STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Discussion in 'Star Trek Movies: Kelvin Universe' started by Agent Richard07, Apr 18, 2013.

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Grade the movie...

  1. A+

    18.8%
  2. A

    20.6%
  3. A-

    13.2%
  4. B+

    11.1%
  5. B

    7.9%
  6. B-

    4.1%
  7. C+

    5.7%
  8. C

    5.0%
  9. C-

    3.5%
  10. D+

    1.5%
  11. D

    1.6%
  12. D-

    1.3%
  13. F

    5.7%
  1. Kruezerman

    Kruezerman Commodore Commodore

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    All of it.
    On the front of the Enterprise is the Ford emblem, the Vengeance is a Dodge, that's why it's ugly.

    :p
     
  2. ConRefit79

    ConRefit79 Captain Captain

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    For me, the issue is it's Kahn. He has already been done very well. ST2 is the top Trek movie for me. Nothing has come close. It was was an insult when they tried to copy it in Nemesis. This sounds far worse. And why, to get Spock's reaction. Didn't Spock get more than his fair share of grief portrayal in ST09?

    I really was hoping it was someone original or maybe Gary Mitchell. There was nothing stopping them with inventing a new augment. He could have been from the Eugenics wars or another illegal Section 31 experiment. Instead they decided to do their own take on Kahn.
     
  3. GMDreia

    GMDreia Commander Red Shirt

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    I am well and thoroughly spoilered with this film - i haven't seen it yet - and here is my feeling about Khan...

    First of all, I was hugely making a case for Cumberbatch playing practically anyone but Khan. I hated the idea of bringing Khan back and the idea of a white, British Khan even more.

    Now I am intrigued and excited and feel that the writers may be doing for this character what Nolan did with the Joker in "The Dark Knight" - a thorough deconstruction, and written as Khan would be written *now* (and it would also not be cool presently to show an Indian or Middle Eastern guy as a terrorist type; going with the original casting choices or a white guy may be safer... but in the end, NOBODY here is going to be pleased). Something that to me had always been scrimped on in TOS, was that we never before really saw that much of Khan's "superiority". Also, there were aspects of that characterization and that story that suffered from being "15 minutes in the future" so that now they're horribly dated. And people prefer more complex and nuanced villains now.

    If you consider JJ's "Star Trek" to be adding to an existing body of work based upon a mythology rather than attempting to be a direct remake of TOS or the films, and consider this new body of work to be updating based upon current sensibilities, it makes sense.

    Comics and the like have a long history of reinterpretations and multiverses - I kind of think of JJ-Trek as the Trek version of Marvel's "Ultimate" universe.

    Plus, Khan was definitely out there and they may have needed to get him out of the way to move on and tell new stories.
     
  4. Franklin

    Franklin Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I guess some people will avoid "The Lone Ranger" because Johnny Depp plays Tonto.

    As I've said about the blood, personally, I think restorative blood is far more plausible (requires less suspension of disbelief) as a science fiction device than the old Trek standards of a transporter and warp drive. It's certainly easier to believe than red matter. But, different strokes for different folks. Pluralism is grand.

    Still, let's not forget, "Doctor gave me a pill and I've grown a new kidney! Doctor gave me a pill and I've grown a new kidney!" in TVH. Granted it was comic relief, but general audiences didn't seem to have trouble coming to terms with McCoy just happening to have a pill in his little black bag that could create a new organ. Must be a pretty common pill, too, if he always has it on hand.
    Further, in TVH, McCoy's medical device essentially sat on Chekov's head and used some sort of "beams" or whatever to save the dying Chekov, making him nearly 100 percent in seconds. I doubt too many in the audience responded, "Yeah. Right."
     
  5. GMDreia

    GMDreia Commander Red Shirt

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    Hm. Maybe this film will give us a better sense of why the Federation banned genetic engineering. I never really got that sense from Space Seed and WOK. The augments were stronger and hardier, sure, but they didn't REALLY seem that dangerous... they seemed like humans with Klingon or Vulcan constitution. I'm loving the idea of augments being much more genuinely scary.
     
  6. ConRefit79

    ConRefit79 Captain Captain

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    Believe, me I understand this is an alternate reality. And maybe they would need to address Kahn eventually. I was just hoping for someone new. Not someone else's take on a character who has already been done very well. At least not for is second film. Hollywood seems to have an imagination problem. Or maybe I've been around so long, nothing seems original now.
     
  7. Franklin

    Franklin Vice Admiral Admiral

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    :lol: If that were true, the Enterprise should've had a racing stripe.

    Actual product placement that's been shown over at Trekmovie.com. It's:
    Budweiser. It makes another appearance in an aluminum bottle (not clear) that looks like the ones that can be bought, today. The Bud logo was the current one, too.
     
  8. Flake

    Flake Commodore Commodore

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    Exactly. When we dig into Trek there are things far more unbelievable than what occurs in STiD.

    As for the new Kidney pill its a shame the starship Voyager did not take a supply of these pills with them into the Delta Quadrant because then poor Neelix would have two lungs instead of one!
     
  9. yenny

    yenny Fleet Captain Fleet Captain

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    When you want to post spoilers? All you have to do, is to click the yellow face tag above the smile and type into the box. You might have to try it more then once, until you get a hang of it, coz sometime it don't work.
     
  10. Flake

    Flake Commodore Commodore

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    Yeah I figured it out about 30 seconds after I posted the question. :lol:
     
  11. Xaios

    Xaios Commander Red Shirt

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    It's all in the subtext. The reason for banning eugenics doesn't really need to be spelled out in Space Seed or TWOK. The evidence of what it does to people is right in front of us: Khan. Besides, those really weren't meant to be a treatise on WHY genetic engineering on that scale can be bad. It relies on the audience to be able to connect the dots, and largely succeeds. The backstory is all in service of giving Kirk a worthy adversary.

    It's different in the DS9 episodes involving Bashir and the other genetically modified humans, as those stories really did set out to explain "why this is bad."

    ___________________


    It does represent something that modern movies (and modern storytelling) tend to do that really ends up being a disservice to the story: the constant compulsion to explain every minute detail about WHY the setting is the way it is. It's never enough to simply know "it is" anymore and let that fact guide the story.
     
  12. Franklin

    Franklin Vice Admiral Admiral

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    Does the reuse of Khan bother mostly fans? Odd, because reusing the Joker and giving him different looks never seemed to bother Batman fans or general audiences.

    TWOK is thirty years old. "Space Seed" aired in 1967. This movie is aimed at general movie goers who are mostly younger than the age of TWOK, and whose parents may be younger or only a few years older than "Space Seed".

    What's more, most in that demographic probably never saw TWOK or especially "Space Seed", and have no idea who Ricardo Montalban was, let alone that he was a Mexican playing an Indian. So what would their hang up with Cumberbatch as Khan be?

    For those fans with a hang up, I'd think the star power of Cumberbatch right now will more than compensate for those for whom the movie is now ruined.
     
  13. Captrek

    Captrek Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I think OHMSS with Lazenby is better than it might have been with Connery. Connery's Bond oozes misogyny—as does Connery in real life—and never manifests any sense of vulnerability. I doubt he could have sold the love story.

    Bennett, Sowards and Meyer had planned for Khan to be psychic. They wrote a scene in which Khan and Kirk fight, with Khan using his psychic ability to make Kirk appear to have to fight in a variety of different environments.

    Although I'll never know what the finished scene would have looked like, it sounds incredibly stupid. Fortunately, that scene never made it into the film for logistical reasons: due to scheduling conflicts Shatner and Montalban weren't available to shoot on the same day, and the scene would have burdened the limited budget, necessitating shortcuts elsewhere.

    Abrams isn't nearly as limited in the means made available to him. If the powers behind TWOK had had the budget and studio support that Abrams has, they might have created an inferior film to the one we actually got. They weren't any smarter than STID when it comes to giving Khan implausible magic powers, just luckier.

    (Another bit of trivia: when they adapted TWOK for the TNG cast, early drafts included this scene between Shinzon and Picard. After rewrites, it morphed into the telepathic rape of Troi.)
     
  14. ConRefit79

    ConRefit79 Captain Captain

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    I don't think I've ever seen him. So the actor is not a factor for me. From what I've heard, he's a very good actor. It's simple, we've been there and done that. Except this will have more FX.
     
  15. Xaios

    Xaios Commander Red Shirt

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    Oh man, people HOWLED their disgust when they were told Heath Ledger was going to play the Joker.

    "What!? That guy from Brokeback Mountain?? WTF!!! And he's wearing face paint instead of being permanently discolored?! That's stupid! Chris Nolan is a traitor!!"

    That's pretty much how it started.
     
  16. Franklin

    Franklin Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I didn't know that. I got to join some Batman boards. :lol:

    Of course, over $500 million later, who was howling in disgust, I wonder?

    Fans are sometimes the biggest detriment to a franchise.

    (By the way, I loved how Ledger played the Joker.)
     
  17. Mr. Laser Beam

    Mr. Laser Beam Fleet Admiral Admiral

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    I'm sure Cumby will make a fine Khan. I really don't care what ethnicity the actor is. That's why they call it acting. :p

    Only thing about Khan's blood being used as a cure-all is, why didn't Khan Prime ever think of it? But that's minor, in the grand scheme of things. Just chalk it up to something that Section 31 discovered and leave it at that. Would make it interesting to suggest that Khan's enhanced intellect really isn't perfect after all...
     
  18. shatastrophic

    shatastrophic Commander Red Shirt

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    I love this! Who knows in the end but I choose to look at it through the same lenses you do! Everyone here is stuck on Khan's backstory, in the Dark Knight they had no backstory on the Joker at all and it worked.
     
  19. Flake

    Flake Commodore Commodore

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    How do we know Khan prime didn't think about it. Perhaps he used it a lot? Perhaps he gave McGivers a full blood transfusion and it still didn't work. Having this blood contradicts nothing from Prime Trek because it was never mentioned and never needed.
     
  20. Franklin

    Franklin Vice Admiral Admiral

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    I wondered about that, myself. Could be in this universe, Section 31 has been playing around with his genetics to study him and they've experimented on him, creating the "magic" blood. Khan, humbled to be the guinea pig as he's actually seething and plotting his vengeance. That will be my canon, at least. ;)