Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Nicholas Meyer and based on the television series Star Trek. It is the second film in the Star Trek film series following Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979), and is a sequel to the television episode "Space Seed" (1967). The plot features Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise facing off against the genetically engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán). When Khan escapes from a 15-year exile to exact revenge on Kirk, the crew of the Enterprise must stop him from acquiring a powerful terraforming device named Genesis. The film is the beginning of a three-film story arc that continues with the film Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984) and concludes with the film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).

After the lackluster critical response to the first film, series creator Gene Roddenberry was forced out of the sequel's production. Executive producer Harve Bennett wrote the film's original outline, which Jack B. Sowards developed into a full script. Director Nicholas Meyer completed its final script in twelve days, without accepting a writing credit. Meyer's approach evoked the swashbuckling atmosphere of the original series, referring to the film as "Horatio Hornblower in space", a theme reinforced by James Horner's musical score. Leonard Nimoy had not intended to have a role in the sequel, but was enticed back on the promise that his character would be given a dramatic death scene. Negative test audience reaction to Spock's death led to significant revisions of the ending over Meyer's objections. The production team used various cost-cutting techniques to keep within budget, including using miniature models from past projects and reusing sets, effects footage, and costumes from the first film. The film was the first feature film to contain a sequence created entirely with computer graphics.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was released in North America on June 4, 1982, by Paramount Pictures. It was a box office success, earning worldwide and setting a world record for its first-day box office gross. Critical reaction to the film was positive; reviewers highlighted Khan's character, Meyer's direction, improved performances, the film's pacing, and the character interactions as strong elements. Negative reactions focused on weak special effects and some of the acting. The Wrath of Khan is often considered to be the best film in the Star Trek series, and is often credited with renewing interest in the franchise. In 2024, the film was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the United States National Film Registry as being "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant".

Plot

In 2285, Admiral James T. Kirk oversees a simulator session of Captain Spock's trainees. In the simulation, Lieutenant Saavik commands the starship on a rescue mission to save the crew of the damaged ship Kobayashi Maru, but is attacked by Klingon cruisers and critically damaged. The simulation is a no-win scenario designed to test the character of Starfleet officers. Later, Dr. Leonard McCoy visits Kirk on his birthday; seeing Kirk in low spirits due to his age, the doctor advises Kirk to get a new command instead of growing old behind a desk.

Meanwhile, the starship Reliant is on a mission to search for a lifeless planet to test the Genesis Device, a technology designed to reorganize dead matter into habitable worlds. Reliants Captain Clark Terrell and first officer Commander Pavel Chekov beam down to evaluate a planet they mistakenly believe to be Ceti Alpha VI. Once there, they are captured by the genetically-engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh, who explains that they are on Ceti Alpha V. Fifteen years prior, Kirk exiled Khan and his followers there after they attempted to take over Enterprise; six months later, Ceti Alpha VI exploded, shifting the orbit of Ceti Alpha V and turning it into a desert wasteland. The catastrophe killed many of Khan's followers, while others, including his wife, were killed by native parasitic Ceti eels.

Khan implants Chekov and Terrell with eel larvae, rendering them susceptible to mind control, and uses the pair to capture Reliant. While Khan's lieutenant, Joachim, suggests abandoning his quest for revenge, Khan insists on killing Kirk. Learning of the Genesis Device, Khan attacks space station Regula I, where the device is being developed by Kirk's former lover, Dr. Carol Marcus, and their son, David.

Kirk assumes command of Enterprise after the ship, deployed on a training cruise, receives a distress call from Regula I. En route, Enterprise is ambushed and crippled by Reliant. Khan offers to spare Kirk's crew if they relinquish all material related to Genesis; Kirk instead stalls for time and, taking advantage of Khan's unfamiliarity with starships, remotely lowers Reliants shields, enabling a counter-attack. Khan is forced to retreat and effect repairs, while Enterprise limps to Regula I. Kirk, McCoy, and Saavik beam to the station and find Terrell and Chekov alive and Carol Marcus's team slaughtered. They find Carol and David hiding Genesis deep inside the nearby planetoid. Khan, having used Terrell and Chekov as spies, orders them to kill Kirk; Terrell resists the eel's influence and kills himself, while Chekov collapses as the eel leaves his body. Khan transports Genesis aboard Reliant, intending to maroon Kirk on the planetoid, but is tricked by Kirk and Spock's coded arrangements for a rendezvous. Kirk directs Enterprise into the nearby Mutara Nebula, successfully taunting Khan into following him; conditions inside the nebula render shields useless and compromise targeting systems, making Enterprise and Reliant evenly matched. Spock notes that Khan's tactics indicate inexperience in three-dimensional combat, which Kirk exploits to disable Reliant.

Mortally wounded, Khan activates Genesis, quoting Captain Ahab as he dies. Kirk's crew detects the activation and attempts to move out of range, but with the ship's warp drive damaged, they cannot escape the nebula in time. Spock goes to the irradiated engine room to restore warp power. When McCoy tries to prevent Spock's entry, Spock incapacitates him with a Vulcan nerve pinch and performs a mind meld, telling him to "remember". Spock repairs the warp drive, and Enterprise jumps to warp, escaping the explosion, which forms a new planet. Before dying of radiation poisoning, Spock urges Kirk not to grieve, as his decision to sacrifice himself to save Enterprise was a logical one. Kirk and the ship's crew host a space burial for Spock, whose casket lands on the new Genesis planet.

Cast

The Wrath of Khans cast includes all the major characters from the original television series, as well as new actors and characters.

William Shatner as James T. Kirk, a Starfleet admiral and former commander of the Enterprise. Kirk and Khan never confront each other face-to-face during the film; all of their interactions are over a viewscreen or through communicators, and their scenes were filmed four months apart. Meyer described Shatner as an actor who was naturally protective of his character and himself, and who performed better over multiple takes. Contrary to speculation that Montalbán used a prosthetic chest, the director insisted no artificial devices were added to Montalbán's muscular physique. Montalbán enjoyed making the film, so much so that he played the role for much less than was offered him, and counted the role as a career highlight. His major complaint was that he was never face-to-face with Shatner for a scene. "I had to do my lines with the script girl, who, as you might imagine, sounded nothing like Bill [Shatner]", he explained. Bennett noted that the film was close to getting the green light when it occurred to the producers that no one had asked Montalbán if he could take a break from filming the television series Fantasy Island to take part. Nimoy reasoned that since The Wrath of Khan would be the final Star Trek film, having Spock "go out in a blaze of glory" seemed like a good way to end the character.
George Takei as Hikaru Sulu, Enterprises helm officer. Takei had not wanted to reprise his role for The Wrath of Khan, but Shatner persuaded him to return.

Production

Development

thumb|left|Gene Roddenberry was removed from a direct role in the development of The Wrath of Khan due to concerns that he was the main reason behind The Motion Picture lukewarm reception. This was rejected by [[Paramount Pictures executives, who blamed the tepid reception and costs of the first film on its plodding pace and the constant rewrites Roddenberry demanded. When Bennett replied in the affirmative, Charles Bluhdorn asked, "Can you make it for less than forty-five-fucking-million-dollars?" Bennett replied that "Where I come from, I can make five movies for that." Bennett selected Robert Sallin, a director of television commercials and a college friend, to produce the film. Sallin's job would be to produce Star Trek II quickly and cheaply. Bennett hired Michael Minor as art director to shape the direction of the film.

Bennett wrote his first film treatment in November 1980. In his version, titled The War of the Generations, Kirk investigates a rebellion on a distant world and discovers that his son is the leader of the rebels. Khan is the mastermind behind the plot, and Kirk and son join forces to defeat the tyrant. Bennett then hired Jack B. Sowards, an avid Star Trek fan, to turn his outline into a filmable script. Sowards wrote an initial script before a writer's strike in 1981. Sowards' draft, The Omega Syndrome, involved the theft of the Federation's ultimate weapon, the "Omega system". This draft had a twelve-page face-to-face confrontation between Kirk and Khan inside the Genesis cave. Sowards' draft introduced a male character named Saavik. As pre-production began, Samuel A. Peeples, writer of the Star Trek episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before", was invited to offer his own script. Peeples' draft replaced Khan with two new villains named Sojin and Moray; the alien beings are so powerful they almost destroy Earth by mistake. This script was considered inadequate; He had the idea of making a list consisting of everything that the creative team had liked from the preceding drafts—"it could be a character, it could be a scene, it could be a plot, it could be a subplot, [...] it could be a line of dialogue"—so that he could use that list as the basis of a new screenplay made from all the best aspects of the previous ones.

Meyer described his script as "'Hornblower' in outer space", using nautical references and a swashbuckling atmosphere. Sallin was impressed with Meyer's vision for the film: "His ideas brought dimension that broadened the scope of the material as we were working on it."

The Enterprise was refurbished for its space shots, with its shiny exterior dulled down and extra detail added to the frame.

Spock's death in the film was widely reported during production. "Trekkies" wrote letters to protest, one paid for trade press advertisements urging Paramount to change the plot, and Nimoy even received death threats. Test audiences reacted badly to Spock's death and the film's ending's dark tone, but before it opened, the media reassured fans that "Spock will live" again. Due to time constraints, the casket scene was filmed in an overgrown corner of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, using smoke machines to add a primal atmosphere. The shoot lasted from midday to evening, as the team was well aware there would be no time for reshoots.

Special consideration was given during filming to allow for integration of the planned special effects. Television monitors standing in for computer displays were specially calibrated so that their refresh rate did not result in banding on film.

Effects

With a short timeframe to complete The Wrath of Khan special effects sequences, effects supervisor Jim Veilleux, Meyer, Jennings, Sallin, and Minor worked to transform the written ideas for the script into concrete storyboards and visuals. The detailed sequences were essential to keep the film's effects from spiraling out of control and driving up costs, as had occurred with The Motion Picture. Each special and optical effect, and the duration of the sequences, was listed. The models of the ships were composited atop the star fields. The Evans & Sutherland team also produced the vector graphics tactical displays seen on the Enterprise and the simulator bridge.

thumb|CGI was used for the first time in this shot of the Genesis Device striking a planet

The first concept for the shot took the form of a laboratory demonstration, where a rock would be placed in a chamber and turned into a flower. for the sixty-second sequence, the graphics team paid attention to detail such as ensuring that the stars visible in the background matched those visible from a real star light-years from Earth. The animators hoped it would serve as a "commercial" for the studio's talents. The studio would later branch off from Lucasfilm to form Pixar, now a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, a division of Disney Entertainment, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company, one of Paramount Pictures and Paramount Global's rivals. Bennett and Meyer wanted the music for the film to go in a different direction, but had not decided on a composer by the time filming began. Meyer initially hoped to hire an associate named John Morgan, but Morgan lacked film experience, which would have troubled the studio.

Paramount's vice-president of music Joel Sill took a liking to a 28-year-old composer named James Horner, feeling that his demo tapes stood out from generic film music. When asked about how he landed the assignment, the composer replied that "the producers loved my work for Wolfen, and had heard my music for several other projects, and I think, so far as I've been told, they liked my versatility very much. I wanted the assignment, and I met with them, we all got along well, they were impressed with my music, and that's how it happened." Horner agreed with the producers' expectations and agreed to begin work in mid-January 1982. Horner was expressly told to not use any of Goldsmith's score. Instead Horner adapted the opening fanfare of Alexander Courage's Star Trek television theme. "The fanfare draws you in immediately — you know you're going to get a good movie," Horner said. Craig Huxley performed his invented instrument—the Blaster beam—during recording, as well as composing and performing electronic music for the Genesis Project video. Upon writing his script, Meyer hit upon a link between Spock's death and the age of the characters. "This was going to be a story in which Spock died, so it was going to be a story about death, and it was only a short hop, skip, and a jump to realize that it was going to be about old age and friendship," Meyer said. "I don't think that any of [the other preliminary] scripts were about old age, friendship, and death."

Meyer added elements to reinforce the aging of the characters. Kirk's unhappiness about his birthday is compounded by McCoy's gift of reading glasses. The script stated that Kirk was 49, but Shatner was unsure about being specific about Kirk's age. To make the parallels clear to viewers, Meyer added a visible copy of Moby-Dick to Khan's dwelling.

Release

The film's novelization, written by Vonda N. McIntyre, stayed on the New York Times paperback bestsellers list for more than three weeks. Unlike the previous film, Wrath of Khan was not promoted with a toy line, although Playmates Toys created Khan and Saavik figures in the 1990s, and in 2007 Art Asylum crafted a full series of action figures to mark the film's 25th anniversary. In 2009, IDW Publishing released a comic adaptation of the film, and Film Score Monthly released an expanded score.

The Wrath of Khan opened on June 4, 1982, in 1,621 theaters in the United States. It made $14,347,221 in its opening weekend, at the time the largest opening weekend gross in history. It went on to earn $78,912,963 in the US, becoming the sixth highest-grossing film of 1982. It made $97,000,000 worldwide. The film's success was credited with renewing interest in the franchise. Marc Bernardin of Entertainment Weekly went further, calling The Wrath of Khan "the film that, by most accounts, saved Star Trek as we know it"; it is now considered one of the best films in the series. Pauline Kael of The New Yorker called the film "wonderful dumb fun." Gene Siskel gave the film three and a half stars out of four, calling it "a flat-out winner, full of appealing characters in engaging relationships in a futuristic film that has a delightfully old-fashioned sense of majesty about its characters and the predicaments they get into."

The film's pacing was praised by reviewers in The New York Times and The Washington Post as being much swifter than its predecessor and closer to that of the television series. Janet Maslin of The New York Times credited the film with a stronger story than The Motion Picture and stated the sequel was everything the first film should have been. Strong character interaction was cited as a strong feature of the film, as was Montalbán's portrayal of Khan. In 2016, Playboy ranked the film number four on its list of 15 Sequels That Are Way Better Than The Originals. Popular Mechanics would later rate Spock's death the tenth greatest scene in science fiction.

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times and Derek Adams of Time Out complained about what were seen as tepid battle sequences While Ebert and TV Guide felt that Spock's death was dramatic and well-handled, The Washington Posts Gary Arnold stated Spock's death "feels like an unnecessary twist, and the filmmakers are obviously well-prepared to fudge in case the public demands another sequel". and Empire singled out the "dodgy coiffures" and "Santa Claus tunics" as elements of the film that had not aged well.

Christopher John reviewed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in Ares Magazine No. 13 and commented that "By not taking itself so seriously – that is, realizing the film should be an action adventure with elements of pathos and philosophy gently added – The Wrath of Khan succeeded brilliantly. For those who loved the series, it was a dream come true (to such an extent that many refuse to acknowledge the existence of the first film as part of the Star Trek epos)."

The Wrath of Khan won two Saturn Awards in 1982, for best actor (Shatner) and best direction (Meyer). The film was also nominated in the "best dramatic presentation" category for the 1983 Hugo Awards, but lost to Blade Runner. The Wrath of Khan has influenced later movies: Meyer's rejected title for the film, The Undiscovered Country, was finally put to use when Meyer directed the sixth film, which retained the nautical influences. The film is also a favorite of director J. J. Abrams, producer Damon Lindelof, and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman, the creative team behind the franchise relaunch film Star Trek. Abrams' second entry in the relaunched film series, Star Trek Into Darkness, drew significantly from Wrath of Khan.

In December 2024, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant" by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 86% of 73 critics have given the film a positive review, recording an average score of 8.1/10.

Home media

Paramount released The Wrath of Khan on RCA CED Videodisc in 1982 and on VHS and Betamax in 1983. The studio sold the VHS for $39.95, $40 below contemporary movie cassette prices and it sold a record 120,000 copies.

Paramount released The Wrath of Khan on DVD in 2000; no special features were included on the disc. Montalbán drew hundreds of fans of the film to Universal City, California where he signed copies of the DVD to commemorate its release. In August 2002, the film was re-released in a two-disc "Director's Edition" format. In addition to remastered picture quality and 5.1 Dolby surround sound, the DVD set included director commentary, cast interviews, storyboards and the theatrical trailer. The expanded cut of the film was given a Hollywood premiere before the release of the DVD. Meyer stated that he didn't believe directors' cuts of films were necessarily better than the original but that the re-release gave him a chance to add elements that had been removed from the theatrical release by Paramount. The four hours of bonus content and expanded director's cut were favorably received.

The film's original theatrical cut was released on Blu-ray Disc in May 2009 to coincide with the new Star Trek feature, along with the other five films featuring the original crew in Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection. Of all six original films, Wrath of Khan was the only one to be remastered in 1080p high-definition from the original negative. Nicholas Meyer stated that the Wrath of Khan negative "was in terrible shape," which is why it needed extensive restoration. All six films in the set have new 7.1 Dolby TrueHD audio. The disc also features a new commentary track by director Nicholas Meyer and Star Trek: Enterprise showrunner Manny Coto. On July 7, 2021, it was announced that the first four films in the Star Trek franchise (including both the theatrical cut and the Director's Edition of The Wrath of Khan) would be released on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray on September 7 of that year to commemorate the franchise's 55th anniversary, alongside individual remastered Blu-rays of the same films.