Why does Abrams keep playing it safe?

[nightwind1]

I think Ubik's point that TV and movies are visual media therefore their interpretations are fixed while books require the user's imagination therefore any interpretation within reason is acceptable.

Except this isn't true. They are not fixed.

Take comic books and graphic novels, for example. They are most definitely also visual media, yet there have been as many versions of comic book characters, settings, costumes and such as there have been writers and artists of those characters.

Jim Aparo's Batman is Batman. Marshall Roger's Batman is Batman. Neal Adams' Batman is Batman. Bill Finger's Batman is Batman.

Jack Kirby's Cyclops is Cyclops, Neal Adams' Cyclops is Cyclops, Jim Lee's Cyclops is Cyclops. Rob Liefeld's Cyclops is a distorted, disfigured piece of... but I digress.

They are all very different looking, but they are all the same characters. And no one artist's depiction of Metropolis or Gotham match any other artist's depiction of Metropolis or Gotham. Heck, no one artist's Marvel New York looks like any other artist's Marvel New York.

 

[F. King Daniel]

I've heard this argument over and over again, and it's completely fallacious. Spiderman, Batman, and Hamlet are all literary texts. Every movie version is an ADAPTATION of a literary text. Literary texts exist only on paper, and so there is an infinite number of possible different interpretations of said text. That is why you can redo the Joker, or Spiderman, or Hamlet, or Jane Eyre, or Pride and Prejudice as many times as you like - because they are all different interpretations of a literary source.

Star Trek is not a literary text. Khan is not an adaptation of a character who pre-existed in our minds and exists on paper. He is a character solely from that one episode and that one movie. To reuse him is to REMAKE the last MOVIE. To do another Jane Eyre has NOTHING to do with previous Jane Eyre movies - it's an adaptation of a book. See the difference? Rebooting Batman is simply reinterpreting a literary text. Reusing Kahn is remaking a movie. There is a fundamental difference.

Your idea that reimagining movies (or reusing characters from movies in new scenarios which is what a new Khan movie will be) is somehow lesser than re-adapting books or comics is, frankly, wrong. It's all the same. Characters and stories and events being remade and reimagined - whether it's from earlier movies or television shows, or comics books, or novels or even videogames.

When DS9 first aired, that was a risk. It rethought entirely what the very notion of Star Trek meant.

You mean ripping off J. Micheal Straczynski's concepts for Babylon 5?

 

[F. King Daniel]

I think Ubik's point that TV and movies are visual media therefore their interpretations are fixed while books require the user's imagination therefore any interpretation within reason is acceptable.

Except this isn't true. They are not fixed.

Take comic books and graphic novels, for example. They are most definitely also visual media, yet there have been as many versions of comic book characters, settings, costumes and such as there have been writers and artists of those characters.

Jim Aparo's Batman is Batman. Marshall Roger's Batman is Batman. Neal Adams' Batman is Batman. Bill Finger's Batman is Batman.

Jack Kirby's Cyclops is Cyclops, Neal Adams' Cyclops is Cyclops, Jim Lee's Cyclops is Cyclops. Rob Liefeld's Cyclops is a distorted, disfigured piece of... but I digress.

They are all very different looking, but they are all the same characters. And no one artist's depiction of Metropolis or Gotham match any other artist's depiction of Metropolis or Gotham. Heck, no one artist's Marvel New York looks like any other artist's Marvel New York.

Gotham City looks completely different in "Batman Begins" and it's direct sequel, "The Dark Knight"

 

[nightwind1]

I've heard this argument over and over again, and it's completely fallacious. Spiderman, Batman, and Hamlet are all literary texts. Every movie version is an ADAPTATION of a literary text. Literary texts exist only on paper, and so there is an infinite number of possible different interpretations of said text. That is why you can redo the Joker, or Spiderman, or Hamlet, or Jane Eyre, or Pride and Prejudice as many times as you like - because they are all different interpretations of a literary source.

Star Trek is not a literary text. Khan is not an adaptation of a character who pre-existed in our minds and exists on paper. He is a character solely from that one episode and that one movie. To reuse him is to REMAKE the last MOVIE. To do another Jane Eyre has NOTHING to do with previous Jane Eyre movies - it's an adaptation of a book. See the difference? Rebooting Batman is simply reinterpreting a literary text. Reusing Kahn is remaking a movie. There is a fundamental difference.

Your idea that reimagining movies (or reusing characters from movies in new scenarios which is what a new Khan movie will be) is somehow lesser than re-adapting books or comics is, frankly, wrong. It's all the same. Characters and stories and events being remade and reimagined - whether it's from earlier movies or television shows, or comics books, or novels or even videogames.

When DS9 first aired, that was a risk. It rethought entirely what the very notion of Star Trek meant.

You mean ripping off J. Micheal Straczynski's concepts for Babylon 5?

Precisely.

 

[DAYoung]

No character is sacred. Everything can reinterpreted, sometimes for the better, sometimes not. Whether it has literary or non-literary roots doesn't matter.

Yes. And this isn't some new, shiny postmodern thing. The neo-classical English re-interpreted the republican Romans who re-interpreted the classical Greeks who...

 

[CorporalCaptain]

Further examples.

Although it went in the other direction, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was quite successfully adapted, reimagined, and recast (a.k.a. remade) for television from film.

The same goes for M*A*S*H. You can say Alan Alda IS Hawkeye; or can you?

 

[horatio83]

Beam me up Scotty is an iconic Trek phrase yet it has never been actually uttered. When iconic means 'public image' I couldn't care less about it, especially when I can have the real thing instead of a distorted image of it.

Which is not the sense of the word I employ. "Iconic" as in embodying and exemplifying the traits of a person, place or thing.

Khan is iconic because he is one of the seminal depitctions of a classic Trek "villain": one who is not wicked for wickedness' sake, but rather simply out of step with the rest of the world around him. Dangerously so in effect, but not because he was an inherantly evil person.

I quote this from the original "Space Seed".

SCOTT: I must confess, gentlemen. I've always held a sneaking admiration for this one.
KIRK: He was the best of the tyrants and the most dangerous. They were supermen, in a sense. Stronger, braver, certainly more ambitious, more daring.
SPOCK: Gentlemen, this romanticism about a ruthless dictator is
KIRK: Mister Spock, we humans have a streak of barbarism in us. Appalling, but there, nevertheless.
SCOTT: There were no massacres under his rule.
SPOCK: And as little freedom.
MCCOY: No wars until he was attacked.
SPOCK: Gentlemen.
KIRK: Mister Spock, you misunderstand us. We can be against him and admire him all at the same time.

There were many things to admire about Khan, while at the same time acknowledging the danger he represented.

Khan is not a villain? Of course he is and on top of that he is the evil equivalent of Superman (he is quite literally a superman) and not Batman, evil by design and not by choice.

No, he was designed to be physically and mentally superior, which fostered superior ambition. This is Khan as we know him prior to his exile on Ceti Alpha V.

Once there, given what happened to him, his superior intellect may have made it technically possible for them to survive, but being "beaten" so conclusively by his environment was more than his inflated ego could handle, and he snapped.

His role in TWOK is to trigger something in Kirk and if you take away Montalban and focus merely on the text he isn't all that interesting. Given the character setup this is hardly surprising.

His role in TWOK is to represent Kirk's history (paralleling the David plot arc), catching up to him as he ages.

Khan in his intrinsic qualities and his role in both stories he is in is the embodyment of elements of classic Greek tragedy.

Once again, Khan is evil by design. Super intelligence, superior strength, superior ambition. If you can point out one nice Augment I will gladly accept your notion that he is evil by choice.
There is nothing tragic about Khan, he is a tyrant. He never was good, he never had noble intentions, he was evil from the start like all other Augments. Not to mention that he definitely doesn't come near to having a literary quality.

Khan in himself is irrelevant and if we will see him again in the next movie it will be a very pathetic and transparent attempt, the third one in a row, to copy TWOK. What's interesting is the fictional historical background of the Eugenic Wars, WWIII and so on, this time in which humankind was obsessed with improving itself biologically, via genetic design and killing the weak. The long-run implications of this, e.g. upon 23rd century people like Kodos or upon 24th century people like Bashir (total ban on genetic engineering), provide far better stories than copying Khan again and again and again.
To tie this into my first argument, if Khan had a choice, if he was not evil be design, why the ban? Just tinker a little bit with it and you shall get intelligent, powerful and decent instead of wicked supermen. Yet it doesn't work like that.

 

[Therin of Andor]

When someone brings back a character that has previously only existed in another movie, the motive is economic. It's a producer's motive. It's about safety and brand recognition. If indeed Khan gets reused, it won't be because Abrams' muse was speaking to him about some world-shattering new artistic vision - it will be because he knows it will get butts in the seats. It's a base motive, and it's cowardly.

Or... it's a group of writers saying, "You know, there are so many directions we could go with an iconic character like Khan. A Khan who wasn't revived by Kirk the way he was in TOS. A Khan who didn't spend almost two decades stewing over being thwarted by Kirk, and then abandoned." A whole different set of circumstances. A whole new story.

 

[Ian Keldon]

Once again, Khan is evil by design.

You can keep saying this, but it will no more be true then than it is now (which is to say, not at all).

Super intelligence, superior strength, superior ambition.

1) the ambition was not "designed" into him, but rather a natural affect of his superior physical and mental attributes.

2) none of those qualities are inherently "evil"

If you can point out one nice Augment

Julian Bashir.

I will gladly accept your notion that he is evil by choice.

Again, you keep wanting to apply the moral perjorative "evil" to Khan.

It is a classic true-ism in Trek that the overwhelming majority of the time, the conflict comes not from as simplistic a clash as "good vs evil", but from a conflict of perspectives and interests that the sides see as perfectly legitimate from their own viewpoint.

There is nothing tragic about Khan, he is a tyrant. He never was good, he never had noble intentions, he was evil from the start like all other Augments.

Still wrong. And always will be wrong.

Not to mention that he definitely doesn't come near to having a literary quality.

I disagree, and have given my reasons why. And apparently many others share that analysis, since Khan is considered one of the iconic Trek adversaries.

To tie this into my first argument, if Khan had a choice, if he was not evil be design, why the ban? Just tinker a little bit with it and you shall get intelligent, powerful and decent instead of wicked supermen. Yet it doesn't work like that.

Khan wasn't "evil by design", as I've already shown. What he was was driven by his superior physical and mental nature to be dominate. But he didn't have to go the route he did. Bashir proves that free will can and does prevail over nature.

 

[horatio83]

Bashir was moderately genetically changed whereas Augments are basically designed to be a new species. The purpose of the Bashir stories was to point out that there is nothing wrong from an objective point of view about these moderate genetic modifications yet humankind, having gone to one extreme in the 21st century, now goes to the other: no genetics at all.

Khan is not a tragic character, he was never a great man. Feel free to point out what kind of great stuff he did before he became a tyrant. The guy from Year of Hell is the only tragic character in Trek.
I understand why Trek fans feel the need to elevate a stupid character from a trashy sci-fi show but pretending that he is the equivalent of Macbeth is quite pathetic.

 

[Yminale]

I think Ubik's point that TV and movies are visual media therefore their interpretations are fixed while books require the user's imagination therefore any interpretation within reason is acceptable.

Except this isn't true. They are not fixed.

Of course they are not. Ubik's argument is based solely on nostalgia. These arguments bore me to tears. Who cares if Optimus Prime in the Transformers movie doesn't look like G1 Optimus. nuEnterprise is bad because it's ugly not because it doesn't look like the Classic Enterprise of the show or the Refit in the movies. Honestly fans need to grow up and realize they don't own IP's not matter how much they love them. If they want control, they should create original works instead of being needy parasites.

 

[F. King Daniel]

*glances at nuEnterprise model on table*

Not ugly. Not bad.

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Abrams has the entire Star Trek universe at his disposal and all he can do is rehash old villains?

There is no "Star Trek universe;" it's all made up. Therefore, what is in it right now is limited to what we've already been shown - in your words, "rehashing."

What you're asking is that the producers and writers add something new to the so-called STU (I always think there's an "F" missing there), not "explore" it. That's fine, but it's a different thing.

Of course, every other movie franchise mines the established material that the public knows and likes. They don't create new villains for Batman or the Transformers.

 

[Yminale]

*glances at nuEnterprise model on table*

Not ugly. Not bad.

Looks at Refit Enterprise-A, Nope definitely ugly.

 

[Greg Cox]

Further examples.

Although it went in the other direction, Buffy the Vampire Slayer was quite successfully adapted, reimagined, and recast (a.k.a. remade) for television from film.

The same goes for M*A*S*H. You can say Alan Alda IS Hawkeye; or can you?

Ditto for The Odd Couple.

And that's not even counting all the classic American shows that started out as remakes of British shows: All in the Family, Sanford and Son, etc.

And Buffy is a great rebuttal to the idea that you can't recast characters who originally appeared on film. By that reasoning, nobody could ever replace Kristy Swanson as Buffy!

 

[F. King Daniel]

Ditto Stargate: Ten seasons, two spin-off series and an animated series too. Does anyone even remember Kurt Russel as O'Neill?

 

[Admiral Buzzkill]

Looks at Refit Enterprise-A, Nope definitely ugly.

I thought the TMP refit was rather nice, myself - not "definitely ugly." Nor was the Enterprise-A, which simply reused the same model.

The JJPrise is rather beautiful, though. The engine nacelles are a vast improvement over the TMP ship and ships that came later.

 

[Yminale]

Looks at Refit Enterprise-A, Nope definitely ugly.

The JJPrise is rather beautiful, though. The engine nacelles are a vast improvement over the TMP ship and ships that came later.

I have to agree that the nacelles on the refit is a bit of a let down compared to the rest of the design but the nacelles on the Abramprise are just awful. It's style over function and just designed to stand out. It also breaks the side silhouette with those odd curves. Of course the worse aspect is the secondary hull. It looks like a shrivel rump compared to the beefy well proportioned refit.

 

[Satyrquaze]

But, you shouldn't be comparing it to the TMP refit at all. The nuEnterprise was based on the pre-refit Enterprise.

 

[Greg Cox]

1) The difference is motive. When Nolan redoes Batman, he does it for a compelling artistic reason. When Branagh adapts Hamlet, he does it because he feels he has a new, unique artistic vision that differs from previous adaptations, with Olivier and Gibson, of that same ever-malleable source text. When people offer a new adaptation of a literary text, it is almost invariably because the artist believes they have a new and interesting way of perceiving that world. When someone brings back a character that has previously only existed in another movie, the motive is economic. It's a producer's motive. It's about safety and brand recognition. If indeed Khan gets reused, it won't be because Abrams' muse was speaking to him about some world-shattering new artistic vision - it will be because he knows it will get butts in the seats. It's a base motive, and it's cowardly. .

I'm impressed by your ability to read people's minds and know whether their motives are "artistic" or "base."