The Wrath Of Khan’s Director Shares His Thoughts On The Star Trek Reboot

[TMC]

http://www.giantfreakinrobot.com/sci...ek-reboot.html

I think, and I’ve made this analogy before, that Star Trek is a bottle into which different vintages can be poured. Over the years a lot of different vintages have been poured. Give you another way of looking at it: if you know the Catholic Mass, you know that many, many composers have set that mass to music. You know that the Brahm’s German Requiem has no relation to the Mozart Coronation Requiem, or the Haydn Mass… you would never know you were listening to the same piece because the music transforms the words, and the vintage may transform the bottle.

So my reaction, and I remember somebody saying ‘Not your grandfather’s Star Trek‘ when they were talking about J.J.’s stuff. And I was thinking, I can’t really be a judge of this because it is so different from what I understood. I made a lot of changes when I came to that Star Trek thing, because I used to say, ‘Well, why are they all wearing pajamas?’ I made it into the Navy. It was about the Navy in space. But I didn’t think I changed the characters. I thought Kirk and Spock and those people were who they were.

And I think the biggest thing that shocked me about J.J. was Spock beating the **** out of somebody, and thinking, ‘No, that’s changing the shape of the bottle.’ And it may be very entertaining, and it may make a gazillion dollars, but that’s changing the shape of the bottle. I guess that was my thought.

[TMC]

I don't see any reason why they couldn't have simply done a story where a former Starfleet officer called John Harrison has gone rogue. He was previously working with Admiral Marcus on a secret bioengineering plan to create superhumans to attack the Klingon Empire, but Harrison turned on him when he realized it the specimens would be cannon fodder. They didn't need to mention Khan at all.

They could have also gone a similar route with finding the Botany Bay but thaw out someone other than Khan... and worked from there instead. Maybe for those that didn't get it show Khan's name on one of the tubes when they're unloading them at the end.

I feel it defeats the purpose of rebooting a franchise if the new timeline is filled with references only longtime fans would understand. A casual viewer wouldn't have a clue what Section 31 even was, or the significance of Kirk meeting Carol Marcus.

Khan is so blatantly a square peg into a round hole. The interesting thing about the latter in both Space Seed and Wrath of Khan was that at times you could sense that Singh could very well be a great man and admirable leader if weren't blinded by his own ambition or desire for revenge. There's a restrained passion veiled behind a calm exterior that when pushed far enough, comes out.

The script and direction in STID make Khan into too much of a cold action movie villain; he seems less a brilliant leader and more of a superman for Kirk and Spock to try and punch.

[showfan]

I liked the latest Star trek, but I kinda have to forget about anything I've known before and just let it be itself; I wish I didn't have to do that. It's also tough, because it's hard to imagine all this came "before" the series from the 60s. Prequels 50 years later are hard to absorb.