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What angers me the most about Abrams essentially saying he made the Star Trek movies so it would work for “not just smart people, but for everyone!” is that apparently making Star Trek for everyone means that he has to whitewash PoC characters and reduce female characters into “10 out of 10 would bang” (that playboy interview and the way he talks about Zoe Saldana still pisses me off)
Remember after Star Trek 2009 when Abrams was interviewed and there was mention of the fact that there has never been actually any confirmed on screen queers character on Star Trek? Remember how he mused that he would include one and thought it was odd that Star Trek hadn’t featured any queers previously? He had the chance to be inclusive, he publicly went on record with the promise of ‘maybe’ doing something good and he didn’t take it.
Instead, he basically turned one of the most iconic Sci-Fi series, one that had things like the first interracial kiss, featured a PoC captain, and a female identifying captain, one that (while not always brilliantly) handled a lot of issues regarding for example gender and race, into any other big bright shiny problematic as fuck action flick.
The Star Trek series was by no means perfect, it had issues with it, but they were far more progressive than the bullshit JJ Abrams is producing in the goddamm 21st centrury.
What angers me the most about Abrams essentially saying he made the Star Trek movies so it would work for “not just smart people, but for everyone!” is that apparently making Star Trek for everyone means that he has to whitewash PoC characters and reduce female characters into “10 out of 10 would bang” (that playboy interview and the way he talks about Zoe Saldana still pisses me off)
Remember after Star Trek 2009 when Abrams was interviewed and there was mention of the fact that there has never been actually any confirmed on screen queers character on Star Trek? Remember how he mused that he would include one and thought it was odd that Star Trek hadn’t featured any queers previously? He had the chance to be inclusive, he publicly went on record with the promise of ‘maybe’ doing something good and he didn’t take it.
Instead, he basically turned one of the most iconic Sci-Fi series, one that had things like the first interracial kiss, featured a PoC captain, and a female identifying captain, one that (while not always brilliantly) handled a lot of issues regarding for example gender and race, into any other big bright shiny problematic as fuck action flick.
The Star Trek series was by no means perfect, it had issues with it, but they were far more progressive than the bullshit JJ Abrams is producing in the goddamm 21st centrury.
AH, I HAVE DISCOVERED WHY I HATE YOUR GUTS.
He acts like Star Trek is no longer needed for its ability to address social issues, so now why not just turn it into a bright and shiny action flick and nothing else? Dizzy bastard.
He took a project on without really realizing what it meant to so many people. I’m not just talking about those “crazy” nerds that stand in lines at conventions for hours. I’m talking about Marton Luther King Jr., who begged Nichelle Nichols not to quit the show. I’m talking about the hundreds of men and women that joined the navy or airforce, worked in the space industry, or became astronauts because of Star Trek. He’s forgotten all those people. He didn’t have faith that Star Trek in its purest form could reach all people– because it never reached him. So he molded it into something very different to fit a societal standard of action movies that pervades Hollywood today.
He missed that mark. And he pats himself on the back for it.
It got better.
I think the fact that J.J. Abrams found Star Trek too “philosophical” is directly related to his failure in casting with Khan. And I think he mis-spelled “moral.”
I did more of the things.
As much as I keep seeing the “Oh, JJ Abrams is so terrible! He’s murdering Star Trek! He doesn’t understand it!” pearl-clutching…did you folks actually see the reboot? It was a good movie that you didn’t have to be a Trek fan—or an expert on twenty+ years of continuity—to enjoy. That’s what you need to do to revitalize a franchise. You need to make something that appeals to new fans, not the ever-shrinking base of old fans. That’s why comic books are such a goddamn mess: They keep forgetting that you need to appeal to someone other than 50-year-old fanboys.
And temporal paradoxes aside: New Trek doesn’t make old Trek go away. The shows, movies, novels and comics all still exist. Heck, they’re still publishing new novels for the old series. If you don’t like the new stuff, it doesn’t hurt the old stuff. Enjoy what you like, ignore what you don’t. Just like D&D 4E didn’t cause the 3.5E books to evaporate, new stories you don’t like don’t make the good old ones go away.
You’re right, that you didn’t have to be a Trek fan to enjoy the 2009 reboot. It was highly accessible to the non-fan moviegoing public, and perfectly standalone. But it was ALSO enjoyable to those of us who ARE Trek fans. The characters had been slightly reimagined, but you could still see the core of who they were, and it was very true to the source. It was respectful to the source, and the direction and actors all seemed to make choices that were born out of homage, out of love for this iconic property that not only transcended what film and television can do, but also brought the worlds of science fiction and science fact together in a world changing and unprecedented way. This respect was evident not only in the performances we saw on screen, but also throughout the production process, even into the casting (George Takei being consulted on John Cho’s casting, for example).
But Star Trek Into Darkness seems to have been made by a different team altogether. All issue of spoilers aside, the way that Abrams has conducted himself in the press junket for the sequel is dismissive at best, and outright offensive at worst. And he doesn’t seem to care. His philosophy seems to be “fuck you, got mine,” at every turn. From the initial secrecy marketing (not to mention the deep fuckery it conceals) to the stupid-ass insulting bullshit like this that he spouts in interviews, it is transparently obvious that Abrams a) does not know a thing about Star Trek, b) does not care to, and c) does not give a shit about the people who do.
This feels like a betrayal to those of us who watched the first movie and loved it. To find out that it was apparently so apt and so loving by accident is, in a lot of ways, worse than if the 2009 movie had been shitty to begin with. If it had been shitty, oh well, it was a long shot anyway. But for it to be good, and then to spend four years building hopes and expectations that we could have that again, only to piss in the fans’ face… that hurts, man.
It’s not about what makes a good reboot, or the fact that bad new stories don’t erase old good ones, because you’re right. They don’t. However, bad new stories made deliberately in the image of good old ones with no respect nor consideration of the source material might as well not even bother with the source at all. And if you go into an interview to promote your project and openly and insultingly admit to not liking the thing that it’s based on, then I have to conclude that you are a fucking sack of horse shit hack dickface motherfucker who is everything wrong with Hollywood.
And that’s why the role has been taken away from actors of colour and given to a white man. Racebending.com has always pointed out that villains are generally played by people with darker skin, and that’s true … unless the villain is one with intelligence, depth, complexity. One who garners sympathy from the audience, or if not sympathy, then — as from Kirk — grudging admiration. What this new Trek movie tells us, what JJ Abrams is telling us, is that no brown-skinned man can accomplish all that. That only by having Khan played by a white actor can the audience engage with and feel for him, believe that he’s smart and capable and a match for our Enterprise crew."
Marissa Sammy on Star Trek: Into Whiteness.
perfect commentary which parallels what Rawles was saying earlier about the possibility of Moriarty being a person of color:
- “…The actual issue is that black people aren’t often allowed to play full and complete characters, and an antagonist who isn’t unintelligent, thuggish cannon fodder is just as much of a rarity for black men as the stubbly hero who saves the world or wtfever. “
- “…The stereotype in no way intersects with brilliant geniuses who choose to step outside of the boundaries of society in order to exercise their intellect while having no concern for lesser beings.
Or to break it down further: the problematic stereotype regarding black people is that of being, in essence, subhuman. Characters of the Moriarty (and Holmes) archetype are rooted in being superhuman.”
You see? It’s more complicated than “people of color get typecast as villains.”
Black people get typecast as an extremely specific type of villain - they’re thugs, brutish and animalistic. South Asian actors are similarly typecast as scary oppressive (usually coded Muslim) terrorists.
But when your villain is of the superhuman archetype? When they’re brooding antiheroes, when they’re nuanced, when they’re multi-faceted?
They’re white.
(And check out this post on the glorification of white criminality in shows like Dexter, Breaking Bad, Weeds, Boardwalk Empire, The Sopranos, etc.)
(via ave-atque-vale)
HIS NAME IS KHAN NOONIEN SINGH
KHAN
NOONIEN
SINGH
DID WE REALLY JUST LET A GUY WHO IS THE HUMAN EQUIVALENT OF CURDLED MILK PLAY A CHARACTER WITH ONE OF THE MOST BROWN CODED NAMES IN THE HISTORY OF CINEMA??
I CANNOT BELIEVE THIS GUY MANAGED TO UNDO THE PROGRESS MADE BY A SHOW THAT COULDN’T HAVE AN INTERRACIAL KISS AT THE TIME FOR FUCK’S SAKE.
(via interstellaire)
a star trek au where everything is exactly the same except spock is wearing booty shorts
live long and twerk it
to boldly go where no booty has gone before
Spock is so sASSy
nice legs daisy dukes make a man go punch it
One day soon, man is going to be able to harness incredible energies, maybe even the atom. Energies that could ultimately hurl us to other worlds in some sort of spaceship. And the people that reach out into space will be able to find ways to feed the hungry millions of the world and to cure their diseases. They will be able to find a way to give each man hope and a common future, and those are the days worth living for. Our deserts will bloom.
r/startrek GOLD
