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Comparing actors' portrayals of the same role (possible spoilers)

S

sonak

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Maybe there was already a thread on this, but I didn't see it. I think this is going to be like the "Jack Nicholson's Joker vs. Heath Ledger's Joker" for Star Trek. I think the way the played the character was very different, Montalban's Khan was fiery and passionate, whereas Cumberbatch's was cooler and flatter. Also in STXI they actually gave flashes of Khan's intellect, whereas in TWOK we just get told about it over and over again, but Khan doesn't really demonstrate it. Cumberbatch's is more devious, Montalban's is more direct.


So- overall, who was the better Khan?
 
Re:
's
vs. Cumberbatch's
Khanberbatch > Montelkhan

He actually does superhuman stuff, and appeared to grasp the three dimensional nature of space;)
 
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Re:
's
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Obviously Montalban. Hugely captivating and memorable.

Cumberbatch's John Harrison had the potential to be a great villain in his own right but the Khan revelation completely neutered him. The actor gave a great performance though, and with a better script he'd have given good competition. As it stands, he's kinda a generic modern blockbuster villain in the mould of Ledger's Joker, Loki from The Avengers, and Silva from Skyfall. Though they were much better.

Montalban was Khan. The fact originally conceived villain John Harrison turned out to be Khan in a contrived twist, was incidental to the storyline and amounted to a gimmick. Quality will always beat gimmick.
 
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's
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Cumberbatch and the current take on Khan didn't do much for me. MontalKhan all the way.
 
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's
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(possible spoile
sorry about the lack of spoiler tags in the title. I thought the movie had been out long enough now that it was no longer really a spoiler.


demerit for me
 
Re:
's
vs. Cumberbatch's
DalekJim said:
The fact originally conceived villain John Harrison turned out to be Khan in a contrived twist, was incidental to the storyline and amounted to a gimmick.
Click to expand...

And it makes no sense to me at all that they went to him for help designing the Vengeance. You would go to your 23rd century engineers for that, not Khan.

I read a Lindelof interview that more or less explained why it ended up being Khan. Basically they were hearing "don't do Khan" so much that they felt they had to do Khan. Brer Rabbit was even namedropped. :rolleyes: And now that Khan's out of the way... wait for it... it frees them up to do something original. Because that worked out so well last time.

You know, sometimes when people are incessantly telling you that you shouldn't do something, it's better to actually not do the thing everyone is saying you shouldn't do.

Just saying.
 
Re:
's
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(possible spoile
Doing Khan is lazy and obvious but I wouldn't mind as much if they did use him, as long as they did it properly. It was the weird halfway measured John Harrison angle we got that made Khan lack impact.

I keep forgetting the Benedict Cumberbatch villain in the movie I saw this summer was Khan. And I'm a Star Trek obsessive.
 
Re:
's
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(possible spoile
sonak said:
sorry about the lack of spoiler tags in the title. I thought the movie had been out long enough now that it was no longer really a spoiler.
Click to expand...
It's still to open in a few more places. Another six weeks, and then we'll be able to relax on that, for the most part.
 
Re:
's
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(possible spoile
Remember when Star Trek had good writers? It was ace.
 
In all honesty, I couldn't care too much about them bringing Khan back. Every Trek movie since 1996 has tried to imitate TWOK in some way that maybe it's time to revisit the movie or character just to get it out of their system.

Rather, it's the half-assed way they brought him back. Orci admitted that they created a new character to be the villain and then named the character Khan. What the hell is that? You create a new character, use the new character.
 
Re:
's
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(possible spoile
DalekJim said:
Remember when Star Trek had good writers? It was ace.
Click to expand...
You think the writers of your favourite DS9 (or whatever) episodes would be able to write a big-budget blockbuster that could compete with the rest? I suspect it's the genre itself you object to most of all.
 
Yes, I think my favourite DS9, TNG, and TOS writers are better than Orci and Kurtzman.

King Daniel Into Darkness said:
I suspect it's the genre itself you object to most of all.
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Not really. There can be smart action blockbusters, or at least blockbusters that try to be smart. I don't see stupidity as something to be praised.

Now you'll reply with "But it must be good man, it sells loads!", completely misunderstanding that I don't care about that.
 
Apples and oranges to compare, they were two different performances that I enjoy equally. While I think the method they used to reveal Khan has already been done to death it didn't ruin anything for me.

People still praise Cumberbatch's performance which just makes them come off like "how dare someone have the nerve to recast Khan" which in the world of Trek fandom is the most played out thing making the rounds these days.

Star Trek has never been overly smart or subversive. It has the appearance of being above the rest by sometimes talking about subjects other shows didn't and as a result that has given fans some inflated sense of self importance.

I cant think of a single episode of Trek that actually made me think about something in a new way. Sure they tell good stories, but lots of shows and movies do that. Most Trek fans (myself included) tend to look at the show with rose colored glasses but quite a few of us are viewing it with 6 or 7 pairs of those glasses.
 
Re:
's
vs. Cumberbatch's
King Daniel Into Darkness said:
Khanberbatch > Montelkhan

He actually does superhuman stuff, and appeared to grasp the three dimensional nature of space;)
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Gotta agree to disagree with you there.

This is like saying PineKirk>ShatKirk or QuintoSpock>NimoySpock, IMHO.

All three cases you had good actors, and they were entertaining, but better than the original actor? Hardly.
 
DalekJim said:
...and with a better script he'd have given good competition. As it stands, he's kinda a generic modern blockbuster villain in the mould of Ledger's Joker, Loki from The Avengers, and Silva from Skyfall. Though they were much better.

... The fact originally conceived villain John Harrison turned out to be Khan in a contrived twist, was incidental to the storyline and amounted to a gimmick. Quality will always beat gimmick.
Click to expand...
DalekJim said:
Doing Khan is lazy and obvious but I wouldn't mind as much if they did use him, as long as they did it properly. It was the weird halfway measured John Harrison angle we got that made Khan lack impact.

I keep forgetting the Benedict Cumberbatch villain in the movie I saw this summer was Khan. And I'm a Star Trek obsessive.
Click to expand...
DalekJim said:
Remember when Star Trek had good writers? It was ace.
Click to expand...
DalekJim said:
Yes, I think my favourite DS9, TNG, and TOS writers are better than Orci and Kurtzman.

King Daniel Into Darkness said:
I suspect it's the genre itself you object to most of all.
Click to expand...

Not really. There can be smart action blockbusters, or at least blockbusters that try to be smart. I don't see stupidity as something to be praised.

Now you'll reply with "But it must be good man, it sells loads!", completely misunderstanding that I don't care about that.
Click to expand...
No, here's where I reply that the topic of this thread is "comparing actors' portrayals of the same role"—specifically Cumberbatch's and Montalban's portrayals of Khan—and that if one has a complaint about the "smartness" of the writing, one really ought to go start a thread with that as the primary topic and leave off attempts at peevishly hijacking this one.
 
sonak said:
Maybe there was already a thread on this, but I didn't see it. I think this is going to be like the "Jack Nicholson's Joker vs. Heath Ledger's Joker" for Star Trek. I think the way the played the character was very different, Montalban's Khan was fiery and passionate, whereas Cumberbatch's was cooler and flatter. Also in STXI they actually gave flashes of Khan's intellect, whereas in TWOK we just get told about it over and over again, but Khan doesn't really demonstrate it. Cumberbatch's is more devious, Montalban's is more direct.


So- overall, who was the better Khan?
Click to expand...

in TWOK Khan had wanted revenge against the man he thought had wrong him James T. Kirk. That desire had been festering years, compare that to when he appeared in "Space Seed".

I prefer Montalban's Khan but that might be down to that's the one I grew up with.
 
Cumberbatch is far better actor than Montalban. His Khan was far more nuanced, especially when compared to TWOK Khan. But there is something about the way Montalban chews the scenery.
 
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