Star Trek: Into Darkness

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Either way, his setup in this film sandwiched him. No real buildup, no extenuation of his story. I don't think there was any chance of me considering that he wouldn't be some sort of adversary when he was revealed.

[Makeshift Python]

It's because the filmmakers put more importance on trying to surprise audiences with the revelation of him being Khan, even though that revelation was limp. They said they viewed Khan as this franchise's Joker, except that character wasn't hidden from the promotions for THE DARK KNIGHT, in fact he was a big part of the marketing. You think they'd take that same opportunity with Khan to hype up the second film, which would have then made the advent of Khan actually becoming an ally for Kirk the real surprising twist.

But nah, let's just have Spock punch the crap out of him.

[bronnt]

It's because the filmmakers put more importance on trying to surprise audiences with the revelation of him being Khan, even though that revelation was limp. They said they viewed Khan as this franchise's Joker, except that character wasn't hidden from the promotions for THE DARK KNIGHT, in fact he was a big part of the marketing. You think they'd take that same opportunity with Khan to hype up the second film, which would have then made the advent of Khan actually becoming an ally for Kirk the real surprising twist.

But nah, let's just have Spock punch the crap out of him.

If that was their goal, they failed in hilarious fashion. The Joker, for all that he protests that he doesn't make plans and is chaos incarnate, was actually much better organized than Khan.

Khan only had marginal success because he had superhuman physiology and because he had top-secret classified information. The Joker actually had to build things up, organize, and work toward his goals, even though his goals were often moving targets.The Joker had schemes within schemes-"The guards are the hostages" situation created a difficult challenge for the hero, while the twisted "Bombs on boats" thing was happening at the same time, and they both furthered his general goal of making the people of Gotham complicit in madness and murder.

The only time Khan did anything that proactively helped his agenda was when he held Kirk, Carol, and Scotty hostage in exchange for his crew. Everything else Khan did only moved the plot along because of the need for action or contrivances to happen.

[Mindworm]

I'm just catching up on this review today. I liked the first ST movie well enough,

The first one killed the reboot for me. I went to watch it with my brother on the third day of release in Ireland and for a while I enjoyed it (the decent quantity of good German beer I'd consumed in the local helped turn off my brain). When I woke up the next morning, aside from the hangover, all that was in my head was "that was a solid two hours of the cast doing one liners from TOS and bad impressions. What the flying eff?!?"

The plot of the film was minging, the casting decidedly iffy, and as with anything the Abrams team touches the writing was sucky. The nostalgia factor was the only thing the first film had going for it, luckily that there was a huge nostalgia market for Star Trek that year (big enough that a film which was only tangentially related to Star Trek was able to leech off it).

[Mindworm]

Brilliant choice, really; I'd take NuSpock to captain over NuKirk any day.

I'd take Neelix as captain over NuKirk any day. Considering yourself an improvement over him reminds me of a quote from the Discworld series:

'You been reading books again, Fred?'

'Got to improve my mind, Nobby. It's these new recruits. Carrot's got his nose in a book half the time, Angua knows words I has to look up, even the shortarse is brighter'n me. They keep on extracting the urine. I'm definitely a bit under-endowed in the head department.'

'You're brighter than Detritus,' said Nobby.

'That's what I tell myself. I say, “Fred, whatever happens, you're brighter than Detritus.” But then I say, “Fred – so's yeast.'”

Edit: that being said Detritus does turn out to be a far better Sergeant than Fred Colon, even after his cooling fan helmet breaks down.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

It's because the filmmakers put more importance on trying to surprise audiences with the revelation of him being Khan, even though that revelation was limp. They said they viewed Khan as this franchise's Joker, except that character wasn't hidden from the promotions for THE DARK KNIGHT, in fact he was a big part of the marketing. You think they'd take that same opportunity with Khan to hype up the second film, which would have then made the advent of Khan actually becoming an ally for Kirk the real surprising twist.

But nah, let's just have Spock punch the crap out of him.

If that was their goal, they failed in hilarious fashion. The Joker, for all that he protests that he doesn't make plans and is chaos incarnate, was actually much better organized than Khan.

Khan only had marginal success because he had superhuman physiology and because he had top-secret classified information. The Joker actually had to build things up, organize, and work toward his goals, even though his goals were often moving targets.The Joker had schemes within schemes-"The guards are the hostages" situation created a difficult challenge for the hero, while the twisted "Bombs on boats" thing was happening at the same time, and they both furthered his general goal of making the people of Gotham complicit in madness and murder.

The only time Khan did anything that proactively helped his agenda was when he held Kirk, Carol, and Scotty hostage in exchange for his crew. Everything else Khan did only moved the plot along because of the need for action or contrivances to happen.

Also about Joker that can't really not be mentioned is his innate awareness of how to provoke the government and stir up the criminal enterprise. Not much of that going on with Khan as far as I can tell in this movie, but they for sure could have gone that route.

[Makeshift Python]

The writers brought up the Joker as an example of a singular villain that is most well known and thought Khan was basically the TOS analog, not that he was similar in his motivations or anything. Kind of like how Blofeld is the most recognized Bond villain, or Lex Luthor the most recognized villain for Superman.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

The writers brought up the Joker as an example of a singular villain that is most well known and thought Khan was basically the TOS analog, not that he was similar in his motivations or anything. Kind of like how Blofeld is the most recognized Bond villain, or Lex Luthor the most recognized villain for Superman.

Yeah. Signature villains. He probably was the signature adversary as a villain. But Trek is much more about different races. That's why First Contact worked so well with the Borg. In matter of fact, Nemesis crashed because they gave it a villain centric plot with the vast Romulan Empire as a plot backdrop.

[Darth Wedgius]

The writers brought up the Joker as an example of a singular villain that is most well known and thought Khan was basically the TOS analog, not that he was similar in his motivations or anything. Kind of like how Blofeld is the most recognized Bond villain, or Lex Luthor the most recognized villain for Superman.

Then I'm glad they didn't pick Harry Mudd.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I thought Chuck was pretty hard on this movie at first. Watching the review again, I think all his points are pretty on point. And pretty fair. When Kirk starts assaulting Khan, Chuck gives him 3 joke setups of consideration before reaching the point where it's obvious that Kirk lashes out too much. That's better than baseball strikeout rules (unless Khan's the batter and Chuck's counting balls).

God this was a while ago when we last talked about it.