Was Ricardo Montalban really the right actor to play Khan?

[DimesDan]

American-accented english IS becoming the norm.

When I hear most people speaking english as a second language they are speaking it with an 'American' accent. I think that trend will continue.

Most scandinavians speak english with an american accent and they are right next to Britain.

Not exactly, break out a map and you'll see there's a good few hundred miles between this fair isle and Sweden, Norway etc. Also, my accent is markedly different from, say a person living about twenty miles away, so just because two locations may be geographically close, does not mean people in both locations will sound the same.

 

[ScatmanRescueMe]

I don't need to 'break out a map'---I know exactly where scandinavia is compared to Britain.

My point that you missed is........

People fairly close to britain are still more likely to speak english with an american accent than a british one. Unless perhaps they are mimicing an 'upper-crusty' type accent for effect.

And of course the ''American accent' i'm referring to is a non-accent 'mid-atlantic accent' which realy means no accent at all, for all intents and purposes.

 

[DimesDan]

I don't need to 'break out a map'---I know exactly where scandinavia is compared to Britain.

My point that you missed is........

People fairly close to britain are still more likely to speak english with an american accent than a british one. Unless perhaps they are mimicing an 'upper-crusty' type accent for effect.

And of course the ''American accent' i'm referring to is a non-accent 'mid-atlantic accent' which realy means no accent at all, for all intents and purposes.

Nope didn't miss you're point, in your opinion, people in Norway, Sweden Etc who speak English do not in an English accent (what ever that is) and instead speak some form of American accent.

Now of course the reason for this is that, well, like British television, I wouldn't be surprised that TV Channels in these countries use a lot of American programmes and this is where they pick up that non accent.

And my point being is that regardless of how close you think the British Isles and the Scandinavian countries are, they arn't and the proximity of ones location to another has little bearing on what someone's accent may or may not sound like.

 

[barnaclelapse]

It's never bothered me either, though I tend to enjoy the Khan of TWOK a lot more than I do with the one from Space Speed. They almost feel like different characters, at times, though I suspect this feeling is largely due to the fact that Khan was a good enough actor to incorporate Khan's anger and desire for revenge by the time TWOK rolled around.

 

[CoveTom]

So to solve the problem that "Stewart isn't frech' people would have rather had another actor play Picard?

No, I would have rather they change the character to being British when they cast a British actor.

 

[TEH BABA]

How about khan played by a canuckistani indian?

 

[Nerys Myk]

So to solve the problem that "Stewart isn't frech' people would have rather had another actor play Picard?

No, I would have rather they change the character to being British when they cast a British actor.

Should Kirk be Canadian? Should Sisko be from Indiana?

 

[CoveTom]

Should Kirk be Canadian? Should Sisko be from Indiana?

No, because neither actor has an accent that is inconsistent with where their character is supposed to be from. Patrick Stewart does.

 

[D Man]

And of course the ''American accent' i'm referring to is a non-accent 'mid-atlantic accent' which realy means no accent at all, for all intents and purposes.

Maybe if you happen to be from the mid-Atlantic region (which itself covers a huge area with many, many different accents) you don't notice your own voice as accented, but someone from any other place in the world will. There's no such thing as "no accent at all."

 

[Yeoman Randi]

It never bothered me. But it did confuse me.

Hell, for years i thought he a Klingon (due to the name Khan). I'm serious!

I can only use this as my excuse: "This is your brain on drugs."

Soooo glad in my old age I've not only shriveled up, but dried up as well!

 

[Sci]

And sure, the accent is a bit incongruous, but is it any more so than an Arab, Julian Bashir, speaking with a British accent? Or for that matter, a Frenchman named Picard speaking with a British accent?

I'll grant you that it's no different than a Frenchman speaking with a Received Pronunciation English accent. But it is definitely more incongruous than an Arab speaking with an RP English accent, because that's Alexander Siddig/Siddig El Fadil's natural accent. There actually are plenty of Arabs even today who grow up in the United Kingdom and speak with its accents. And we can presume that maybe there was some kind of dialect shift in France when a lot of Britons moved there in the 22nd Century, for instance.

Whereas there really aren't all that many Indians who speak with Mexican accents today, and certainly weren't many in the 1970s through 1990s, which would be when Khan was growing up. It's all well and good to point to a current example of immigration affecting speech patterns or to cite future possibilities for the future, but for a character from our past, it's just silly. There isn't a significant Indian diaspora in Mexico, and there wasn't one in the 1970s through 1990s, so Khan should be speaking with an Indian accent.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Should Kirk be Canadian? Should Sisko be from Indiana?

No, because neither actor has an accent that is inconsistent with where their character is supposed to be from. Patrick Stewart does.

Does Sisko sound like he's from New Orleans? Do Iowans sound like Kikrk?

 

[Broccoli]

Look at the history of Trek. Virtually all of the countires of Earth have assimilated into a 'one-world' type of culture. Almost all speak unaccented English.

Or rather, they speak American-accented English.

America...hell yeah!

USA! USA! USA!

 

[GNDN]

As much as I love Edward James Olmos, I'm glad he passed on this; I wonder if he'd have been interested in the role of Adama after a decade of playing Picard?

But then maybe we would get Patrick Stewart as Adama.

If PS played Adama, that means they would have had to cast someone else as Colonel Tigh... can't have two bald white guys running the ship together.

Yeah but then Jamie Bamber could have used his native accent.