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MontalKhan, brownfaced?

I just want to apologise if I turned this into a race debate. It wasn't my intention but I can see it has happened. I've taken on board all the comments during this discussion and concluded that above all else what bothers me isn't how Khan looks in the latest movie but the fact he's such a departure from the classic version. I feel he's so different he really didn't need to be Khan at all but that's just my opinion.

I should apologize then. I took the original post as questioning the morality of an activity that, at that time, was common, but now would be unacceptable. I should have read it more as general curiosity.
 
The becomes Khan Noonien Singh. Which is a bit problematic for the seemingly Sikh character, as Khan in South Asia is usually a Muslim name and Noonien isn't South Asian at all.
My thought is that his actual name is Noonien Singh, and that Khan is a title that he insists people use to address him.
I've had that thought as well.

I thought he was named after a friend of GR's?
 
The spelling Trek uses is also a fairly common Russian name. For eg. German Khan.
 
What's supposed to be the idea behind Benedict Cumberbatch's Khan? Plastic surgery? Voice modification? Not that Montalban's Khan was the correct ethnicity either but if we're expected to believe they're the same character then shouldn't the new Khan at least be Mexican in appearance? I just don't get how he's a white English guy.

In universe, they are the same guy.

No it is an alternate reality, a different universe. So the Khan in that universe could have a different appearance, they aren't the same person.

I just want to apologise if I turned this into a race debate. It wasn't my intention but I can see it has happened. I've taken on board all the comments during this discussion and concluded that above all else what bothers me isn't how Khan looks in the latest movie but the fact he's such a departure from the classic version. I feel he's so different he really didn't need to be Khan at all but that's just my opinion.

It's a reboot, so everything is different, no need to apologize.
 
What's supposed to be the idea behind Benedict Cumberbatch's Khan? Plastic surgery? Voice modification? Not that Montalban's Khan was the correct ethnicity either but if we're expected to believe they're the same character then shouldn't the new Khan at least be Mexican in appearance? I just don't get how he's a white English guy.

In universe, they are the same guy.

No it is an alternate reality, a different universe. So the Khan in that universe could have a different appearance, they aren't the same person.

I just want to apologise if I turned this into a race debate. It wasn't my intention but I can see it has happened. I've taken on board all the comments during this discussion and concluded that above all else what bothers me isn't how Khan looks in the latest movie but the fact he's such a departure from the classic version. I feel he's so different he really didn't need to be Khan at all but that's just my opinion.

It's a reboot, so everything is different, no need to apologize.
Nope on both. The split happens at Kirk's birth/Nero's arrival. Everything prior that is the same. Any differences are due to "artistic license".
 
No it is an alternate reality, a different universe. So the Khan in that universe could have a different appearance, they aren't the same person.

According to the writers, it is a branch of the main universe. Hence, Khan is Khan and Data's head is buried under San Francisco. :techman:
 
SPOCK: You are assuming that Nero knows how events are predicted to unfold. To the contrary, Nero's very presence has altered the flow of history, beginning with the attack on the USS Kelvin, culminating in the events of today, thereby creating an entire new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party.
UHURA: An alternate reality?
SPOCK: Precisely. Whatever our lives might have been, if the time continuum was disrupted, our destinies have changed. Mr. Sulu, plot a course to the Laurentian system warp factor three
Yeah, if Spock says it. I believe it.
 
No it is an alternate reality, a different universe. So the Khan in that universe could have a different appearance, they aren't the same person.

According to the writers, it is a branch of the main universe. Hence, Khan is Khan and Data's head is buried under San Francisco. :techman:

Won't that be a crazy episode in Abrams Trek? ;)

Also, is plastic surgery really all that odd for an explanation as to Cumberbatch's Khan? Seriously, it seems simple enough to me :confused:

Or, maybe Harrison is not Khan at all, but rather one of his followers who adopted his leader's name when Khan was executed by Section 31 for noncompliance.

I should start a business of filling in plot holes. I think I could make some money. :techman:
 
I read the novelization just after seeing the movie, and Khan's monologue is phrased a little differently.

"John Harrison‘ was a fiction created the moment I was awoken by your Admiral Marcus to help him advance his cause. A smoke screen, a nonexistent reality, an imagined self, all concocted to conceal my true identity. Because it would not have gone well for your admiral had my true name become known at the time of my revival. Some curious ensign might have decided, in a moment ofboredom, to run a search on it. Then everything might have become . . . difficult." He paused, smiled, and went silent.

Somehow that initially managed to give me the impression that he'd always been intended to have been 'Face-Offed'. I didn't realize otherwise until I went on the 'net.
 
SPOCK: You are assuming that Nero knows how events are predicted to unfold. To the contrary, Nero's very presence has altered the flow of history, beginning with the attack on the USS Kelvin, culminating in the events of today, thereby creating an entire new chain of incidents that cannot be anticipated by either party.
UHURA: An alternate reality?
SPOCK: Precisely. Whatever our lives might have been, if the time continuum was disrupted, our destinies have changed. Mr. Sulu, plot a course to the Laurentian system warp factor three
Yeah, I, Spock says it. I believe it.

Which Spock is that, Alternate universe Quinto Spock or Alternate universe Spock that looks like our Spock?

I would like to see a Star Trek story based on the "Council of Reeds" from Marvel comics, a "Council of Spocks" Spocks from each universe convene to discuss their various universe's problems.
 
...Pine's accent is different from Shatner's, too. Not to mention all the big three have totally different pitch ranges from their forebears. Do people really mind such things as a "British accent"?

Timo Saloniemi

Yes. Montalban's voice and delivery was a key part of what made Khan memorable. Cumberbach has a distinctive voice (hence Smaug) but it's just not in the same realm as Montalban's latin-lover vibe.

With Alice Eve, it's more of a character background issue, as Bibi Besch had such a middle-American vibe to her that Alice Eve's strong accent clashes in a big way.
 
So strong I never even realised that there was such thing as a 'Middle American vibe'.

Seriously Americans, what is a Middle American?
 
So strong I never even realised that there was such thing as a 'Middle American vibe'.

Seriously Americans, what is a Middle American?

I have no clue and have lived in the Midwest most of my life.
 
So strong I never even realised that there was such thing as a 'Middle American vibe'.

Seriously Americans, what is a Middle American?

Enjoy the read.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_American

I'll tell ya one thing, it's light-years away from Alice Eve's accent. On her wiki page it lists her as being able to do an American accent (in Big Nothing with Simon Pegg) which makes it that much clearer that they didn't care about continuity.
 
Different actors have different accents. It's completely unimportant.
 
On her wiki page it lists her as being able to do an American accent (in Big Nothing with Simon Pegg) which makes it that much clearer that they didn't care about continuity.

My wife really isn't a Star Trek fan, but loves movies in general. The other day we're watching The Wrath of Khan and she comments what a good job they did with picking Alice Eve to play the younger Carol Marcus.

Now you may say: "big fucking deal". Which is cool. But my wife was raised in Alabama and had a deep southern accent when she moved here. Now? Twenty years later? You couldn't tell she had ever been anywhere but here in the Tri-State area.

Accents come and go.
 
Ahem, from that link:

General American (abbreviated as GA or GenAm) is an umbrella variety of American English—a continuum of accents[1]—commonly attributed to a majority of Americans and perceived as lacking any notably regional, ethnic, or socioeconomic characteristics.[2][3][4] However, the General American sound system does, in fact, have traceable regional origins (cue the different origins) .

...it is sometimes, though controversially,[9] referred to as a de facto standard accent of the United States.[8] Scholars continue to debate the precise definition and usefulness of the term,[10][11][12] with those who use it today admittedly doing so as a convenient basis for comparison rather than for exactness.[10][13]

So in other words, it means nothing in particular. It's just a twang that a couple of different accents have in common, but even amongst those it's not consistent. And the article you linked to comments that it's also seen as a buzzword that was coined merely for vague and reasonably uninformed comparisons.

That article also mentions nothing about 'Middle America.'

This conversation feels very familiar. I seem to recall similar complaints falling down when it was pointed out that modern accents shouldn't exist 'in universe' in Star Trek at all, someone mentioning every damn alien in the Galaxy has either a British or 'middle American' accent, the oh-so French Picard was brought up...etc etc.

And it's also not a continuity problem. Even if Prime Marcus was born in the States and had a 'general american' accent, there's an in-universe reason why Nu-Marcus doesn't have to have one, besides the actors simply changing. Thanks to diverging timelines, this Marcus lead a different life that included being raised in England - which is confirmed in the deleted scenes. It's no more ignoring continuity than Kirk and Spock having each lost a parent, and Uhura's hair now being worn longer.
 
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