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STAR TREK INTO DARKNESS - Grading & Discussion [SPOILERS]

Grade the movie...


  • Total voters
    796
I do get your "gist" but since when does the Indian subcontinent border the middle east? And yes this is a problem for me because it smacks of the western/American inability to delineate basic global differences. All brown people are "brown".... etc and etc.

India is pretty close to Iran, that's all I'm saying.

Anyways, the point that I was referring to was that before someone mentioned that if he was darker skinned that the average viewer would not make the delineation that you refer to. So I wasn't alluding to that particular geography myself.
 
Canon is pointless. I like continuity too, but I won't let it get in the way of something good (and Trek has taken that approach with its own canon when they felt like it).

That being said, if Star Trek has taught us anything it is that looks are important, that it matters more than character, and the emotions they evoke. If your name is Khan you BETTER be from India and a brown man because in the future all races will be segregated by skin color, names, and birth place.

.....................wait....do I have that backwards?
 
Picard is French so IN THE TNG REBOOT you god damn well better cast a French man who eats cheese and snails and orders wine from the replicator not some English man who drinks tea!
 
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If your name is Khan you BETTER be from India and a brown man because in the future all races will be segregated by skin color, names, and birth place.

Good thing no one said anything like that. Here's something worth noting:

MARLA: From the northern India area, I'd guess. Probably a Sikh. They were the most fantastic warriors.

This was something McGivers said based on looks, not a name. I know it's not important anymore and the character is rebooted (and even so probably since TWOK), but that's what I was going off of, not anything more than that. I know it's easy to set up a straw man and pretend this has to do with racism or something like that, but that's cheap.
 
You only need to look at Ryan8bit's avatar to see that Ricardo Montalban is pretty white and certainly not Indian. There is nothing wrong with Cumberbatch being Khan. For all we know Khan could have been raised in England to mixed parents or even had the genes responsible for looking like an indian removed as part of his genetic engineering. Maybe he was adopted into a family that had a surname of Khan? Just use your imagination. We know very very little about Khans background except he was a superhuman who once ruled a small empire on Earth.
 
Re: how good are star trek into darkness reviews

So far there have been a wave of new star trek into darkness reviews and despite it not being out in the U.S. yet does anyone know compared to the 2009 movie what these reviews tell us and how well the movie is? Also right now rotten tomatoes has a 82 percent and meta critic 75 unlike the 2009 movie which had 95 on rotten tomato and 83 on meta critic but does anyone think it will get better once its released in U.S.?


Just read the first one I've seen in a major paper here.

It says the characters are bad - Kirk a reckless and unlikeable captain, Spock coming off as a simpleton for admiring him, Chekov and Scotty caracatures, Marcus randomly stripping for eye-candy and Uhura pining after Spock. it also finds the relentless action becomes tiresome and the plot lacks logic. However, it says Cumberbatch does well.

Overall, it compares the film unfavourably to XI, but still gives it 3/5, mostly as a spectacle.
 
You only need to look at Ryan8bit's avatar to see that Ricardo Montalban is pretty white and certainly not Indian.

Actually, you might want to see the original image that is photoshopped from:
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ly5v5sAwJQ1qeenqto1_500.jpg

My avatar is just sort of a nod toward the later non-bronzed TWOK Khan and the now pale white, green eyed Khan played by Cumberbatch. Sort of a retcon.

Of course, there are images of him from "Space Seed" where he's lighter looking than that link, although not quite as light as the avatar.
 
If your name is Khan you BETTER be from India and a brown man because in the future all races will be segregated by skin color, names, and birth place.

Good thing no one said anything like that. Here's something worth noting:

MARLA: From the northern India area, I'd guess. Probably a Sikh. They were the most fantastic warriors.

This was something McGivers said based on looks, not a name. I know it's not important anymore and the character is rebooted (and even so probably since TWOK), but that's what I was going off of, not anything more than that. I know it's easy to set up a straw man and pretend this has to do with racism or something like that, but that's cheap.
I don't think it has anything to do with racism.

It is just an argument I've seen alot or a complaint. His name is Khan, he is suppose to be a Sihk warrior and blah blah blah he cant be a white British guy.

I just think the whole thing is a beyond pointless argument. It's a ret-con. Hell the TOS movies ret-conned the TOS series whenever it felt like it.

I just think it is a silly argument that the role should go to an Indian actor or something like that.

My absurd comment was just there to say that Trek, if it taught me anything was that what you are called, where you come from, and what you look like are meaningless next to what kind of person you are.
 
Odd that Section 31 was so thorough in one time, and so completely inept in the other.

How do we know that they're inept?


Because all the cool guys joined Section 69.



I think we have to come to terms with the fact it may end up in the 70s on Rotten Tomatoes.


Don't worry about it. As the truefans have yelled for four years, reviews mean nothing. Box office means nothing. Come to think of it, everything means nothing. They weren't idiots after all. They were simply dispensing the wisdom of Zen.
 
Is he a guaranteed box office drawcard, talented actor and popular heartthrob amongst SF media fans like... Benedict Cumberbatch?

I shouldn't imagine Benedict Cumberbatch is a guaranteed boxoffice draw. I doubt many people in the States know who he is!
 
You only need to look at Ryan8bit's avatar to see that Ricardo Montalban is pretty white and certainly not Indian.

Actually, you might want to see the original image that is photoshopped from:
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ly5v5sAwJQ1qeenqto1_500.jpg

My avatar is just sort of a nod toward the later non-bronzed TWOK Khan and the now pale white, green eyed Khan played by Cumberbatch. Sort of a retcon.

Of course, there are images of him from "Space Seed" where he's lighter looking than that link, although not quite as light as the avatar.

Well, hell. There goes my faith in forum avatars as undeniable truth! :guffaw:
 
With all the other nonsense we accept in Trek, if people dislike this movie, don't go see it, or otherwise gripe just because of whether or not who is playing Khan is the "right" color or right "ethnicity," then Trek fandom has jumped the shark.

Besides, as has been said a dozen times, Khan is a Muslim title taken by a Sikh whose actual name is Noonien Singh. If one is comfortable with that contradiction, or can explain that away, then anyone should be able to explain away who plays the character just as well.

Also, a Dastar is a mandatory item of headwear for a Sikh male. Where's Singh's? If there's an explanation rationalizing why he doesn't wear it any more, then there's an explanation suitable for who's playing the character.

Further, to be most correct, Singh should be wearing a Kirpan. He didn't in "Space Seed", and he doesn't in STID. Maybe it was under his clothes. Maybe he doesn't wear it because Khan Noonien Singh doesn't seem to stand for what it symbolizes: peace, non-violence, defense of the weak, and truth.

There seem to be a lot of inaccuracies in the character to chew on and explain. So, why stop at the actor portraying him?
 
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