Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan (1982)

Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan (1982) – Captain Kirk and a training crew onboard the Enterprise face down one of their old adversaries in a battle for a tool that is also the ultimate weapon.

Directed by  Nicholas Meyer                          Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest
                                                                                     Kelley, Nichelle Nichols, George Takei, James
                                                                                        Doohan, Walter Koenig, Ricardo Montalban

Why I Liked It – Arguably the best of the entire movie series, easily the best of the TOS movies.  A HUGE recovery from the execrable first movie.  This one “gets” Star Trek.

I became a Star Trek fan through TOS (The Original Series).  Captain Kirk was a boyhood hero.  “To Boldly Go…” and all that stuff.  So I was really, REALLY excited when a Star Trek movie was announced.  In 1979, I was in line to see my hero and all the others that I loved on the big screen.

It remains one of the greatest movie disappointments of my life.

Let me be clear.  “Star Trek-The Motion Picture” is not part of my sizeable collection.  Nor will it ever be.  The movie is awful.  Awful in many, many ways.  For me, the perfect image of how odious this movie is/was is the scene when we first get to see the starship Enterprise.  The “Enterprise Porn” scene, as I call it.  It goes on for several minutes.  Long, lingering, leering views of the ship, body part by body part.

Don’t get me started.

So when the second movie came out three years later, I arrived with an attitude.  To my surprise, this one was much better.  We are still saddled with the “Shatner being Shatner” moment (“Khaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnn!!!!!!!”) but other than that this movie is very good.  It’s not just the return of one of the greatest TOS nemeses, although Montalban’s Khan is the mirror image of Kirk.  It’s the nod to more subtle questions of why we do what we do, and the impact those decisions may have.  It is Spock’s decision, and the tear evoking “final” meeting between the Vulcan and his captain and friend.

Kirk is faced with a series of impossible situations.  He meets his son for the first time.  David doesn’t think much of his father and less of Star Fleet.  His greatest enemy emerges from what should have been a permanent exile and wants his pound of flesh from now Admiral Kirk.  The Admiral is also faced with the question of a scientific breakthrough that is also the most powerful weapon ever created.  Finally, he is faced with the loss of his closest friend and confidante.  With that one moment excepted (“Khaaaaaaaaannnnnnn!!!!!”), Shatner brings us classic James T. Kirk.  Optimistic, confident to the point of arrogance, racing away from personal responsibility toward his next adventure.  He is conflicted and confused by the complex problems that confront him.  Then he finds a path to a solution through the simple expedient of believing there is always an answer.  The Kobayashi Maru exercise is the perfect summation of James Tiberius Kirk.  Both he and Khan believe in the primal power of their personalities and intelligence.

This was the movie I waited for and wanted.  So let’s just pretend that the other movie never existed, and this is the first in the big-screen franchise.

Rating – **** Recommended