Much like last week’s Shit Covered Goggles, that amusingly, turned into a mass outpouring of hate induced bile towards Mr Lucas and Co. for their crimes to film, exemplified by the prequel trilogy - it is going to be hard to look back on the Star Trek II without looking at how badly it all turned out shortly after.
You can’t really ever look at, say, The Motion Picture without thinking, Wrath of Khan’s better or Search For Spock without thinking WTF? Or even the Voyage Home without thinking that Back To The Future had a lot to answer for, or that it’s the one that your mum liked. Never mind that the Final Frontier was fucking stupid.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan isn’t necessarily what i'd call, the BEST Star Trek Film, but it is the most enjoyable, strange I know but that's just my opinion. Noteworthy mentions have to go to (obviouls) Ricardo Montalban for a show stealing performance as Khan – William Shatner for the immortal utterance of - KHAAAAAN!!!! And who can speak about Star Trek II without mentioning James Doohan’s wonderfully dubbed Bagpipe playing during Spock’s Funeral.
It wasn’t without its flaws though, filmed on an incredibly low budget, re-using, at points, effects footage from The Motion Picture, using a (then) cheap as chips composer for the score and with all the other the other hurdles before them, you could say, at the very least, the odds were not tipped in favour of a successful film.
Don’t forget, The motion picture was a bit of a black hole as Sci-fi goes, released only 6 months before Empire Strikes Back, The Motion Picture was beset with the same problem that Star Wars had and still has to this day, a meddling creator with delusions of godhood in relation to the mythologies they create. At least Roddenberry had the good grace to die.
The Wrath of Khan was spared the meddling of Gene Roddenberry, a man who’s idea of a Utopian equalitarian society was one where women wore short skirts and did exactly what the men told them to, with a slap on the back side thrown in for good measure. Apparently Paramount woke up and smelled the coffee after the Motion Picture, here was this misogynistic pervert who’d been given free reign over a whopping $46 million budget and failed monumentally. No way, they were going to screw up a second time. If you adjust $46 million in 1979/80 – to today’s rates it’s about $100 million and that’s not world’s away from what JJ Abrams was given to make last years reboot a probable $150 Million, which probably dedicated a third of its budget to marketing) The Motion Picture bombed, granted it made its money back eventually, but suffice to say second time around, they were not going to make same mistake again and thus Roddenberry, who was seen to be the issue, was dumped.
Bring on Harve Bennett, Nicholas Meyer, a paltry $11 Million budget (a potential $26 million by today’s standards) and taking all that into account they made an excellent film. Why?
Because it was a simple revenge tale, the story of a man obsessed with exacting cruel revenge. It was this core story, acted out by the wonderful Ricardo Montalban who reprises his role from the The Original Series episode - Space Seed (I think?) along side a lot of other typical Sci-Fi plot devices – but the core story was Khan vs Kirk. It was simple, it was without the complexities of intergalactic politics, religious orders of warrior monks suffering mid life crisis’ and cybernetic bad guys trussed up in black leather bothering young boys whilst breathing heavily.
No - it was about people, their relationships with one another and how the decisions of their past could one day come up and bite them in the arse. The central story, Khan, being marooned, along with – Kirk’s cheating on the Kobayashi Maroo and denying himself a chance to learn a valuable lesson, Carole Marcus not telling her son who his real daddy was, it all mounts up and comes to bite poor Kirk in the ass, towards the end of the film (and in to the next one- but less said about that the better). This central focus is vital to the film’s success, it’s all about people. Much like Empire Strikes Back, it was all about people, no politics, no religion and most importantly no second guessing the audience, no patronising bullshit characters and the list goes on.
You, the viewer are invested in these characters, not because of The Original Series or heaven forbid, The Motion Picture but the first twenty minutes of this film. We are reintroduced to the central characters, archetypes and all. You rediscover the different bonds between McCoy and Kirk, Kirk and Spock, Spock and McCoy the amusing ‘man love’ triangle the three characters have. It all adds up to the viewer being invested in the characters they’re following on this journey.
Another central aspect to the Wrath of Khan is the sense of place you have. You’re always reminded that you’re in a spaceship, it could be any setting for the revenge story to work, but the sense of Mythology is hammered home throughout, with naval style language used in reference to the ship and military style order. Just a general sense of team spirit, a mutual respect for one another, it makes you root for them. Much like Moore’s BSG would end up having in its first series
Star Trek II has a lot to answer for, yes it was excellent and it was an exemplary addition to the Star Trek cannon – It showed the world that a fantastic Sci-Fi film could be made on a minimal budget. It proved that series creators could be fired (and in certain cases SHOULD be – as it’ll ensure a better instalment) but most importantly it gave us Nicholas Meyer who, not once, but twice rescued Star Trek from itself, with Star Trek’s 2 and 6 – But it did also lay the groundwork for III and IV and they were bloody awful, let’s not go down this road again, suffice to say The Undiscovered Country was a vast improvement on the three films before. Funnily enough, The Undiscovered Country (The Title) was supposed to be the title of II as Spock was originally supposed to die and it was all about Kirk growing old and venturing into the titular undiscovered country of life without his friend, having grown old and becoming a parent etc.
So, in conclusion
Thankfully, JJ Abrams followed the same kind of revenge storyline with last year’s film, it was central to the whole time travel, red super goo, black hole, Old Spock/ New Spock storyline which, although slightly rushed at times, nailed every fundamental aspect of a good Star Trek movie, the embodiment of which is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
If you look at my highly technically advanced chart attached it will hopefully outline what I mean:
I think that the aforementioned diagram may clearly indicate that my personal favourites are in this order.....
1). Wrath of Khan
2). Abram’s reboot (Star Trek)
3). The Undiscovered Country
And which of the films I think is bloody stupid!!!!
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