The Wrath Of Osama bin Laden - Star Trek Into Darkness (SPOILERS)

[thinbluemime]

The Wrath Of Osama bin Laden - Star Trek Into Darkness (SPOILERS)


When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an
unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has
detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a
state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a
manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass
destruction.


S
P
O
I
L
E
R
S


December 15, 2009

GQ: Do you think people will look back at these shows and see them as a
product of this moment in history, the way people trace the paranoia of
The Twilight Zone to the Cold War?

Abrams: I'm sure they will. Can you point to a show in the last four
decades that you can't do that with? Every show seems like it's a result
of its context.

http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/200912/jj-abrams-flashforward-lost-star-trek-2



-----------------------------------



"the upgraded Enterprise 2.0 also takes into account modern politics. Just
as the '60s series represented the face of liberal American imperialism,
ST 2013 seems to want to make atonement for rushing into conflicts or
forcing them upon us, replacing revenge with justice and saying something
about the use of drones, terrorism, George Bush and WMD."
http://jonesisdying.blogspot.com/2013/05/star-trek-into-darkness-2013.html


"If you thought Jessica Chastain's Maya was intent on tracking and killing
Osama bin Laden in Zero Dark Thirty, wait until you get a load of the
fuming James Tiberius Kirk. Star Trek Into Darkness bristles with
contemporary references to the war on terror, the justice meted out to
detainees and the geopolitical power struggle."
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/entertainment/a/-/movies/17078589/star-trek-still-a-blast/


"In one of those occasional occurrences where Hollywood releases several
things that deal with the same ideas and that even share common story
elements, both "Iron Man 3" and "Star Trek Into Darkness" deal with
terrorist bombings that kill innocent people, and both feature scenes that
might upset some viewers right now. Both also deal with the idea that the
bombings we see serve an agenda that is not immediately clear, that
violence can be a sort of theater. How they explore those ideas is very
different, but it is an odd parallel between the films."
http://www.hitfix.com/motion-captured/review-abrams-pushes-archetypes-further-and-cranks-up-the-impact-for-star-trek-into-darkness/2



"The one small complaint I had about ST09, which I otherwise felt was an
immense ride much like the Indiana Jones films, was that it evaded several
of the elements which set ST apart from other sci-fi franchises, i.e. the
focus on questions of morality and the commentary on current social
issues. That is fully back in STID: The topic, obviously, is terrorism,
but the film doesn't take the easy route by saying "Look, here's a fanatic
who wants to destroy our way of life, and we must stop him", but
complicates the matter by introducing another villain, one Admiral Marcus,
who is a Cheney/Rumsfeld kind of hawk looking to turn the cold war with
the Klingons hot and thus uses Harrison/Khan to achieve that. If you want
to read Khan as an Osama bin Laden type, then this film clearly outlines
the genesis of such types. After all, bin Laden was originally a CIA asset
in Afghanistan being used in the fight against the opposing party in the
Cold War, the invading Soviet Union. The lesson outlined here is that you
cannot and should not ally yourself with an enemy just because he so
happens to also be the enemy of your enemy. He might turn on YOU after
he's done with the common enemy. (Kirk and Spock even have a nice bit of
dialogue about this particular problem.)"
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?p=8062252


"Yet rather than pausing for breath, Star Trek Into Darkness punches it
and immediately turns into a manhunt movie. A bomb goes off in a Starfleet
archive in London — 23rd century England will boast a skyline of Gherkin
buildings apparently — and the race is on to track down the terrorist,
well-coutured renegade John Harrison (Benedict Cumberbatch). Abrams’ first
Trek movie was criticised for not following the Roddenberry tenet of
holding up a mirror to real-world issues. Into Darkness couldn’t be more
prescient. Just weeks after the events in Boston, this keys into a hunt
for a bomber, with Kirk given orders to forgo a fair trial (“I’m gonna run
this bastard down”) and terminate Harrison with Star Trek’s version of
extreme prejudice — undetectable photon torpedoes. There will soon be
students getting 2:2s for dissertations with titles like “7 of 9/11: Bin
Laden, Star Trek And America Into Darkness”."
http://startrekblog.wordpress.com/into-darkness-uk-premiere/


-----------------------------



"...some of JJ Abrams recent works, with an eye toward the September 11,
2001 attacks and the influence of that event on his vision of television
pop culture."
https://groups.google.com/group/rec.arts.tv/msg/9057a6f09e94f38d?hl=en

[thinbluemime]

On Thu, 09 May 2013 22:05:46 +0100, thinbluemime <thinbl...@gmail.com>
wrote:

CLIP:

David Chen Devindra Hardawar and Adam Quigley - FilmAid Broadcast Part 3 -
Damon Lindelof (Co-Writer of Star Trek Into Darkness)

http://picosong.com/FVy4/


-----------

Full length, original interview
http://www.slashfilm.com/filmaid-broadcast-part-3-damon-lindelof/

[thinbluemime]

On Thu, 09 May 2013 22:49:37 +0100, thinbluemime <thinbl...@gmail.com>
wrote:

It’s not Into Darkness that makes me sad, then, but our times. The 1960s
Star Trek series sprang from an era of enormous social upheaval -- a
tendencious civil-rights movement, assassination as a political statement,
the sexual revolution, a seemingly endless war in Vietnam -- but it
embodied the hope of the time as well, particularly the one represented by
NASA and America’s space program.

Today, we have plenty of trouble yet apparently little hope... and there’s
little hope in Into Darkness, either. No spoilers, but the main track of
the plot -- the what’s-really-going-on stuff -- could be said to represent
what happens when hope and a spirit of adventure and optimism get
sidetracked into selfish ambition.

This is a story about terrorism as an act of egotistical will, of military
opportunism, of false-flag provocations... of even those right in the
middle of it all finding that their talents and their aspirations and
their loyalties are being twisted for purposes they’d never have anything
to do with, and yet are now caught inextricably up in.


I enjoyed Into Darkness immensely, and I can’t wait to see it again -- in
IMAX next time, perhaps; I’ll certainly skip the 3D, which is as pointless
as nearly every other example of the gimmick -- but I’m not sure I could
call this a summery popcorny sort of film.

It’s too grim for that. There are too many echoes of 9/11, some overt and
visual and very upsetting, and of the insanity of the world since then for
it to be truly escapist fun.

http://www.flickfilosopher.com/blog/2013/05/feel_the_rush_of_endorkins_sta.html

[thinbluemime]

On Thu, 09 May 2013 22:05:46 +0100, thinbluemime <thinbl...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> The Wrath Of Osama bin Laden - Star Trek Into Darkness (SPOILERS)
>
>
> When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an
> unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has
> detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a
> state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a
> manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass
> destruction.
>
>
> S
> P
> O
> I
> L
> E
> R
> S
>
>
> December 15, 2009
>
> GQ: Do you think people will look back at these shows and see them as a
> product of this moment in history, the way people trace the paranoia of
> The Twilight Zone to the Cold War?
>
> Abrams: I'm sure they will. Can you point to a show in the last four
> decades that you can't do that with? Every show seems like it's a result
> of its context.
>
> http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/200912/jj-abrams-flashforward-lost-star-trek-2
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------

roberto orciVerified account
@boborci



White House has requested a print of #startrekintodarkness. Hope they pay
attention;)



4:42 PM - 17 May 13

https://twitter.com/boborci/status/335540814002393088

[thinbluemime]

On Thu, 09 May 2013 22:05:46 +0100, thinbluemime <thinbl...@gmail.com>
wrote:

> The Wrath Of Osama bin Laden - Star Trek Into Darkness (SPOILERS)
>
>
> When the crew of the Enterprise is called back home, they find an
> unstoppable force of terror from within their own organization has
> detonated the fleet and everything it stands for, leaving our world in a
> state of crisis. With a personal score to settle, Captain Kirk leads a
> manhunt to a war-zone world to capture a one man weapon of mass
> destruction.
>
>
> S
> P
> O
> I
> L
> E
> R
> S
>
>
> December 15, 2009
>
> GQ: Do you think people will look back at these shows and see them as a
> product of this moment in history, the way people trace the paranoia of
> The Twilight Zone to the Cold War?
>
> Abrams: I'm sure they will. Can you point to a show in the last four
> decades that you can't do that with? Every show seems like it's a result
> of its context.
>
> http://www.gq.com/entertainment/movies-and-tv/200912/jj-abrams-flashforward-lost-star-trek-2
>
>
>
> -----------------------------------
>

Star Trek Into Due Process: The Sequel’s Message About Drones,
Militarization, and Blowback
By Forrest Wickman May 17, 2013, at 8:19 PM
https://twitter.com/BlarneyConCarne/status/335794583701184512






Major spoilers ahead



The mission of Star Trek might be to explore strange new worlds, to seek
out new life and new civilizations, but the concerns of the latest star
Trek movie, Star Trek Into Darkness, are strangely earthbound. And I don’t
just mean because it’s more interested in phasers and explosions than in
pseudoscience and applied phlebotinum. I’m referring to how, even as it
ramps up into a full-on action flick, Star Trek Into Darkness offers up a
surprisingly nuanced critique American military power.

It’s no secret that Star Trek Into Darkness is meant as a post-9/11
allegory about American foreign policy. In fact, we’ve known this since
2009, when director J.J. Abrams and screenwriter Roberto Orci revealed
that they thought the sequel “need[ed] to do what [Trek creator Gene]
Roddenberry did so well, which is allegory,” for “modern-day issues,” like
torture, terrorist threats, and politicized wars. Star Benedict
Cumberbatch, speaking to BBC America earlier this month wasn’t afraid to
be more specific: “It’s no spoiler I think to say that there’s a huge
backbone in this film that’s a comment on recent U.S. interventionist
overseas policy from the Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld era,” he said. And then
there’s the message that appears on screen right before the credits: “This
film is dedicated to our post-9/11 veterans.”

If you’ve seen the film, you already know all this, because much of its
commentary is right there on the surface. Though it’s set in the year
2259, many of the film’s key lines sound lifted right out of today’s
political discourse. After Khan orchestrates a terrorist bombing of
Starfleet’s main archive building, attacks its high command, and hides
out, Osama-like, in a mountain cave in an uninhabited corner of enemy
territory, Admiral Marcus orders Kirk to fly to the edge of enemy space
and execute Khan using a payload of classified, high-tech torpedoes that
are capable of seeking out enemies from long distance. In other words, he
orders an extrajudicial killing by drone strike. The fact that this
measure isn’t strictly kosher under Starfleet law worries Spock, who
reminds Kirk of Khan’s right to due process, noting that there is no
Starfleet regulation that allows the killing of a Federation resident
without a trial. Soon, Kirk is persuaded by Spock’s argument that the
mission is both against Starfleet regulations and morally wrong, and
decides that he will personally lead a manhunt on the enemy planet, called
Kronos, where he will capture Khan and return him to Earth for trial.

Some have suggested that the film’s allegory more or less ends here. Over
on Flavorwire, Jason Bailey argues that “a few lines of sloganeering
dialogue is, sadly, the extent of the film’s consideration of this
hot-button issue.” But, while things get quite a bit muddier in the
developments that follow, that doesn’t mean the movie loses sight of its
allegory. After all, it’s a muddy issue—and the film carefully reflects
that. While Kirk and Spock oppose drone warfare, the film shows the very
real dangers of the alternative, a manned action to capture and prosecute
the terrorist. First, there’s the high risk of casualties: When Kirk’s
search party lands on Kronos, they’re swarmed by Klingons, and are nearly
captured and killed. Second, there’s the risk of provocation: Their
capture in enemy territory might precipitate a deadly war with the
Klingons, the movie reminds us, and the fact that they’re there in person
gives them even less of a chance at plausible deniability than a strike
from afar might.

While portraying the dangers of a police action, the movie also finds a
clever way to suggest the strategic downsides of using drones. Since we
can’t see both plans play out, the movie suggests these dangers in a
slightly more abstract manner, through an image. It turns out that the 72
special torpedoes aboard the Enterprise each have a man or woman stored in
cryosleep inside of them, the surviving members of Khan’s crew of
supermen. In other words, the torpedoes have two of the risks of drone
strikes literally built into them. First, the crewmembers represent the
potential for innocent casualties—they’re not the target of the strike.
And second, they represent the danger of how military action, especially
when it leaves civilian casualties, can result in further radicalization:
After all, the supermen were literally engineered as a way of defeating
the enemy, before they became an enemy themselves. The movie seems to
acknowledge the symbolism of the torpedoes in one of its closing lines, in
a speech delivered by Kirk: “There will always be those who mean to do us
harm. To stop them, we risk awakening the same evil within ourselves,”
Kirk says. The choice of the word “awakening,” spoken right around the
same time we see these potentially dangerous crewmembers stored away in
cryo-sleep, is surely no coincidence.

This theme of the dangers of blowback and militarization is made quite
literal in the film’s final twist. It turns out that the warmongering
Admiral Marcus is, in many ways, the Big Bad, and that it was he who
awakened Khan in the first place, to fight the Klingons. (Given that the
Klingons of the original series traditionally stood in for the Soviet
Union, this parallels the U.S.’s support of the Afghan mujahedeen in their
fight against the Soviets.) Marcus turns against the Enterprise, and is
not afraid of using Khan’s terrorist attack to provoke a war with the
Klingons. (Some commenters, including frequent Slate contributor Alyssa
Rosenberg, see in this turn of events a hint of 9/11 Trutherism—the idea
being that the Admiral was complicit in Khan’s terror attack because he
needed a pretext for war. But it’s not Marcus who orchestrates the attack
on London. It’s Khan.) Just like George W. Bush, Marcus invokes a
terrorist attack in an attempt to start a war on a country that had
nothing to do with it.

The admiral’s move toward militarization then leads to the most
catastrophic instance of blowback yet: Khan commandeers Marcus’ spacecraft
to crash into the skyscrapers of San Francisco, resulting in casualties
reminiscent of 9/11. (Abrams has acknowledged that he’s wanted some of his
movies to be cathartic for those traumatized by 9/11, and this is his most
9/11-esque moment since he produced and masterminded Cloverfield.) It’s
this tragedy that Kirk memorializes, when he warns of “awakening the same
evil within ourselves.” If Starfleet hadn’t ramped up for war, and
awakened Khan, Kirk suggests, this tragedy never would have happened.

Would the film have had a louder “message” if it showed only one side of
this complex issue? Yes. Would it have been better if it didn’t take on
this kind of allegory at all? Probably—I for one would prefer less
exploitation of our memories of 9/11. But, since they went there, they
could have done a lot worse. The film’s message may not be new, or
surprising, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a worthy one.

[thinbl...@gmail.com]

TAGS: political, allegory, metaphor, orci, abrams, lindelof, 9/11, osama bin laden

Cross Referenced Threads:

Star Trek Writer Roberto Orci Shuts Down Twitter Account After Lashing Out at Fans
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.arts.tv/2JHcYsluJVc

The Wrath Of Osama bin Laden - Star Trek Into Darkness (SPOILERS)

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/rec.arts.tv/uT-_a61UXUo

[thinbl...@gmail.com]

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/rec.arts.tv/uT-_a61UXUo/sbQGBoaNCagJ



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