Bob Orci's Comment: The Film Stood on its Own Without...[Spoilers]

[Shazam!]

Here's the catch 22. A movie about a rogue Admiral with an agenda turns into "Insurrection". Nothing to really catch the crowd. If you turn the baddie into a name brand, however, it sells..

But they kept it a secret though : /

 

[beamMe]

That's the same position he was in at the start of Into Darkness. His people were incapacitated and in potential danger, he was alone under Marcus' watchful eye, and he was a known threat. He needed to gain an advantage again, manipulate insiders to do his bidding, and get his people to safety before he could strike.

No wonder he went bonkers and lost control over himself for a moment when Spock apparently murdered his people when he triggered the torpedoes to explode, and just after finding out his crew wasn't killed by Marcus.

 

[lawman]

The movie did not work very hard to establish Khan as a threat, it leaned on the fans' memory of Wrath of Khan, and the fans' memory of the scenes it directly reproduced from Wrath Of Khan. Which is something you don't get to do if you're completely changing the series.

He blew up a Starfleet Archive (which turned out to actually be a Section 31 operation base), he attacked and killed Starfleet Admirals, Captains and other officers including killing Pike. And got away to Kronos. I think that was a good threat

Actually, while the Archive bombing was strategically clever (it was just anonymous terrorism to the public, while Marcus and those in the know understood the real implications but couldn't admit them), the one-man attack on the meeting of Starfleet brass made no sense at all. It was just an excuse for an action scene. He was putting himself at serious risk there just for revenge, which he could have achieved through some other pawn instead, rather than doing anything that might gain information about his people. Sure, he had a transwarp "escape plan"... but that begs another question, since if he really believed his people were dead, what the heck did he hope to accomplish by himself on the Klingon homeworld of all places?

Really, what made Khan work so well in STII was the backstory... the years of exile that drove him to seek revenge against Kirk, and made him so dangerous because he had nothing left to lose. Here, while Cumberbatch's acting brought a lot to the character, no question, still as written he wasn't all that intimidating on his own. What really underscores this is the OldSpock cameo, where NuSpock actually had to ask "how worried should we be about this guy anyway?" If the story had worked on its own that scene wouldn't have been necessary.

 

[newtontomato539]

I've been saying all year, "It's not Khan!"



It's Khan! Yay!

Before: " Star Trek 09 is a remake of Nemesis!'

Now: "Into Darkness is a remake of Insurrection!"

. . .

 

[Photoman15]

I've been saying all year, "It's not Khan!"



It's Khan! Yay!

Before: " Star Trek 09 is a remake of Nemesis!'

Now: "Into Darkness is a remake of Insurrection!"

. . .

Well, if ST09 was a remake of Nemesis, then "Job well done, JJ!". But it wasn't.

If STiD is a remake of Insurrection, then again I say, "Job well done, JJ!". But it isn't. Insurrection was a nice TNG episode. Nemesis was crap. ST09 and STiD are summer blockbusters and entertaining.

 

[Yorkshire Niner]

With that said, why use Khan at all? As I watched, I was thinking that they'd come up with the best villain since Khan....then it all fell apart. After a while, I even came around to enjoying the alternate universe Khan. It was the ripoff of the TWOK engine room scene and the yell that lost me.

Exactly my thoughts too. I was enjoying the first half - Section 31, Klingons, Noel Clarke, lots of analysis of the Prime Directive, a mysterious superhuman stranger who may be Khan but probably isn't - then Cumberbatch reveals himself to be playing a villain made immortal in Trek lore by someone else and the homages quickly became proto-plagiarism. It became an insult to genuine Trekkies and to Messrs. Meyer, Shatner, Nimoy, etc who put so much hard work and passion into a 30 year old film that really saved the franchise a long time ago.

What's most frustrating is why Abrams feels the need to curb his creativity and rip off other people's work so often! He's clearly a very talented film-maker. If he's going to keep making "new and fresh" Trek films then I want to see something "new and fresh" in them.

Two other peculiarities. One, why did Carol Marcus have a (dodgy) English accent when her father had a North American one? And two, why did Kronos look like Earth in the final Matrix movie??

I'd give the movie a 7 out of 10 due largely to the performances of the cast who were all excellent. Abrams and his scriptwriters should be ashamed of themselves though. I hope they don't have the cheek to call themselves 'artists'.

 

[SalvorHardin]

Two other peculiarities. One, why did Carol Marcus have a (dodgy) English accent when her father had a North American one?

Alice Eve: There was a scene that was cut out of the movie where I explain to Kirk that I was raised in England by mother and my father – who is played by Peter Weller who was American – and that is why I had a different accent.​

http://trekmovie.com/2013/05/16/exc...ness-brit-accent-more-in-trekmovie-interview/

 

[Flake]

With that said, why use Khan at all? As I watched, I was thinking that they'd come up with the best villain since Khan....then it all fell apart. After a while, I even came around to enjoying the alternate universe Khan. It was the ripoff of the TWOK engine room scene and the yell that lost me.

Exactly my thoughts too. I was enjoying the first half - Section 31, Klingons, Noel Clarke, lots of analysis of the Prime Directive, a mysterious superhuman stranger who may be Khan but probably isn't - then Cumberbatch reveals himself to be playing a villain made immortal in Trek lore by someone else and the homages quickly became proto-plagiarism. It became an insult to genuine Trekkies and to Messrs. Meyer, Shatner, Nimoy, etc who put so much hard work and passion into a 30 year old film that really saved the franchise a long time ago.

What's most frustrating is why Abrams feels the need to curb his creativity and rip off other people's work so often! He's clearly a very talented film-maker. If he's going to keep making "new and fresh" Trek films then I want to see something "new and fresh" in them.

Two other peculiarities. One, why did Carol Marcus have a (dodgy) English accent when her father had a North American one? And two, why did Kronos look like Earth in the final Matrix movie??

I'd give the movie a 7 out of 10 due largely to the performances of the cast who were all excellent. Abrams and his scriptwriters should be ashamed of themselves though. I hope they don't have the cheek to call themselves 'artists'.

I, too, enjoyed it mostly until the Khan reveal, then it started going south. It was still not too bad until Khan awoke after Scotty 'stunned' him and he takes over the ship. The rest of the movie is not good at all.

Everything until Khan reveal: 7.5/10
After Khan Reveal until Khan takes over USS Vengeance: 6.5/10
Everything after Khan takes over USS Vengeance: 4/10

The warp core TWOK scene really didn't work for me, then there is the chase scene.. again not so hot and finally magic blood.. blegh. It all looked wonderful and was mildly entertaining (except the TWOK part) but so empty and silly.

Still I hope it does well and I hope the next one is an improvement but I will not get my hopes up too much because it will be the same writers.

The admission by Bob Orci indicates to me that perhaps all the Khan stuff was tacked on to an earlier draft that didn't include him and then as soon as Khan entered the story they tacked on the warp core scenes, the hand on glass scenes and all the Kirk death/resurrection stuff & torpedoes etc because of the connection to Khan and TWOK. Bad move imo.

 

[JarodRussell]

Here's the catch 22. A movie about a rogue Admiral with an agenda turns into "Insurrection". Nothing to really catch the crowd. If you turn the baddie into a name brand, however, it sells.

They caught the crowd with Cumberbatch as John Harrison. The film was NOT promoted with the villain Khan.

 

[Yorkshire Niner]

Two other peculiarities. One, why did Carol Marcus have a (dodgy) English accent when her father had a North American one?

Alice Eve: There was a scene that was cut out of the movie where I explain to Kirk that I was raised in England by mother and my father – who is played by Peter Weller who was American – and that is why I had a different accent.​

http://trekmovie.com/2013/05/16/exc...ness-brit-accent-more-in-trekmovie-interview/

Thank you.

 

[Amaris]

I find the "magic blood" comments interesting, as I've been seeing them in several threads.

We've seen people broken into their quantum components and teleported great distances, we've seen starships move at hundreds, even thousands of times the speed of light, we've seen godlike beings playing with humans like they were toys, we've seen diseases that destroy DNA, aging crew members until they look ancient, only to be restored to youth by the previously mentioned quantum teleportation device, we've seen a torpedo that causes a dead planet to be completely changed into a living biosphere in a matter of minutes, yet in this movie, someone uses blood that has been genetically modified to resuscitate recently dead tissue, and that's "magic."

 

[HaventGotALife]

...Khan. In a post to trekmovie last night, he said that they felt that the rogue Starfleet admiral story was strong enough to stand on its own without making Harrison Khan. They even played with the idea of having Harrison be a Federation criminal or some other seedy individual brought in by Marcus.

With that said, why use Khan at all? As I watched, I was thinking that they'd come up with the best villain since Khan....then it all fell apart. After a while, I even came around to enjoying the alternate universe Khan. It was the ripoff of the TWOK engine room scene and the yell that lost me.

Spoiler: STID Stand alone...

I think they could've done this without Khan and I think the death of Kirk didn't teach him anything. I would like to see them re-write the movie without using Khan. It's so obvious they didn't need him.

 

[Stardate]

Regarding Harrison being Kahn and with BobOrci saying that Nutrek needed to stand own their own. I found it bit cheap using Kahn in this movie. I dont hate it. I would have prefered Harrison being just another augment. hmmm i am just throwing out some ideas. What if Harrison was just augments used by Marcus to start Klingon war. Marcus are holding Harrison augmented crew as hostages with one of the hostage is Harrison wife. Marcus should have been main villian in this movie. Just my 2 cent.

 

[Brent]

IMO It wouldn't have been as strong if they DIDN'T have Khan. Him being Khan, amped it up, and raised the bar a level.

 

[PsychoPere]

I find the "magic blood" comments interesting, as I've been seeing them in several threads. [...]

J., you know better than to bring rational thought to bear.

 

[Psion]

I find the "magic blood" comments interesting, as I've been seeing them in several threads.

We've seen people broken into their quantum components and teleported great distances, we've seen starships move at hundreds, even thousands of times the speed of light, we've seen godlike beings playing with humans like they were toys, we've seen diseases that destroy DNA, aging crew members until they look ancient, only to be restored to youth by the previously mentioned quantum teleportation device, we've seen a torpedo that causes a dead planet to be completely changed into a living biosphere in a matter of minutes, yet in this movie, someone uses blood that has been genetically modified to resuscitate recently dead tissue, and that's "magic."

Then w[h]ere do you draw the line? Shall we just equip the crew with Starfleet-issue wands? Remember that Khan was the product of centuries-old medicine and science. Why can his blood cure people that 300 more years of medical advances cannot?

 

[The Transformed Man]

Two other peculiarities. One, why did Carol Marcus have a (dodgy) English accent when her father had a North American one? And two, why did Kronos look like Earth in the final Matrix movie??

1. Dodgy? You do realize Alice Eve is English?

2. Why on Earth not? Why do Abrams and crew have to be married to every Trek sacred cow? And who is to say First City doesn't look more like the familiar setting we are more accustomed to, afterall this was an abandoned area.

Yancy

 

[Amaris]

I find the "magic blood" comments interesting, as I've been seeing them in several threads. [...]

J., you know better than to bring rational thought to bear.

I know. We're Star Trek fans.

Then were do you draw the line? Shall we just equip the crew with Starfleet-issue wands? Remember that Khan was the product of centuries-old medicine and science. Why can his blood cure people that 300 more years of medical advances cannot?

I would draw the line at people making mountains out of molehills, but the amazing, and wholly practical, Genesis Device has already ignored that line.

In all seriousness, I draw the line where something stops making a modicum of sense. Genetically altered blood is plausible. Hell, we can do it now. A transportation device that can disassemble our atoms and reassemble them thousands of miles away in mere seconds? With no after-effects? Not really plausible, but you seem to accept it, otherwise that is where you would have drawn the line. Why is it you cannot accept that highly specialized, top secret scientific genetic research wouldn't be available to the general public, even a few centuries later? Who knows? Maybe the records were lost in a war? Could be? Maybe?

In this movie, Khan's blood is genetically designed to heal necrotic tissue. I would imagine it can also do a fair bit of damage control on an already weakened system. Really, there's no stretch to this.

 

[Psion]

Then were do you draw the line? Shall we just equip the crew with Starfleet-issue wands? Remember that Khan was the product of centuries-old medicine and science. Why can his blood cure people that 300 more years of medical advances cannot?

I would draw the line at people making mountains out of molehills, but the amazing, and wholly practical, Genesis Device has already ignored that line.

In all seriousness, I draw the line where something stops making a modicum of sense. Genetically altered blood is plausible. Hell, we can do it now. A transportation device that can disassemble our atoms and reassemble them thousands of miles away in mere seconds? With no after-effects? Not really plausible, but you seem to accept it, otherwise that is where you would have drawn the line. Why is it you cannot accept that highly specialized, top secret scientific genetic research wouldn't be available to the general public, even a few centuries later? Who knows? Maybe the records were lost in a war? Could be? Maybe?

In this movie, Khan's blood is genetically designed to heal necrotic tissue. I would imagine it can also do a fair bit of damage control on an already weakened system. Really, there's no stretch to this.

The transporter and warp drive have been an established part of Star Trek's foundation since the very first pilot. They are not only common fixtures of science fiction in general, they are required to tell Star Trek stories, and if you find them to be so implausible, then perhaps you should reconsider your recreational entertainment.

Khan's blood, like the Genesis Device or Red Matter, brings in a whole new level of implausibility that doesn't make sense within the framework of the franchise. And it isn't that his blood contains anti-necrotic substances that I find implausible. It's that scientists in the 1960s figured out how to do this, kept it to themselves for the next 30 years until Khan rose to power, and all the while never thought about becoming heroes of humanity for releasing a genuine panacea.

And then three more centuries of medical progress weren't able to find the same thing. Not just medical progress on Earth ... don't forget humanity is at the center of a vast federation of planets involving scores of alien species, each of whom could bring their own insights into biology.

This is like revealing in a Batman movie that the Caped Crusader has been able to fly since boyhood. It's not that it's implausible in a realm populated by amazing beings, it's that it simply doesn't make sense within its own context. Khan was a product of selective breeding. Maybe a little genetic tampering, but on the level of fixing a Swiss watch with a mallet. Now tell me, what combination of genetic traits do you think will result in a cure-all transfusion capable of reversing radiation damage and bringing tribbles and starship captains back from the dead?

 

[Amaris]

The transporter and warp drive have been an established part of Star Trek's foundation since the very first pilot. They are not only common fixtures of science fiction in general, they are required to tell Star Trek stories, and if you find them to be so implausible, then perhaps you should reconsider your recreational entertainment.

Khan's blood, like the Genesis Device or Red Matter, brings in a whole new level of implausibility that doesn't make sense within the framework of the franchise. And it isn't that his blood contains anti-necrotic substances that I find implausible. It's that scientists in the 1960s figured out how to do this, kept it to themselves for the next 30 years until Khan rose to power, and all the while never thought about becoming heroes of humanity for releasing a genuine panacea.

And then three more centuries of medical progress weren't able to find the same thing. Not just medical progress on Earth ... don't forget humanity is at the center of a vast federation of planets involving scores of alien species, each of whom could bring their own insights into biology.

This is like revealing in a Batman movie that the Caped Crusader has been able to fly since boyhood. It's not that it's implausible in a realm populated by amazing beings, it's that it simply doesn't make sense within its own context. Khan was a product of selective breeding. Maybe a little genetic tampering, but on the level of fixing a Swiss watch with a mallet. Now tell me, what combination of genetic traits do you think will result in a cure-all transfusion capable of reversing radiation damage and bringing tribbles and starship captains back from the dead?

So you're used to the technology established in Star Trek to the point where it's realism isn't in question anymore. You're familiar with it, so you let it pass because it helps tell the story. I'm not sure why you still seem to have a problem with the genetically modified blood other than that it's unfamiliar to you.