- "Because we should always respect other nationalities, I have always tried to play them with dignity."
After getting some feedback on The Motion Picture, series creator Gene Roddenberry decided to adapt another episode of the scrapped TV series (because THAT was obviously a winning formula), this one about Spock assassinating JFK. Then the producers took away his typewriter and made Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
From the first scene, we can already see this movie is better than its predecessor. There are no Space Clothes, no Space Clouds, and Kirstie Alley
is sitting in Shatner‘s chair. Sadly, she gets the crew killed and the ship shot up by Klingons. Wow, that was a short movie! Still better than the last one! But it was all a simulation, as Admiral Kirk reveals. A no-win scenario, impossible to beat. As Kirstie, playing Spock’s Vulcan protégé Saavik, asks: what the hell kind of stupid training simulation is that?
Kirk is all bummed out about his birthday because he's getting old and tired of being a Desk Jockey, so McCoy and Spock invite him on an Enterprise training mission. Everyone’s there except Chekov, who is serving on the U.S.S. Reliant under Captain Token Black Guy. They’re searching for a place to safely test the top-secret Genesis project invented by one of Kirk’s old girlfriends, Dr. Carol Marcus. Instead, they find… KHAAAAAAAAAAN!!
Khan is one of Trek’s greatest baddies, for three reasons. Firstly, he’s played by Ricardo Montalban. This man’s sexy Mexican* accent is equal parts toreador, Zorro and Inigo Montoya. Never mind that his character is supposed to be Indian. He once played a Japanese kabuki actor, for feck's sake. And he was in Spy Kids 3!
Secondly, his ridiculous scoop-necked shirt showcases magnificent pectoral muscles that my mother still swears are fake. Either way, they’re hypnotic. You will be unable to look away. The movie should be called Star Pecs II: The Breast of Khan. Thirdly, Khan has legitimate Trek cred. Kirk and crew found him frozen 2001-style and thawed him out, whereupon he expressed his gratitude by trying to kill them. Khan and his followers are genetic “supermen” on the lam from a war they started in 1996, probably after seeing Batman And Robin. Eventually Kirk defeats them with sheer Heroic Willpower and maroons them on Ceti Alpha V.
There’s a bit of a continuity problem here. The twist is, Chekov and Token Black Guy think they’re landing on Ceti Alpha VI, but because it exploded years ago they land on Ceti Alpha V by mistake. What, they don’t know how to count? They didn’t notice the “sixth” planet was only the fifth rock from the sun? Starfleet doesn’t keep track of exploding planets? Roman numerals are that confusing? Another thing is Chekov didn’t actually join the TV show until after the Khan episode, so how does he recognize Khan and vice versa? Thankfully, this movie is good enough that nobody cares.
Anyways, Khan is pissed off because brain slugs killed his wife, and he uses said brain slugs to gain control of Chekov and B.D. so’s he can steal their ship and go on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. Step One: stealing Project Genesis, which is a bomb that can transform a lifeless planet into a lush paradise, but also annihilate all life on an already inhabited planet, so naturally it can be perverted into a Weapon of Mass Destruction, which makes you wonder why they invented the damn thing in the first place. YAY SCIENCE!
This clever gambit draws Kirk into a tense standoff with Reliant, wherein Kirk refuses to raise his shields, thus allowing KHAAAAAAAAAAN!! to phaser the crap out of Enterprise and gloat about it in that sultry voice of his. Kirk manages to disable Khan’s shields with leet hax and shoot back, forcing his adversary flee in search of a place to lick his wounds, and more scenery to chew on.
On to Dr. Marcus’s space lab, where our intrepid crew finds rats* , dead scientists, and Chekov and Token Black Guy locked in a cupboard. Khan couldn’t get Genesis, as they soon learn, because the scientists beamed themselves into the center of a dead planetoid. Yay Science!
But TBG and Chekov are still under the control of Khan’s brain slugs, and they help him steal Genesis. Then he tells them to shoot Kirk, but they resist because giving a genocidal madman the power to kill billions of innocents is one thing, but shooting a protagonist is going too far. Naturally, the Black Dude Dies First.* Chekov survives by virtue of being a main character. No word on what happens to Chekov’s Gun.
Now the Narm War begins. Shatner wins, swallowing the scenery whole as he screams his enemy’s name while convulsing with rage and making a face like Sylvester Stallone in dire need of Metamucil™. It’s oddly charming. Then Carol introduces him to David, the son he never knew he had. (I always expected he’d have several, of various species, but I guess the 23rd Century has really good contraceptives). All in all, this is turning out to be one rotten birthday.
Or not. Khan thinks he’s condemned Kirk to a Fate Worse than Death, stuck inside that planet and all, but Carol reveals they’ll be fine because a Genesis prototype created mini-Eden in the next cave over. YAY SCIENCE! Saavik asks Kirk how he beat the no-win scenario when he was her age, and he says he used teh haxx0rz. Also, Spock was talking in code when he said the Enterprise was broken, and they can all go home. So The Khan bit was overacting on Kirk’s part as well as Shatner’s.
A few well-placed taunts from Kirk are all it takes for Khan to go completely loco, spouting lines from Moby Dick and chasing Enterprise into a nebula. This nebula is dangerous because it makes a starship’s main viewscreen snowier than great-grandma’s television. There’s some thrilling cat-and-mouse stuff that culminates in Kirk’s victory, but Khan remembers he’s the villain and detonates the Genesis device. Spock gets stuck fixing the warp drive (again) and dies of radiation poisoning because he forgot his entire protective suit except the gloves. The explosion turns the nebula into a planet (!) and Spock gets a nice funeral with Scotty playing Amazing Freaking Grace on the bagpipes (!!) before they launch his body* out the torpedo tube (!!!). The End.
VERDICT: Wait, SPOCK DIES?!?
They actually did it. They actually killed a main character.* Yet despite (or perhaps because of) its Bittersweet Ending, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is considered by many fans to be the best Trek movie of all time; and it earns the accolades with exciting action, suspense, tear jerkers, over-the-top villainy, and Kirstie Alley. Fans, after purging Star Trek: The Motion Picture from their minds permanently, howled for more, and they got it.
