Tag Archives: Wrath of Khan

The Force Awakens…to a Khan job (SPOILERS)

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J. J. Abrams is on my shit list.

That statement alone should tell you everything you need to know about my experience with Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Ep. VII).

As background: I am old enough to have seen Star Wars: A New Hope (Ep. IV) in theatres as a young teenager. And I was so impressed by the film that I immediately came home from the theatre and wrote a sequel…400 hand-written pages of a screenplay. My first screenplay, in fact, at the ripe maturity of 13 years.

Star Wars is my birthright. I will defend it tooth and nail.

Thus, J. J. Abrams is on my shit list.

After the underwhelming prequels (Ep. I-III), I looked forward to Abrams’ take on the saga. I was a big fan of his reboot of Star Trek, although I had a bit of a nagging doubt after the reboot sequel Into Darkness. But if anyone had a sense of the epic, almost operatic scale of the Star Wars universe, it should have been Abrams.

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And to some extent, he fulfilled his end of the bargain.

Shivers went down my spine when we scaled across the vast deserts of Tatooine…I mean Jakku.

I worried when R2…I mean BB-8, was captured by the Jawas…I mean scrap metal scavengers.

I bounced happily with the music of the Mos Eisley cantina…I mean the Takodana cantina.

I cheered when R2 successfully arrived at the Rebel base…I mean BB-8 arrived at the Resistance base with the vital information.

I sat back in awe as I saw the might of the Death Star…I mean Starkiller Base, for the first time.

J. J. Abrams is on my shit list.

To get back to Star Trek: Into Darkness, briefly, we all knew that Abrams was rewriting the story of Kirk’s greatest nemesis Khan Noonien Singh. And the movie didn’t disappoint in its grand opening flourishes and early Starfleet intrigue.

But then, at some point, it was like Abrams had run out of ideas and so simply inserted the last 20 pages or so of the original Wrath of Khan screenplay, hoping we wouldn’t notice.

The least tweaked moment of overlap between the two movies was the scene between Spock and Kirk across the glass as one dies from radiation sickness. Abrams simply swapped the positions of the two characters.

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Some might consider this an homage to the original. A friend of mine, in discussing The Force Awakens, called it alt-universe mirroring. I call it bullshit, and lazy bullshit at that.

Now, Into Darkness was not intended to be a prequel to any of the older Star Trek movies, so I can buy into the alt-universe idea a bit. But The Force Awakens is Ep VII of a saga. It is not an alt-universe but the same freaking universe 30 years later.

An homage is the holographic chess set. An homage is NOT a beat-for-beat repetition of Ep IV, even if jumbled up a little bit and with a few scenes from Ep V and Ep VI thrown in.

The spell of childhood memories faded rapidly as The Force Awakens played out on the screen, and I spent much of movie sitting with an attitude of “Really?”

And as I walked home from the theatre…a 40-minute walk…I just got angrier and angrier as the volume and sheer audacity of the parallels continued to sink in.

J. J. Abrams is on my shit list.

Droid capture

“You’re pretty bang on, but it’s what I was expecting,” explained a friend whose ear I bent. “It’s the old ‘the same, but different’.”

“I saw it more as a mirroring of the previous six films; a device to draw in new fans and satiate old fans,” another friend said.

I call bullshit…not of my friends, you understand, but of the idea that The Force Awakens needed to remind us of the saga up to now or reinvigorate fans.

Please, how could anything from the Star Wars saga fail to draw box office records?

I know I’m in the minority here. Most fans won’t clue into any of the parallels but instead simply wrap themselves in the old familiar or marvel at the new spectacle. Cool, I am glad they enjoyed the film.

Even I will likely see it again as my first viewing was in regular 3D—strange to think of that as a thing—and not in IMAX or AVX.

And as much as I would buy Henry IV, Part Three if Shakespeare wrote a sequel to his first two Henry IVs, I will eventually add this movie to my Star Wars collections.

But J. J. Abrams is on my shit list, and I will approach any of his future movies with suspicion and cynicism.

And that, more than anything, I am saddest about.

Ep IV_VII

Close but no Clouseau

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So, I just finished watching the 2006 reboot of The Pink Panther with Steve Martin, Kevin Kline and Jean Reno, and all I can think is nice try.

Hollywood has always loved its remakes and reboots—this is not a new phenomenon—and sometimes they pay off. For example, I particularly enjoyed the Star Trek reboot of 2009, although its follow-up remake of Wrath of Khan was a bust for me.

But I seriously believe there are a handful of quintessential films that simply cannot be remade or rebooted, and in each case, I suspect it is because the lead character was so completely defined by the actor who played him or her.

Such is the case with Inspector Clouseau.

One of these men is an imposter

One of these men is an imposter

In the 2006 reboot and its unfathomably inexplicable sequel in 2009, Clouseau was performed by Steve Martin, a man for whom I have the utmost respect as a comedian and actor. But the key term there is “performed”. Steve Martin portrayed Inspector Clouseau.

But Peter Sellers was Inspector Clouseau. He didn’t portray or perform the honoured member of the Surete, he gave birth to the man, he lived the man, he was the man.

And when the beloved actor, comedian, writer, raconteur passed away in 1980, so too should have any thought of reviving Clouseau. For all intents and purposes, Sellers’ tombstone might also have read “Here reposes Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau”.

Sellers was that kind of an actor. He was a shape-shifter, a modern-day Proteus. Upon donning the hat, moustache and trench coat, Sellers ceased to be and Clouseau emerged.

And in giving birth to Clouseau, he launched onto the world a character that would become immortal, and thus a character who cannot simply be portrayed.

Perhaps one day, an actor will come along who can inhabit the character, be the character enough to do it justice, but I can’t think of anyone. And even if such an actor exists, someone with that kind of talent is better served giving genesis to new characters of the immortal prowess of Clouseau.

So, bless director Shawn Levy and Martin for trying, although over-trying might be more appropriate. You and the rest of the cast and crew had pretty much no chance to leave a footprint given that your predecessor left craters.

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For reference, another actor I put in the unrebootable/unremakeable category is Orson Welles.

Can you imagine anyone else trying to step into the roles of Charles Foster Kane (Citizen Kane) or Harry Lime (The Third Man)? I can’t.

Harry Lime and Charles Foster Kane

Harry Lime and Charles Foster Kane