Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

The second part of CLASSIC SEQUEL WEEK brings us another classic franchise entry from the Summer of 1982 – the crew of the USS Enterprise are back and they’re involved in some hairy stuff.  James T. Kirk (William Shatner) is now an Admiral for the Star Fleet and while joining the rest of the crew for what was originally going to be a “routine training mission” he finds out about the return of an old foe who is out for revenge against him.  That foe is Khan played by Ricardo Montalban and not only is he out for vengeance against Kirk but he is now trying to nab a potentially dangerous new piece of technology from Star Fleet….the Genesis Device.  

And what follows is an epic space adventure including the rest of the cast from the The Original Series including Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, and George Takei.  This was directed by Nicholas Meyer who modeled the narrative on that of a sea-faring adventure. 

Host: Geoff Gershon

Producer: Marlene Gershon

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Transcript

STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN - 1982

Directed by Nicholas Meyer (Audio clip)

Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nemoy, Ricardo Montalban, DeForest Kelley, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, James Doohan, Paul Winfield, Bibi Besch, Merritt Butrick, and Kirstie Alley

Genre: Space Adventure

SPOILER ALERT – The ending of this movie will be mentioned off the bat in this review and throughout. 

"I have been and always shall be...your friend."

"Of all of the souls I have encountered in my travels...his was the MOST....human." 

(Audio clips)

I don't care what anyone says but dialogue like that is poetry...or at least what I would consider poetry. :) Yes it's cheesy on the surface and no it's not being delivered by the strongest of actors but...coming from actors who had already been working together for more than 15 years at the time of release...who not only lived AND breathed these characters along with each other for more than 72 hours of film & television by this point....and who over the past decade or so leading up to this film's release had pretty much had their existences DEFINED by these characters (as Nimoy would commiserate about in a book he wrote), you believe this dialogue and they SELL the shit out of it! 

I was never a Trekkie...nor Trekker whatever myself, my parents were so I did see a select number of episodes growing up of The Original Series and 'Next 'Gen. I have seen most of the movies and probably liked the majority of them but for some reason decades later after having first seen this movie in theaters (and on cable.. on video), finding myself to still have minimal interest in all things 'Trek, I still absolutely LOVE this film and probably rewatch it once a year. That it's a sequel to such an unremarkable slog like 'The Motion Picture makes that all the more interesting - all I remember from TMP is what felt like an hour of Sulu staring mouth agape at the big screen and some hot bald chick who sorta becomes an alien by the end. It's not really a movie about these characters nor are they given much interesting to do....I THINK Shatner, Kelley, Nimoy, Nichols, and crew were in it but I'm at a loss to remember anything they actually said or did. (Except George Takei staring at that screen of course.)

Which in retrospect was a shame and a missed opportunity because apparently that first film never took advantage of something that director Nicholas Meyer was smart enough to seize upon this time around: a natural chemistry and shorthand with its stars and the characters they're playing. You feel it instantly with the banter between Kirk and McCoy on the Kobayashi Maru along with asides from Sulu and Ohura...(Audio clip) these folks know each other well and we feel an easy familiarity with them even if we haven't seen them in anything else before. This sort of thing is VERY hard to recreate and it's absolute narrative magic in the right hands....it's probably a big driver for why Marvel properties have such a devoted following right now: most of those actors/characters have an undeniable chemistry and the audience feels that with them. 

It's the core strength of Star Trek II and fortunately it's at the service of a film which tells a compelling story that tests our protagonists, has some compelling ideas (Genesis...a great idea in theory which any functional scientist would have to be positively delusional to think WOULDN'T be exploited once it was taken over by the military), and of course has a great all-time villain driving its story, KHAAAAAAN! :) 

Khan is played by Ricardo Montalban in a dazzling performance which is actually quieter than you might remember and probably is even given less screentime than you remember. But he's name-checked in the title for a reason....his presence is felt throughout the remaining runtime once he first appears. He's angry, intelligent, brutal, arrogant, and also very eloquent in how he expresses himself and tries to execute his revenge on "Admiral" Kirk. (Audio clip)  The character's introduction STILL unnerves me...but we’ll get to that a bit later.  

Khan of course is the perfect foil for Kirk played by William Shatner in what I think might be his best performance in anything before or since - Khan provides the unnerving calm to counter the always staccato brashness of Kirk.  And that brashness also plays equally well against the unique styles of equally worn long-time collaborators like Leonard Nimoy and Deforest Kelley. They inhabited these characters all too well and while sadly both actors are no longer with us, they both still VERY fondly remembered as Spock and McCoy - the stirring, final moments of this film don't land nearly as well and could have drifted into maudlin territory if not for each actor bringing their history with these roles to the table. 

Jack Sowards who wrote the bulk of the screenplay and deserves a ton of credit for poetry like that....sadly he never wrote another movie afterwards. But yeah that ending still packs a punch! It has often been imitated and was even pretty much wholesale lifted for the ending of X2 about 20 years later.....the less said about JJ's later bastardization, the better. :/ The bagpipes, Shatner's face breaking into a tearful smile, that star hitting the edge of the Genesis planet as the camera pans past it, Nimoy's monologue...it's one of THE great endings. And it's probably cast a shadow over everything else to come out of the Trek-verse since then....just as more than four decades later, the excellence of Empire Strikes Back still casts a shadow over everything Star Wars.  Happy 40th Anniversary to a sequel which has few equals. 

Best Needledrop (best song cue or score used throughout runtime of film):

Talk about some one who keeps coming up on this podcast but I’m starting to wonder IF the late, great James Horner might have been THE best all-around big movie composer of the 1980’s….because wow, dude just KILLED it with so many great memorable scores during tht decade including previous episodes Aliens and Glory…..possible future episodes Commando, The Name of the Rose, and Field of Dreams……and even several otherwise mediocre films where his score was by far THE best part of them….Krull, Willow, and Honey I Shrunk the Kids.  For a while honestly, it seemed that if your movie featured high adventure….then Horner was your guy! (Audio clip) 

And that’s apparently why he was hired to take over the score for this Star Trek sequel, even after Jerry Goldsmith pretty much killed it with the first film….Goldsmith’s cerebral, moody score was definitely among the most memorable aspects of ‘The Motion Picture.  But this time around, newly hired director Nicholas Meyer was aiming for something more….quote….NAUTICAL.  This time around, the USS Enterprise was going to feel more like a battleship or submarine locked into an epic back-and-forth with a rival ship…and on that front, Horner more than succeeded.  This score is just AMAZING – emotional and suspenseful – in fact you could easily make the case that this MIGHT be the best all-around score that we’ve seen for a Star Trek movie.  Considering that masters like Goldsmith and Michael Giacchino have provided this ongoing franchise with some TRUE banger scores, that’s pretty high praise as far as I’m concerned….. (Audio clip) 

It's basically an orchestral score filled with strings but Horner just LOVES using trumpets and his signature French horns to ramp things up whenever things get hairy.  And this is never more obvious than during one of my favorite sequences in the movie…..when Kirk and his crew on the Enterprise are caught suddenly caught off-guard by hostile maneuvers from one of their fellow ships in the Federation, the USS Reliant.  How can this be??  Well guess who’s now piloting the Reliant….it’s KHAN and he’s determined to teach his “old friend” Kirk a lesson.  Just SUCH a fun sequence of verbal back-and-forth, tactical maneuvers, and of course loads of pyrotechnics as both ships fire at each other with large-scale phasers.  What helps launch this sequence into the stratosphere is of course – this piece of music is of course called, “Surprise Attack.”  (Audio clip)

Wasted Talent (most under-utilized talent involved with film):

This is a tough category because the ‘Wrath of Khan has a pretty extensive ensemble and for most of its runtime, they are often separated – you have Khan’s crew, the Enterprise crew, and the crew of scientists on Regula One lead by Carol Marcus played by Bibi Besch.  Given that and the film’s relatively trim 113 minute runtime, I find it hard to see how anyone was really given short shrift.  I just love how the narrative moves here so I’m glad that Meyer and crew kept this film so tight – I mean if this film came out TODAY, you can be damn sure that it would likely be 150 minutes MINIMUM.  That said, I do have my personal preferences among this cast of characters and…..me personally, I would have preferred more Sulu, more George Takei.  Sulu is a man of action and all things being equal, I would have much preferred HIM going down to Regula One with that select group from the Enterprise to seek out Khan and his minions – Sulu certainly could have handled himself better than Bones…just saying.  

Trailer Moment (scene or moment that best describes this movie):

Now back to the introduction of Khan….watching him remove his mask....calmly explaining how he was wronged....and even playfully referring to those still EXTREMELY creepy earworms (!) as "pets.....of course not yet domesticated" just as he orders them inserted into the heads of Chekov and Captain Terrell. Just WATCH the anguished, sweaty faces of both Walter Koenig and Paul Winfield in that scene as they anticipate this....they are beyond terrified and THAT'S the power of Montalban's Khan. ;) This is of course helped by some nifty creature effects from Industrial Light and Magic.  Just one of THE great balls-out introductions to any villain that I can recall….

 (Audio clip) 

MVP (person or people most responsible for the success of this film): 

Rewatching ‘Wrath of Khan this latest time, it became increasingly obvious to me that this is Kirk’s story and Shatner’s movie.  And here’s why: regarding that the often-parodied staccato-speak which has become Shatner's trademark for better or worse...it serves him REALLY well in this performance as we're witnessing the arc of someone already in a mid-life crisis (Kirk turning 50 and how folks react to his birthday starts off the movie) who is suddenly feeling humbled by mistakes from his past catching up to him and has to come to terms with what he has to be willing to give up to come out victorious on the other side. What better way for Shatner to convey this with scared pauses among some of his dialogue? 🤔 It's "ACTING" in the most obvious sense, but it works and we feel Kirk's emotion through every pause...  (Audio clip) 

Overall, everyone involved pretty much brought their A-game to this film from Horner composing his first BIG score to the visual effects folks at ILM providing the first extended on-screen demonstration of CGI when we see that presentation on Genesis.  Meyer himself deserves enormous props for LITERALLY righting the ship on Star Trek as a film franchise by shifting its tone towards that of a sea-faring adventure.  At the end of the day though, you can only have ONE captain and Shatner really earns his stripes giving a truly impressive performance.  That enough Navy puns for you?  Well allow me one more: Bill Shatner is the MVP and I salute him! (Audio clip) 

Final Rating: 5 stars out of 5

Most franchises are lucky to have just ONE entry as good as 'Wrath of Khan and it's certainly something for any IP to aspire to - this film remains one of the best arguments I can think of for the enduring concept of the "sequel." :) Here's hoping that more studios and producers EVENTUALLY learn the right types of lessons from its success.

Streaming on Paramount Plus

And that ends another VENGEFUL review