First of all, Benedict Cumberbatch’s character was John Harrison, but he was revealed later to be Khan Noonien Singh. YOU KHAN’T BE SERIOUS!!! DAMN YOU, JJ!!
As much as I loved the revelation moment (I’m among the few that had no clue Cumberbatch was playing Khan), I hated the fact that Cumberbatch got to play one of the most fierce rivals of Kirk, the great Khan Noonien Singh, because he is nothing like him.
Khan is supposed to represent the apogee of the human race, he is supposed to be perfection in both mind and body. Which BC is far from. I mean, you can hide mind imperfections when you’re acting, but you need a Goddam fit body to fill Ricardo Montalban’s shoes.
Khan is supposed to take the best from all human races and be the ideal of the human species. Meaning (from a racial point of view) he’s not black, he’s not white, he’s not yellow, he’s something in between that perfectly mixes the ethnic qualities from all.
Let us do a comparison…
Yes, the second guy makes me shit myself… rolling on the floor laughing my ass off!
Now let’s see them in character:
Ricardo Montalban played in both the series and the movie, hence the age difference between his two shots. Still, he is definitely a badass in this role. While Cumberbatch… just tries to be one. But he just can’t because he’s not the type, he’s more of an office guy that reads his newspaper in the morning. He looks like an accountant, and don’t even get me started on the way he talks. I simply refuse to acknowledge Cumberbatch’s Khan as an official Khan.
And then the KHAAAAAAN!!! shout was still there. Only it wasn’t Kirk the one that yelled. It was Spock. And it was pretty awesome! I am proud of the fact that I realized he was going to yell with several seconds ahead of the moment, and I started yelling KHAAAAAN myself in the theatre, while everybody was giving me terrified looks, as if I were a madman. They soon relaxed upon Spock’s even louder exclamation (because iMAX, that’s why), and enjoyed the rest of the movie.
Also, Bones has that “I’m a doctor, not a something-else” moment when Spock orders him to mess up with the torpedoes.
Last but not least, Sulu as captain was great! He was way better than the lame modern Kirk. John Cho should be proud of himself! I know George Takei is!
There was also the moment of the speech. “Space… The Final Frontier…” etc. which wasn’t exactly accurate, since it had changed bits (it had the TNG ending, “where no one” instead of the original ending “where no man”, but it was mixed with the original beginning, “its five-year mission”), which made me hate Pine even more at first, although later I got rational and realized he had nothing to do with the decision of using those words, he’s entirely innocent of this blasphemy. But, all and all, I think it was a very good thing that speech was present, and that he said those words. We needed something out of the old Kirk, and this was it… Only Picard got his lines in that script somehow. 🙂 Come on, Sir Stewart, how did you do it? 🙂
Regarding the TV show, they end the movie at the very beginning of the five-year mission. Yes, THAT Five-Year mission! Also, the closing theme is actually the main theme of the original series, enhanced with a more modern sound (which is still cool, you’ll love it!)
So since the Five-Year mission is just starting, will we see a five-season Star Trek TV show? If so, I’m writing the reviews! 😀
P.S.: Since there’s also a New Vulcan now, it’s safe to assume someone is trying to fix his mistakes from the previous movie. Yeah, we love you JJ! :))))))
Indru, The Writer
