Now that the shiny, shiny glee has worn off somewhat...
...not totally, I am still full of love, but you see, I love Star Trek into Darkness like I love a really emotionally satisfying fanfic...
...which was basically what this film was - use of canon bad guy to set up some action scenes to bring us to the epic hurt/comfort scene, with lots of satisfying emotional conflict and making up and bonding.
What is wasn’t, was a good Star Trek film, for the very same reasons - use of canonical bad guy as a short cut to play with our emotions fails because:
- He doesn’t have a history with Kirk, and is therefore just random, why not have had him be John Harrison, hell, he still could have been one of the super people, just not Khan (it’s not like they gave him any of Khan’s personality or background)
- Because, apart from the race!fail, what was the point, sure they’ve set it up so that in the future he’ll be Kirk’s archnemesis, but right now, the only reason it was there was so they could:
- Steal the epicist epic H/C scene of all time from The Wrath of Khan, which just fails to work on that level because they just don’t have that wonderful many years of devotion. Hell, they’re barely friends. And, god, that Khan scream was ridiculous. Seriously. (I have watched this scene many times on youtube, but my love is purely as a K/S fangirl).
And yeah, much as I love Benedict Cumberbatch, he should not have played Khan. John Harrison, yes. Khan, why? I wonder what goes through actors’ heads when they get offered these roles, is it feasible that he thought he was just playing a dude called Harrison until after he’d signed? I do remember him joking about how he was rung up to go for this role and no one would tell him who he’d be playing cos it was classified. Although, given all the bullshit all the actors were spouting before the film opened to keep the identity of the villain from being “spoiled” I’m not trusting any of them. Or do these white actors look at these POC roles they’re offered and think, no this is fine’?
Here’s an interesting meta post on this point, about the whitewash of the race!fail in the lead up to the film.
Why yes, I do have an exam tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that *handwaves*
...which was basically what this film was - use of canon bad guy to set up some action scenes to bring us to the epic hurt/comfort scene, with lots of satisfying emotional conflict and making up and bonding.
What is wasn’t, was a good Star Trek film, for the very same reasons - use of canonical bad guy as a short cut to play with our emotions fails because:
- He doesn’t have a history with Kirk, and is therefore just random, why not have had him be John Harrison, hell, he still could have been one of the super people, just not Khan (it’s not like they gave him any of Khan’s personality or background)
- Because, apart from the race!fail, what was the point, sure they’ve set it up so that in the future he’ll be Kirk’s archnemesis, but right now, the only reason it was there was so they could:
- Steal the epicist epic H/C scene of all time from The Wrath of Khan, which just fails to work on that level because they just don’t have that wonderful many years of devotion. Hell, they’re barely friends. And, god, that Khan scream was ridiculous. Seriously. (I have watched this scene many times on youtube, but my love is purely as a K/S fangirl).
And yeah, much as I love Benedict Cumberbatch, he should not have played Khan. John Harrison, yes. Khan, why? I wonder what goes through actors’ heads when they get offered these roles, is it feasible that he thought he was just playing a dude called Harrison until after he’d signed? I do remember him joking about how he was rung up to go for this role and no one would tell him who he’d be playing cos it was classified. Although, given all the bullshit all the actors were spouting before the film opened to keep the identity of the villain from being “spoiled” I’m not trusting any of them. Or do these white actors look at these POC roles they’re offered and think, no this is fine’?
Here’s an interesting meta post on this point, about the whitewash of the race!fail in the lead up to the film.
Why yes, I do have an exam tomorrow, and the day after, and the day after that *handwaves*