Star Trek 2 The Wrath of Khan
December 1st, 2007
Oh my god, what do you say about Wrath of Khan that hasn’t been said before? I mean really this is the Citizen Kane of Trek films. Why, you may ask then is it not my number one Star Trek film? I’ll probably cover that more in my ST 6 entry but needless to say it is a very close competition which from day to day will change.
But for my initial list I locked Khan into the number two place and that’s where it falls today.
I’ll go straight to the key point in this film that takes it over into brilliant rather than just good: the death of Spock. Leaked to the fan groups before the film came out, the rumour mill was in over drive regarding the death of our favourite Vulcan. Maybe it was because the characters were such icons by the time the film was coming out and the idea of killing one of them was unique. I’m not sure if there was such a character dying up to this stage. Imagine announcing that Flash Gordon was going to die or Buck Rogers for that matter.
I don’t know if there is a more emotional scene in Star Trek, or a more powerful sequence, or a better performance than Spock’s death scene and funeral. The rumour is that Meyer the director would make Shatner perform the scenes over and over until he was exhausted and was unable to generate his larger than life performances. I don’t really care how he got them but Shatner’s performance is what makes the scenes, especially the funeral. Having Captain Kirk almost choke on the word human is riveting.
The scenes when he realises that Spock is no longer on the bridge and he sprints down to engineering are all performed extremely well with a textbook depiction of dread and urgency.
You are a cold bastard if you aren’t moved in the slightest during Spock’s death and funeral.
Something that also makes those sequences work is the tense scenes that lead up to them, it’s almost like you’ve been holding your breath for so long and then when you’ve finally made it through everything is pulled out from under you.
An example of this is one scene which I think we’ve talked about in the past where they are reversing away from the Reliant as the Genesis device is about to overload. The tension is so thick on the bridge and shot so brilliantly that you barely notice or remember that Spock has slipped away and is facing death. The camera shots are constantly moving and cutting quickly to each of their faces. I think it’s Sulu who actually says ‘we’re not going to make it are we?’ and the look Kirk gives David and of course David confirming the fact is really played out well.
The space battles are great, watching two giant Starships slowly, almost lazily fighting it out do bring back the idea of a submarine battle and that these are two immense physical ships that are unable to turn on the spot. I love also that the Enterprise is falling to pieces and the trainees have to just pull it together.
Khan is awesome. He is a worthy adversary. There isn’t much else to be said about him.
Kirk’s Khan line is probably one of the most quoted lines from Star Trek “KHAAAAAAAAAAAN” and we all love Shatner for it.
Someone I noticed whilst recently revisiting the film is Scotty who has some brilliant scenes with his nephew dying, his performance is great and actually he’s quite good in the end too where he’s holding Kirk back from opening the radiation chamber and he tells him bluntly that ‘he’s dead already’.
Some people, we’ll call them obsessed fans have problems with the fact that Khan recognises Checkov even though Checkov doesn’t show up until the second season of the original series and Space Seed (the episode that Khan first appears in) is a first season show. To borrow a phrase from Shatner - get a life people. Easily explained off that Checkov just wasn’t a bridge officer yet and Khan possibly reviewed ALL the crew records or Checkov had to deal with him at some stage in a scene not shown in the episode. If you can’t get past this you really need to unclench.
The bloodstain is another issue, Kirk has a bloody hand print that through poor attention to detail moves all over the place. There’s no real excuse for that but it really isn’t big enough to ruin such a great film (maybe when they repackage the movies for the fiftieth release version they can fix it with computers).
The music is top notch in here, maybe slightly less than the wondrous Star Trek 3 but just tense and heart breaking and magical throughout. The piece that accompanies Spock’s delivery of “space the final frontier…” is just achingly good and what another champion decision to have Spock deliver those lines
It is so hard to write about every part that makes this what many hail as the greatest Star Trek ever and I’ve missed almost all of the reasons why, so everyone share the love for Trek 2 in the comments!
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Categories: Movies, Star Trek | Tags: Movies, sci fi, Star Trek
“If you can’t get past this, you really need to unclench.”
Would make such a good one-liner in a future story.
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Spock also “died” in the Kobayashi Moru, which led a lot of viewers at the premiere to believe that this was the leaked death scene. This made the actual death scene even more effective.
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John - it’s possible that it already is a line somewhere LOL I may not be able to claim that one (maybe I can, I’m still recovering from the worst flu ever!).
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GW - Yeah I did mean to mention that when I was talking about the leaked death scenes. I think it was a great move on their behalf to try and get that out of the way early in the film. It must have been awesome to see it for the first time without knowing what was going on.
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Re Chekov:
The ST II novelization has a great scene, where it’s mentioned by Vonda McInytre that Chekov is relatively new during the events of “Space Seed”, but that Marla McGivers was one of his first friends on the Enterprise. Novelist Greg Cox also picked up on this brief interlude in his third Khan hardcover for Pocket Books, which covers Khan and Marla’s years of exile on Ceti Alpha V.
Of course, Walter Koenig realized the problem when he first read the script of ST II but he wisely shut up about it, knowing that the whole thing could be easily fixed by switching him with George Takei as Sulu (although Sulu wasn’t in “Space Seed” either), or even John Winston as Kyle, who was in the TOS episode, and cameoing in ST II on the Reliant with Chekov! Koenig loved the scene and wanted to work with Paul Winfield, and there was no way he was risking losing the lines to Sulu or Kyle.
Have you ever seen Koenig at a convention? He tells a great “Chekov first meets Khan” story. it’s set in a restroom on the Enterprise.
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Yeah I read both of those books and was quite happy with the story they put in for that - honestly I don’t know why people have such problems with it.
I actually have been pretty happy with all of the movie novels and consider them (and this is just personally) canon when I’m looking to fill in the blanks.
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