Would Into Darkness have been a better film if Khan was not the villain?
- Thread starter The Overlord
- Start date
I want to begin this post by saying that I think it is great if someone from CBS is part of this site and actively taking part in engaging with fans. With pretty much all your posts, if I didn't agree, I was still laughing at your ironic humor.
That being said, your statement serves as an excellent example of what is presently frustrating me about the newest versions of this franchise.
Why does Star Trek so often lately limit itself to "new versions" of anything? Why do we need a new Kirk or Pike or 1071 Enterprise? Why center a show around Picard when a pretty good show was already made with him in the lead?
TNG restarted the show with a new crew, a new group of people who, though on a different Enterprise, added to our understanding of what life was like in Starfleet, and showed many missions with more "everyday life of the future" than TOS would have shown. Voyager brought us a new ship name, new ship class and kept most of Star Trek's values but raised new questions. Despite numerous comparisons, Janeway is not Kirk, Tuvok is not Spock, Kim is not Sulu, The Doctor is not Bones. I could continue this about the other shows.
Furthermore, Star Trek's characters have always been values-motivated, even if we disagree with them, we can support our heroes because they live by rules. This is often true even of Star Trek's villains!
The newest approaches to Star Trek have tried so hard to be modern that the characters just don't make you care about them like before. This is where the alternate-universe and/or prequel series start to lose my attention and my desire to spend money on their merchandise. I don't want to see Star Trek characters designed around inclusion of present-day political interest-groups, or Star Trek characters struggling with darker motives: I want to see Star Trek's people fighting to defend their values, just like Kirk, Picard, Janeway and even O'brien.
I hope that this post can be a clearer, fresher spin on what frustrates many of us in this community about the re-imaging of the show we have cared about so much. I, for one, would like to see less "re-imagining" of anything, and instead continued development to Star Treks places, hardware and people.
I completely disagree with this point. I care for these newer characters as much as I do for the originals. Both inform my knowledge of characters and that makes them very enjoyable.
I have to admit I didn't like it all that much, but I suspect I would have enjoyed it a whole lot more if they were able to get Benecio del Toro like they were hoping.
I'm not really associated with CBS in any way. I made the avatar after being repeatedly accused of such by weirdos in Facebook groups years ago (the first version was "paid Bad Robot plant") and it kinda stuck.
But I'm glad you enjoy my posts
Because for better or worse, nostalgia rules Hollywood.
Agree on this. I'm glad they used Khan, I know the 'Joker' reference has been bandied around plenty of times but the point stands - if you're going to include a trek supervillain then it's an obvious choice to make, much like any Batman film with any of his villains, Bond with Blofeld etc. I would have been disappointed if they hadn't, given the story they were telling - people would have been screaming 'missed opportunity' had they not.
My issue is that I never bought into Cumberbatch as Khan in the same way I would have had it been Del Toro or the likes of Javier Bardem, despite me really enjoying his performance in the main. They went to such a great effort with generally nailing the rest of the cast and yet dropped the ball with this, which was kind of disappointing at the time in the theatre.
Now I watch STID and I just force myself to swallow that he's Khan, and just get over it. I still find Cumerbatch and the film in general hugely entertaining, despite it's flaws.
Bardem would've been so awesome, just a shame Bond got to him first otherwise hed have to been 1st choice .. BDT woudve been a pleasing 2nd choice but it fell through due to money (not enough in the 190m budget to pony up for BDTs fee I guess - maybe he realised they had to have him or Bardem as they are the 2 Montalban types who are big names in HW, and since Bardem obviously wouldn't do a similar character again so soon after Bond he hiked his price up?) ..
Cumberbatch seemed to be cast in abit of a panic..like 'omg omg we got no khan and we shooting next week! quick whos available who isn't going to want 10m?' he was obviously good but as Khan? not unless you buy into his having the Die Another Day DNA face thing.
Agreed, Bardem would have been a great choice. I can really see him as Khan, and think he would have nailed the enigmatic side of his character well - I can just picture him doing the 'and I wish to go on hurting you' bit from TWOK - Cumberbatch for me portrayed him as a little too 'ice cold' for my liking - not that I'd want him to be totally OTT like Montalban but you can see my point. The only bit where his performance got close to the character for me was the 'cold corpses' sequence.
Like yourself, part of me forcing myself to swallow that he's khan when I watch it also rests on some head canon face surgery type shit.
That's pretty much how I feel too. But I've always believed that to enjoy science fiction on film or TV, you occasionally have to forgive some glaring flaws and dumb plot contrivances.
But Bardem and BDT aren't Indian? While I did Enjoy Bennidects Sceen chewing Khan.. He was established as an Indian Siek in Tos, There was a whole Bollywood going on and they couldn't find an known good indian actor that can speak good english? 20, early 30's in great shape?? Owell..
If they wanted to use Benidect, have him as a leutenant and shape the story to that, and maybe wake up Khan on the last scene for the next movie?? Or have Benidect be a new Genitic soldier, after Marcus found Khan, or not, he creates a new breed of supermen, and they go rogue.. steal the Vengence, and Kirk goes after them.
Owell, The script didn't need Khan, could have been Generic Villan B and still be mostly the same story.
If they wanted to use Benidect, have him as a leutenant and shape the story to that, and maybe wake up Khan on the last scene for the next movie?? Or have Benidect be a new Genitic soldier, after Marcus found Khan, or not, he creates a new breed of supermen, and they go rogue.. steal the Vengence, and Kirk goes after them.
Owell, The script didn't need Khan, could have been Generic Villan B and still be mostly the same story.
Last edited:
Nobody ever said Khan was Indian, to be sure. A Sikh, yes - if we are to trust Lt McGivers, who would have been motivated to deceive our heroes. Her claim of "probably a Sikh" is never ever repeated elsewhere in Trek...
That Cumberbatch and Montalban look nothing alike is the source of concern here (dodged by "Agent Harrison must have worn three dozen faces on his missions"), not any firm knowledge of who Khan must or must not be.
Timo Saloniemi
That Cumberbatch and Montalban look nothing alike is the source of concern here (dodged by "Agent Harrison must have worn three dozen faces on his missions"), not any firm knowledge of who Khan must or must not be.
Timo Saloniemi
If I had a couple million to shoot new scenes and insert them into the movie, one of them would definitely be a flashes of Khan's history - while Cumberbatch is in the brig delivering the revelation this whole film hinges on.
As part of that would be glimpses of an alternate universe 1990's middle-eastern war, the Botany Bay launching into space, Marcus finding said ship and a tube with a Montalban body double frozen inside, and some Section 31 discussion as Starfleet surgeons busy themselves creating "John Harrison".
Create a 2 minute longer Special Edition cut of Into Darkness along those lines, and my reservations about the casting evaporate. The scene where Khan is revealed still makes no sense to a Kirk, Spock & McCoy who've never even met or heard of the character. And as Cumberbatch is basically breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience, at least interspersed with a visualisation of Khan's memories, it begins to make sense.
As part of that would be glimpses of an alternate universe 1990's middle-eastern war, the Botany Bay launching into space, Marcus finding said ship and a tube with a Montalban body double frozen inside, and some Section 31 discussion as Starfleet surgeons busy themselves creating "John Harrison".
Create a 2 minute longer Special Edition cut of Into Darkness along those lines, and my reservations about the casting evaporate. The scene where Khan is revealed still makes no sense to a Kirk, Spock & McCoy who've never even met or heard of the character. And as Cumberbatch is basically breaking the fourth wall and addressing the audience, at least interspersed with a visualisation of Khan's memories, it begins to make sense.
Last edited:
Neither is Cumberbatch. I couldn't give a toss about race, just that the other two actors bear a more passing resemblance to him - or at least could have been made up to look more like the Khan you would expect - this would have sold it better than what we did get, from a fan's point of view at least.
Exactly this. They went to great effort to try and make us think this was the actual TOS characters (albeit in this alternative timeline) we were seeing, and with much success in my view - I bought into it, then threw away that good work putting a skinny pasty Englishman in the place of someone who (race aside) was physically of a much bigger build, to say nothing of how the character was previously portrayed, but I guess this is an argument that has been done to death and then some on these boards.
I would have liked just something to explain his appearance. I don't care what, or how brief.
Truth is, the name "Khan" and his speculated "probably a Sikh" in-episode description were very late additions to the original story. Until Montalban was cast for "Space Seed," the character had been Scandinavian - introduced as "John Ericsson" and only later revealed to be the notorious Ragnar Thorwald. Character and description were altered just enough to play to Montalban's talent for playing characters of vaguely exotic foreign-but-not-too-specific ethnicity, but the basic story wasn't much affected.
Khan was never really terribly Indian. Even the name / title belongs to neither India nor Sikhs.
My interpretation of the line "John Harrison was a fiction constructed by Admiral Marcus" was as literal as possible. Largely because Khan was identified by visual records in TOS, so Marcus would take steps to avoid that.
It seemed simple enough to me...and the comic series pretty much confirmed it.
It seemed simple enough to me...
and the comic series pretty much confirmed it.^^And understandably so, in-universe. If you engineer somebody to dominate the world (for you, supposedly), you don't neglect ethnicity - you engineer that to be either attractive or then at least not offensive to the masses your champion is supposed to lead...
Overall, Khan's supposedly diverse crew is quite an exercise in inoffensiveness. We fail to see a single identifiably "Oriental" or "Latin" type as specified by Scotty. Not a single black guy or gal there, either. Himmler would rub his hands in glee with this all-Aryan selection... But OTOH so would a Hollywood executive.
Timo Saloniemi
Overall, Khan's supposedly diverse crew is quite an exercise in inoffensiveness. We fail to see a single identifiably "Oriental" or "Latin" type as specified by Scotty. Not a single black guy or gal there, either. Himmler would rub his hands in glee with this all-Aryan selection... But OTOH so would a Hollywood executive.
Timo Saloniemi
My interpretation of the line "John Harrison was a fiction constructed by Admiral Marcus" was as literal as possible. Largely because Khan was identified by visual records in TOS, so Marcus would take steps to avoid that.
It seemed simple enough to me...
Being someone who never reads the ancillary material, I would have liked something slightly more clear than this - even just a re-wording of said line so it's a little clearer what possibly took place, it doesn't have to take up a second more screen time - but you are correct in as much that this is the other thing I use in the movie to force myself to swallow BC as Khan.
I'm not saying it couldn't be clearer or better handled. And even Abrams acknowledged their handling of the Khan situation was not great, specifically in the marketing.
But, as presented, him as Khan I can handle with little issue. Obviously, mileage will vary and certainly has given the firestorm of discussion around the Internet with this film, even so many years later.
Don't get me wrong, it's not a deal breaker for the movie, more a wish as a fan of the series and especially Khan, Space Seed & TWOK - I still really enjoy BC's performance too. He was menacing and calculated and a great villain in his own right. I just don't quite see him as Khan in the main. They seem like two entirely different characters.
That being said I still rank STID as one of the best trek films all day long, despite it's flaws.
I don't think he is the Khan of TWOK and is far closer to the Khan of Space Seed, but there is a very different quality to it, and I think that is deliberate.
