Star Trek: Into Darkness

[redbrunja]

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:

1. 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.


2. 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.

Comments

[qualapec.livejournal.com]

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.

[sugar-fey.livejournal.com]

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.

[redbrunja.livejournal.com]

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.