So is [SPOILER] really a copy?

I've been hearing all that the death scene in Into Darkness is a blatant ripoff/ copy paste/rape of my childhood of The Wrath of Khan scene. Now, here's some words before the videos, I prefer the WOK scene because I have more connection with Shatner and Nimoy, I've known them before I knew Pine and Quinto. There are indeed similarities, obviously, because they were going for a re-imagining of that iconic scene (and in my opinion, they did it fantastically) and there is nothing wrong with that in any way. Because as we know in literature and film and music and entertainment in general, some of the best things are people taking an idea and making their own. People harp about being "original" but in reality it's almost impossible.

So anyway, for your viewing and critical pleasure, here are the two videos:

EDIT: Is there a way to change the thread title?

 

The only thing I don't really like about it is the Khan scream. Other than that I have no issue and I think it was an excellent scene.

 

I thought it was well-done myself. The scream was a bit unnecessary and OTT, but...well...if you're going to do that kind of homage I suppose you might as well go for broke.

 

I thought the scream was excellent! The only reason people dislike it is because the original was flat out 1980's scream-the-bad-guys-name silliness that ended up becoming an uber parody, and in a lot of circles that aren't Trek related; became the thing Shatner was known for.

Personally I think it was a bold choice, I think it fit perfectly within the sphere of Spock's character arc from the first movie to this point, and the way they did the hard cut to the Vengeance tumbling down past the Enterprise made it one of my favorite moments of the film.

Sadly because of the original, people are probably never going to be able to see it in that light, and only see it as they see the Shatner version. Personally I think the writers made that goofiness work.

 

less is more.

keep the glass hand scene and take away the khan screen

or

keep the khan scream and take away the glass hand scene

you cant have both. when you have both it comes of as a rip off.

 

I loved the scream in itself, I just think it was in the wrong place. I understand it had to be there to complete the parallelism, but I think for that particular scene the "No..." would have been better.

That said, I don't know where else they'd would have put it.

 

This scene scared me when I first heard about it. Though I thought they did a great job pulling it off.

But yes, the two scenes are similar.

 

Similar? Yes. A word-for-word rip off with the lines switched? No. But the same people in a similar situation will likely say similar things.

Wrath of Khan
SPOCK: The ship... out of danger?

KIRK: Yes.

Into Darkness
KIRK: How's our ship?

SPOCK: Out of danger.

I think Scotty saying McCoy's exact "You'd better get down here... better hurry" at the start was a little too much. Although the bit about not opening the door for fear of flooding the compartment with radiation sounds like they're both quoting from a safety manual, which any crewman would know by heart.

I think the new scene works wonderfully on several levels - as a touching scene, the resolution of Spock's story arc, and as an alternate universe version of one of Trek's most famous moments for longtime fans. It seems that, along with the Enterprise-D's warp core being breached by a Klingon Bird-of-Prey in "Yesterday's Enterprise" and Star Trek: Generations and Kes or Seven scanning that Krenim torpedo lodged in the Jeffries' Tube in "Before and After"/"Year of Hell", somone was gonna die in engineering in an epic encounter with Khan, whatever the timeline.


You know what bugs me about the Into Darkness scene? I caught it on my second viewing and can't unsee: Spock's hand, when Kirk's falls in close-up it's doing the Vulcan salute against the glass, and they cut to another angle with his fingers widely spread. Annoying!

 

I find the JJ raped my childhood comments so over the top.

 

They should have killed Kirk for good. That would at least have been boldly going into the unknown. The problem is that we already know what happens to the reputation of a film when it kills Kirk. Thus, Kirk gets the magic reset button previously denied to the timeline itself.

 

I don't know. I think Generations' reputation has less to do with the death itself as it does the shitty way it was executed.

I think making Kirk's death permanent would have been better. And it would have been the natural escalation to blowing up Vulcan.

 

I actually enjoyed STID for the most part, but Kirk's death scene being a blatant remake of Spock's is one thing I really can't stand. That entire scene just pulled me out of the movie completely, had me thinking "Seriously? We're doing this?" Hell, I know a guy in RL who practically is an Abrams gusher who feels that scene ruined the movie completely.

The scene lacks any kind of real emotional resonance because it leave the fans thinking of the far superior version of the scene they've already seen. And really, taking one of Trek's most memorable scenes and watering it down for cheap dramatic value, how low is that?

 

While I don't think it was up to the standards of TWoK, when I realized what was coming I expected to find it hokey and...awful. IMO, it was neither. In fact, if they were going to go in that direction I think they handled it as well as they possibly could have...though I'll throw in the caveat of, "given the scope of what these films have been thus far."

 

"So is

Spoiler

really a copy?"

 

If the climax of your film consists of a rip off of a previous film's climax, you have a problem.

And then the scene is on so many levels inferior to the original. Kirk's reaction to Bones' call, the intercut of the themes birth and death when he runs through the corridors, the score, and then the acting. Shatner's simple, low key "No..." at the end is impressive. No completely out of place KHAAAAN screaming. It really makes no sense in STD, it absolutely doesn't.


The scene in STD feels like a bunch of fanboys with lots of money trying hard.

I'm sure that if you showed both scenes to an unbiased group of people, they would pick the scene in TWOK over STD.

 

Beats the Hell out of much of Voyager and Enterprise where you had people who were admittedly not fans who had lots of money and didn't seem to be trying very hard at all.

 

I was fine with the scene up to Quinto's scream. That was it for me, I about busted out laughing. He's not a bad actor, he's done great with Spock, but they shouldn't have had him do the scream he doesn't have the voice for it.

That also marks a turning point where everything felt to rushed to get to the ending.

 

I generally agree with this. It threw me out of the movie as well. It was a blatant rip-off of the TWOK scene. Sure you can change the dialouge a bit reverse the roles, but it at it's core it was the same scene. Just not done as well of course others might have different opinions.