Paramount Confirms TWO Star Trek films currently in the works!

[Commishsleer]

I think it's a really, really dumb story on almost every level, but that's another discussion. My point here is that it wasn't a story about Khan. Not the Khan we met in "Space Seed," the brilliant leader and tactician with qualities that Kirk could admire despite his ambitions for conquest. TWOK threw away all that potential in favor of making him an obsessed madman, a radically different character. Sure, the film justified the change with all he'd been through over the years, but it was still a complete transformation of the character, with basically just the name remaining. It didn't really build on the potential of "Space Seed," just tossed it aside in favor of a stock "revenge against the hero" plot. STID's Khan is closer to the original "Space Seed" version of the character, with that self-discipline and cunning and ambiguity intact.

...

Honestly, even if I were lazy enough to create original SF by filing the serial numbers off of a Trek story, "The Doomsday Machine" is not a story I'm motivated to emulate. I think it's massively overrated. It's TOS's equivalent of a shallow FX-driven action blockbuster, visually impressive for its day but very superficial and often ridiculously exaggerated. I think the main thing that makes it work is Sol Kaplan's magnificent musical score, which elevates the material beyond its merits. If the episode had been tracked with stock music, I don't think it'd be half as well-regarded.

I couldn't disagree more about Khan's character in TWOK and STID.
Even if you don't like the madness/revenge Moby Dick angle of TWOK, Khan in his right mind would probably have attempted to defeat Kirk in a similar manner once he learnt Kirk was tangentially involved with the Genesis team. I don't think his wanting to 'defeat the plans of Kirk' was too much different to his character in Space Seed. Get a guy who's previously defeated him makes sense to me.
In contrast the Khan in STID was so bloodthirsty - an entirely different guy from the dictator on Earth in the 20th century who ruled with no massacres (unlike his fellow augments) and seemed content to rule over his "sheep" rather than kill them. If they restored one of the other augments instead of it being Khan then I could understand STID.

I thought Doomsday Machine was a great episode. Well written and acted.
However I don't want a movie based on it as we've already had the episode and what more could a movie add to the basic plot.

If you want another movie plot my idea is to do what TOS did originally - get some scifi writers to write a plot and pick the best.

 

[Christopher]

Even if you don't like the madness/revenge Moby Dick angle of TWOK, Khan in his right mind would probably have attempted to defeat Kirk in a similar manner once he learnt Kirk was tangentially involved with the Genesis team. I don't think his wanting to 'defeat the plans of Kirk' was too much different to his character in Space Seed. Get a guy who's previously defeated him makes sense to me.

I disagree. A sane Khan who was driven by ambition rather than vengeance wouldn't have cared much about Kirk. He was just the guy who happened to find him and overcome him once. Khan would've been more interested in building the future than dwelling on one past defeat. Revenge is a sucker's game, as David Xanatos said. Intelligent, rational people don't pursue it, or don't let it get in the way of their real goals. A man who once ruled a quarter of the Earth wouldn't be so insecure as to worry about a temporary setback at the hands of one ordinary human who got lucky. He'd just learn from his mistakes and move on to the next thing.

Calling Kirk's involvement with Genesis "tangential" is being generous. Okay, the developers of the thing were his ex and his son, and the ship doing the tests had his former navigator on it, but so what? If your ambition is galactic conquest, none of that matters in the slightest. Kirk, at the time, is a deskbound admiral teaching at the Academy, feeling obsolete and useless. Take away the vengeance motive and Khan has no reason to care about Kirk one way or the other. What would matter to him is the Genesis Device itself and its power as a weapon of terror and intimidation. If anything, his best move after stealing the device would be to avoid confrontation with Starfleet, to hole up somewhere for the next few years, reverse-engineer the torpedo, and build more of them for his eventual campaign of galactic conquest. Attracting attention to himself by hunting down a Starfleet admiral would be counterproductive -- and was, as it turned out.

In contrast the Khan in STID was so bloodthirsty - an entirely different guy from the dictator on Earth in the 20th century who ruled with no massacres (unlike his fellow augments) and seemed content to rule over his "sheep" rather than kill them. If they restored one of the other augments instead of it being Khan then I could understand STID.

Yes, STID said in passing that Khan was genocidal, but they didn't show it, didn't actually do anything with the assertion. I'm talking about his actual portrayal, his words and actions, his interactions with other characters. I'm talking about the impression the character gives when you watch him onscreen, not how he's described by other characters or by a plot summary. The man that Cumberbatch played, the character that Kirk played off of, was a nuanced and rational character motivated by concern for his people, closer to the version of Khan that appeared in "Space Seed" than the over-the-top melodrama villain in TWOK.

 

[Commishsleer]

Well Khan didn't know Kirk was a deskbound loser. 'Chief of Operations' sound pretty impressive. Actually Khan never found out about Kirk's relationship with the Marcus's either.
I thought that Space Seed Khan was quite a Macho Man - not going to wait or bide his time when he could easily entice Kirk into a trap via Chekov to give him the classified Genesis info.
And I never thought Space Seed Khan regarded his fellow augments as anything but his comrades in arms - not really family. I got the impression he would have not hesitated to execute them or his beloved wife if any of them crossed him. Not in the vicious way Cumberbatch Khan would have done it though.

 

[Christopher]

Well Khan didn't know Kirk was a deskbound loser.

Yeah, but he also knew Kirk was just one officer in the military service of an entire freaking civilization. We TV/movie viewers are too quick to assume that everyone in-universe is as exclusively fixated on a single crew as we are. Realistically, that crew would be just one piece of a much greater whole.

I mean, think about it. Adolf Hitler was wounded at the Battle of the Somme in WWI. When he took over Germany, did he build his war campaign around hunting down the guy who led the unit that wounded him in the battle 20-some years earlier? No. He built his war campaign around defeating entire nations. If a sane Khan Noonien Singh were plotting a campaign of galactic conquest, he wouldn't target James T. Kirk, he'd make plans that involved undermining the Federation's military strength as a whole, because that would be the real threat to him.

'Chief of Operations' sound pretty impressive.

That was his title before TMP, but he left that post and was demoted to captain. It doesn't follow that he would've gotten the same job back again when he became an admiral the second time. It was never established what his actual job was at the time of TWOK, although the implication is that he was connected to the Academy, since why else would he be overseeing a cadet simulation?

Actually Khan never found out about Kirk's relationship with the Marcus's either.

That's basically my point. Khan didn't go after Genesis because it was connected to Kirk, because it wasn't really except through coincidence. He went after it because it was a potential weapon of mass destruction and something he could use to gain power -- and, more immediately, because he could use it to lure Kirk into a trap. The reason Kirk got involved is because Khan eel-brainwashed Chekov into claiming the orders to take Genesis came from Kirk, which would prompt Marcus to call Kirk and demand an explanation, thereby attracting his attention and luring him in. The whole reason Khan had Chekov make that claim is because Kirk wasn't connected to Genesis in any real way, so Khan had to create a connection.

So a Khan who didn't care about vengeance and just wanted the power of Genesis as a weapon would have had zero reason to care in the slightest about Kirk. Kirk was just one guy in the Federation's defense force, and it would be the Federation as a whole that he'd have to figure out how to counter if he wanted to build his own Augment empire.

I thought that Space Seed Khan was quite a Macho Man

Yes, obviously, but also a polished, debonair, regal figure. You didn't cast Ricardo Montalban if you wanted a hotheaded berserker, you cast him if you wanted a suave, charming, intellectual type, albeit one with a dangerous edge if he were playing a villain. The crazed, bug-eyed, rage-driven Khan of TWOK was against Montalban's usual type, but the Khan of "Space Seed" was much closer to his usual type, which is why they cast him in the first place.

Granted, Cumberbatch's Khan didn't have the debonair charm of Montalban, but he was reasoned, polished, and calculating, at least until the final act when they tacked on a "REVENGE!!!!" sequence to copy TWOK.

 

[F. King Daniel]

at least until the final act when they tacked on a "REVENGE!!!!" sequence to copy TWOK.

What was that? Because I don't remember Spock running down a fleeing Khan in WoK.

If you're talking about the Vengeance crash, that's his disproportionate response to thinking his people were dead established earlier when he attacked Starfleet HQ. And also nothing like anything in WoK.

 

[gottacook]

I remain unconvinced that any new Star Trek movie will go into production anytime soon. The situation at Paramount is still too unsettled, and given this week's federal approval of the AT&T acquisition of Time Warner (which has already led to a bidding war for Fox between Comcast and Disney), Paramount itself could easily become a takeover target.

 

[Christopher]

If you're talking about the Vengeance crash, that's his disproportionate response to thinking his people were dead established earlier when he attacked Starfleet HQ. And also nothing like anything in WoK.

Obviously not in the specifics, which is why I say it was tacked on. But it was done as a way to bring in a revenge motivation for Khan, something that was part of his character in TWOK but not in "Space Seed." That's what I've been talking about all along -- the way the character of Khan, his personality, was portrayed in the three stories.

 

[DaddlerTheDalek]

Just playin' around.

This tread got my gears turning on some ideas. Work in Progress, not even close to finished.

I kinda want this movie now...

 

[fireproof78]

Granted, Cumberbatch's Khan didn't have the debonair charm of Montalban, but he was reasoned, polished, and calculating, at least until the final act when they tacked on a "REVENGE!!!!" sequence to copy TWOK.

Tacked on implies it didn't flow from the character. Yet, everything we saw with Khan in the film indicates that he is passionate about his people and been toyed with that they had died before. I don't think it is unreasonable for him to figure they had actually died and the raw emotion pushing him to more of a survival/rage emotional state.

 

[Christopher]

Tacked on implies it didn't flow from the character.

I'm thinking more structurally. Khan had already defeated Marcus by that point. He'd gotten his revenge. Okay, he thought Spock had killed his crew and had reason to go after him and the Enterprise. That much flows from character. But having him do a kamikaze dive on Starfleet HQ came out of nowhere. It was just a gratuitous bit of 9/11 porn that was in very poor taste and contributed nothing of value to the film.

 

[F. King Daniel]

At that point Khan thought Starfleet had taken everything from him. It makes sense to me that he'd want to hurt them back in the most destructive way he could.

 

[Christopher]

At that point Khan thought Starfleet had taken everything from him. It makes sense to me that he'd want to hurt them back in the most destructive way he could.

That's just making excuses for the gratuitous decisions of the scriptwriters. Khan doesn't exist. The writers do. They're the ones whose choices I'm judging. And they chose to tack on gratuitous disaster porn that detracted from the film, that could've been cut out without affecting the story or characters in any meaningful way.

 

[F. King Daniel]

In my opinion, it fits with everything we've seen from Khan in "Space Seed", Wrath of Khan and previously in Into Darkness. You may have personally disliked their choice to include that scene, but it fits with things the character would do. Remember his conversation with Spock, where it's revealed that he attempted genocide of "any being [he] found to be less than superior" before his exile.

 

[Smellmet]

Of course it fits. When khan is backed into a corner he will take desperate and destructive measures, even at the expense of his own life, like when he detonated the genesis device.

 

[fireproof78]

I'm thinking more structurally. Khan had already defeated Marcus by that point. He'd gotten his revenge. Okay, he thought Spock had killed his crew and had reason to go after him and the Enterprise. That much flows from character. But having him do a kamikaze dive on Starfleet HQ came out of nowhere. It was just a gratuitous bit of 9/11 porn that was in very poor taste and contributed nothing of value to the film.

But, the same organization had taken more from in, represented by Spock, and the betrayal by Kirk, whom Khan would have no way of knowing was dead.

 

[Christopher]

You may have personally disliked their choice to include that scene, but it fits with things the character would do. Remember his conversation with Spock, where it's revealed that he attempted genocide of "any being [he] found to be less than superior" before his exile.

Which was the one part where they most drastically misunderstood the character, contradicting the statement in "Space Seed" that there were no massacres under Khan's rule. You're trying to use the film's worst mistake regarding Khan (other than the casting) as a defense of one of its lesser mistakes, which just doesn't work.

Of course it fits. When khan is backed into a corner he will take desperate and destructive measures, even at the expense of his own life, like when he detonated the genesis device.

Yes, but that's the deranged, desperate Khan of TWOK, and my whole thesis is that that's a radically different character from the Khan we saw in "Space Seed." The Khan of STID is mostly more consistent with the "Space Seed" version, until the final act where the writers contrive to make him more like the TWOK version. And I don't buy that conversion. It took 15 years of horror, hardship, and loss to transform the debonair, calculating world conqueror of "Space Seed" into the raving obsessive of TWOK who has nothing to live for but revenge. I don't accept that the Khan of STID -- who's closer to the original version, because he was only awakened from the Botany Bay less than a year before -- could make that transformation so quickly.

And I don't care how you rationalize it in-story, the destruction scenes in San Francisco were totally gratuitous disaster porn, part of a tiresome and distasteful trend of excessive and 9/11-evoking sequences of mass urban destruction in action movies that year (see also Man of Steel and R.I.P.D.). That's not about Khan. It's about Hollywood and its excesses, and the failure of STID's filmmakers to rise above them.

 

[F. King Daniel]

Which was the one part where they most drastically misunderstood the character, contradicting the statement in "Space Seed" that there were no massacres under Khan's rule. You're trying to use the film's worst mistake regarding Khan (other than the casting) as a defense of one of its lesser mistakes, which just doesn't work.

Did Spock not say that records from the era were spotty at best in "Space Seed"? Of course Khan wasn't going to stop Kirk and out himself as a mass murderer in "Space Seed".

Even if it was a wholesale retcon and a totally reimagined character, it still justifies what the writers made this Khan do. The Khan who tried so eradicate anyone he deemed less than superior crashing a giant spaceship into San Francisco when he thinks all is lost and his family are dead makes sense.

You're confusing your preconceptions and wishes for what the character was with what the movie is trying to portray.

Yes, but that's the deranged, desperate Khan of TWOK, and my whole thesis is that that's a radically different character from the Khan we saw in "Space Seed." The Khan of STID is mostly more consistent with the "Space Seed" version, until the final act where the writers contrive to make him more like the TWOK version. And I don't buy that conversion. It took 15 years of horror, hardship, and loss to transform the debonair, calculating world conqueror of "Space Seed" into the raving obsessive of TWOK who has nothing to live for but revenge. I don't accept that the Khan of STID -- who's closer to the original version, because he was only awakened from the Botany Bay less than a year before -- could make that transformation so quickly.

And I don't care how you rationalize it in-story, the destruction scenes in San Francisco were totally gratuitous disaster porn, part of a tiresome and distasteful trend of excessive and 9/11-evoking sequences of mass urban destruction in action movies that year (see also Man of Steel and R.I.P.D.). That's not about Khan. It's about Hollywood and its excesses, and the failure of STID's filmmakers to rise above them.

It's worth noting that those explosive "trailer moments" likely helped Into Darkness achieve Trek's best ever box office.

 

[Christopher]

You're confusing your preconceptions and wishes for what the character was with what the movie is trying to portray.

That's an insulting way of putting it. I'm disagreeing with what the movie was trying to portray. The fact that it differs from what I wanted is the whole point. Come on, that's how criticism works. We're not slaves to storytellers. We're not required to like everything they feed us. We're allowed to say when we think something was a bad idea.

It's worth noting that those explosive "trailer moments" likely helped Into Darkness achieve Trek's best ever box office.

Which is mercenary and shallow and anything but a defense of a crude practice that undermines the quality of movies. Appealing to the lowest common denominator is nothing to celebrate.

 

[Smellmet]

Which was the one part where they most drastically misunderstood the character, contradicting the statement in "Space Seed" that there were no massacres under Khan's rule. You're trying to use the film's worst mistake regarding Khan (other than the casting) as a defense of one of its lesser mistakes, which just doesn't work.




Yes, but that's the deranged, desperate Khan of TWOK, and my whole thesis is that that's a radically different character from the Khan we saw in "Space Seed." The Khan of STID is mostly more consistent with the "Space Seed" version, until the final act where the writers contrive to make him more like the TWOK version. And I don't buy that conversion. It took 15 years of horror, hardship, and loss to transform the debonair, calculating world conqueror of "Space Seed" into the raving obsessive of TWOK who has nothing to live for but revenge. I don't accept that the Khan of STID -- who's closer to the original version, because he was only awakened from the Botany Bay less than a year before -- could make that transformation so quickly.

And I don't care how you rationalize it in-story, the destruction scenes in San Francisco were totally gratuitous disaster porn, part of a tiresome and distasteful trend of excessive and 9/11-evoking sequences of mass urban destruction in action movies that year (see also Man of Steel and R.I.P.D.). That's not about Khan. It's about Hollywood and its excesses, and the failure of STID's filmmakers to rise above them.

He's every bit as desperate here. He's piloting a barely in control starship that's plummeting to earth thinking for the second time that all his family are dead, and the headquarters of the perpetrators are dead ahead. I thought the end of STID was fully in keeping with Khan's character.

 

[Hey Missy]

It's worth noting that those explosive "trailer moments" likely helped Into Darkness achieve Trek's best ever box office.

You're probably right that the explosions, skyscrapers toppling over, and Alice Eve's infamous underwear shot (which, I might add, was in every trailer) propelled ID to the top, but at what cost? I'm not saying Trek should be this "fan-only" thing, but I do feel like a little bit of dignity had been shed to make just that little bit of money.