The Star Trek Film That Irritated The Wrath Of Khan Director

They are saying that imitation is the sincerest type of flattery, however for “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” director Nicholas Meyer, having one other film pay direct homage to his work was extra irritating than flattering. In an interview with Midnight’s Edge in 2018, Meyer revealed that he had some fairly sophisticated emotions concerning the 2013 J.J. Abrams movie “Star Trek Into Darkness,” which took greater than a bit of inspiration from “The Wrath of Khan.” Regardless of a advertising and marketing marketing campaign that attempted to cover the truth that Benedict Cumberbatch was enjoying a model of Khan Noonien Singh, the genetically-enhanced tyrant beforehand portrayed by Ricardo Montalbán, audiences quickly realized that “Into Darkness” is sort of an express riff on “The Wrath of Khan” proper right down to its tragic ending, albeit with a little bit of a twist.

“Into Darkness” is the second “Star Trek” movie set within the Kelvin timeline, which cut up from the unique sequence timeline resulting from some time-travel shenanigans in 2009’s “Star Trek.” Whereas “The Wrath of Khan” is certainly the second film within the authentic “Star Trek” movie franchise, it isn’t like Abrams completely needed to comply with the identical path with “Into Darkness,” however he determined that what was acquainted was greatest, apparently. That rankled Meyer only a bit, who had some less-than-kind phrases about Abrams’ film.

Whereas Meyer admitted it was a tiny bit flattering to have such a giant film try to pay homage to “The Wrath of Khan,” he felt that “Into Darkness” completely failed at doing so and largely amounted to a bland copy of his personal “Star Trek” film. He elaborated:

“It’s, on the one hand, good to be so profitable or beloved or nonetheless you need to describe it that someone desires to do an homage to what you probably did and I used to be flattered and touched, however in my type of inventive worldview, if you are going to do an homage you need to add one thing. You need to put one other layer on it, they usually did not. Simply by placing the identical phrases in several characters’ mouths did not add as much as something, and if in case you have somebody dying in a single scene and type of being resurrected instantly after there is no actual drama occurring. It simply turns into a gimmick or gimmicky, and that is what I discovered it to be finally. This is only one individual’s opinion, mine […] however I discovered it extra intelligent than satisfying.”

Given the entire difficulties Meyer confronted whereas making “The Wrath of Khan,” together with a feisty Gene Roddenberry attempting to sabotage the entire thing, it isn’t shocking that Meyer was a bit of miffed about simply how a lot “Into Darkness” riffed on his movie. 

Here is the factor about “Into Darkness”: it had the potential to be a reasonably first rate “Star Trek” film by itself if it simply hadn’t tried to imitate “The Wrath of Khan.” It is removed from the worst “Star Trek” movie, but it surely’s a irritating follow-up to Abrams’ relatively enjoyable 2009 movie and will have been a lot extra. The Kelvin-verse solid is fairly nice, particularly the late Anton Yelchin because the younger pilot Chekov and Karl City because the Enterprise’s curmudgeonly head physician, Bones, and Cumberbatch is a unbelievable villain outdoors of the entire Khan designation. In a method, although, that simply makes it all of the extra upsetting that the movie is finally undone by its far-too-nostalgic screenplay.

“Into Darkness” wasn’t the final time that Abrams was criticized for principally remaking one other franchise movie in his personal picture, as he primarily did the identical factor with “Star Wars: Episode VII — The Power Awakens” (which pulls closely from “Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope”). Perhaps the filmmaker simply must keep away from directing motion pictures that belong to main science-fiction properties for some time … no less than till he can get some contemporary concepts.