• Welcome! The TrekBBS is the number one place to chat about Star Trek with like-minded fans.
    If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

About the KHAN scream.

I was a kid when I saw TWOK in a theater. I don't remember anybody laughing and I took it seriously, as I did Spock's version.
Maybe I take things too seriously, but I was absorbed by the story, not giving the meta aspects any thought.
 
It's that time again!

jky78n.jpg



The scream was completely out of place.
I doubt it would have been better had he just screamed and thrown stuff through the room. Nobody reacts to a death like that.
 
Spock has always been shown to have issues when trying to handle emotional duress. Before the Pon Farr had even gotten remotely bad he was threatening to break McCoy's neck in "Amok Time".

It seems to me the example you give of Spock "always" having "issues when trying to handle emotional duress ..." is actually a case of massive chemical imbalance. Ie. nothing to do with "emotional duress" from a causative point of view. And while the most obvious outward signs of the Pon Farr may not have been present, how can we know what Spock was going through at that moment just because he was mostly keeping a lid on it?


But you are correct, nuSpock really isn't THAT emotionally different from his prime counterpart of around the same times.

Well, as I mentioned, apart from totally different you mean?


Firstly I loved it!

The first time I saw WOK I liked that Kirk scene (still do) but as BillJ has pointed out, it can easily be broken apart and logically the whole scene doesn't make sense. And while I enjoy the scene I can still poke fun at it, and it is obvious that it has become one of if not THE biggest thing in Trek to parody.

That's part of the reason I like the NuScream so much.

That. Took. Balls.

To take something so made fun of, pair with another familiar scene from the same movie and play it dead serious?

I already knew it was coming as I read a ton of spoiler-y nerd rage filled complaints about it in advanced and I couldn't wait to see how good/terrible it would be in the context of the film.

It doesn't give me chills now, but the first time I saw it? CHILLS! Put yourself in the story, remember what Spock has gone through since childhood, to say nothing of the huge chunk of the first film and in story; they emotionally earned that.

You can of course argue the merits of using it in the first place, and ultimately I'd love to know what the exact mindset was, but either knowingly or unknowingly they did a gutsy thing with that scene.

I can appreciate you POV and while I don't hate the scream on theological grounds, it comes off as bad taste and rubs my nose in the originality problem. Too be honest, it doesn't bother me much even so (in a film that doesn't bother me actually). They probably thought most people who saw the movie wouldn't connect it with anything and I suspect they were right. So I think putting it in was more a case of trying to be clever than an excess of balls. ;)
 
People do realize the reason Shatner's "Khan!" scream is remembered is because most people think it's funny. Seriously, how much mileage have comedians and sitcoms gotten out of it in the last thirty years?

Most people don't consider it some dramatic moment that rivals the best other movies have to offer. It's remembered because Shatner is a ham and the scream was right up his alley.
Exactly. If you go back to before STiD premiered, you can find post after post making fun of how cheezy and ridiculous (and embarrassing) Shatner's Khan scream was. It was a trope, whenever someone wanted to look silly (or have a reaction to indicate someone else's post was ridiculous), they would post a Youtube video of Shatner's Khan scream

It wasn't until after the movie premiered that all of a sudden Shatner's Khan scream was considered sacred ground and Dramatic Theatrical Excellence.

But.. I thought we mocked it because we loved it?
 
They already had a homage to the Khan scream in Trek 09, when Nero shouts "Spock!" in anger. And there it was much more organic.
 
They already had a homage to the Khan scream in Trek 09, when Nero shouts "Spock!" in anger. And there it was much more organic.

Sooooo.... now every time someone yells a name in Trek it's an homage to the 'Khan' scream?

Yeah... riiiiiight...
 
They already had a homage to the Khan scream in Trek 09, when Nero shouts "Spock!" in anger. And there it was much more organic.

Sooooo.... now every time someone yells a name in Trek it's an homage to the 'Khan' scream?

Yeah... riiiiiight...

OMG CorporalClegg your avatar is killing me! I love it!:lol::lol:
Is that an actual screencap from TAS? I've never seen it, but I went ahead and picked up TAS when I got my TOS blu rays, so I'll be watching TAS for the first time when I finish my marathon of TOS.
 
OMG CorporalClegg your avatar is killing me! I love it!:lol::lol:
Is that an actual screencap from TAS? I've never seen it, but I went ahead and picked up TAS when I got my TOS blu rays, so I'll be watching TAS for the first time when I finish my marathon of TOS.
Thanks! :techman: It's courtesy of CorporalCaptain. And, yes, it's from the TAS episode Mudd's Passion.
 
Okay, here's the thing:

Khan doesn't beam Kirk up in the original scream scene because he genuinely believes Kirk has been stranded, and genuinely believes that stranding him is a worse punishment than simply killing him. When he says "I've done worse than kill you" he means it literally.

Kirk doing the scream is playing along with this notion in order to make the deception work. He is playing the part of a man who has been successfully outwitted by Khan. (The "you're going to have to come down here" line isn't the best, but reads as a taunt out of desperation in this context.)

I always thought that was really quite obvious in TWOK, I'm surprised to see so many people are confused about it.
 
Last edited:
I have somehow managed to lose my TAS dvd set. Which is upsetting. And yeah you will love TAS because it's the same actors as voice. Some of it is hilarious.

I'm going to buy another one.. oh and as I recall the Alan Dean Foster books of TAS were great. And what's really cool is how TOS-R used visuals of Vulcan from TAS in their added scenes.
 
I am prepared for the animation to be dated and unimpressive. I think the voice acting will be a big win for me still though, and even if the eps are hit or miss, that means some will be hits. And hey, it's Star Trek I've never seen before!
 
I always thought that was really quite obvious in TWOK, I'm surprised to see so many people are confused about it.
It's not that it isn't obvious, it's that it just doesn't work. Being left to spend your retirement years in paradise with your family and best friend isn't exactly "punishment."
 
They already had a homage to the Khan scream in Trek 09, when Nero shouts "Spock!" in anger. And there it was much more organic.

Sooooo.... now every time someone yells a name in Trek it's an homage to the 'Khan' scream?

Yeah... riiiiiight...

ST09 was homaging uncontrollably from all orifices. What are chances it wasn't? ;)

BTW, having taken another look at The Menagerie it does appear my impression of Proto Spock's extroverted nature was unsupported. But he appears to behave no differently to any other human and there are a number of desplays of emotion apart from the ones with the flowers and the women. Certainly there is no indication of any Vulcan emotion suppression going on. So I would still say the two Spocks are very different emotionally even if surface impressions, due to the situations Proto Spock was in, hides that somewhat.

Of course its the second pilot that takes him a step towards his true self, but still isn't there yet.


I always thought that was really quite obvious in TWOK, I'm surprised to see so many people are confused about it.

I guess people think Shat oversold it and therefore must have actually meant it. :shrug: But it must be hard to scream "convincingly" without the facial expressiongs. The first time you see it you have no reason to doubt it of course. Then again maybe there was a script change after that?
 
I thought both of the screams were silly. Shatner's was just scene chewing, and I can't watch it without either laughing or rolling my eyes. Quinto just didn't sell it. It's an over the top moment (good or bad), ya' got gnaw on the scenery and blow out a lung; he just didn't throw himself into it.
 
I always thought that was really quite obvious in TWOK, I'm surprised to see so many people are confused about it.
It's not that it isn't obvious, it's that it just doesn't work. Being left to spend your retirement years in paradise with your family and best friend isn't exactly "punishment."

Far as Khan's concerned he's entombing Kirk in a few small chambers "in the center of a dead planet."
 
If you are not already a member then please register an account and join in the discussion!

Sign up / Register


Back
Top