Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is available to rent, buy or stream.
Every franchise has one film that stands head and shoulders above the rest; these movies give birth to the cinematic landscape the franchise inhabits while providing the template on which everything else is judged. For Star Wars, the film in question is The Empire Strikes Back, while for Terminator, it is Judgement Day, and for Star Trek, it’s The Wrath of Khan.
Despite colossal anticipation in 1979, Star Trek: The Motion Picture failed to capture the imagination of audiences and critics alike. The Motion Picture was a courageous film that asked deep questions about the birth of consciousness, artificial intelligence, and creation, but in a year when audiences eagerly awaited the next Star Wars instalment while talking about how a man had flown in Superman the Movie, The Motion Picture felt overly long, uninspiring and way too serious.
In developing The Wrath of Khan, lead writer Harve Bennett would return to the TV show’s roots to find a voice. The 1967 Mutiny on the Bounty-inspired episode Space Seed would provide the template as Bennett fleshed out his screenplay alongside Jack Sowards and director Nicholas Meyer. Meyer, Bennett and Sowards would offer us a continuation of Khan and Kirk’s story, inspired by another sea-faring classic, Moby Dick, with Khan, a figurative Captain Ahab, hunting down the man who injured him so long ago, Jim Kirk.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan would embrace a naval style akin to classic war movies such as We Dive at Dawn (1943) and The Cruel Sea (1952), with the latter exploring the loneliness of command. This theme would also find a clear and present voice in Khan through Kirk’s unspoken fear of facing death and unwillingness to run despite the cost – Kirk may be surrounded by his loving crew, but he is on his own in a mental battle for his crew’s survival.
In the vacuum of space and the deep depths of the Mutara Nebula, silent starships would stalk their prey like submarines lying under naval ships. Even the Starfleet uniforms underwent a radical overhaul, drawing inspiration from The Prisoner of Zenda (1937). The result was a love letter to the classic war movie, the revenge thriller and Shakespeare‘s tragedies.
The budget for The Wrath of Khan was tiny compared to The Motion Picture, at approximately $11,200,000, compared to the $35,000,000 spent on its predecessor. Yet, The Wrath of Khan would achieve something The Motion Picture only dreamed of by pressing the reset button. The brisk pacing, cat-and-mouse naval warfare, groundbreaking computer effects and the re-introduction of Khan wowed audiences, earning global box office takings of $78,912,963.
However, one element in its original cut didn’t play well with test audiences: the death of Spock. Therefore, the final scenes were quickly edited and restructured before release, with Spock placing his hand on McCoy’s head before his death while stating, “Remember”. At the same time, his coffin would end up on the Genesis planet, allowing for his return. Of course, we will never know how the finality of the original ending would have played out with global audiences, but this change ultimately led to a trilogy of films that included The Search for Spock (1984) and The Voyage Home (1986).
Meyer would return to the Star Trek director’s chair one more time following The Wrath of Khan with the 1991 swan song The Undiscovered Country, which is undoubtedly the franchise’s second-best outing. But that leaves us with a compelling question: What if Meyer had directed the two films following Khan? The answer is pure speculation on my part, but it’s possible we could have been offered one of the greatest science fiction trilogies of the 1980s. In reality, Star Trek would rise and fall with the films that followed, never quite recapturing the consistency or magic born in Star Trek II.
DID YOU KNOW?
STAR TREK II AND WARGAMES
With the social fears of nuclear war still very much alive in the mid-eighties, John Badham’s ’80s teen thriller would take those fears of conflict and dovetail them with an early discussion on the dangers of artificial intelligence. WarGames arrived on cinema screens the year Apple launched the Lisa computer and Microsoft launched its first Word software. This advancement in computer learning and effects, including Star Trek II’s use of Lucasfilm’s computer-generated cinematic image (CGI) for the first time the previous year, gave WarGames its voice as it tapped into the public imagination and took a chunk out of the global box office.
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