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Ricardo Montalban Recalls Khan

Posted by chrisd on from the herve-villechaize-was-in-a-bond-movie dept.

phyy-nx writes "Scifi.com, in referring to the directors cut of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn (coming out on DVD Aug 6), has quoted clips from an interview with Ricardo Montalban. Montalban portrayed the vengeful Kahn in one of the best perfomances in one of the best of the (almost ten) Star Trek films. He mentions how difficult it was to portray Khan after six years of Mr. Roarke of Fantasy Island and how he overcame that mold to masterfully portray his new character's controlled insanity." Or, as Kirk would say: Khaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnnnnnnnnnn!

5 of 212 comments (clear)

  1. I hope the DVD includes the original by GCP · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I hope the Wrath of Khan DVD includes the original episode of Star Trek that it was the sequel to. That would make a great set, and the movie isn't nearly as interesting if you don't have that TV episode in memory.

    --
    "Those who have never entered upon scientific pursuits know not a tithe of the poetry by which they are surrounded."
  2. Question! by Kwikymart · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Was there any real explanation for why they switched the look of the Klingons in either the Star Trek universe or the real universe (the explanation)? I remember the DS9 episode "Trials and Tribbulations" where they go back to the TOS tribble episode and that topic came up, and Worf just said something of the like "it's a complicated matter". Any ST experts have an answer?

    --

    Buying a Dell computer is equivalent to dropping the soap in a prison shower.
    1. Re:Question! by AJWM · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I got the special two-video set of both the original and DS9 tribble episodes. It's great watching them back to back, and seeing how and where DS9 characters were cleverly inserted into original footage.

      What Worf actually says when asked about it is "We don't talk about it", and obviously views the original series' more human-looking Klingons with some disgust.

      The real reason is that they just did it because they could (higher budget) in the first movie, then were stuck with it for all the other movies, and never came up with a good backstory.

      I suppose they could have come up with something like the Kdaptists of Larry Niven's Kzinti (who wear human masks -- of human skin -- when worshipping because, having had their butts kicked by humans in a couple of interstellar wars, they're convinced that God/Kdapt must favor humans -- see Ringworld), but that'd be derivative. Besides, there weren't really any Human/Klingon wars, the first one barely got started when it was ended by the Organians, and the Klingons already looked human then. (Original series episode).

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      -- Alastair
    2. Re:Question! by writermike · · Score: 3, Interesting

      I remember reading a fan-produced publication on this matter. This publication was made to look like an "official" Starfleet report.

      It stated that the reason for the different looks is because there are two distinct races which are often at war with each other. For a time, the more human-looking ones were in power. This booklet showed the various land masses each race controlled. Lots of background.

      But, as someone else pointed out, it doesn't easily explain why Enterprise's Klingons are ridged.

      It would be interesting to see an upcoming Enterprise episode that plays with this theory. Maybe the Klingon Empire collapses for a time, shuttling some human-looking Klingons into the series.

      Yeah, I do agree with others that think Worf was expressing some sort of disgust in the DS9 episode. If Enterprise were to play with some of these theories, they could _easily_ bring in the larger issue, race!

      Other theories I've heard:
      The Klingons attempted to make a human-klingon hybrid in order inject spies into the Federation.

      The Romulans and Klingons collaborated on a human-klingon hybrid in order to inject spies into the Federation.

      The human-looking Klingons are a Romulan invention that went awry.

      The Klingons from the original series aren't Klingons at all, but rather humans who like dark clothes and don't take baths.

      Kirk and Spock were lovers. (Oh, wait, that has nothing to do with the Klingons, huh?)

      m

      --
      If Nalgene water bottles are outlawed, only outlaws will have Nalgene water bottles.
    3. Re:Question! by the+gnat · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The real reason is that they just did it because they could (higher budget) in the first movie, then were stuck with it for all the other movies, and never came up with a good backstory.

      And Worf's comment is probably as much a tongue-in-cheek response from the producers as anything else. I'll bet it was actually directed at all the geeks who keep asking about this. It's amazing how much this gets discussed, because it's really a non-issue.

      I once saw some Trek documentary where one of the makeup people said he preferred Klingon episodes to Romulan/Vulcan episodes because of "all those damn ears". However, by the time of the movies they could afford to make the races actually look a little different. So they sacrificed continuity for production values. Simple, no?

      I always thought part of the genius of Star Wars is how in the cantina scene, so many of the aliens are totally non-humanoid. But it doesn't matter- they're sitting there playing poker, and Luke doesn't seem to notice that some of these things don't have arms. Alien races actually have a true diversity of forms, even if the humans are running things. It's a far cry from ST, where nearly everything is either humanoid or something amorphous.

      While I'm at it, Vernor Vinge's books are some of the best depictions I've ever seen of non-humanoid races in human terms.