BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 » Let's discuss... STiD (spoilers)

miriel68 · May 28, 2013 2:16 pm

I know that we have already two threads about Star Trek, but since they are more about first impressions and news, I thought it would be interesting to go for a more in-depth discussion. While STiD is not without flaws I still found it quite intriguing and thought provoking, which is more that I can say about most blockbuster. and I would love to know what do you think about it.

Just to begin: what's your opinion about the villain? Do you agree with what Benedict said again and again that it is possible to symphatize with him to a certain degree, or at least to understand his reasons? Of course, it is difficult not to be partial, since he is played by Benedict and he is so indecently handsome but I found myself feeling bad for him and not being able to condamn him absolutely. There is no denying that he was treated badly but these very humans who are crying loud that he is bad guy: Marcus enslaved him and blackmailed him in order to make him work for him and help him do fullfil his dirty plans of starting unjustified war. And Kirk? First he beat him savagely (Harrison had just saved his life and already surrenderd, but who cares), than treated him like an exotic beast in cage, subject of medical experiments (I bet Marcus did the same thing earlier) and in the end he decided the best way of thanking him for the help with taking over Marcus's ship would be to "drop him" as soon as they don't need Khan any more. Now, to be completely honest, I cannot bring myself to blame the villain for turning against them.

SusiGo · May 28, 2013 2:21 pm

Well, you've been quite comprehensive with regard to the villain and I agree with you on all points. However, Kirk of course attacks him after the fight with the Klingons because he wants revenge for the death of Pike who's been like a father for him.

I'm sure there'll be more ideas to discuss here. Let's hear what the others say.

Davina · May 28, 2013 3:46 pm

Agree, although I would perhaps see it not as revenge for the murder of his father-figure but rather a punishment and venting of rage. He has bottled up his grief, to some extent and this is an unleashing of it. There is a repetition of exactly the same response later, when Spock believes Kirk to be dead.

May 28, 2013 4:14 pm

It is an emotional reaction of course. It is not one single punch while being emotionally overwhelmed. Since Kirk is not officially allowed to punish Harrison I would also call it revenge. It is executed towards a prisoner. So obviously I see it as violation that can not be justified. I can understand it because Kirk is mourning. But it is still morally wrong.
I don't know why they do it in a movie. One mustn't torture a prisoner. Why couldn't the writer think of another way for Kirk to express his emotions? Is it done on purpose to make people think about how to treat a terrorist?
.

Mary Me · May 28, 2013 6:03 pm

I assume they wanted to show that Kirk is only human with strong emotions. Since when is there something like 'moral' in an action movie where people are dying?
I could sympathize with Khan. I would have turned against Kirk too since his order was to "drop me".

Davina · May 28, 2013 7:30 pm

I honestly think that is is in there precisely to encourage people to think about how prisoners should be treated. Spock has a very clear idea of what should happen, including that Harrison/Khan should stand trial. What it shows, I suppose, is that sometimes (sadly) people react in a way that is clearly in direct contravention of these principles, no matter how strongly they hold these. Clearly Spock holds them deeply but he too acts in an unacceptable way.

I read the film very much as a commentary on terrorism, its motivations and reactions to it both on an organisational and an individual level. Certainly, Benedict's own perspective upon Khan's motivation has been quite clear (one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter).

It is not unknown for action movies to delve into motivations and morality.

nicbooful · May 28, 2013 7:48 pm

Kirk has always been known for being a rule breaker so no surprises there. Not that it excuses him though but, with both Kirk and Khan, you can see their motivations and it's the same thing. Revenge.

When you consider Kirk's actions, he has lost Pike and he is also avenging the deaths of other members of Starfleet. When you compare this to Khan you can see why he turned bad. He is avenging the deaths(he believes they are dead)of 72 comrades whom he considers 'his family'. His reasons for his acts are stronger than Kirk's although it still doesn't make them right either.

In the original films I always wanted Kirk to win. In this new film Benedict's performance made me want him to win. Damn it, I wanted him living with his comrades on a distant planet in peace - not the one from the original story though - I wanted them happy.

I started watching Sherlock after I saw his performance and I'm glad of it x

miriel68 · May 29, 2013 3:14 pm

Action movie may not be very deep, usually, but they tend to transmit a very clear, if simplicistic moral message: good guys need to win bad guys must loose. I do admire Abrams for willing to go beyond white and black vision of good and evil, but my impression was that he somehow lost his balance.
I shouldn't emphatise SO much with Khan. Of course, it doesn't help that he is charismatic and handsome and played by BC.
But partly the problem stems from the characterisation of Kirk and Spock, I think. In order to condamn Harrison/Khan I should root for Kirk: he is the one who plays the "hero will risen" part.
Regretfully, Abrams was not able to convince me that Kirk is a true hero. I wasn't a great enthusiast of Kirk in ST 2009, etiher, but I tolerated him. This time, however, he was even worse. First he is shown as a reckless captain who is going against all Starfleet regulations. Fine with me, I was never overly keen on prime directive. But then he cheats in his official report: not to help somebody else, but to protect his own ass. His lie discovered, he doesn't even understand why Pike is crossed with him and why what he did was wrong. Hello? Are we talking about a silly teenager or captain of a Starship? What age is he, 25 may be? Even my daughter, who is 14 and not really very mature, has a very strong notion that cheating is a shameful thing. And how easily he let himself convinced by Marcus to go "after" Harrison and execute him without trial, even if such an order goes evidently against any civilized sense of law and justice? Scotty and Spock understood it immediately, but not Kirk. As for his punching the prisoner... I get it that he is grieving the lost of his surrogate father and full of repressed anger. But yet again: he is supposed to be a captain, a model for the others, and a hero. He is neither of these three. May I add that as a captain he is a true disaster here? He takes one wrong decision after other and practically would get all his crew killed, but for some deux ex machina. His order to Scotty to "drop" Harrison was just a last straw for me: because at this point I cannot see any essential moral difference between the two characters. Or rather, Harrison/Khan seems indeed "better" of them two at this point.

Unfortunately, I also lost my respect for Spock at the end of the movie. Seeing him pound savagely Khan to death was at least as much, or even more, disturbing, as was seeing Kirk punch Harrison earlier. If this is how Spock becomes more "human" I dearly wish he would remain "vulcan" instead.

Ok, I only saw the movie once, I need to go and watch it again, may be I missed some important details.

Last edited by miriel68 (May 29, 2013 3:16 pm)

SusiGo · May 29, 2013 3:25 pm

You're quite right, miriel. Our views may be biased due to the fact that Khan is played by Benedict and yet …
My biggest problem with Kirk is that he's simply not very interesting. His actions are rash, not mysterious or clever, his behaviour is often shallow and immature. They try to show his inner development, his journey towards maturity, but for me it doesn't really work. I kept thinking I'd like to know more about Harrison instead of seeing Kirk hungering for revenge and Spock having relationship problems.
It's very easy to say: Well, Kirk lost Pike, so he pounds Harrison to pulp, and Spock lost Kirk and does the same all over again. Maybe they wanted to show what an evil influence can make good people do but then the evil influence shouldn't be that interesting and less morally justifiable.

miriel68 · May 29, 2013 3:49 pm

It doesn't help that Chris Pine's performance is decent, but not remarkable. He is good in action scenes, but he doesn't convince me when he plays emotions: I appreciated ZQ acting much more, from this point of view.But in any case it's the script that proposes us an arrogant and immature character as a "hero".

Yes, I got the impression that the movie had many superfluous elements which could have been eliminated in favour of developing central characters more and giving them a better background. I would love to see more Harrison's interaction with Kirk, Spock and Bones, for example. The movie could have done without Carol Marcus (her only useful moment was the epic scream when Khan killed admiral), Spock - Uhura love story (meaningless banter, nothing for the characters' development), old Spock cameo (are they going to ask him for advice every time they are in troubles because they are not able to figure it out on their own?)... and use precious screen time for better purposes.

May 29, 2013 4:08 pm

miriel68,
exactly what I think. It is a different thing if you are a private person grieving or being emotionally disturbed to do something morally wrong in the heat of the moment. But Kirk is the captain of the ship who represents the authority and the law.
Had to think about Sherlock and the American guy being a prisoner and pushed out of the window.
Or Mycroft/The British Government and Moriarty in prison. Moriarty is being tortured as well. What do you think?
Does that comply with Mycroft's character?

In Germany some years ago a young boy was abducted and somebody threatend to kill him if not given a great amount of money.
The police was able to arrest a student who was severly suspicious.
The investigating police officer who was in charge threatend the suspect with physical violence to tell the police where the boy was and made an official note in the files about it and why he did it.
The incident became famous in Germany and was wildly discussed with all kind of arguments. Pro and contra. Because of Germany's history everybody is highly sensitive when it comes to abuse of human rights and power by police officials.The policeman was under the impressin that he could perhaps save a life and was prepared to risk his career.

The boy was found dead later. He had been dead already when the police officer made the decision to threaten the suspect. The suspect showed the police where the corpse had been abondoned. He confessed under the threat and withdraw the confession afterwards. The suspect was sentenced to life imprisonment because of murder.

Speaking about Kirk I just see revenge and violence.

miriel68 · May 30, 2013 2:43 pm

Hi Be,

many valid points here. It is rather uncomfortable to realize that we are a bit too ready to accept moral relativity. Some actions should be considered wrong indipendently from who is commiting them. And yet... I wasn't too sorry when Sherlock threw american guy out of the window. Admittedly, I WAS rather worried about Mycroft and his method, especially since he "IS" the Britishi government.

From this point of view STiD poses many important questions, even if not always deals with them well. The question "is there anything you would not do for your family" is the central one here. There are many movies which deal with hostage situation and usually we are induced to cheer when the "good guy" (usually father and husband, like Harrison Ford in "Fire wall") finally manages to kill all the kidnappers and rescue his family. In the STiD we have, at the beginning, the figure of a black father of a terminally ill little girl, who accepts a devil pact with Harrison. Curiously enough in movie they just say that he was "forced" to do what he did. Nor did I see any discussion about him on any of internet forums. But in truth he WASN'T forced to accept Harrison's proposal: he chose to save his daughter in exchange not only of his own life, but also all the other people he knew he would kill. So, was he less condamnable than Khan who wanted to save his "family"?
In fact, Harrison's motives are so legitimate that the writers were forced, in a way, to TELL the audience that he is a bad guy by identificating him with Khan from the canon. Why, they needed to bring old Spock to tell them/us that he is a villain and thus to give some justification to Kirk's and Spock's otherwise morally objectable actions. I saw it as one of the movie's main weaknesses.

Davina · May 30, 2013 4:14 pm

Is the man's saving his daughter not in the story deliberately to help draw parallels? To encourage questioning of motives and relative culpability?

MysteriaSleuthbedder · May 31, 2013 2:51 am

nicbooful wrote:
Kirk has always been known for being a rule breaker so no surprises there. Not that it excuses him though but, with both Kirk and Khan, you can see their motivations and it's the same thing. Revenge.

You know, Khan said this in the trailers all the time, talking about vengeance. But I don't see it. All his targets are military and seem to have to do with rescuing his people and getting away. The only time he seems to seek revenge is killing Marcus, the real bad guy, and it seems fairly appropriate since he's a megalomaniac who wants to take over Starfleet and would have killed all of the Enterprise crew.

In the original films I always wanted Kirk to win. In this new film Benedict's performance made me want him to win. Damn it, I wanted him living with his comrades on a distant planet in peace - not the one from the original story though - I wanted them happy.

I started watching Sherlock after I saw his performance and I'm glad of it x

I did, too. And maybe someday some filmamker will take that route. Why else bother to reboot reality?

Nice to hear you are watching Sherlock. Between that and this, you will soon be assimilated into the CumberCollective.

Resistance is futile.

(BTW - you can see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, Stewart a Life Backwards and Parade's End on HBOgo, you can get Hawking from Amazon for $2. You can find a bunch of his stuff free on Youtube.)

Last edited by MysteriaSleuthbedder (May 31, 2013 2:54 am)

MysteriaSleuthbedder · May 31, 2013 3:01 am

miriel68 wrote:
Unfortunately, I also lost my respect for Spock at the end of the movie. Seeing him pound savagely Khan to death was at least as much, or even more, disturbing, as was seeing Kirk punch Harrison earlier. If this is how Spock becomes more "human" I dearly wish he would remain "vulcan" instead.

Ok, I only saw the movie once, I need to go and watch it again, may be I missed some important details.

I don't disagree with anything you said, except I thought it was all in character. Kirk and Spock are the young versions of themselves. How does Kirk become a respected hero Captain? Why will Spock choose to suppress as much of his human emotion as possible? Maybe Spock shocked himself, too. Maybe Kirk, when he leaves Spock in charge of the Enterprise is having his growing up moment where he gains a bit of humility. In the end, he dies for his ship.

It saddens me to think JJ Abrams won't direct the next ST. He seems to have a vision, a multi-year character arc in mind. I'd like to see it fulfilled.

Last edited by MysteriaSleuthbedder (May 31, 2013 3:01 am)

SusiGo · May 31, 2013 8:37 am

MysteriaSleuthbedder wrote:
nicbooful wrote:
Kirk has always been known for being a rule breaker so no surprises there. Not that it excuses him though but, with both Kirk and Khan, you can see their motivations and it's the same thing. Revenge.
You know, Khan said this in the trailers all the time, talking about vengeance. But I don't see it. All his targets are military and seem to have to do with rescuing his people and getting away. The only time he seems to seek revenge is killing Marcus, the real bad guy, and it seems fairly appropriate since he's a megalomaniac who wants to take over Starfleet and would have killed all of the Enterprise crew.

In the original films I always wanted Kirk to win. In this new film Benedict's performance made me want him to win. Damn it, I wanted him living with his comrades on a distant planet in peace - not the one from the original story though - I wanted them happy.

I started watching Sherlock after I saw his performance and I'm glad of it x
I did, too. And maybe someday some filmamker will take that route. Why else bother to reboot reality?

Nice to hear you are watching Sherlock. Between that and this, you will soon be assimilated into the CumberCollective.

Resistance is futile.

(BTW - you can see Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy, Stewart a Life Backwards and Parade's End on HBOgo, you can get Hawking from Amazon for $2. You can find a bunch of his stuff free on Youtube.)

Thank you, so I finally know what happened to me last year in May. I've been assimilated. Fine.

Please tell me about this Hawking thing because in Germany and Britain there are only offers at outrageous prices as the DVD isn't sold any longer. On amazon.com I just found one used DVD for 169.99 $.

Davina · May 31, 2013 11:00 am

You can definitely watch Hawking for free on YouTube. It is in either 6 or 9 parts. That much for a DVD is just extortionate!

crazybbcamerican · May 31, 2013 11:47 am

I watched it on Netflix. You can try that, too :D

miriel68 · May 31, 2013 1:46 pm

MysteriaSleuthbedder wrote:
I don't disagree with anything you said, except I thought it was all in character. Kirk and Spock are the young versions of themselves. How does Kirk become a respected hero Captain? Why will Spock choose to suppress as much of his human emotion as possible? Maybe Spock shocked himself, too. Maybe Kirk, when he leaves Spock in charge of the Enterprise is having his growing up moment where he gains a bit of humility. In the end, he dies for his ship.

Mysteria, I agree with you that it was in character, as far as Kirk is concerned, at least. But this is precisely where my issue starts. Kirk, such as he is presented in new ST movies is not a "hero" for me, even a hero-to-become. In order to accept it, I have to remind myself continually that he is "the future" Kirk, as we know him from TOS. Except that he isn't. Some character's flaws are not about being young or inexperienced. Lying and cheating in order to obtain your goal e/or cover your transgressions? Treating women as pure sexual entertainment? Taking bad strategical decision? (I really liked admiral Marcus yealling at Kirk "And who is going to lead us? You?! Marcus is a bad guy, obviously, but he scores a point here, I think, lol) Based on what I see in the movie, I cannot see "the greatness" in Kirk, in spite of Pike's assurances.

It is a bit different about Spock: I liked his personal arc in ST2009 very much and I think ZQ performance was indeed really good. I found him in STiD convincing, as well, but the end of the movie ruined the character for me: Spock who becames a morderous thug? He went after Khan not to prevent him from doing further mayhem, but simply to murder him in revenge for his friend death (not caused directly by Khan). And he would beat him to death if it weren't for Uhura who, btw, did not stop him for humanitarian reasons, but only because they needed Khan's blood.

Oh dear, if I will continue with this line of reasoning, I could come to the conclusion that the only good guy
in STiD is Harrison/ Khan... Joking, of course, but I do feel that Abrams should have given more moral strength to Kirk and Spock characters in order to help us root sincerely for good guys...

Last edited by miriel68 (May 31, 2013 5:20 pm)