What if Khan was picked up by someone else?

[Shawnster]

Thing that always got me was how Khan knew so much about the Klingons in Wrath! If he'd met them at any time why didn't he ask them to transport him off that hell hole? And if he'd been listening to their top ten hits as they passed by why not ask them top pick his people up? It's just that he seemed to know so much about their sayings and such for a marooned superman!
JB

In my head canon Khan had a book with Klingon proverbs on Ceti Alpha V

 

[alensatemybuick1]

Whenever I see these "what if" threads, I am reminded of what my Dad would say when I asked how a story / book/ movie ended: "they all died and lived happily ever after".

 

[TREK_GOD_1]

Not just for the change in actors, of course (although I might point out that Ricardo Montalban's dark skin color in "Space Seed" was fake - IRL, he's just as white as Cumby).

Not really....

 

[johnnybear]

I think Into Darkness made a big blunder by having Cumberbatch as Khan! Firstly I wouldn't say the part was right for him and two, Khan should have been played as an Asiatic role rather than a dark haired Britisher! It would have been better to have either shown or remarked about Kirk discovering the SS Botany Bay rather than somebody else which takes away the feud between the two characters! I enjoyed the first JJ Trek but this one not so much even if it was our last Trek with Leonard Nimoy!
JB

 

[johnnybear]

In my head canon Khan had a book with Klingon proverbs on Ceti Alpha V

That would work, Shawn! Or he read it in one of the manuals before he became fatigued on The Enterprise or they lent him a book when they sent him to Ceti alpha V?
JB

 

[Tomalak]

ISTR they originally wanted Benicio del Toro to play Khan.

 

[Paradise City]

Kahn is a total culture vulture and no doubt with the inclement weather outside the Superman Book Club got through a helluva lotta literature. Off screen, he was probably throwin' out Cardassian quips, pakled proverbs and a few Romulan ripostes for good measure.

I've tried to love CumberKahn. I've tried. For me if it isn't Montalabn trying to give an elastic legged Shatner a jolly good hiding with an iron bar or them both in their mature years growlin at each other 'cross a view screen, then Kahn just ain't happenin' for me y'know?

 

[Doc Mugatu]

Instead of Kirk and the Enterprise, what if it had been a Vulcan starship, Romulan, Klingion, or another species?...

Or perhaps by the Vogons! Kahn could lead a mighty Vogon space armada and he would be the heroic subject of much of their poetry.

Or maybe Zaphod Beeblebrox, Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect could pick him up in the Heart-Of-Gold and introduce him to a few Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters!

 

[johnnybear]

ISTR they originally wanted Benicio del Toro to play Khan.

Easily a better choice! No idea why he didn't get the part!
JB

 

[Tomalak]

Easily a better choice! No idea why he didn't get the part!
JB

He turned it down.

 

[Tenacity]

I think Khan could quickly rally a Klingon crew to his cause.

apparently in order to get a klingon crew to swear allegiance to a new leader, all you have to do is feed them.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

apparently in order to get a klingon crew to swear allegiance to a new leader, all you have to do is feed them.

That was a special case. The crew of the Sarcophagus were running seriously low on supplies and were on the verge of starving to death. That's why Kol's tactic (of bribing them with food) worked.

 

[ZapBrannigan]

Easily a better choice! No idea why he didn't get the part!

He doesn't come right out and admit it, but it seems clear from this...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Into_Darkness#Critical_reception

...that Roberto Orci, a Mexican, was unwilling to "demonize" anyone but a white Anglo.

The same situation is occurring in the recent Star Wars films: diversity is for the heroes, while the villains have to be white Anglos. That's just the way it is now.

 

[TrickyDickie]

Or perhaps by the Vogons! Kahn could lead a mighty Vogon space armada and he would be the heroic subject of much of their poetry.

Or maybe Zaphod Beeblebrox, Arthur Dent and Ford Prefect could pick him up in the Heart-Of-Gold and introduce him to a few Pan-Galactic Gargle Blasters!

They need to shoot a special scene for future discs of Into Darkness in which halfway through there is a pause and Wowbagger comes along to insult Khan. That would be priceless....

 

[Brennyren]

He doesn't come right out and admit it, but it seems clear from this...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Star_Trek_Into_Darkness#Critical_reception

...that Roberto Orci, a Mexican, was unwilling to "demonize" anyone but a white Anglo.

He does indeed admit it. Quote from the Wiki entry:

On Trekmovie.com, co-producer and co-screenwriter Bob Orci addressed Khan's casting: "Basically, as we went through the casting process and we began honing in on the themes of the movie, it became uncomfortable for me to support demonizing anyone of color, particularly any one of Middle Eastern descent or anyone evoking that."

I can't help feeling he/they missed the subversiveness of the original Khan casting (yes, Montalbán's brown-face and all): the ultimate in human development, the superman who dominated all the supermen, was not a white man. In an age when segregation was still being fought in the United States, this geeky little TV show presented a character who was supposed to be the strongest, smartest, and most capable of humanity as a non-white!

And in our modern era, the pinnacle of human development is excruciatingly white, as pasty-faced culturally as he is physically. This is progress?

 

[alensatemybuick1]

Al this talk of Cumberbatch reminds me of this interview clip from the premiere of Into Darkness; from 3:00 to 4:13 marks Pegg kind of "deconstructs" the man.

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[SpyOne]

Montelban was Latino -- and to him, and in his life, that difference made a vast difference.

Also his accent was Spanish, not "American hispanic".
He recounted how he was picked on as a child because he spoke like his immigrant parents rather than like a Mexican.

It's also worth noting that the character that became Khan was originally a nordic, and only became asian after Montelban was cast.

 

[Qonundrum]

ISTR they originally wanted Benicio del Toro to play Khan.

Did they ask him? Did he turn it down? Or just wanted him and went for a more recent name instead to puppet the character with?

IMHO, they would have been better off. Cumberbatch did scene chewing but not in any good or artistic way. He comes across as another beige cookie cutter heavy, hoping fans would take their nostalgia to put in to compensate the comparative zilch on screen. "My name is Khan!" Okey dokey, forgive me for spitting out my drink laughing and hoping MST3K would do a very special episode because this is the lamest form of pastiche parody I'd ever seen. (I like aspects of the movie. Revealing Khan was not one of them, neither was Spock mimicking Kirk from STII for yet another pointless bath in nostalgia... Indeed, Into Darkness arguably didn't need NuKhan in any way shape or form (apart from having a John Harrison as a side character), there was enough of a plot with the Admiral and for STID to have held its own without relying on remaking Khan as a big bland crutch.)

 

[TrickyDickie]

It would have been cool if they had cast Edward James Olmos as Khan. Something like 'Space Seed' could have happened with Khan and George Kirk.

Nimoy had wanted Olmos to play Kruge in TSFS.

 

[Nyotarules]

Where's this figure come from?

Deep space 9 Take me out to the holosuite
ENT Augment episodes