Sure, they’re dangerous. But it is not up to Kirk or Khan (now a 23rd century criminal) to sweep this little incident under the rug.

That said however. I will be seeing any Star Trek movie they come up with in theaters. Even if they did the easter bunny takes over the enterprise.

I think an episodic treatment of the motion picture series that is to come, as though it were a big screen enactment of a TV series premise, wouldn’t be the best for the franchise.

I think it would be interesting to see the next 3 movies thought of as one big movie, like Lord of the Rings, or Star Wars, so that we are left hanging at the end and waiting for the sequel to resolve some issues begun in the previous film.

And I would hazard a guess that one of the reasons why Star Wars and Lord of the Rings and Harry Potter were all so successful was because those stories explored timeless mythology. I think that kind of thing works very well in cinema, and it would be interesting to see that explored for the film series instead of doing 2 hour stand alone episodes every two years.

Bob and Alex have a canvas with a mere sketch on it, and they can color in the details in any number of ways.

Though Sikhism is a religion, their tenets guide their appearance (at least for the devout). I’m not a Sikh so please excuse me if any of this is not true.

http://www.sikhiwiki.org/index.php/5ks

As with any religion there are people who are very devoted and follow this, others who are not; but since the religion is about self-regulation to live a life of justice, most Sikhs in India actually follow this. In place of Sword, some carry small ornaments on their person that represent the sword.

I believe the character of Captain Nemo in League of Extraordinary Gentlemen comics is supposed to be a Sikh. Check out how they dolled up Nassuradin Shah to play that role. That’s what a comic book –> Hollywood Sikh apparently looks like. Check out Inside Man. The Indian American kid they assume to be a terrorist is a Sikh.

There is so little attempt at accuracy on Sikhism in Space Seed I’m not sure it’s useful to discuss what a Sikh looks like.

Since Sikhism is a religion, not a race I think it makes sense for a historian to say “probably” even if they are pretty sure from the outward appearance.

I would disagree with this. My overall impression of McGivers from the moment Kirk speaks of her to the first time we see her, is that there is something not right about her. Why show her before she arrives in the transporter room? How many other guest stars were shown preparing prior to arriving in the transporter room?

The mere fact she has a “title” is no more indicative of her ability to do the job than her uniform proves her loyalty. While one cannot directly assume one for the other, it doesn’t preclude the possibility either. I had a secretary once, who interviewed well, had a good resume and references. Not long after she was hired, I began to notice her professionalism slipping. By the time she was fired, we discovered she didn’t know how to do her job very well either either. That is certainly not the first time I’ve heard of a bad employee being ferreted out of a company under those circumstances. Often one thing leads to another and I think that’s exactly what the audience is being set up for from the beginning.

The final card I will play is that if she were in fact an expert, she likely would not have qualified her assessment with “probably”. She would have stated it matter-of-factly: “He’s a Sikh from Northern India”. Like most appointed and self proclaimed experts I know and see on TV.

The turban does little to convince me one way or the other since it originates from the same source. However, I have conceded that I see “Khan” and “Singh” as titles which Khan has christened himself from whence he held his seat of power central to his empire of the Middle East and Asia. Khan may well have identified himself with the Sikhs for any number of reasons, or he may simply have liked to wear the adornment as part of his public costume, in the way Hitler liked to wear military uniforms despite being a civilian head of state, which would explain why Khan adheres to none of the other traditional Sikh traits. On the other hand, the fact that the painting looks nothing like Montalban is a non starter since he looks nothing like the average Sikh and speaks with a Spanish accent.

Either way, the word “probably” opens the door to second guess the “clues”, and hire someone of non-Sikh heritage to play the role, or even re-invent Khan any way one wants. That’s really all I wanted to point out.

Then again they hired a Pakistani to play a Cuban, so in the end it probably doesn’t matter at all, especially since it seems Indians wouldn’t go see Star Trek if their biggest star were in it.

What I think is funny, is that you find it funny others don’t have the depth of familiarity with canon you do, particularly when it comes to the understanding of the division colors. With the exception of the very early episodes (Uhura wore the gold uniform in the first two episodes only, then switched to red for 21 episodes before Space Seed), the color assignment of uniforms was visually consistent and implied the division assignment whether it was actually spoken (Khan even wears a red engineering uniform because he states he was an engineer). Rarely after the first few episodes was it violated, so of course the average person would assume it. Certainly by the time Space Seed was shot, the division separation was established. Whether or not a historian would be classified as a sciences or support is less of a problem for me than the fact with such limited personnel on the Enterprise, Star Fleet would assign a dedicated historian, who would have nothing to do 99% of the time.