Star Trek 2: The Wrath Of Khan
Having gotten through the first movie relatively unscathed, without any mental scarring or a nervous breakdown, I was no longer dreading the whole process. In fact, I was almost eager to get to the next one (although whether or not this was because watching the first movie gave me brain damage, or that I just really wanted to entire thing over with, I can’t say). I returned Star Trek to my brother in exchange for The Wrath Of Khan, which he informs me in one of the better ones.
Before my initiation into the Star Trek world that occurred with my viewing of the first movie, “better” would have been something to laugh at. “Better” as in, the lesser of two evils kind of way? “Better” as in, however bad this movie might seem, it could be worse? “Better” as in, it’s really not a Star Trek movie at all, but an elaborate cover up that fans don’t want you to know about? Anyway, now I know “better,” and I’ll take his word for it. I’ve also been told by another friend that all the even numbered sequels are good, while the odd numbered ones, not so. Of course, I’m guessing everyone has a different opinion on the matter of which ones are good, so I take it all with a grain of salt. I, for example, never even used to consider any of them movies to begin with, but as a type of punishment for children – which is why I grew up a good boy. I also hear that one of the later movies has whales in it. Whales. And not super galactic space whales either, Earth whales. I hope that’s misleading information, but only time will tell.
I put the disc in and turned it on, paying full attention to the menu commands this time and ensuring that I selected PLAY. But when I was confronted with the familiar scene of stars zipping away from me I became immediately disheartened. This shit again? Thankfully, it only lasted for a few seconds. I guess someone realized what a stupid concept it was and dramatically shortened that little opening.
The opening itself was more contemporary and had less end-of-the-movie type of credits, although there’s still room for improvement. Most of the old characters return (with the exception of Pecker and the bald woman, who apparently died in the last film), with the same actors portraying them. This is a good thing, as it will help me recognize who everyone is. And they’ve finally gotten better, more appropriate attire, instead of the crap garments they wore before, which looked more like the kind of overalls mechanics wear, except more retarded. And is that a pre-Cheers Kristie Alley? Wow! I wasn’t expecting that. And she’s kinda hot. Wasn’t expecting that either. She’s the captain of the Enterprise now – not Kirk (that’s two movies now he didn’t begin as a captain – can’t that guy hold on to a job?). They receive an SOS from some other ship, so they go into some forbidden place called the “Neutral Zone,” which meant that Klingons attacked them and everyone died, of course.
At least that would have happened had this not been just a training exercise. Kirk walks in, expresses his contempt for female captains, and wastes no time getting out of there. It is, after all, his birthday, and he wants to celebrate. Or at least mope about it, which is all he does. Then again, all he got was a book and some four-hundred year old glasses, so I’d be upset too. What he really wanted was to be captain of the Enterprise again. Unfortunately, he’d been promoted, and was an admiral now. Some people are just never happy.
Cut to some other people not working for Starfleet – although I believe one of them used to work on the Enterprise – who are exploring what should be a desolate planet for some Genesis project (isn’t that the name of one of the later movies?). They find the remains of an abandoned redneck trailer or something, and when one of them learns that it’s the old Botany Bay ship (at first I thought they said the “bought on eBay ship”), or what’s left of it, he panics and tries to flee. Unfortunately they’ve already been surrounded by monks. The monks are what’s left of the ship’s crew, lead by the titular Khan. He’s out to get revenge on Kirk, who apparently left them all stranded there back in 1996, which according to him was some two-hundred years ago. Looks like he’d been stranded out in the sun too long. He puts some slug things in his captives’ ears, which makes them more compliant, effectively turning them into lemmings. They tell him everything he wants to know, including how he can get his hands on Kirk.
Segway back to Kirk, whom at first I thought was on the crapper, reading his birthday book with his birthday glasses, but as it turns out was just lounging around on the shuttle back to the Enterprise. Spock is captain of the ship, at least for now, but Kirk seems happy with his new job, which seems to command even greater authority. His first item on the agenda is to take the ship out for yet another test run. Honestly, the Enterprise must have a Ford engine in it or something; it’s always in some state of repair, and always falling apart.
Kristie Alley, who as it turns out is Vulcan (I’m rather proud that I picked up on that), plays lieutenant Saavik, and is still on deck, despite the fact that she killed everyone in training. Spock must have had something to do with her being there. Personally I think she has a thing for Kirk. You know what they say about a man in uniform…or a man with power – he is an admiral now, after all. Hell, you know, the man is William freaking Shatner; who wouldn’t have a thing for him? Even I have a thing for him (it’s called admiration – admiration for the admiral). Kirk, I’d venture, doesn’t share the sentiment, as he keeps referring to her as MR Saavik. Unless he swings that way – which I doubt he does thank you very much. Shatner is the man.
Anyway, Khan now has his explorers-turned-lemmings tricking the Genesis people (two of whom happen to be one of Kirk’s exes, and their bastard spawn – although Kirk doesn’t know he’s a father) into thinking Kirk is taking their project away from them. They cry foul and bitch to Kirk, who declares mutiny on the Enterprise and takes over as captain so he can zip to the rescue. Meanwhile Khan, anticipating Kirk’s move, hijacks the ship the explorers rode in on (the Reliant), makes for the Genesis home base, does some damage there, and then goes after the Enterprise. When the two ships meet, they do battle, with Kirk getting the best of the confrontation, but just barely (why they didn’t finish Khan off I don’t know). Oh, and Scotty’s nephew dies in the ensuing damage. Boo hoo.
They get the Enterprise bandaged up and proceed on to the Genesis base. Kirk beams over to the base to have a look around, inviting Bones along, with Saavik weaseling her way into the party (I’m telling you, the party isn’t the only thing she’s trying to get into). There they find everyone dead, except for the two lemmings from the Reliant ship. The lemmings join the party and they all beam down to the planet they were trying to experiment on (the Genesis project is essentially a terraforming matter-shifting device). On the planet they come across the leftover stowaways from the base, hiding from Khan, and they include Kirk’s ex and offspring. Having found the missing stowaways, and also having Kirk in tow, the lemmings turn on everyone and alert Khan, who’d been listening in on everything all along (see, they should’ve killed him). Khan decides to leave them all stranded on the planet like Kirk did to him back in the previous millenium.
Left with some time to kill, Kirk’s ex explains to him about his son and what they’ve done with the Genesis project. He’s happy with it, but not happy with being marooned. So he gets everyone beamed back up to the Enterprise. This, from what I understood, was supposed to have been an impossibility due to a number of factors, the least of which was that the Enterprise should have been long gone by then, since Kirk told them to split. I didn’t get the explanation given (proof the Kirk is the man, since he can get one over on even my brilliant mind). If Khan had known what was going on he’d never have just left Kirk to his own devices. But he’s ignorant to all that, yet somehow knew the Enterprise was still in the vicinity; strange, considering that from what he and I both knew, the ship was supposed to be heading back to Starfleet.
Once it’s apparent that Kirk is still alive, an enraged Khan chases him into some some nebula where they’re all basically flying blind, as it interferes with almost all the electronic signals. Once again, however, Kirk bests Khan, and as a final attempt to exact revenge, Khan self-destructs the Reliant using the Genesis device, knowing that the Enterprise is still too damaged to travel far enough out of range of the explosion.
But Spock saves the day by going straight into the reactor chamber to fix the engine. And once again, just like in the first movie, he had to use that shoulder nerve move that knocks people out (I think Spock has a sadistic, violent side that no one knows about). With the engines fixed the Enterprise is able to zip away not a moment too soon. Unfortunately, in repairing the engine Spock absorbed massive amounts of radiation, which cut his lifespan to practically nil. But of course he lives just long enough to give a touching goodbye to his bestest friend Kirk. They give him a heartfelt burial in space. Then Kirk and his son have a nice bonding moment, and the Enterprise takes off on a mission to rescue the surviving members of the Genesis project. The End.
Well, all in all, it was a better movie than the first, if only for the hotness that was an early thirties Kristie Alley. The movie opened better, closed better, and most of the middle area was good too. Better acting, better effects, you name it. Spock’s death was a nice touch; it even tried to make me cry. I will say this though: I will never cry over the loss of anything Star Trek. At one point in my younger, naive days, that kind of loss would be cause for celebration. But I’m more mature now.
I miss the good ol’ days.
The Chris Effect 
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