Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan feels like “the Star Trek movie”, as if it were the film that took the successful, beloved franchise and put it in all its glory on the big screen. That it is not that movie but is rather the sequel to it is both the most interesting and least interesting thing about it: most because it gets so much right where The Motion Picture got wrong, and least because there is so much in The Wrath of Khan that is praiseworthy that spending so much time comparing it to its predecessor feels like faint praise.
So let us get the first part over with and then get on to the second.
Leaps and Bounds
There is a tremendous amount of difference between the first two Star Trek films, and nearly every change is for the better. Where TMP had too little plot, WOK has a complex, interweaving story told in three settings. Where TMP had too many abandoned subplots, WOK has myriad themes of life and death and rebirth and aging that support and augment the main story. Where TMP had Trekish exploration and discovery at its heart, WOK has space battles and chases. Where TMP had a problem taking itself too seriously, WOK has every character get in on the chance to be funny. Where TMP hinted that Kirk needed to return to the stars, WOK has Bones and Spock tell Jim to his face. Where TMP had a giant dangerous cloud with an unspeaking robot as its enemy, WOK has a passionate, well-spoken superhuman with glorious pecs and a truly sad tale of woe that makes his desire for vengeance seem almost noble.
In short, WOK takes the things that make TOS good and compounds them onto each other: the characters are thrust into an unknown situation (mysterious calls: check!) featuring people they already know (Khan: check!) and care about (Carol and David: double-check!), they use their wits (trickery and Federation backdoors: check!) and courage (hop in the transporter: check!) and expertise (nebula science: check!) to save the day (spoiler alert: check!).
This all comes from knowing that they were making a movie and figuring out what story they should tell in that context. Instead of trying to push as much of the cast onscreen as much as possible, new Producer Harve Bennett watched the entire series and determined the core of the show: “passion from Bones, logic from Spock, and Kirk in the middle, deciding what to do”. After discovering that formula, he picked a great bad guy and figured out a way to hit those points.
Let’s stop a moment and note the big elephant in that last paragraph: “new producer Harve Bennet”. The old producer was series creator Gene Roddenberry. And visionary as that guy was, he could never have made this movie. He was too fond of the Big Reveal and the Grand Idea. Looked at another way, the difference between TMP and WOK is that those two things drove the first (What does V’gar want? If robots become sentient, what do they believe in?) and are completely absent in the second (the secrets in WOK are over in the first half hour; the more primal revenge story isn’t up to snuff). Pushing Gene aside made Khan possible.
Plot
The plot, simply put, is “an old enemy wants revenge on Kirk, and only the crew’s smart thinking and vast experience can save them.” This is just about the most Treky a plot could possibly be. But there are more spoiler-filled points of interest, too.
Begin Spoilers
Bringing Khan back was smart, but bringing him back in the way they did was perfect: we’ve got an already-established character with a grudge against our heroes that they are as surprised about as we are, but that makes perfect sense when we hear about it. Making Ceti Alpha V a wasteland and Khan its ruler ties in smartly with the biblical illusions (“To Rule in Hell” is the official novel that tells of these years).
Bringing the training crew in to man the Enterprise is brilliant: instead of displacing the current crew or weirdly being in all the same positions as they used to be, this gives our heroes an excuse to step in when the going gets tough, and lets us root for the little guys in over their head alongside the old hands.
Kirk and Khan never meeting is a stroke of (almost certainly accidental) genius. If they had met, Khan is one superhuman-strength punch away from ending the franchise. Instead you get the two of them circling like fighters warily watching one another, with each scuffle prefixed by banter and suffixed by recriminations. The advantage is constantly shifting, and the balance is always close enough that everyone is on edge at all times, which makes the circling simultaneously easier to understand and harder to watch. Each skirmish could tip the balance, and the stakes are always high.
The Genesis device is almost an afterthought. It is a McGuffin in the purest sense: everyone wants it because everyone else wants it. It drives the plot without being the central reason that anything is happening. It ties together the factions and ups the stakes without being seen for most of the film. It fulfills its duties perfectly.
One of those duties is bringing Carol and David into the action. Trek’s best trick is pulling characters into the plot using old acquaintances, rivals, and lovers, and here we get Kirk’s own son as the ultimate draw. I’d almost say that David himself is underused, but his purposes are fulfilled nearly by his presence: he highlights Kirk’s aging, he demonstrates the win condition of saving your family, and he forces and helps Kirk face death and life.
Speaking of death and life: killing off Spock is a ballsy move. Even with the caveats they put into the film and the various outs they left themselves, it is a way to turn the foregone conclusion of the good guys winning into an interesting mixed-emotion scene, with a price being paid for the troubles they’ve survived. That this is then tied into the themes of winning, life, and death is what moves this movie from being good to being great: the Kobayashi Maru becomes a way to understand the characters better (Saavik hasn’t yet faced death; Kirk wins in unorthodox ways; Spock knows that sacrifices must be made).
End Spoilers
There are shortcomings, of course. Lt. Saavik is oft-onscreen but seldom used. Carol is little more than an excuse for David’s existence, and her history with Kirk is far less than adequately explained. Khan’s “superior intellect” seems to get outgunned at every opportunity. These are, in the whole, minor sins, but they are sins nonetheless.
Design
From the moment the titles appear on screen you know that this movie is a departure. Gone is the loopy, terrible font of the first movie, and gone is the oh-so-familiar-sounding score from that film. The new look is firmly of the 80s, and it sets the tone that will carry this movie: everything you’ve seen before is in the past, and Star Trek is about exploring the future.
Everywhere you look, you see a significantly revamped production design in this movie. Director Nick Meyer tried to make “as many changes as I could get away with” and seems to have succeeded; the look is much more militaristic, which puts a rationale behind the sparse (aka cheap) lines of the original series. This naval influence becomes especially pronounced during the climax, which harkens back to the terrific submarine-warfare-inspired episode Balance of Terror.
You can see, though, that The Motion Picture design language cannot be entirely shed: this movie reuses a lot of props, sets, and costumes, and so that style still appears with some regularity. Scotty’s ridiculous engineering uniform is one example.
But then you have a number of things that are very new. Aside from the groundbreaking use of CGI to illustrate the Genesis Project (Ed Catmull of Pixar fame is interviewed on the Blu-Ray) and the use of Industrial Light and Magic for all the (terrific and beautiful) model work, the new uniforms are an obvious step between the odd-angled Motion Picture attire and the later designs.
One thing that stands out as particularly odd, though, is the costume design for Khan’s crew. They look like a glam rock band, which probably says loads about what Hollywood thought was the counterculture at the time. Putting them side by side with the Reliant’s stuffy, middle aged crew makes the distinction even more pronounced. You see a similar interaction when the hippies come aboard or the tech-obsessed Borg become the boogie man in TNG.
Grade
A; this movie is great. I watched it yesterday and already kind of want to watch it again.
