When failing to comb one’s hair has a serious impact on gravitas, and that’s what this dude is all about.
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013) is a retread of the story of one of the most popular antagonists in the original Star Trek TV series: Khan Noonien Singh of the Botany Bay, a space ship containing genetically enhanced humans, cryogenically imprisoned. In the original, the Botany Bay is encountered by the Enterprise, but in this new version, some other ship encountered the Botany Bay, unfroze Khan, and he escaped and disappeared.
And then reappears as a Star Fleet officer, bent on revenge, and, baby, he’s a damn good avenging angel. It doesn’t matter who the target is, human, klingon, vulcan, whathaveyou, they get mowed down by Khan with no mercy.
Even as Kirk is getting the squeeze from a Star Fleet admiral who’s convinced the only way to beat the klingons is by breaking the rules.
The overwhelming capacity of weapons to alter the basis of morality systems is a theme too little visited by most any commercial dramatic production, probably because questions about the fundamental processes of how societies interact are dicey to depict and liable to attract the kind of criticism that might result in a degradation of profits. And given how much money has to be poured into productions of this category, that’s not an attractive option for a Hollywood producer.
But productions that don’t recognize and treat these questions run the risk of seeming hollow.
And so it is with this Star Trek alternate approach. How does the potential for destruction in these weapons modify our approach to societal interactions? We’re spending a lot of time watching Kirk and Spock trying to off, and then not off, Khan, but we’re distracted by Khan’s blood, in the end, and don’t get to explore these questions.
The movie itself is OK, but has that feel of a movie made to make money and not explore any final frontiers. And I’ve never bought Chris Pine as James T. Kirk, anyways.
