Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan movie review

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Directed by Nicholas Meyer

Screenplay by: Jack B. Sowards, Harve Bennett, and Nicholas Meyer (uncredited), based on a story by Harve Bennett & Jack B. Sowards

Based on the “Star Trek” television series created by Gene Roddenberry

Starring: William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, Walter Koenig, Kirstie Alley, Bibi Besch, Merritt Butrick, Ricardo Montalban

In June of 1982, less than three years after the premiere of “Star Trek: The Motion Picture,” Paramount Pictures released director Nicholas Meyer’s “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.” Executive-produced and co-written by Harve Bennett, “Star Trek II” was more of a swashbuckling space opera than Robert Wise’s leisurely-paced and effects-heavy mish-mash of “2001”-style science fiction and producer Gene Roddenberry’s New Age-flavored humanism.

In the 23rd Century…..

Years after the Starship Enterprise’s historic five-year mission, Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) is experiencing a midlife crisis. His former ship is now a training vessel under the command of Captain Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Kirk is relegated to “sitting behind a computer console” as a Starfleet Academy faculty member in San Francisco. Along with Dr. Leonard McCoy (DeForest Kelley), Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott (James Doohan), helmsman Hikaru Sulu (George Takei), and communications officer Nyota Uhura (Nichelle Nichols), Kirk’s job is to help train young Starfleet officers like Lt. Saavik (Kirstie Alley) to carry on the Fleet’s mission “to boldly go where no one has gone before.” The only times Kirk goes out into space are when he makes an occasional inspection tour or goes on a “little training cruise.”

On his 50th birthday, Kirk is in a deep funk. He believes his best days are behind him, something that Dr. McCoy strongly disagrees with. “Get back your command, Jim,” the good doctor counsels. “Get it back before you really grow old.”

Meanwhile, out in the Ceti Alpha sector, former Enterprise navigator Commander Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) is on a top secret scientific mission aboard the Starship Reliant. Starfleet has loaned Captain Clark Terrell’s (Paul Winfield) ship to a team of scientists led by Dr. Carol Marcus (Bibi Besch) and her son David (Merritt Butrick). A former flame of Kirk, Carol is the head of Project Genesis, an ambitious terraforming endeavor that, if successful, can turn lifeless planets and moons into worlds capable of sustaining life.

But when Chekov and Terrell beam down to the desert-like fifth planet in the Ceti Alpha system, they find more than they bargained for. To their shock, instead of discovering pre-animate matter they can transfer off-world, the Reliant officers find the survivors of the Botany Bay, the 20th Century sleeper ship which had carried 90 genetically engineered supermen led by Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban).

[Captain Terrell meets Khan and his followers]
Khan: Uh, Captain! Captain. Save your strength, Captain. These people had sworn to live and die at my command two hundred years before you were born! Do you mean he[refers to Chekov] never told you the tale? To amuse your Captain, no? Never told you how the Enterprise picked up the Botany Bay, lost in space from the year 1996 with myself and the ship's company in cryogenic freeze?
Capt. Terrell: I've never even met Admiral Kirk!
Khan: 'Admiral?' 'Admiral!' 'Admiral'... Never told you how Admiral Kirk sent 70 of us into exile in this barren sandheap, with only the contents of these cargo bays to sustain us.
Chekov: [furious] You lie! On Ceti Alpha V there was life! A fair chance --
Khan: [shouts] THIS IS CETI ALPHA V!!! [walks back to Chekov and calms voice] Ceti Alpha VI exploded six months after we were left here. The shock shifted the orbit of this planet, and everything was laid waste. Admiral Kirk never bothered to check on our progress! It was only the fact of my genetically-engineered intellect that allowed us to survive. On Earth . . . (grins wistfully). . . two hundred years ago . . . (sighs nostalgically). . . I was a prince . . . with power over millions.
Chekov: [angrily] Captain Kirk was your host. You repaid his hospitality by trying to steal his ship and murder him!!

Khan and his crew, with the aid of mind-altering Ceti eels, gain control of Chekov and Terrell and take over the Reliant. Obsessed with his vendetta against James T. Kirk, Khan leaves Ceti Alpha V behind and sets off to find his old nemesis.

Saving the Franchise: The Creation of “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”

Although “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” was a financial success for Paramount (it earned $136 million at the box office), the studio was disappointed by the mixed reviews from fans and critics. 

Not wanting to give up on the lucrative franchise, the executives took the decision-making power away from Gene Roddenberry, whose constant demands for rewrites contributed to the budget issues and creative unevenness of the first “Star Trek” feature.

After giving Roddenberry a ceremonial “executive consultant” position, Paramount hired Harve Bennett, who was the head of its TV movie division. His assignment: to make a better “Star Trek” feature for less than $46 million.

Though Bennett disliked “Star Trek: The Motion Picture” due to its lack of a villain, glacially slow pacing and unexciting story, he accepted his new job. He schooled himself in “Star Trek” lore by watching the entire 79-episode TV series. After watching “Space Seed,” the first season episode which introduced Khan, he decided that “Star Trek II” would be a continuation of that story.

After Bennett and writers Jack B. Sowards, and Samuel A. Peeples failed to come up with a script the studio liked, Bennett listened to a recommendation by Paramount executive Karen Moore to hire Nicholas Meyer, a young writer and director (“The Seven Per Cent Solution,” “Time After Time”).

"How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life, wouldn't you say?" - Kirk, to Saavik

Meyer’s final script took elements from the screenplays by Bennett, Peeples, and Sowards (who got the on-screen writer's credit). Meyer’s main contribution was to make “Star Trek II” about aging, friendship, and death.

“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” is thus more than a typical adventure film set in outer space. It does have many of the tropes one expects from a Hollywood space opera – dueling spaceships exchanging phaser fire and photon torpedoes, a menacing villain with a deadly superweapon, and a resolute band of heroes intent on stopping him – but there’s more to its story than that.

It’s no spoiler to point out that Meyer’s choice of themes (growing old, friendship, vengeance, and sacrifice) all stemmed from the death of Spock. This once-controversial plot point came about because the studio believed “Star Trek II” would be the final movie and wanted a story that would attract a large audience. It was also conceived to convince Leonard Nimoy to play the character and allow Spock to go out on a blaze of glory.

As writer-director Meyer intended, the movie had to deal not just with death as a major theme, but the related themes of aging (as reflected by Kirk’s wistful attitudes in Act I), vengeance (Khan’s obsession with getting payback for being exiled on Ceti Alpha V and the death of his wife), friendship (the bond between Kirk, Spock, and McCoy), and sacrifice.

My Take:

“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” is a better, more appealing movie than Robert Wise’s technically impressive but oddly uninvolving “Star Trek: The Motion Picture.” Like the original television series, the focus is on the characters, their relationships, and their motivations, and not glitzy special effects or hardcore science fiction concepts a la “2001.”

“Star Trek II” is faster-paced and more action-packed than its 1979 predecessor. It has several exciting duels between Kirk’s Enterprise and Khan’s commandeered Reliant. Interestingly, the two antagonists never meet face to face, but they have various subspace radio conversations.

"I've done far worse than kill you. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me. As you left her. Marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet. Buried alive. Buried alive."
"...KHAAAAAAAAAAANNN!!!" - Khan and Kirk

The film also benefits from Meyer’s “Star Trek” outsider’s perspective. His take on the series was that it was essentially “Horatio Hornblower in Space,” so he added a more Navy-like look and tone to Starfleet, including Robert Fletcher’s now-classic uniforms and the use of boatswain’s whistles and ship’s bells. Even composer James Horner’s score is more evocative of 18th and 19th Century sailing ships than of futuristic spaceships traveling at warp speed.

Many fans consider “The Wrath of Khan” to be the best of the 12 films in the long-running franchise. (2013’s “Star Trek Into Darkness” is a reworked version of the Kirk-vs.-Khan story; that’s how powerful its appeal is.) Even though “Star Trek II” tackles some heavy-duty themes and (temporarily) kills off Spock, the movie is well-written, full of humor (DeForest Kelley and William Shatner get some of the best one-liners in “Star Trek” history here), and surprisingly moving. Its success saved the series and set the stage for four more sequels with the original cast.

“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” Blu-ray

Video

• Codec: MPEG-4 AVC (32.34 Mbps)
• Resolution: 1080p
• Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
• Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1

Audio

English: Dolby TrueHD 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
French: Dolby Digital 2.0
Spanish: Dolby Digital Mono

Subtitles

• English, English SDH, French, Spanish, Portuguese

Discs

• 50GB Blu-ray Disc
• Single disc (1 BD)
• BD-Live

Playback

Region free

Miscellaneous

• Rated: PG (Parental Guidance Suggested)
• Studio: Paramount
• Blu-ray Release Date: September 22, 2009
• Run Time: 112 minutes

Extra Features

* Exclusive to the 2009 re-release of the 1982 theatrical version
† - in HD (others in standard definition)

• Commentary by Nicholas Meyer
• Commentary by Nicholas Meyer and Manny Coto *
• James Horner: Composing Genesis *†
• A Tribute to Ricardo Montalban*†
• Collecting Star Trek's Movie Relics *†
• Starfleet Academy: Mystery Behind Ceti Alpha VI *†
• Library Computer *
• BD Live: Star Trek I.Q. *
• Captain's Log
• Designing Khan
• Original interviews with DeForest Kelley, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and Ricardo Montalban
• Where No Man Has Gone Before: The Visual Effects of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
• The Star Trek Universe: A Novel Approach
• Storyboards
• Theatrical trailer