You seem to want to have it both ways here. Khan had an emotional significance to the audience they were exploiting but his prior history made no difference and had no bearing on anything?
I didn't say
anything, I said the
plot. The plot is not the audience. The two are mutually exclusive.
The argument is STiD would have been the same movie if they didn't use Khan. My point is so would TWOK. Everything that happened to Khan in the film and his whole reason for hating Kirk could just as easily work for Bob in accounting.
The history relevant
to the film was all made up
for the film. It could have just as easily been stamped on someone else they'd made up on the spot. The only thing that would have to be changed would be a few lines of exposition. 95% of the film could remain completely as is.
The fact of the matter is, as a villain, Khan is very cookie-cutter, even in 1982. They're a million great things about TWOK. The villain isn't one of them. Conceptually, he's a disaster, mired in cliché and one-dimensional absurdity. The character stands solely on Montalban's outstanding performance. Take that away, and Khan is kind of a joke.
His entire scheme is prodded along by one of the most contrived (and ridiculous) sequence of events in film history:
Planet blows up. (Because planets do that.) Adjacent planet chances orbit. (They do that to.)
Everything on other planet dies except dude, his henchmen, and some slugs, despite there not being any water.
Wait. Scratch that. One of his henchmen did die. Unfortunately it was his wife.
Some years later, two morons who couldn't find their ass in the dark stumble upon the planet.
One of the morons had previously been (apparently) in the that solar system. The way he tells the story, it must have been a pretty significant event in his life.
Yet, knowing dude and his henchmen were in the neighborhood, he and the other moron beam to the (Hostile) planet without any support or armed escort.
They get over-powered by the superior number of forces. Coulda used a red shirt or two.
Remember those slugs? They can brainwash people! Isn't that cool?
Turns out, the two morons were on a mission to find a project site for a devise that can be used as the most powerful WMD in history.
You don't think Bob from accounting could pull all that off? I do. I have faith in him.
The rest of the film is just Khan chasing after Kirk, in a game of
Who's the More Incompetent Cat and Mouse? (Patent pending.)
Seriously. Bob from accounting has got this.
But we ignore all that nonsense because of the brilliance that comes later: the drama, the suspense, the music, and Shatner and Monty's performances. Things is those things all stand on their own after most people have forgotten all about Kirk and Khan's pasts, because they don't really matter. And if someone were to take Montalban's performance and stuff it in a Bob from accounting suit (They sell them at Spencer's.) and all the other great elements from the movie stay the same, no one would even notice the absence.
The reasons why Khan was left on the planet and that specific history with Kirk are all trivial and could easily be replaced with a any number of infinite different histories.
Heck, what if the franchise started with TWOK--the
exact same film, in every single detail? There would be none of the pre-existing history, canon, or any of that crap. Would it been seen as any lesser of a film? Does its quality only stand up because of "Space Seed?" No.
And it's silly to think Sowards and Meyer would be incapable of creating an equal but completely different biography for the would-be villain. Granted, a few lines of dialog would have to changed to make it fit, but we're only talking five or ten.
Bob screws up Kirk's taxes, so Kirk banishes Bob's entire firm to a plant and the neighboring planet blows up. Mrs. Bob dies as a result. In his free time, Bob dabbles in chess, reads Dickens, Proust, and Melville, and contemplates overthrowing the world order. Oh. And plays with his slugs.
Obviously, I'm taking things tot he absurd here. But the point is there isn't a lot going on conceptually, such that, had TWOK been the start of the franchise, Sowards could have just snatched some ideas from other genre baddies, tossed them in a blender and poured what came out into a sippy cup for Monty to gargle--and we'd still have a great film and be none the wiser.
Butttt... There was a backstory to pick from. And they had a chance to use a great actor. It made the backstory easier and had the benefit of potentially putting extra butts in seats. So why not? The choice was not, however, in any way necessary.
In other words, they used Khan for pecuniary and practicality reasons rather than artistic ones.
Just like...
Bad Robot used Khan for pecuniary and practicality reasons rather than artistic ones. (Of course, I could argue that the way Abrams directed the film, the choice for Khan did have artistic merit. But that's a discussion for it's own thread ... and I digress.)
The character's "superior intellect" was necessary to his ability to menace and nearly kill Kirk & Co. with Starfleet's own hardware (including the Genesis thingamajig).
Between the staff of minions and the brainwashed dynamic duo telling him what buttons to push, Bob could have done just as well driving the bucket. David got Genesis all ready for him. This really isn't as extraordinary as some make it out to be.
The character's strength was necessary to his ability to capture and intimidate Chekov and his captain and turn them into his instruments (though they didn't expend time on having him punch people).
The fact he and his crew out number the dynamic duo by four or five to one didn't hurt either.
The character's ethnic background isn't specifically mentioned, but his background more generally is certainly relevant, since his past as an exotic ancient prince (mentioned by Khan himself in his first appearance) sets up from the outset the rationale for his followers' fatalistic loyalty to him ("sworn to live and die at my command two hundred years before you were born"), which is necessary to the rest of the plot. They don't mention his Sikh heritage specifically but they don't have to, it was the "ancient prince" trait that was centrally important to the character to begin with, anyone remembering the specifics was a bonus.
Because every gang leader, hillbilly, bible thumping anarchist cult leader, and dictator in history was a superhuman former prince. Some people are born leaders. While, it's not average, it's certainly not extraordinary. It's also pretty standard fare for movie baddies.
And the
fatalistic loyalty isn't anything not found in your run-of-the-mill Stormtrooper or Blofeldie. To suggest that the guys and gal standing at the terminals in the back of the bridge were anything more than Generic Henchies One, Two, and Three is a bit disingenuous. No one cares who, what, or why they're there.
It's comparatively a more minor nitpick for me than some of the other stuff, though.
Mostly still wrong but I'll give you points for style.
