So, what’s with the obsession with Khan? I’ve seen repeatedly how he’s referred to as “Star Trek’s greatest villain.”
Star Trek Enterprise focused on the Eugenics Wars with the Augments.
SNW has a descendant of Khan as a crewmember.
Every so often, the films try to make their villain “the next Khan.”
In STID, Prime Spock calls him the “most dangerous adversary the Enterprise ever faced.”
Honestly, I don’t get it. Khan, as played by Ricardo Montalban, was charismatic and enjoyable to watch but he was far from the Enterprise’s greatest challenge.
Space Seed: he only succeeds because the people around him are easily exploited. McGivers is infatuated and ridiculous. Kirk is really shortsighted for giving Khan access to his ship’s tech manuals and ignoring Spock’s warnings. Once he realizes the stakes, Kirk fights Khan hand to hand…and defeats him with no more difficulty than he did Ben Finney. Kirk just used a pipe and didn’t even rip his shirt in the process (this is one of those episodes which probably would have worked better as a two-parter).
Kirk had a harder time defeating Gary Mitchell, Apollo, the planet killer and Nomad.
The Wrath of Khan: granted it’s a fine film, but again, Khan is hardly brilliant – in fact he seems LESS intelligent that he was in the series and merely takes advantage of the arrival of Reliant, the eels and Kirk (again) being off his game. As soon as Kirk’s got his groove back, he defeats Khan in a fair ship to ship fight. Spock only died getting the ship out of the Genesis wave in time. Khan didn’t kill him. There was no “great cost” in defeating Khan, Kirk already did it. Spock simply got them out of danger so they could survive the victory.
The fan and public response to the film (which was seen as a giant improvement over TMP) elevated Khan’s stock, but it was in the open ended mature of Khan’s fate in Space Seed that Harve Bennett saw the potential in Khan’s story. The episode itself is actually average (but the scenes between Shatner and Montalban crackle). For all of the actual talking and references Kirk made to Khan in the film, they could have cast Michael Ansara, changed a few lines and called it “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kang.” AND it would have explained Chekov knowing who Kang was and vice versa. There was no personal connection for Kirk, regardless of how often I read that as a main justification for Khan being Kirk’s greatest nemesis. Kirk recognizes Khan, acknowledges that Khan blames him for his wife’s death, but other than the deleted sick bay scene, there are almost no references BY KIRK to what happened before. Kirk is more concerned with confronting Carol and David.
So why are so many later shows, movies and people so focused on Khan? They keep telling us how formidable he was but I never saw it.
Star Trek Enterprise focused on the Eugenics Wars with the Augments.
SNW has a descendant of Khan as a crewmember.
Every so often, the films try to make their villain “the next Khan.”
In STID, Prime Spock calls him the “most dangerous adversary the Enterprise ever faced.”
Honestly, I don’t get it. Khan, as played by Ricardo Montalban, was charismatic and enjoyable to watch but he was far from the Enterprise’s greatest challenge.
Space Seed: he only succeeds because the people around him are easily exploited. McGivers is infatuated and ridiculous. Kirk is really shortsighted for giving Khan access to his ship’s tech manuals and ignoring Spock’s warnings. Once he realizes the stakes, Kirk fights Khan hand to hand…and defeats him with no more difficulty than he did Ben Finney. Kirk just used a pipe and didn’t even rip his shirt in the process (this is one of those episodes which probably would have worked better as a two-parter).
Kirk had a harder time defeating Gary Mitchell, Apollo, the planet killer and Nomad.
The Wrath of Khan: granted it’s a fine film, but again, Khan is hardly brilliant – in fact he seems LESS intelligent that he was in the series and merely takes advantage of the arrival of Reliant, the eels and Kirk (again) being off his game. As soon as Kirk’s got his groove back, he defeats Khan in a fair ship to ship fight. Spock only died getting the ship out of the Genesis wave in time. Khan didn’t kill him. There was no “great cost” in defeating Khan, Kirk already did it. Spock simply got them out of danger so they could survive the victory.
The fan and public response to the film (which was seen as a giant improvement over TMP) elevated Khan’s stock, but it was in the open ended mature of Khan’s fate in Space Seed that Harve Bennett saw the potential in Khan’s story. The episode itself is actually average (but the scenes between Shatner and Montalban crackle). For all of the actual talking and references Kirk made to Khan in the film, they could have cast Michael Ansara, changed a few lines and called it “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kang.” AND it would have explained Chekov knowing who Kang was and vice versa. There was no personal connection for Kirk, regardless of how often I read that as a main justification for Khan being Kirk’s greatest nemesis. Kirk recognizes Khan, acknowledges that Khan blames him for his wife’s death, but other than the deleted sick bay scene, there are almost no references BY KIRK to what happened before. Kirk is more concerned with confronting Carol and David.
So why are so many later shows, movies and people so focused on Khan? They keep telling us how formidable he was but I never saw it.
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