“Star Trek II” is one of my favorite movies, ever. And I’m a pathetic film nerd: it’s on a list with “Bronson”, “That Obscure Object of Desire” and “Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom”. So, the idea of J.J. Abrams getting his greasy mitts on Nicholas Meyer’s damn near perfect film filled me with rage.
And then I discovered that the movie wouldn’t be a rehash of “Space Seed”. And it’s certainly not going to be a repeat of “The Wrath of Khan”, because Khan has nothing to be angry about yet.
So basically, they’re just slapping Khan’s name onto a generic villain. Does this bother me, as a man who has seen “Star Trek II” so many times I can repeat the dialogue word for word? Yeah. In fact, going straight to Khan in the second movie illustrates, I think, a lot about what’s wrong with Hollywood in general and Paramount’s handling of the “Star Trek” franchise in particular.
But as long as they don’t take a big fat dump on the movie that saved the entire franchise’s bacon, well, I can deal, I guess.
But I still want to know why the Beastie Boys never released “Intergalactic” in the Abrams timeline.
image courtesy Paramount
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Ugh. Why? The 2009 movie was great, but the whole reason Trek was doing poorly was because of there was a lack of originality and creativity. To bring back a villain like Khan with no setup is big mistake. If there was some mention of the Botany Bay in the 2009 movie that may have helped, but at least come up with an original villain for a supposed original take on Trek.
Because it’s all about audience recognition, that’s why.
The strength of the reboot was not creativity or originality of the overall concept– all of the Enterprise characters were recognizably based on their original portrayals. Instead, it was taking familiar concepts (Spock’s logic, Kirk’s impulsiveness and womanizing, Chekhov’s unintelligible accent) and putting fresh spins on them. As long as they apply the same approach to Khan, it’s not an inherently bad idea.
What I guess I’m saying is that after their good work on the first one, I’m willing to give them enough rope to hang themselves.
Speaking of which, David Carradine would have been a tremendous Khan
You see, I enjoy the reboot for what it is, which is a stupid action movie. But it’s pretty weak as “Trek”. A lot of what made the series special and unique got flushed in favor of remaking “Star Wars”.