Story: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Written By: Jack B. Sowards
Series: The Original Cast Films
Year: 1982
Sometimes it takes an outsider. Director Nick Meyer was only a casual fan of Star Trek, but he knew that just seeing the cast wasn't enough to make a good film. He looked at many episodes and found out what made Star Trek popular, what worked best. What works best were never ever the special effects, but the characters. Nobody ever talks about the Space Amoeba in “The Immunity Syndrome” they talk about Spock grinning when Kirk lives at the end of “Amok Time” , about the interactions between characters in “The Trouble with Tribbles” or “The City on the Edge of Forever”. It is about the characters. That’s Trek’s legacy, that in the future we won’t have neat toys, but that people will love one another. The characters ARE the franchise.
So realizing this he needed a plot driven by character development, not “ooh look at the pretty colors!”
So he toned done the uniform, made them less SPACE PAJAMAS and more UNIFORMS. Great move, now we can take our character seriously. He brought in human emotions, made people laugh and cry. He brought back a villain from one damn fine episode of the original series. Khan.
Having the return and revenge of Khan is a great stroke. Montalbaun is FANTASTIC as the foe to Kirk. They don’t even share a single frame together, yet their battles seem super personal for both.
‘Wrath of Khan’ is truly one of the greatest, if not the best, stories of the whole of Trek.
NEXT TIME: Return to Genesis
Written By: Jack B. Sowards
Series: The Original Cast Films
Year: 1982
Sometimes it takes an outsider. Director Nick Meyer was only a casual fan of Star Trek, but he knew that just seeing the cast wasn't enough to make a good film. He looked at many episodes and found out what made Star Trek popular, what worked best. What works best were never ever the special effects, but the characters. Nobody ever talks about the Space Amoeba in “The Immunity Syndrome” they talk about Spock grinning when Kirk lives at the end of “Amok Time” , about the interactions between characters in “The Trouble with Tribbles” or “The City on the Edge of Forever”. It is about the characters. That’s Trek’s legacy, that in the future we won’t have neat toys, but that people will love one another. The characters ARE the franchise.
So he toned done the uniform, made them less SPACE PAJAMAS and more UNIFORMS. Great move, now we can take our character seriously. He brought in human emotions, made people laugh and cry. He brought back a villain from one damn fine episode of the original series. Khan.
‘Wrath of Khan’ is truly one of the greatest, if not the best, stories of the whole of Trek.
NEXT TIME: Return to Genesis