THE FACTS:STAR TREK II : THE WRATH OF KHAN
Directed by Nicholas Meyer
Written by Jack B. Sowards, with Harve Bennett,
Nicholas Meyer and Samuel A. Peeples
Released: 4th June, 1982
Set: c.2285
Starships featured: USS Enterprise NCC-1701,
USS Reliant NCC-1864, SS Botany Bay (wreck)
Planets visited: Earth, Ceti Alpha 5,
Regula, Genesis
I dropped the ball on this one. About a
year ago, Suz and I watched through the Trek films
and I was going to write up my thoughts on each. I managed to get as
far as writing a piece on The Motion Picture,
then somehow forgot to carry on with it. However, we are know
watching the series again, starting with The Wrath of Khan,
so I'm having another stab.
The Wrath of Khan has
a glowing reputation among fans, and while it's not the flawless
classic some see it as, it's a good candidate for the strongest of
the original run of Star Trek films.
It's a very different beast to The Motion Picture,
ditching much of the high concept philosophical science fiction in
favour of a personal story of vengeance in a military setting.
The Motion Picture had
been a very successful failure. It had made a lot of money in the box
office, but had cost an enormous amount to make, badly affecting the
profits. Paramount were eager to make more Star Trek films
but wanted to avoid the mistakes of the first movie, and above all,
wanted to keep costs under control. Gene Roddenberry was sidelined,
to the chagrin of some members of the cast, and the indifference of
others. Various people worked on the script, with Nicholas Meyer
fulfilling the final version, without accepting a writer's credit.
Khan looked back to
the successes of the original series in several ways. It evoked some
of the swashbuckling, heroic style of Kirk's mission of discovery. It
continued the series and its predecessor's themes of friendship,
particularly between the central trio of Kirk, Spock and McCoy. The
series had been about progress, with episode such as “The Ultimate
Computer” and “Dagger of the Mind” showed that this was a
future in which both technological and social progress were ongoing,
but that this was not without its dangers. Most of all, though, it
was a direct sequel to a popular episode of the original.
“Space
Seed” was an interesting episode, hinting at a dark and turbulent
near future for humanity that would give way to a more inclusive and
positive society. There was a feeling that the upstanding people of
the Federation didn't like to talk about the unpleasant truths of
their past. So when that past turned up on their doorstep, they were
ill-equipped to deal with it. Khan Noonien Singh was a megalomaniac,
but was a man of such conviction and charisma that he swayed people
to his cause and had the utmost confidence in his attempt to take
power. Kirk's eventual treatment of him – dumping him and his
followers on a habitable but uncompromising planet to start their own
world – was both generous and hugely insulting for a character like
Khan. In the episode, Kirk and his crew wondered what might grow from
the seed they just planted. Nothing good, it turned out. In a
distinctly grim turn of events, the planet on which Khan was marooned
was devastated when its sister planet exploded only six months later,
and Kirk, of course, never bothered to check up on them.
While
any Trek fan had
already seen “Space Seed” a dozen times when the film came out,
there would have been plenty of people who went to see it with no
idea who this Khan character was, or why he was so angry. This didn't
matter. Skilful exposition combined with Ricardo Montalban's
scenery-chewing but passionate performance sells it perfectly. Not
only did Kirk defeat Khan, a man utterly convinced of his own
superiority, but he condemned him to hell. His wife was killed by
monstrous creatures (Madlyn Rue was to return as Marla McGivers, but
the onset of MS prevented this, and her absence does provide Khan
with even more reason to hate Kirk). Khan has spent the last fifteen
years nursing his hatred for Kirk, wanting only to best him and have
his revenge.
This
is what makes the film so effective. Even though they're never in the
same room together, there's a bristling fire between Kirk and Khan
that's felt across the vacuum of space. Kirk's sheer horror at seeing
that Khan is behind the attacks on Federation people belies the fact
that he was never set up as an archvillain or nemesis in the first
place. You believe in the relationship here because these two have
history, even if it's not quite the history we saw on TV way back
when. (This is exactly the reason that the near remake Star
Trek Into Darkness doesn't work.
It relies on viewers knowing that Kirk and Khan have history in
another version of events, where they're really complete strangers to
one another.)
It's a
far more personal story than The Motion Picture.
Meyer made the wise decision to stop ignoring the age of the cast and
instead make it part of the story. This is long after Kirk's second
wind onboard the refit Enterprise.
He's a ground-based admiral again and bored out of his wits. He feels
old, he's eyesight's failing him. He's got a full-grown son out there
who we'd never even heard of before, and is forced into a reunion
with him and his mother. Brilliantly, the guy absolutely hates Kirk,
in spite of, or likely because of, his gigantic hero status. To add
insult to agedness, the Enterprise,
previously portrayed as newly revamped and top of the range, has been
relegated to a training vessel. Spock seems content to captain the
ship – he was always more suited to be a teacher than a commander –
but there's clearly some discontent buried there.
Other
crewmembers have moved on. They all come back for this last hurrah,
but they have their own careers. McCoy seems on the verge of quitting
again. Chekov is doing well, first officer on the Reliant,
before running into Khan in a spectacular gaffe. (No, I'm not talking
about he and Khan recognising each other when they never met onscreen
before. Khan was on the Enterprise for
a long time and Chekov was clearly working in the lower decks before
he got his bridge posting.) Somehow, the crew of the science vessel
Reliant mistake Ceti
Alpha 5 for the extinct Ceti Alpha 6 – were they counting backwards
or something? And the sheer bad luck to land right on top of Khan's
camp, given the entire planet to choose from.
The Motion Picture stands
alone as a largely disconnected part of the Trek story,
while The Wrath of Khan's
influence has been felt in the franchise for years to come. The
visual changes for the film included a complete redesign of the
Starfleet uniforms, discarding the futuristic pyjama look of TMP
and the primary colours of the
original in favour of layered, deep read and cream uniforms that
evoke a naval feel. These remained the uniforms for the rest of the
23rd
century-set films, and with modifications, turned up in early 24th
century sequences on The Next Generation –
an easy shorthand for the past of that show. We finally got an
entirely new starship design in the Reliant,
recognisably from the same lineage as the Enterprise
but distinct, and one that would continue to show up in future
productions as a reliable workhorse ship. The Kobayashi
Maru, the legendarily unwinnable
test that Kirk beat as a cadet, was central to the storyline of the
2009 Star Trek movie,
and the list of influences this film had on Star Trek Into
Darkness is too long to list.
Khan
and his post-apocalyptic followers' look was deeply eighties and
wouldn't be replicated except much later in the series Enterprise
three-part homage in its final
season. Khan and his wars of conquest – subtly altered backstory
going from true eugenics to the more futuristic genetic engineering –
have been only carefully touched upon in most versions of Star
Trek since, largely because they
were encroaching the period in which it what supposed to happen. Once
we were past that into the 21st
century, Enterprise and
Into Darkness used it
for retro-flavoured inspiration. The Ceti eels – nasty little
creatures that burrow into the brain – became a childhood
nightmare. They may look fake now, but I was convinced as a small boy
that the bug crawling into someone's ear was completely real. The
monsters were referenced by the very similar “Centaurian slug” in
the 2009 movie and would even appear as a fried snack in an episode
of Star Trek: Discovery.
Surprisingly,
for all that this film was set up to be about Kirk and Khan, in the
end it was all about Spock. Nimoy had tried to pull out of Trek
before and was only convinced to
return for this if he would receive a heroic death scene. Fan
reaction to this news – leaked early in the production process –
was predictably negative, and it was pushed back to the very end of
the story. It's hard to see how it could have worked better early on;
the final moments between Kirk and Spock remain an emotionally
galling scene and one of the most memorable moments of the whole
franchise. Even as filming was being completed, however, plans were
set in motion for a return, and a hasty reshoot saw Spock's coffin
land on the newly created Genesis planet, a world of “life from
lifelessness.” It must have been blatantly obvious to anyone
watching that he was coming back; they just had to convince Nimoy...
The Wrath of Khan can
be viewed as the first part of a trilogy that continues with The
Search for Spock and The
Voyage Home, charting Kirk's
spiritual renewal and Spock's journey to death and back. The second
and third parts had not been conceived, however, when the film was
released, and it's easy to see that there was some intention to
revamp the franchise with a new, younger cast. Merrit Butrick as
David Marcus, Kirk's son, and Kirstie Alley as Spock's protege
Saavik, both look set up as potential replacements as central
characters. Indeed, they combine elements of both characters, with
David being Kirk's offspring but a scientist like Spock, while Saavik
is a Vulcan learning to understand her emotions but also set up as
command material. There was always the possibility of romance between
the two as well, something that carries over to the sequel. Saavik in
particular strikes as an interesting character; she speaks like a
Vulcan but isn't styled like one, openly cries at Spock's funeral and
is far more emotional than we might expect a Vulcan to be. Indeed,
according to the original treatment she was intended to be
half-Romulan, although this was cut from the final film.
The Wrath of Khan is
far from perfect and by today's standards is a languidly paced
adventure. There are moments that risk becoming boring, although it
never drops to the pace of its predecessor, and it maintains a strong
storyline throughout. It's helped by a stirring score, entertaining
performances, and effects sequences that still impress all these
years on. It's the first time that the Trek universe
felt real and lived in, and this would help set the remaining
original cast films apart from the rest of the franchise as it moved
into the more clinical 24th
century. And, of course, it has perhaps Shatner's greatest single
moment as Kirk. Really, though, you have to get it right. It's not
enough to just shout “Khaaaan!” with as many vowels as possible.
It's all in the build up. You've got to channel that suppressed Kirk
rage. Get your chin to wobble a bit. That's how you sell it.
No comments:
Post a Comment