I couldn’t give two figs about Star Trek. But I will say Wrath of Khan is a fantastic 80s space adventure. That happens to have a bunch of Star Trek characters in it, but whatevs.
I rewatched it last year and I’d forgotten it was the one where Spock dies! So that was a bit of a surprise.
-Tom
A few years after that, maybe 2003 or thereabouts, Tom and I and some of the Shoot Club folks went from LA down to Anaheim for a games convention (I bought Hobbit Stratego and a long addiction began!) and as part of the day, we attended a presentation by The Shat. It was just as you describe. I believe Tom wrote it up as something like “An Afternoon with Grandpa Shatner” or something like that. Thing is, despite Shatner’s meanderings, he has so much damn charisma that it was just an amazing afternoon. One I treasure in memory (except for the damn Hobbit Stratego addiction.)
As for Star Trek II, it is the very rare licensed/genre movie that works both as an independent genre movie (as Tom says, it is a high quality 80s Space Adventure Movie) and also as an example of its license. In my personal opinion, although I hold Star Trek IV and VI in very high regard, Wrath of Khan is peak Trek. The combination of sci-fi elements, characterization, humor, grandstanding, the excellent use of the classic Kirk/Spock/McCoy Triumvirate, and the immortal contest between Khan and Kirk all make it peak Trek. It is the mountaintop. And also a very good space movie, too.
That’s an interesting point, Wrath of Khan probably makes a better introduction to these characters than The Motion Picture did. While you can’t say the first movie hit the ground running exactly (or ever hit a brisk walk, ha ha) it did carry certain assumptions that the viewer was already on board. Khan may not do a lot of heavy lifting in presenting the history of the characters or their relationships, but it shows you very effectively who they are and what they’re made of. I know when I first saw the movie I had not seen Space Seed and had no idea who Khan was, but it took no time to understand what was happening. The movie does a great job of just giving you as much as you really need to follow along and just takes off.
Well that was a fun re-watch. Of all the Star Trek movies, I’ve watched Wrath of Khan the most (TMP being the second most watched). Even though the budget for this one was significantly less than TMP, there’s an excellent script and solid performances. It’s really a tight film.
I would agree with what was posted above about TWoK working as more than just a Star Trek movie. I remember when it hit HBO long, long ago, my older sister, who had zero interested in anything Trek sat down to watch it with me. At the end of the movie she remarked how much she liked it.
It’s interesting to see how things are spelled out for people who might not know these characters. Hell, that scene at the beginning in Kirk’s bachelor pad just sets the whole thing up. And it’s not like a dull exposition dump. It plays out like two old friends talking about the realities of getting old. I heard that Shatner was initially reluctant to play Kirk in that way. I’m not sure what changed his mind, but I think it’s one of his best performances as the good Captain.
If I were to pick my favorite moment, it would be when the Enterprise and Reliant first meet up. It’s thoughtful, tense, exciting… and Kirk is forced to wear his reading glasses in front to Saavik.
Random Thoughts:
Great soundtrack. I’m sure some of you already know this, but the composer, James Horner, was contracted to do Krull less than a year have scoring Khan. If you listen to the Krull soundtrack there are a lot of similarities. Here’s an example:
This is the Wrath of Khan Main Theme cued up to about 1:50:
And here is the Krull Main Theme cued up to about 1:40:
The dude clearly like Cellos and arpeggiated strings.
When Kirk, McCoy, and Saavik beam over to the research station, Kirk is the only one with his collar fashionably flipped up.
My wife was wondering why everyone on Khan’s crew was so young? I didn’t have an answer.
The movie begins with a birthday and ends with a funeral.
James Horner was the king of recycling.
In fact, Google “James Horner Recyling” and you get this as the top result.
Maybe but goddamn, when you’ve got something that works why mess with it?
My brother and I saw TWoK originally on a Saturday afternoon, then skipped over to another screen and watched Tron. Tron did not compare well.
My favorite Trek movie. Even back then I was like “This is a fantastic Trek episode but with a way cooler, updated look.” It gets you right at the start and never lets go. You see the long-time friendships. I laughed out loud when Kirk had to put on his reading glasses and I often still think about that scene when I have to put on mine. Will watch again now, maybe even on the old VHS tape I have in the basement.
And it has aged very well IMO.
[edit] So I’m in 30 or so minutes. I’m 99% sure that this was the first time that I heard the phrase “…tell me what you REALLY think…”, which I’ve used a few times since then :).
OMG spoiler!
Oh dear, I feel I should probably have been more charitable in light of the huge time crunches Horner was dealing with in those days.
Something the TOS-era movies really did well was conveying the sheer mass of these giant starships, like in this scene, where you know Sulu has the pedal to the medal on the maneuvering thrusters but the Enterprise is just sloooowly turning around.
From the TNG era onward, massive capital ships just zip around like fighters. I suppose it’s more “exciting” like that, but in such a disappointingly facile way. At least DS9 had the good sense to give themselves a relatively tiny ship with explicitly overpowered engines so maneuvers like that made sense.
Eh? Most fights in TNG that I remember it looked like the ships were literally standing still shooting at each other. There are exceptions, like, Birds of Prey but they look like they’re built for zipping around. What am I not remembering here?
Um…no? They don’t?
I didn’t say anything about fights. Any time on TNG they showed the Enterprise doing a 180, it usually managed it in like two seconds flat.
Y’all weirdos really will get contrarian about the most obvious things.
Only when people say really dumb shit. ;)
The reason is because TNG was pre-CG. Those motion-control shots took a lot of time and money, and so the budget dictated the ships not move a lot.
TNG was all all model-based, save for a handful of special cases (the crystalline entity). But anything featuring the Enterprise was shot on one of three models. The original two-foot and six-foot models were built by ILM when they were between big movie projects. Only the six-foot model could separate. The problem with the six-footer was it was really difficult to film due to its size, and the two-footer didn’t have a lot of detail as it was built to be shot from a distance. Then Greg Jein built a 4-foot model around Season 3 to solve those problems, and it basically became defacto model for the rest of the run.
DS9 was also model-based, but transitioned to CG in its latter seasons. The Dominion War could never have been done with just models.
Voyager was the first full CG effects Star Trek series.
Ah, now I understand. I still wouldn’t characterize that motion as “like a fighter” in that the ship pretty much turned OR moved in most cases, not both, but you’re right that there are quite a few “fast turns” in the show.
Weren’t the movies (at least the early ones) pre-CG as well?
Everything up to First Contact was pretty much all models.
Star Trek Wrath of Khan did feature the very first CG in movies (The Genesis Briefing), beating out Tron by about a month.
Generations they built a massive saucer, the largest model they’ve ever built for Star Trek. And they crashed it.
This to me is why the Death Star battle in RotJ is so incredible. Whereas ep4 had a decent fighter setup that was serviceable, RotJ had massive capital ships manoeuvring, while tons of little fighters zipped in and around them. It must have been incredibly difficult to stage those shots.
I wonder if anyone had transitioned to CG at ILM and worked on that first battle in ep2 where they had that really long opening space battle shot. They would have been insufferable with their “in my day” anecdotes.
