|
UPDATE: Whoa! Almost forgot I made this thread. Anybody coming in late, this OP was created back when (at the time legitimate-sounding) rumors emerged that Khan would be the villain of the latest Star Trek movie. That is not the case, so keep that in mind before continuing. UPDATE 2: AAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA  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 hasn't 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. EDIT: Hasn't. Paramount hasn't made it official, I meant. lizardman fucked around with this message at 11:21 on May 11, 2013 |
#
¿
May 2, 2012 21:21
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 19:20 |
|
|
Miltank posted:I had no idea that Khan was even supposed to be latino. I just thought he was a kinda tan or something. Well, that and he had a pretty darn thick Mexican accent.
|
|
#
¿
May 3, 2012 03:41
|
|
|
^ Well, fan sperging aside, it's been over 30 years since Khan's made an appearance, I'd assume any attempt to bring him back now would be a gesture meaning, "Hey, remember Khan? He's back, just like how you remember him!" Now just doesn't sound like the appropriate time to be taking liberties with the character. I mean, of course I don't want a total rehash of Space Seed and TWOK but I'd want the stories and situation to be new and different, not the character himself.
|
|
#
¿
May 3, 2012 04:28
|
|
|
^ In the commentary for Generations the writers say the Paramount suits handed them a laundry list of plot points the film was required to have and one of them was literally something like, "a grandiose villain like Khan."
|
|
#
¿
May 3, 2012 19:17
|
|
|
^Nice of you to articulate your thoughts, ColonelPanic, just watch out because SMG is gonna come in here and tell you "of course it's being disrespectful to Star Trek and its fans, because they deserve to be disrespected they suck and that's why this movie's good" and when he doesn't get an overly defensive response from a Trek fan he will continue trying to bait them with various "This is the only good Star Trek film" comments at a high frequency even though no one bites.
|
|
#
¿
May 4, 2012 07:22
|
|
|
I hear SMG appears when you say his name three times in front of a mirror (hence why we always abbreviate it).
|
|
#
¿
May 4, 2012 07:45
|
|
|
I said come in! posted:I have a feeling this is going to be like the last movie, where it's honestly not about the villain at all. The entire film was all about Kirk, and Spock. So i'm going to probably ignore whatever is decided with Khan as a character. Just calling it right now, nothing special will be done with Khan, it'll be purely fan service. I'm more focused on the Klingons being in this, hell yes. Well, even TWOK wasn't rreeallly about Khan at all. It was about Kirk's mid-life crisis.
|
|
#
¿
May 6, 2012 03:37
|
|
|
Amethyst posted:One thing I haven't thought about is whether or not they're going to kill off Spock like they do in the original. I doubt it would have the same impact as it did in the original, since we simply haven't spent as much time with this new character. You REALLY don't need to spoiler that.
|
|
#
¿
May 7, 2012 09:32
|
|
|
"I've been dead before"
|
|
#
¿
May 7, 2012 10:11
|
|
|
I said come in! posted:I'm glad you asked this question, because it makes it so I get to link this; http://redlettermedia.com/plinkett/star-trek/star-trek-first-contact/ Those are dumb arguments and the Red Letter Media review is deliberately tongue-in-cheek because it knows those arguments are dumb and things only the geekiest of continuity geeks would care about. People who don't like Voyage Home and First Contact can eat a dick, I say. 
|
|
#
¿
May 8, 2012 20:17
|
|
|
^^ They had NO problem showing off the Enterprise blowing up for the Star Trek III trailer, and the Nemesis trailer proudly displayed the Enterprise-E ramming. They managed to keep the Enterprise-D crash scene out of the ads for Generations, though, and I'm glad they did because that was the most amazing thing my younger self had ever seen in a movie theater in my life at the time.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 24, 2013 02:55
|
|
|
To clarify something: the movie isn't out in Australia until May 9 (which is still sooner than the US release date). When people say it "premiered" there they mean the red carpet event initial advance screening.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 29, 2013 19:36
|
|
|
Great_Gerbil posted:This article about the differences between the refit Enterprise and the TOS model is probably my favorite. That alone should invalidate almost all of the groaning about inconsistencies but, for some reason, it continues.
|
|
#
¿
May 3, 2013 18:07
|
|
|
Hey can someone tell me if Khan here ever starts acting like himself? As in his mannerisms, way of speaking, unbridled passion, etc.? Just cause, going by the trailers, he doesn't remind me of Khan at all aside from being evil and strong. My inner geek would be pretty irritated if after 30 years of dormancy they brought him back just to be a Khan-in-name-only. Note that I know nothing of the spoilers except for the villain indeed being Khan.
|
|
#
¿
May 9, 2013 23:31
|
|
|
The weirdest thing about 'forever gold''s comment is that he assumes most moviegoers are there for the narrative, when I'd be willing to wager the vast majority of moviegoers watch movies because they 'look cool'. On the movie itself, if you'll let me indulge my inner geek/ fanboy, I'm becoming increasingly irritated that it appears that the Khan of this movie doesn't at all resemble the one I'm familiar with, whether in appearance or demeanor. I know, "waaah they changed things", but Khan's been one of my favorite villains since childhood and while I would have preffered they left him alone, seeing him back in action in would have been a real treat. I keep looking for something, anything with what I've seen of his presentation that makes me go, "Wow, that's Khan!" but so far I just see some guy who looks nothing like Khan, sounds nothing like Khan, and doesn't seem to act much like Khan and I'm just supposed to accept that he's the same character. It's just a shame because it sounds like this is going to be really good otherwise but may end up being a movie I dislike for my own personal bullshit reasons, and may make me be unable to fully appreciate what sounds like a great performance from Cumbercatch. My problem and not the movie's, I guess, but I felt like just a *little* bit of consistency with the villain's portrayal would have went a long way.
|
|
#
¿
May 10, 2013 20:22
|
|
|
No Wave posted:Maybe they're different movies. (This was in regards to Khan's portrayal in STID being radically different from prior appearances) While I think Into Darkness and Cumberbatch's performance should be judged on their own merits independently of prior films, I don't think you can really blame people for being disappointed that Khan here doesn't recall Khan of old. We had every reason to expect he'd be given at least the same consideration that the original crew was, or more in fact, since according to the narrative he was the one character who had every reason to be exactly the way we remember him. Anton Yelchin may not look anything like Walter Koenig, but he still talks like how we think Chekov should (can you imagine if they made *him* British out of nowhere?). Zoe Saldana's Uhura may not act much like Nichelle Nichols, but at the very least she's still black, you know? This isn't a case like James Bond, who's been in 23 movies and we're at the point where we welcome alternate takes on the character. This is Khan's first appearance in over 30 years, it isn't an instance where I (and some others) were in the mood for seeing liberties taken on the character. I actually think this is reflected a bit in the whitewashing complaints: yeah, casting a Mexican guy to play an Indan is nearly as dubious as casting a British guy, but Khan meant something to us, and to replace his (apparent on-screen) ethnicity takes away a big part of what made him a memorable character (hell, I practically hear spanish guitars strumming in my head when I think of Khan under Ricardo Montalban). To SuperMechaGodzilla: what's your take on First Contact? I love the movie and I know you don't but that's fine with me, I just think the movie deserves a better critique than 'Picard kind-of-sort-of-when-you-think-about-it acts a little more traumatized here than in the show' or, per this thread 'there aren't enough dolly shots' (really, goons?), and I trust you have a more interesting opinion than that.
|
|
#
¿
May 23, 2013 22:34
|
|
|
Hbomberguy posted:and I'm no Trekkie You sure seem to have lots of geeky complaints (and knowledge) for someone that claims not to be a Trekkie... This movie irritated me, too, but egads some of the fan reactions are especially silly with this one.
|
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2013 04:45
|
|
|
JediTalentAgent posted:You know, to keep the War on Terror theme the film had going for it, you could have probably played around with some of the old TOS concepts of Klingons and Federation vying for expansion and coming in contact with the same worlds as one another. Federation have to specifically avoid prewarp worlds and become more like a guard to prevent undue contact from other powers, Klingons have no such issue and barge right through the front door with guns and weapons, leading to a lot of Prime Directive corruption and interpretation. This is a neat idea but... this is criticizing a movie for what it's not rather than for what it is, which is like, the lamest thing someone can judge a movie for. Sorry this movie isn't the arbitrary one you made up in your head (and I know you're just elaborating on something someone else said, I don't mean anything personal).
|
|
#
¿
Sep 21, 2013 22:47
|
|
|
EDIT: Reading over what I just posted, this pretty much does sound like "rantings of a butt-hurt Star Trek fan" but ehhh, it's still something I'd like to discuss and see what others think about the general perception of the Star Trek movies (and probably franchise in general). So over in the "Let's watch badly reviewed movies thread" there was someone who went through the entirety of the first ten Star Trek films, which surprised me a bit since the movie series, on the whole, were well-received and mostly got good reviews from critics and audiences alike. I asked about it and 'Snak' gave this response: Snak posted:I would hazard a guess that it's similar to the difference between Genre Fiction and Literature. This distinction does not properly exist in the world of cinema yet, although some try to draw it as the distinction between movies and films. It's not a distinction that necessarily needs to exist as long as we acknowledge that reviews have context and do not exist in a vaccuum. Almost every Star Trek movie is absolute poo poo if you don't know anything at all about star trek going into it. trek movies often have what would normally be a b-movie level of quality to them. This isn't a dig on star trek, but it's important to recognize the vast difference between "This is a good star trek movie" and "This is a good movie". Look no further than Star Trek: First Contact which has an astonishing 92% on rottentomatoes. If it was not a star trek movie, many critics would not have given it a pass, but because almost all critics looked at it as a trek film, a lot of them liked it. Then I replied: lizardman posted:I get the general thrust of your argument, but... I just can't agree that this applies here. 'Having a b-movie level of quality but getting a pass (sometimes) because it hits certain tropes well for its target audience' is something I'd expect to hear about Friday the 13th or Godzilla sequels, not Star Trek. I'll concede that having a passing familiarity with the franchise is sometimes necessary to get 100% enjoyment of the movies, but I think that's more a matter of the series' universe being so drat big than anything else. The movies don't even necessarily follow a formula the way James Bond movies do, the appreciation they get is very genuine. Continuing here,I don't personally have any problem with someone not caring for the Star Trek movies, but it does remind me that there's been this pervasive (and baffling to me) revisionist narrative that's taken over since the first Abrams Trek movie came out that basically posits that the Star Trek film series were all cheap B-movies that managed to eke out a small profit by relying on nostalgia from a niche audience of sci-fi geeks, and that really just isn't true. On the first point, the Trek movies almost across the board boasted high production values and cutting-edge special effects for their time, and if they didn't have massive budgets it was because they were able to re-use sets and effects models from previous movies. On the second point, there's no question that Star Trek has a notoriously mammoth-sized geek fanbase, but that's par for the course with the sci-fi genre. Star Wars does, too, but I don't think anyone would argue that that franchise isn't mainstream and liked for 'genuine' artistic reasons. The post replying to me in that other thread cites First Contact, but I think that's actually a pretty poor example for his point, as that movie was such a big hit for that period of that series entirely because it reached outside the typical geek base of fans and wasn't 'just a Star Trek movie' and helped it regain some of the success and acclaim from audiences and critics the series enjoyed more consistently in the 80s, and it's actually the fanbase that has problems with that movie. People genuinely liked it! I guess my main point, especially how it relates to the current thread, is the Star Trek movies series of yore is not at all that different from the one currently running. They were mainstream blockbusters, perhaps not on the level of Star Wars or Indiana Jones, but certainly on par with, say, X-Men orrrrr.... Abrams' Star Trek movies, in fact. The notion that they weren't, either to discredit the new movie series or the old, might be the most annoying thing to come out of the latest movies' existence.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 14, 2013 20:21
|
|
|
Seemlar posted:If I recall correctly, it wasn't until First Contact that a Star Trek movie got a budget that even equalled what The Motion Picture had. It must be noted, movie budgets over the last 15 years have soared WELL past the point of inflation. Global markets have exploded and allow for much more massive budgets than were ever conceivable in the 80s or prior. Aside from maybe TWOK, none of the Trek movies were considered cheap for their time. No, aside from TMP, they weren't particularly expensive, either, but that was aided by the re-use of sets and effects models from prior movies, and later on they were able to refurbish assets from the TV shows as well. 1st AD posted:1)Most Star Trek movies look like they were done on TV episode budgets and it showed in crappy looking sets and uninspired lighting and camera movements. The lighting and direction are kind of subjective and I won't try to argue, but honestly the effects and overall production values of just about any Trek movie were VERY MUCH considered high quality during their release. Every Trek movie (V being the obvious exception) had reference-quality effects sequences: TMP was notoriously all about the effects, Trek II had the Mutara nebula battle, the Enterprise destruction in Trek III, the bird of prey landing under the Golden Gate Bridge in Trek IV, the morphing in Trek VI (even if Terminator 2 and Michael Jackson got there first, the fact remains it was part of that first wave of CGI-use), the Enterprise crashing in Generations, the Borg queen's assemblage in First Contact, the Briar-patch nebula stuff in Insurrection, and the ship collision in Nemesis. I didn't really mean to write out a big list like that, but just writing it out all those memorable effects sequences kept popping up. Even if some of them don't hold up so well these days, the fact remains that Star Trek movies were always high-quality, even cutting edge at times in their production values, and the effects work and makeup even garnered the occasional Oscar nod.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 15, 2013 23:48
|
|
|
1st AD posted:Wrath of Kahn never tries to be anything but a Star Trek movie. This is like saying a horror movie never tries to be anything but a horror movie, a romantic movie never tries to be anything but romantic, etc. Populism is great but there's something to be said for accomplishing a specific concept well (and I'd actually argue TWOK is actually a pretty universal story, all things considered). penismightier posted:That's really not true of Wrath of Khan at all. It was a huge move away from the series. The whole concept of Starfleet as a structured military organization basically began with it. The idea of addressing their advanced age was a risky and beautiful move.The idea of space as a naval field of battle was basically only ever explored once, in one single episode. The idea of adapting a literary classic in American sci-fi was, to my knowledge, untrod ground since Forbidden Planet in '56. The production design was a complete change of pace from everything that came before in the series, and is still a genre staple. You know, it gets overlooked because it happens so early on in the movie series, but The Wrath of Khan is actually a postmodern deconstruction of the TV show, or the Captain Kirk character as portrayed from that show. The concept boils down to: what happens when that daring, brash, can-do-no-wrong, young hero turns 50? What happens when he can't just hop on his ship and fly off at the end of an episode anymore? What happens when the lover and son he abandoned come back? What happens when an enemy he thought he could just dump on a planet and never look back returns with a vengeance? What happens when he actually has to face the consequences of his actions? According to TWOK, the Kirk of the TV show was essentially an adolescent, and perhaps he had to be in order to be great at his job, but at the start of the movie we find he doesn't know how to deal with himself; he says he feels old, because of course a 50-year-old adolescent feels old. When Kirk finally faces the no-win scenario that he'd avoided his entire life and Spock dies from it; Kirk says he feels young. It's like the "life starts at 40" mindset: your adolescence and/or young adulthood has ended, but your actual adulthood has only just begun. Kirk finally grows up. lizardman fucked around with this message at 00:08 on Oct 16, 2013 |
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2013 00:05
|
|
|
Maxwell Lord posted:The key with TWOK was they thought it would be the last one. The first movie was such a mammoth project and the Haha, that's another thing that gets lost on some when they watch the 80s movies nowadays: I hear a lot of semi-complaints that they're constantly returning to the status quo, often coming up with bend-over-backwards justifications for how this semi-retired aging crew keeps finding themselves back onboard the Enterprise bridge for another adventure (the single exception being the introduction of the Saavik character, which you could just tell her original purpose was to be a replacement for Spock should the series continue without him), and the answer is simply they had no idea they were going to make so many movies. Nearly every Star Trek movie was basically created with the mindset that it could very well be the last one. We didn't have the serialized pre-planned franchise structure movie studios have perfected today, and it wasn't until The Next Generation became a bona fide phenomenon on TV that the crew behind Star Trek really got themselves organized for the future.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2013 00:31
|
|
|
pigdog posted:You'll notice the plot holes after the credits roll, but not while the movie is rolling, because it's moving at such a breakneck pace. I'm sure the first Star Wars movies had plenty of plot holes, too, and I'd really liken this one to them. The dirty secret about this thread is that Into Darkness has actually been well-received by and large. It's got almost 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, for crying out loud. Box office could have been a bit better domestically (and mostly due to off-timing/ bad marketing), but still very strong for the series. I have my own problems with the movie as a fan (big problems, actually): that it brought back my favorite Star Trek character after 30 years and made him unrecognizable in terms of characterisation, appearance, or...really anything, but I felt the movie did its job as a summer blockbuster admirably.
|
|
#
¿
Dec 23, 2013 17:52
|
|
|
Blistex posted:Finally watched Into Darkness again and I figured out what was annoying me about Cumberbatch's acting. Does the guy always talk like he is trying to pop his ears/unhinge his jaw? It almost looked like he was trying to get someone in a car in the next lane to lip-read what he was saying. Did anyone else pick up on that, or am I just seeing things? Yes, I noticed him over-exaggerating his mouth when talking, too, especially on the "No ship should go down without her captain" line. Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan really is one of the more baffling casting decisions I've ever seen. The guy's obviously a fine actor and his performance has its own enjoyable qualities, but I still look at it and think, "How in the world did we end up with THAT?" I also wonder how Benicio Del Toro would have played it.
|
|
#
¿
Feb 12, 2014 20:58
|
|
|
I was just thinking the other day, if they absolutely had to get a white British dude to play Khan, I would've like to have seen Michael Fassbender take a stab at it. The guy has a more suitable physique for the part, is more conventionally handsome (Khan is supposed to be able to just woo unsuspecting female crewmembers off their feet) and seems to me he can display a firey evil intensity while retaining just enough warmth to see how he could be a great leader. Just imagine: "The TRICK! Is not MINDING that it hurts! *hhhaaahhhhh* He tasks me. He tasks me and I shall have him!" For me, as talented as the guy is, getting Benedict Cumberbatch to play Khan is like getting Al Pacino to play Kirk. It'd be... interesting, and Pacino can act circles around Shatner any day of the week, but sometimes you're simply not the best fit for the part regardless. JediTalentAgent posted:I guess STID is on Netflix right now, I guess, so I gave it half of a rewatch last night. I found myself watching and waiting to see the exact moment I started to dislike it. Honestly, STID plays like: Audience: "Don't you DARE remake Star Trek II!" Abrams & Friends: "Oh, don't worry, we wouldn't do that..." (shifts eyes to the left and right) (Halfway through movie) Abrams & Friends: "SURPRISE! It's Carol Marcus and Khan, of course we're reamking Star Trek II!!"
|
|
#
¿
May 19, 2014 22:52
|
|
|
JediTalentAgent posted:edit: When Carol Marcus twist came up, if Carol had pulled a, "My name is KHAN!"-type of reveal, now THAT would have surprised me. I am now imagining Alice Eve suddenly making a snarling face and hissing "My name is KHAN!" and the movie subsequently continuing with her as Khan and Benedict Cumberbatch as Carol Marcus and I am desperately trying to keep from laughing in the office.
|
|
#
¿
May 20, 2014 21:25
|
|
|
What's funny about the Seven of Nine character is that you only have to take one look at her and you know exactly how she was conceived: some suits from Paramount, one a severe business woman with her hair in a bun and holding a clipboard, walk into the producers' office and tell everyone, "Our market research says viewers don't think the show is sexy enough, and they also like the Borg. So OBVIOUSLY we order you to add a sexy Borg to the show."
|
|
#
¿
Jun 6, 2014 02:23
|
|
|
The Walking Dad posted:You know what? You are right, It was probably just me projecting on the older series because of the way I was raised. Emotions: something that need to be mastered and rarely expressed. I grew up in a Finnish community in rural Minnesota. In hindsight yes, the Vulcans have usually been portrayed as handling emotion very poorly, instead of having mastered emotion entirely. What I always saw as mastery may have been outright rejection. I do think you were right in the sense that there's a certain reverence for the Vulcans that the original continuity had that I don't feel in the newest films; I admit this isn't exactly fair considering we can only gauge this from two movies where Vulcans aren't the central focus, but where before I felt like the Vulcans as a whole were treated like monks or Buddhists, in the past couple movies they seem like a race of spergy space nerds. One thing I was always a little surprised at with the other movies and shows was that it never pulled what I would have thought was an obvious idea for a villain: a Vulcan who concocts a scheme that would harm innocent people but would ultimately lead to a greater good (think Watchmen), a case of cold but infallible logic used to justify evil acts*. Star Trek's Vulcan villains were always those that went rogue, such as Sybok, who either rejected strict logic, embraced emotion, or were unstable and had 'a logic of their own'. It makes me wonder if the writers didn't want to go there because they didn't want to come off anti-intellectual or that they didn't have faith in rationality in the service of justice (or, of course, maybe they just never got around to it). *You could make a case that Valeris in Trek VI fits this mold, though the movie doesn't really dwell or focus on her 'evil logic'; the movie is more interested (and appropriately so, in this case) in presenting the conspirators as simply reactionaries whose primary motivation is simply wanting to keep the world from changing around them.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 17, 2014 16:21
|
|
|
Hbomberguy posted:You are spacist. Haha, I kept stopping myself telling people they're "fictional species-ist" but yeah that would be a pretty horrible attitude to take toward a real biracial person. No Wave posted:Haven't watched much Star Trek, but haven't you just described the MO of the enterprise? You might be thinking of select moments of the crew following the Prime Directive, which has on a couple instances kept them from saving certain alien folks (those they hadn't yet made contact with yet and hadn't developed space travel) from natural disaster in favor of 'not interfering' with their race and society's development. I don't think there's been a time when the Enterprise crew intentionally went out of their way to harm innocent people in order to bring about a 'greater good'. In Star Trek Insurrection, in fact, they even fight to keep the Federation from harnessing some fountain of youth wonder-radiation that could potentially help the entire galaxy because it means forcibly removing the (non-indigenous!) folks from their chosen homeland (the crew is further justified in rebelling against this because the gang the Federation has teamed up with to mine the the resource, the Son'a or however you spell it, are legit Bad Dudes that would probably squander it for their own evil purposes anyway, but the Enterprise crew certainly doesn't have 'pure cold logic' on the brain by taking their stance). lizardman fucked around with this message at 01:59 on Jun 21, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2014 01:44
|
|
|
WarLocke posted:So I rewatched STID today and figured I'd catch up on this thread. I ended up skipping the last 40 pages because it seemed like the whole whitewashing crap would never end. What's crazy is that Cumberbatch actually resembles Joachim, Khan's second-in-command in TWOK. I think it could have worked. JediTalentAgent posted:I agree with this perspective, too. But even keeping Khan as a some rogue (I mean, he did plot to steal the Enterprise in Space Seed, right?) could sort of work. He's out there doing terrorist/piracy-like stuff like stealing Starfleet ships and the like, but from his perspective it's a necessary evil to get his people their future in a future that he literally believes will put them back in prison for being genetically altered. STID might have made Khan too "eeeeeevil" (genocide, really?), but I think we're starting to veer off a little too far to the "he's really not that bad a guy" side. Khan is a power-hungry madman, and though "Space Seed" portrayed him as a benevolent leader during his reign on Earth, it was only because he was satisfied being in charge. He's vain, insecure, and extremely petty. He's basically just a huge diva, but one who is dangerous because he can back his poo poo up. I don't think he's particularly righteous about anything aside from himself being the greatest and that everyone should recognize him as such. I think the overall message/theme of the Khan character is that it doesn't even matter if you ARE the smartest and the strongest, real confidence and emotional stability comes from within and your outlook on life and other people.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 21, 2014 22:00
|
|
|
Black Bones posted:In the brig scene, Khan weeps not for his crew, that sentiment is too soft an emotion for him to feel; he grieves because some pathetic little man has used him. That's the real motivation for him to turn the Vengeance upon the Enterprise - he doesn't think they really are a threat to him, but they have witnessed his brief humiliation. Like Ahab, he would strike the sun if it insulted him. See, and I realize we're heading to very subjective territory, but I just didn't buy this while watching. Cumberbatch struck me way too calculating and sincere to be the narcissist he'd been portrayed as previously. Some of the petty revenge actions the script calls for him to do actually seem at odds with Cumberbatch's portrayal. I think, in either incarnation, Khan would weep for his followers; MontalKhan because those people worshipped him, CumberKhan more out of a sense of justice being violated.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2014 01:39
|
|
|
Snak posted:Yes he's not "Khan", but who gives a poo poo. He's now a character that exists in the new continuity that they devoted most of a film to. It's a reboot and it's more or less okay for things to be totally different. What's not okay is if everything just turns out to be *wink* remember this from the original? I get this in concept, but dammit, Khan is my favorite Star Trek character. We've seen him in action exactly twice, the last time being 30 years ago. He isn't Batman or James Bond where we've-seen-him-so-many-times-let's-see-different-versions-of-him. Also, this may be a continuity reboot (of sorts), but I don't feel like this is a reactionary or subversive "reimagining" of the series (the "this isn't your father's Star Trek" talk in the advertising not withstanding). It seems to be trying hard to stay "true" to the series, or at least how it sees it, which leads to certain expectations to how the characters will be portrayed (and have been portrayed, really--at this point Khan is easily the major character with the most wildly divergent portrayal). This kind of reminds me of Alien 3 where its handling of prior characters and elements of the series isn't really a valid criticism in any technical sense, but.... man, did it have to take a huge poo poo on some of the things I liked and enjoyed from the series? I don't wanna keep bringing it up because in the end it's not that deep, but it's just annoying and unsatisfying and just makes me think "WTF?" On a lighter note, I wrote this crazy review on Netflix that sort of helped illustrate my insane fanboy panty-twisting feelings regarding STID: quote:So a friend tells you he's learned voodoo magic that can bring back the dead. You tell him, "Look, whatever you do, don't bring Grandma back from the dead. She lived a long and meaningful life and she deserves her peace." Your friend promises you he won't do that, and you forget about it after a while.
|
|
#
¿
Jun 30, 2014 21:32
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:It's important that Marcus was inspired by the events of the previous film. He saw the Narada, the incarnation of Star Trek: Nemesis, and said 'we need to become that'. History is still repeating itself. You know I love you, SMG, but I've never bought this whole Abrams-Star-Trek-movies-as-meta-commentary-on-past-Star-Trek-works thing you've been bringing up ever since Trek '09 came out, and honestly it comes across kind of troll-ish (especially since early on you'd routinely drop 'TWOK is the only one worth watching'-type remarks repeatedly as if hoping a butthurt fan would take the bait). I don't see why the "big bad black spiky warship" being presented as a terrible villainous construct in Abrams' movies is supposed to represent Nemesis and other Trek movies as a whole when the "big bad black spiky warship" in that movie was also a terrible villainous construct; it seems much more reasonable to chalk it up to "big, black, and spiky" being a simple and effective way to evoke evil in a vessel's appearance. Abrams' movies and Nemesis are more similar than they are different. They're both rather self-conscious efforts to compensate for the franchise being seen as stuffy and uncool (in fairness, Star Trek often IS stuffy and uncool). Abrams' efforts are more successful at it, partly out of more competence, partly because of the old guard being too, well, old and too far "in" to be able to pull it off. Basically, Nemesis is a middle-aged guy wearing a leather jacket and sunglasses, Abrams' Trek movies are an attractive young guy wearing a Star Trek uniform to a costume party. lizardman fucked around with this message at 23:53 on Jul 1, 2014 |
|
#
¿
Jul 1, 2014 23:50
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:The Narada is a gaggle of gritty Borg-enhanced Romulans getting pointless revenge. It represents 'the bad future' - TNG, and specifically Nemesis. It's all sickly neon green. But why does repeating prior tropes make it a metacommentary on the works that used those same tropes? I just need something more in order to make that leap ('computer parts' noting that Nero's ship actually originates in the post-Nemesis TNG-timeline is a step in that direction, and playing devil's advocate with myself I'll give you that in certain shots the Vengeance resembles the Enterprise-E, but those touches aren't enough for me). For me to really buy into this the Abrams films would have to be substantially different from the prior works, but to me they're not; not nearly enough, anyway, to really throw those elements into stark relief. The cast is younger and livelier, the Enterprise interiors are BRIGHT... but that's really about it. If the problem with Star Trek was that it got too dark and lost its optimism for the future, where is the rebuttal in making dark movies that only pay lip-service to the 'optimistic future' Star Trek represented? The world of Abrams' Treks often looks cold and industrial, far from any kind of paradise (and before anyone mentions the timeline being corrupted, the Kelvin interiors already looked like something out of the Alien universe at the beginning of Abrams' first movie). Even the super-bright Enterprise interiors feel rather sterile. If the problem with Star Trek was that it had too many villains wanting pointless revenge, where's the rebuttal in having another (TWO!) villains wanting pointless revenge? If the problem with Star Trek was its willingness to have corrupt warmongering conspiracies within its ideal society, where's the rebuttal in having another warmongering conspiracy be the central storyline? What is it about Abrams' movies that qualifies these elements as criticism and not just, you know, business as usual? Because they look like they're trying to be the same movie to me. There was a scene in the cartoon Daria where the ditzy cheerleader is presenting her painting to her art teacher. The painting is called "Don't do drugs". The painting merely consists of a pile of cocaine, marijuana joints, and other drugs and paraphrenelia lying about, and her art teacher tells her "I see the drugs, but I don't see the 'don't'." That's kind of how I feel with this reading of the Abrams Trek movies.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 2, 2014 02:02
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:The films have an obvious ambivalence towards the ipod-sleek interiors of the Enterprise. Things like the teleportation and the instant elevators are surreal and disorienting. Planets vanish in a few minutes, a mind-meld bombards you with imagery, and so-forth. Scotty gets trapped in a tube in a Modern Times reference. Into Darkness is unfortunately short on this stuff, but features things like the surveillance 'scanner data' revealing an infinite-resolution 3D diorama of a public street. This is a fine interpretation, but I don't see how this is a criticism of Star Trek Nemesis (and the other TNG-era movies, I gather) as a film, though, which sounded like your initial reading. Nemesis used the "big black terrible spiky ship of doom" as a representation of a corrupt ideology and technology just as Abrams' Trek '09 did - the deadly radiation that is Shinzon's superweapon also apparently ran the whole ship, so it stands to reason the technology could be harnessed for good in someone else's hands - and Shinzon himself is literally Picard if he didn't have his optimistic ideals and aspirations, and the film puts Shinzon in his big black spiky ship shrouded in greenish darkness and friends that look like Nosferatu to contrast with the Enterprise and its relative coziness and lightness to illustrate that nihilism & cynicism = bad and optimism & faith = good. We can argue how well executed Nemesis is, but thematically it has its heart in the right place, and moreover seems right in line with Abrams' Trek (honestly, the 2009 film feels to me like they watched Nemesis and thought, "Hmm, let's take another crack at that one"). For the Narada to represent TNG films would mean they would have to endorse or idealize such a vessel (and a worldview that would create it), but I couldn't possibly agree with that. Giving you as much of the benefit of the doubt as I can, Nemesis does try to present the Scimmitar (and the Borg and such) as 'cool' while the Narada is an amorphous spiky blob thing that's hard to appreciate on any level, but... eh? SuperMechagodzilla posted:However, simply restoring TOS is not enough. Into Darkness attacks the ideological failures that have haunted Star Trek from the beginning. Abrams is saying that the cynicism of DS9 is accurate, but then goes further to say accurate cynicism is not enough. Optimism is something you have to fight for. I'm at a disadvantage here as I tuned out of Star Trek on TV right around the 'darker years' of DS9 (largely because the direction and production of the series had gotten so dull that it couldn't even make a galactic war feel all that arresting) so I'm not sure how all that played out. I can't imagine, though, that any Star Trek would take any stance other than "war is a terrible thing". Is it that Star Trek should never have depicted a war in the first place?
|
|
#
¿
Jul 2, 2014 19:45
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:They do exactly that in 2009, with the superbright 'Jellyfish' ship that Nero keeps locked inside. The crucial detail is that Young Spock suicide-bombs this 'Jellyfish' right into the Narada, obliterating them both. TNG's version of optimism isn't good enough. You have to start over completely fresh. I think Hbomberguy's post actually helped me better understand what you're getting at (even though I'm not exactly sure who he was responding to): Hbomberguy posted:The idea of society as something fragile and difficult to build or protect is completely at odds with Star Trek's bizarre happy spacefuture where everything is fine except for those Reptilian Jews. The latter is quite clearly an ideological fantasy. The 'problem' with Star Trek, then, being that if you're constantly having to fight off evil moustache-twirling villains from destroying your idealistic utopian society, then maybe you don't really have much of an idealistic utopian society after all. I do think that's interesting. That said, I think "TNG era mindset didn't go far enough" is quite a bit softer position than "these terrible villains and their terrible spaceship represent those terrible movies", which makes me think either our discussion has shifted your perspective a little, or that you were being exaggeratedly incendiary for trolling purposes you can admit it, I won't judge! Personally I still don't go with that reading, I feel it would make the Abrams movies really hypocritical: these are still the same movies about the same revenge-minded, conspiracy-minded, moustache twirling villains, they just simply handwave them away with 'these villains are from or inspired by that other timeline'. That's not a real response, it's an excuse.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 2, 2014 22:10
|
|
|
Subyng posted:lol at posters being so defensive. Welcome to CinD indeed. "You're overanalyzing" is usually in defense of anti-intelluctualism and an attempt to shut down discussion, which is why people jumped on your post. In fairness, SMG did say "Abrams is saying such and such about DS9" which I think is mostly shorthand rather than literal (I kind of doubt JJ Abrams sat down and watched much Deep Space 9 if at all), but of course comes across that way. SMG deserves all the credit in the world for getting CineD to really *talk* about the movies we watch, but I feel like his reading of Abrams' Treks is an example of the kind of "seems-overreaching-but-is-internally-consistent-and-you-can't-really-disprove-it" interpretations that frustrates people. It's like arguing about whether God exists.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 3, 2014 22:25
|
|
|
SuperMechagodzilla posted:
You gotta admit that's an incredibly lovely circle.
|
|
#
¿
Jul 7, 2014 19:53
|
|
|
Arglebargle III posted:I actually really like First Contact because despite being a Star Trek zombie action comedy it actually has some believable character moments for Picard that we've never seen before. It takes a lot to push Picard into Captain Ahab revenge mode but being stuck on his ship fighting hand-to-hand with the Borg for a few days might just do it. Yep, First Contact is basically Picard nearly becoming a typical vengeance-fueled madman Star Trek villain and realizing it just before he fully commits to jumping over the deep end. It's significant that it's Lily (the Alfre Woodard character) who confronts him about it and gets him to see the light - as a woman from the primitive 21st century, she's able to truly appreciate both Picard's emotional state and lust for revenge as well as recognize what he'll lose if he succumbs to it: for everyone else on the Enterprise, 24th century ideals are the norm, but for Lily it represents a hope for the future she never had before. One thing that I didn't really appreciate until recently was the whole bit about the Borg wanting someone to give themselves 'freely' to them, which before was an idea that always kind of fell a little flat with me (and I admit they probably could have presented it in a more compelling way). But all these years later having thought about it a bit, I like the idea: the concept that the Borg collective had gotten so large and intricate that it formed another layer of consciousness that the single drone might not be fully aware of. While the drone 'Hugh' spoke about the feeling of connectedness hearing all the 'voices' in the collective, the Borg as a single collective entity if utterly alone, like a massive organism simply floating in the blackness of space... it makes sense that at some point it would want a 'counterpart'. It also makes me wonder if the Borg 'queen' we see is an avatar the Borg feel best suited for 'seducing' their prospective counterpart; maybe if the other party was a woman they would present a Borg 'king', for instance, and likewise put on their best face according to whatever form their desired partner would respond to. I never thought about making the sex connection with the Borg Queen so seriously before--it always just seemed to begin and end with "the Borg Queen looks like a dominatrix and she bangs Data" to me--but I'm starting to see it. Picard's exchange with the Borg in which he 'figures out' the whole counterpart thing even sounds appropriately relationship-y in this context; almost like he's saying "I wasn't just a random gently caress for you, was I? You had feelings for me," which sheds light on the Borg's defensive response, which reads like "You flatter yourself! I boned countless men, you were no different," and Picard calls their bluff with a response akin to "You're lying, I rocked your world." I mean, I realize the whole thing sounds hilarious when you put it that way but that's basically what's happening there. I give the screenwriters props because while it could've been handled a little better, it also could've been wwwwaaaaaaayyyyyy worse. I know a lot of fans hated the development of the Borg Queen and I can definitely understand why, but I think she's kept precisely ambiguous enough (in First Contact, at least, I can't really speak to whether they spoiled the whole thing in Voyager) to make the Borg seem more mysterious and complex, like we can almost understand them but they're so advanced they exist just outside of our understanding of the universe, and we can't always read their intentions (obviously Picard discovers the Borg's need for companionship, but we really don't know what they have planned for Earth and their attempted altering of history). I mean, she's never even referred to as a 'Queen' in the film. Arglebargle III posted:It's just a shame that they handed Frakes the franchise after that and he wanted to just keep making action movies and only action movies. The most popular Star Trek movie (before the advent of international spectacles) was a comedy and the most critically acclaimed was a submarine drama. The late Michael Piller had planned to release a book about his experience writing Star Trek Insurrection and the manuscript leaked a few years back and it was very interesting and revealing. The most illuminating thing for me was that the concept for the movie (on a very high level) was that they wanted to create a Star Trek IV for the Next Generation cast. It's a little sad that very early on in the development process they assumed that times had changed and that they couldn't make a movie without some action and laser blasting (the book doesn't make it sound like there was any controversy among the staff over this decision; it was just taken as a given). Insurrection's execution makes quite a bit more sense to me after learning that (I'd never considered that before largely because I'd already figured the Next Gen case already had their "Star Trek IV" moment of sorts with First Contact). Thing is, by trying to make such a light-hearted movie within a war-like context, they pretty much made a movie that was a lot more like the other time Star Trek tried to recreate the "Star Trek IV" magic-- Star Trek V.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 16, 2014 21:20
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ May 10, 2024 19:20 |
|
|
Cingulate posted:You see, Insurrection is like a nice massage. It's not exciting, but a lot of things shouldn't be exciting, like massages, breakfast, going to the loo, and the Enterprise crew just shooting the poo poo. Insurrection isn't aggressively terrible or anything (honestly I don't think any of the Trek flicks are all that bad, it seems to be this weird fan thing - and this goes for any media property - to have certain movies you LOVE and other you HATE.), but I don't think it really works on any of the levels it's going for. The drama comes off preachy (and somebody should have told the producers that of the many qualities of the TV show people were fond of, its tendency toward pontification was not one of them) and gets neutered by the jokey tone of the whole thing, and the comedy is entirely based on the crew acting out of character (it's nice at least, that they have an explanation for the gang acting a little silly whereas Star Trek V had the crew acting like buffoons for no apparent reason), and the action feels forced and unearned (I don't buy the Enterprise would have that much trouble with those enemy ships, for instance). I can throw in Nemesis if I'm in a lowbrow goofy action TNG-crew-shooting-the-poo poo Star Trek mood, but I never feel like that with Insurrection. The movie just never really 'gels' and I feel like I'm wasting my time watching it.
|
|
#
¿
Oct 17, 2014 21:34
|
|