Snarky Commentary 2: Star Trek Into Darkness and Brown face Or, you can say Im in too deep

p (not unlike #Scandal fans).

Quoting MckenzieM from the online forum Black Science Fiction Society: Star Trek: Into Darkness opened this week. My review in a nutshell is that its essentially alternate timeline Wrath of Khan for anyone who has seen it and is familiar with the character of Khan from the Star Trek universe. The main villain is a mysterious super man named John Harrison, portrayed by Benedict Cumberbatch, who then reveals himself to be Khan. If he really is Khan Noonien Singh, then I am not laughing. Khan, the Khan is of Sikh/East Indian heritage. In Star Trek: the original series (1966 1969), hes portrayed by Ricardo Montalban, a Spanish-Mexican actor, who also portrayed him in Star Trek 2: Wrath of Khan. Montalban, as talented as he was, was a white actor in brownface. Observation: Star Trek was a bold move in Sci-Fi, as since H.G. Wells, speculative fiction had a noticeable lack of diversity. Especially in the 60s, during the height of the Civil Rights struggle, it may have been difficult to find a Sikh/Indian actor that wanted to leave Bollywood or be bothered. After all, the first interracial kiss on television was between Captain Kirk and Lieutenant Uhura, and was banned from showing in several southern markets. At about this time, Richard and Mildred Loving became the first interracial married couple in the US. Ricardo (Mr. Roarke, Fantasy Island) with a suntan was probably as close as they were going to get! Admittance: I enjoyed Cumberbatch for two reasons: 1. He portrays Sherlock Holmes, a favorite fictional character of mine, on the BBC, 2. I personally know an African-American family by the same name in Austin, Texas. Im sure they got a kick out of the movie as well. In defense of this analysis: brownface, or brown face is the portrayal of story characters by actors that originally [the characters] had other than European ethnic features (or accents). Blackface was the admittedly xenophobic, racist portrayal of African Americans in minstrel shows as Step-n-Fetch; singing/dancing; shucking/jiving and simple minded: not unlike in my opinion so-called Hip-Hop videos today. Similarly, certain groups had a problem with Idris Elba portraying Heimdall guardian of Bifrost, the Rainbow Bridge, and Hogarth the Grim as Asian. Yes, I read a lot of comic books as a kid (passed a high school Norse mythology test on what Marvel taught me!). A natural result of redefining Thor et al from Norse gods to benevolent aliens and Arthur C. Clarkes quote becomes prophesy: any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.

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Star Trek The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh was an excellent two-part novelized series by Greg Cox that took you from Khan as precocious six-year-old genius, the influence and genius of his genetic engineering mega-maniacal mother Dr. Sarina Kaur, who had engineered a strain of Ebola that would wipe out inferior humanity except her super children (presumably herself as well); Gary Seven the ever-present Aegis agent, his black cat familiar, and his blond assistant Roberta Lincoln, the Sikh martial art Gatka and its weaponry, the Eugenics Wars, up to getting the supermen on the SS Botany Bay launched from Area 51. In TOS, the Eugenics Wars were essentially WWIII; in Coxs telling they were largely fought in secret amongst Khans people since mega-maniacal supermen couldnt agree who should be in charge of the new world they were destined to rule (Khan had an excellent idea: a Khanate, his idea of a Caliphate under him!). That took cross-referencing TOS, ENT, DS9, actual world events and following the rules. Cox took painstaking steps to create a world that could possibly happen. Star Trek: Federation involved the life (and, remarkable life span) of Zephram Cochrane, his creation of warp drive and the authoritarian forces that opposed its creation The Optimum Movement, inspired by Khan and his supermen that chose less-than-optimum humanity for containment/extermination like a bacterial infection, catalysts for the third world war; inspiring in kind Colonel Green (TOS, ENT) and the post-apocalyptic atomic horrors/genocide of WWIII. Even on Kindle/Nook it is an expansive novel, concluding 1,000 years beyond Picards existence. This notably had no mention of an Enterprise NX-01 or Jonathan Archer. Enjoyable read, but not cinematic: it would take several seasons, and an attention span with the patience of Job to tell the tale. Cumberbatchs presence is evidence J.J. Abrams chose not to research or exploit that fictional history at all. Or, since the timeline as once known is quite screwed and/or rebooted, and John Harrison/Khan and his peeps are on cryogenic lockdown, we can see how the next director after Abrams jells this and pending hostilities with the Klingons all together (John Harrison/Khan could be found lying not above megalomania). If anything, the Star Trek universe is a pliable as play dough.

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Uhura and Spock as an inter-species couple had its hilarious moments: Kirk: You two are arguing. How is that? (As in inconceivable) When Uhura and Spock get into an argument that Kirk found himself the reluctant referee, I thought maybe should have picked others for the away team? I guess that was the point.

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When Uhura said you brought me on this mission because I speak Klingonlet me speak Klingon. That was brave, bold and written for the next dramatic scene, but negates the universal translator tech. Guess it went the way of the seven year Pon Farr ritual. Brown face observation: When the lead Klingon takes off his helmet facing Uhura brown face to brown face, he is BIG, brown and dangerous looking, the others complexions are ambiguous and fried under Khan Cumberbatchs phaser blasts, or otherwise guillotined by sword. That might be homage to Michael Dorns Worf in TNG, but if Tuvok and Spock are of Vulcan, it would be logical that Klingons have diversity on QonoS/Kronos. In ENT, the ridge was explained as the Klingons deliberately introduced the supermen DNA into their gene pool: this guys forehead was kind a smooth just saying.

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Kirk (TOS): serial playboy monogamist. Yes, its a complete contradiction in terms, but that was the best description of William Shatners portrayal of the character. Remember, it was the 60s. Kirk (reboot): hedonist. Yes, hes got the serial playboy down, but Chris Pike went from the green alien in bikini homage to Captain Pike from TOS to two lion chicks (with tails) in a mnage e trois (pushing the limits of PG-13)! How are he and Carol Marcus now a weapons expert supposed to get together and birth David? She obviously knows his rep, seeing TOS flame-for-Spock favorite Nurse Chapel transferred to another starship! It would seem FB and Twitter survived into the 23rd Century. I can only imagine postings on Kirk are legendary. Lastly, the 23rd Century: Gene Roddenberrys vision was three centuries past the madness of the 1960s, the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Medgar Evers, Malcolm X and Martin Luther King (he was instrumental in convincing Nichelle Nichols to stay in the role of Uhura). Eternal Optimism (versus fascist Optimum): Wed reach maturity as a species and accept diversity. The sets were cheap and cheesy, because most Sci-Fi sets were cheap and cheesy! There wasnt a huge budget for Sci-Fi then, and arguably not much of one now. But, the future looked perfect, neat and clean, wed solve all the problems that are intractable to us now: war, racism, sexism, poverty, wardrobe malfunctions, bad hair days, garbage. The reboot set looked plausible, the tech was more realistic that idealistic/cheesy (except the floating cars); more mechanized and industrial than utopian. The political intrigue suggested seems we survive only to fight wars on larger battlefields (the galaxy); the fact we hopefully achieve peace on earth doesnt exclude other areas of strife as resulting from authoritarians that ultimately want to call the shots for everyone.

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There have been a number of reboots: Avengers, Batman, Captain America, Iron Man, Thor; soon Man of Steel. We are recreating our mythologies after our own modern image, that I completely understand, and J.J. Abrams et al have rights to creative license. Im particularly sensitive to this retelling because of the comments and vision that made me and others like me think of careers in science and science fiction as, wellcool:

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