Oh, rats! Aka "The Rat of Khan"

[Qonundrum]

While there's some great tension and suspense in this film, horror too, what's with the rat that scurries across the floor, startling Bones*, before they walk through into the lab where all the bloody corpses are?

Don't tell me Khan, Joachim, or Freddy found another lab where rats were in a cage for space tests, and Freddy opened the door to let 'em out then turned to the camera to grin like Mr Roper's stunt double, because I can't fathom - nor want to - Khan or Joachim acting like that as it spoils the tone of the scene, if not the movie.


* rats will do that. They're nasty little fritters**.

** Well, except for this one:

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

(He's so cuddly! )

 

[Richard S. Ta]

So, what’s the discussion?

 

[Qonundrum]

Why was the rat there in the first place, narratively speaking as relevant to the story, on a space station, in deep space, where transporters will filter out whatever, next to a desolate planet, where inside there's a cave transformed? Was the rat to be an experiment in the genesis cave? Or elsewhere? Weren't Khan's people too busy to get information to start letting rats out of cages for cheap thrills? Oh, not to mention that the 23rd century has enough scientific gizmos to detect atmospheric and other conditions so using rats is very 1800 of them. Doesn't make sense at all. Anyone can headcanon anything, sure. even a wizard saying "ratatoulie" while waving his magic wand and *pop* the rat appears. But... why. This isn't a gag worthy of "The Simpsons", when the story is adding nuance and point to the proceedings like puzzle pieces being fit in, in the way most non-comedy stories tend to, and stories are usually better when the flow and narrative make sense in their universe. This rat just doesn't make much sense in-universe, without a new reason applied, so it begs questions and ideas for solutions. Unless that's the point, but this is 1982 where most movies didn't... what's the word... "troll" audiences?

Otherwise it's just there so audiences gasp and react like Dr McCoy had. But Dr McCoy, being a space veteran and all that, would be more inclined to ask the obvious questions in lieu of or after being stunned by its presence -- but doesn't.