...No, I couldn't. Anyway.
It hasn't taken me long following a few links to find out that a sequel has already been fast-tracked. What? Already? What the hell you guys. This is the heart of my final problem with Star Trek Into Darkness, and I'm so glad that I remembered it because I knew that when they killed Kirk...thay couldn't really kill him. The main cast for the new Trek have signed on for three movies. Three movies! Another Trilogy! This wasn't like the early 80s and the original cast, where tensions between the studio and Leonard Nimoy in particular had grown to a fever pitch. To begin with, Nimoy wanted an out, which is why they kill Spock off within the first ten minutes of Wrath of Khan. It survives from an early draft where it was permanent. Of course, it became the bait-and-switch we know and love and weep over, but really...we could have seen the true 'end' of Spock right there and then. Nimoy pulled the eternal "I'll come back if you let me do whatever I want" card, took a pay rise and ended up directing the next two films: The Search for Spock and The Journey Home (or Star Trek: Save the Whales). The relationship between Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner played a big part in all this, which you can find exposited at some length in Shatner's book, Star Trek Movie Memories. It's the companion piece to Star Trek Memories, the latter of the two detailing his experiences on set in the Original Series, and touching on his acting career before being flung into space. I really like Bill Shatner anyway, and these informative, amusing and highly illuminating books (alongside Get a Life! and Up til Now, his autobiographies) are firm favourites.
I'm getting away from the point though. The final reason why basically Kirk's death in Star Trek Into Darkness is completely empty is because of the widely publicised fact that the cast had signed on for a three picture deal. They can't kill off the Captain! Not if he still has another film to star in! It's a no sweat operation. As soon as I realised this, sat there like some sort of hot mess, I immediately got what little shit I have together and rationalised that they would find some sort of magic McGuffin to...oh yes there it is KHAN'S BLOOD YOU KNOW THE STUFF THAT RESURRECTED THE TRIBBLE (nice reference to The Trouble with Tribbles, huh? Almost as good as the DS9 episode where they go back in time and Benjamin Sisko becomes the first black man in space and meets Kirk with some top-notch editing). This is it, the final key. Not content with playing the pivotal moment almost beat for beat, we have already been cheated out of the consequences. When they killed Spock, you had to wait two years for the next film, and even then his character only remembers himself at the very end of the film, none of this ten minutes rubbish.
The whole sequence is bereft of the emotional weight and significance of the original. Everything will be fine, because if they killed him for keeps what would the third film be? The Search for Kirk? It is illuminating, finding vox-pop style quotes from not just William Shatner but also George Takei about the difference between this 'Nu-Trek' and their Star Trek. It seems that a lot of heart has simply gotten lost. Of course, things are different now we have the internet and the sheer size of the film industry the world over is much larger than it was in the 80s - the budget for Star Trek II was a mere 11.2 million dollars, comapred to the $190 million for Into Darkness. This isn't hitting out so much, but merely commenting on how much easier it is to get hold of information about any film these days if you have an internet connection. I myself used to scour one particular site for news on the Transformers sequels daily for anything I could possibly learn. The upshot of this was that I had discovered enough clues to piece together enough of the plot to Dark of the Moon, along with the very spoiler-heavy TV spots to basically predict what would happen.
The whole sequence is bereft of the emotional weight and significance of the original. Everything will be fine, because if they killed him for keeps what would the third film be? The Search for Kirk? It is illuminating, finding vox-pop style quotes from not just William Shatner but also George Takei about the difference between this 'Nu-Trek' and their Star Trek. It seems that a lot of heart has simply gotten lost. Of course, things are different now we have the internet and the sheer size of the film industry the world over is much larger than it was in the 80s - the budget for Star Trek II was a mere 11.2 million dollars, comapred to the $190 million for Into Darkness. This isn't hitting out so much, but merely commenting on how much easier it is to get hold of information about any film these days if you have an internet connection. I myself used to scour one particular site for news on the Transformers sequels daily for anything I could possibly learn. The upshot of this was that I had discovered enough clues to piece together enough of the plot to Dark of the Moon, along with the very spoiler-heavy TV spots to basically predict what would happen.
Sorry. I just get a little animated about how everything gets turned into trilogies at the moment. Don't think I'm detracting from the performances on screen as well: not only were they highly enjoyable, but critically very convincing and believable. Once you can get the audience to believe in your performance, of course, they are in the palm of your hand. The little domestic sequence in the flying Hamburger really zings back and forth, before Spock ends it with what basically amounts to a Holocaust-style reference to the death of Vulcan. It's tense, and importantly, it's emotional. I'm getting away from the point again though! Let's face it though, three is a good number. Even though I'm a gently lapsing gamer, I can still name a few trilogies off the top of my head - Metroid Prime, Halo (now moving into a second trilogy), the Batman Arkham series, Fallout... Also Sam Raimi's Spiderman trilogy and Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy... And Michael Bay's Transformers (also moving into a second trilogy)! Having a trilogy is fashionable, it seems. Of course, the original trilogy is and always will be Star Wars, the epic saga of the Skywalkers, which is itself set to become a trilogy of trilogies (a meta trilogy?), the first new film of which is to be released into the wild in 2015, directed than none other than Mr. Lens Flare himself, J. J. Abrams.
There's just something inevitable and slightly disappointing now every time I see that a trilogy is planned or optioned or whatever... Like film makers see it as a no-fuss ticket to big bucks. A license to print money. I suppose it's also connected to the subject of rebooting film franchises, especially comic book movies: the first film deals with the new interpretation of the origin story, and then a story arc is started, picked up in the second film and concluded in the last of the three. But sometimes, it seems like a trilogy for the sake of it. Like The Hobbit! Yeah. The fact that that's been spun out into a trilogy is kind of... Well, it almost seems like a waste. Sure Lord of The Rings (especially the extended cuts) makes a hefty trilogy, where each film is worth two books. But where three films is one book, especially a book that's much smaller? Hmm. I'm almost kind of glad that Hellboy never made it into a third film...
Is this the end of my Wrath of Wrath of Khan? I doubt it. I haven't even approached the issue of 'whitewashing' Khan, because that has no real impact on what I have to say. I'm sure there'll be another one of these posts once I've seen Man of Steel, although from what I've read already it doesn't quite slavishly homage the older films with the inimitable Christopher Reeve. Don't forget guys that 2006's Superman Returns, as deep into homage territory as it went was also a kind of sequel to the older film series as a whole. Who knows whether Man of Steel will be spun out into a trilogy, or perhaps the third film of its lineage will be the first act of the Justice League idea that's been floating about even before The Avengers (Jesus there were so many different titles for wherever that film was released I can't even be bothered picking one)?
To finally conclude, I obviously feel pretty passionately that a huge oppourtunity was missed here. Rather than go for the 'go-to' sequel idea of the most lauded Star Trek Villian ever, they could have done something completely different. Heavens, they could have brought V'Ger back instead! The lack of imagination is... Disappointing. You know, they could have left Khan out of it until the third film, where the Botany Bay went undiscovered, crash landed on a planet (killing 9 of the augments), leaving Khan and the surviving 72 on board to conquer the planet and be discovered by the Federation in the future - with wildly different consequences. Oh well. I suppose I can wait for the next reboot.
There's just something inevitable and slightly disappointing now every time I see that a trilogy is planned or optioned or whatever... Like film makers see it as a no-fuss ticket to big bucks. A license to print money. I suppose it's also connected to the subject of rebooting film franchises, especially comic book movies: the first film deals with the new interpretation of the origin story, and then a story arc is started, picked up in the second film and concluded in the last of the three. But sometimes, it seems like a trilogy for the sake of it. Like The Hobbit! Yeah. The fact that that's been spun out into a trilogy is kind of... Well, it almost seems like a waste. Sure Lord of The Rings (especially the extended cuts) makes a hefty trilogy, where each film is worth two books. But where three films is one book, especially a book that's much smaller? Hmm. I'm almost kind of glad that Hellboy never made it into a third film...
Is this the end of my Wrath of Wrath of Khan? I doubt it. I haven't even approached the issue of 'whitewashing' Khan, because that has no real impact on what I have to say. I'm sure there'll be another one of these posts once I've seen Man of Steel, although from what I've read already it doesn't quite slavishly homage the older films with the inimitable Christopher Reeve. Don't forget guys that 2006's Superman Returns, as deep into homage territory as it went was also a kind of sequel to the older film series as a whole. Who knows whether Man of Steel will be spun out into a trilogy, or perhaps the third film of its lineage will be the first act of the Justice League idea that's been floating about even before The Avengers (Jesus there were so many different titles for wherever that film was released I can't even be bothered picking one)?
To finally conclude, I obviously feel pretty passionately that a huge oppourtunity was missed here. Rather than go for the 'go-to' sequel idea of the most lauded Star Trek Villian ever, they could have done something completely different. Heavens, they could have brought V'Ger back instead! The lack of imagination is... Disappointing. You know, they could have left Khan out of it until the third film, where the Botany Bay went undiscovered, crash landed on a planet (killing 9 of the augments), leaving Khan and the surviving 72 on board to conquer the planet and be discovered by the Federation in the future - with wildly different consequences. Oh well. I suppose I can wait for the next reboot.
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