Quote:
Originally Posted by pylon
I think these two are the best.
Both sympathetic villains, who have good reason to seek vengeance. You can sit back and say to yourself, if I was screwed over the same as these two guys, I could see myself doing the same thing. You cheer for them in a sadistic way.
In Khan's case, he was the classic villain, An total genius, that lost all rational thought, and reason, to seek revenge.
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It was funny with Khan when you watch Space Seed, he was a villain but not a savage. He was brilliant and was following his nature. He was a true uberman created to be the perfect man and someone that would bring man out of the savageness of its own nature. But the flaw in the plan is there were other men like Khan created and their nature was to drive for power.
At the end of Space Seed, when Kirk banished him to Ceti Alpha 5 he had a wife, he had his nation, and he had a challenge that he was looking forward to. Even Kirk was looking forward to looking in and seeing what happened.
And of course Kirk was too busy boning green chicks, forgot about Khan in his exile, and the planet went through a massive disaster that destroyed Paradise, killed his wife and forced him into a harsh level of existence where he was basically forced to forfeit any humanity to survive.
And rescue never came because Kirk was probably boning a blue chick.
Khan became a creature of anger and revenge and when he was unleashed it was clear that while his genius and his drive was there, every bit of his humanity had been blasted out in the sand storms of a ruined world.
He had his chances to step back and say wait a minute, I have a ship and a weapon that can create paradise for what's left of my nation, but he was consumed by Kirk his white whale.
When his second in command was killed you could see that touch of remorse, but it was quickly over shadowed by his rage and sense of loss, and his words to his fallen friend were about revenge.
When he was beaten he didn't reflect or change or whimper and cry out at the fates, his revenge knew no bounds and he knew that if he was going to die he had to still feed that revenge demon that had eaten his soul.
Khan in a lot of ways was extremely sympathetic. If any of us had that much taken from us by an uncaring adversary or system we'd probably take the easy route to revenge and lash out.
He was a villain that was created by situations that he couldn't control and sharpened by a hero that in this instance wasn't much of a hero.
I felt more sorry for them then a condemnation of him.
He was one of the best movie foils of the last century. He was almost what Darth Vader should have been.