Star Trek: Round Spaceships

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Star Trek: Round Spaceships

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

lizardman posted:

So after months of speculation, reports are coming out that Khan of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan fame will indeed be the villain of JJ Abrams' next Star Trek flick due out in 2013. The info comes from TrekMovie.com who have been extremely reliable in the past, so although Paramount has made it official, it might as well be. Khan will apparently be played by Benedict Cumberbatch from BBC's Sherlock.

According to the same report, we can also expect Leonard Nimoy to return as well as the klingons getting a big role, too.

Basically I made this thread for Trek fans to sound off, as well as a general catch-all thread for news of the next Trek film.

My thoughts (not that anyone asked)?

1. I seem to be one of the few big Trek fans I know that isn't bothered by the idea of revisiting the Khan character. I feel like there's room to explore there. Khan, as presented in his prior appearances, always came off like a tiger in a cage: we always heard about how he was this "prince with power over millions" but we never got much of a chance to see him in action.

2. I do find it irksome that they got a white guy to play Khan. I'm not outright offended if only because the prior Trek film had a diverse cast and reports were that the production had certainly tried to find an ethnic actor for the part (Benicio Del Toro had the part until dropping out at the last minute), it still annoys me especially since it feels like whitewashing ethnic roles has actually gotten a little worse in the past few years.

3. Um, the guy does not look anything like Khan. Just the news of Benedict Cumberbach playing Khan wouldn't bother me so much on its own: British? Hell, he's an actor, he can affect an accent. White? Like I said, setting #2 above aside they can give him a tan. Short hair? He can grow it, or throw on a wig. Not bulky enough? Just give him Gerald Butler's 300 workout. It's Hollywood, let 'em work their magic!

Except production pics did leak and uh...

Yeah, not really seeing the resemblance there. I mean, I guess I can imagine him being all like, "Hhhhhhaaaahhhhhh, Kark, I will CRUSH thee, let go of me you drat Vulcan!" but I'm not feeling any 'Khan' vibes, and honestly it doesn't strike me that they're even trying to. Obviously we don't know the context of the pics (maybe Khan is undercover or something?) but it doesn't do much for my confidence. Khan's exoticism is a big part of his appeal, why put him into a drab trench coat?

ANYHOW. Trek geeks are a notoriously picky bunch so let's all have at it.

Err. When Khan first appeared, he didn't look like that.

He looked like this.

Considering that this is supposed to be Younger Kirk, I don't see why he'd be facing old man Khan, even with the other bullshit going on.

# ¿ May 2, 2012 23:07

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 04:12

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

Holy poo poo that's crazy.

# ¿ Jun 6, 2012 20:52

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

WarLocke posted:

(which, incidentally, was later retconned as a huge galactic shield to keep this thing called the Unity - think subspace nano-Borg - out and was recharged by Kirks half-human/quarter-klingon/quarter-romulan jesus child).

The hell? When did Kirk get around to fathering a child with a Romulingon? Or did he have sex with a Klingon and a Romulan at the same time and Kirk's just that Kirky?

# ¿ Jul 23, 2012 14:07

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

Apollodorus posted:

Don't be ridiculous, spaceships can't go in water

I don't think people were arguing that spaceships are witches and melt when they come in contact with liquid.

# ¿ Dec 12, 2012 00:24

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

DFu4ever posted:

The sets (computers and such), hairstyles, and clothing date Alien far more than anything dates Aliens, IMO.

Yeah, seriously.

What universe are you in that Mother alone doesn't date the hell out of Alien. I mean I love the movie and I think it is timeless in that it will always be striking, but nobody's mistaking Alien as anything but a product of its time. Both it and Aliens are still really great though even if they're obviously dated in certain places.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2013 17:57

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

thexerox123 posted:

Unless Chekov's doing it. Because he's smarter and faster than a computer.

Of course he is. He's Chekov. He's so awesome that Khan remembered him despite him not being around in that episode.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2013 22:41

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

thexerox123 posted:

Ripley in Alien? Carter or Dr. Weir in the Stargate Franchise? Several Firefly characters? Sarah Connor? Dana Scully?

I'm pretty sure sci-fi is not even remotely lacking in that regard, unless you're still living in the 70s.

_{(Star Trek and Star Wars aren't necessarily the best examples, though. But, Star Trek certainly isn't the worst, either.)}

There's a very real argument to make about the Firefly characters and every other one you mentioned there is from the 90s or earlier.

That said I rather like the idea of Mudd as a female character if just because they could do something interesting with it that isn't just a retread. I imagine it would be his sister/something like that who just happens to be a similar character but we'll see.

ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 17:09 on Feb 21, 2013

# ¿ Feb 21, 2013 17:06

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

AlternateAccount posted:

That still sucks. When you spend time generating contrivances to get around how the universe you're writing for invalidates the action scene you're so desperate to write because it just doesn't fit, you're making things suck.

I know we don't know that's what happens, but.

The only reason to include any technology in a setting which trivializes something like speedy movement is to increase the drama when it burns out. In Star Trek this is quadrupled because every single bit of technology exists to create drama when it fails.

Shields? Drama. Teleport? Drama. Holodeck? So much loving drama.

Technology is boring when it works properly and should fail the second it would make a scene more exciting. Make it explode, have it sabotouged, make the enemy block it, whatever it takes. Star Trek thrives on that stuff.

ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Mar 8, 2013

# ¿ Mar 8, 2013 21:05

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

Blade_of_tyshalle posted:

In a universe built around the idea of magical technology, like Star Trek is, one of the easiest drama-accelerators is to remove some useful piece of technology. The warp core shuts down (or goes into overdrive), the transporters can't resolve, the fancy weapon systems are useless, whatever. That's Trek, and it always has been Trek.

Yeah, The rules of Star Trek are basically two things:

The first rule is that they have a technology which allows every situation that is interesting to occur

This includes creating life, time travel, teleportation, resurrecting the dead, cloning, evolving into different creatures, instant communication across insane distances, transportation to other dimensions, and literally anything else you can imagine. Technology in ST is interchangeable with magic because it exists to facilitate interesting stories.

That technology will fail the second it prevents an interesting situation from occurring, because otherwise any possible source of drama is murdered in the crib and Star Trek is more interested in drama than a technologically coherent universe.

ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Mar 8, 2013

# ¿ Mar 8, 2013 21:58

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

Astroman posted:

"Punch it" is the new "Engage."

Man, time travel sure screws up a lot.

# ¿ Mar 10, 2013 02:07

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

I said come in! posted:

How is she a lead character? She didn't do anything.

She did as much as anyone not named Spock or Kirk and is the primary love interest of one of the aforementioned characters.

# ¿ Mar 22, 2013 00:57

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

I said come in! posted:

So what is Uhura's role now? Judging by the trailers, she has some from someone who translates alien languages, to some sort of combat special ops role. Her character is so completely random.

In the last movie Sulu pulled a future sword out of his rear end for an action scene and this is what bothers you? Someone going to/who graduated from military academy using a gun?

# ¿ Mar 26, 2013 03:46

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

The only problem I have, from what I've heard is casting Khan as a super-white dude is just kind of pathetic. You've got all the freedom in the universe to do your own version and you do that. I don't even care about pissing off fans but seriously.

I have an infinitely easier time believing in magic space blood than I do in Benedict Cumberbatch as a guy name Khan Noonien Singh

ImpAtom fucked around with this message at 11:48 on Apr 26, 2013

# ¿ Apr 26, 2013 11:42

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

Some Other Guy posted:

Why are they wearing masks again? Was it just to be dramatic about revealing what JJTrek Klingons look like?

It's probably so they can have a number onscreen at once without having to do the makeup job for each.

# ¿ May 2, 2013 09:12

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

Great_Gerbil posted:

Oh, god, the antelope speech.

To me, the ironic thing about Enterprise vis a vis the TV landscape and Star Trek in general is why it's viewed as "spinning its wheels." Enterprise actually took some pretty drastic steps in the way the traditional Star Trek story was told. Voyager had some consistent arcs early on and DS9 naturally lent itself to the story arc formula. Enterprise took that and ran with it really quickly.

Maybe it's just from my point of view at the time but people gave Enterprise very little slack. There was outrage over the "Akiraprise" design, outrage over the Vulcan mind meld plot, outrage over "Minefield" because of the Romulans, outrage over the temporal cold war*. It just never seemed to get any slack from the the core audience and they walked away. At the time, I don't remember people saying it was boring. I remember people very vocally trying to shut the whole thing down because they viewed it as illegitimate.

_{*The temporal cold war had some neat implications but good god why all the time travel?}

Enterprise was a pretty awful show though. I mean the Vulcan Mind-Meld plot was just sort of pathetic and awful and T'Pol set the bar for female Trek characters lower than it had already been and that is saying something. It just wasn't a good show.

# ¿ May 4, 2013 20:28

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 10, 2024 04:12

ImpAtom: May 24, 2007

Maxwell Lord posted:

On the one hand it had a lot of plays for mainstream audiences- it was promoted as having more action and more sex than previous Trek series, with phase pistols that were more like pew-pew lasers and so better for gunfights, and things like the decon spray rubdowns and theoretical sexual tension between Archer and T'Pol.

That's the problem though. It had "more gunfights" and "more sex" but in this horrible creepy way. The Decon Spray Rubdowns were so amazingly blatant in a nerdy fetishistic "see, it's completely justified that they're nearly naked" way and the guns were more focused on minutia than interesting choreography. It's like exactly what you would expect to get if you told the worst kind of Star Trek fan to add More Sex and More Guns.

JJ Abrams managed to do both better. I still have problems with how he handled some things but even the amazingly blatant "Look, tits" scenes in Trek '09 were less bizarrely weird than the ones in Enterprise.

# ¿ May 4, 2013 20:58

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > Cinema Discusso > Star Trek: Round Spaceships