Enterprise. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 01:26 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 01:23
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No Wave posted:It did show that his advice was harmful. You want the film to tell. Saying "Nimoy was wrong! The timelines are misaligned!" would simply present an adjustment to canon. What you're arguing is at best ambiguously presented in the film. It is not shown, let alone told. We see Nimoy describe "Khan Noonien Singh" as the most dangerous opponent the Enterprise has ever faced, and then shortly thereafter Khan Noonien Singh does a loving grinch grin and murders thousands. Neither Spock is shown to have any personal awareness that their communication played a role in this, which means that if they are responsible, Young Spock's character has actually regressed from his conscientiousness at the start of the film.
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May 27, 2013 01:28
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Supercar Gautier posted:What you're arguing is at best ambiguously presented in the film. It is not shown, let alone told. We see Nimoy describe "Khan Noonien Singh" as the most dangerous opponent the Enterprise has ever faced, and then shortly thereafter Khan Noonien Singh does a loving grinch grin and murders thousands. Neither Spock is shown to have any personal awareness that their communication played a role in this, which means that if they are responsible, Young Spock's character has actually regressed from his conscientiousness at the start of the film. No Wave fucked around with this message at 01:34 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 01:30
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api call girl posted:This fixation upon the description of Khan from Space Seed is ACTUALLY ridiculously racist. Because all it was was some noble savage bullshit, demonstrably a lie by the very first lines the character speaks upon being awoken. If they remake Breakfast at Tiffany's, will you argue that they should cast a white guy to play Mr. Yunioshi - just straight up put a white guy there (again, but sans the yellowface) - because the original portrayal was twenty kinds of hosed up?
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May 27, 2013 01:41
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The Warszawa posted:If they remake Breakfast at Tiffany's, will you argue that they should cast a white guy to play Mr. Yunioshi - just straight up put a white guy there (again, but sans the yellowface) - because the original portrayal was twenty kinds of hosed up? I'm not talking about how white he is (pretty white, by the way), I'm talking about that benevolent dictator crap. You know, what the thread was focused on for the last page or so. Which, by context and content of post, should've been obvious to even you.
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May 27, 2013 01:51
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60s Star Trek was progressive for its time. It was diverse and inclusive when such things were rare. It did have its problems, but all-in-all it was a force for good. It's ridiculous (and disingenuous) to try and discount it entirely because it's not progressive by today's standards. It was a stepping stone, and to use its failings to try and justify whitewashing a prominent character is just shameful.
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May 27, 2013 01:56
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api call girl posted:I'm not talking about how white he is (pretty white, by the way), I'm talking about that benevolent dictator crap. You know, what the thread was focused on for the last page or so. Which, by context and content of post, should've been obvious to even you. Oh, I was just picking up from where you vanished last time, what with your assertion that "Khan was a white guy" and boldly ignoring the last century or so of history of Latin Americans and Hispanics in the United States, and of course also ignoring that even if that were so, it'd still be lovely whitewashing and shouldn't be repeated in 2013. The only reason people are "focusing" on his portrayal in Space Seed in the context of the last page or so is to establish "canon" facts about Khan - presided over genocide versus not so much. I don't think anyone's actually said that Space Seed was a good portrayal of anything objectively (though certainly for the time, having a somewhat sympathetic, morally ambiguous nonwhite villain was contrary to the norm). Given that people have tried to defend whitewashing with the Smoking Nacelle Theory, canon appears to be relevant. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 02:01 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 01:58
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The Warszawa posted:Oh, I was just picking up from where you vanished last time, what with your assertion that "Khan was a white guy" and boldly ignoring the last century or so of history of Latin Americans and Hispanics in the United States, and of course also ignoring that even if that were so, it'd still be lovely whitewashing and shouldn't be repeated in 2013. I vanished because frankly I didn't want to be even remotely associated with jivjov's argument, but since you're still sticking me with it I'm not going to bother responding to it. e: From observation, though, it is fairly apparent that white people are now generally considered white people for the purposes of cultural exclusion, regardless of whatever their last name or heritage may be (which is why I brought up last name etymology in one of my last posts previous). Keanu Reeves has a fairly mixed ancestry but gets "white" roles, Cameron Diaz is Cuban-American but gets "white" roles, and the safe tokenism practiced by the modern Republican Party produces hispanics/latino candidates for base consumption that are, nevertheless, white. I suspect that we're not in disagreement over this, so I'm wondering why you're picking at that as the bone of contention. By the way, I'm not white. You may factor that into further consideration. Or not. I don't care. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 02:18 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 02:14
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api call girl posted:I vanished because frankly I didn't want to be even remotely associated with jivjov's argument, but since you're still sticking me with it I'm not going to bother responding to it. I'm not sticking you with it, I'm pointing out that that's part of why people are talking about the "benevolent dictator" stuff. (Your argument, that Khan was white because duh, Khan is white, wasn't exactly much better.)
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May 27, 2013 02:17
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Where can the white-washing discussion possibly go from here, guys? None of us were privy to the details of the casting process. None of us knows why Del Toro walked out. None of us knows why they ultimately cast Cumberbatch. None of us knows how the film would have turned out with a different actor in the role. I think we can all agree that minorities could be represented much better by mainstream Hollywood films, but I'm not sure why this film in particular has become a lightning rod for that discussion. Meanwhile there's a whole film to discuss that's getting derailed by discussing those unknowns.
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May 27, 2013 02:26
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Lord Krangdar posted:Where can the white-washing discussion possibly go from here, guys? None of us were privy to the details of the casting process. None of us knows why Del Toro walked out. None of us knows why they ultimately cast Cumberbatch. None of us knows how the film would have turned out with a different actor in the role. I think we can all agree that minorities could be represented much better by mainstream Hollywood films, but I'm not sure why this film in particular has become a lightning rod for that discussion. Meanwhile there's a whole film to discuss that's getting derailed by discussing those unknowns. Ferrinus said it best: Ferrinus posted:But there isn't a "sucks Khan is white" consensus. Instead, there's absurd nacelle-counting contortion and other attempts to explain that not only does the narrative either allow or require him to be white, the narrative itself can't even justifiably be criticized for being arranged such that Khan is white. Also, basically none of your unknowns are actually relevant to the questions of whether whitewashing occurred (it did), whether it's bad (it is), and whether it should've been done (it should not have been). Basically every whitewashing discussion gets this "well, sure, whitewashing is bad, but why does it matter for this film," neglecting that if we apply that everywhere, nothing should ever be expected to change. This film was a lightning rod for it because sci-fi as a genre has a bad track record and Star Trek as a franchise has tried to be better about this, so loving up here is kind of a big deal. Right now, I'm just hoping they don't whitewash Lando in Episode VII. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 02:32 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 02:30
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Honestly, this conversation wouldn't have gone anywhere if there weren't some people bizarrely determined to justify or dismiss the problem. You'd think something like this would be a no-brainer. Then again, if it were a no-brainer Khan would have been played by an Indian and The Last Airbender wouldn't have been such an embarrassment. EDIT: Okay, it would have been embarrassing for fewer reasons.
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May 27, 2013 02:31
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The Warszawa posted:Ferrinus said it best: Maybe the discussions get that response because whitewashing is not an issue of any particular film; its the pattern and the attitudes behind that pattern that are the problem and not any one instance. The Hollywood casting process can't be expected to change because of a discussion on the Something Awful forums no matter how many times this particular thread goes in the same circles. That being said, I'm not saying not to have that discussion at all, but maybe this thread isn't the place for it. There's a thread specifically for discussions of race and racism in film, and since the issue here isn't really the casting process of this particular film but rather the systemic issues in Hollywood casting in general maybe that's a better place for it. The unknowns I mentioned are important because more details would be needed to get the discussion anywhere past those three proclamations you have there. You claim whitewashing occurred here, unless we know how and why what more can really be said? Anyway I don't want to continue too far with this, I'd rather discuss the film. Lord Krangdar fucked around with this message at 02:59 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 02:49
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api call girl posted:should've been obvious to even you. Come on, don't be an rear end in a top hat.
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May 27, 2013 03:49
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:It is unfortunate that they didn't get another Mexican dude for the reboot, but it's very hard for me to get worked up about it when Into Darkness' critique of the series' liberal ideology is so strong. And Cumberbatch gives us a queer Khan, seemingly based on David Bowie's character in The Man Who Fell To Earth. On some thinking it does seem like they removed the heterosexual/patriarch-vs-patriarch overtones of the conflict in WoK (with sons and wives and what-not).
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May 27, 2013 04:52
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The story is still very obviously about family, though in this case in the less literal sense. Kirk and Khan are both defined in terms of their "families" (in this case, their crews). One of the more important themes of the movie is sacrifice in the context of those families: what would you sacrifice for your family? What sacrifices would you ask your family to make for you?
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May 27, 2013 05:00
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Sure, but for once a Hollywood film made the dad-chat quotient lower, not higher.
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May 27, 2013 05:21
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Nessus posted:I'm curious if you could unpack this a little more. I suppose my distaste for Cumberbatch's particular brand of smouldering thin man look may have interfered with my reading, but it seemed more that he was being portrayed as the mirror of Kirk's obvious immense compassion for his crew - which is certainly a form of love but does not seem to be specifically queer, at least in my understanding of the term. Besides Man Who Fell To Earth, the character gives off definite 'Ash from Alien' vibes to me. It could be the juxtaposition with Montalban's portrayal, but Cumberbatch seems to play Khan as totally asexual. As I wrote earlier, he's all pod-person, even insectoid. His clone Khan is straight-up inhuman (though not, necessarily, in a pejorative sense). In keeping with the diabolical 'evil Jesus'/'Satan' imagery, you can identify Khan's love for his crew as a sort of nonsexual, spiritual love. But it is not Jesus' agape but a corrupted version: "[In Book Five of The Brothers Karamazov,] Ivan tells Alyosha an imagined story about the Grand Inquisitor. Christ comes back to earth in Seville at the time of the Inquisition; after he performs a number of miracles, the people recognize him and adore him, but he is arrested by inquisition and sentenced to be burnt to death the next day. The Grand Inquisitor visits him in his cell to tell him that the Church no longer needs him: his return would interfere with the mission of the Church, which is to bring people happiness. Christ has misjudged human nature: the vast majority of humanity cannot handle the freedom which he has given them - in other words, in giving humans freedom to choose, Jesus has excluded the majority of humanity from redemption and doomed it to suffer. In order to bring people happiness, the Inquisitor and the Church thus follow "the wise spirit, the dread spirit of death and destruction" - namely, the devil - who alone can provide the tools to end all human suffering and unite under the banner of the Church. The multitude should be guided by the few who are strong enough to take on the burden of freedom - only in this way will all mankind live and die happily in ignorance. These few who are strong enough to assume the burden of freedom are the true self-martyrs, dedicating their lives to keep choice from humanity." (Zizek) This sort of corrupted martyrdom is pretty much exactly what Khan (and Marcus, the Grand Inquisitor in this rough analogy) stand for. Khan doesn't sacrifice himself for everyone, as Kirk does - and Kirk isn't a straight-up Jesus in this movie either, since the healing blood is drawn by Spock and Uhura, and distributed by Bones. As the opening scene spells out, the entire Enterprise is the god that dies and is reborn as a crew/family/community. SuperMechagodzilla fucked around with this message at 06:01 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 05:57
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The Warszawa posted:Also, basically none of your unknowns are actually relevant to the questions of whether whitewashing occurred (it did), whether it's bad (it is), and whether it should've been done (it should not have been). Alright that's great can we stop talking about it now thanks
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May 27, 2013 06:08
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I'm going to stay out of the 'racist Khan' debates here because no one is going to win it past this point. Instead, I want to talk about just the idea of WHY go with Khan. I think it was a cluster of problems. I think the biggest one was the filmmakers weren't confident enough to take a chance with audiences (both new and old) on a Trek sequel unless they had some recognizable villain coupled with probably what they saw as fan-demand for some recognition of TOS-era Trek storylines/characters. Unfortunately, for TOS-era baddies, there were only so many you can pull out that aren't cartoonish (Mudd, Space Nazis, Space Communists, brain-stealers, gangsters, Romans, fake gods, space hippies, godlike humans, godlike aliens, etc.) If they were to come up with a new, original threat or transplant a TNG-era threat into the universe, the larger complaint from the old fans would likely be centered around continuity, making stuff up, diverting too much from the source, etc. All of this fully taking into account that the alternate timeline stuff happened. If they went with a more obscure figure from the TOS-era and/or modified their character slightly, we'd get a lot of complaints about how why didn't they just make up a new character, why are they rehashing stuff from a TV show, why is it different if it's the same, when can we expect the cartoonish space nazis in the reboot films, etc. Khan is the best of both worlds: A TV/Movie figure that's recognizable and popular to both traditional Trek fanbase and a newer, non-Trek fanbase audience. A serious enemy in some serious Trek. But Khan's story wasn't really a story they needed to tell in the second film of this new series because they hadn't 'earned' that yet. Discounting his pre-thaw history, he's only really important to the Trek mythos for a single episode and a single legitimately great Trek movie where he did some pretty big stuff in terms of the franchise. Take Khan out of the movie entirely, remove the name Khan from everyone's lips from the film, and nothing in terms of plot really feels lost or gained, but it doing so also makes me feel the film would be a less bit less distracting, though. In STID, he suffers a lot from the issues that plagued the Star Wars prequels that I think Plinkett might have said: He's only important in this story because WE know he's important. I imagine how much better the ending of the film might have been when the shot of 'Harrison' sleeping in his cryopod is show, then we pull/pan out over a few unknown faces in their pods, with a quick few seconds of a CG'd 60s era Montelban's face still frozen in time beneath a frosted glass screen. It could have been Khan, but just like Nero changed the fate of Kirk, through a butterfly effect he changed the fate of even Khan. Maybe Harrison would have been in one of the failed cryopods in TOS and would have died if not for Nero changing the past. Now Khan will never have the hatred and blame of Kirk and Starfleet as TOS Khan had to drive him to the conclusion of TWOK. Instead, Khan will never even know a James T. Kirk ever existed and just sleep.
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May 27, 2013 08:05
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You're repeatedly writing fanfic to justify a reductionist/fragmemtalist take on the film fueled primarily by a gut level irrational reaction of "not my Khan". We get it.
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May 27, 2013 10:06
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Was I the only one who thought the coolest thing in this movie was the mobile hole in Khan's prison cell glass?
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May 27, 2013 11:54
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api call girl posted:You're repeatedly writing fanfic to justify a reductionist/fragmemtalist take on the film fueled primarily by a gut level irrational reaction of "not my Khan". We get it. No. Try this on for size JediTalentAgent posted:He's only important in this story because WE know he's important. If people are honestly going to defend this film as something worthwhile, I seriously cannot argue with you. You obviously just have such a different set of values and ideas to me that there really isn't any point in trying to explain my point of view.
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May 27, 2013 12:00
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Tony Montana posted:No. Try this on for size That's even more reductionist and worthless a post than JediTalentAgent. Congratulations. He's only important because he's (one of) the villain(s). Gotcha. VAGENDA OF MANOCIDE fucked around with this message at 12:08 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 12:04
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This is silly. I just didn't feel I cared that much about the Kahn character, for a number of reasons pointed out in the reviews I linked. Apparently Half in the Bag have reviewed it as well, if you want to take a look. Did you really like the film? edit: Here is the link. These guys say a lot of things I agree with. http://redlettermedia.com/half-in-the-bag-star-trek-into-darkness/ Tony Montana fucked around with this message at 12:42 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 12:18
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This came out in Korea yesterday so I've had a bit of time to think about it. I really liked it until the 3rd act. Khan was an interesting, menacing villain and even though it moved along at a lightning pace there were still plenty of decent character scenes dropped in. My main problem is with the pacing. The film ends really abruptly where it seemed, to me, that it was just getting going, specifically The death of Marcus and Khan revealing his true plan/character to Kirk. At that point I was thinking "Yeah, we're going to have an awesome final act where the hero and villain really get to face off and try to outmaneuver each other!" Instead we got a clever-clever reverse reference to a film I've seen enough times already, a lot of explosions and fisticuffs but nothing that I really cared about, especially when the consequences of Kirk's death are handwaved away in the time it takes to write "One year later" on the screen. It seemed like they spent more screen time with Khan as a pseudo-ally than an true enemy and that retroactively spoiled the rest of the film for me. Just like all of Damon Lindelof's work, the film is carried on the strength of its set-up and then totally fails to deliver anything satisfying before it ends. You don't spend your entire movie going "Oooooooh, isn't this guy scary and dangerous, what's he up to then eh?" Without giving him at least a few scenes where he's shown to be capable of doing what he intended. If you give him a victory first, his eventual defeat is much more dramatic and satisfying. Khan doesn't "achieve" anything beyond the first 5 minutes of the movie. There really needed to be a full act between the "reveal" and the "downfall" scene, more character work, more tension, more plot. I was really hyped to see what Khan was going to do next but then it turned out that he was just going to be crashing his ship and having a punch up on top of a speeding vehicle, which I found rather disappoining. I guess when the biggest complaint you have about a film is that it was too short, it can't be all bad, but, honestly it felt like a really bad script given to a very capable cast and crew.
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May 27, 2013 12:47
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Your problem was that you were expecting Khan to be the villain. While he does end up being an antagonistic force at the end, the film never portrays him as a straight cackling bad guy. He's as much a wronged party as anyone else in the film; imprisoned, his "family" held hostage, forced to work for a covert government organization towards nefarious ends. He's almost (but not quite) a sympathetic character. The real villain of the film, personified by Admiral Marcus, is jingoistic and reactionary militarism.
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May 27, 2013 13:14
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Count Chocula posted:Why doesn't the Federation use genetic engineering to uplift itself? For a its Sci-Fi trappings post-TOS Trek seems so reactionary and bland and beige. They don't act like beings who have replicators and holodecks. Yeah, that is something that always grated me a bit regarding Star Trek, once you get poo poo like replicators you'd quickly move into a Culture like civilization. Holy poo poo, with replicators and an infinite power source post-scarcity society would become much more radically different and heterogeneous than simply "people do what they want". If people did what they wanted you'd get crazy diversity, not uniforms.
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May 27, 2013 13:32
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Phylodox posted:Your problem was that you were expecting Khan to be the villain. While he does end up being an antagonistic force at the end, the film never portrays him as a straight cackling bad guy. He's as much a wronged party as anyone else in the film; imprisoned, his "family" held hostage, forced to work for a covert government organization towards nefarious ends. He's almost (but not quite) a sympathetic character. The real villain of the film, personified by Admiral Marcus, is jingoistic and reactionary militarism. Are we not spoilering Khan anymore? The only reason Khan appears even remotely sympathetic is because the film basically shows him during his down time between mass genocides. He's still Space Hitler. The film just lies by omission to make Marcus the greater evil with regard to the human conflict. In broader terms Marcus IS the greater evil because, like you said, represents violent, reactionary corruption. I don't really see much to link Marcus and Khan thematically. Sure they represent the evils of the past and future but I'm specifically talking about the way the film represents threat; we just kind of waver between villains until we finally settle on Khan as being the transgressor deserving of the final, cathartic punishment. They really messed up by not making the interpersonal conflict between Khan and Kirk emblematic of a greater effort to protect the future of the Federation. Instead they just buddy up like the super heroes do on Saturday morning cartoons. In fact I'd say the central conflict is between Khan and Marcus's overt militarism and Kirk/Spock's hypocritical repression of violence. Spock learns to lie, rage and break bones by the end of the movie. Kirk beats the poo poo out of his captive even though his professed intent is to take the moral high ground. The film also ends with space 9/11 which apparently causes enlightened future people to abandon their fear and paranoia and embark on optimistic voyages of discovery. As opposed ... well, what has happened for the last 12 years. It's like the film is suggesting that militarism exists in a vacuum . The fantasy is that the reaction to 9/11 preceded the actual event, and that it's occurrence is some kind of moral purge, which allows us to return to our peace loving ways. Spermanent Record fucked around with this message at 14:52 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 14:46
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:
Seriously this bothered me above all else. Casting issues are important but JJ Abrams changed what Star Trek is. A post scarcity human utopia that can now focus on outward exploration rather than internal conflict.
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May 27, 2013 14:52
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gohmak posted:Seriously this bothered me above all else. Casting issues are important but JJ Abrams changed what Star Trek is. A post scarcity human utopia that can now focus on outward exploration rather than internal conflict. Internal conflict within the Federation has been part of the series for some time. For example, the Maquis.
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May 27, 2013 16:13
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gohmak posted:Seriously this bothered me above all else. Casting issues are important but JJ Abrams changed what Star Trek is. A post scarcity human utopia that can now focus on outward exploration rather than internal conflict. External threats in Trek have always produced internal conflicts (the Maquis, the conspiracy in ST6, and a ton of smaller scale things), and the setting is not entirely post-scarcity so you do still have to factor that in. A lot of the "not Trek" arguments completely gloss over the fact that Trek isn't some one note franchise. Visually, the movies are obviously different, and they tend to be faster paced. Section 31, Federation ships fighting, terrible Federation leadership, conspiracies...this poo poo isn't new for Trek. "Not my Trek" prompts the biggest  from me because it makes it clear the person has no loving clue about Trek, or has chosen a handful of episodes to represent what the franchise is all about. Honestly, any show that has been around for 28 seasons and 12 movies is not going to be able to be shoehorned into one type or overarching philosophy. I do understand, however, not being into certain types of Trek stories. TNG and DS9 are definitely shows that are different enough that a person could enjoy one and not the other. Each show has a different tone it sets, and while there are a lot of obvious similarities, the differences at times can be pretty substantial.
DFu4ever fucked around with this message at 17:10 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 16:49
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JediTalentAgent posted:Khan is the best of both worlds: A TV/Movie figure that's recognizable and popular to both traditional Trek fanbase and a newer, non-Trek fanbase audience. A serious enemy in some serious Trek. But Khan's story wasn't really a story they needed to tell in the second film of this new series because they hadn't 'earned' that yet. Discounting his pre-thaw history, he's only really important to the Trek mythos for a single episode and a single legitimately great Trek movie where he did some pretty big stuff in terms of the franchise. Take Khan out of the movie entirely, remove the name Khan from everyone's lips from the film, and nothing in terms of plot really feels lost or gained, but it doing so also makes me feel the film would be a less bit less distracting, though. Agreed. Before TWOK, Khan was a guy in one episode. I think one problem is that if the audience has seen TWOK, they will have some expectations about how he will act; if the audience hasn't seen TWOK, it's more of a "so what" when the reveal happens. Montalban's Khan was charismatic and intimidating; there was a sense that yes, not only was this person dangerous now, but he was dangerous during the Eugenic Wars, and this person could have been a dictator. He's genuinely frightening in Space Seed and you don't want him let loose. Cumberhatch's Khan can build bombs but I don't see him getting into a position of power. He's been loose for some time before the events of STID and what has he done? Build stuff. The real Khan would have manipulated things in his favor and probably have been running Section 31 by then. THAT would have been an interesting Khan; using the Federation's intelligence apparatus to start pulling the strings of the Federation. More wasted potential. VVVV - yes, and an antagonist tech genius is more of a comic book villain. monster on a stick fucked around with this message at 18:21 on May 27, 2013 |
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May 27, 2013 17:52
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monster on a stick posted:Agreed. Before TWOK, Khan was a guy in one episode. I think one problem is that if the audience has seen TWOK, they will have some expectations about how he will act; if the audience hasn't seen TWOK, it's more of a "so what" when the reveal happens. Yeah the new Khan is mainly shown as being powerful by doing a minigun killing spree to piles of klingons and also being a tech geek genius. While the old Khan's claim to notoriety is almost being able to almost hijack the Enterprise through clever scheming and winning people over with his charisma.
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May 27, 2013 18:11
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etalian posted:Yeah the new Khan is mainly shown as being powerful by doing a minigun killing spree to piles of klingons and also being a tech geek genius. Given that the fight with the Klingons wasn't substantially different to Kirk and Spock gunning down the Romulan crew in 2009 I thought it fell really flat in trying to imply that Khan is some kind of combat powerhouse. He just has a bigger gun than everyone else. He just gets punched a few times at the end and anyone remotely familiar with Trek and the villain speculation goes 'oh it's Khan'.
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May 27, 2013 18:26
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etalian posted:Yeah the new Khan is mainly shown as being powerful by doing a minigun killing spree to piles of klingons and also being a tech geek genius. Old Khan had his years of experience on the surface of a dying planet. He was consumed with anger at Kirk, which was his sole driving factor. New Khan didn't have that. He was entirely concerned with saving 'his' people for a large chunk of the film, with a few mentions that he will eliminate all of the normal people to make him more scary. The first Khan was better done, but it was still a fairly good movie.
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May 27, 2013 18:50
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He's weilding an anti-aircraft cannon one-handed, and not even bothering with cover because he doesn't give a gently caress.
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May 27, 2013 18:50
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SuperMechagodzilla posted:He's weilding an anti-aircraft cannon one-handed, and not even bothering with cover because he doesn't give a gently caress. Yeah, but... so? Taking this movie as its own we have NO reference point for how powerful a klingon really is. I guess we see them eff up Kirk, but he got beat up a ton in the first movie.
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May 27, 2013 19:30
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