redbrunja | Star Trek: Into Darkness

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Star Trek: Into Darkness

Okay, before we get to the movie, why do people hate Benedict Cumberbatch? I know I am not a fan because I hate Sherlock but am pretty sure that's not why other people dislike him. That said,he was a terrible choice for Khan because even leaving aside the racism of white-washing the character, he does not have anything near the charisma needed to play off of Chris Pine.

My other two nit-picks are the the opening was both funny and skeevy as hell (I don't know how to articulate it and I might be being over-sensitive, but... I was skeeved out), the movie did not do a great job with the ladies, and I didn't understand how the Enterprise and Khan's ship could be the only two space ships in orbit around freaking EARTH.

Other than that, the movie was quippy, I really enjoyed Kirk's relationships with everyone. I definitely wanted more Kirk/Uhura BFF-ery and more Uhura/Spock in general (I feel liked that relationship needed one more really strong character beat, right at the end). I thought everyone got a chance to shine, I really liked the reversal of Kirk and Spock's roles from the original movies, and I greatly appreciate that the next movie isn't going to be 'Search for Kirk.'

Two additional thoughts:

In retrospect, I really dislike the time-travel element. I wish that they would have just done a clean reboot with this series and just given Leonard Nimoy a reoccuring cameo to show his support for the new films.

Goddamn, was there a lot of collateral/civilian deaths in this movie. Like, I was watching those buildings go down when Khan's ship crashed into buildings in the end, I was trying to figure out how many people must have been in them. And Kirk's 'no crewmembers dead' streak has been smashed to bits

Now I want to read ALL the Spock/Uhura.

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I was thinking about the racefail today. And my brain, being my brain, tried to play it into Aryan supremacy weaved in with rampant Orientalism. It's still not really making sense in my head, but I can't stop turning it over.

Bottom line, that part of the movie epically, epically did not work.

And Star Trek has always TRIED to be more progressive than it actually is... but I feel like the new movies aren't even trying the way the older shows did.

I think I'll have less of a headache if I just accept that it was a complete failure on the part of the movie makers.

(COMPLETELY a tangent: Am I the only one who just DIED laughing when Spock did the Khan yell?)

I think I'll have less of a headache if I just accept that it was a complete failure on the part of the movie makers.

They're so incoherent in failure, I think that's what you have to do.

Judging from other people's reactions, no. I didn't find it that funny, personally.

I think it kind of broke the tensity of the scene. I grew up with Trek, my dad is a huge fan. I was also surrounded by fans in high school (ask me what I wore to the premiere of the first TNG movie). So in my brain, it's a funny thing. And there the yell was, in the middle of this horribly serious thing.

I think I laughed at the absurdity of it.

I totally agree with your points. BC was not a good fit for the part period and I really think they shafted fans of TOS and Trek by bringing him on board for Khan and rehashing one of the most iconic scenes in Trek history. I really hope the next one tries to get back to a more philosophical approach during the five year mission. I'm sure they won't, especially not if JJ comes back, but I am still going to hope for the best.

I really do love all the crew interactions in the movie though so I'll definitely watch it again once it's on video for that stuff. Ha even in the theater I immediately ignored BC's lines after he said he was Khan.

I am seeing the movie in 10 minutes so I'm just going to address the first point. The reasons why people hate Benedict Cumberbatch is basically summed up by:

1) Sherlock, and he did apparently say that he didn't think Elementary would work, but I haven't read up on the interview so I don't know what his language was.

2) he is close personal friends with Steven Moffat

3) The fact he was selected to play Khan

4) They think his face looks like putty (although I think that's more an expression of the first two).

So the tumblr hive mind has kind of taken those things to mean he's an unapologetic agent of the patriarchy. And, well, he kind of is as much as you would expect a white British boy to be. It's a combination of playing sexist characters, having sexist friends, and having all of those things taken to the extreme. Plus, a lot of people are genuinely angry about sexism, queerbaiting, and whitewashing and he happens to have a face that is involved in all of those issues in one form or another, so that's another component.

However I personally don't hate him (however, my criteria for hating actors is a pretty low bar to clear - do they believe in evolution? do they believe in gay marriage? have they hit their wife/girlfriend?), so I can see that it's also resulted in some rhetoric that I don't think is entirely fair and has turned into this sort of culture for shaming girls who are attracted to him? Which does bother me. While there's some really valid criticism there, I kind of think of him as "meh", honestly, and not really deserving of all the hate he gets.

I completely agree with everything in this comment. I don't like Cumberbatch because of Sherlock and Moffat-ness and how that has come to be synonymous with sexism, whitewashing and queerbaiting in my mind, but there is an element of shaming girls for finding him attractive, and that's more than a little icky.

However I personally don't hate him (however, my criteria for hating actors is a pretty low bar to clear - do they believe in evolution? do they believe in gay marriage? have they hit their wife/girlfriend?), so I can see that it's also resulted in some rhetoric that I don't think is entirely fair and has turned into this sort of culture for shaming girls who are attracted to him? Which does bother me. While there's some really valid criticism there, I kind of think of him as "meh", honestly, and not really deserving of all the hate he gets.

That's kind of my take on it. I realized as I was writing this that there was a lot of ambient hate for BC and his fangirls that, as you articulated, isn't really fair. Honestly, him being the lead in Sherlock is where a lof of my dislike stems, but again, he's the actor, not the writer(s) for that one.

I saw it and really liked it!

My other two nit-picks are the the opening was both funny and skeevy as hell (I don't know how to articulate it and I might be being over-sensitive, but... I was skeeved out)

I honestly had the dual reaction where I liked it but simultaneously knew it had a shitty White Man's Burden overtone. What I liked about it had more to do with just, in my own mind, the idea of how amazing it would have been to have been a member of a technologically basic, intelligent civilization and have your volcano start to erupt and then have what amounts to a god rise out of the sea to destroy it. So I knew it was squicky but at the same time I was awed by the idea of something miraculous happening and the idea that it would become a huge component of their mythology was epic.

In retrospect...the casting of a white guy as Khan makes more sense. I still don't agree with why the story needed to be that way, but I can see more of the thought process now and that it would have been worse to have a POC in it with the story they were trying to tell (ex: crashing a spaceship into buildings in a major metropolis). Granted, I really don't see why the crash scene at the end needed to be as dramatic as it was, aside from the fact that he was angry and just wanted to cause as much death and destruction as he could before he was finally taken out (although I feel like there's another missing scene where he realizes that his crew is actually alive, which would have rounded everything out way more effectively).

I genuinely enjoyed the movie though! JJ Abrams isn't a very good storyteller and the ladies were treated terribly, but it had moments where it really shone and hit some amazing character points. I'll talk more in-depth about it later, but I liked it a lot.

ESPECIALLY KIRK DYING. AND SPOCK'S REACTION. AND THAT SPOCK BEAT UP THE BAD GUY WITH HIS AMAZING SPACE GIRLFRIEND. AND THE FACT THAT SOMEONE OTHER THAN KIRK GOT THE HERO HIGHLIGHT IN THE END.

In retrospect...the casting of a white guy as Khan makes more sense. I still don't agree with why the story needed to be that way, but I can see more of the thought process now and that it would have been worse to have a POC in it with the story they were trying to tell (ex: crashing a spaceship into buildings in a major metropolis).

I don't think it would have been very terrible for brown people if Khan was cast by a brown actor because Khan's actions are explained and he's given somewhat justifiable reasons for doing what he does, even if you don't agree with what he's doing. What annoys me about mainstream cinema is that it sometimes has a tendency to cast brown actors as villains who are mindless thugs, whereas a lot of the white actors get roles where the villains are much more complex. I have no doubt some of the more racist fans would have disliked Khan or would have been less inclined to sympathise with him because he is brown, but it would have been a nice break from a very racist pattern in western cinema. It's not so much that POC actors play villains that are the problem, it's that they don't play sympathetic or complex villains in addition to sympathetic or complex heroes.

Or at least that's my view. :P

Oh yes! All of that is really, extremely true. Villains have their own fanbase and POC villains are treated more like monsters of the week. I was just musing that there were a couple of aspects of the story that would have been very, very bad to put a POC in that role.

And it's awful that the story they felt they needed to tell needed the whitest-white guy to do it (because, really, they didn't need to have the scene where he crashes the ship into a major city).

And, now that I think of it, it's sort of defunct because they showed a POC as a suicide bomber, which isn't any better or less offensive.

Villains have their own fanbase and POC villains are treated more like monsters of the week. I was just musing that there were a couple of aspects of the story that would have been very, very bad to put a POC in that role.

I totally agree. There would have probably been a bit of a racist reaction to a brown actor playing Khan, as there is always with female or POC characters. Especially since there are some aspects of Khan's story that don't make him a very sympathetic character to everyone.

And, now that I think of it, it's sort of defunct because they showed a POC as a suicide bomber, which isn't any better or less offensive.

True, although at least they showed the reason why the dude became a suicide bomber in the first place. I teared up a little during that whole part of the movie because you could see how desperate he was to save his kid and how much he hated himself for what he was about to do.

What annoys me about mainstream cinema is that it sometimes has a tendency to cast brown actors as villains who are mindless thugs, whereas a lot of the white actors get roles where the villains are much more complex.

This is exactly why I would have really wanted to see an POC in Khan's role, and have them bump up the complexities and motivations of that character. Both the audience and Kirk are supposed to actually really like this guy.

I honestly had the dual reaction where I liked it but simultaneously knew it had a shitty White Man's Burden overtone.

Yep.

ESPECIALLY KIRK DYING. AND SPOCK'S REACTION. AND THAT SPOCK BEAT UP THE BAD GUY WITH HIS AMAZING SPACE GIRLFRIEND. AND THE FACT THAT SOMEONE OTHER THAN KIRK GOT THE HERO HIGHLIGHT IN THE END.

That was one of my favorite storytelling choices!

There's been a few instances of Benedict Cumberbatch complaining about "posh-bashing" and being typecast in posh roles. But according to various English people, he has the type of accent that only posh people could possibly have. (Dominic West also has an upper-class accent, but can definitely do other ones. I don't know if Cumberbatch can.) And also since the stereotypes applied to posh roles in media are generally more ...respectful? than the ones applied to working class people. (Like it's generally understood that Lauren Socha from Misfits would have a hard time finding other roles unless she can learn other accents.)

(Also I keep remembering that time a mainstream British newspaper reviewer actually spent a paragraph or two talking about how irritating they found Ben Whishaw's natural working-class accent as Freddie Lyon in The Hour, until they realized it was actual accent and he "couldn't help it". So.)

This combined with how grating some of his fans can be has basically made him a subject of derision on tumblr. He probably gets more hate than he actually deserves. (But I'm not really bothered by it.)

There's been a few instances of Benedict Cumberbatch complaining about "posh-bashing" and being typecast in posh roles. But according to various English people, he has the type of accent that only posh people could possibly have.

Ha ha ha ha ha, on my heart bleeds for the poor boy. IT BLEEDS.

(Also I keep remembering that time a mainstream British newspaper reviewer actually spent a paragraph or two talking about how irritating they found Ben Whishaw's natural working-class accent as Freddie Lyon in The Hour, until they realized it was actual accent and he "couldn't help it". So.)

Yeah, England still has A LOT of classism.

Now I want to read ALL the Spock/Uhura.

Spock/Uhura was one of the best things about this movie. Their fight was really well-written.

I really wish they had picked someone else to play Khan too, BC's not a charismatic villain and the criticism of the Star Fleet's aggressive military tactics falls short if they're targeting white people, because it's usually non-white people that are the victims of those military style tactics.

as soon as kirk said "i haven't lost one crew member" i was like "YOU NEVER SAY IT KIRK, YOU'RE JUST JINXING YOURSELF!".

i'm a little more annoyed they went with the Khan route in the first place; it didn't really add to the corrupted-starfleet thing (in fact it might have meant more from someone who used to be starfleet and couldn't stand what they'd become) and in terms of the TOS!Khan, there was so little of his backstory that was actually relevant it was probably more confusing than not for people who didn't know who Khan was "meant to be". plus, i'd rather have spent more time with spock and kirk and seeing them actually being friends before spock would understandably lose his shit the way he does...

...but dang, uhura/spock. that lean up for his kiss. ♥

(ALSO CHRISTINE CHAPEL, wtf. you can pry my head nurse out of my cold dead hands jj)

it didn't really add to the corrupted-starfleet thing (in fact it might have meant more from someone who used to be starfleet and couldn't stand what they'd become) and in terms of the TOS!Khan, there was so little of his backstory that was actually relevant it was probably more confusing than not for people who didn't know who Khan was "meant to be"

*nods*

(ALSO CHRISTINE CHAPEL, wtf. you can pry my head nurse out of my cold dead hands jj)

I feel like that was just a slap in the face to fans, women, and women who are trek fans.

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Star Trek: Into Darkness

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