Kirk and Khan

I’m about halfway through watching Star Trek: Into Darkness (spoiler alert, sort of). My first observation is that Benedict Cumberbatch is no Ricardo Montalbán. (I am decidedly of the opinion that Montalbán es más macho.)

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What blew my mind, in regard to Montalbán’s reprise of the character in 1982’s The Wrath of Khan, was this:

At no point during The Wrath of Khan are Khan and Kirk face to face; they speak to each other only over communication links such as view screens. This was due in part to the fact that the set of the Reliant was a redress of the Enterprise bridge, and the two actors’ scenes were filmed four months apart. Montalbán recited his lines with a script girl instead of to William Shatner.

In dozens, if not hundreds of viewing over the past 31 years, I never really appreciated the fact that the two characters never met face-to-face. While the “Khaaaaaaaaan” scream will live on forever in movie history, the world would undeniably be a better place had the film included a 40-something on 60-something fight scene…….in space.

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