Critics have seen the first nine minutes of Star Trek Into Darkness, and if Khan is not the bad guy, then it’s sure taking its cues from the movie; Michael Giacchino references the score and Spock says “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” in the opening. That plus the Wrath of Khan references in the trailer pretty much clinch it: either Benedict Cumberbatch is Khan, or he’s somebody similar, as Khan was just one of several genetic supermen.
This is a terrible idea, especially since it’s potentially cheek and jowl with a great one: Using Khan to his full potential.
Not to slander the superb Ricardo Montalban, but Khan is, in the franchise, very much an implied badass. We hear a lot about his incredibly tactical ability, his rampages across Earth, and his enormous genetically engineered strength, but we don’t actually see much of the latter two, and the former is limited to a brief series of spaceship battles. That’s what happens when you’re in one episode and your movie is essentially a series of conference calls. There just wasn’t the budget to establish what Khan was like before he got on the Botany Bay.
It’s to the credit of Wrath of Khan and Montalban that none of this actually matters, but it does leave a lot of room to take the character. And, if the implications of the teaser are correct, we’ll see a lot of Khan (or not-Khan) kicking ass, which is great.
Not so great is invoking Wrath of Khan at every turn, because frankly, Nicholas Meyer is an Oscar-winning screenwriter and respected director, and the closest Abrams will get to an Oscar is seeing someone else’s in a museum.
The Star Trek reboot was good for what it was, a dumb action movie. You can’t really expect much more out of Abrams: His answer to everything, be it logical inconsistency or character motivation problem, is “STOP THINKING SO HARD IT’S A MOVIE.”
The problem is that Wrath of Khan isn’t an action movie, per se. It’s a submarine thriller with themes of aging and sacrifice, heavily interleaved with literary references, and largely built on its actors. The basic thrust of the movie is that everybody on the Bridge has been at this for a couple of decades and this stuff is starting to get old.
Star Trek Into Darkness just can’t pull that off. Chris Pine isn’t too old for this crap. Hell, the press materials keep insisting the crew is a “family”, which is a bit much. And invoking it at every turn seems to be, at best, a bad idea.
But fighting a genetic superman waging war against the Federation? Hell yeah, go for it. There’s nothing wrong with rebooting Khan: Just don’t try to claim greatness by proxy for doing it.
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It’s a good thing they didn’t release the LAST 9 minutes of the film. Because why go?
I thought I heard the villain was likely going to be Gary Mitchell?
That was what we thought, but apparently that’s either misinformation or Abrams just likes throwing random Wrath of Khan stuff everywhere.
I didn’t know anyone was claiming the film was awesome and great because Khan (or someone similar) is in it. To me it feels like its giving a few nods, because nostalgia is a good thing at times, while taking it in a new direction.
This isn’t “nostalgia”, though. This is hitting vaguely familiar beats for… well, no really good reason. “Star Trek” as a reboot can stand on its own merits: I personally didn’t like it as a Trekkie, but it made a lot of money and I’m in the minority on this one. It doesn’t NEED to keep tossing in this stuff.
Yeah, if it’s not a remake, the constant references would be awkward, heavy-handed things shoe-horned in as pseudofanservice.
If it is a remake, then what was the point of spending an entire movie shouting at the audience that this is a different timeline with different events?
And if Chris Pine (who is all of six months older than I am) is forced to read the line “Young. I feel…young” I will hunt down Orci and Lindelof and make them each eat a copy of the script.
I have to bring up again that Abrams is NOT a writer on this project. I understand that in this setting, he probably was closer to the material than he was with Revolution, but to say that he’s involved with the minutia of character motivations or “logical inconsistencies” is just extremely unlikely. I do however believe that this would be ENTIRELY Lindelof’s fault. I used to have a lot of respect for him but after I saw “Prometheus” I believe that Lindelof is the epitome of throwing crap at a wall and making it stick. I’m sure that there are faults all around, hell even Kurtzman and Orci wrote Transformers 1 & 2 AND Cowboys and Aliens, but this weird vendetta you have against Abrams is once again, unfounded. Blame is to be had, but it need not be placed on the guy nominated best director more than once for a Saturn award, arguably the only award that matters in this case.
I should say Lindelof “hopes” crap will stick to the wall, not “makes”. Makes gives him too much credit.
He’s the director AND the producer. True, the actual screenwriters share some of the blame, but his job is to say “This is bad. FIX IT.” He doesn’t.
If this movie was a “Khan Begins” type scenario I would be all for it, but then this would lead into my “Gary Seven” is the villain or villain type character theory.
This would work in the sense that Frank Weller is old Gary in the future and does something that causes the Enterprise crew to travel in the past to try and stop him and inadvertently cause Khan’s rise to power (Gary Seven was the one who stopped Khan and shot him into space in the novels)
God, I really hope they don’t do the time travel thing all over again, but my gut tells me you’ve nailed the plot exactly.
If they’re going to go with Khan they need someone like Demián Bichir to play him.
a. Abrams will get closer to an Oscar than you will a Pulitzer. Just saying.
b. I’m pretty sure the villain in this is Space Lincoln.
By the rules of Star Trek films, this is great just because it is the second in it’s respective line (ex: Wrath of Kahn, First Contact).
I honestly think it would be funny as hell to allude to Kahn for the first 10 minutes, finish his plot up in that time, then move on to the real villain. It would just be the perfect troll on people who bitch and moan about KKKKAAAAHHHHNNNNN.
Hey, I’d take it. Seriously, if the opening is just Space Seed in ten minutes, I’ll be OK with that.
Spock: Captain, the ship has been identified as the “Botany Bay.”
Kirk: Advice, Spock?
Spock: One moment. I’m sending this information to a colleague.
(Comm beeps.)
Uhura: Incoming message from New Vulcan.
Kirk: Onscreen.
Old Spock: Greetings, Jim. Blow them fuckers up.
I’m not a Trekkie, and I like your stuff on here, Dan. But this seems a little like sentimental bias. All of this speculation around the villain has got me on board, though. I think the movie looks awesome not matter what they decide to name Cumberbatch. We will see.
“Wrath of Khan” is easily one of my favorite movies, absolutely. And my dislike of Abrams is fairly profound.
That said, to be honest I find the idea of referring back to a movie that, let’s be honest here, most of the ticket-buying public maybe saw once on cable in 1995 and only knows for the Shatner scream, a little stupid and weird. The only people who notice or care will be angry nerds like me. Why bother?
Fair enough.
the Abrams hate around here is so ridiculous. and he’s right, STOP THINKING SO HARD IT’S A MOVIE! ya fucking mouthbreathers.
Benedict Cumberbatch plays John Harrison according to Paramount via Aint it Cool