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Khan's Into Darkness Appearance change finally explained

It does kind of almost sort of in a way partially make sense if you suspend a resoectable amount of disbelief. Section 31 wanted his genius but not the associated baggage. Though why they didn't just compromise and use one of the 72 others is unclear.

… because the super-secret branch of Star Fleet was worried its project to subvert the legitimate government of the Federation, build an armada of hyper-advanced weaponry, and launch a preemptive invasion of conquest against neighboring powers might suffer from some bad press if they have on staff a secret agent who looks like a half-forgotten warlord who died centuries ago …

My sentiments exactly.
 
No it isn't. Period. If it was a reboot the characters in the film wouldn't openly talk about how things turned out in the original timeline, nor would one of the participants of those events get called up on the video phone. Those things do not happen in reboots; by definition they cannot.

This.

Indeed it's just stuff I really don't give a crap about.

Plus, Khan Prime's skin colour changes between "Space Seed" and WoK anyway. He goes from awful faux-Indian brownface to Montelban's natural white skin tone.
khan_whitening.jpg



Show me three reviews that recognized this change back when TWOK was released and I'll consider respecting that argument.

Oh, so the reason pointing out that previous Star Trek films did some of the things the naysayers don't like in the new stuff is a bad thing is that the naysayers didn't actually care about it until the new people did it in a Star Trek movie.

Didn't care? No. Nobody even noticed it. For the audience there was no noticable change in Khan's appearance, other than that he got much older and wore self made clothes.

The new film on the other hand noticably whitewashed the guy.
 
Perhaps John Harriman is actually John Harriman, a follower of Khan's, who assumed his master's identity after Khan died onboard the Botany Bay due to a faulty cyrogentic tube. That would explain the differences.
 
Prime Kirk was born on Earth. In the new universe Kirk was born prematurely in a shuttle. The shuttle's shields were inadequate to fully protect Kirk, his mother, and the crew from the radiation of the nearby star, which turned his eyes blue. It all makes sense, you just don't want to see it! :p
Yep, this is Orci's official explanation that he confirmed via Twitter. :bolian:
Wait, really? :wtf:

Yep! I asked him on Twitter before he deleted his account.
 

Indeed it's just stuff I really don't give a crap about.

Show me three reviews that recognized this change back when TWOK was released and I'll consider respecting that argument.

Oh, so the reason pointing out that previous Star Trek films did some of the things the naysayers don't like in the new stuff is a bad thing is that the naysayers didn't actually care about it until the new people did it in a Star Trek movie.

Didn't care? No. Nobody even noticed it. For the audience there was no noticable change in Khan's appearance, other than that he got much older and wore self made clothes.

The new film on the other hand noticably whitewashed the guy.

It was 1982, a time before home video, easy screengrabs and photoshop comparisons. Even letterzines of the time were black and white. Had this pic been available, fans very much would have noticed and complained.
 

Indeed it's just stuff I really don't give a crap about.

Show me three reviews that recognized this change back when TWOK was released and I'll consider respecting that argument.

Oh, so the reason pointing out that previous Star Trek films did some of the things the naysayers don't like in the new stuff is a bad thing is that the naysayers didn't actually care about it until the new people did it in a Star Trek movie.

Didn't care? No. Nobody even noticed it. For the audience there was no noticable change in Khan's appearance, other than that he got much older and wore self made clothes.

Did it ever occur to you that the main reason for that might be because Space Seed wasn't available on home video at the time so that people who would be watching Wrath of Khan back then would be going off of memories of a 15 year old TV episode they may have seen once or twice.

Do you honestly think that if trek fans back then had the level of access to the old episodes we have today they wouldn't have been bitching about it?
 
i wonder if theyd have had the appearance change explanation had original choice Benico Del Toro been cast (or if theyd got STID out summer 2011 or 2012 with a pre Skyfall Javier Barhem)

probably not
 
I think people were probably more likely to accept it in TWOK just because it was the same actor, and the skin color wasn't of much consequence. When you start recasting, the gates of scrutiny are much more open. And it's not as if it was just the skin color that was different. The accent, the build, and the general character were different too.

All that said, I think an in-universe explanation isn't necessary at all. That stuff needs to be left to fanon.
 
i wonder if theyd have had the appearance change explanation had original choice Benico Del Toro been cast (or if theyd got STID out summer 2011 or 2012 with a pre Skyfall Javier Barhem)

probably not

I've often wondered this. I hope they would have, as Del Toro and Montalban look absolutely nothing alike, other than both being Latino.
 
i wonder if theyd have had the appearance change explanation had original choice Benico Del Toro been cast (or if theyd got STID out summer 2011 or 2012 with a pre Skyfall Javier Barhem)

probably not

I've often wondered this. I hope they would have, as Del Toro and Montalban look absolutely nothing alike, other than both being Latino.

Neither does Shatner and Pine or Takei and Cho, or Nichols and Saldana.

Etc, etc, etc.

Actors change, makeup gets better. It doesn't need to be a thing that's explained in-universe because the effort of explaining distracts from the actual objective: telling a good dramatic story.
 
While it effectively disarms the whiners, Khan's whiteness was never the real reason the whiners were whining, so I don't think an explanation was needed.
 
i wonder if theyd have had the appearance change explanation had original choice Benico Del Toro been cast (or if theyd got STID out summer 2011 or 2012 with a pre Skyfall Javier Barhem)

probably not

I've often wondered this. I hope they would have, as Del Toro and Montalban look absolutely nothing alike, other than both being Latino.

Neither does Shatner and Pine or Takei and Cho, or Nichols and Saldana.

Etc, etc, etc.

Actors change, makeup gets better. It doesn't need to be a thing that's explained in-universe because the effort of explaining distracts from the actual objective: telling a good dramatic story.

In my opinion, the appearance change from Montalban to Del Toro would have been too dramatic to be believable without some sort of back story (i.e. comics). With the main cast, barring a couple exceptions, I think they did a great job casting younger versions. Karl Urban in particular.
 
It does kind of almost sort of in a way partially make sense if you suspend a resoectable amount of disbelief. Section 31 wanted his genius but not the associated baggage. Though why they didn't just compromise and use one of the 72 others is unclear.

… because the super-secret branch of Star Fleet was worried its project to subvert the legitimate government of the Federation, build an armada of hyper-advanced weaponry, and launch a preemptive invasion of conquest against neighboring powers might suffer from some bad press if they have on staff a secret agent who looks like a half-forgotten warlord who died centuries ago …
Actually, the operation was as much to fool Khan himself as anyone else.
 
It makes sense as it not only helps to condition a brainwashed 'John Harrison' but so no historians he meets amongst the fleet remark about his resemblance to a certain 20th century warlord.

I agree though it didnt need to be explained, I had already assumed something like that had happened as it covers all the questions we have despite whether we like the character of 'John Harrison' and how he turned out or not.
 
I'm bringing this back.

tumblr_molqahk73o1qct9a2o2_r2_400.gif
While the picture made me laugh, it isn't particularly fair, is it.

I think the casting was great, and most new actors nailed the character, without copying the old actors. But truth to be told, with the exception of maybe Quinto and Urban, the new guys look nothing like their predecessors. Cho, Yelchin and Pegg in particular look very different from Takei, Koenig, and Doohan.
 
i wonder why they didnt just explain it in the film? E.g. In the brig khan says Marcus gave him a new face....and/or then had a brief scene of Spock using the ships computer to unearth a photo of Montalban - the same photo of Khan from the briefing room scene in Space Seed

Likely done for the sake of those in the audience not familiar with TOS. They won't care or notice that Khan is a white guy. It was likely considered an unnecessary distraction, although to be honest so was the bridge scene in Trek XI which is basically "we're in a reboot, that stuff that happened before doesn't matter."

But anyway, it was probably felt only a small percentage of the audience would really care anyway, and so it would be best to serve their desires in the form of a comic instead.
 
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