It's not even about the racebending thing.
Saw the new "Trek" promo, which seems to be teasing Cumberbatch as Khan after all, and found myself really hoping that it is a misdirect. And not just because of the whole issue of white actors taking minority parts, but because the whole reason "Wrath of Khan" is an epic narrative is that it's a battle between two old enemies, Kirk and Khan, with
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I admittedly haven't seen the teaser trailer yet, but I gotta say, I took one look at the poster and thought, "I don't think I want to see this movie." The first one didn't particularly convince me that JJ Abrams has any clue what really made ST special, and the poster just makes me think the same thing. It's one thing for ST to dip into grittier stuff or post-apocalyptic stuff in the movies, or in later series, when the whole Federation/Starfleet was well-established and authors wanted to start pushing back at it and exploring its cracks and crevices. But to go there right out of the gate in this reboot? I mean, it wasn't like the first movie hasn't already done post-apocalyptic, in theme if not visual style!
I've been thinking of late that in a lot of ways we're in another 60s-like period. It would be an act of intellectual courage if a movie-maker were trying to do now what ST was trying to do in the 60s - imagine a world where humanity had actually figured out a lot of the crap that was getting us down at the time, and then reached out to do great things*. JJ Abrams is not that filmmaker. He's just making generic terrorism-inspired scifi with the ST label and character quirks slapped on top.
* Yes, it often came off cheesy, but that's precisely why it's an act of courage. It's hard to do well, particularly when you're in a time of upheaval and gloomy predictions when nothing seems like it IS working.
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