Star Trek 104: The Wrath of Khan

104. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

FORMULA: Space Seed + Balance of Terror

WHY WE LIKE IT: KHANNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!! Spock's death is a tragic moment. This restart of the Star Trek movie franchise is infinitely superior to The Motion Picture in every way.

WHY WE DON'T: If I have to find something, I'll say the small inconsistencies between Space Seed and this story (Khan knows Chekov, and the apparent youth of the other genetic elite), and maybe the somewhat slow pacing in the final battle.

REVIEW: The franchise gets a fresh start, looking a lot better than it did last time around. Though it's a little sad to see the color-coding go, the red uniforms have a much more naval flavor, which is great for this more militaristic story. The interiors are more cramped than in The Motion Picture, but more appropriate, I think, and when it comes to other Starfleet ships, Reliant sets the tone for the future (keep the saucer and nacelles, but invite variation). Nice phaser effects, creature effects, ship-to-ship battles and some of the first computer effects in cinema (the Genesis effect) complement the overall design of the film. In short, it looks real good.

Bringing Khan back was a stroke of genius. This is one of the few villains you could actually admire and who was Kirk's mental equal. The fate of his "new world" and wife set him on Melvillian revenge, intensely played by Ricardo Montelban. He chews up the screen something fierce, and his sparing with Kirk is always memorable (some feat considering that they never meet face to face in this movie). Kirk's experience is quite able to match Khan's genetically engineered mind, and using the Kobayashi Maru scenario as a theme throughout really works to make Kirk a master tactician.

Spock's final solution isn't as clever, perhaps, but his death comes as a real shock (despite it being presaged in an early sequence). It's poignant, but beaten by his funeral, which rarely fails to bring a tear to my eye. The profound loss we feel serves to highlight the theme of mortality that runs through the film. Great stuff, and the final moments are hopeful that this isn' t the end for Star Trek's most iconic character.

I should say a couple words on various supporting characters. Carol Marcus is most lively and an easy match for Kirk. David is on the annoying side (in the mold of precocious geniuses), but we can understand where he's coming from given his mother's upbringing, and it's not that surprising to see that Kirk has left his seed somewhere (there may be more little Kirklings we don't know about). We don't get to see much of Captain Tarrell, but what's there is good, and we're sorry to see him go. The most important addition to Trek is Kirstie Alley's Saavik. She's quite interesting as a youth more disciplined than her more seasoned seniors, and provides some eye candy in addition to real professionalism.

The Special Edition restores a couple of moments, most notably giving Scotty a doomed nephew in Peter Preston, but I don't think they really do much to enhance the theatrical release. The original Wrath of Khan was already great, with some minor pacing issues here and there, especially in the submarine battle at the end.

LESSON: Those long hours playing 3D chess will pay off eventually.

REWATCHABILITY - High: Though I don't call this my favorite, I know it's a lot of people's, and it's definitely worthy of being so. It was the first movie I ever went to see without parental accompaniment (when I was all of 12, I think) and it remains as potent today as it did back when the world was new.

Comments

LiamKav said…
The thing that people always miss (including me, to be fair) is that when Kirk does his "KHHHAAAAAAAANNNNN!" bit, he's "acting". He's playing Khan, trying to make him believe that Kirk really is helpless and abandoned. So if the scream is a bit OTT, that's because Kirk himself is going OTT rather than Shatner.

I can't remembe rwho did it, but there's another blog that did a review of this film and pointed out that it has more "fuck yeah!" moments in it than almost any other. I have two that give me goosebumps:

1. The Enterprise slowly rising up behind the Reliant at the end, to awesome James Horner music, and...

2. "Sir, our shields are dropping!" "Raise them!" "I CAN'T!"