Khan Noonien Singh
Encyclopedia
Khan Noonien Singh, commonly shortened to Khan, is a villain
in the fictional Star Trek
universe. According to backstory given in the character's first appearance, the Star Trek: The Original Series
episode "Space Seed" (1967), Khan is a genetically engineered superhuman tyrant who once controlled more than a quarter of the Earth during the Eugenics Wars
of the 1990s. After being revived in 2267 by the crew of the Enterprise
, Khan attempts to capture the starship, but is thwarted by James T. Kirk
and exiled on Ceti Alpha V to create a new civilization with his people. The character returns in the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
, set fifteen years after "Space Seed", in which Khan escapes his imprisonment and sets out to seek revenge upon Kirk. The character was portrayed by Ricardo Montalbán
in both the television episode and in the film.
Khan first appears as an Indian
who is both admired and reviled by the Enterprise crew. Harve Bennett
, executive producer for Star Trek II, chose Khan as the villain for the film. To reflect the time spent marooned on an inhospitable world, Khan was given a costume that looked as though it was scavenged from different items and showed off Montalbán's physique. The character has been positively received by critics and fans; Khan was voted as one of the top ten greatest film villains of all time by the Online Film Critics Society
.
supermen, bred to be free of the usual human
mental and physical limitations, who were removed from power after the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s. Khan had been both the most successful conqueror and the most benign ruler of the group, ruling a more than a fourth of the world's area across Asia
to the Middle East
from 1992 to 1996 with a firm but generally peaceful hand until he was deposed. While most of the supermen were killed or sentenced to death, Khan and 84 others escaped Earth by way of the sleeper ship
SS Botany Bay. Cryogenically frozen
in suspended animation, the crew of the Botany Bay are discovered by the crew of the Enterprise
in 2267.
When Khan's sleep chamber malfunctions, he is transported to the Enterprise, where he reawakens and learns he is in the 23rd century. Given spacious quarters while the Botany Bay is towed to a starbase, Khan fascinates and charms the ship's historian, Marla McGivers (Madlyn Rhue
), while using his access to the ship's technical manuals to learn how to take over and operate the Enterprise. McGivers agrees to help Khan revive the other supermen, allowing him to organize a mutiny. To coerce the Enterprise crew to cooperate with him, Khan places Captain James T. Kirk
(William Shatner
) in the ship's decompression chamber and threatens to kill Kirk unless the crew submits. McGivers cannot stand by as her Captain dies and frees Kirk, who neutralizes Khan's men by using a "neural gas". Khan heads to engineering and sets the ship's engines to self-destruct, whereupon he is incapacitated by Kirk. Captain Kirk conducts a hearing, sentencing Khan and his followers to exile on an uncolonized world, Ceti Alpha V. Khan accepts Kirk's challenge—invoking the fall of Lucifer
in Milton
's Paradise Lost
— and McGivers joins Khan rather than face court-martial. Spock
(Leonard Nimoy
) wonders what the "seed" Kirk has planted will bear in a hundred years.
, when USS Reliant officers Clark Terrell and Pavel Chekov
(Paul Winfield
and Walter Koenig
) beam down to what they believe is Ceti Alpha VI, looking for an inhospitable world to test the Genesis device, a powerful terraforming
tool. Khan's followers capture Terrell and Chekov, and Khan explains that the barren wasteland they now inhabit is Ceti Alpha V. The sixth planet of the system exploded shortly after Khan and his followers were marooned, causing massive climate disturbances. The planet was turned into a desert, and many of the survivors (including McGivers, who had become Khan's wife) were killed by the only surviving species of animal, the Ceti eel. By the time the Reliant arrives at Ceti Alpha, only twenty of Khan's followers are alive. Swearing vengeance on Kirk, Khan takes control of Chekov and Terrell using Ceti eels implanted in the officers' brains, rendering them vulnerable to suggestion. Khan then seizes control of the Reliant, intent on capturing Project Genesis and attaining revenge on Kirk for his exile.
Lured by Khan to the space station Regula I, the Enterprise falls victim to Khan's surprise attack. Kirk, his ship disabled, tricks Khan by using a special code to remotely lower the Reliants shields and inflict significant damage. Khan is forced to withdraw and make repairs. Using the mind-controlled Terrell and Chekov as spies, Khan captures the Genesis device and leaves Kirk marooned on Regula I. However, Khan is deceived by Spock into thinking that the Enterprise is crippled. Khan is surprised when Kirk and the Enterprise escape to the nearby Mutara nebula. Goaded into following Kirk, Khan pilots the Reliant into the nebula, where shields and visuals are inoperable. Due to Khan's inexperience with three-dimensional space combat, the Enterprise disables the Reliant and kills Khan's followers. Refusing to accept defeat, Khan activates the Genesis device, intent on killing his foe along with himself. Khan believes he has doomed his enemy before he dies but Spock, in an act of self-sacrifice, is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation while repairing the Enterprises warp drive
to allow it to escape.
, though the subject matter falls outside of canon. In the two-volume The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh
, Khan and his followers are placed aboard the Botany Bay by Gary Seven
as part of a deal to stop Khan's machinations on Earth. The 2005 follow-up, To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh
, relates what happened to Khan and his fellow exiles between the events of "Space Seed" and The Wrath of Khan.
superman named Harold Erricsen. The first draft of the script introduced the character as John Ericssen— who is revealed to be a man involved in "the First World Tyranny", named Ragnar Thorwald. The character of Thorwald was more brutal than Khan in the final version, killing guards using a phaser. By the final draft, Khan is of India
n ancestry. The character's Latino
accent and superhuman appearance strongly differentiate him from most Star Trek characters. In "Space Seed", Khan is presented as having several positive characteristics: he is gracious, smiling, fearless, and generous. He is not threatened by the success of others, and encourages their self-esteem. He is also ambitious, desiring a challenge commensurate with his abilities. This ambition, however, is not tempered by any consideration of the rights of others. Author Paul Cantor asserts that Khan is a mirror image of Kirk, sharing his aggressiveness, ambition, and even his womanizing tendencies, but possessing them in far greater degree. During the episode, several of the characters express their admiration for the man, while opposing his plans and what he stands for at the same time.
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After the disappointing response to the first Star Trek feature film, The Motion Picture
, Paramount executives appointed Harve Bennett, a television producer who had never watched Star Trek, to be executive producer for the sequel. Bennett watched all the original series episodes and chose Khan from "Space Seed" as a possible villain for the film. Early drafts of the script had Khan as a shadowy tyrant leading a planet in revolt; later drafts added the "Genesis device" which Khan would steal.
Costume designer Robert Fletcher wanted to emphasize the effects of their harsh environment on Khan and his followers. "My intention with Khan was to express the fact that they had been marooned on that planet with no technical infrastructure, so they had to cannibalize from the spaceship whatever they used or wore. Therefore, I tried to make it look as if they had dressed themselves out of pieces of upholstery and electrical equipment that composed the ship," he said. Director Nicholas Meyer
told Montalbán to keep Khan's right glove on at all times, in order to give viewers a puzzle they could form their own opinions about and add mystery to the character. Meyer has been repeatedly asked if Montalbán wore a prosthetic chest for his scenes, as his uniform was purposefully designed with an open front. Meyer replied in audio commentary for the film that Montalbán (who was 61 during filming) is "one strong cookie", and that no prosthetics were applied to the actor's sizeable frame.
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 supervisor instead of to William Shatner.
Montalbán said in promotional interviews for the film he realized early on in his career that a good villain does not see himself as villainous. The villain may do villainous things, but he feels that he is doing them for righteous reasons. Montalbán further stated he always tried to find a flaw in the character, as no one is completely good or completely evil; while Khan had a rather distorted view of reality and therefore performed acts of evil, he still felt that his vengeance was a noble cause because of the death of his wife. Khan quotes the character of Ahab from Moby-Dick
throughout the film, driving home his lust to make Kirk pay for the wrongs he has inflicted upon him.
's concept of the "Übermensch
" (superman or overman). Khan is mentally and physically superior to any normal human. In the Star Trek: Enterprise
episode "Borderland", Malik, the leader of a group of "supermen" created from the same genetic engineering project as Khan, actually quotes Nietzsche, telling Archer
that "Mankind is something to be surpassed". Professor William J. Devlin and coauthor Shai Biderman examined Khan's character compared to the Übermensch and found that Khan's blind pursuit of revenge is against Nietzsche's ideals of transcendence and self-creation of a meaningful life. Instead, the authors offer Spock's self-sacrifice in The Wrath of Khan as a better example of the Übermensch.
noted that Star Trek films were measured by how menacing their foe was, and that Khan was among the best in the series; a 2002 review of the Star Trek films ranked Khan as the greatest enemy seen in any of the films. Star Trek producer Rick Berman
called the villain "threatening and memorable". Reviewers of The Wrath of Khan, such as Roger Ebert
, rated Khan as one of the strongest aspects of the film.
Critic Christopher Null
notes that "it is nearly gospel now among Trekkies that... Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is the undisputed best of the series, and will likely never meet its equal," and calls Khan the "greatest role of[Montalbán's] career". Though he felt that the villain of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, V'ger, was more cerebral and interesting, author James Iaccino notes that most fans and moviegoers preferred the archetypical good-versus-evil fight the struggle between Khan and Kirk represents. Villains in subsequent Star Trek films have been measured by the standard of Khan, with Paramount promising fans that the villain of Star Trek Generations would be equal to the genetic superman. IGN
ranked Khan as the best Star Trek villain, noting that he set the pattern for revenge-seeking villains in the series; in the decades since the film's release, "even those with a passing interest [in Trek] know the name".
Khan is also recognized as a great villain outside of the Star Trek series. The Associated Press called the character "one of sci-fi's great villains". In 2002, the Online Film Critics Society's 132 members voted Khan as the 10th Greatest Screen Villain of all time, the only Star Trek character to appear in the listing. In 2006, Emmy Magazine voted Khan "TV's Most Out-of-This-World Character", beating out other science-fiction characters such as The Doctor
and Commander Adama
. Editors wrote that "Khan was so cool we would've bought a Chrysler Cordoba
if he'd told us to," referring to an ad campaign Montalbán appeared in for Chrysler. The character also had a cultural impact outside of Star Trek fandom; a clip from The Wrath of Khan featuring Kirk screaming "Khaaan!" was one pop culture appropriation that became a "popular fad" driving the success of the website YTMND
.
In 2004, the Star Trek franchise returned to Khan's backstory in a three-episode story arc
on Star Trek: Enterprise
. In "Borderland", "Cold Station 12" and "The Augments", a 22nd century scientist is portrayed as having revived genetically engineered embryos from Khan's time and raised them as "Augments". Enterprise producer Manny Coto
described these characters as "mini Khan Noonien Singhs".
Following the box office success of J. J. Abrams
' Star Trek reboot and the announcement that actors Chris Pine
and Zachary Quinto
had tentatively agreed to appear in two sequels, internet rumors began circulating about the plot of the second film. Abrams hinted that because of the alternate timeline created in the first film, reintroducing Khan into Star Trek lore remained a possibility. Abrams told MTV, "[Khan and Kirk] exist — and while their history may not be exactly as people are familiar with, I would argue that a person's character is what it is," Abrams said of the notion that his Khan could be just as evil, even if Kirk never stranded him on Ceti Alpha V. "Certain people are destined to cross paths and come together, and Khan is out there... even if he doesn't have the same issues." At one time, actor Nestor Carbonell
was rumored as a possible contender for the rebooted role of Khan.
Villain
A villain is an "evil" character in a story, whether a historical narrative or, especially, a work of fiction. The villain usually is the antagonist, the character who tends to have a negative effect on other characters...
in the fictional Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
universe. According to backstory given in the character's first appearance, the Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions . Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through June 3, 1969...
episode "Space Seed" (1967), Khan is a genetically engineered superhuman tyrant who once controlled more than a quarter of the Earth during the Eugenics Wars
Eugenics wars
Eugenics wars may refer to:*In biopolitics, “eugenics wars” are sociopolitical conflicts characterized by coercive state-sponsored genetic discrimination and human rights violations such as compulsory sterilization of persons with genetic defects, the killing of the institutionalized and,...
of the 1990s. After being revived in 2267 by the crew of the Enterprise
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)
The USS Enterprise, NCC-1701, is a fictional starship in the Star Trek media franchise. The original Star Trek series depicts her crew's mission "to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before" under the command of Captain James...
, Khan attempts to capture the starship, but is thwarted by James T. Kirk
James T. Kirk
James Tiberius "Jim" Kirk is a character in the Star Trek media franchise. Kirk was first played by William Shatner as the principal lead character in the original Star Trek series. Shatner voiced Kirk in the animated Star Trek series and appeared in the first seven Star Trek movies...
and exiled on Ceti Alpha V to create a new civilization with his people. The character returns in the 1982 film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a 1982 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. The film is the second feature based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise. The plot features James T...
, set fifteen years after "Space Seed", in which Khan escapes his imprisonment and sets out to seek revenge upon Kirk. The character was portrayed by Ricardo Montalbán
Ricardo Montalbán
Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino, KSG was a Mexican radio, television, theatre and film actor. He had a career spanning six decades and many notable roles...
in both the television episode and in the film.
Khan first appears as an Indian
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
who is both admired and reviled by the Enterprise crew. Harve Bennett
Harve Bennett
Harve Bennett is an American television and film producer and screenwriter.-Early years:...
, executive producer for Star Trek II, chose Khan as the villain for the film. To reflect the time spent marooned on an inhospitable world, Khan was given a costume that looked as though it was scavenged from different items and showed off Montalbán's physique. The character has been positively received by critics and fans; Khan was voted as one of the top ten greatest film villains of all time by the Online Film Critics Society
Online Film Critics Society
The Online Film Critics Society is a professional association for film critics who publish their reviews, interviews, and essays on the Internet.The OFCS was founded in 1997...
.
"Space Seed"
Khan makes his introductory appearance in Star Treks twenty-third episode, "Space Seed", first broadcast on February 16, 1967. According to the backstory revealed in the episode, Khan is one of a group of genetically engineeredGenetic engineering
Genetic engineering, also called genetic modification, is the direct human manipulation of an organism's genome using modern DNA technology. It involves the introduction of foreign DNA or synthetic genes into the organism of interest...
supermen, bred to be free of the usual human
Human
Humans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
mental and physical limitations, who were removed from power after the Eugenics Wars of the 1990s. Khan had been both the most successful conqueror and the most benign ruler of the group, ruling a more than a fourth of the world's area across Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
to the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
from 1992 to 1996 with a firm but generally peaceful hand until he was deposed. While most of the supermen were killed or sentenced to death, Khan and 84 others escaped Earth by way of the sleeper ship
Sleeper ship
A sleeper ship is a hypothetical type of manned spaceship in which most or all of the crew spends the journey in some form of hibernation or suspended animation. There is currently no known technology that allows for long-term suspended animation of humans....
SS Botany Bay. Cryogenically frozen
Cryonics
Cryonics is the low-temperature preservation of humans and animals who can no longer be sustained by contemporary medicine, with the hope that healing and resuscitation may be possible in the future. Cryopreservation of people or large animals is not reversible with current technology...
in suspended animation, the crew of the Botany Bay are discovered by the crew of the Enterprise
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)
The USS Enterprise, NCC-1701, is a fictional starship in the Star Trek media franchise. The original Star Trek series depicts her crew's mission "to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before" under the command of Captain James...
in 2267.
When Khan's sleep chamber malfunctions, he is transported to the Enterprise, where he reawakens and learns he is in the 23rd century. Given spacious quarters while the Botany Bay is towed to a starbase, Khan fascinates and charms the ship's historian, Marla McGivers (Madlyn Rhue
Madlyn Rhue
Madlyn Soloman Rhue was an American character actress.Rhue was born in Washington, D.C. From the 1950s to the 1990s, Rhue appeared in some twenty films, including Operation Petticoat and It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World...
), while using his access to the ship's technical manuals to learn how to take over and operate the Enterprise. McGivers agrees to help Khan revive the other supermen, allowing him to organize a mutiny. To coerce the Enterprise crew to cooperate with him, Khan places Captain James T. Kirk
James T. Kirk
James Tiberius "Jim" Kirk is a character in the Star Trek media franchise. Kirk was first played by William Shatner as the principal lead character in the original Star Trek series. Shatner voiced Kirk in the animated Star Trek series and appeared in the first seven Star Trek movies...
(William Shatner
William Shatner
William Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, and author. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T...
) in the ship's decompression chamber and threatens to kill Kirk unless the crew submits. McGivers cannot stand by as her Captain dies and frees Kirk, who neutralizes Khan's men by using a "neural gas". Khan heads to engineering and sets the ship's engines to self-destruct, whereupon he is incapacitated by Kirk. Captain Kirk conducts a hearing, sentencing Khan and his followers to exile on an uncolonized world, Ceti Alpha V. Khan accepts Kirk's challenge—invoking the fall of Lucifer
Lucifer
Traditionally, Lucifer is a name that in English generally refers to the devil or Satan before being cast from Heaven, although this is not the original meaning of the term. In Latin, from which the English word is derived, Lucifer means "light-bearer"...
in Milton
John Milton
John Milton was an English poet, polemicist, a scholarly man of letters, and a civil servant for the Commonwealth of England under Oliver Cromwell...
's Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost
Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books, with a total of over ten thousand individual lines of verse...
— and McGivers joins Khan rather than face court-martial. Spock
Spock
Spock is a fictional character in the Star Trek media franchise. First portrayed by Leonard Nimoy in the original Star Trek series, Spock also appears in the animated Star Trek series, two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, seven of the Star Trek feature films, and numerous Star Trek...
(Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Simon Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series , multiple films, television and video game sequels....
) wonders what the "seed" Kirk has planted will bear in a hundred years.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Khan returns in the 1982 feature film Star Trek II: The Wrath of KhanStar Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a 1982 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. The film is the second feature based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise. The plot features James T...
, when USS Reliant officers Clark Terrell and Pavel Chekov
Pavel Chekov
Pavel Andreievich Chekov is a Russian Starfleet officer in the Star Trek fictional universe. Walter Koenig portrayed Chekov in the original Star Trek series and first seven Star Trek films; Anton Yelchin portrayed the character in the 2009 film Star Trek.-Origin:Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry...
(Paul Winfield
Paul Winfield
Paul Edward Winfield was an American television, film, and stage actor. He was known for his portrayal of a Louisiana sharecropper who struggles to support his family during the Great Depression in the landmark film Sounder which earned him an Academy Award nomination. Winfield also portrayed Dr....
and Walter Koenig
Walter Koenig
Walter Marvin Koenig is an American actor, writer, teacher and director, known for his roles as Pavel Chekov in Star Trek and Alfred Bester in Babylon 5. He wrote the script for the 2008 science fiction legal thriller InAlienable.-Early life:...
) beam down to what they believe is Ceti Alpha VI, looking for an inhospitable world to test the Genesis device, a powerful terraforming
Terraforming
Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
tool. Khan's followers capture Terrell and Chekov, and Khan explains that the barren wasteland they now inhabit is Ceti Alpha V. The sixth planet of the system exploded shortly after Khan and his followers were marooned, causing massive climate disturbances. The planet was turned into a desert, and many of the survivors (including McGivers, who had become Khan's wife) were killed by the only surviving species of animal, the Ceti eel. By the time the Reliant arrives at Ceti Alpha, only twenty of Khan's followers are alive. Swearing vengeance on Kirk, Khan takes control of Chekov and Terrell using Ceti eels implanted in the officers' brains, rendering them vulnerable to suggestion. Khan then seizes control of the Reliant, intent on capturing Project Genesis and attaining revenge on Kirk for his exile.
Lured by Khan to the space station Regula I, the Enterprise falls victim to Khan's surprise attack. Kirk, his ship disabled, tricks Khan by using a special code to remotely lower the Reliants shields and inflict significant damage. Khan is forced to withdraw and make repairs. Using the mind-controlled Terrell and Chekov as spies, Khan captures the Genesis device and leaves Kirk marooned on Regula I. However, Khan is deceived by Spock into thinking that the Enterprise is crippled. Khan is surprised when Kirk and the Enterprise escape to the nearby Mutara nebula. Goaded into following Kirk, Khan pilots the Reliant into the nebula, where shields and visuals are inoperable. Due to Khan's inexperience with three-dimensional space combat, the Enterprise disables the Reliant and kills Khan's followers. Refusing to accept defeat, Khan activates the Genesis device, intent on killing his foe along with himself. Khan believes he has doomed his enemy before he dies but Spock, in an act of self-sacrifice, is exposed to a lethal dose of radiation while repairing the Enterprises warp drive
Warp drive (Star Trek)
Warp drive is a faster-than-light propulsion system in the setting of many science fiction works, most notably Star Trek. A spacecraft equipped with a warp drive may travel at velocities greater than that of light by many orders of magnitude, while circumventing the relativistic problem of time...
to allow it to escape.
Novels
Author Greg Cox penned three Star Trek novels featuring Khan. The novels were published by licensee Pocket BooksPocket Books
Pocket Books is a division of Simon & Schuster that primarily publishes paperback books.- History :Pocket produced the first mass-market, pocket-sized paperback books in America in early 1939 and revolutionized the publishing industry...
, though the subject matter falls outside of canon. In the two-volume The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh
The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh
The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh is a two volume set of novels written by Greg Cox about the life of the fictional Star Trek character Khan Noonien Singh. He is often referred to as simply "Khan" in the Star Trek episode "Space Seed" and in the Star Trek movie Star Trek...
, Khan and his followers are placed aboard the Botany Bay by Gary Seven
Gary Seven
Gary Seven is the major character in the last episode of the second season of the original Star Trek television series, "Assignment: Earth". He is portrayed by Robert Lansing.-Assignment: Earth:...
as part of a deal to stop Khan's machinations on Earth. The 2005 follow-up, To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh
To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh
To Reign In Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh, is the final book in a trilogy of novels written by Greg Cox chronicling the life of the fictional Star Trek character Khan Noonien Singh. This final book deals with the life of Khan after he was marooned on Ceti Alpha V by Captain James T...
, relates what happened to Khan and his fellow exiles between the events of "Space Seed" and The Wrath of Khan.
Design and analysis
In "Space Seed" writer Carey Wilber's original plot treatment, the character of Khan was a NordicNordic countries
The Nordic countries make up a region in Northern Europe and the North Atlantic which consists of Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway and Sweden and their associated territories, the Faroe Islands, Greenland and Åland...
superman named Harold Erricsen. The first draft of the script introduced the character as John Ericssen— who is revealed to be a man involved in "the First World Tyranny", named Ragnar Thorwald. The character of Thorwald was more brutal than Khan in the final version, killing guards using a phaser. By the final draft, Khan is of India
India
India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...
n ancestry. The character's Latino
Latino
The demonyms Latino and Latina , are defined in English language dictionaries as:* "a person of Latin-American descent."* "A Latin American."* "A person of Hispanic, especially Latin-American, descent, often one living in the United States."...
accent and superhuman appearance strongly differentiate him from most Star Trek characters. In "Space Seed", Khan is presented as having several positive characteristics: he is gracious, smiling, fearless, and generous. He is not threatened by the success of others, and encourages their self-esteem. He is also ambitious, desiring a challenge commensurate with his abilities. This ambition, however, is not tempered by any consideration of the rights of others. Author Paul Cantor asserts that Khan is a mirror image of Kirk, sharing his aggressiveness, ambition, and even his womanizing tendencies, but possessing them in far greater degree. During the episode, several of the characters express their admiration for the man, while opposing his plans and what he stands for at the same time.
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first film based on the Star Trek television series. The film is set in the twenty-third century, when a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called V'Ger approaches the Earth,...
, Paramount executives appointed Harve Bennett, a television producer who had never watched Star Trek, to be executive producer for the sequel. Bennett watched all the original series episodes and chose Khan from "Space Seed" as a possible villain for the film. Early drafts of the script had Khan as a shadowy tyrant leading a planet in revolt; later drafts added the "Genesis device" which Khan would steal.
Costume designer Robert Fletcher wanted to emphasize the effects of their harsh environment on Khan and his followers. "My intention with Khan was to express the fact that they had been marooned on that planet with no technical infrastructure, so they had to cannibalize from the spaceship whatever they used or wore. Therefore, I tried to make it look as if they had dressed themselves out of pieces of upholstery and electrical equipment that composed the ship," he said. Director Nicholas Meyer
Nicholas Meyer
Nicholas Meyer is an American screenwriter, producer, director and novelist, known best for his best-selling novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, and for directing the films Time After Time, two of the Star Trek feature film series, and the 1983 television movie The Day After.Meyer graduated from...
told Montalbán to keep Khan's right glove on at all times, in order to give viewers a puzzle they could form their own opinions about and add mystery to the character. Meyer has been repeatedly asked if Montalbán wore a prosthetic chest for his scenes, as his uniform was purposefully designed with an open front. Meyer replied in audio commentary for the film that Montalbán (who was 61 during filming) is "one strong cookie", and that no prosthetics were applied to the actor's sizeable frame.
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
Redress
In film, a redress is the redecoration of an existing movie set, so that it can double for another set. This saves the trouble and expenses of constructing a second, new set, though they face the difficulty of doing it so the average viewer does not notice the same set is reused...
of the Enterprise bridge, and the two actors' scenes were filmed four months apart. Montalbán recited his lines with a script supervisor instead of to William Shatner.
Montalbán said in promotional interviews for the film he realized early on in his career that a good villain does not see himself as villainous. The villain may do villainous things, but he feels that he is doing them for righteous reasons. Montalbán further stated he always tried to find a flaw in the character, as no one is completely good or completely evil; while Khan had a rather distorted view of reality and therefore performed acts of evil, he still felt that his vengeance was a noble cause because of the death of his wife. Khan quotes the character of Ahab from Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...
throughout the film, driving home his lust to make Kirk pay for the wrongs he has inflicted upon him.
As superior man
Superficially, Khan is believed by some to have similarities with Friedrich NietzscheFriedrich Nietzsche
Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche was a 19th-century German philosopher, poet, composer and classical philologist...
's concept of the "Übermensch
Übermensch
The Übermensch is a concept in the philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche. Nietzsche posited the Übermensch as a goal for humanity to set for itself in his 1883 book Thus Spoke Zarathustra ....
" (superman or overman). Khan is mentally and physically superior to any normal human. In the Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise is a science fiction television series. It follows the adventures of humanity's first warp 5 starship, the Enterprise, ten years before the United Federation of Planets shown in previous Star Trek series was formed.Enterprise premiered on September 26, 2001...
episode "Borderland", Malik, the leader of a group of "supermen" created from the same genetic engineering project as Khan, actually quotes Nietzsche, telling Archer
Jonathan Archer
Jonathan Archer is a fictional character in the Star Trek franchise. He is the protagonist of the television series Star Trek: Enterprise, where he is played by Scott Bakula...
that "Mankind is something to be surpassed". Professor William J. Devlin and coauthor Shai Biderman examined Khan's character compared to the Übermensch and found that Khan's blind pursuit of revenge is against Nietzsche's ideals of transcendence and self-creation of a meaningful life. Instead, the authors offer Spock's self-sacrifice in The Wrath of Khan as a better example of the Übermensch.
Reception and legacy
Khan was favorably received by critics. Discussing the Star Trek motion pictures, the Associated PressAssociated Press
The Associated Press is an American news agency. The AP is a cooperative owned by its contributing newspapers, radio and television stations in the United States, which both contribute stories to the AP and use material written by its staff journalists...
noted that Star Trek films were measured by how menacing their foe was, and that Khan was among the best in the series; a 2002 review of the Star Trek films ranked Khan as the greatest enemy seen in any of the films. Star Trek producer Rick Berman
Rick Berman
Richard Keith “Rick” Berman is an American television producer. He is most famous for his work as the executive producer of several of the Star Trek series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, and Star Trek: Voyager; and, several of the Star Trek theatrical productions, and...
called the villain "threatening and memorable". Reviewers of The Wrath of Khan, such as Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
, rated Khan as one of the strongest aspects of the film.
Critic Christopher Null
Christopher Null
Christopher Null is a film critic, columnist and former blogger for Yahoo! Tech, editor of Drinkhacker.com, and is the founder and editor in chief of Filmcritic.com.-Publications:...
notes that "it is nearly gospel now among Trekkies that... Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is the undisputed best of the series, and will likely never meet its equal," and calls Khan the "greatest role of
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
ranked Khan as the best Star Trek villain, noting that he set the pattern for revenge-seeking villains in the series; in the decades since the film's release, "even those with a passing interest [in Trek] know the name".
Khan is also recognized as a great villain outside of the Star Trek series. The Associated Press called the character "one of sci-fi's great villains". In 2002, the Online Film Critics Society's 132 members voted Khan as the 10th Greatest Screen Villain of all time, the only Star Trek character to appear in the listing. In 2006, Emmy Magazine voted Khan "TV's Most Out-of-This-World Character", beating out other science-fiction characters such as The Doctor
Doctor (Doctor Who)
The Doctor is the central character in the long-running BBC television science-fiction series Doctor Who, and has also featured in two cinema feature films, a vast range of spin-off novels, audio dramas and comic strips connected to the series....
and Commander Adama
Commander Adama
Commander Adama is a fictional character in the 1978 movie and subsequent ABC television series Battlestar Galactica and its continuation series, Galactica 1980. Adama is the commander of the great military vessel Battlestar Galactica, commander of the refugee fleet and military commander of the...
. Editors wrote that "Khan was so cool we would've bought a Chrysler Cordoba
Chrysler Cordoba
The Chrysler Cordoba was an intermediate personal luxury coupe sold by Chrysler Corporation in North America from 1975-1983. It was the company's first model produced specifically for the personal luxury market and the first Chrysler-branded vehicle that was less than full-size.-History:In the...
if he'd told us to," referring to an ad campaign Montalbán appeared in for Chrysler. The character also had a cultural impact outside of Star Trek fandom; a clip from The Wrath of Khan featuring Kirk screaming "Khaaan!" was one pop culture appropriation that became a "popular fad" driving the success of the website YTMND
YTMND
YTMND, an initialism for "You're the Man Now, Dog", is an online community centered on the creation of hosted web pages featuring a juxtaposition of an image centered or tiled along with optional large zooming text and a looping sound file...
.
In 2004, the Star Trek franchise returned to Khan's backstory in a three-episode story arc
Story arc
A story arc is an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, boardgames, video games, and in some cases, films. On a television program, for example, the story would unfold over many episodes. In television, the use of the story...
on Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise is a science fiction television series. It follows the adventures of humanity's first warp 5 starship, the Enterprise, ten years before the United Federation of Planets shown in previous Star Trek series was formed.Enterprise premiered on September 26, 2001...
. In "Borderland", "Cold Station 12" and "The Augments", a 22nd century scientist is portrayed as having revived genetically engineered embryos from Khan's time and raised them as "Augments". Enterprise producer Manny Coto
Manny Coto
Manny Coto is an American writer, director and producer of films and television programs.Coto was the executive producer and showrunner of Star Trek: Enterprise in its final season, and executive producer of four seasons of 24...
described these characters as "mini Khan Noonien Singhs".
Following the box office success of J. J. Abrams
J. J. Abrams
Jeffrey Jacob "J. J." Abrams is an American film and television producer, screenwriter, director, actor, and composer. He wrote and produced feature films before co-creating the television series Felicity...
' Star Trek reboot and the announcement that actors Chris Pine
Chris Pine
Christopher Whitelaw "Chris" Pine is an American actor. He has appeared in the romantic comedies The Princess Diaries 2: Royal Engagement and Just My Luck , as well as the action films Smokin' Aces and Unstoppable . In 2009, he portrayed James T...
and Zachary Quinto
Zachary Quinto
Zachary John Quinto is an American actor and producer. Quinto grew up in Pennsylvania and was active in high school musical theater. In the early 2000s he guest starred in television series and appeared in a recurring role in the serial drama 24 from 2003 to 2004...
had tentatively agreed to appear in two sequels, internet rumors began circulating about the plot of the second film. Abrams hinted that because of the alternate timeline created in the first film, reintroducing Khan into Star Trek lore remained a possibility. Abrams told MTV, "[Khan and Kirk] exist — and while their history may not be exactly as people are familiar with, I would argue that a person's character is what it is," Abrams said of the notion that his Khan could be just as evil, even if Kirk never stranded him on Ceti Alpha V. "Certain people are destined to cross paths and come together, and Khan is out there... even if he doesn't have the same issues." At one time, actor Nestor Carbonell
Nestor Carbonell
Nestor Gastón Carbonell is an American actor, known for portraying Richard Alpert in ABC's drama Lost and Mayor Anthony Garcia in the film The Dark Knight...
was rumored as a possible contender for the rebooted role of Khan.