i rewatched wrath of khan last night, and while it was a lot goofier/slower, khan was soooo much better in that movie. he was over the top, memorable, crazy, melodramatic, and while "superhuman" still had the weakness of pride. ID-Khan was just a shitty bad guy, he was basically a comic book supervillain who was so generic in being bad that the khan reveal didn't really mean anything. I'm surprised they didn't throw the Kobayashi Maru thing and Genesis device into ID either as one liners, I really hope they don't try to drag those two things into the next movie.
While I loved Cumberbatch in Sherlock, he was terrible in ID. He kept enunciating every word like he was at a spelling bee, it got distracting at times - is that some weird form of acting? I guess I'll go with the argument that a man named Noonien Singh Khan (?) will be whiter than wonder bread in the future (but wasn't he shot off into space in our near future?), but it would have been a lot more believable with a middle eastern or indian actor. I guess maybe the new Khan has a white full name and is just using Khan like Khal or Emperor. Also I have to agree that the new Spock seems just angry and constipated all the time, instead of the cool and calm demeanor Nimoy played it as. The rest of the new Trek actors seem better or equal to the old cast, but not Spock, Khan, or Sulu (sorry Harold).
What I found most interesting was how absolutely terrible the special effects in Wrath of Khan were compared to the new movie (no bash to WOK, they did the best they could at the time), and its only been 30 years. 30 years from now, what will movies look like...
