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- The emotional crux of the film is essentially empty
- Not only is it empty, but it becomes a race for the McGuffin
- It is one reference after another and cherry picks elements
from the above mentioned Khan stories
Are you sitting comfortably? Are you ready to hate me, possibly yourself and maybe everything you know already? Let's go then. Don't worry though! Because I hate absolutely everything already, so I am way ahead of you. DID I MENTION I WILL SPOIL LITERALLY EVERYTHING IN THE FILM JESUS CHRIST YOU SHOULDN'T HAVE EVEN READ THE TITLE.
We open to a brilliantly shot set-piece with Bones and Kirk pegging it through a jungle away from spear-toting natives, cut with Sulu and Uhura in a shuttle, about to dangle Spock (dressed as a disco ball) into a Volcano. Turns out the Enterprise has been sat in the sea for the best part of two days, on a self-ordained mission to rescue the planet (without disturbing the natives) from the cataclysmic eruption of said volcano, by dropping a cold fusion bomb that freezes the eruption. The one important moment in this section is where we end up with Spock stranded in the volcano READYING HIMSELF TO DIE after the immortal line
- "The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few...
Or the one."
Okay. We get introduced to 'John Harrison', the man with the magic blood (remember that). The ultimate expression of Sherlock Holmes - cold, calculating, intellectually superior, misanthrophic, a gifted tactician and a talented combatant. Just say if you know any old Star Trek, just say, who else do you know fits all those categories? No... It can't be him? Anyway. He orchestrates the explosion of some super-secret research facility in the basement of London, not a stone's throw from Wren's St. Paul's OF COURSE IT'S STILL THERE Seriously guys they still have red buses. Sherlock also performs a daring assault on Starfleet high command (only seconds after the comedy block-head Kirk works out why they've all been gathered there on that day ahead of everyone else in Starfleet including Spock) before beaming off to the Klingon Homeworld when
Another high-speed fight scene gets cut, with the mirror universe Klingons... who look just like their Prime Universe (thankfully. Right?) counterparts, which starts to get pretty hairy...until Sherlock appears and literally just kills the shit out of everybody who isn't in the principal cast. He surrenders instantly after a grueling battle once he learns the exact number of torpedoes pointed at him. Why? Why would such a furious badass simply yield in a heartbeat like that? What importance does the number 72 have? And then Kirk punches him alllllllllllllllllllll day without Holmes even flinching. They drag him back to the Enterprise where it is finally revealed that yes, Sherlock Holmes IS Peter Guillam! Ho ho! Of course, he is Khan Noonien Singh, the most dangerous of all the despotic genetically modified human beings from the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s in the Star Trek Universe (multiverse?). Remember, the timeline only split when the Kelvin was destroyed at the start of the first film of this franchise. Literally everything else up until that point was exactly the same - Enterprise is still canon at this point, technically. Where does that leave First Contact though? I hope you remember the models on the desk - not just another nod, for once. After the underplayed reveal, he soothingly rumbles about the torpedoes, what's inside them? What's inside is a game changer, and explains why the SS Botany Bay isn't in the film, because we discover that as well as a highly explosive payload, they each contain a cryo-stasis pod with Khan's crew safely tucked away. Before this we see Carol
But it seems that this Khan is not a bad Khan? It transpires that the Botany Bay was found in space, just like it was in the 'real' universe, but this time by Admiral "Robocop" Marcus. Khan was awoken and used, used I say, to create weapons of mass destruction for space war (this is most unlike Khan Prime) with the Klingons. Khan's crew are used as leverage by Marcus, and are included in the payload of each and every torpedo that was supplied to the Enterprise. All of a sudden, loyalties are compromised. A new ship appears, the USS Vengeance. The captain is none other than Admiral Marcus, who is hunting down Khan as well. Marcus orders that Khan be transferred aboard the Vengeance, as he is a war criminal and must be executed. I've missed out part of the debate here (most of which happened before the torpedoes' cargo was discovered) but basically Kirk, rather than follow the orders of his Admiral, follows Spock's suggestion of bringing Khan to trial on Earth, a deeply legalistically ethical suggestion. It's what Kant would have done. Marcus, of course, doesn't like this one bit. The Enterprise escapes at warp speed... But is chased down and fired upon! This is a real surprise to see one ship not only caught up on but attacked while
Okay, let's relax on the whole plot synopsis here. There's one point I haven't yet addressed which I'll get to, but I'm sure if you've seen it already you know what's happening, if you haven't seen it but don't mind finding out there are several, less cynical and more detailed synopses, and if you want to see it but haven't WHY THE HELL HAVE YOU GOT THIS FAR. Let's get to the cut and thrust of this...review? I dunno, but the climactic death scene. As I said earlier, this film oscillates between Space Seed and Wrath of Khan, and by now it's definitely swung into the latter. However, this is the mirror universe so it's not going to play out quite as you expect. Or quite as you remember. The Enterprise is wrecked, barely holding together in Earth's upper atmosphere. The power's out, because the warp core is misaligned due to the preceding battle, and time is running out before the ship crashes and the crew liquidised by the force. Thing is, Bones is in the Medical Bay, and Spock is strapped into the Captain's chair as per the space jump that Khan and Kirk did in order to infiltrate the USS Vengeance. Scotty and Kirk are in Engineering. So the usual "you can't go in it'll kill you!" happens, and Kirk... Punches Scotty out. That's it. Sits him in a chair, and puts his seatbelt on... and goes in the reactor chamber. What. Seriously. Kirk goes off to his death. Let's cut here.
Now, there are three critical things that raise Wrath of Khan above other Star Trek films primarily, and these are as follows:
- Ricardo Montalban straight up OWNING every line (the performance of a God)
- The Enterprise and the Reliant playing Battleships in 3 dimensions
- The death of Spock
As
noted earlier, this Khan does not think in three dimensions. The
superbly played and brilliantly tense final shootout between the Reliant
and the Enterprise is at a stalemate...until Kirk remembers that unlike
the sea, space operates in three dimensions (with which Khan is not
experienced), and uses this to his advantage. As a final act of
bitterness, Khan, shattered and dying, makes one last-ditch attempt to
vanquish his enemy by setting off the Genesis device before expiring.
The Enterprise limps away, but can't break into the run that Warp speed
is because the warp core is misaligned. Engineering is cut off due to
the inhuman amounts of radiation pouring out of the warp core, and
there's no way to get in... Or is there? Not all of the crew are human,
remember. It is at this point that I start weeping with no sense of
regret. The only crew member who could biologically withstand the radiation is... Mr. Spock.
Spock's self-sacrifice is the emotional climax of the movie. It is Spock's Kobayashi Maru test
- by his own admission. He slips off quietly while everyone else is
panicking, and gets it done. Bones tries to stop him, but Spock nerve
pinches him and then mind melds. "Remember". Of course, he manages to
fix the vital component of the reactor in time for the Enterprise to
escape, but fatally irradiates himself in the process. His final breath
is so touching not because it's Spock and Kirk, or the fact that
they're in space or anything... It's seeing a man watch his best friend
of almost twenty years die in front of him, totally unreachable. The
one person he needs, he can rely on is... just slipping away behind the
glass. Just give me a minute you guys. I'll be okay.
This
is where Wrath of Khan pulls ahead, because it's also about the way
that their lives have changed through time. This theme continues
through all the original cast films, as the surviving cast of Star Trek
TOS have a combined age that is greater than the Rolling Stones. These
guys in the mirror universe haven't even gone on their 5 year mission,
they've known each other for all of 5 minutes, so the death of Kirk is
deeply unfortunate and still pretty sad - rather than deliberately
choose himself, he is the one man who makes the choice. The emotional
hook in this is remembering Spock's death, and, rather than the Captain
being trapped inside the planet, it is in fact the mirror Spock who
utters the famous scream before chasing Khan down on foot, so
that famous Vulcan physiology gets referenced after all... After a
fraught punch-up on aerial platform vehicles, Uhura gets beamed down and
stuns the living shit out of Khan with a phaser. They need him alive
for (drum roll yes that's right it's McGuffin time) his magic blood! If
it can resurrect a tribble, it can resurrect a Kirk! I have another
problem with this, that I realised even in the cinema was there are 72 frozen supermen on board in Medical who have the same genetically superior blood.
They even turf one of the Botany Bay crew out of their cryo-pod in
order to preserve the gradually decaying body of Kirk, so they can pump
him full of Khan's blood... Whaaaaaat? Why can't they use that one? IT
ALWAYS HAS TO BE KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAN.
And
look at that. Ten minutes later, (two weeks in the movie time) and we
cut to Kirk in bed. Laid up with a case of the Khans, he has
miraculously recovered from being dead (just like that tribble earlier),
and Khan himself is safely locked in his chiller cabinet with the rest
of the surviving Botany Bay, who knows how long for this time. The one
thing I said I was going to come back to was when Kirk and Khan do their
space jump (in which Khan saves Kirk's life no less!), he calls
Spock Prime on Space Skype in order to ask him about Khan. Khan is a
bad man, and was only defeated "at great cost" (although this cost is
not elaborated on). Spock to Spock, we finally hear what we knew about
Mr. Noonien Singh all along, "He is brilliant, ruthless, and he will not hesitate to kill every single one of you".
This brutality was seen on Qo'noS, and also in the corridors of the
Vengeance, where Khan, Kirk and Scotty work their way up to the bridge
where Khan has his showdown with Admiral Marcus. During the course of
this Mexican stand-off, it is finally revealed that Carol Wallace is in
fact Carol Marcus, the Admiral's daughter and another classic Trek reference. That's not terribly exciting, sorry.
Even though I found the experience of watching Into Darkness
deeply enjoyable and very exciting, I ultimately feel a little
disappointed. A plot jammed with elements from two old stories (one of
which is a feature length resolution of the first), laced with top of
the line special effects and visual set pieces, then mixed in with more
references to classic Star Trek than you can shake a stick at to keep
it all together. Lens flare does not replace character development.
Disappointed is the wrong term, too strong perhaps. Underwhelmed? Now
I've had the time to think about it (and write it all out) especially.
I'll definitely watch it again, buy the DVD you know it, but still...
Having split the timeline in 2233, and planet Vulcan being destroyed in
2258, the alternate universe is different enough already, without
comparing how much more emotional this particular Spock is: we see him
and Uhura conduct a relationship in public, something that
Nimoy's Spock would never do. Chronologically speaking, there was no
need to make Khan the villain of the piece, seeing as the film is set 8
years before the Prime crew discover The Botany Bay (or perhaps this is
another repercussion of being on an altered timeline?) anyway. I feel
that it was a hell of a cheap shot using the exact same plot device in
the shape of the damaged warp core, even down to the critical use of
the word "friend". By making Khan's blood the only thing that can save
Kirk, they make the baddie into the deus ex machina, and
also make sure the other augmented humans are left inhuman by leaving
them as the cryo-pods, basically. However, the memorial presided over
by Captain Kirk at the end of the film rededicates Starfleet's purpose:
rather than prepare for war either in secret or openly, and the famous
five year mission is finally launched.
A
reboot like this would always be tough. Imagine if they rebooted Star
Wars like this, where perhaps... I dunno, Qui-Gon Jinn survives the
lightsaber duel but Anakin Skywalker still becomes Darth Vader in a
series of very strange but similar events? Maybe it was some sort of
attempt on the writers' and director's parts to make a statement that
these characters are destined to interact in this way,
regardless of where we find them. Or maybe they wanted to put their
spin on an established part of Trek history. Or... I don't know. Even
though Wrath of Khan's no world beater itself, I think Into Darkness
can't even dream of touching it. Sorry, but Montalban beats Cumberbatch
any day.
Oh, Khan. To the last, I grapple with thee; from hell's heart, I stab at thee; for hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee.
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