If You Want Blood, You've Got It! (spoiler)

[austen_pierce]

In STiD,

Spoiler: movie ending

Khan's blood is revealed to be critical to reviving Kirk after McCoy inadvertently revives a tribble (Zombie tribble??? how long had that thing been dead anyway?) Is Khan's blood unique in this respect? Could McCoy have thawed any of the other augments and used their blood instead? He actually does pull an augment out of a cryotube and puts him in a coma so that he can freeze Kirk? Was any of this necessary? I don't see why Khan's blood would be different from the other augments in it's restorative properties.

Sorry to wrap this whole thing in a spoiler, but it is sensitive for those who haven't seen the film.

 

[BillJ]

We really don't know if the other Augments have the same regenerative properties?

 

[OpenMaw]

We really don't know if the other Augments have the same regenerative properties?

By that same logic there's no reason to assume they don't, and McCoy was simply pressed for time.

 

[ComicGuy89]

This is one of the things that I think it relatively easy to reconcile. If I were in McCoy's position, I wouldn't know if Khan's blood was different from the other augments. I do know, however, that:

1. Khan's blood has been proven to be regenerative.
2. Spock is on the ground now, potentially killing Khan in mere seconds

Sure the other augments might work, but McCoy was pressed for time to run experiments and so why not do the most foolproof thing and get Khan's?

 

[F. King Daniel]

We don't know if all the augments were made to the same specifications. Take a look at Bashir - no way does he have super blood. Khan's was a 100% known quantity, and still took weeks of work by McCoy to make into something that could cure Kirk's radiation damage.

 

[OpenMaw]

Khan's was a 100% known quantity, and still took weeks of work by McCoy to make into something that could cure Kirk's radiation damage.

Where did you get that? I assumed that the time given was for Kirk's recovery time, right?

 

[OpenMaw]

Oops. Double post. I don't know how that happened.

 

[MrJ]

We don't know if all the augments were made to the same specifications. Take a look at Bashir - no way does he have super blood.

Reboot Bashir probably would. He would also have super strength and probably be white.

Khan's was a 100% known quantity, and still took weeks of work by McCoy to make into something that could cure Kirk's radiation damage.

Weeks? Maybe weeks for Kirk to fully recover from his minor case of death. But it was mere minutes for McCoy to bring a dead Tribble back to life. So it probably took just a couple hours for him to modify the super blood to cure Kirks death.

 

[austen_pierce]

I understand the doubt as to whether the other augments had the same restorative properties as Khan. I don't know why they wouldn't though. Unless you're making X-Men, why create augments but give individuals different features. IMO that's just asking for infighting which would inevitable destabilize their movement toward a perfect society.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I understand the doubt as to whether the other augments had the same restorative properties as Khan. I don't know why they wouldn't though. Unless you're making X-Men, why create augments but give individuals different features. IMO that's just asking for infighting which would inevitable destabilize their movement toward a perfect society.

Khan was a know quantity, who's blood had been tested. Its that simple. The other augments probably do have magic blood, but there wasn't time to be sure.

Bashir, who was "augmented" later, didn't have the superstrength of the earlier ones, just heightened intellect and reflexes.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Take a look at Bashir - no way does he have super blood.

Reboot Bashir probably would. He would also have super strength and probably be white.

You mean, like Montalban?

 

[Tosk]

It's funny how Khan's blood sample brought a dead tribble back to life well after the fact, but it's imperative that Khan be kept alive so we can save Kirk! A dead Khan full of blood would have done just as well as a live one.

 

[Nerys Myk]

It's funny how Khan's blood sample brought a dead tribble back to life well after the fact, but it's imperative that Khan be kept alive so we can save Kirk! A dead Khan full of blood would have done just as well as a live one.

I assume the blood sample from Khan was preserved in some way. As blood used in medical procedures usually are. You don't just toss the bag from a donor into a box and place it on shelf next to the cotton swabs and bandages. Would blood from a corpse work as well as blood from a living person in most medical procedures? I'm thinking no.

 

[Cyke101]

Take a look at Bashir - no way does he have super blood.

Reboot Bashir probably would. He would also have super strength and probably be white.

You mean, like Montalban?

Except Montalban was cast at a time when roles for brown people were so rare that any brown person could play any brown person, and Roddenberry lobbied hard for the studio to allow him to cast a POC in a significant guest role where a brown person wasn't a waiter or a henchman or a drunk, but someone who was every bit the intellectual and charismatic rival of the all-American hero embodied by Kirk -- a revolutionary concept at the time.

I swear, as good as Cumberbatch was, I really doubt he advanced the social justice cause of increasing the visibility of white actors in film, considering that 75% of all movie roles, and 90% of all starring/headlining roles, are played by white men. Compare that to the 60s, when significant roles for people of color were a fraction of a percent, when roles for people like Montalban and Takei and Omar Sharif were extremely few and far between. Institutional racism isn't gone in the workplace, and it's even more prevalent in Hollywood. Cumberbatch taking the role and somehow seeming like it's some misguided sense of equality only sweeps to the side the fact that minority actors are severely underutilized, especially in roles that are written and meant for them.

 

[Nightowl1701]

Surprised I have to post this again. From Alan Dean Foster's novelization:

“McCoy to bridge. I can’t reach Spock from sickbay. Listen to me. Khan—I need Khan alive. You get that murderous sonuvabitch back on this ship right now.” He took a deep breath. “I think he can save Kirk.”
As he closed the communication, he found Carol gazing at him intently. “What about bringing one of the other members of Khan’s crew out of cryosleep? Even if they don’t revive... properly...it’s not their opinions we need.”
McCoy looked toward the prone form of Kirk lying motionless on the gurney, where he continued to be prepped and monitored by the team of medical technicians.
“Too risky. I think this might work with Khan. I don’t know how much alike he and his crew are, and I don’t have time to find out. If there’s even the slightest unresolved difference between their respective physiologies, then we might be doing nothing but wasting our time and what little, if any, Jim has left. And I have to have Khan alive, because I don’t know what death might do to his body...or the viability of its respective components.” He shook his head in dismay. “It’s Khan—or nothing.”

 

[Nerys Myk]

Reboot Bashir probably would. He would also have super strength and probably be white.

You mean, like Montalban?

Except Montalban was cast at a time when roles for brown people were so rare that any brown person could play any brown person, and Roddenberry lobbied hard for the studio to allow him to cast a POC in a significant guest role where a brown person wasn't a waiter or a henchman or a drunk, but someone who was every bit the intellectual and charismatic rival of the all-American hero embodied by Kirk -- a revolutionary concept at the time.

I swear, as good as Cumberbatch was, I really doubt he advanced the cause of increasing the visibility of white actors in film, considering that 75% of all movie roles, and 90% of all starring/headlining roles, are played by white men. Compare that to the 60s, when significant roles for people of color were a fraction of a percent, when roles for people like Montalban and Takei and Omar Sharif were extremely few and far between. Institutional racism isn't gone in the workplace, and it's even more prevalent in Hollywood.

The studios, networks and advertisers at that time were actually pushing for more POC on televison and specifically asked Roddenberry ( and other producers) to diversify his cast. Montalban's ancestry is European, both of his parents were from Spain and required make up to play Khan. He was also working pretty steadily in TV as a guest star throughout the 1960s. So I doubt GR had to lobby that hard to get him. He seem to be a sought after actor.

 

[Tosk]

Would blood from a corpse work as well as blood from a living person in most medical procedures? I'm thinking no.

I was half joking, but I didn't go to med-school so I'm unfamiliar with the properties of magic blood.

 

[iguana_tonante]

Reboot Bashir probably would. He would also have super strength and probably be white.

You mean, like Montalban?

Except Montalban was cast at a time when roles for brown people were so rare that any brown person could play any brown person

Montalban is white.

 

[Tosk]

You mean, like Montalban?

Except Montalban was cast at a time when roles for brown people were so rare that any brown person could play any brown person

Montalban is white.

No, he was Mexican.

 

[F. King Daniel]

^White hispanic. They used makeup to darken his skin tone in "Space Seed"