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Phylodox posted:Not sure what your point there is. He wants to kill Kirk, yeah. By that point it's just a personal vendetta, though. Does that make him a terrorist? He doesn't strictly want to kill Kirk, he wants to kill everyone aboard the Enterprise. And as I said before, being a despotic monarch ≠ not being a terrorist.
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May 25, 2013 16:35
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Nessus posted:I also appreciated the scene where Khan is running from Spock. On the one hand you have this stylish, sexy man in a trenchcoat, artfully touselled and handsomely white. On the other hand you have this guy with fake ears, and a bowl haircut flopping in the breeze, power-striding in his dorky Star Trek uniform. I felt like that was a comment but I'm not sure if it was saying 'the dorks will always get you in the end' or if it was more akin to 'these ideals are stronger than Benedict Cumberbatch's sexily alienated trenchcoat'. And of course even Spock can't win without the black woman's help. While I didn't like the fight choreography quite so much, neither quite graceful combat nor chaotic brawl, the great moments were the use of the mind meld and the nerve pinch so some thought was put into it. Even Khan just standing out in the open in one spot while he mows down Klingons over the place was half assed. And I also noticed what you described. Benedict in costume running the streets of San Fran it was like "This dude runs hard as gently caress but has great form and looks sweet." while Spock was more goofy and effort as heck to keep up. It did seem to insinuate the characters states and perhaps their nature. Between MI3 and Star Trek, JJ loves his athletic actors running hard as gently caress. Seriously, so much running. There's even the Scotty joke.
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May 25, 2013 16:44
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computer parts posted:He doesn't strictly want to kill Kirk, he wants to kill everyone aboard the Enterprise. He wants to kill everyone on the Enterprise to get to Kirk. We're not really shown that he has any interest in the Enterprise or its crew. Once Kirk is stranded, Khan doesn't set his sights on the Enterprise. He just wants to defeat (not even necessarily kill) the guy he perceives as being responsible for the death of his "wife". That accomplished, his next goal seems to be to use the Genesis device as leverage to rule the known galaxy.
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May 25, 2013 16:47
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Phylodox posted:That accomplished, his next goal seems to be to use the Genesis device as leverage to rule the known galaxy. So the equivalent of a
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May 25, 2013 16:51
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Gatts posted:And I also noticed what you described. Benedict in costume running the streets of San Fran it was like "This dude runs hard as gently caress but has great form and looks sweet." while Spock was more goofy and effort as heck to keep up. It did seem to insinuate the characters states and perhaps their nature.
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May 25, 2013 16:53
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computer parts posted:So the equivalent of a A strategy that isn't exclusive to terrorists. It's...basically the entirety of the Cold War.
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May 25, 2013 16:53
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Phylodox posted:A strategy that isn't exclusive to terrorists. It's...basically the entirety of the Cold War. No, because Khan is explicitly not a superpower. He's one ship.
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May 25, 2013 17:00
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computer parts posted:No, because Khan is explicitly not a superpower. He's one ship. I would argue that it's intent and method, not size of the perpetrator, that decides whether it's terrorism or not. Still, the definition of "terrorism" is vague enough that any act of violence (or intimidation) used to achieve political goals could be defined as such. That's why I specified that Khan wasn't basically a mad bomber. He doesn't want to rack up a body count to make some sort of political point. He wants to rule, and from what we're told in Space Seed, his rule is a benevolent one, as despotic dictators go. All of which is to say...if you're worried that your audience will see any act of violence committed by a person with brown skin as terrorism...well, that's a huge loving problem. One that's exacerbated by the media and entertainment industry overwhelmingly portraying those people within the context of terrorism. That's part of not casting people of different ethnicities in different roles; they tend to get pigeon-holed into a certain type...then not cast at all, because casting them as that "type" is "insensitive". EDIT: VV Nobody is saying that Khan isn't a brutal (when necessary), calculating, amoral power monger. The point of this whole discussion (which I think has gotten a bit lost) is whether or not a person with brown skin can portray a villain in today's media without being perceived as a terrorist or a terrorist analogue. VV EDIT2: I mean...come on, tell me this guy couldn't have played Khan: 
Phylodox fucked around with this message at 17:35 on May 25, 2013 |
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May 25, 2013 17:15
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Khan saw himself as a monarch and a leader of armies, but he was always first and foremost an opportunist who is able to rapidly analyze a situation and turn it around to achieve his ends. And he has never hesitated to do things like torture to achieve his ends. I mean, does anyone think if he had walked away with Genesis in TWOK he would have just bombed a desolate planet to create a paradise to rule? Nope, he would have used it as a terroristic threat to gain more ships, take over planets, and create a political power base in the Alpha/Beta Quadrants..
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May 25, 2013 17:22
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Phylodox posted:
The long and short of it is that they should have made this the first film so Kirk could be cast by a Hispanic guy, which would have solved all the problems. Phylodox posted:EDIT: VV Nobody is saying that Khan isn't a brutal (when necessary), calculating, amoral power monger. The point of this whole discussion (which I think has gotten a bit lost) is whether or not a person with brown skin can portray a villain in today's media without being perceived as a terrorist or a terrorist analogue. VV That being said, your insistence to "change the plot" because a non-white person is an antagonist seems to say that they can't in your opinion. computer parts fucked around with this message at 17:37 on May 25, 2013 |
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May 25, 2013 17:34
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computer parts posted:That being said, your insistence to "change the plot" because a non-white person is an antagonist seems to say that they can't in your opinion. What I said was that if you are worried that your explicit references to 9/11 coupled with your Indian villain...then you change the script. Because, as I said before, people with brown skin are too often associated with acts of terror. Having your Indian villain explicitly linked to your analogue for the acts of terrorism on September 11th...yeah, that is problematic. I also said that it's easily inverted by having Khan try to stop the catastrophy, which removes absolutely nothing from your script and actually adds a bit of depth to your villain.
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May 25, 2013 17:46
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Question: The scroll that Krik stole in the first scene: was that just so the aliens wouldn't see Spock's dropship? I couldn't hear most of what Kirk was saying in the scene over the noise and music and wanted to be sure.
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May 25, 2013 17:53
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thet0wer posted:Question: It was to make the natives chase Kirk and Bones away from the temple, which was going to get destroyed anyway. He was stealing the scroll to draw them away from the volcano.
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May 25, 2013 18:05
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Phylodox posted:EDIT2: I mean...come on, tell me this guy couldn't have played Khan: What's the point of using Hrithik if they're not going to give him a dance number?
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May 25, 2013 18:42
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Kull the Conqueror posted:What's the point of using Hrithik if they're not going to give him a dance number? Turn the Khan/Spock confrontation at the end into a dance fight!
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May 25, 2013 18:50
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computer parts posted:The long and short of it is that they should have made this the first film so Kirk could be cast by a Hispanic guy, which would have solved all the problems. Yes, the logical extension of "Please cast Indian characters with Indian actors where possible" is that Hollywood would soon go overboard and stop casting any white characters as white.
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May 25, 2013 19:25
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Phylodox posted:Turn the Khan/Spock confrontation at the end into a dance fight! We're saving that for the Kinect game 
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May 25, 2013 19:34
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Phylodox posted:The point of this whole discussion (which I think has gotten a bit lost) is whether or not a person with brown skin can portray a villain in today's media without being perceived as a terrorist or a terrorist analogue. In alternate universe Something Awful, the one where an actual Indian/non-white was cast as Khan yet the script stayed the same, all the 'whitewashing' arguments have turned into "Why is the brown guy always a terrorist??? This movie is racist!" arguments. I'm sure that argument would be just as god drat tired as this one is at this point. EDIT: The idea of a female Indian Khan has now popped in my head for some reason, and I find the idea fascinating.
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May 25, 2013 19:41
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DFu4ever posted:In alternate universe Something Awful, the one where an actual Indian/non-white was cast as Khan yet the script stayed the same, all the 'whitewashing' arguments have turned into "Why is the brown guy always a terrorist??? This movie is racist!" arguments. Captain Kirk punching a girl Khan 50 or so times would have been even funnier than the scene we got this movie.
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May 25, 2013 20:06
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What I find delightful is the insistence that a character's ethnicity should be subject to whitewashing "for creative reasons" (i.e., if the likely white director feels like it) unless that ethnicity "is critical to the character" (which means ... what? Name is identifiable? Check.) but we cannot, cannot, cannot question the necessity of setpieces that create problematic implications, even if they're superfluous. It's become clear that the people saying "Oh, well, if he was actually Indian, you'd just be pissed because of that" aren't actually engaging with the responses, which run the gamut from "why is whitewashing an acceptable solution to unfortunate implications?" to "there are really easy ways to mitigate this" to "well, given that the movie sets the actions in an ambiguous context - and in fact associates the 9/11 imagery as a direct consequence of Starfleet's actions, a pretty potent connection, those implications may be overcome." By the way, the movie is about a "brown" terrorist flying a ship into a building - Khan is textually Indian, he's just whitewashed. Mickey Rooney's character in Breakfast at Tiffany's is still textually Japanese even though Rooney isn't, he's just whitewashed. It's just that no one's pointing this out because it's probably the least racially problematic thing about the Khan issues. You can absolutely have nonwhite people as antagonists and even terrorists, there just has to be an effort to make them characters as well. Unless your insinuation is that "if they cast an Indian (or even a Hispanic) actor, the writing would've basically just said 'well he's brown, so of course he wants to blow poo poo up.'" Which, I mean, given the profound idiocy that whitewashing shows, I'm not saying is out of the question. The strawman argument that somehow being opposed to whitewashing and racism at the same time (which is pretty easy, since one is a product of the other) means that no nonwhite people can ever be antagonists is both stupid and obvious - it only creates a greater impetus to write better villains, because yeah, lovely mustache-twirling villainy is going to come off as "heh heh brown people." Keep in mind that the defense of "Khan wasn't properly cast to begin with!" is really loving weak, since that casting was done in 1967, and while I'm happy to say that progress hasn't been as momentous as people tend to say to dismiss issues like this, I'd like to believe we haven't lost all the gains. computer parts posted:The long and short of it is that they should have made this the first film so Kirk could be cast by a Hispanic guy, which would have solved all the problems. Truly, if characters of color are cast with actors of color, there will be no room for the White Man. Us spics should just shut up and be happy with Tony Montana (oh poo poo, whitewashed) and whichever gangbangers Danny Trejo and Luis Guzmán are playing this month. Truly, the white man's burden is to take the few roles of color and give them to white actors. And God help us if a character was cross-cast in the motherfucking Sixties, because then it's fair game! Khan should've been played by an Indian actor, and that wasn't even on the table. That's how hosed up Hollywood is on casting race. We literally had someone come into this thread talking about how he couldn't imagine "dot, not feather" Indians being physically threatening. That is the context in which we are operating. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 20:17 on May 25, 2013 |
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May 25, 2013 20:13
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Yeah. Did you see that picture of Hrithik Roshan I posted above? How's that for physically threatening? That motherfucker will crush your skull, I don't care if you are Robocop!!! He's even got an extra thumb to do it with.
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May 25, 2013 20:30
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Supercar Gautier posted:Yes, the logical extension of "Please cast Indian characters with Indian actors where possible" is that Hollywood would soon go overboard and stop casting any white characters as white. I don't know where this is coming from, I think it would be an interesting interpretation. There's nothing about Kirk that's specifically white anyway. And as said before, a lot of people are moaning that Khan is specifically not hispanic, not non-Indian.
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May 25, 2013 20:39
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computer parts posted:And as said before, a lot of people are moaning that Khan is specifically not hispanic, not non-Indian. What? Who? I've seen a whole bunch of people bringing up "Well they were going to cast Del Toro but he fell through WHAT CAN YOU DO" to placate critics of whitewashing. I don't remember seeing many (or any) people saying "Del Toro would have been perfect, Khan should be hispanic".
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May 25, 2013 20:43
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computer parts posted:And as said before, a lot of people are moaning that Khan is specifically not hispanic, not non-Indian. So? As I said before, it wouldn't be an improvement over Ricardo Montalban, but it would definitely be an improvement over Benedict Cumberbatch. Personally, I think we should be trying to make progress, not just settle for the status quo, but in this case even the status quo was better than we got.
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May 25, 2013 20:44
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Supercar Gautier posted:What? Who? Not in this thread, on the internet as a whole. People complain because "Khan is a white guy" not "Khan is not an Indian guy". And no comments about my clarification for Kirk? I'm not someone who thinks that white people need to be in more roles.
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May 25, 2013 20:47
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I keep seeing "he's textually Indian!!!!" thrown about. Could someone remind me where this is stated in Into Darkness? Parallel timeline be damned, they've already proven that not everything is as it was in the Trek canon with these new films, and I don't recall it ever being definitively established that Khan in this film is definitively of Indian origin.
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May 25, 2013 20:49
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computer parts posted:Not in this thread, on the internet as a whole. People complain because "Khan is a white guy" not "Khan is not an Indian guy". People should be complaining about "Khan is a white guy," because that's regression. These aren't mutually exclusive complaints. Then again, responding to critiques of whitewashing in this thread with well, someone on the Internet said is pretty drat weak. jivjov posted:I keep seeing "he's textually Indian!!!!" thrown about. Could someone remind me where this is stated in Into Darkness? Parallel timeline be damned, they've already proven that not everything is as it was in the Trek canon with these new films, and I don't recall it ever being definitively established that Khan in this film is definitively of Indian origin. If he's Khan, he's Indian. He's textually the same character as Khan in Wrath of Khan, at least so far as origins go (as imported by Nimoy's Spock). Assuming he's not seems like trying to worm your way out of the lovely things here. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 21:03 on May 25, 2013 |
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May 25, 2013 20:54
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DFu4ever posted:EDIT: The idea of a female Indian Khan has now popped in my head for some reason, and I find the idea fascinating. Or having Chaka Khan in the role, possibly playing herself in an alternate timeline where she has used her genetically gifted powers as a singer to take over a quarter of the world as a benevolent warlord.
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May 25, 2013 20:56
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jivjov posted:I keep seeing "he's textually Indian!!!!" thrown about. Could someone remind me where this is stated in Into Darkness? Parallel timeline be damned, they've already proven that not everything is as it was in the Trek canon with these new films, and I don't recall it ever being definitively established that Khan in this film is definitively of Indian origin. He becomes confirmed as textually Indian the moment Young Spock defers to Old Spock to cite canon.
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May 25, 2013 20:59
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jivjov posted:I keep seeing "he's textually Indian!!!!" thrown about. Could someone remind me where this is stated in Into Darkness? Parallel timeline be damned, they've already proven that not everything is as it was in the Trek canon with these new films, and I don't recall it ever being definitively established that Khan in this film is definitively of Indian origin. Khan predates the altered timeline. Also, not seeing how altered timelines would change a person's ethnicity.
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May 25, 2013 20:59
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Phylodox posted:Khan predates the altered timeline. Also, not seeing how altered timelines would change a person's ethnicity. Little did they know that aboard the Narada was something far more dangerous than Red Matter, something far more ... unstable. White Matter.
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May 25, 2013 21:03
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The Warszawa posted:People should be complaining about "Khan is a white guy," because that's regression. These aren't mutually exclusive complaints. Khan IS a white guy, though. You folks keep skirting that.
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May 25, 2013 21:03
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I'm not asking for circumstantial evidence. Where in Into Darkness itself is Khan established as Indian in origin? The Kelvin predates the altered timeline, but only had a single warp nacelle, violating Roddenberry's "ships have two nacelles, period" design mandate for ships of that time period. If I remember correctly, it's also WAY too big to fit in with the other starfleet ships of that era. It's blatantly obvious that even things from before the Narada's arrival are not all as they were in the prime timeline.
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May 25, 2013 21:04
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api call girl posted:Khan IS a white guy, though. You folks keep skirting that. Not really, because he's not. If this is going to get into "Well, Montalbán wasn't a person of color because he was a criollo," I'm going to refer you to the reality of race in the American context, the cultural context from which these movies originate, which holds that yeah, Hispanic/Latino people are people of color even when they're "white"-looking, because of the hosed up history of race in this country. If this is going to be a "well, Montalbán didn't look Hispanic," I'm going to ask you to move along with that racist poo poo. jivjov posted:I'm not asking for circumstantial evidence. Where in Into Darkness itself is Khan established as Indian in origin? Roddenberry's nacelle mandate is atextual, whereas Khan's origin is not. What reason do we have to believe that this Khan isn't the Khan of Space Seed and Wrath of Khan, when the movie is shoving us towards that conclusion at every point. That Khan is Indian. Trying to bait and switch it to justify the lovely whitewashing your beloved sci-fi franchise did is really bizarre. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 21:10 on May 25, 2013 |
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May 25, 2013 21:07
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jivjov posted:nacelles And so it comes to this.
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May 25, 2013 21:07
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The Warszawa posted:Not really, because he's not. If your chief argument is that a white guy getting a role originally played by a white guy isn't brown enough or has a last name not brown enough then you're the racist one. Racist.
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May 25, 2013 21:09
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api call girl posted:If your chief argument is that a white guy getting a role isn't brown enough or has a last name not brown enough then you're the racist one. Racist. Yes, truly, people who think that people of color should not be further marginalized in film and television are the real racists. Please explain to me how Khan was a white guy. Edit: jivjov, if the film decided to rewrite things so that Khan Noonien Singh was not only no longer played by an actor of color, but was no longer a character of color, that would arguably be worse than just whitewashing. The Warszawa fucked around with this message at 21:22 on May 25, 2013 |
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May 25, 2013 21:11
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I wonder how much nerd rage there will be when they reboot TNG?
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May 25, 2013 21:30
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The Warszawa posted:Roddenberry's nacelle mandate is atextual, whereas Khan's origin is not. What reason do we have to believe that this Khan isn't the Khan of Space Seed and Wrath of Khan, when the movie is shoving us towards that conclusion at every point. That Khan is Indian. Trying to bait and switch it to justify the lovely whitewashing your beloved sci-fi franchise did is really bizarre. I'm not bait-and-switching anything (trying to figure out when I ever offered you one thing and then provided another). I'm just asking for some justification from the film itself that the film being criticized is actually guilty of anything.
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May 25, 2013 21:33
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Mister Kingdom posted:I wonder how much nerd rage there will be when they reboot TNG? If Worf ends up being played by a white guy under the makeup, is it 'whitewashing'? I'm curious, since pretty much every ethnicity has played a Klingon at this point.
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May 25, 2013 21:37
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