As good as BC was in his portrayal, I couldn't help but notice that his Khan was written pretty flatly. Yes! I found myself having sympathy for the character, and I credit that totally to the actor: I couldn't help but be moved when he talked about his people, but that didn't make sense of the things he did in the movie. I'd start to feel sympathetic, and then I'd remember that he killed 42 people just to get the higher-ups of Starfleet together so that he could kill one of them in vengeance, and my sympathy evaporated.
Montalban's Khan had more depth partly because he had more backstory, in "Space Seed"—but he had also been clearly driven to the edge of sanity by the two decades of suffering he and his people had endured. We got to see him interact with his people, which BC's Khan didn't get to do because they were all frozen.
I did wonder after I posted if the movie-makers actively chose not to have the man who bombs London and makes quite a mess of San Francisco be non-white. We're told that Khan is "savage," so it's not as if a person of color playing the character would avoid racefail for the movie either! So, yes: perhaps the lesser of two insults.
I've heard that Benicio del Toro was offered the role but turned it down—but of course he's no more Indian than Ricardo Montalban! Here's an article; I don't know how reliable it is. Why they then offered it to BC is anyone's guess.
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Date: 2013-05-29 03:04 pm (UTC)Yes! I found myself having sympathy for the character, and I credit that totally to the actor: I couldn't help but be moved when he talked about his people, but that didn't make sense of the things he did in the movie. I'd start to feel sympathetic, and then I'd remember that he killed 42 people just to get the higher-ups of Starfleet together so that he could kill one of them in vengeance, and my sympathy evaporated.
Montalban's Khan had more depth partly because he had more backstory, in "Space Seed"—but he had also been clearly driven to the edge of sanity by the two decades of suffering he and his people had endured. We got to see him interact with his people, which BC's Khan didn't get to do because they were all frozen.
I did wonder after I posted if the movie-makers actively chose not to have the man who bombs London and makes quite a mess of San Francisco be non-white. We're told that Khan is "savage," so it's not as if a person of color playing the character would avoid racefail for the movie either! So, yes: perhaps the lesser of two insults.
I've heard that Benicio del Toro was offered the role but turned it down—but of course he's no more Indian than Ricardo Montalban! Here's an article; I don't know how reliable it is. Why they then offered it to BC is anyone's guess.