Went and saw Star Trek Into Darkness this Weekend
And was deeply disappointed.
I wanted to wait until my head cooled before writing a review, but now I think I am just burnt out from thinking about how awful it was all weekend, and giving a completely cool and calm review is not going to happen. Sorry in advance.
It was a non-stop action movie roller coaster ride of a flick, which would have been fine if this wasn't a Star Trek movie. Hell, the first reboot was also a jam-packed action adventure ride and it STILL made time for a few moments of reflection. This one...did not. They came close once (the movie opens with Kirk breaking the Prime Directive not once, but TWICE. Once to save a still tribal people from death by volcano, and then again immediately after by revealing the Enterprise to those same people in order to rescue Spock from death by volcano. Kirk is reprimanded and demoted. Spock is reassigned, and Pike is given the Enterprise back, with Kirk as his First Officer, seemingly so that Pike can knock some sense into Kirk about why they have rules and stuff), but then Benedict attacks, and that was all washed down the drain. (I want to read the fic where Benedict Cumberbatch never happens in this universe and Pike and Kirk go off and have wacky adventures. Please, someone make this happen.))
I, like most fans, had heard rumblings that Abrams MIGHT be trying to use the Khan storyline again, but I firmly had my fingers in my ears regarding that, because I did not want that to be the case: Because casting Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan was just an AWFUL CASE OF WHITEWASHING THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED.
There are other reasons I didn't want to believe that Abrams was tackling the Khan storyline again, true. I mean, 'The Wrath of Khan' is one of the best Star Trek movies ever made and I didn't want to see it redone, not even just because THERE IS NO BACKSTORY FOR KHAN AND KIRK IN THIS UNIVERSE FOR WHICH KHAN SHOULD BE FEELING WRATHFUL, but also because I WANTED SOMETHING NEW.
But mostly: because casting Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan was just an AWFUL CASE OF WHITEWASHING THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED.
I REALLY wanted to believe that Abrams was not going to go there. And when they introduced Benedict Cumberbatch's character as someone named Harrison, I WAS STOKED. Honestly, I was. I thought to myself 'YES. YOU ARE GOING TO DO A EUGENICS WAR PLOT THAT DOESN'T FEATURE KHAN. AND IT WILL BE NEW AND DIFFERENT. I thought, maybe the character was one of Khan's crew who was awoken INSTEAD of Khan. This is a different universe after all, who says that Khan had to be the one awoken? Hell, Khan's capsule could have been fried or something over the last 300 years, so the next most-highly ranked officer from the crew could have been awoken instead. OR, he could have been just someone who worked on the project with the Admiral and was NOT OKAY with what he was doing. MAYBE THEY DIDN'T WAKE ANYONE UP FROM THE EUGENICS WAR AT ALL. THERE WERE SO MANY POSSIBILITIES, AND ALL OF THEM NEW AND EXCITING AND INTERESTING AND NOT OFFENSIVE.
What we got instead, wasn't. It wasn't new. It wasn't exciting. It wasn't good. Instead it was a piss-poor remake of Wrath of Khan WITH A WHITEWASHED KHAN. DO I EVEN NEED TO GO INTO DETAIL ABOUT WHY THIS WAS A BAD CALL, ABRAMS? DO I?! Honestly, there is just no excuse for this. Zero. Zilch. THIS CASTING SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED. Not in this day and age. They should have hired a POC to play the role, and that's all there is to it.
Even assuming they HAD bothered to cast an appropriate actor to play the role of Khan, this movie STILL would have been awful, though. Because it was a piss-poor remake of Wrath of Khan:
Not so this time, folks. This time Kirk is healed almost immediately through space!magic, the Enterprise is salvaged (after pretty much being torn to shreds by a massive dreadnought and falling partially through Earth's atmosphere - SPEAKING OF WHICH. There was a firefight IMMEDIATELY above Earth. So close to Earth, in fact, that the ENTERPRISE WAS PULLED INTO EARTH'S GRAVITY. And yet... no one stepped in to help? Are you honestly telling me that there are no ships stationed in patrols immediately above Earth? Or at least in the solar system? No one was around at all to help out with that? Really? REALLY?!), and a year-long time-skip later, Kirk is back in charge of the Enterprise, heading out for a five-year mission, even though nothing that happened during the plot of the movie was able to show that he WASN'T GOING TO BREAK THE PRIME DIRECTIVE AGAIN AND AGAIN AND YOU JUST SENT HIM ON HIS MERRY WAY FOR FIVE YEARS? WHAT?!
I just...ugh. I mean, there WERE some good points (Karl Urban was fantastic. Anton Yelchin was adorable. John Cho in the Captain's chair was awesome. Really, the cast played their roles well, and did their best with a shit plot), but overall, the movie was complete shit. It didn't feel even a little bit like a Star Trek movie should.
Here's hoping that Abrams is too busy working on Star Wars to make the next Star Trek flick, and someone who gives a shit about the franchise takes things over.
*sigh*
Crossposted at http://skybound2.dreamwidth.org/1024161.html. Please leave your comments over there. (If you can't access that post, please comment here and I will add you to my reading list over there! Complicated enough yet?)
I wanted to wait until my head cooled before writing a review, but now I think I am just burnt out from thinking about how awful it was all weekend, and giving a completely cool and calm review is not going to happen. Sorry in advance.
It was a non-stop action movie roller coaster ride of a flick, which would have been fine if this wasn't a Star Trek movie. Hell, the first reboot was also a jam-packed action adventure ride and it STILL made time for a few moments of reflection. This one...did not. They came close once (the movie opens with Kirk breaking the Prime Directive not once, but TWICE. Once to save a still tribal people from death by volcano, and then again immediately after by revealing the Enterprise to those same people in order to rescue Spock from death by volcano. Kirk is reprimanded and demoted. Spock is reassigned, and Pike is given the Enterprise back, with Kirk as his First Officer, seemingly so that Pike can knock some sense into Kirk about why they have rules and stuff), but then Benedict attacks, and that was all washed down the drain. (I want to read the fic where Benedict Cumberbatch never happens in this universe and Pike and Kirk go off and have wacky adventures. Please, someone make this happen.))
I, like most fans, had heard rumblings that Abrams MIGHT be trying to use the Khan storyline again, but I firmly had my fingers in my ears regarding that, because I did not want that to be the case: Because casting Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan was just an AWFUL CASE OF WHITEWASHING THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED.
There are other reasons I didn't want to believe that Abrams was tackling the Khan storyline again, true. I mean, 'The Wrath of Khan' is one of the best Star Trek movies ever made and I didn't want to see it redone, not even just because THERE IS NO BACKSTORY FOR KHAN AND KIRK IN THIS UNIVERSE FOR WHICH KHAN SHOULD BE FEELING WRATHFUL, but also because I WANTED SOMETHING NEW.
But mostly: because casting Benedict Cumberbatch as Khan was just an AWFUL CASE OF WHITEWASHING THAT SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED.
I REALLY wanted to believe that Abrams was not going to go there. And when they introduced Benedict Cumberbatch's character as someone named Harrison, I WAS STOKED. Honestly, I was. I thought to myself 'YES. YOU ARE GOING TO DO A EUGENICS WAR PLOT THAT DOESN'T FEATURE KHAN. AND IT WILL BE NEW AND DIFFERENT. I thought, maybe the character was one of Khan's crew who was awoken INSTEAD of Khan. This is a different universe after all, who says that Khan had to be the one awoken? Hell, Khan's capsule could have been fried or something over the last 300 years, so the next most-highly ranked officer from the crew could have been awoken instead. OR, he could have been just someone who worked on the project with the Admiral and was NOT OKAY with what he was doing. MAYBE THEY DIDN'T WAKE ANYONE UP FROM THE EUGENICS WAR AT ALL. THERE WERE SO MANY POSSIBILITIES, AND ALL OF THEM NEW AND EXCITING AND INTERESTING AND NOT OFFENSIVE.
What we got instead, wasn't. It wasn't new. It wasn't exciting. It wasn't good. Instead it was a piss-poor remake of Wrath of Khan WITH A WHITEWASHED KHAN. DO I EVEN NEED TO GO INTO DETAIL ABOUT WHY THIS WAS A BAD CALL, ABRAMS? DO I?! Honestly, there is just no excuse for this. Zero. Zilch. THIS CASTING SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAPPENED. Not in this day and age. They should have hired a POC to play the role, and that's all there is to it.
Even assuming they HAD bothered to cast an appropriate actor to play the role of Khan, this movie STILL would have been awful, though. Because it was a piss-poor remake of Wrath of Khan:
- With no backstory between Khan and Kirk to build tension off of;
- With horribly shoe-horned in 'classic' lines of dialogue ('Dammit man, I'm a Doctor, not a torpedo specialist!' REALLY, ABRAMS? REALLY?!);
- With the reduction of classic characters to throw away references (we shall never see Nurse Chapel, because Kirk wronged her off-screen. Awesome.);
- With extreme moments of character assassination (They reduced Uhura's character almost entirely down to the love interest for Spock. Even going so far has to have her behave in a VERY unprofessional manner during a high-risk mission AFTER she assured the Captain that her issues with Spock would NOT impact the mission. They also just shoved her character into places that she didn't belong. Like, why was she even ON the shuttle at the beginning of the movie helping Spock get into that jumpsuit? She's a communications specialist. They provided no reason for her to be there other than so that she could kiss Spock's helmet ala the Doctor and Rose in Satan's Pit. Similarly, WHY was she the best choice to beam down to save Spock/stop him from killing Khan at the end, other than that Spock was her boyfriend? Wouldn't a security officer have been better suited to that job? I mean, I am ALL FOR utilizing Uhura's character. I adore her. But PLEASE utilize her character WELL. Like, having her go with Kirk and the away team to Kronos MADE SENSE, because SHE SPEAKS KLINGON. THAT WAS A GOOD CALL, ABRAMS. PLEASE MAKE THOSE MORE OFTEN. The other two instances? Didn't. And also, SHE IS A DAMN PROFESSIONAL AND SHE WOULD ACT LIKE IT NO MATTER HOW ANGRY AT HER BOYFRIEND SHE MAY BE. THANKS ABRAMS FOR NOT LETTING HER.);
- With Spock randomly letting Carol Marcus go after discovering that she FORGED HER WAY ONTO THE ENTERPRISE. Why did he do that again? Because that made zero sense to me. But I guess that he HAD to let her go, otherwise we couldn't have gotten...
- One of the most awkward and forced moments of showing off a female character in underwear simply because they apparently HAD to include at least one female in underwear for no good reason (it was completely irrelevant to the plot, and only served to showcase Kirk as a complete creep with no respect for boundaries - GOOD JOB ABRAMS.);
- With a completely NONSENSICAL reversal of an iconic scene (Kirk dies in the engine room this time with his hand pressed to Spock's through the glass and Spock gets to cry and scream 'KHAAAAAN!' before going on a revenge rampage - because APPARENTLY one of those two dying in the engine room while their hands meet and the other yells our their grief IS A FIXED POINT IN TIME OR SOMETHING AND HAS TO HAPPEN NO MATTER WHAT UNIVERSE THEY ARE IN);
- And OH YEAH, then we got the complete disintegration of any tension that might be caused by watching one of those two DIE in this universe because after a fade to black THEY ARE RESURRECTED THROUGH KHAN'S MAGIC BLOOD. REALLY, ABRAMS? REALLY?!
Not so this time, folks. This time Kirk is healed almost immediately through space!magic, the Enterprise is salvaged (after pretty much being torn to shreds by a massive dreadnought and falling partially through Earth's atmosphere - SPEAKING OF WHICH. There was a firefight IMMEDIATELY above Earth. So close to Earth, in fact, that the ENTERPRISE WAS PULLED INTO EARTH'S GRAVITY. And yet... no one stepped in to help? Are you honestly telling me that there are no ships stationed in patrols immediately above Earth? Or at least in the solar system? No one was around at all to help out with that? Really? REALLY?!), and a year-long time-skip later, Kirk is back in charge of the Enterprise, heading out for a five-year mission, even though nothing that happened during the plot of the movie was able to show that he WASN'T GOING TO BREAK THE PRIME DIRECTIVE AGAIN AND AGAIN AND YOU JUST SENT HIM ON HIS MERRY WAY FOR FIVE YEARS? WHAT?!
I just...ugh. I mean, there WERE some good points (Karl Urban was fantastic. Anton Yelchin was adorable. John Cho in the Captain's chair was awesome. Really, the cast played their roles well, and did their best with a shit plot), but overall, the movie was complete shit. It didn't feel even a little bit like a Star Trek movie should.
Here's hoping that Abrams is too busy working on Star Wars to make the next Star Trek flick, and someone who gives a shit about the franchise takes things over.
*sigh*
Crossposted at http://skybound2.dreamwidth.org/1024161.html. Please leave your comments over there. (If you can't access that post, please comment here and I will add you to my reading list over there! Complicated enough yet?)