Houston, we have a problem!
A big one. When Chekov and Terrell meet Khan on Ceti Alpha V he recognises the ex-officer of the
Enterprise, but the only time Khan came into contact with that ship was in the episode “Space seed”, and at that point Chekov was not a part of the crew, nor the cast. He could not recognise him, as he would never have met him before. This will be explored in much more depth as I use it as the central theme for another of the “Plot holes you could drive a Mack truck through” later in the year.
When Kirk asks Khan if he will keep his word, if they surrender the information on Genesis, Khan says he has given no word to keep. But he most assuredly has. Kirk has offered to have himself beamed over if Khan will spare his crew and Khan has agreed to do this, provided Kirk also sends over the information on Project Genesis. A rare (for this movie) piece of bad or lazy writing, forgetfulness or just another aspect of Khan’s slowly unhinging mind?
Another problem I have is that when Terrell and Chekov are turning on Kirk down on Regula (or I should say,
in Regula!) Khan orders them to kill Kirk. Now, for a man so arrogant and single-minded, with an ego almost the match of Kirk’s, surely Khan would have wanted to kill him himself, not have an underling do it? What? Give up his revenge, after all this time? Lose the chance to squeeze the life out of his hated enemy with his own bare hands? Why not just have Terrell beam Kirk to the
Reliant, where he could deal with him? Khan is not the sort of man who has others do his dirty work. Well, he is, but when it comes to Kirk there’s a very personal score to be settled, and you’d think he’d want to settle it, well, personally.
Kirk’s hubris
Once again, Kirk thinks he knows it all. As Picard would years later make the same almost-fatal mistake when approaching the first ever Borg cube and keeping his shield down, Kirk ignores Saavik’s recommendation that he should follow protocol, which requires that on approaching a ship with which communication has not been established, shields should be raised. This overconfidence and brash bravado almost costs him his ship. Had he followed her suggestion the ship would not have been as badly damaged as it is now, and the fight would have been less one-sided.
Parallels
The most obvious of course is
Moby Dick: Khan sees himself as Ahab, forever trying to bring down his enemy the great whale, but of course this is not accurate. Khan has not seen Kirk for fifteen years, has not been in a position to check on him, so that when he hears he has been made an admiral he is incensed. How dare Kirk, as he sees it, live the high life while he is left to scratch out a meagre living on this deserted desolate planet? But when he gets the chance to take him on, Khan is happy to expire while clutching his enemy to his bosom, so to speak. It doesn’t quite work out that way, of course.
The second parallel is the original episode, “Space seed”, in which a revived Khan tries to take over the
Enterprise and kill Kirk, but is defeated and exiled. Khan has never forgotten or forgiven Kirk for this ignomnity. Not only the exile, not the hard existence he and his people have been forced to eke out for a decade and a half, but for the shame of losing to the man he sees as being far inferior to him. Khan has been brought up with the idea that he is the better man -- and he is, or was, in his century. But his ideas are a little outmoded now, and whereas he could only have ever dreamed of conquering Earth back in his time, now there’s the whole galaxy to bring under his heel.
Of course, he’s never going to manage it. The odds are stacked firmly against him. Even should he destroy
Enterprise and make it away with the Genesis Device, Starfleet will hunt him and he can’t hide forever. Perhaps he would make alliances with the likes of the Klingons or the Romulans, the traditional enemies of the Federation, but even those races must see in the end they are dealing with a madman, and that is never a good bargain. His intellect and his lust for power could have taken him far in this new century, but despite his intelligence and his ability to learn so quickly, he is a man out of time, and this would eventually be his undoing. But he certainly goes out with a bang.
Music
Unlike the previous movie, which tended to use the same basic theme throughout --- which became, as I mentioned, the theme for the series
Star Trek: The Next Generation some years later --- James Horner’s first major score gives a feeling of cohesion to the music, as it changes as the scenes change and the situations develop. There’s an aura of seafaring adventure to the rolling, lilting theme he composed that would be retained, in one form or another, for the next number of movies. He also includes at the very start, and end, the original
Star Trek theme, which ties everything together nicely. The themes for Spock and Khan are well observed, and the usage of “Amazing Grace” flowing into the
Trek theme at the end is inspired. All over, were I to rate the themes this would get a solid 9 compared to TMP’s maybe 3. A huge improvement.
Themes and motifs
There are many, to be sure, among them the fear of advancing age, the realisation that you’re no longer young and cannot behave as you did back then. Kirk encapsulates this in the snapped comment “Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young!” There is also a sense of loss --- Khan has lost his wife, Kirk has lost the son he could have been around to see grow up, perhaps the chance at a proper relationship with Carol Marcos. For much of the movie, Chekov and Terrell lose their free will, slaves to the creatures Khan has put in their heads.
Great loss, too, in the death of one of Kirk’s oldest friends, and even though it was well foreshadowed before the movie was even completed, and we know that there is an out at the end, with the third movie being titled
The Search for Spock, it’s still a wrench to see a character we have followed through our early years on the television and come to identify as one of the great trademarks of this series, die at the end. The fact that he gives his life to save the ship both vindicates and confounds his logic, and we see that despite even himself, Spock is perhaps, as Kirk notes at the eulogy, more human than anyone he has ever met.
Star Trek became noted, even jeered, for killing off characters only to bring them back again in a variety of increasingly implausible ways, but here was the first time a major character had died, and it hit us all hard.
Distrust is also there. David Marcus distrusts Starfleet. He is a scientist, as is his mother, and they have managed to create what they see as a great force for good and have been constrained to turn to the military for funding, and he believes their discovery can and will be subverted into a weapon. When he hears the purported order from Kirk to transfer all materials relating to the project to the approaching USS
Reliant, he believes his mistrust was well placed.
But for me the main and overarching theme is one of revenge, not surprisingly. Khan believes that after fifteen years and against all odds, fate has delivered into his hands the means and opportunity to strike back at his old foe. Revenge for the death of his wife, and revenge for the defeat he was dealt by Kirk all those years ago. Kirk, too, is seeking revenge. This is, after all, the man who tried to kill him after the
Enterprise rescued he and his people from floating in deep space in suspended animation. For that act of kindness --- had Kirk known what he later did, perhaps he would have left the
Botany Bay drifting, or even destroyed it --- Khan tried to take over his ship. There is certainly a score to be settled.
Memorable scenes and effects
Of course, the most memorable scene will always be Spock’s death, which is in three acts really. The first begins when he hears Kirk say they need warp power or they’re all dead, and leaves his post. This continues into his sealing himself into the warp core chamber and replacing the crystals, thus giving his life for the ship and crew. Act II then is his reunion with Kirk as he lies dying, the ship saved but Spock beyond any help. It’s touching, emotional but not overblown, and Shatner acts one of the scenes of his life. Nimoy is gracious and reserved as ever, even making sure to stand when his captain arrives, and going so far as to pull at the hem of his tunic to straighten it, something that would become a habit of Jean-Luc Picard later.
The exchange between them, bringing full circle the “needs of the many” argument, is perfectly observed, and the attempts to touch each other’s palms through the glass almost heartbreaking. Important, too, is the scene where, just before going into the chamber and having used the Vulcan nerve pinch on McCoy, Spock places his palm to the doctor’s face and says “Remember”. That will come into play in the third movie. Act III of course is the burial-in-space scene, where Kirk does his best to hold his emotions in check as captain of the ship, and no doubt as a parting gesture of respect to his Vulcan friend, as he delivers the beautifully-written eulogy.
But other than the death of Spock, which comes after all right at the end, there are other memorable scenes here. The “WTF??!” moment, as it were, when Chekov sees the words “Botany Bay” in the hut, and realises who lives here. The battle in the Mutara Nebula, as each ship dances around the other, deprived of all sensors and shields, almost like modern troopers reduced to using bayonets and their own wits instead of HUD and heat-seeking missiles. The sequence showing how the Genesis Device works. Indeed, the opening scene, with the simulation, is very effective. Then there’s the malfunctioning transporter, a nice cameo for Grace Lee Whitney as Commander Janice Rand, the scene where Kirk is reunited with the son he left behind, and the horror-filmesque search through the silent Regula One space station before the crew find what remains of the scientists who have been butchered by Khan’s people.
Does this film deserve its reputation?
Of course it does. It’s easily seen as the best in the movie franchise --- at least, the original ten movies --- and deserves that accolade entirely. It’s a quantum leap from the first movie, with far better characterisation, a better plotline, space battles, an implacable foe, turning points for Kirk and of course the harrowing death of Spock. As a movie, this is pretty good. As a
Star Trek movie, it stands head and shoulders above all the others. The music is far better, more fitting, the cast play their parts perfectly, Montalban is stunning as the maniacal Khan, and it acknowledges the series without making it absolutely necessary that you have seen that episode in order to be able to enjoy and understand the movie.
This was, literally, the movie that saved the franchise. After the disaster
Star Trek: The Motion Picture became, there was no room for error here. A movie seldom gets a second chance, but this being
Star Trek the producers were allowed to try again, with a smaller budget (which yielded far greater box office returns in the end) and a new premise, and they, as the Americans say, knocked it out of the park. Had this second movie failed, it’s unlikely there would have been a third, and from this on in, all future
Star Trek movies would be measured against
The wrath of Khan, and take their cue from it, keeping the easy humour, the sly wink to the audience in movies like
The voyage home and
The final frontier, and of course,
The search for Spock. Sometimes, it went a little too far into the tongue-in-cheek idea, but thankfully there was never another rigid, stuffy, boring and slow movie as the first one. Lessons had been learned, and would be implemented as the franchise set course at full warp speed into another eight movies before being rebooted.
I could write pages more, but in the end the best I can do is award this movie the highest score I can:
