Just saw the new Star Trek movie today. It’s… loud. But is it good?
Nob posted a thread many days ago complaining that it seemed like adapted fanfic. And there’s some validity there. But there’s some other issues too, below the fold.
Avast matey, and take ye good heed. HERE THERE BE SPOILERS! If ye be wishin’ t’see this movie, be it on YOUR head an’ not mine if ye read below yonder jump. Arr.
Ricardo Montalban’s Khan was way sexier. Not just because Montalban was a good looking older man and the makeup played it up. He brought emotion and a seductive voice and a confidence. And emotion. This new kid Benedict Cumberbatch was a better Spock than Zachary Quinto.
That said, he wasn’t as evil as Montalban, either. Or as cultivated in his toying with his prey. There was no quoting of Moby Dick or Shakespeare. There was very little cat-and-mouse between Kirk and Khan. Khan didn’t care that much about Kirk; Kirk was an obstacle and a tool but not a hated foe.
Perhaps that’s because the movie couldn’t really decide if the REAL bad guy was Khan the sociopath or Admiral Marcus the warmonger.
When Kirk is off-course in the “human torpedo” scene, why would Khan assist Kirk in getting to the Dreadnought? Kirk was clearly dangerous and hostile and Khan could take the ship on his own just fine with his super genetic enhancements. Kirk’s ability to contribute value to Khan’s mission of commandeering the Dreadnought and extorting his crew back expired the moment the airlock to the Dreadnought opened up.
We didn’t need that Leonard Nimoy cameo at all. Spock had already figured out Khan was going to betray Kirk. And that he was dangerous. And he was obviously smart enough to keep the corpsicles without guidance from a mentor. And wasn’t Khan supposed to have been a leader, almost the winner, of the Eugenics wars? His name should have been familiar to anyone who hadn’t slept through history class. Come on, you find Stalin frozen in a tube somewhere, are you going to thaw him out and ask him to help you brainstorm up some new toys for the kids? Or maybe leave him on ice for a little bit longer?
I’m not buying the Spock-and-Uhura romance. I mean, I can see where she’d think he was a fun boink. But he doesn’t give much by way of emotional feedback and those sorts of shenanigans on the bridge of a naval vessel don’t seem good for discipline. Neither did all of the interrupting of superior officers, rank shuffles, and public questioning of the captain’s decisions.
When the dreadnought crashes in to San Francisco, this looked a lot like 9/11. Maybe intentionally. But the crowd seemed to take it in stride pretty quickly — is it every day in 2287 that a massive spacecraft crashes in to San Pablo bay and skips like a spinning rock over Alcatraz to chop skyscrapers in half three blocks in to the Marina? Because people were driving and crossing the street normally at the 300 block of Grand Avenue (Los Angeles, I was just at that exact spot two weeks ago) location shot only moments later.
Is Scotty’s wrinkly, mute red-shirt buddy supposed to be a wookie or something? Weird-looking sidekick, doesn’t communicate other than in some way only one character can understand. It’s not like there aren’t enough tropes in Star Trek itself without having to borrow more of them. Like Scotty’s brough — got a wee bit thick, didn’t you think?
My id approves of the female Starfleet uniform. Short skirt, high boots. Winner in the eye candy department. “Establishes the normalized gender equality of the idealized future,” not so much.
Something about the regular duty uniforms the men wear bugs me. Especially the yellow command shirts. It makes all the men look like they’re slouching their shoulders in a diffident, even disrespectful sort of way. Which may be a metaphor for the conceptual approach to the story.
Wasted a perfectly good Lee Greenwood in the movie’s first act. I liked his Christopher Pike. No need to have killed him off.
Mob’s criticisms are strong. A good story could have been told without all the callbacks to Wrath of Khan lo these many years ago. Which is still in my mind the best Star Trek movie yet. Because its bad guy was Ricardo Freakin’ Montalban and there was a reason to shout the villan’s name in anger.
J.J. Abrams has taken the basic concept of ST, characters, etc. and created a couple of decent movies. They’re just not Star Trek movies. They’re…something else, I’m not sure what.
J.J. Abrams basically turned Star Trek into an action series. Star Trek was based on Rodenberry’s hokey liberalism and without a strong dose of post-WWII liberalism Star Trek isn’t Star Trek. In most Star Trek series, problems tended to be solved in the least violent way possible. They would use violence but only as a last resort. In Abrams’ Stra Trek, violence is the solution because they are action movies.
and some of the best star trek is at heart detective stories.
Star Trek always had it’s violent/action side as well. The Borg, the Dominion War, most early episodes featuring Klingons or Romulans, etc. In any case that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the whole “reboot” thing.
Some franchises can really benefit from a reboot. Battlestar Galactica is a good example. The original was an easily-forgettable-and-mostly-forgotten, shlocky, campy, and generally awful TV series from the late 70’s. If the original had an existing fan base it was very limited. BUT it had a sort of interesting premise that you could update and expand upon and I think they did a damn good job with it, despite any problems some may have with it.
On the other hand… ST is a HUGE franchise with a HUGE fanbase. Five TV series, an animated series, ten movies, comic books, and hundreds of paperbacks. And tying it all together was a strict control of “canon” whereby the series and movies provided a backbone of the official Star Trek future history. All else had to conform to that history but couldn’t constrain future series or movies.
So now we have these last two movies that just blows that all to hell. I realize that this is all supposed to occur in an “alternate timeline” created when the Romulan ship from the future blows up Vulcan. Except… that doesn’t really work, at least not to explain all the changes. How does that explain the Spock/Uhura hookup when originally Spock was betrothed? And what about the whole Amok Time thing anyway?
The other major thing occurs right at the end of this film where gur perj vf frg gb rzonex ba gurve “Svir Lrne Zvffvba” gung V nffhzr ersref gb gur Bevtvany Frevrf. Ohg rirelobql’f yvxr gra sernxva’ lrnef gbb lbhat! Gur znva punenpgref va GBF jrer yvxr va gurve zvq-guvegvrf znlor naq gurfr thlf ner nyy va gurve gjragvrf be fb.
The actual initiating reboot event was at the time of Kirk’s birth, fyi — ripple effects are basically enough to shrug off lots of things.
I believe the reboot was done entirely because the ST canon was not only too unwieldly to really use, but it allowed them to ‘dial back’ the tech level and knowledge levels to make the universe a lot more ‘unknown’ again.
it allowed them to ‘dial back’ the tech level and knowledge levels
My take on the BSG reboot was that they gave an in-show explanation for the relatively low-tech on Galactica (Cylons can control and turn newer tech with networked computers against humans, so Galactica has basically corded phones like on a submarine or something) so as to do much the same thing; not only for dramatic purposes in-universe (make it harder for the humans to accomplish tasks), but also so that they avoid “dating” the show too much – after all, if it looks somewhat archaic now (by intentional design), it still will 20 years from now, instead of looking laughably dated as a prediction of the far future that did not come true.
@Morat20: Nah, the reboot was done so they could get Abrams to do the movie. And he said he didn’t really “get” Star Trek.
I was originally stoked about a Trek movie set in the time frame of the lead characters first postings out of the Academy. They had material to work with, like the Romulan War for instance, which IIRC should have been going on about then.
@Glyph: Yeah, that works. And it will be a while before the Cylons look dated. And take it from an actual Navy sailor: those phone sets–and really all the interior shots–are very authentic to contemporary Navy ships. It almost made me… homesick? nostalgic? for my Navy days.
You addressed a lot of my complaints. Additonally, Vs lbh jnag gb pbaprny gur snpg gung lbhe Nqzveny vf tbvat gb or na nagntbavfg, lbh qb abg pnfg Crgre Jryyre va gur ebyr. Uvf punenpgref ner trarenyyl uhtr qvpxf.
Cumberbatch’s character was evil, but I was never invested in him. I did not mind some of the callbacks, but some were definitely forced.
Also, is the Starfleet protocol for dealing with an attack really to gather all of their top men in the same room? Especially a room so vulnerable to attack? Maybe in an underground bunker or something. Some sort of teleconferencing would be an even better idea. They should have encryption.
The movie is entertaining and exciting, but it is not really a good movie.
I would like to know why they couldn’t have had one top woman.
Most if the people in that scene were lines extras. Why not have some women there?
I sometimes read the keyword searches that bring people to “Not a Potted Plant.” “One top woman” is going to be up there.
Naq Crgre Jryyre nf gur Nqzveny vf nyfb n pnyyonpx bs n fbeg fvapr ur cynlrq gur fnzr xvaq bs punenpgre va “Ragrecevfr” nf gur yrnqre bs n greebevfg/cbyvgvpny tebhc pnyyrq “Rnegu Bar” be “Rnegu Svefg” be fbzrguvat. “Uvf punenpgref ner trarenyyl uhtr qvpxf” unf xrcg uvz va fgrnql jbex juvpu znl raq hc orvat Phzoreongpu’f sngr. Ur pbhyq jbefr sbe uvzfrys nf na npgbe.
Ye cats it’s tough to rot13 on a tablet as primitive as mine. I’ll react to these comments in the a.m. dude.
Because its bad guy was Ricardo Freakin’ Montalban
The weirdest movie review I ever saw stated that Ricardo Montalban was “hilariously miscast” as Khan. I guess that’s what happens when you review movies while chewing on shrooms.
In the Sandman movie, he’s be perfect as the Corinthian.
[Takes a moment to get the joke]
[Groans, wishes he could get that moment back somehow]
I actually don’t mind how Cumberbatch portrayed the role. Yes, there wan’t the personal antagonism between Kirk and Khan the way we see in Wrath of Khan, but that was sort of the point. The movie is a love letter to Wrath, but not a remake of it. Cumberbatch’s character isn’t supposed to be Montalban’s Khan, and that’s okay.
I think the last half of the third act was entirely unnecessary. The Vengeance should have blown up in space, Cumberbatch’s Khan with it. We didn’t need the gratuitous crash scene, nor the angry Spock chase scene. Hell, end the movie with Kirk dead. It worked for Wrath of Khan.
My biggest complaint, though, was that they chose to cast a white actor for the role. Cumberbatch is fine, but it’s the 21st century. It’s well past time that we stop casting white people to play a dude named Khan Noonien Singh.
Also, Carol Marcus. Wtf? Do we really need to reduce a capable scientist into the daddy’s little girl role she played here? The original trek stood for a better tomorrow. It’s sad to see it reduced to this racist, sexist, mindlessly popcorn version.
I agree, Star Trek was good at multi-racial casting since the TOS. I’m pretty sure that Rodenberry would have casted an actual Indian as Khan if one was available at the time. There was no need to cast a white actor as Khan in the Abrams’ movie. There are plenty of talented Indian actors available in Anglosphere.
I did not mind Carol Marcus so much. The script didn’t give her much to do but she did not act like a daddy’s little girl during the movie. I felt the link between her and Admiral Marcus was handled well and that she confronted him as an adult not as daddy’s little girl.
I didn’t expect Cumberbatch to be Montalban. But I expected him to have some personality. And it wasn’t Mr. Cumberbatch’s fault, either — he nailed “arrogance.”
Having only seen him in this and Sherlock, does he do anything other than arrogance?
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/05/remember-when-actors-wanted-to-be-versatile-benedict-cumberbatch-does/276061/
Yes, there wan’t the personal antagonism between Kirk and Khan the way we see in Wrath of Khan, but that was sort of the point.
Why would there be that antagonism between Kirk and Khan in this movie? This is the first time they’ve met. In the original Kirk and Khan have history because the Enterprise discovered a ship containing Khan and crew in deep space and then ended up dumping them on the planet that they’re on at the opening of Wrath.
I guess this time Admiral Marcus discovers the Khan ship from the past somewhere??… that was never really clear to me.
A few notes:
1) The Dreadnaught design was quite…Mirror Universe like. If that was done deliberately, well done. 🙂 (The Mirror Universe being, of course, quite warlike. I believe the previous ST canon was that the splitting event between normal star trek and the Terran Empire was an alternate version of the First Contact movie, wherein the Vulcan/Terran meeting still happened but they learned of the Borg in the process. And thus went into space armed for bear and with a suspicious attitude. Space was dangerous and full of space zombies).
2) I didn’t mind the new Khan’s relationship with Kirk. Unlike the previous timeline, he didn’t have a grudge against Kirk. (he did against Marcus). Kirk was a tool, to be used until it was no longer useful then disposed of. But it wasn’t personal.
3) Yep, action movie. But action movie ST’s sell at the theaters better than philosophical trek movies. If the former enables better, philosophical Trek on TV, then fair trade. Plus, the movie theater I frequent serves beer so it all works out.
I guess I am not enough of a true, nostalgic nerd. I thoroughly enjoyed the new Star Trek. I have Wrath of Khan in my Netflix queue and feel no desire to watch it. I am pretty sure I will be disappointed and find as many plot holes and examples of disappointing dialogue.
I also felt the same way about Prometheus last year. Loved it and appreciated everything it did to taking Alien in a bold new direction. I’ve watched Prometheus three times, which is two more than the original.
I am ashamed…
In space, no one can hear me scream about the lunacy that you prefer Prometheus to Alien.
At my desk, it’s a different matter.
http://io9.com/star-trek-into-darkness-the-spoiler-faq-508927844 was probably the more fun review of the film. Spoilers.
This movie just didn’t have a coherent plot. There was no reason for half of anything in this movie. The writers just wanted to make the movie flow from one action scene to another without bothering with any logic. Leaps of logic like Khan shoving his people into torpedoes, or needing Khan’s blood when you have 72 others with blood like his. Why the hell is Bones injecting a Tribble with Khan blood in the first place, and why hasn’t that Tribble overpopulated the medical bay by the end of the movie. 😛
There’s way more, but information from one scene to the next does not follow in large parts of this film. The science is awful too. Why are cryogenics not a part of the future? Why isn’t Kirk dead when his body has been irradiated and his brain hasn’t had blood for enough time to make him mentally deficient. Also, does this mean the super blood will make him superhuman? Who knows?