Star Trek: Into Darkness

[aelfgyfu_mead]

It's all spoilers, just so you know.

I didn't like the reboot for reasons I won't bore you with outside of a cut (but inside of a cut, it's too dark to see

Comments

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I hated the first one but enjoyed this one. However, I went into the theater reminding myself that the reboot universe is a little closed bubble. It doesn't erase the universe with Real Spock et al. in it. I periodically had to remind myself "closed timeloop; it will be erased."

I understand why you hated the first one.

[lunachickk]

The Classic-Trekkie in me was moaning and grumbling throughout it but when I tried to just let go and go with it I really did enjoy it.

I love Karl Urban and Simon Pegg!

Oh yes, they really should have had more than one tribble laying around at the end. *nods*

[joonscribble]

Apparently, no one told the "savage" Khan what doors are either.

I think this was the moment in the movie when I laughed the hardest.

I was a little amazed at how much I was not bothered by the race-change for Khan. However, I've been somewhat amused by John Cho clearly being NOT okay with it and calling Abrams out on it as the press tour goes on.

I have no idea why he was on the Planet of the Red Trees with Kirk, but I don't care. He's fun.

I often had this reaction of "why is he here? who cares, awesome!" whenever he showed on the bridge randomly.

I feel like the writers of these movies have the most trouble writing Kirk. I get that this version is different due to growing up without a father or really a family from what the first movie seems to suggest. So I get he has a slightly more "me against the world" attitude that often gets his entire crew in trouble. Making him like that, however accurate it is in terms of characterization always makes it seem like he has no business in being the captain of anything.

[aelfgyfu_mead]

I have not been following the news about the movie, largely because I'd already been spoiled for certain developments even before the movie came out thanks to the press, not people on LJ. So I didn't hear anything about John Cho. Thanks for telling me about that so I could look it up-after doing some reading, I have to say that he's right.

I must confess that I hadn't thought of the recasting of Khan as whitewashing because I thought of Montalban as a Spaniard and so had never thought of Khan as Indian or even a person of color-but a little Googling turned up some useful links on the topic. Montalban apparently did consider himself a person of color and even founded and participated in advocacy groups "The Real Problem with Benedict Cumberbatch's Villain Role in Star Trek 12" by Charlie Jane Anders. I now feel a bit stupid and embarrassed for not considering the problem. Because Anders is right: there's a serious problem in recasting the role, particularly with a plot about eugenics. I also think it's a problem in a series of movies

[joonscribble]

Thanks for the article! I'm interested to know if the author's opinion has changed at all now that the movie's come out. As good as BC was in his portrayal, I couldn't help but notice that his Khan was written pretty flatly. Montalban's Khan wasn't the most complex villain ever but he certainly had more going on than BC's Khan. In that way, I was almost happy that if Khan was going to get re-written as a 2-dimensional terrorist, making him White felt somehow "better." Not that "better" is exactly the word. Perhaps the lesser of two insults?

I also think it's a problem in a series of movies where white, blue-eyed Kirk seems to be captain of the Enterprise for behaving badly, and most of the people under him are not white (or are half-Vulcan) but much better behaved!I can't quite decide if this is an issue with the current filmmakers or an issue of them trying to translate a very dated trope to modern times. No one blinked an eye back in the day when Montalban was cast as an Indian character (in darkening foundation make up no less)

[aelfgyfu_mead]

As good as BC was in his portrayal, I couldn't help but notice that his Khan was written pretty flatly.
Yes! I found myself having sympathy for the character, and I credit that totally to the actor: I couldn't help but be moved when he talked about his people, but that didn't make sense of the things he did in the movie. I'd start to feel sympathetic, and then I'd remember that he killed 42 people just to get the higher-ups of Starfleet together so that he could kill one of them in vengeance, and my sympathy evaporated.

Montalban's Khan had more depth partly because he had more backstory, in "Space Seed"-but he had also been clearly driven to the edge of sanity by the two decades of suffering he and his people had endured. We got to see him interact with his people, which BC's Khan didn't get to do because they were all frozen.

I did wonder after I posted if the movie-makers actively chose not to have the man who bombs London and makes quite a mess of San Francisco be non-white. We're told that Khan is "savage," so it's not as if a

[a_phoenixdragon]

*SKIPS SPOILERS TO SQUISH YOU*

[dudethemath]

Three things: I believe I suggested the writers thought it might be Earth's gravity. I know all objects fall at the same rate (cf. "vomit comet").

Second, the comic prequel explains why there's only one shuttlecraft left but they have Mudd's little packet. (And it's not Harvey's, but his daughter's, and she's Bajoran?!?!?)

And of course in TOS, Bones just wanders onto the bridge whenever he damn' well feels like it, mostly to needle Spock.