Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Screenplay by: Jack B. Sowards
Story by: Harve Bennett and Jack B. Sowards
Produced by: Robert Sallin
Directed by: Nicholas Meyer
Release date: June 4, 1982
Stardate: 8130.3
Mission Summary
The U.S.S. Reliant makes an unexpected discovery on a scientific mission to the Ceti Alpha system: the genetically-engineered superman Khan Noonien Singh and the surviving crew of the S.S. Botany Bay, who has been cooling his heels on the inhospitable fifth planet for the last fifteen years. Khan’s somewhat pissed that his old friend James Kirk never called or wrote since marooning them there, so he takes over Reliant and begins plotting his revenge, which mostly revolves around a) inserting gross, brain-controlling slugs into Captain Terrell and Commander Chekov’s ears, b) stealing the Genesis Device, an experimental probe that can terraform a dead planet within days (what could possibly go wrong?), and b) killing Kirk. A person has to dream big, and galactic overachiever Khan is reaching for the stars.
Admiral Kirk, temporarily back in command of Enterprise, fends off an ambush from Reliant and reconnects with an old flame, Dr. Carol Marcus, one of the inventors of Genesis. He also reunites with his son, David, an angry and impetuous young man. They’re the only surviving members of the Genesis science team, but at least the Device is safely hidden in an asteroid… until Khan beams it away from right in front of them. Khaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!
Enterprise and Reliant, both crippled, have a final, fateful showdown in the turbulent but beautiful Mutara Nebula, playing a game of cat-and-mouse. Kirk’s superior combat strategy and knowledge of starships trump Khan’s supposedly superior intellect. In his final moments of life, the wrathful tyrant quotes Moby Dick and triggers the Genesis Device, which sets off an explosive chain reaction that threatens to engulf Enterprise. Captain Spock sacrifices his life to restore warp power, enabling his ship to escape to safety. Kirk and the crew bid a somber farewell to their fallen friend. They fire his photon casket into space, and it finds a resting place nestled in the rapidly growing flora of the brand new Genesis planet.
Analysis
I hate to be unoriginal, but like many Star Trek fans, this is my favorite of the films–my second favorite being First Contact, which is also heavy on Melville. I’ve probably seen Star Trek II more than any of the other movies, and many other films–even once on the big screen in a movie theater, which isn’t notable except that it originally released when I was four years old–and while I may not find something new to appreciate on repeat viewings, every time I see it I am amazed at how great it is. This isn’t just great Star Trek, it’s great science fiction. It’s a great film, period.
Nearly every one of TMP’s flaws has been improved upon in TWoK. It’s more lively and colorful, for one thing; these movie-era Starfleet jackets are my favorite uniforms in the entire franchise. And it certainly makes up for the lack of action in its predecessor–this is a quintessential adventure movie, and quintessential Star Trek. More importantly, the events of TWoK matter a great deal to the characters we’re already invested in, especially Kirk and Spock. They aren’t out to save the universe, or even a world–they’re trying to save their friends and family, and stop one madman who is only out for revenge. This time, it’s personal.
The relationships among the crew are reinstated as we remembered them in the series. The interactions of Kirk, Spock and McCoy are excellent; they effortlessly fall into their patterns from the original series with what is simultaneously an extra layer of maturity and humor bred by familiarity. Although some new important characters are introduced, mainly the Drs. Marcus and Saavik, we’re interested in them because of their close connections to Kirk and Spock, who we do care about. And, of course, most viewers were already very familiar with Khan Noonien Singh, who provided a direct link back to one of the most memorable episodes of the original series–another draw for fans who might have been underwhelmed by the franchise’s first foray into film.
Star Trek II obviously is preoccupied with death (at least, they keep talking about it), especially as it relates to getting older and looking back on the life you have lived; Kirk’s past catches up to him, not only with Khan’s reappearance, but with the realization that he has a son he never knew about. Though Saavik suggests that Kirk has never faced death, as a Starfleet captain, of course he’s faced it plenty of times. Rather, Kirk has never faced the consequences of his actions in a personal, significant way. He doesn’t believe in the no-win scenario because when he breaks the rules, he gets a commendation instead of punishment; every scenario has been a “Kirk-wins” scenario, until now. TWoK forces him to deal with his mistakes for the first time and offer him an opportunity to make up for them.
Kirk obviously pays a heavy price for abandoning Khan on a hostile planet to die, but interestingly, I don’t see him suffer any remorse for the egregious oversight. Granted, there isn’t much opportunity for Kirk to offer a heartfelt mea culpa to his old nemesis–and Khan doesn’t seem all that deserving of an apology given his aggressive actions before Chekov can even get a word out–but Kirk just never seems to regret failing to check up on old Ceti Alpha V. It wouldn’t have helped the situation any, but I would have liked to see some acknowledgment that he kinda screwed that up. Instead, Kirk just treats Khan as another problem to solve. He’s a puzzle, not a person, and Kirk manipulates him like a chess piece.
The film also succeeds by directly addressing the age of the cast, picking up on some of the implications of the first film–these people are getting old!–but leveraging it as part of the characters’ arcs, which also helps to make them more relatable and… human. Kirk doesn’t like where his life has led him, but he doesn’t know what he really wants to do about it, or if he should do anything. He starts out unusually maudlin about his birthday, and even a little bitter, but when the film ends, he tells McCoy that he feels young again. Carol Marcus promised that seeing the Genesis cave would affect him this way, but it also has something to do with personally cheating death once more, and not wanting Spock’s ultimate sacrifice to be in vain. And the understanding that just because you’re older doesn’t mean you can’t make a difference.
It’s fitting that just as Spock’s death coincides with the birth of the Genesis Planet, Kirk’s loss is balanced by his new relationship with David. Not a fair trade, Spock for a whiny brat with bad hair, but it’s something at least. To steal some of the thunder from the next film, he has turned “death into a fighting chance to live.” Spock’s sacrifice enables him to approach his own life with a renewed sense of purpose.
Whereas the first film had a scattering of memorable images, I realized while rewatching TWoK that the entire film is a series of scenes and moments that I remember and love, especially when Kirk notices Spock’s empty chair and immediately understands what his friend has done, and we see that realization, the raw emotion of it. For all the jokes and accusations about Shatner’s acting talents, he owns these movies, and he fills this one in particular with a rare gravitas. His final scene with Spock gets me every time. And it gave me a chill the first time I noticed the foreshadowing in the simulator at the beginning of the film, when Spock pretends to die and Kirk asks him, “Aren’t you dead?” I think this was primarily meant as a tongue-in-cheek way of addressing rumors that Spock would die in the film, but it’s much too deliberate and more affecting when we know his fate.
My absolute favorite moment of the movie: After Spock has saved the ship, he unsteadily climbs to his feet in the antimatter chamber and straightens his tunic. Even blind and dying, he faces his death with quiet, proper dignity–just as he lived his life.
The space combat between Reliant and Enterprise is also one of the most amazing things I’ve seen in a science fiction film. When phasers rake along Enterprise‘s side, I almost feel the wound myself–a testament to how iconic that starship is. (It’s so shocking, I didn’t even mind that they recycled the exact same effect shot later in the film.) Despite the fact that it’s kind of slow, as action scenes go, the cat-and-mouse game is fraught with tension, and it’s one of the first ship battles that takes advantage of the third dimension, sort of.
If Kirk was somewhat bumbling in the last film, he’s on the top of his game here, nearly always a step ahead of Khan. In fact, Khan’s downfall is what plagued Kirk in the last film–irrelevancy. As competent, strong, and brilliant as the engineered super genius is, he’s been out of the loop for too long, and Kirk just knows more about ships than he does. Holed away on Ceti Alpha V, the universe has passed him by, but he’s so bent on revenge, he doesn’t get the same opportunity Kirk did to catch up and find his place in the brave new world.
Lest this turn into a gushfest, because I can’t say enough good things about TWoK, I did notice some cracks in the facade–that’s part of the job when doing these re-watches. This time around, I wondered how much of Khan’s plan was actually worked out from the start. He wants revenge on Kirk and tries to draw him out… or does he just want the Genesis device? Kirk’s appearance almost seems like happenstance–Chekov seems to pull his name out of nowhere under the suggestion of the Ceti eel. (Those eels, by the way, are still truly horrific, and this is the first time I noticed that the specimen that escapes from Chekov’s ear is fully grown. Yecch!) Would Kirk have come to the station if Carol hadn’t called him, and if they hadn’t had the relationship they did? Kirk isn’t even supposed to be there that day! He’s usually behind a desk, not in command of Enterprise. Of course Khan wants revenge on Kirk, so the simple plot seems to flow naturally, but I’m not sure all the dots are connected as well as one would assume.
I have other questions! How does David know what Kirk said to Saavik during the Kobayashi Maru, about how you deal with death being at least as important as how you deal with life? Why did they spend all that time and money refitting Enterprise, only to turn it into a training vessel for cadets? And for the love of Heisenberg, how can they speak during transport?
But these flaws are oh so minor, especially in contrast to the gaping problems in the first film. I wondered if fans would love this film so much if we hadn’t suffered through TMP first, but I think the answer is an unqualified yes. TWoK isn’t perfect, but it’s damn near close.
Eugene’s Rating: Warp 7
Torie Atkinson:
“Old age is always wakeful; as if, the longer linked with life, the less man has to do with aught that looks like death.” – Moby Dick
The Motion Picture failed in part because it expected all of the characters to simply pick up where they left off, exploring the universe and saving the planet. Everyone had moved up a little, a token gesture of the lost decades, but no one had really grown. Spock seemed to be wrestling with the same identity issues he had before; Kirk was bristly to others but right, and sure of himself; Bones was cranky and picked up some disco fever on his long journey through the 70s. Everyone had their trademark lines and did the things they were expected to do. Though time had passed for us, these characters were trapped in amber.
Wrath of Khan dared to acknowledge that years had been spent. Kirk has grown clumsy. He’s rusty on command but refuses to acknowledge his weaknesses and secretly he feels useless in a world full of young people. Spock has come to terms with his dual heritage, rejecting the Kolinahr and embracing the human part of him. They are not the men (and woman) who went gallivanting around the galaxy: they’re civil servants contemplating retirement and wondering what mark, if any, they left on the world. And they’ve grown old: Kirk most of all, even if he can’t bear to admit it.
The most obvious adversary in the film is Khan, but I think the real enemy here is the past: nostalgia for another time, and resentment at the present for failing to live up to expectation. Kirk’s apartment is full of antiques. He needs reading glasses. He reads old books and relives old stories, and even his own history feels distant and unreal. Kirk tells McCoy that “galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young.” I suppose it’s heavy-handed but it feels authentic, and the willingness to admit those fears is what makes the film so strong. The passion that drove him as a young man is all but gone in a world of stagnant bureaucracy. He can never go back to the life that made him so happy, so what usefulness can he be now? Why bother with anything?
Wrath of Khan works because its thematic core was ancient even to the ancient Greeks: hubris. Kirk refuses to believe in the no-win scenario. He wins by cheating. He thinks he knows better–better than the rules, better than his peers, and better than his enemies. What I found interesting on this re-watch is just how phony Kirk can be. The one moment where you think you see him exhibiting some actual, sincere emotion–the “Khaaaaan!” heard ’round the world–is actually fake. Think about it: he screams that after he’s given the coded message to Spock, and before he reveals his back-up plan to the other people in his party. It’s a show for Khan, to make him think he’s won. It’s a cheat, just like everything else. That kind of bravado finally has a price, and it’s one that his closest friend winds up having to pay.
Actions and behaviors finally have consequences, and for the first time we really get to see some of the natural ends of Star Trek’s philosophy. What Wrath of Khan did was very brave: it asked not what happened 50 minutes later, but 15 years later. What becomes of all those aliens and all those worlds that Kirk has turned upside down? And what happens to his friends and to his crew when his philosophy won’t allow surrender? While Kirk has more or less forgotten the Khan Noonien Singh episode in his life, Khan is sure that his own story is the stuff of legend. He’s surprised no one has told Chekov’s captain “the tale” of Kirk’s victory over Khan, and is enraged at the truth. History forgets, even if men cannot.
While Kirk has been busy with promotions and a career, Khan has spent those years tending a flame fed by vengeance, anger, and hatred. He isn’t living 15 years ago, he’s living 200 years ago. Age has hardened him, focused his interests into obsessions, and made him too proud and too inflexible. Stagnant and trapped in his own memories he provides not just the perfect villain for Kirk but the perfect counterpoint. Fixation on the past is a doomed ideology from the start, and it’s a lesson Kirk has to learn by the end. Khan’s followers, who are all mysteriously hipster-aged, try to provide the voice of reason. Joachim repeatedly restrains Khan from letting his emotions get the better of his tactics. He urges his leader to let the obsession go: they have everything they want already, after all. But the path to a fixed purpose is laid with iron rails, and by the end Khan’s selfish quest for revenge kills not just himself but each and every one of his own men.
This movie’s Spock is the man that Kirk used to be. While in Kirk’s mind there are now only closed doors and paths long closed off, Spock sees possibilities in all things. Where Kirk looks around fearfully at the bridge full of recruits, Spock invites Saavik to test out her skills and take the ship out of dock. Spock trusts their judgment and acknowledges the limitations of his own. Both Khan and Spock die, but where Khan lets his own interests prevail, Spock’s selflessness allows the Enterprise’s crew to live and create a future–and to see creation itself in the form of the Genesis device. I like to imagine that after all is said and done, Kirk puts away some of his antiques and hangs up the IDIC curtain instead.
I think the most lasting legacy of this film, though, isn’t the Melville, or even the silly scream: it’s the Kobayashi Maru. Spock’s “solution” is actually the second sacrifice of the film (the first is Terell) and the third of the movies so far (remember Decker?). It’s brilliant. It canonizes not just Kirk’s somewhat wild character, but the legitimacy of his occasional fears and regrets about the burdens of being a captain. They picked up this thread in TNG’s “Thine Own Self,” in which the A-plot is largely unmemorable but the B-plot is about Counselor Troi trying to qualify for command by taking the Bridge Officer’s Test. In the test, the antimatter is leaking and can’t be repaired because the area is deadly. She tries everything to get it contained and back online, but repeatedly fails the test, killing everyone on board. By the nth time she’s attempted it, she realizes the solution: she must order Geordi to make the repairs, knowing he will not survive. Command means putting the needs of the many first, even if it means sending your crewman to his death–NOT waiting for them to sacrifice themselves. Terrell knows this, and he commits suicide rather than harm fellow Starfleet officers. Kirk should know it, too, and all of his men almost die because he had forgotten.
In many ways, Khan is formulaic and derivative. Pride, vengeance, death, rebirth: the movie is like a greatest hits collection of themes. It hits the notes you expect, but it does so with gusto, and there are no half-measures. Good cliches, when done well, feel timeless. They make all of us feel young.
Torie’s Rating: Warp 6
Background Information
Despite the obscene expense of making the first Star Trek film, its relative box office success made it a fargone conclusion that there would be a follow-up, albeit with a much smaller budget (only about $11 million, compared to TMP’s estimated $35 million). Once the sequel was announced, rumors began to circulate, one of the most common ones being that Spock would die–an obvious concern for most fans, who feared this indicated the new film would be a complete departure from the series they loved. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
If anything, the second film would be even more faithful to the original show, most notably thanks to its director, Nicholas Meyer, who had made his name with the well-received science fiction film, Time After Time. His approach would be to make the new film “Captain Horatio Hornblower in outer space,” which matched Gene Roddenberry’s first vision for Star Trek. Roddenberry himself was forced out for making a mess of Star Trek: The Motion Picture with his constant rewrites, and Harve Bennett (The Six Million Dollar Man and The Bionic Woman) stepped up as executive producer.
Bennett also was keen to retain the spirit of Star Trek. To find a focus for the new film, he rewatched every episode (who does that?) and finally settled on Khan from “Space Seed” as his villain, the perfect nemesis for Kirk. The script, credited to the relative unknown Jack B. Sowards, was a collaborative effort, though his first draft contained many elements that appeared in the final script. Sowards came up with the central conceit that convinced Leonard Nimoy to return: Spock’s planned death. Art Director Michael Minor, who also created the Melkot for the episode “Spectre of the Gun,” contributed the notion of the Genesis Device: a tool designed to create a paradise, which also had the potential to be a devastating superweapon.
Director Nicholas Meyer wove together key events and ideas from all the different drafts and wrote the script in twelve days, though he remains an uncredited writer. He was intent on making the film more than an adventure story, instilling it with deeper themes and meaning, which often characterized the best hours of the television series. He also felt that it needed to have a sense of respectful humor to offset its more serious elements.
The result was what many fans consider to be the finest Star Trek film to date. The movie grossed nearly $14.5 million in its opening weekend, which was surpassed by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom two years later. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan ultimately earned $97 million worldwide.
Best Line: MCCOY: He’s not really dead, as long as we remember him.
Other Favorite Quotes: MCCOY: Get back your command. Get it back before you turn into part of this collection.
SPOCK: Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny. Anything else is a waste of material.
MCCOY: According to myth, the Earth was created in six days. Now, watch out! Here comes Genesis, we’ll do it for you in six minutes.
KHAN: Do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish best served cold? It is very cold in space.
KIRK: I don’t believe in a no-win scenario.
SPOCK: I have been, and always shall be… your friend.
KIRK: Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most… human.
Trivia: The first theatrical film print of the movie credited it only as Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. The number was added in later prints.
The original title was The Undiscovered Country, which was changed to The Vengeance of Khan. A perceived conflict with the planned title for the second Star Wars film, Revenge of the Jedi, necessitated the change to The Wrath of Khan.
Though Khan recognizes Chekov immediately, the two never appear together onscreen in “Space Seed,” because Walter Koenig had not yet joined the cast. Meyer was aware of the continuity error but didn’t care about it. Supposedly Koenig picked up on the error right away, but didn’t speak a word of it lest they swap out his character for someone else.
Ricardo Montalban reviewed the episode “Space Seed” to prepare himself for his return to the character he had originated. He was drawn to reprising the role because he realized how significant Khan was to the events of the film–even when he isn’t onscreen, the other characters were always talking about him.
Kirk and Khan never meet face-to-face in this film. All their communication is via viewscreens and communicators.
Because of its limited budget, many models and effects shots from the first film were reused. Original effects were created by Industrial Light and Magic.
This is the first appearance of a Starfleet vessel in a configuration other than the Constitution class: the Miranda class.
This is the only Kirk-era Star Trek film to show a ship firing phasers. All the other films show photon torpedoes.
Actress Madlyn Rhue was unable to reprise her role as Marla McGivers because she was confined to a wheelchair with multiple sclerosis.
The Enterprise models and sets from the first movie were reused, but the Bridge set was repainted in warmer colors. The set also doubled as the Bridge of the Reliant. The Klingon Bridge from the first film was redressed into the torpedo room.
Space station Regula I was the same station used in TMP, upside down.
In keeping with his nautical theme, Meyer redesigned the uniforms to evoke the Navy, with heavy influence from costumes for the film The Prisoner of Zenda. The pajamas from the first movie were redyed and used for junior cadets and enlisted crew. The vertical quilting (trapunto) on the turtlenecks beneath the dark red uniform jackets required an antique machine that was no longer being made, and had only one needle for the entire wardrobe department.
The Genesis Effect animation sequence was the first use of particle effects in a motion picture, which are now commonly used.
This film marks Marc Okrand’s first association with Star Trek, devising the Vulcan language, which was dubbed over the English lines Nimoy and Allie originally recorded.
Fans speculate that Dr. Carol Marcus was “the little blonde technician” Mitchell mentions in “Where No Man Has Gone Before.”
Kim Cattrall was Meyer’s first choice for the role of Saavik. She eventually got to play a similar role in Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.
Lt. Saavik was intended to have Vulcan/Romulan heritage, explaining her displays of emotion throughout the film.
Yes, Montalban’s chest is real. The costume was designed specifically to show off his physique.
This movie establishes that Star Trek takes place in the 23rd century.
The shot of Spock’s coffin on Genesis was included at the last minute, surprising even Nimoy when he saw the completed film at its premiere. Similarly, Spock’s mind meld with McCoy was added late in production, and Nimoy came up with the line, “Remember.”
The extended edition of the film includes a scene where Scotty reveals that the dead cadet he carries is his nephew. This scene appeared in some television broadcasts of the movie and was restored for the director’s cut on DVD.
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I’m with Eugene, this is my favorite of the films. It just gets everything right, and those places where it stutters or misses are mostly those places where the original show tended to do the same. TMP was a typical late 70s SF film. TWoK was Star Trek.
I will say in Kirk’s defense that it wasn’t his job to check up on Khan and the rest. It was Starfleet’s. Khan had every right to be pissed, but the blame shouldn’t fall on Kirk.
For all the Star Fleet Battles players at the time, this movie was like free candy.
I too like the more military-looking Starfleet from the film era. The key authenticity scene: early in the film where Kirk and Spock are walking through SFHQ, there’s an enlisted guy in the background using a futuristic floor buffer.
Hands down the best Star Trek Film of either franchise. while it is not without its own warts, they are small and easily waved away. (You can beam over but you can’t stop the device? If I phaser it into atoms (or less) it still works? Silliness, pure and simple and unneeded silliness, simply state you can’t beam in a Nebula.) As to Kirk checking up on Khan, in the novelation it was retconned that Kirk never reported the incident with Khan to Star Fleet at all. (hmm makes me wonder what happened to Marlena offically.) So Starfleet never chekced up and that why there’s no record in Reliant’s database about Khan on the planet.
Oh thing I want to point out is either through the direct or the editor sheer genius is on display during the ship battles. Evere shot of a weapon damaging a ship is followed by a shot of people paying the price, being injured and killed. This keeps us from forming an emotional distance and makes the war real, bloody, and unpleasant.
@3 bobsandiego: That retcon makes almost no sense. Kirk logged the whole thing and somebody out of a crew of over 400 people would have talked. Why in the world would Kirk and the rest of the senior officers risk their careers over something like that. Khan agreed to the marooning and it was a reasonable solution to a serious problem.
That’s also a good point about the battles showing real consequences. That’s something that’s never done in anything in Hollywood. The closest they ever came before was “Balance of Terror” starting with the wedding and having the groom get killed.
While I do feel sorry for Madlyn Rhue suffering her health problems, her inability to appear allowed the writers to kill off Marla, thus giving Khan extra motivation and forcing the audience to sympathize with him just a little.
Remarkable how this film, which still holds up well, broke so hard from the first film and set up so strongly all that would follow.
The Kobayashi scenario elevated Kirk into iconic status in a way that was never clear before. The series never particularly established that Kirk was a uniquely gifted commander in comparison to other commanders (most of the captains we encounter are dedicated and competent, even if they’re each a little unhinged). I’m not even sure–could be wrong about this–TOS ever took note Kirk was particularly young for a starship captaincy. TMP tried to install some unique competence by insisting Kirk had been promoted into the top tier command in Starfleet, chief of Starfleet operations. But this film made clear he was a rule breaker and ass kicker day one in the Academy. Iconic.
I also loved the uniforms when I saw this film, being underwhelmed by TNG’s uniforms, MK I. For the first time, they actually LOOKED like military uniforms.
As I mentioned in an earlier thread, IIRC through this period Nimoy was pretty obstinate about continuing in the character of Spock for the first several movies, concerned about typecasting. He’d been written out of plans for a new series. He was involved in TMP in a kind of detached, impermanent way even at the end (one could imagine him leaving the ship much as he arrived). And here, he was killed off.
It’s worth mentioning this point because, to most fans at the time this film was released, his death on screen was a powerfully moving thing, a permanent death, with no guarantee this great character would ever be seen again. Eugene noted the great moment where Spock, dying, straightens his uniform before turning to address his captain. That little flourish by Nimoy was absolutely pitch perfect.
Wonderful movie, made even better by the Director’s Cut. My favourite moment is the battle in the Mutara nebula, when the ‘Enterprise’ rises up behind Reliant and opens up with the phasers. Beautiful – and deadly.
Personally, I’d still rate First Contact a bit ahead of this one but this one is still a well great film. While This film is anchored in the classics, First Contact is very much a Space Opera with classical elements and Space Opera is my preference in reading science fiction.
You mentioned that Khan was the one who – like Kirk in the first movie – was out of place and out of touch. I loved how this was made clear during the battle in the nebula – especially in the scene where one of the men announces that he’s making an unordered change then Khan starts to challenge him but quickly gives it up because he knows the guy is right.
Chekov knowing Khan didn’t bother me or any of my friends because we had all assumed that Chekov had been one of the lower decks crewmen during that first encounter with Khan. That being the case, it would be easy to accept that Chekov knew of him and had even seen him.
I’ve not read the novelization so I don’t know how it was handled but I can’t accept that Kirk and the crew would be able to get away with not reporting something like that. Although, I can see where one could argue that not reporting it would add a layer of security to the secret of the continued existence of the super-men. (The fear of someone trying to exploit their abilities.)
There has been a debate among some of my friends as to whether that seam in the casket get wider during that brief shot on the Genesis Planet at the end. Some people still insist that the thing was about to open just as the shot ended.
Last comment. The most memorable line for me was a minor one in the film but was made a key point in a general promo for Showtime (I believe) when the film made its first run on that network. After showcasing all the new films showing that month the voice-over asked “And what about those who don’t get Showtime?” then they cut to Khan commanding “Let then eat static.”
@1 DemetriosX
That’s a good point, of course–Starfleet kind of dropped the ball on that one. It makes me wonder if they ever bothered to follow up on any of Enterprise‘s missions, or if they simply left some of those people to starve after Kirk promised help would be on the way. Maybe they really came up with the Prime Directive so they wouldn’t have to bother getting involved and keeping track of all those burgeoning civilizations.
@2 S. Hutson Blount
Gotta love their attention to details! Those floors don’t buff themselves.
@3 bobsandiego
I love that observation about humanizing the battle. Are there other precedents in film, or have other films borrowed from this?
@4 DemetriosX
I wasn’t clear on whether she was too ill to appear, or if they didn’t want her onscreen in her condition. Her illness could have been written into the role…
@5 Lemnoc
I always figured Kirk distinguished himself through his actions, like his Corbomite bluff, and the fact that he was the first captain to do so much. For all we know, he was the only captain to come back from his first five-year mission. There has to be a reason why Starfleet doesn’t have many captains with his level of experience and talent, unless they keep promoting them to desk jobs.
@6 EngineersMate
I know exactly the shot you’re referring to, and it’s gorgeous.
@7 Ludon
I could see Starfleet burying knowledge of Khan and the Ceti Alpha System because they’re so dangerous. Possibly they could bury it so deep it doesn’t raise any red flags when someone queries the system. They like to hide stuff and make things off limits, don’t they?
“Let them eat static”–ha!
“And, of course, most viewers were already very familiar with Khan Noonien Singh”: that seems to me like a stretch. The guy was in one episode; certainly devoted fans who had watched the whole series a few times over would’ve recognized him, but could that really have been “most” of the audience? This was a very popular flick. My hunch is that many more people became aware of “Space Seed” because of the movie rather than vice versa.
@ 8 Eugene
I don’t know. There may be some pirate and or sea battle films from earlier in the century that used a similar technique. I don’t know of any SF sapce film post-star wars that did this except Wrath Of Khan. And I like Wrath much better than Revenge, Wrath seems to fit the character of Khan so well.
This technique is similary to one used in United 97 (I think there were two films about the passenger revolt on 9/11/01) where after the cabin door is close the audience never again sees the plane from the outside. Our viewpoint during the film is entierly the claustrophobic cabin, tight, cramped, and frightening. This is something I think could be used in SF films by a talent director/editor. A real space ship would be small cramped and except for blips on your display you’d never see the enemy.
If a planet in the Ceti Alpha system exploded shortly after Kirk marooned a party there, wreaking system wide havoc, mightn’t Starfleet (and Kirk) assume the party was killed and write them off the books? Ergo, they “forgot” about them the way you might “forget” about any disaster victim.
Evidently, when Reliant entered the system decades later, its sensors were unable to detect the party, even though its sensors and mission were attuned to discover just that. So I’d assume a more cursory survey or planet scan from a remote distance would likewise detect no survivors.
More puzzling is why/how a planet could shift so far in its orbit that Starfleet records could no longer recognize it or would mistake it for some other planet. Seems a bit far-fetched from the standpoint of astrophysics and orbital mechanics.
I imagine everyone had their own mental image of Kirk’s turn with the No Win Scenario. It was only described not depicted, so we all could have our cherished image of how this event went down.
What none of us imagined, I daresay, was how it went down in the recent film, with Kirk taking a character exam by behaving like a careless jackass, munching an apple and issuing inane, dangerous orders while his instructors looked on and took notes about his fitness for command. The way he behaved there, he honestly deserved to be expelled, not decorated.
I’ve never understood why the Academy would allow a cadet to take a character exam more than once—what purpose could it possibly serve?—it was a stupid conceit, even in TWoK; and for Kirk to arrange academy permission to take it, not just a second time, but a third, and then arrive and perform like a naughty schoolboy just grates on my intellect.
Here, there’s some sense that Kirk *needed* to retake the exam, that it was deeply important to him on some level, that it grated on his psyche to be presented with puzzles for which there are no solutions, and thus becomes an integral and legendary part of his character. He didn’t do it just to swing around grinning in his command chair and show off to his frat boy buddies and the girls he was trying to shag that he could.
I liked that depiction of Kirk actually climbing hard in the ranks, serving as a lieutenant on a couple of assignments, carting books around the academy grounds because he was an intelligent and serious student, etc. It juxtaposed nicely with his “recklessness,” which was always a bit of a ruse to throw others off their guard. He could beat Spock at chess (a stretch, by any imaging) not by magic, but by indomitable tenacity and a creative spirit.
So now the down side to The Wrath OF Khan.
I love this film dearly but as someone at some otehr site I think pointed out, it also damaged the franchise. The problem was that this film was such a nuclear explosion of excietment within the fan community that all other Star Trek films, with both casts, were heavily influenced in story and plotting. After This film – with the exception of IV, a Trek Film had to have a big nasty villian. The movies lost the capabliity of being about ideas and became about war, fighting, and killing,
Don;t get me wrong I love me a good war picture, but Star Trek can be so much more than that. I really really hope, but do not expect, the new crew will take on some ideas instead of villains in their future travels.
@13. bobsandiego
Could not agree more.
@12 Lemnoc
That’s one of the things I hated most about the reboot. I suppose you could put it down to the differences between Kirk being raised by his father and by his (apparently asshole) stepfather. I always had the impression that he tore apart the code and tweaked it so that it was just barely possible to eke out a win. Of course, it also made no sense that Spock created what was essentially a psychological test. That’s just not his area.
@15 DemetriosX
When you think about it, the whole No Win Scenario makes no sense if you know it is coming, yes?
“OK, everybody, climb aboard the Kobayashi Maru! It’s Barclay’s turn today!” “Oh, no!!”
The only way it really makes sense is that, in the course of their training simulations, they happen across it, and that each case is always slightly different.
@9 Eli B
Touche. I probably should have said “most fans.” I just don’t know how many people who had never seen Star Trek before, or had only seen TMP, would want to see Star Trek II. Maybe people checked it out after it got good reviews.
Incidentally, I remember reading a story about a fan who had brought along a TV and copy of “Space Seed” and played it in line for TWoK. Of course, it’s much easier to watch video in line now…
@12 Lemnoc @15 DemetriosX
I agree that the new Kirk’s actions were bratty. I don’t think there was ever any indication that he had taken the Kobayashi Maru test before, either. I’m assuming that people know that no one passes the Kobayashi Maru scenario, but they all think they will be the first to succeed, and they are probably also told that winning isn’t the point, it’s how they perform that matters. So even if it’s public knowledge, every cadet thinks of it as a challenge, and the events would have to be almost random, especially if you’re allowed to take the exam more than once.
I also always figured original Kirk only tweaked the code so it was possible to win, not so that he could win without putting in any effort at all.
@16 Lemnoc
Poor Barclay :(
@13 bobsandiego
That’s the problem with thinking you’ve found a formula for success, and one of the reasons most of the TNG films failed to capture the success of so many of the TV episodes.
Agreement with essentially everything above. A wonderful film which really got the essential elements of Star Trek in a way that the first film hopelessly missed. This is my favourite of all the Trek films, too; I don’t see how it could be otherwise.
I completely agree with bobsandiego@13, but, of course, the seeds of cinematic SF destruction were sown by Star Wars many years before. Only haltingly have we started getting some more serious SF (Moon, Gattaca, Solaris); I hope the trend continues, but I somehow can’t imagine it making its way into the Trek franchise. The hideous, unspeakable thing that J J Abrams has spawned does not offer any obvious entry point for serious thought. Even in the original and TNG film series, however, I just can’t see how Hollywood executives could have been convinced to allow a script with the gravitas of, say, ‘The City on the Edge of Forever’ or ‘Is There In Truth No Beauty’, to be made into a feature film.
The whole Ceti Alpha V/VI thing never made any sense to me at the time. How could Chekov, who (by whatever retconned means) knew Khan, have not remembered that the superman from the 20th century was stranded on a planet in the star system his ship was exploring? Wouldn’t he have at least mentioned this to his commanding officer when the orders to travel to the system were given? Or wouldn’t there be some note in the files (i.e., a quarantine, do-not-approach warning)? And how does a planet just blow up, anyway? And what happened to the debris, which certainly would still be present only a few (Terran) years later? And why wasn’t Ceti Alpha V subjected to some fairly serious asteroidal bombardment as a result of all this?
And how exactly does a creature on a planet in the Ceti Alpha star system evolve so that it can form a symbiotic union with the brain of Homo sapiens, anyway?
And do very senior Starfleet officers really have nothing better to do than to act out roles in cadet training simulator exercises? Don’t they have some ratings or midshipmen to handle that sort of thing?
Eugene@8/bobsandiego@10: Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World did this better than any film I can think of, TWoK included. The sea battles were horrific, and the effects on the crews devastatingly depicted. In practise, a space battle would be very short-lived, with not much room for the kind of dramatics shown in TWoK or in any of the series, but then that makes for a dull battle. See Niven & Pournelle’s The Mote in God’s Eye for excellent descriptions of space battles between ships with effective shields and realistic weapons. Once the Langston field goes, the target ship is vaporised instantly.
Still — nits aside, a really first-rate episode.
And don’t get me started on that whole astronomical nomenclature screwup thing — they inherited that from the original series, and someone should have caught it back then, so there’s not much to be done.
I was one of those people who saw Star Trek II before I saw “Space Seed”. It didn’t hurt my enjoyment of the movie; being told Khan was a character from Kirk’s past that he marooned on Ceti Alpha V was really all I needed to know. It did make my finally seeing “Space Seed” a bigger event for me that it probably should have been. I wonder how much I would have enjoyed the episode had I seen it first.
I also saw Star Trek III before Star Trek II, which is unfortunate.
@Eugene Myers – That mission summary is way too short! I wanted a detailed breakdown of every single scene in the movie. Now I have no choice but to watch the movie over again. Dammit!
@Torie – Really interesting thoughts on Kirk’s famous “Khaaaan!” moment. I always thought that was supposed to be a genuine outburst. Your take on it makes a lot of sense and made me look at that scene in a whole new way.
@20 JohnSteed7
I took it to be genuine rage, too. Kirk had just had his ship wrecked, his crew killed, and a genocidal device wind up in the hands of a mocking genocidal maniac. It was unclear at that moment Kirk would prevail even if he got his ship back in order, and the possibility was very real Khan could have—as members of his crew advised—taken his toys and gone all jihad.
@18 Nomad UK
Good point about Master and Command A film I watched as my sunday night movie just a few months ago. From what I remember of the battles is that Peter Weir never used an objective viewpoint. We never saw the battle from far off with ships firing at each other, but rather always from the deck, from a character’s point ot view. This is way Peter weir is one of the most talented directors out there he truly understands character and point of view. What made Cameron’s Titanic so memorable wasnt the story (predicatable), the characetrs (standard issue) or the dialog (cheesy) but that he kept the Point of view on the ship right up to and with the fantail going under. No one else had ever done that. All other films about the Titantic disaster at some point move to a point of view from a life boat and the human cost, the human loss become diluted and indestinct.
@20 JohnSteed7
Thanks for reminding me to comment on Torie’s intriguing theory. I am so impressed with her novel suggestion, especially after all the times I’ve seen this film, and I really love the idea that Kirk was playing Khan all along. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am. Kirk doesn’t scream at Khan immediately after the Genesis Device is beamed away, but after Khan tells him he’s going to leave him there to die. Though there’s undoubtedly genuine rage behind it, the move does seem calculated to make his nemesis think he’s won at last.
Does Kirk have any good reason to keep his friends in the dark though? Is he worried Spock won’t be able to rescue them after all? Or does he just want to seem even more impressive?
@23 Eugene Myers – Kirk keeps his friends in the dark for the same reason characters say “Over here! Take a look at this!” instead of just calling out what they’ve found. They want the characters to find out visually instead of just having things told to them. Then the characters that were in the dark can ask all the question the audience is asking after they’ve found the secret out.
It does make Kirk seem like a bit of a jerk though. It would have been so easy to reassure everyone that things would be okay, instead of just acting smug while everyone around him was worried. I like Lemnoc’s comment that this movie is what raised Kirk to “icon” status in Starfleet. There are moments when he almost seems to know this himself.
Argh, I am a week behind on my own site! Stupid vacation.
@ 1 DemetriosX
I wouldn’t think anyone would “check up” on exiles anyway. I never really understood that complaint.
@ 2 S. Hutson Blount
These are my favorites of all the uniforms.
@ 3 bobsandiego & @ 4 DemetriosX
The downside of the endless reaction shots is that you also see a lot of pointless busywork. My favorite example: the dudes lifting up grates to release the torpedoes. Seriously??
@ 5 Lemnoc
Kirk’s exceptional youth as a captain really screws up the whole hierarchy. Why is it that all these years later, Chekov is only an XO and Uhura is only a commander? Shouldn’t they _all_ be admirals based on that kind of accelerated promotion scheme?
I never noticed that little flourish! Guess I’ll have to re-watch it.
@ 6 EngineersMate
I know that shot and I love it, too.
@ 7 Ludon
Interesting that First Contact also borrows heavily from Melville.
And yeah the retcon makes no sense. He makes a friggin’ captain’s log. It’s been reported.
@ 12 Lemnoc
Absolutely agreed on the new movie. Eugene and I had plenty of heated words about it, but that scene was just loathsome. In my mind, Kirk reprogrammed the scenario to make it winnable. Barely. To make it possible to win. He didn’t just turn it onto God mode, and I don’t give a free pass to daddy issues.
Re: taking it multiple times, that actually makes sense to me. My assumption as I imagine it is that students are not TOLD it’s a character test. They’re told it’s a command test, and they’re supposed to keep taking it until they win. And one by one, they realize that they can’t win everything, and sometimes you have to be prepared to accept that possibility, put your own ship first, and get out of there. I would imagine that even the loose tongues of Starfleet cadets would keep the real nature of the test secret for future graduating classes.
@ 13 bobsandiego
Again, I don’t think this is Khan’s fault–I think this is the fault of Star Wars (and Indiana Jones, actually), studio execs, and even movie audiences. To beat a dead horse (take that, horse!): people have no patience for thoughtful, slower movies anymore. Thanks to the SW/IJ pairing, people have come to expect one action scene after another. I love Indiana Jones, but if you watch that movie it’s literally one chase/action/combat scene after another, with hardly a pause for anything else. This has become de rigueur for all movies, but especially science fiction. Last week I caught The Island on TV, and that’s a great example. The first hour is kind of interesting, a slow unfolding of information about this world; the second hour is a Jerry Bruckheimer film.
@ 16 Lemnoc
I just assume they tell them it’s one of their (presumably many) tactical scenarios, and kids keep coming back because they don’t understand why they can’t win.
@ 18 NomadUK
Agreed on the various weaknesses, and M&C is a great example of showing consequences. It’s such a shame they’re not making more of those movies.
@ 20 JohnSteed7
I hadn’t seen “Space Seed” when I first saw this and it worked just fine for me, too. I don’t really see how you could have understood III without II, though…
@ 21 Lemnoc @ 20 JohnSteed7
I’m going to stick by my interpretation. I watched this movie twice before doing my review and the scene plays much differently than I had remembered. He doesn’t flip out angrily right away–he waits until the last possible second, so that Khan can relish in his believed victory just as he pulls away from the scene. Both before and after that moment, note that Kirk looks completely nonplussed. David and Carol and even Saavik are freaking out a little about being trapped there for eternity, but Kirk is just taking a stroll. He knows about his little way out, and he’s savoring the reveal to the others.
Kirk knows exactly what he’s doing. It’s an arrogant, smug, and brilliant move: perfect Kirk. He screams at Khan to play the part, making Khan think he’s won, so that Khan moves along and they can catch up to him in a hurry. I think it’s fake, all of it, and I think it was planned in some form before they even beamed down.
And I think he withholds from the others because he’s a slightly smug kind of guy–perfectly in character.
@25 Torie
The lifting the grates are the same as the debris falling from the ceiling. It’s Nicholas Meyer playing that this is a sea adventure. The falling crap is the rigging coming down and the lifting gates are the guns being run out. I’ll let him have it for the convention.
Kirk made his serious mistake (Saavik is to Kirk as Joachim is to Khan) when he left his shields down. And it was Spock who suggested taking their tactics into 3D.
Where is the Reliant‘s cew? Ceti Alpha Whichever?
Debris always falls from the ceiling. All sorts of crap fell on the Romulans in Balance of Terror, the Constellation is trashed all episode. The series’ tilt camera/ cast lurch and lean was (over)used because it was cheap.
sps49@27: That artificial gravity is the single most robust facility on any starship, isn’t it? It must be amazingly simple, since everything else can go to hell but everyone’s still sticking to the floor and crap’s falling from the ceiling. I wonder how it works?
The whole ‘gosh, let’s go to three dimensions!’ thing irritated me no end. I mean — space is 3D. That’s the whole basis of their navigational terminology: ‘three-five-seven-mark-sixteen’ — that ‘mark’ is a separator between the azimuth and altitude. Having a space traveller forget about three-dimensional navigation is completely unbelievable, and to have Kirk, of all people, forget about it is the single weakest point in the entire film. It shows just how limited are the imaginations of the people who write these things, Meyers included.
I mean, even WWII submarine movies seemed to realise that subs move up and down.
“@23 Eugene Myers – Kirk keeps his friends in the dark for the same reason characters say “Over here! Take a look at this!” instead of just calling out what they’ve found. They want the characters to find out visually instead of just having things told to them. Then the characters that were in the dark can ask all the question the audience is asking after they’ve found the secret out.”
I always felt that another reason Kirk kept them in the dark is that, after the little outburst by Chekov and Terrell, he couldn’t be sure that they weren’t STILL somehow being monitored.
Eugene said in his review that Kirk has the “realization that he has a son he never knew about.”
I disagree. I think it’s clear in the movie that Kirk knew that his son David existed. It’s why he says to Carol “I stayed away like you wanted.” Although it’s clear he is only just now meeting the young man David has become, and that David wasn’t aware until the film that Jim was his father. I wonder how old David was last time Jim visited. (It’s clear he did visit some time ago because David knew enough about “that over-grown Boy Scout” his Mother use to hang out with.)
As for Starfleet visiting Khan for 15 years. I always thought that Starfleet had visited at least once, maybe a few years after Kirk put them on the planet. And they found evidence that Ceti Alpha V had exploded, taking Khan and his followers with it. Obviously they got the planets confused and there’s no real excuse for that. (Maybe V and VI were very similar and in close orbits.) But it would explain why no one followed up again and why there was no particular note in the records when Reliant visited the system over a decade later. Everyone thought Khan and his men and the planet were gone already.
@30 Data Logan
But the last part of Kirk’s sentence is “Why didn’t you tell me?” And Carol responds:
“How can you ask me that? Were we together? Were we going to be? You had your world and I had mine. And I wanted him in mine, not chasing through the universe with his father.”
So I think that means Kirk stayed away from her all these years, so he didn’t know about Marcus. He follows up with, “There’s a man out there I haven’t seen in fifteen years who’s trying to kill me. You show me a son that’d be happy to help him. My son. …My life that could have been, …and wasn’t. And what am I feeling? …Old. …Worn out.”
@ 31 Eugene I’m at work and can’t double check but I think Kirk’s line is “Why didn;t you tell HIM?” That David is kept cluessless has annoyed Kirk.
@28 NomadUK: Having the 3D aspect pointed out to Kirk felt, to me, like a weak writer’s trick. Either “we need to give someone else an important line” or “Kirk’s walking all over this battle, rein him in”.
But for Khan, makes sense to me. He and his followers fought in the Earth-bound Eugenics Wars. The “Botany Bay” was a sleeper ship. It’s been a long time since I watched “Space Seed”, but from this site’s watch I get the feeling that Khan’s temporary takeover only involved holding rooms, not actually going anywhere. At the end of the episode, he and his followers are deposited on Ceti Alpha V with only supplies.
So what we see in the movie represents the first time Khan is actually calling the shots in motion. Yes, there was probably some up/down getting to Regula 1, but I’d say the two battle scenes gave even Khan a rush that would make him revert to ingrained tactics on his certified pre-owned starship.
And one battle doesn’t really count since, to borrow from a submarine battle movie, Kirk kind of walked right up and unzipped his fly.
Why this never occurred to me before, I don’t know, but it’s probably a deliberate decision that Kirk, in the reboot, is eating an apple during the Kobayashi Maru situation: it parallels his action in the Genesis cave when he’s just sitting there waiting for the right time to contact Spock and have them all beamed out.
@34 ccradio
I don’t remember if I noticed that myself or if someone else pointed it out first, but that was one of the many small in-jokes I really enjoyed. It doesn’t make a lot of sense that they’d let him bring snacks into the simulation, but whatever.
When I was a kid, I had a tremendous amount of reverence for this movie. When it came on tv in the ’80s, I held an audio cassette tape recorder up to the screen (we didn’t have a VCR) during the whole movie. I listened to that cassette so many times, it eventually broke.
That being said, as an adult, Star Trek II just doesn’t do it for me.
Star Trek has never been “hard” science fiction; telling a good story has always been placed ahead of scientific plausibility. Still, Star Trek II flunks science pretty badly.
Let’s start with the Reliant’s mission at the beginning of the movie. Is it really that hard to find a planet without any life forms? There seem to be seven or eight in our solar system alone, and if that’s not good enough, Carol Marcus’ space station seems to be orbiting one. But suppose it really is that hard to find a lifeless planet in the habitable zone (i.e. at the correct distance from its sun). If so, doesn’t it undermine the case for Genesis as a solution to overpopulation if lifeless planets where Genesis can be used are extremely rare? Then, in the end, it turns out that the Genesis device doesn’t even need a planet to work with; it can just create a planet from scratch. Apparently, it can create a star, too, since the Genesis planet appears to have its own sun… at just the right distance. If that’s the case, then why was Dr. Marcus wasting Captain Terrell’s time, when the Mutara Nebula was there all along?
Then there are the continuity errors. On the Regula space station, Kirk is able to communicate with the Enterprise, but he has to use a code because Khan is listening. After beaming down to the planetoid, Saavik is unable to contact the Enterprise because Khan is jamming the transmission. Later, in the Genesis cave, Kirk has no problem contacting the Enterprise… and he doesn’t need to use a code because Khan’s not listening. We know Khan’s not listening, because he acts surprised in the next scene to find that Kirk is still alive. It’s hard to understand why he’s so surprised, in any case, since he knew Terrell failed to kill Kirk, and decided to leave him trapped on the planetoid. Did he think the air would run out that quickly? (Maybe he figured Kirk would use it all up yelling “KHAAAN!”).
But those things don’t really bother me all that much. What bothers me most is what the movie does to “Space Seed.” The original episode had a very optimistic, 1960s message: even the worst criminals deserve a second chance, and maybe even a third chance. More than that, it suggests that the same characteristics that made Khan a hated dictator on Earth, and a dangerous adversary about the Enterprise, might make him an excellent pioneer on an uninhabited planet. It seems to say something very positive and hopeful about humanity.
In contrast, Star Trek II seems to have a much more nihilistic 1980s view of humanity. Khan is simply an unredeemably evil “bad guy.” The viewer is not expected to have any sympathy for him. More than the characters themselves, it’s as though Star Trek’s worldview has become old and jaded; or, perhaps, has regressed to a simplistic “black and white” state.
Star Trek IV holds up a lot better for me. Like the best original series episodes, and unlike Star Trek II, it doesn’t have a “bad guy.” It also swaps the grim tone of Star Trek II and Star Trek III for a much more carefree and enjoyable tone.
Ironically, for a movie that’s ostensibly about getting older, I feel like I’ve outgrown Star Trek II. As Bob Dylan might say: “I was so much older then; I’m younger than that now.”
@36 (David Palmer): Your point about the note of optimism in the portrayal of Khan in “Space Seed” vs. his depiction in The Wrath of Khan is a fascinating one and I don’t think I’ve ever seen it addressed before. Now it seems especially significant to me that “Space Seed” ends as it does, with a formal hearing at which Khan’s fate is decided: sure, Khan gets beaten up in an action sequence, but the story ends not merely with his personal defeat but with the reassertion of the forces of civilization itself, a civilization that rejects Khan’s attempt to set up a mere personal dictatorship but which still may have some place for him.
But then, Wrath of Khan also doesn’t just end with an action sequence either. That’s why, though I can’t really disagree that it’s more like a ’80s action movie focused on the heroes’ struggle with an irredeemable villain, it’s still something more than that as well (as opposed to, say, that Benedict Cumberbatch thingie.) It’s still struggling with abstract concepts, though more personal ones. So I like the movie still. I like it better than The Voyage Home which seems to me mostly a collection of jokes about ’80s pop culture that have aged terribly–and which, if you’re going to discuss plausibility as well, is even sillier than Wrath of Khan. Also I suspect the box-office success of Voyage Home planted into Paramount’s collective brain the regrettable notion that if you want a hit movie, put some time travel in it.
@36 Dave Palmer
Thanks for pointing these out. It never occurred to me either to contrast and analyze “Space Seed” and “Wrath” in that way, and it’s also interesting to see a dissenter to general fan opinion of the film. I freely admit that sometimes a story being *fun* makes up for some of those flaws. People call them nitpicks for a reason, and while I hold Star Trek to a high standard, I also know that stories and writers are imperfect. But I’ll be thinking about this perspective for a while, and the next time I watch it.
@37 (etomlin): That’s a great point about the forces of civilization reasserting themselves at the end of “Space Seed.” I hadn’t looked at it in quite that way before. As far as the relative implausibility of Star Trek IV vs. Star Trek II, I guess I’m willing to forgive more in a movie that has fewer pretentions to seriousness. But it’s definitely a matter of personal taste. When I was a kid listening to Star Trek II on my Walkman, the inconsistencies never even occured to me, let alone bothered me. (Even things that should have bothered me, like Scotty bringing his injured nephew to the bridge before taking him to sickbay; I can’t imagine his sister would be particularly happy about that). I think my reaction now is largely a consequence of three decades of NOT watching this movie critically.
@38 (Eugene): To me, “nitpicks” imply small details. The Genesis Device is a major plot element. If you really think about it, it makes about as much sense as the “galactic winking-out” in “The Alternative Factor,” that is, no sense at all. I’m willing to accept the premise of a device that turns uninhabitable planets into habitable ones; after all, I’ve already accepted warp drives and pointy-eared aliens as the price of admission, and plenty of things that exist today would have seemed impossible 300 years ago. I’ll even accept that the inventor if the device lives on a space station orbiting just such a lifeless planet, but that for some unknown reason she can’t use it there. But then, at the end of the movie, it turns out that this device can actually create entire stars and planets from scratch. (A planet that, accordind to Kirk’s funeral oration, Spock gave his life to protect; stranfe, I thought he was trying to save his friends). I guess if the Genesis device can do that, it’s not too much of a stretch to believe that it can resurrect Spock, or turn Kirstie Alley into Robin Curtis.
@Dave Palmer – Regarding the search for suitable worlds on which to use the Genesis Device, remember Carol Marcus’ desription of the Genesis Project:
“Stage One of our experiments was conducted in the laboratory. Stage Two of the series will be attempted in a lifeless underground. Stage Three will involve the process on a planetary scale. It is our intention to introduce the Genesis device into the pre-selected area of a lifeless space body, such a moon or other dead form.”
Marcus had already used the Genesis Device to transform the interior of the cave inside the Regula planetoid – this was Stage 2. For Stage 3, the researchers required a lifeless space body not already “tainted” with life. Regula was ruled out given it now supports life. In addition to being lifeless, presumably the target world also had to orbit a suitable star at the right distance to ensure the newly created biosphere wouldn’t freeze or broil. And the target world must be the right size – not too small, not too big. I’m guessing this rules out a lot of worlds. And seeing that interstellar space flight is so common in the Star Trek universe, I imagine it wouldn’t be difficult to contaminate lifeless worlds with microbes from other worlds following a single landing from explorers or prospectors.
BTW it may not have been a complete coincidence that the Reliant visited Ceti Alpha VI when surely the galaxy must contain millions of suitable worlds. Ceti Alpha VI could have been on the short list of candidate planets precisely *because* it had already been explored & filed into Star Fleet databanks by Kirk when searching for worlds on which to exile Khan & Co.
@Robert Feyerharm: Good points, except at the end of the movie, it turns out that you don’t even need a planet. Set the thing off in a nebula and you magically get a brand new star and a planet at exactly the right distance. That seems to be orders of magnitude more powerful than what we’d been led to believe the device was capable of, whoch already required a pretty big suspension of disbelief. Of course, you could always say that maybe Carol Marcus didn’t realize just how powerful the thing was due to David’s use of protomatter. However, it’s simpler to just say that the Genesis Device is capable of whatever the plot requires, however unbelievable it may be. Maybe that’s why the Klingons were afraid of it: they know humans are writing the scripts!
How does David know what Kirk said to Saavik during the Kobayashi Maru? Well, the simplest and most obvious answer is that she told him. They certainly had enough time together in the Genesis Cave for that to have happened.
Not only not Kirk’s job, but when you’re leaving a murderous megalomaniac to tame a world and build an empire, why would you feel compelled to make sure he’s doing all right? That is the most bizarre criticism I see of the film: it’s Kirk’s responsibility to check up on his would-be murderer? Why?
What exactly did Chekov or Uhura ever do to merit fast advancement? Near as I can tell they are more or less ordinary Starfleet officers in the command of an extraordinary man, his extraordinary qualities being the reason he became a commander so young.