Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

An incredible sequel to Star Trek 1, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan stands as one of the gems of the Trek Franchise, as well as surely one of the best sequels in modern movie history. Ably directed by Nicholas Meyer, the writing of this second Trek installment particularly stands out to me, as not only do our heroes have to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous space opera, but the characters have their own inner struggles and conflicts to confront and overcome.

Kirk is feeling old, chafing behind a desk and jumping at the chance to take the Enterprise out on a training cruise, even if his beloved ship has been reduced to a training vessel for raw green cadets. Over the course of the movie, he has to confront his past (including a son) and deal with the sacrifice and loss of his comrade, Mr. Spock at the beautifully written end of the movie. The themes of age, loss, growth and life itself are captured beautifully in this movie- with even the main 'tech hook', the Genesis Device igniting debates over the creation versus the destruction of life itself. Probably the most complex of all the Trek movies, Star Trek II is as close to perfection as the Trek franchise could hope for. A perfect blend of the humanistic and optimistic vision of the original Trek franchise, with the core of fundamental humanity at the heart of Trek shining through.

As for the adventure/guns and shooting side of the movie, this sequel sets up the pattern of 'odd movies sucking and even movies rocking' that would continue throughout the Trek movie franchise- with Ricardo Montablan (yes, the guy from Fantasy Island) reprising his role as Khan Noonien Singh- a role he played in the episode of the original television show entitled 'Space Seed'- a mad, genetically engineered superman from the late 90s- a darker period in Earth's history, who having been marooned by Kirk 15 years before, wants revenge on Kirk- and is hell bent on getting it.

An iconic villain, eagerly chewing scenery with glorious piz-azz, Khan leads Kirk on a hard chase before their final confrontation- providing Trek with it's villain extraordinaire- as well as one of the great movie bad guys of all time. Then, of course, there are the brain slugs- one of the more skin-crawling moments of this movie is where we get to watch as 2 slugs slither into the ears of hapless captives of Khan- and then later on, when they slither out. If people remember nothing about this movie, they usually remember those slugs.

With the traumatic death of Mr. Spock at the end of this movie, Trek II proves that the writers are willing to take chances with their characters to make them grow and change- put them through the wringer a bit. And even though killing off Spock was so controversial, that a movie about bringing him back (Star Trek III) became all but inevitable, it was nice to see actual, honest-to-goodness evolution in the characters of the Trek franchise.

What was, of course, unfortunate is that Star Trek X tried to use the very same gambit of a sacrificial death, only to resurrect the character, after a fashion, not five minutes later- making that entire movie seem nothing more than a pale homage to this one and effectively ending the franchise- until now.

But a brilliant movie- better than I remembered it.