Why were Khan and all of his followers blonde?
- Thread starter jimoinj
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I thought this was an odd choice too. I can understand why you wouldn't want to make all the villains of one ethnicity but Khan wasn't caucasian - it seems very odd that none of his henchmen were arabic or south asian at the very least. I think it was a nod to the aryan perfection espoused by the nazis but if you want an in-story explanation then the food and harsh conditions of the planet led to the bleaching of their hair. Nuff said.
Khan was, yes. His last name (Singh) being the dead give away...
But they were. Just watch "Space Seed".
The children he had, though... Why would they be ethnically diverse? Most of Khan's posse in ST2 appear to be teens, born on the planet since no kids were listed in "Space Seed" yet. If Khan had near-exclusive breeding rights, and especially if most of the kids were with blonde women (as the apparently darker McGivers died early on), what we see is what we ought to get.
According to McGivers, he looked like he could be from northern India and might be a Sikh. Which is funny because he looks completely non-Sikh to our eyes. But perhaps Khan came to be the archetypal Sikh through becoming the ruler of all India and Pakistan, and introduced new standards of being Sikh, standards that McGivers would recognize?
Canon sources never establish Khan as having been born in India, or having been built in the image of an Indian, or having ruled India specifically. Perhaps McGivers was totally wrong in her analysis? But our heroes later find information on Khan in their library banks, and don't accuse McGivers of incompetence or lying.
Timo Saloniemi
Well, Khan was gray haired in TWOK...
Greg Cox addresses this in his third Khan novel. The "Space Seed" survivors were racially diverse, as seen in the episode, but all children born on the planet reverted to an Aryan genotype, IIRC, due to a quirk of the genetic engineering. eg. Dark-haired righthand man, Joaquin (Mark Tobin), fathers the blond-haired Joachim (Judson Scott).
The IDW Khan comics assume that Joaquin was Joachim and he is drawn to resemble Judson Scott.
The IDW Khan comics assume that Joaquin was Joachim and he is drawn to resemble Judson Scott.
An equally big question is why all of Khan's followers were played by twentysomething actors/extras when they'd supposedly been stranded as adults 15 years earlier. Cox tried to rationalize this by saying they were offspring who'd matured at an accelerated rate, but it's an awkward patch.
The bottom line is, the makers of TWOK weren't especially concerned about continuity details. There are a ton of inconsistencies: the age and ethnicity of Khan's followers, the implication that Chekov had been involved in the original episode, the fact that the Botany Bay survivors had movie-era Starfleet equipment and medallions even though they were stranded in the TOS era, Kirk saying he'd "never faced death" even though he'd lost two or three loves of his life and his own brother within the course of just three years. They didn't anticipate the level of obsessive attention to detail that exists within fandom. So they took liberties.
The bottom line is, the makers of TWOK weren't especially concerned about continuity details. There are a ton of inconsistencies: the age and ethnicity of Khan's followers, the implication that Chekov had been involved in the original episode, the fact that the Botany Bay survivors had movie-era Starfleet equipment and medallions even though they were stranded in the TOS era, Kirk saying he'd "never faced death" even though he'd lost two or three loves of his life and his own brother within the course of just three years. They didn't anticipate the level of obsessive attention to detail that exists within fandom. So they took liberties.
The "accelerated pace" isn't really called for: twentysomethings have frequently portrayed teens and even preteens in Hollywood. If we can accept that a starship might look like the Enterprise, we can easily accept that a 15-year-old looks like Michael J. Fox or Judson Scott.
Having shipfuls of children was supposedly a deliberate theme of the movie. Plot logic easily allows for both Khan and Kirk to have them; it's a bit unfair to blame the makers for using (pseudo-)children out of neglect or malice.
Timo Saloniemi
Having shipfuls of children was supposedly a deliberate theme of the movie. Plot logic easily allows for both Khan and Kirk to have them; it's a bit unfair to blame the makers for using (pseudo-)children out of neglect or malice.
Timo Saloniemi
Yeah that has always grated with me a bit. I love the movie but how is being one of the few survivors of the Kodos massacre not 'facing death' - plus, as you say, his brother, and those countless innocent tribbles.
Having said that - his brother died before he arrived at the planet so it is arguable that he hadn't faced the death of a close friend (as opposed to redshirts) as a result of his command decisions - I suppose we can just about scrape a pass.
I thought Kirk was speaking solely of facing his own death, recognizing his own mortailty.
That had hardly been an issue before. The deaths Kirk had seen had been violent ones, not inevitable but avoidable. Kirk would be convinced he would not have died in the same situation. Being placed in a more inevitable variant of jeopardy, the fear of dying because one is an old fool who makes mistakes... That'd be new. That, and voluntary death, voluntary sacrifice from which there for this once wasn't a miracuous last-second salvation. Spock had a lesson to teach there.
Kirk losing a brother "once" in ST5 was a line written in ignorance or defiance of TOS events (although it can be interpreted in many ways and in fact seen as a nod to TOS). Kirk not facing death in TOS is something of a fact: Kirk always dodged back then.
Timo Saloniemi
That had hardly been an issue before. The deaths Kirk had seen had been violent ones, not inevitable but avoidable. Kirk would be convinced he would not have died in the same situation. Being placed in a more inevitable variant of jeopardy, the fear of dying because one is an old fool who makes mistakes... That'd be new. That, and voluntary death, voluntary sacrifice from which there for this once wasn't a miracuous last-second salvation. Spock had a lesson to teach there.
Kirk losing a brother "once" in ST5 was a line written in ignorance or defiance of TOS events (although it can be interpreted in many ways and in fact seen as a nod to TOS). Kirk not facing death in TOS is something of a fact: Kirk always dodged back then.
Timo Saloniemi
Two words: Gary Mitchell.
Also, Sam died before he got there, but Aurelan, his sister-in-law, died in agony while Kirk watched.
And there's not only Edith and Miramanee to consider, but Kirk's unborn son who died with Miramanee. Plus Rayna Kapec, though it's unclear just how much he was made to "Forget" by that meld at the end. And as you say, he survived the Tarsus IV massacre. This is a man who's lived through more than his share of tragedies in his life. So to say he's always managed to cheat and avoid death is a huge retcon.
Oh yeah! I forgot Mramanee and Gary - he obviously never liked Aurelan though - she must have spurned him at some point when he suggested a Kirk sandwich or something. Maybe by the time of TWoK Kirk is just a tad senile. In fact, doesn't he say that himself at one point?
What I take from this thread is that TWoK had at least as many plot holes as Star Trek (2009).
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^Oh, absolutely. It just goes to show that people are more suspicious and judgmental of something new than they are of something they've had time to get used to.
While I do agree that TWOK had its share of plot holes, these posts only show the film is inconsistant with the original series. Anyone watching TWOK who hadn't seen TOS wouldn't have noticed any of these things, so for the most part, taken on its own, the film is internally consistent. Khan's followers' ages, hair color, Kirk's not having faced death, etc. work within the story, so they're not plot holes, but continuity errors. While I'm not one of those people who has a grudge against the Abrams film, I still think TWOK holds up better than the 2009 movie. Both films have little things to pick at, but there isn't a gap in TWOK as prounced as the whole "eject Kirk to Delta Vega and find Old Spock and Scotty" mid-section, which is a huge plot contrivance to speed things along.
Oh, I think TWOK has plenty of plot holes, contrivances, and internal inconsistencies that have nothing to do with continuity with TOS. How could the Reliant crew be unable to tell the fifth and sixth planets of a system apart or be unaware that a planet had exploded? Why wasn't there anything in the Starfleet databases telling them, "Hey, the Ceti Alpha system has dangerous genetically enhanced colonists so you should stay away from it?" If Chekov was on board during "Space Seed" as the movie claimed, why didn't he remember that Ceti Alpha was where Khan's people had been settled? Why was genetic supergenius Khan unable to pierce the screamingly obvious "hours could seem like days" code (which was even helped along by Spock pointedly stressing the word "hours" every time he said it)? Why would a security password that grants total access to a starship's computer systems be a measly 5-digit number? Why did Spock have to come all the way down from the bridge to sacrifice himself in order to save the ship when there was a whole engine room full of personnel with radiation suits? How could Kirk not even notice his second-in-command, most trusted advisor, and best friend had left the bridge without permission?
Most of all, if the Genesis torpedo was programmed and designed to reformat the surface of an existing planet into a habitable ecosystem, how could that programming also work to construct an entire planet -- and possibly even a star -- out of the material in a nebula? That's like trying to use a spreadsheet program to create CGI animation and have it actually work.
So when it comes to logic holes and plot contrivances, TWOK and ST'09 are about equal. But what makes them both work is the human side of the equation, the characters and their relationships and journeys. People who like both films do so because they're satisfied enough by the character/emotional side of the story that they're willing to forgive the inconsistencies. People who don't like one or the other film, who aren't engaged by the emotional side, are more unforgiving of the inconsistencies. So it's really not about which film makes more sense. They're about on a par there. It's just a matter of personal preference which one you're more willing to buy into.
Most of all, if the Genesis torpedo was programmed and designed to reformat the surface of an existing planet into a habitable ecosystem, how could that programming also work to construct an entire planet -- and possibly even a star -- out of the material in a nebula? That's like trying to use a spreadsheet program to create CGI animation and have it actually work.
So when it comes to logic holes and plot contrivances, TWOK and ST'09 are about equal. But what makes them both work is the human side of the equation, the characters and their relationships and journeys. People who like both films do so because they're satisfied enough by the character/emotional side of the story that they're willing to forgive the inconsistencies. People who don't like one or the other film, who aren't engaged by the emotional side, are more unforgiving of the inconsistencies. So it's really not about which film makes more sense. They're about on a par there. It's just a matter of personal preference which one you're more willing to buy into.
Well done, sir.
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