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]

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.

[phemyscira.livejournal.com]

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.