Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

People tend to forget how much was riding on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan when it was released in 1982. Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) was considered to be a big bore and not really indicative of the television series. The powers that be wanted to make sure that the next film would not repeat the previous one’s mistakes. So, they removed series creator Gene Roddenberry and replaced him with veteran T.V. producer Harve Bennett. He proceeded to watch the entire run of the original series and decided to dust off a classic villain and give Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) a decidedly personal stake in this new mission.

Early on in the film there are two crucial exchanges between Kirk and his two closest friends. In observance of his birthday, Captain Spock (Leonard Nimoy) gives Kirk a copy of Charles Dickens’ novel A Tale of Two Cities (Spock refers to Kirk’s fondness for collecting antiques) and the latter quotes the famous opening passage, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” to which Spock replies, in reference to this day, “Surely the best of times?” This bit beautifully encapsulates the film as a whole, featuring the crew of the Enterprise at their best and at their lowest. Wrath of Khan is often regarded as the strongest film of the franchise – “Surely the best of times,” indeed.

The second important exchange happens between Kirk and Dr. McCoy (DeForest Kelley). The latter gives the former 400-year-old reading glasses and we get a glimpse at his living quarters – full of the antiques Spock alluded to in the previous scene. Kirk is surrounded by reminders of the past and is staring down yet another birthday. “It’s about you flying a goddamn computer console when you want to be out there hopping galaxies,” McCoy tells him. He encourages Kirk to take command of a starship again before he gets too old.

I love these early scenes because they not only allow us to get reacquainted with Kirk and co., featuring quiet, human moments that give us insight into Kirk and his friendships with Spock and McCoy, but they also establish the themes of friendship and mortality that will feature prominently later on. The opening scenes with Kirk confiding in Spock and McCoy are like revisiting old friends you haven’t seen in awhile and there is something enjoyable and reassuring about seeing these veteran actors dusting off and slipping so easily back into their iconic characters. There is a shorthand and a familiarity between these characters because the actors have so much experience playing them.

Most contemporary films would do away with scenes like this, viewing them as extraneous and unnecessary, but on the contrary they are vital to getting us invested in Kirk’s dilemma of getting old and becoming obsolete vs. going back out there and mixing it up in outer space once again. “Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young,” Kirk says early on and it is the film’s central theme as it pits two aging enemies against each other. The film openly acknowledges the age of the cast, in particular Kirk who comes face to face with his own mortality. The film even starts off on a playfully cheeky note as the entire Enterprise bridge crew are killed off in a battle simulation.

Before Kirk makes a decision, fate intervenes and forces his hand. Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) and his crew manage to escape the desolate planet prison that Kirk banished him to many years ago and decide to exact revenge on his most hated enemy. He kidnaps two key crew-members from the U.S.S. Reliant (while also killing its crew and commandeering the ship) and steals Project Genesis, a device that will take a lifeless planet and bring it violently back to life. Carol Marcus (Bibi Besch), an old ex-flame, and her son David (Merritt Butrick) – that resulted from their brief union – are the primary architects of Project Genesis. They send out a distress call, which Kirk and the crew of largely inexperienced cadets on the Enterprise intercepts, unaware that Khan has set a trap for them.

I also like how this film is steeped in classic literature, from John Milton’s Paradise Lost to Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Spock gives Kirk a copy of A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. The book’s famous opening lines, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” is cited and its hero dies to save his friend, sly foreshadowing to the end of The Wrath of Khan. On two occasions, Khan paraphrases Ahab in Moby Dick, most memorably in that classic scene where he conveys his passion for wreaking vengeance on Kirk: “I’ll chase him round the moons of Nibia and round the Antares maelstrom and round perdition’s flames before I give him up.” I appreciate a science fiction film that isn’t content to merely throw around technical jargon, but also allude to classic literature, both thematically and quoted by its characters. It makes sense because characters like Kirk and Khan are mythological in nature themselves.

The scene where we first meet Khan gives Ricardo Montalban a chance to savor the moment as he relishes every word like a fine meal, giving the dialogue a unique spin as only he can. Khan is an aggrieved villain with an axe to grind – years of hatred for Kirk. He has the cunning intelligence to devise a trap in which to ensnare his old foe. Montalban’s take on Khan is a deliciously evil one and there is no doubt that he is more than a formidable match for Shatner’s Kirk. Khan isn’t out to rule the galaxy. No, this is a personal vendetta against Kirk and he’ll stop at nothing to get his revenge. Khan is on a mission of vengeance, plain and simple, and after hearing him recount the hardships he and his people endured it is hard not to – I wouldn’t say sympathize, but understand what motivates him. He’s seen his wife and 19 of his people die. He’s had years to brood over what happened and what he’d do to Kirk if given the chance. Once he gets control of the Reliant, Khan strikes back, hurting the Enterprise crew in a way so that Kirk gets a taste of what he’s been through and this makes their battle a very personal one with a lot at stake for both men.

The Wrath of Khan may be William Shatner’s finest moment in the Star Trek franchise as Kirk wrestles with his own mortality and must confront and conquer his self-doubts. He also must deal with an old nemesis, which makes the battle personal for him as well. Shatner does a nice job conveying these initial doubts about getting back into the Captain’s chair, then his joy at being back in a mission, then anger as he is tricked by Khan, and finally grief of the toll the battle takes on him and his friends. The veteran actor has to convey a wide-range of emotions and does so with his usual dramatic flair. Even better, we get to see who can overact more, Shatner or Montalban, as they take turns chewing up the scenery with melodramatic gusto complete with some great, spirited exchanges and some insanely quotable dialogue. It’s not just what is said but how it’s said that makes it so memorable. They are both acting hams, fond of … dramatic … pauses and sudden outbursts of emotion, but both clearly bring the best out of each other. Part of the enjoyment that comes from this film is watching these two go at it, holding nothing back, just like their characters.

The veteran cast from the show inhabits their roles with the ease and confidence that comes from years of practice. It helps that the main cast portray characters with detailed backstories thanks to the T.V. series and so there is all of that baggage for them to draw on, not to mention their complete familiarity with their respective roles. All Kirk and McCoy have to do is exchange a knowing look between each other to suggest more than any dialogue could. The screenplay draws on the Enterprise crew’s long-time camaraderie by raising the emotional stakes, making this mission a very personal one for Kirk and whose outcome will not only impact him, but also his mates. The nature of friendship is explored in Kirk’s yin to Spock’s yang. They complement each other because together they provide the right mix of instinct and logic. This balance is in flux in The Wrath of Khan when Spock reminds Kirk that “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” to which Kirk adds, “or the one.” These are words that will gain importance at the film’s climax as they come back to haunt the characters.

In The Wrath of Khan, Kirk is forced to face two people from his past – one hostile and one he used to be romantically involved with – both of whom will dramatically change his life in unexpected ways. Only by defeating Khan can Kirk overcome the doubts that plagued him at the beginning of the film. Kirk is a man of action who relies heavily on his instincts. Engaging a like-minded adversary like Khan reawakens these tendencies where they had been inactive after the events of Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Director Nicholas Meyer keeps the film moving at a decent pace, but knows when to let things breath for nice, character-driven moments that provide important motivations for future actions later on in the film. There’s a reason why The Wrath of Khan is considered the best film with the most compelling story in the series: it pits the Enterprise crew against a truly formidable opponent, features thrilling spacecraft battles, and has an incredibly moving finale. Surely the best of times.

Also check out these great takes on The Wrath of Khan: John Kenneth Muir and Roderick Heath.

The Transformers: The Movie

Before Michael Bay decided to piss all over our nostalgic memories of The Transformers cartoon with his live-action monstrosities, there was a feature-length animated film that for all of its clunky animation and cheesy, dated soundtrack is better than the entirety of Bay’s trilogy. For those of us who grew up watching The Transformers cartoon every day after school in the early 1980s, the movie came as quite a shock. Most of us, at that early, impressionable age, were unprepared for the much darker tone and the increased level of violence, including some of the show’s most popular and beloved characters getting quickly killed off in the first few opening scenes. The Transformers: The Movie (1986) was a commercial and critical failure but went on to develop a strong cult following among fans.


It is 20 years into the future (making it, at the time, 2005!) and the war between the Autobots (a race of good transformable robots) and the Decepticons (their evil counterparts) continues to rage. The Decepticons have taken control of the transformers’ home world of Cybertron. The Autobots are planning to retake the planet but need to get more energy from Earth in order to do so. Unfortunately, the Decepticons learn of these plans and their leader Megatron (voiced by Frank Welker) intercepts the ship headed for Earth with the intention of launching a sneak attack on the Autobot’s base. Unbeknownst to the Autobots and the Decepticons, a planet-sized transformer named Unicron (Orson Welles) is devouring entire planets to feed its insatiable desire for energy. Only the Matrix of Leadership, housed in Optimus Prime (Peter Cullen), leader of the Autobots, can stop him.

The dark tone of the movie is set right from the prologue, which features Unicron mercilessly destroying an entire planet of transformers. No one is spared. We even see one escape pod almost make it before getting sucked into Unicron’s massive, gaping maw. For kids used to the relatively tame television series this sequence came as quite a surprise. This was nothing compared to what came next as soon afterwards the Decepticons ambush a ship carrying several Autobots that are quickly and casually killed off! It was one thing to see anonymous characters with nothing invested in them be destroyed but it was something else entirely to see characters we had grown to like on the series dispatched so suddenly and coldly. These deaths do raise the stakes considerably as if the filmmakers were making a statement that all bets are off with this film – any character, no matter how beloved, is fair game.

Clearly the powers that be (i.e. the toy company) meant to clear the decks for a new generation a.k.a. a new line of toys for kids to buy but I think they underestimated just how profound an effect all these deaths would have on their audience. This culminated with the death of Optimus Prime – the most popular transformer. Not since Darth Vader cut down Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars (1977) had the death of a heroic character been so traumatic for its fanbase. At least Prime got to go out in style with an epic one-on-one slugfest with his nemesis Megatron. For kids at the time, it was an emotional moment because we cared about Prime. His death scene, in particular, had gravitas and meant something to the fans of the show. This is something that the Bay movies never were able to replicate with their multi-million dollar budgets.

Another memorable aspect of the movie is the scope and scale. Where the T.V. show’s action was largely confined to Earth, the movie opens things up by introducing other worlds and races (even if they are all transformers). And so we are presented with the Planet of Junk, one of the more fascinating additions to The Transformers universe. It is inhabited by the Junkions and their leader Wreck-Gar who speaks in T.V. clichés mainly derived from advertisements. In an inspired bit of casting, he is voiced by Monty Python alumni Eric Idle. Their world is a metallic compost heap masquerading as a planet and rather fittingly their theme song is performed by none other than Weird Al Yankovic. This race of robots provides a much-needed moment of levity in what up to that point had been a very dark film.

The battles are also bigger and more intense as Unicron transforms into an enormous robot that attacks Cybertron but this almost pales in comparison to the intensity of the epic battle between Optimus Prime and Megatron that left many fans shocked by its outcome. No one was prepared for what went down and the film never quite recovers from this moment. Speaking of gravitas, who better to play a transformer the size of a planet than Orson Welles, the brilliant filmmaker who made Citizen Kane (1941)? His digitally augmented voice has the dramatic weight befitting the scale and power of Unicron. The filmmakers needed a formidable actor to play a formidable character and they found their ideal candidate in Welles. This gig would be his last and he died five days after completing his work from a heart attack.

One of the things that dates The Transformers film the most is its soundtrack of awesomely bad generic 1980s hair metal, complete with the show’s cool theme song redone by Lion. Most memorably is Stan Bush’s “The Touch,” which went on to be hilariously immortalized in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Boogie Nights (1997). The one song that acts as a crazy counterpoint to this bloated arena rock is Weird Al Yankovic’s theme for the Junkions, “Dare to Be Stupid.” His goofy, non-sensical lyrics (anticipating Beck by a few years and actually goofing on Devo) are perfect for this absurdist, almost Dada-esque race of transformers.

After the first two seasons of the television show, toy company Hasbro wanted to eliminate many of the characters and introduce a new line. Season three would feature several new characters and the feature film would make that transition. Toy lines are discontinued for new ones and so the dilemma facing the screenwriters of the movie was how to make this transition seamlessly. According to story consultant Flint Dille, “So, we had this one scene where the Autobots basically had to run through a gauntlet of Decepticons. Which basically wiped out the entire ’84 product line in one massive charge of the light brigade. So whoever wasn’t discontinued, stumbled to the end.” The scene didn’t quite play out that way but over the first third of the film, several of seasons one and two characters were killed off. Not surprisingly, it was Hasbro that dictated the story of the film, “using characters that could best be merchandised for the movie. Only with that consideration could I have the freedom to change the storyline,” said director Nelson Shin in an interview.

Not surprisingly, The Transformers: The Movie was savaged by critics at the time. In her review for The New York Times, Caryn James wrote, “Unlike most movie stars, though, the Transformers have offscreen lives and personalities that their fans will carry with them to the theater. Children have an advantage here, for they can project their playtime scenarios on the old friends and heroes in action on the screen, while parents may just wonder what the fuss is about.” The Globe and Mail’s Salem Alaton wrote, “There is so much action in the animated feature, The Transformers: The Movie, that you can't wait to get back into one of those Chrysler products whose vocabulary is limited to ‘A door is ajar,’ and ‘Thank you.’” The Los Angeles Times’ Charles Solomon wrote, “Not even the best actor can create a character out of nothing. Not one of the robots has a reason for doing what he does. The Transformers are good because they're good, and the Decepticons are bad because they're bad.”

The Transformers: The Movie’s pacing is fast and furious with never a dull moment – perfect for kids with short attention spans and actually works in its favor as any narrative fat is trimmed, packing a lot of action into its running time (again something the live-action films failed to realize with their bloated lengths). While I don’t know if the movie exactly lives up to its poster’s tag line, “Beyond good. Beyond evil. Beyond your wildest imagination.” It was a pretty mind-blowing experience for this impressionable youth back in the day. So, I come at this movie now with nostalgic baggage in tow, unable to really look at it objectively. I can only imagine what kids of today think of it now. Sadly, they probably don’t even know/care of its existence having been bombarded by the Michael Bay movies, which is too bad because they lack the imagination, the ambition (which are largely earthbound while the animated film takes place mostly in outer space) and the substance that makes The Transformers: The Movie by far superior. Plus, I’d take the likes of Stan Bush and Lion over the bland nu metal stylings of Linkin Park any day.


Also check out Roderick Heath's wonderful take over at his This Island Rod blog.