Um....
This morning I start to catch up with the internet and lo, there was much rejoicing because Benedict Cumberpatch was cast as the villain in the next Star Trek film. And then my inner Trekker kicked in and reminded me of something. Namely, all the Star Trek films. Whether or not you're an adherent of the even numbered theory, whether or not you are a TOS only purist, more a TNGler, a newbie who only came on board with the Abrams reboot, or embrace all the Trek, all the time, there might, dare I suggest, be general consensus on at least one thing: what you don't watch the ST movies for are the villains.
Not because there haven't geen great actors cast as ST villains before. On the big screen, we've had the likes of Christopher Plummer, F. Murray Abraham, Christopher Llyod, Tom Hardy, etc. Can't remember them as being in Star Trek? There is a reason for that. Their characters were no better than run off the mill villains, with no connection to the main cast at all, and sometimes they were worse. (Let's not talk about Shinzon, shall we?) Incidentally, I doubt Eric Bana's CV will feature Nero from the last film in a big way, either. Arguably the most memorable ST cinema villains were Khan from Wrath of Khan and the Borg plus the Borg Queen from First Contact. Both of which had been established by the respective tv shows (well, the Queen wasn't, and while her very existence is still a bit controversial since it goes something basic previously established about the Borg, she certainly was memorable), and part of their success was owed to that fact. They had history with Our Heroes. Also, their plot du jour was tied to an emotional arc of the main character - Kirk's aging and avoidance of mortality, Picard's PTSD about his Locutus-of-Borg experience. Nero in the reboot film was obviously modelled on Khan (he feels he's avenging his wife and world), but can't quite carry it off, not least because Bana isn't as good at larger-than-life-vengeance-and-megalomania as Ricardo Montalban was. And while his deeds deeply affect Reboot Kirk and Reboot Spock, the only character he has an actual personal history with, Original Spock, never shares the screen with him.
All of which makes me, shall we say, a tad sceptical that the next Star Trek villain will be all that memorable, either, no matter who plays him.
It may be simply because Star Trek doesn't lend itself to the hero versus villain scenario. It's probably not a coincidence that the ST film still voted as most popular, ST IV, doesn't have a villain at all. Instead, it has time travel, much humour, saving-the-whales agenda and humanity itself as the culprit for the nearly-ending-the-world scenario du jour because we didn't save the whales the first time around. Now the various ST tv shows came up with some very memorable villains, especially the post TOS ones, but these guys were recurring. They had time to be complicated, have their motivations, backstories and emotional arcs, to affect Our Heroes in multiple ways. In a self contained cinematic outing, you have to introduce, build up and defeat the antagonist in one go (unless you use tv backstory, and the Reboot Crew doesn't have that), and that in a universe which is supposed to be about exploration rather than about being at war with someone. (Yes, you could make a case for the Dominion War on DS9 as the most memorable long arc in a newer ST show, but, again, it was built up through several seasons.)
Ah well. Maybe the next film will buck the trend and whoever B.C. plays will be as memorable as Khan and the Borg. I suppose it's too much to hope he'll be a Cardassian?
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/742458.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.
Not because there haven't geen great actors cast as ST villains before. On the big screen, we've had the likes of Christopher Plummer, F. Murray Abraham, Christopher Llyod, Tom Hardy, etc. Can't remember them as being in Star Trek? There is a reason for that. Their characters were no better than run off the mill villains, with no connection to the main cast at all, and sometimes they were worse. (Let's not talk about Shinzon, shall we?) Incidentally, I doubt Eric Bana's CV will feature Nero from the last film in a big way, either. Arguably the most memorable ST cinema villains were Khan from Wrath of Khan and the Borg plus the Borg Queen from First Contact. Both of which had been established by the respective tv shows (well, the Queen wasn't, and while her very existence is still a bit controversial since it goes something basic previously established about the Borg, she certainly was memorable), and part of their success was owed to that fact. They had history with Our Heroes. Also, their plot du jour was tied to an emotional arc of the main character - Kirk's aging and avoidance of mortality, Picard's PTSD about his Locutus-of-Borg experience. Nero in the reboot film was obviously modelled on Khan (he feels he's avenging his wife and world), but can't quite carry it off, not least because Bana isn't as good at larger-than-life-vengeance-and-megalomania as Ricardo Montalban was. And while his deeds deeply affect Reboot Kirk and Reboot Spock, the only character he has an actual personal history with, Original Spock, never shares the screen with him.
All of which makes me, shall we say, a tad sceptical that the next Star Trek villain will be all that memorable, either, no matter who plays him.
It may be simply because Star Trek doesn't lend itself to the hero versus villain scenario. It's probably not a coincidence that the ST film still voted as most popular, ST IV, doesn't have a villain at all. Instead, it has time travel, much humour, saving-the-whales agenda and humanity itself as the culprit for the nearly-ending-the-world scenario du jour because we didn't save the whales the first time around. Now the various ST tv shows came up with some very memorable villains, especially the post TOS ones, but these guys were recurring. They had time to be complicated, have their motivations, backstories and emotional arcs, to affect Our Heroes in multiple ways. In a self contained cinematic outing, you have to introduce, build up and defeat the antagonist in one go (unless you use tv backstory, and the Reboot Crew doesn't have that), and that in a universe which is supposed to be about exploration rather than about being at war with someone. (Yes, you could make a case for the Dominion War on DS9 as the most memorable long arc in a newer ST show, but, again, it was built up through several seasons.)
Ah well. Maybe the next film will buck the trend and whoever B.C. plays will be as memorable as Khan and the Borg. I suppose it's too much to hope he'll be a Cardassian?
This entry was originally posted at http://selenak.dreamwidth.org/742458.html. Comment there or here, as you wish.