At least they put makeup on Montalban to make his skin darker in TOS, and back then a non-Caucasian superman was pretty damn progressive even if they didn't actually get an actor of the right ethnic background. In 2013 when Naveen Andrews is a household name that's worked for Abrams, there's just no excuse
Buffista Movies 7: Brides for 7 Samurai
A place to talk about movies--old and new, good and bad, high art and high cheese. It's the place to place your kittens on the award winners, gossip about upcoming fims and discuss DVD releases and extras. Spoiler policy: White font all plot-related discussion until a movie's been in wide release two weeks, and keep the major HSQ in white font until two weeks after the video/DVD release.
Yeah, that makes me pretty angry.
So, they tried to cast Benicio Del Toro in the role and he pulled out. I forgot who replaced him, who also pulled out. So at that point, I think they were just hoping to get a name star who could do it. Not an excuse, but how I remember casting at the time.
I have read hte whitefont for Into Darkness, and I'm glad I didn't plan to watch the movie in the first place. Well, I'll probably sepnd a dollar on it later in the summer. I am annoyed that they've co-opted Khan, becasue that whole storyline in the original movies was a gutpunch of a payoff from the original series, and it felt earned. You knew why Khan was pissed, and you had the weight of actual years--for the Trekkies, at least--between the stories to imagine how Khan felt at being abandoned.
Seeing this now, it feel likes Abrams was going through the story closet and going "Oh, this looks pretty, let's add that to the outfit."
One of the reasons it didn't feel like a Star Trek movie is that the alien worlds actually look alien more than artificial. Okay, as well at. And I do also get the feeling that land, at least, extends further than I can see it, where as on TV, it mostly feels no more than one meter wider than the widest pan--it would have been a dream for some pretty funky matte paintings even back in the day, but normally it feels more like a spaceship show than a space exploration show.
If you could inject a sense of scale into the terrestrial encounters on TV, well, it would be over budget before you've signed a single actor.
As far as the yell of Khaaaaaan--they got all the required lines, right? No matter who said them.
It was fun, there were a few bits of "oh, so that's how that's going to be addressed in the third act" which really make me impatient, as well as deflating the emotion.
Mah emotion point was Hobbity--when Chekov popped (weird to talk about "Chekov's [insert apropos device here]" when Chekov's on board) did his day-saving bit in Engineering and appearing from nowhwere with his pre-teen face and everything..
Some shots reminded me of shots in Inception, but less cool. Way less cool. I got more of a sense of continual destruction than I did of lives lost in any battle--ratings, maybe?
I've seen every Trek episode other than Enterprise, but most of the things I like, the executions I like, are TNG and later.
It's unfortunate, PR-wise that Gene Roddenberry said his epitome of humanity would not be a white guy.
Hmmph. I fairly well enjoyed it, definitely worth the price of admission. My largest issue of the move was the screaming. Not the unintentionally funny yell of a word by Spock, but both Uhura and the other chick scream a couple times. Can we do that less?
Yeah, I don't think the required line was necessary at all. But I don't think the scene in which that yell occur should have occurred at all.
I've seen every Trek episode other than Enterprise, but most of the things I like, the executions I like, are TNG and later.
Me too, ita.
The funniest thing at our showing happened while the credits were rolling. An older American woman in the row behind us said, "Am I supposed to know who Benedict Cumberbatch is?" She pronounced "-batch" really weirdly, sort of like "baaahtch". She said it again. "Am I supposed to know who Benedict Cumberbaahtch is?!".
I briefly considered turning around and saying, "So, don't watch much British TV, do you?", but I was suppressing laughter too hard so I let her be. I do hope she's IMDb'd by now.
I loved the Trekkiness of the new movie and most of the execution (particularly liked the scenes where Khan and Spock are running through SF). The relentless lens flare and the martial nature of the film bothered me a bit; one sodding action sequence after another. OK! I get it already! I really really do hope they go more explore-y for the next one. Though with Abrams moving to Star Wars, who knows when a next one will be? I expect somebody else will direct it.
I do think the tying in of the new Trekverse to the old and filling the movies with in-jokes for the oldies and other stuff for the newbies is one of the new franchises' strengths. My favourite was: Kirk: "Go put on a red shirt". Chekov: gulps .
An older American woman in the row behind us said, "Am I supposed to know who Benedict Cumberbatch is?"
In the grand scheme of things, madame, no not really. He's just an actor. It's not all that important, when you really think about it. Supposed to know how to go about your daily business, take care of yourself, do your job, or what to do in case of fire? Probably yes. Supposed to know who Benedict Cumberbatch is? A matter of priority and personal preference, I guess. But this conversation has gotten awfully weighty for apres-cinema discussion, wouldn't you say?
I guess I didn't really say last night that I liked it -- I have no real tie to the TV series (I don't think I've ever seen an entire episode of any of the iterations of the TV series) or the movies, though I've seen a handful of the movies (Wrath of Khan was ubiquitous on cable when I was a kid).
I think the plot was a little weak, and yet it still made more sense than the bad guy's M.O. in Iron Man 3.
I really like the cast -- I think stepping into the roles from TOS must have been daunting as hell, but honestly, Pine and Quinto and Urban are really fantastic. (I guess that's more of a comment related to the rebooted franchise as a whole, but still, it struck me last night how they weren't trying to ape Shatner and Nimoy and Kelley -- some dialogue aside -- but still inhabited the characters in a way that was familiar.)
It was entertaining, definitely. I just don't think the film earned the Khaaaaaaaan bellow or, really the inversion of the Wrath of Khan death scene.
Also, that far in the future, would "Throw me under the bus" still be slang, with the exact same meaning?
Probably not but we have some very silly slang that no longer works I the current vernacular.
Honestly though if you open that can of worms it's probably too easy to understand most of what they are saying considering the changed language tends to make over hundreds of years.