“Shhh, it’s a secret!”
If the title and excerpt of this piece haven’t already alerted you to the fact that MAJOR spoilers lie below in regards to J.J. Abrams’ Star Trek Into Darkness, then this is your final warning. Do not continue reading this article if you want to remain unspoiled. Oh who am I kidding? You already clicked on the link, so it’s your own damn fault for reading it! Besides, the picture to the right just told you what deep down you already knew to be true.
Benedict Cumberbatch is “John Harrison”. They haven’t lied about that particular detail one iota. This is where the truth ends, however. “John Harrison” is an alias of one Khan Noonien Singh. Yes, ole Benny Batch has taken up the mantle of Ricardo Montalban and is playing the new iteration of his superhuman madman with a superior intellect.
Are you shocked? You probably shouldn’t be, but I imagine many still are after all of the outright denials from those involved with the production. Our villain is apparently referred to as Harrison throughout the film until finally revealing his true identity while under captivity aboard the Enterprise. Before everyone gets in a huff about a Brit playing a character who is meant to be a Sikh, let’s not forget that the great Montalban himself was Mexican. Is that an excuse? Of course not, but it’s the least of our worries here. The lack of creativity is the chief concern. Did we really need a SECOND Star Trek 2 where the villain is Khan? Come on, Abrams! At least have the dignity to save him until your inevitable third entry.
So they are reusing Khan, but jettisoning the rest of Wrath of Khan, right? Wrong. We get the reactor sequence again, but in reverse this time. Okay, so a crew member dies. Is the death at least permanent; adding an emotional weight and consequence to the narrative? No such luck. They don’t even wait until the next movie resurrect their fallen comrade! Are you shaking your head yet? Because I am. Other similarities supposedly lie within the film, but I suspect they aren’t as drastic as the two I have already mentioned.
This isn’t killing my drive to see Star Trek Into Darkness. I’m a lifelong Trek fan and am still excited to see what they have up their sleeves on this entry. I also love the current cast and am interested to see how comfortable they are in their roles in their sophomore outing. Am I disappointed that they took a predicable route? Of course. It does dampen a lot of the excitement that I previously held. That said, we are talking about Cumberbatch here and from the footage I have seen thus far, he seems to be relishing his part. Feel free to consider me disappointed, but still somewhat optimistic.
The real question is…how do you feel about this? Chime in below and on the forum. I patiently await your (likely) passionate reactions, be they positive or negative.
Source | Shockya
25 comments
Sigh, I was really hoping he wasn’t Khan for all the same reasons: too damn obvious, seen it before, etc. I’m keeping an open mind about it because, fuck it, they might actually have an interesting spin on everyone’s favorite augment and/or the issues involving being one. Though I am curious as to how Khan can be hell bent on revenge with no apparent Ceti Alpha V incident…. or maybe I’m giving them too much credit.
But really, of all the TOS stories & villians to mine, why go back to Khan? If they wanted a pew-pew Wrath of Khan flavored follow-up, why not take something akin to its action and delve into a Balance of Terror-esque story? BTW I’m a TNG-obsessive who digs smart and action oriented Trek, namely DS9…
I read you loud and clear. I think it would have creatively just made more sense to follow the Khan template by finding a great underused villain within the canon and then elevated them to silver screen status, just like Wrath of Khan did for its titular villain. I’ll reserve final judgement until I have personally seen this film, but it’s hard not to be a little disappointed by this turn of events.
I officially have no interest in this now. I’m in the minority here, but I disliked like Abram’s reboot, mostly for not being brave enough to reboot the series entirely, and also because I felt the cast had almost no chemistry together and the story was totally lazy. This is proof that Abrams has no idea what to do with this series, and its all been him and his goons grafting Star Wars dogma onto trek stories.
I had really hoped they hadn’t taken the Khan approach. This was a prime opportunity for this cast and crew to really make their mark. My interest in seeing this in theaters has greatly diminished now. I imagine it will still be an okay film overall, but unless I absolutely can’t control my supreme crush on Zoe Saldana, color me waiting for DVD.
I also did not like the reboot, but at least it opened the door to tell fresh new stories in the “Star Trek” universe (quotes intended). Nevermind. More rehash. The old fans need to realize, this Trek isn’t for us. It’s for everyone who wasn’t a Star Trek fan before because at least they will pay the bills. It’s all about what people who know nothing about Star Trek expect to see, and one of those things is Kirk yelling “Khaaaan! Khaaaaan!” I didn’t think it was possible for me to be more disappointed in this whole thing, but here we are.
I call bull shit to every single person complaning that it IS in fact Khan. Everyone was begging for how cool it’d be if it brought him back and now they’ve changed their minds because it hits too close to home? fuck. that. noise. The fact of the matter is the STAR TREK franchise has never been “as big” as star wars, and the TREK films have always struggled and before JJ that franchise was dead in the water and he and his team found, in my opinion, a fantastic way of balancing what was great about the original series/concept but also making it current and “worth a damn” in today’s market. They brought spock back and no one bitched that shatner wasn’t. how is it any difference here? his track record as director is really pretty fantastic and i get the impression from the trailers that this will be no different. BRING ON BRITISH KHAN!!
Seriously though, what’s the benefit of bringing Kahn back in any way, white, British, whatever?
Why not create a completly new charater to act as a foil for Kirk? It’s simply riding the coattails of the charater and emotions established in the original series and Wrath of Khan.
Lazy.
Star Trek Into Darkness: Re-Khan Mission
I don’t understand your post. No one I know of was begging for Khan. Actually, we were begging for NO Khan. And, yes, absolutely people bitched about no Shatner. I continue to bitch about no Shatner, in ANYTHING. Shatner needs to be in everything, now that I think about it. I agree that Star Trek was never as big as Star Wars, but the helmers continued to forget what made Star Trek good and unique. Every single movie since the one with the whales (you know, the one that made all that money) has been: 1) villain with an axe to grind; 2) superweapon; 3) climax has captain punching bad guy. The new one was no different. Imagination! Use it!
Daniel: Where’s/Who’s the source of this information? Was there some kind of announcement I just haven’t seen making its rounds yet? I’m only asking because I want to hold out hope that this is not the case. Abrams set this iteration of Trek in an alternate universe/timeline, and to follow the original lore so closely (in terms of plots, not so much in tone) seems counterintuitive.
Never mind about the source. I somehow managed to overlook it :/ My bad.
I’m totally not reading this article, and jumping right into the comments!
I can’t wait to see what I’m sure is an original idea for Cumberbatch’s still-unknown character, or plot points for this sequel. JJ Abrams won’t let us down as far as fresh concepts!!
Wait, you mean he really is Kahn…
Oh, fuck this
I agree, where is the source for this. All the info in this article can be taken from the trailers…. and add “He’s KAHN!”
Assuming there is a source. Would this not be a great misdirect from the Bad Robot camp? 🙂
Who the heck is this Khan guy anyway? A villian from the OS? Never heard of him.
I think people, and possibly the filmmakers, miss the point in regards what made Wrath of Khan great. The story made this perfect crew face aging, the No Win scenario, and their own mortality. Not to denigrate the character of Khan or the name recognition, but it could have been any villian/threat in that role and the story would have still been as powerful if they hit all the points I mentioned.
You said better than I did. It’s a bummer they are going back to the well because it wasn’t necessarily Khan that made Wrath of Khan the Trek classic that it is today. It’s our crew facing a No-Win scenario, aging, and their own mortality. It could have been any villain in the role and it still would have been as great a story if it still made the crew face those issues.
I know they are going for familiarity/name-recognition but it seems like they don’t understand why we enjoy Wrath of Khan.
The source that DH has used claims to have a ‘trusted source’. The story may be true, but I need something more than that old internet fanboy leg-over to get me believe that the source of this story is anything other than a troll having a laugh.
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN! That is all.
They should put Shatner in Star Wars instead.
In other news, JJ revealed that in the upcoming Star Wars Episode VII the main villain is a black armor clad, red Light Saber wielding character names Joe Schwartz.
You jest, but I GUARANTEE Darth Vader will make some fleeting appearance in the film (be it flashback, force ghost, clone whatever) and JJ will tease the hell out of it. Then when it IS finally confirmed, the nerdverse will unilaterally decry “Well, that sucked.” It’s par for the course where Abrams is concerned.
From my post in the forums: If we go back and watch the original series episode Space Seed, Khan doesn’t immediately play his hand. The Enterprise crew has to do some detective work, IIRC, to figure out exactly who they’ve found. And by then, it’s almost too late. If THIS is the angle JJ and Co. are going with, it is faithful to the original concept. Now, we can argue that the new film series didn’t need to re-tread over this territory…but all of us, in the backs of our minds, would probably wonder when they were going to play the Khan card. Fans know he’s out there, floating in space, asleep in the Botany Bay. Waiting for New-Kirk or someone else in this alternate reality to find him. Of course they were going to go there.
I’ll say it up front. I was biased against this movie from the start, due to my poor reaction to the first entry, so I have no hopes to dash, bu this news still has me shaking my head.
Also, I was kinda keeping this clip in my back pocket, so:
http://youtu.be/6e84-FYgFLA
The story telling issue with having Khan walking around in this new movie is that the relationship between Kirk and Khan from ‘Space Seed’ and ‘Wrath of Khan’ can’t have existed. At the time the Romulan ship enters this reality and history diverges, khan is in his sleeper ship and the Federation is unaware of his existence. Some other Federation vessel has to discover khan, wake him, realize his threat, capture him, brainwash him, subsume him into Star Fleet, piss him off and turn him into a terrorist, etc, etc. And all of that retcon has to be explained in the new movie. Seems like a lot of work just to call a villain in your plot ‘Khan’.
Why bother?.
Bingo. Plus the whole superhuman eugenics war thing has to be shoehorned in as well. In TWOK, Khan’s backstory and beef with the Federation was succintly covered in the interrogation scene with Checkov. Here, they’ll have to cover all of that exposition again and it’ll be labored and confusing to anyone not familiar with Trek lore. Plus, Kirk and Khan will have no history. No tension, no desire for personal vengeance. Khan will effectively be reduced to a run-of-the-mill villain who likes to blow shit up and spout pop philosophy drivel.
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