Star Trek Into Darkness: 10 Things That Make No Sense
7. Khan
Undoubtedly, Benedict Cumberbatch is the breakout star of Star Trek: Into Darkness. The man has a tremendously deep voice that most men would kill for and he makes each line sound like a hot knife cutting through butter. He commands the screen every time he is in front of the camera and Im sure that his Hollywood career is about to skyrocket. Im no Cumber-Bitch (the term used by fans of the sinister one) but his acting credentials are plainly clear for everyone to see.
That being said, the build up for Into Darkness had much speculation about his characters identity. No one believed that he was John Harrison and it turned out he wasnt. The big reveal was that he was Khan Noonian Singh, the genetically engineered dictator.
It is sad that JJ Abrams was unable to find an actual Indian to play Khan. Yes, Ricardo Montalban was Hispanic but at least he looked like he could be from the Indian continent. Also Khan made his first appearance in the 60s TV show so you can understand why they went for the easy route and got a Mexican to pretend they were Indian. JJ Abrams was under none of those constraints and could have got a number of Asian actors to play Khan. My feeling is that he went to the Simon Cowell school of casting; in the same way Cowell puts his finger in the air to see who is popular and picks them to be a judge on X-Factor, Abrams picked Cumberbatch for the same reason.
Lets look past the fact that Khan is supposed to be of Indian decent and Cumberbatch looks like he grew up on the mean streets on Middlesex rather than northern India. And lets ignore that when he announces his name is Khan, it comes across as believable as an Indian call center worker trying to convince you that their name is George or Barry. The main problem is that Khan is pretty much wasted in this film and his motivations are from the same school that Red Matter came from.
Khan needs no introduction, he is easily one of the most memorable villains from Star Trek and that is thanks to Ricardo Montalban doing an amazing job playing him. Anyone who cares about Star Trek wanted to see Khan handled right, they got the acting ability but dropped the ball on pretty much everything else.
Khan in Into Darkness is being used by Admiral Marcus (Peter Weller) to design and build technology that can be used to increase Starfleets strength. The threat from the Klingons is on the horizon and Admiral Marcus wants to make sure Earth is protected. Since finding them frozen in space, Admiral Marcus holds Khans 72 co-super people as a bargaining chip to force Khan into doing what he wants. That is the main reason why Khan is so angry with the Admiral.
Fearing for the lives of the 72 people he loves, Khan hides their cryo-tubes in 72 torpedoes he designed. We are not told how he managed to hide them in the torpedoes and how exactly it will save them considering the Admiral is quite aware they are hidden in there, but fair enough, Khan hid them in the torpedoes. However, if Khan was able to gain access to the frozen bodies and go to the trouble of hiding them, then why didnt he just revive them all? Why bother hiding them? Just bring them out of cryogenic sleep and teach the Admiral a lesson. The bit where Khan sheds a tear to show us how much he loves his people and how hurt and angry he is at Admiral Marcus lost some of the punch when halfway through his monologue I was asking, why didnt he just wake all of his frozen friends when he had the chance? It made no sense.
Another point is that Khan in this film is almost the support villain; the real bad guy is Admiral Marcus. Khan is not even formally introduced until half way through the film and he even helps Kirk stop the Admiral and save the Enterprise. We know he cant be trusted and he is only helping Kirk as a smokescreen to escape at the first chance he gets but not only is it weird to see Khan and Kirk working together and helping each other, it also makes his full villainous turn not have the impact it should.
In this film, Khan is also a full on Superman. A close combat expert, he can take down a whole garrison of Klingons on his own. Spocks nerve pinch has no effect and repeated punches to the face dont faze him. Even when Uhura bizarrely beams down (on her own???) and fires repeated stun shots into his chest, it takes a while for him to go down. So with it established that he is superhuman, why is he running from Spock at the end of the film? Why does he look so panicked? Surely he should be arrogant enough to think he can handle one Vulcan. It makes no sense.
There is a chance that Khan will make a return in a future Star Trek film but it now runs the risk of being a repeat of this film. Even if this film was Space Seed and his next appearance (maybe in Star Trek 3) will be Wrath Of Khan, then that would mean that three films have had revenge as a theme. If they were going to use Khan, then they should have given him the whole film. Here he shares villain duties with Admiral Marcus and Cumberbatchs awesome acting is let down by shabby writing in another script by Orci, Kurtzman and Lindelof.
Some are calling Cumberbatch-Khan the greatest Star Trek villain of all time, he is very far from that.