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"Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"

2/9/05

You know, I can't really tell you what it is...but, I fucking love "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."

Each time I watch it, I ask myself (usually out loud), "How did 'Khan' not win the Oscar that year?"  As far as sci-fi films go, it's an instant classic; it's so good, and the drama is so good, it almost shouldn't be a "Star Trek" film at all, because the TV show it was based on and the characters that populate it have never been done as well before or since.

I had to order the film again through Netflix (you're right, I should own it, but now it's official--I'm not perfect), and it always gives you a little chill whenever you see the Enterprise, or whenever you watch the ship go through light speed, or whenever anyone needs to be teleported from place to place.  When I was a kid, I saw "Star Trek II" in a theater, back in a time when they still sold those 10- or 20-page movie programs, that had enlarged stills from the movie, or little odds and ends about the film, or production photos of the actors hangin' out on the set.  I used to love those things; I still have the one I got from "Star Trek II" in my files.  Back then, everything was larger than life to me, and watching Kirk take on Khan was just epic, even though I knew that the good guys were going to win eventually.

The thing about "Star Trek II" that still gets me today is that it really does look like William Shatner--your Captain James T. Kirk and mine--is actually acting during this film, something that he was very rarely accused of doing in his other film and TV work.  I mean, from his musings on returning to commanding starships to his voice breaking while delivering the Spock eulogy, I really did and still do believe that Shatner showed up every day trying to outdo himself, dropping much of the hammy Kirk to show some chops in his theatrics.  Director Nicholas Meyer, whose only other worthwhile credit is for maybe the most underrated "Trek" film, "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country", somehow tricked Shatner into giving a damn, and this works to marvelous effect.

Shatner probably realized he had to be great when he saw who signed on to play Khan--Ricardo Montalban, who gives what might be my second-favorite bad guy performance ever, next to the untouchable Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber in "Die Hard."  Montalban makes me start to laugh ("howl" is more like it) every single time he appears onscreen.  He takes almost 45 seconds of screen time to take off his Jawa-like mask in his opening scene; he takes off his cloak, and reveals a chest that should belong to a 30-year-old, not a 62-year-old, which is how old Montalban was when "Star Trek II" was released.  (The filmmakers get away with this by giving Khan a backstory that makes him more than 200 years old and "genetically-enhanced."  What the fuck ever.)

Then, Montalban gives Khan real backbone throughout the movie.  He seems to bleed hatred in almost every scene; his passion for hunting Kirk and Co. down is the only real leg the movie stands on for its majority, but it's this passion which lets us howl at his best lines:

• "It is very cooooollllllddddd...in space!"

• "I'm going to do much worse than...kill you.  I'm going to hurt you.  And I wish to go on...hurting you."

• "To the last...I grapple with thee!"

Or, on Khan's deathbed, bloodied beyond belief:  "From Hell's heart...I stab at thee!!"  You can't help but lose it each time, the shit is so funny.

Gosh, there's so much great stuff about "Khan" that I soak up every time it's on TV.  Those nasty slugs that Khan lays on Chekhov (Walter Koenig) and Terrell (Paul Winfield, doing his best to look interested in this movie), that may be from another solar system but that somehow have the ability to control the minds of humans as well as drive them insane...on command!  How about that smoke-filled entrance by Kirk after the botched training mission?  Kirstie Alley, looking simply fantastic as the Vulcan hottie Saavik...and then you remember, she's a fat bastard now 20 years later.  Bones dropping Bones-isms like "Who's been holding up the damn elevator?" for no reason at all.  Or the chest flap that all of the Enterprise uniforms have; to "relax", Kirk is always letting down the flap, which appears to have no effect at all in terms of loosening the clothing.

My buddy Brett "Parlay" Stone, on even more funny "Khan" bits:

1. Khan was playing Moby Dick (a copy of which is on the S.S. Botany Bay, and that's the moment when Chekov knows that they're in trouble), Kirk is playing a character that I can't quite put my finger on but his place in the movie is that of the captain who is annoyed that he might be over the hill.  1a:  The scene between Kirk and McCoy in Kirk's quarters is the driest and still one of the  most hysterical scenes in the film.  The look on his face when he takes a shot of Romulan ale is priceless.

2. Spock is totally playing the hero from A Tale of Two Cities.  Danton was his name, maybe?  I wish I could give you the background but the whole literary bit where Spock gives Kirk that book is played out throughout the film.

3. Best Spock joke of all time--Kirk:  "I would not presume to debate you."  Spock:  "That is wise."

Lost in all of this is the reason why there's any plot at all--Project Genesis, some nuke developed by scientists (one of whom just happens to be a former Kirk lover that hatched Kirk's only son) that can be launched from orbit and turn a dead rock into an Earth clone in about 20 minutes.  It's still the worst thing about "Khan", not because it isn't a cool idea, but because when it blows up on Khan's ship later, its power seems to go from "planet-wide" to "galaxy-wide", because it nearly blows up an entire star system and almost takes the Enterprise with it, which has to outrun these strange rings of...jeez, what the hell is it running from?  It's kind of like when the characters in "The Day After Tomorrow" are trying to outrun the cold, like they can see it coming behind them and they're like "Oh, shit, look!  Freezing weather!  Let's run into that meat locker!"

Sure, there's more silly shit, like the Mutara Nebula, the cloud that the Enterprise runs into to try to lose Khan's ship, the Reliant.  It's a static cloud that renders all shields and other power systems obsolete...until anyone needs to fire on anyone else, at which point it seems like all of the weapons systems work again.  Or how Spock reaches into a radiation tube and turns on the warp engines in his death sequence; I guess all spaceships have an on-off or reboot switch in a tube full of radioactive energy, just in case shit gets all haywire.

You let all of that slide, though, when it comes to the best shot of the movie...when Kirk lets Khan have it with the ship's phasers, as he yells "Fire!" again and again and again.  I will always have a special place in my heart for the moment where director Meyer goes with the extreme close-up to Kirk's mouth, as he says "Fire!" one last time to cripple Khan's vessel.  I'm still holding out hope that one day, I'm going to command my own Enterprise.

You just never know.  I do know this:  there's a Khan website that is some funny stuff.

 

Random Bellviews, courtesy of Bell and Longer Community Trust:

• Pictures:  Opening Weekend

• Having friends that TiVo the same shows you watch:  $9.50 Show

• Knowing that your dad is an anti-porn advocate:  Matinee

• Learning that your weekday lunch buddy just got the axe:  Rental

• Paris Hilton:  Hard Vice

 

justin@bellviewmovies.com