The Next Star Trek Movie

Okay, it was my son's birthday on Monday, but on Saturday I took him, his friends, and my second son to the new Star Trek movie. I've mentioned that I was a fan of the original series, and I've also said that I thought all of the Star Trek movies sucked. Even the first reboot of the original series. Captain Kirk, you see, is one of my all time favorite characters, and I hated how the first movie portrayed him, and I hated the entire reboot.

But I didn't hate the second one. No, I didn't like it, but I didn't hate it. It still sucked, to be sure, but not as much. Oh, heck, it did suck as much. Spoiler alert coming up. So stop reading if you plan on seeing it. Okay. Again, the rehashing of old stories is one thing, but the redoing of old stories is another. Can it be done? Sure. But it takes some great writing, and for some reason, no Star Trek movie can seem to find great writing. With all of the great stories from the original series to choose from, they keep going back to the Khan character. He was a great character, yes, but the other Star Trek movies already redid that guy. Doesn't mean these movies can't redo him, too, but making a Star Fleet Admiral the bad guy, as they did in this movie, is just bogus to me.

And changing a character's race, to me, seems like a cop out. The movies of the Marvel universe did that with Nick Fury. They changed him from a white man to a black man. It wasn't the first time. The movies changed the iconic character of James West from a white man to a black man. Both instances were bogus. Sure black men can be just as heroic, but that's not my point. (But thought I better throw that in.) Introduce a new character who's black if you want to feature a heroic black man. Don't just be lazy and change a white man into a black man. That sounds too much like that guy from the past who used to sing, "Mammy."

But I digress. In this new Star Trek movie, they changed the great villain Khan from being an East Indian to being another white man. It's as if Hollywood is too afraid to portray a minority as a villain. The villains, to them, seemingly, must be white for fear of criticism from which a minority group is represented, and in this case, the Indian people. Khan Noonian Singh. I've had plenty of students named Singh. All were brown-skinned people from India. The original Khan was played by a great Mexican actor, Ricardo Maltalban. Which worked. Ricardo Maltalban was not a blue-eyed white skinned person. He was a brown skinned, brown-eyed actor who fit the part.

But now, it's got to be a white skinned, blue-eyed actor for the villain. Which would be cool if it was someone else. Besides Khan. But Hollywood is almost always afraid. I remember many shows where they changed terrorists from the brown skinned Arabs, (which they are,) to white skinned neo-Nazis. Who have just as much potential for terror, no doubt, but they aren't the ones threatening the Western world today. Just some thoughts. And my final thought on the Star Trek movie is this: It kept me watching, but when it was over I thought it sucked. Period.