Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
File:Wrath-of-khan-bob-peak-post.png Theatrical poster art by Bob Peak
Directed by	Nicholas Meyer
Written by	Screenplay: Jack B. Sowards Nicholas Meyer Story: Harve Bennett Jack B. Sowards
Produced by	Robert Sallin Harve Bennett (executive)
Starring	See Cast
Cinematography	Gayne Rescher
Edited by	William Paul Dornisch
Music by	James Horner
Distributed by	Paramount Pictures
Release date	June 4, 1982
Running time	116 min.
Country	United States

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is the second feature film based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise, and was released in 1982 by Paramount Pictures. In the film, James T. Kirk (William Shatner) and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise face off against the genetically-engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalbán), a character who first appeared in the 1960s Star Trek television series episode "Space Seed". When Khan escapes from a fifteen-year exile to exact revenge on Kirk, the crew of the Enterprise must stop Khan from acquiring a powerful but unstable terraforming device. The film concludes with the death of Enterprise crewmember Spock (Leonard Nimoy), beginning a story arc that continues to 1986's Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.

After the lackluster critical and commercial response to Star Trek: The Motion Picture, 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 the final script in twelve days, without accepting a writing credit. Meyer's approach evoked the swashbuckling atmosphere of the original series, and was reinforced by James Horner's musical score. Spock's death was intended to be irrevocable, the only reason Leonard Nimoy reprised his role. Negative test audience reaction to the character's death led to significant revisions of the ending without Meyer's consent. The production used various cost-cutting techniques to keep under budget, including utilizing old miniatures from past Star Trek projects. Among the film's technical achievements is the first complete sequence created entirely with computer-generated graphics.

The Wrath of Khan was released in North America on June 4, 1982. It was a box office success, earning $97 million worldwide and setting a world record for first-day box office gross. Critical reaction to the film was positive; reviewers highlighted Khan and the film's pacing as strong elements. Dissenting reviewers, such as the Washington Post, called the special effects outdated and the cast geriatric. The Wrath of Khan is generally considered one of the best films of the Star Trek series and is credited with creating renewed interest in the franchise.

Plot

The film opens with a female Vulcan, Lieutenant Saavik, in command of the starship USS Enterprise. The vessel is on a rescue mission to save the crew of a damaged ship in the Neutral Zone along the border with Klingon space. The Enterprise is attacked by Klingon cruisers and critically damaged. This "attack" is revealed to be a training exercise known as the "Kobayashi Maru"; a no-win situation designed to test the character of Starfleet officers. Admiral James T. Kirk oversees the simulator session of Captain Spock's trainees.

The USS Reliant is on a mission to search for a lifeless planet for testing of the Genesis Device, a torpedo that reorganizes molecular matter to create hospitable worlds for colonization. Reliant officers Pavel Chekov and Clark Terrell transport down to the surface of a possible candidate planet, Ceti Alpha VI, where they are captured by Khan Noonien Singh. Khan and his fellow genetically-advanced supermen were once rulers on Earth in the late 20th century, but after their defeat they were exiled to space in a sleeper ship. The Enterprise discovered Khan's ship adrift in space fifteen years previously; James Kirk exiled Khan and his followers to Ceti Alpha V after the supermen nearly captured the Enterprise. Khan reveals that after they were marooned, Ceti Alpha VI exploded, destroying Ceti Alpha V's ecosystem and shifting its orbit; Chekov and Terrell have unwittingly landed on Ceti Alpha V. Khan blames Kirk for the deaths of his wife and followers, and plans to avenge them. He implants Chekov and Terrell with indigenous, mind-controlling eels that enter the ears of their victims, and uses the officers to gain control of the Reliant.

The Enterprise embarks on a training voyage under the command of Spock. Kirk, conducting an inspection of the Enterprise, receives a garbled message from Space Station Regula I, a remote science laboratory where Kirk's former lover, Dr. Carol Marcus, and their son, Dr. David Marcus, have been developing the Genesis Device. The Enterprise is ordered to investigate and Kirk assumes command of the vessel. Khan uses a surprise attack to cripple the Enterprise en route, killing many of the ship's trainees. A transmission between the two ships reveals Khan knows of the Genesis Device and wants all materials related to the project sent to him. Kirk stalls for time and disables the Reliant's defenses by transmitting a security code. With his ship badly damaged, Khan is forced to retreat and make repairs.

The Enterprise arrives at Regula I, where they find members of the Genesis team dead. The remaining scientists, including Carol and David, have hidden deep inside the planetoid of Regula. Using Terrell and Chekov as spies, Khan steals the Genesis Device. When Terrell is ordered to kill Kirk, the eels' influence wanes; Terrell kills himself while Chekov overcomes the parasite's control. Though Khan believes he is leaving Kirk stranded on Regula I, Kirk and Spock use a coded message to arrange a rendezvous and pilot the Enterprise into the nearby Mutara nebula. Static discharges from the nebula renders ships' defensive shields useless and compromises targeting systems, making the Enterprise and Reliant evenly matched. Khan pursues his quarry against his lieutenant's advice.

Inside the nebula, Kirk uses Khan's inexperience in three-dimensional combat to critically disable the Reliant. Mortally wounded, Khan activates the Genesis Device, which will reorganize all matter in the nebula—including the Enterprise. Though Kirk's crew detects the activation of the Genesis Device and begins to lumber away using impulse engines, with the warp drive damaged they will not be able to escape the nebula in time. Spock goes to the ship's Engineering section to restore warp drive. When McCoy tries to prevent him from exposing himself to high levels of radiation, he disables the doctor and performs a mind meld, telling McCoy to "remember". Spock restores power to the ship, allowing the Enterprise to escape the explosion. Kirk arrives in Engineering just before Spock dies of radiation poisoning.

The explosion of the Genesis Device causes a planet to coallesce out of the nebula. A space burial is held in the Enterprise's torpedo room, and Spock's coffin is shot into orbit around the newly formed planet. Kirk and David make peace, and the crew leaves the planet to pick up the Reliant's marooned crew. In the final scene Spock's coffin is seen to have soft-landed on the planet. Spock narrates Star Trek's "Where no man has gone before" monologue as the camera pans forward into a field of stars.

Cast

The Wrath of Khan's cast includes all the major characters from the original TV series, as well as new actors and characters.

File:Star-trek-II-spocks-funeral.png

The crew of the Enterprise gathers for Spock's funeral (the torpedo with Spock's body is at the bottom of the frame). From left to right: Sulu, Chekov, Scott, Kirk, McCoy, Uhura, and Saavik.

• 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 the 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.

• Ricardo Montalbán as Khan Noonien Singh, a superhuman who was exiled from Earth in the 1990s, where he had used his strength and intellect to rule much of the world. Montalbán said that he believed all good villains do villainous things, but think that they are acting for the "right" reasons; in this way, Khan sees his anger at the death of his wife justification for pursuing Kirk. Despite speculation that Montalbán used a prosthetic chest, no artificial devices were added to Montalbán's muscular physique. Montalbán enjoyed making the film, counting 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 Fantasy Island to take part.

• Leonard Nimoy as Spock, the captain of the Enterprise who relinquishes command of the Enterprise to Kirk after Starfleet sends the ship to Regula I. Nimoy had not intended to have a role in The Motion Picture's sequel, but was enticed back on the promise that his character would be given a dramatic death scene. 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.

• DeForest Kelley as Leonard McCoy, the Enterprise's doctor and a close friend of Kirk and Spock. Kelley was dissatisfied with an early version of the script to the point that he considered not taking part. Kelley noted his character spoke many of the film's lighter lines, and felt that this role was essential to bring a lighter side to the onscreen drama.

• James Doohan as Montgomery Scott, the Enterprise's chief engineer. During Spock's death scene in the film, Kelley felt that McCoy speaking his catchphrase "He's dead, Jim" would ruin the moment's seriousness. Doohan says the line "He's dead already" to Kirk instead. Scott loses his young nephew following Khan's attacks on the Enterprise. The cadet, played by Ike Eisenmann, had many of his lines cut in the original theatrical release, including a scene where it is explained he is Scott's relative. These scenes were readded when ABC aired The Wrath of Khan in 1985, and in the director's edition, making Scott's grief at the crewman's death more understandable.

• George Takei as Hikaru Sulu, the helm officer of the Enterprise. Takei had not wanted to reprise his role for The Wrath of Khan, but Shatner persuaded him to return.

• Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov, the Reliant's first officer and a former member of the Enterprise's crew. During filming, Kelley noted that Chekov never met Khan in "Space Seed" (Koenig had not joined the cast), and thus Khan recognizing Chekov on Ceti Alpha did not make sense. Star Trek books have tried to rationalize this discrepancy; in the film's novelization by Vonda N. McIntyre, Chekov is "an ensign assigned to the night watch" during "Space Seed" and met Khan in an off-screen scene. The non-canonical novel To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh fixes the error by having Chekov escort Khan to the surface of Ceti Alpha after the events of the television episode. The real cause of the error was a simple oversight by the filmmakers. Meyer defended the mistake by noting that Arthur Conan Doyle made similar oversights in his Sherlock Holmes stories. Chekov's screaming while being infested by the Ceti eel lead Koenig to jokingly dub the film Star Trek II: Chekov Screams Again, in reference to a similar screaming scene in The Motion Picture.

• Nichelle Nichols as Uhura, communications officer. Nichols and Gene Roddenberry took issue with elements of the film, including the naval references and militaristic uniforms. Nichols also defended Roddenberry when the producers believed he was the source of script leaks.

• Bibi Besch as Carol Marcus, the lead scientist working on Project Genesis and the mother of Kirk's son. Meyer was looking for an actor who looked beautiful enough that it was plausible a womanizer such as Kirk would fall for her, yet who could also project a sense of intelligence.

• Merritt Butrick as David Marcus, Kirk's son who has grown up to be a scientist, like his mother. Meyer liked that Butrick's hair was blond like Besch's and curly like Shatner's, making him a plausible son of the two.

• Paul Winfield as Clark Terrell, the captain of the Reliant. Meyer had seen Winfield's work in films such as Sounder and thought highly of him; there was no reason for casting him as the Reliant's captain other than Meyer's desire to direct him. Meyer thought in retrospect that the Ceti eel scenes might have been corny, but felt that Winfield's performance helped add gravity.

• Kirstie Alley as Saavik, Spock's protege and a Starfleet officer-in-training aboard the Enterprise. The movie was Alley's first feature film role. Saavik cries during Spock's funeral. Meyer said that during filming someone asked him, "'Are you going to let her do that?' And I said, 'Yeah', and they said, 'But Vulcans don't cry,' and I said, 'Well, that's what makes this such an interesting Vulcan.'" The character's emotional outbursts can be partly explained by the fact that Saavik was described as of mixed Vulcan-Romulan heritage in the script, though no indication is given on film. Alley was so fond of her Vulcan ears that she would take them home with her at the end of each day.

Production

Development

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's lukewarm reception.

After the release of The Motion Picture, executive producer Gene Roddenberry wrote his own sequel. In his plot, the crew of the Enterprise travel back in time to assassinate John F. Kennedy to set right a corrupted time line. This was rejected by Paramount executives, who blamed the poor performance and inflated budget ($46 million) of the first movie on the constant rewrites demanded by Roddenberry, and its plodding pace. As a consequence, Roddenberry was removed from the production and, according to Shatner, "kicked upstairs" to the ceremonial position of executive consultant. Harve Bennett, a new Paramount television producer, was made producer for the next Star Trek film. According to Bennett, he was called in front of a group including Jeffrey Katzenberg and Michael Eisner and asked if he thought he could make a better movie than The Motion Picture. 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 realized he faced a serious challenge in developing the new Star Trek movie, including the fact that he had never seen the show. To compensate, Bennett watched all the original episodes. This immersion convinced Bennett that what the first movie lacked was a real villain; after seeing the episode "Space Seed", he decided that the character of Khan Noonien Singh was the perfect enemy for the new film. Before the script was settled upon, Bennett gathered his production staff. He selected Robert Sallin, a director of television commercials and a college friend, to produce the movie. Sallin's job would be to produce Star Trek II quickly and cheaply. Bennett also hired Michael Minor as art director, who would shape the direction of the film

Bennett wrote his first film treatment in November 1980. In his version, titled Star Trek II: 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". Sowards was concerned that his weapon was too negative, and Bennett wanted something more uplifting "and as fundamental in the 23rd century as recombinant DNA is in our time," Minor recalled. During a phone call, Minor suggested to Bennett that the device be turned into a terraforming tool instead. At the story conference the next day, Bennett hugged Minor and declared that he had saved Star Trek. In recognition of the Biblical power of the weapon, Sowards renamed the "Omega system" to the "Genesis Device".

By April 1981 Sowards had produced a draft that moved Spock's death to later in the story and introduced a male character named 'Savik'. As preproduction began, Samuel A. Peeples, writer of the Star Trek episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before", was called in to offer his own script. The resulting draft (which omitted Khan) was judged inadequate. Deadlines were looming for special effects production to begin (which required detailed storyboards based on a finished script), and by this point there was no consensus on what the film would be about, as each draft was essentially a different film to the others.

The film's recently-hired director Nicholas Meyer, writer of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution and director of Time After Time, 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 comprised of all the best aspects of the previous ones. Because ILM required a completed script in just twelve days, which wouldn't have even been enough time for Meyer to make a deal about his writing credit, Meyer decided to write the script uncredited and for no money "because if nobody does this, there's not gonna be any movie". Meyer surprised everyone with his ability to write fast and write well: the final draft of the script was completed in twelve days, and when Leonard Nimoy and William Shatner each came to Meyer with grievances about the script he was able to rewrite and rework the script within a day or two for each of them.

Meyer described his script as "'Hornblower' in outer space", utilizing 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." Gene Roddenberry, however, disagreed with the script's naval texture and Khan's Captain Ahab undertones, but was mostly ignored by the creative team. Filming began in late 1981.

Design

Meyer attempted to change the look of Star Trek to match the nautical atmosphere he envisioned and stay under budget. The Enterprise, for example, was given a ship's bell and a boatswain's call. To save money on set design, production designer Joseph Jennings utilized existing elements from The Motion Picture that had been left standing after filming was completed. Sixty-five percent of the film was shot on the same set; the bridge of the Reliant and the "bridge simulator" from the opening scene were redresses of the Enterprise's bridge. The filmmakers stretched The Wrath of Khan's budget by reusing models and footage from the first Star Trek film, including footage of the Enterprise in spacedock. The original ship miniatures were used where possible, or modified to stand in as new constructions. The orbital office complex from The Motion Picture was inverted and retouched to become the Regula I space station. Elements of the cancelled Star Trek: Phase II TV show, such as bulkheads, railings, and sets were cannibalized and reused. A major concern for the designers was that the Reliant should be easily distinguishable from the Enterprise. The ship's design was flipped after Bennett accidentally opened and approved the preliminary Reliant designs upside-down.

Designer Robert Fletcher was brought in to redesign existing costumes and create new ones. Fletcher decided on a scheme of "corrupt colors", using materials with colors a shade or two off of the pure color. "They're not colors you see today, so in a subtle way their indicate another time." Sallin wanted the uniforms from The Motion Picture changed, but for budgetary reasons did not want to discard them entirely. Dye tests of the fabric showed that the old uniforms took three colors well: blue-gray, gold, and dark red. Fletcher decided to use the dark red due to the strong contrast it provided with the background. The resulting naval-inspired designs would be used until 1996's Star Trek: First Contact. The first versions of the uniforms had stiff black collars, but Sallin suggested changing it to a turtleneck, using a form of vertical quilting called trapunto. The method creates a bas-relief effect to the material by stuffing the outlined areas with soft thread shot via air pressure through a hollow needle. By the time of The Wrath of Khan's production, the machines and needles needed to produce trapunto were rare, and Fletcher was able to find only one needle for the wardrobe department. The crew was so worried about losing or breaking the needle that one of the department's workers took it home with him as a security measure, leading Fletcher to think it had been stolen.

For Khan and his followers, Fletcher created a strong contrast with the highly organized Starfleet uniforms; his idea was that the exiles' costumes were made out of whatever they could find. Fletcher said, "My intention with Khan was to express the fact that they had been marooned on that planet with no technical infrastructure, so they had to cannibalize from the spaceship whatever they used or wore. Therefore, I tried to make it look as if they had dressed themselves out of pieces of upholstery and electrical equipment that composed the ship." Khan's costume was designed with an open chest to show Ricardo Montalbán's physique. Fletcher also designed smocks for the Regula I scientists, and civilian clothes for Kirk and McCoy that were designed to look practical and comfortable.

Filming

Principal photography commenced on November 9, 1981, and production ended January 29, 1982. The Wrath of Khan was more action-oriented than its predecessor, but less costly to make. The project was supervised by Paramount's television unit rather than its theatrical division. Bennett, a respected TV veteran, made The Wrath of Khan at a budget of $11 million—far less than The Motion Picture's $46 million. Meyer utilized camera and set tricks to spare the construction of large and expensive sets. For a scene taking place at Starfleet Academy, a forced perspective was created by placing scenery close to the camera to give the sense the set was larger than it really was. To present the illusion that the Enterprise's elevators moved between decks, corridor pieces were wheeled out of sight to change the hall configuration while the lift doors were closed. Background equipment such as computer terminals were rented when possible instead of purchased outright. Some designed props, such as a redesigned phaser and communicator, were vetoed by Paramount executives in favor of existing materials from The Motion Picture.

The Enterprise was refinished for its space shots, with its shiny exterior dulled down and extra detail added to the frame. Compared to the newly-built Reliant, the Enterprise was hated by effects artists and cameramen; it took eight people to mount the model, and a forklift to move it. The Reliant, meanwhile, was lighter and had less complex internal wiring. The ships were filmed on a blue screen with special film that does not register the color; the resulting shots can be added to effects shots or other footage. Any reflection of blue on the ship's hull would appear as a hole on the film; the gaps had to be patched frame by frame for the final film. The same camera used to film Star Wars, the Dystraflex, was used for shots of the Enterprise and other ships.

The barren desert surface of Ceti Alpha V was simulated on stage 8, the largest sound stage at Paramount's studio. The set was elevated 25 feet off the ground and covered in wooden mats, over which tons of colored sand and powder were dumped. A cyclorama was painted and wrapped around the set, while massive industrial fans created a sandstorm. The filming was uncomfortable for both actors and crew alike. The spandex environmental suits Koenig and Winfield wore were unventilated, and the actors had to signal by microphone when they needed air. Filming equipment was wrapped in plastic to prevent mechanical troubles and everyone on set wore boots, masks, and coveralls as protection from flying sand.

Spock's death was shot over three days, during which no visitors were allowed on set. The initial scripts placed Spock's death early in the film, but fan dissatisfaction to the event after the script was leaked led to the event's movement to the climax. As a way to offset fan expectation that Spock would die, Meyer had the character "killed" in the Kobayashi Maru simulator in the opening scene. Spock's death was to be irrevocable, but Nimoy had such a positive experience during filming that he asked if he could add a way for Spock to return in a later film. The mind meld sequence was initially filmed without Kelley's prior knowledge of what was going on. Shatner disagreed with having a clear glass separation between Spock and Kirk during the death scene; he instead wanted a translucent divider allowing viewers to only see Spock's silhouette, but his objection was overruled. During Spock's funeral sequence Meyer wanted the camera to track the torpedo that served as Spock's coffin as it was placed in a long trough and slid into the launcher. The camera crew thought the entire set would have to be rebuilt in order to accommodate the shot, but Sallin suggested putting a dolly into the trough and controlling it from above with an offset arm. Scott's rendition of "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes was James Doohan's idea.

Test audiences reacted badly to Spock's death and the film's ending (the tone of which was dark and final), so the ending was made more uplifting by Bennett. The scene of Spock's casket on the planet and Nimoy's closing monologue were added; Meyer objected, but did not stand in the way of the modifications. Because of limited time, the casket scene was filmed in a 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 integrate the planned special effects into the shots. Television monitors standing in for computer displays were specially calibrated so that their refresh rate did not result in banding on film. Because of a loss of resolution and quality resulting in rephotographing an element in an optical printer, live action sequences for effects were shot in 65mm or VistaVision formats to compensate. When the larger prints were reduced through an anamorphic lense on the printer, the result was a Panavision composite.

Effects

With a short timeframe to complete The Wrath of Khan's 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 in The Motion Picture. Each special and optical effect, and the duration of the sequences, was listed. By the end of six weeks, the producers determined the basic look and construction of nearly all the effects; the resulting shots would be combined with film footage five months later. Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) produced many of the effects, and created the new models; the Reliant was the first non-Constitution-class Federation starship seen in the series. As the script called for the Reliant and Enterprise to inflict significant damage on each other, ILM developed techniques to illustrate the damage without physically harming the models. Rather than move the models on a bluescreen during shooting, the Vistavision camera was panned and tracked to give the illusion of movement. Damage to the Enterprise was cosmetic, and simulated with pieces of aluminum that were colored or peeled off. Phaser damage was created using stop motion. The script called for large-scale damage to the Reliant, so larger versions of the ship's model were created to be blown up.

File:Enterprise-and-reliant.png

The Enterprise (left) maneuvers away from the severely damaged Reliant in the Mutara nebula. The sparks coming off the Reliant's nacelle were hand animated, frame by frame.

The battle in the nebula was a difficult sequence to accomplish without the aid of computer-generated models. The swirling nebula was created by injecting a latex rubber and ammonia mixture into a cloud tank filled with fresh and saltwater. All the footage was shot at two frames per second to give the illusion of faster movement. The vibrant abstract colors of the nebula were simulated by lighting the tank using different colored gels. Additional light effects such as auroras were created by the ILM animation department. Using matte work, the ships were physically stuck on a background plate to complete the shot. The destruction of the Reliant's engine nacelle was created by superimposing shots of the engine blowing apart and explosions over the actual model.

A scene where Terrell kills a Regula scientist by vaporizing him with a phaser was filmed in two different takes. First Winfield and the related actors played out the scene; this footage became the background plate. A blue screen was wheeled onto the set and actor John Vargas, the recipient of the phaser blast, acted out his response to being hit with the energy weapon. A phaser beam element was placed on top of the background plate, and Vargas' shots were optically dissolved into an airbrushed disintegration effect which matched Vargas' position in every frame.

The Ceti eel shots used several different models, overseen by special effects supervisor Ken Ralston, who had just finished creature design for Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi. He tied a string to the eels to inch the models across the actors' faces before they entered the ear canal. The scene of a more mature eel leaving Chekov's ear was simulated by threading a microfilament through the floor of the set up to Koenig's ear. The scene was filmed with three variations, which Ralston described as "a dry shot, one with some blood, and the Fangoria shot, with a lot of gore." Footage of a giant model of Koenig's ear was discarded from the theatrical release due to the visceral reaction it elicited in test audiences.

Additional optical effects were provided by Visual Concept Engineering, a small effects company headed by Peter Kuran; Kuran had previously worked at ILM and left after finishing Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. VCE provided effects including phaser beams, the Enterprise reactor, additional sand on Ceti Alpha V, and an updated transporter effect. Meyer and the production staff were adamant about not using freeze frames for the transporter, as had been done in the original television series. Scenes were specially shot so that conversations would continue while in mid-transport, although much of the matte work VCE created was discarded when production decided not to have as much action while transporting.

The Wrath of Khan was one of the first films to extensively use electronic images and computer graphics to speed production of shots. Graphics company Evan and Sutherland produced the vector graphics displays aboard the Enterprise and the fields of stars used in the opening credits. Among ILM's technical achievements was cinema's first entirely computer-generated sequence: the demonstration of the effects of the Genesis Device on a barren planet. The first concept for the shot took the form of a lab demonstration, where a rock would be placed in a chamber and turned into a flower. Veilleux suggested the sequence's scope be expanded to show the Genesis effect taking over a planet. While Paramount appreciated the more dramatic presentation, they also wanted the simulation to be more impressive than traditional animation. Having seen research done by Lucasfilm's Computer Graphics group, Veilleux offered them the task. The graphics team paid attention to detail for the sixty-second sequence; one artist ensured 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.

Music

While Jerry Goldsmith had composed the music for The Motion Picture, Bennett and Meyer wanted the music for The Wrath of Khan to go in a different direction. James Horner was approached with the assignment by Joel Sill, Paramount's vice-president of music, and was introduced to Bennett, Meyer and Salin. Horner stated that "[The producers] did not want the kind of score they had gotten before. They did not want a John Williams score, per se. They wanted something different, more modern.: 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 projuects, 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 being work in mid-January.

In keeping with the nautical tone, Meyer wanted music evocative of seafaring and swashbuckling. The Washington Post described the style as "echoing both the bombastic and elegiac elements of John Williams' Star Wars and Jerry Goldsmith's original Star Trek scores." In comparison to the flowing main theme, Khan's leitmotif was designed as a percussive texture which could be overlayed with other music and emphasized the character's insanity. Horner also wrote a motif for Spock, to emphasize the character's dimension. "By putting a theme over Spock, it warms him and he becomes three-dimensional rather than a collection of schticks."

The soundtrack was Horner's first major film score, and was written in four and a half weeks. The resulting 72 minutes of music was then recorded by a 94-piece orchestra. Horner used synthesizers for ancillary effects; at the time, science-fiction films such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and The Thing were eschewing the synthesizer in favor of more traditional orchestras. Meyer worked closely with Horner on the score, and as a classical music fan was able to describe what effects and sounds he wanted in the resulting music. One of the challenges Horner faced was having to change musical cue orchestration after the integration of special effects caused a change in scene duration.

Themes

The Wrath of Khan features several recurring themes, including death, resurrection, and growing old. 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."

In keeping with the theme of death and rebirth symbolized by Spock's sacrifice and the Genesis Device, Meyer wanted to call the film The Undiscovered Country, in reference to Prince Hamlet's description of death in William Shakespeare's Hamlet, but during editing the title was changed without his knowledge. According to Lane Roth in Extrapolation, Spock is Kirk's doppelgänger, and Spock's sacrifice at the end of the film allows for Kirk's spiritual rebirth. After commenting earlier that he feels old and worn out, Kirk states in the final scene that "I feel young." The Kobayashi Maru test forces its participants to confront an unwinnable situation which serves as a test of character, but Kirk reveals that he won the test by cheating; Saavik responds that Kirk has never faced death. Spock's own solution to the no-win scenario, that of self-sacrifice, forces Kirk to confront death after continually cheating it, and to grow as a character. Sight and sound reinforce the themes of death and aging, as well as the promise of rebirth; Spock is the first character seen and his voice is the last heard, and his coffin follows the same trajectory towards the new planet as the Genesis Device does in a video-lecture earlier in the movie.

Meyer added elements to reinforce the aging of the characters. Kirk is unhappy about his birthday, compounded by McCoy's present of reading glasses. The script stated that Kirk was 49, but Shatner was unsure about being specific about Kirk's age. Harve Bennett remembers that Shatner was hesitant about portraying a middle-aged version of himself, and believed that with proper makeup he could continue playing a younger Kirk. Bennett convinced Shatner that he could age gracefully like Spencer Tracy; the producer didn't know that Shatner had been the aide for Tracy years earlier in Judgment at Nuremberg, and was very fond of the actor. Meyer made sure to emphasize Kirk's parallel to Sherlock Holmes in that both characters waste away in the absence of their stimuli; new cases, in Holmes' case, and starship adventures in Kirk's.

Khan's pursuit of Kirk is central to the film's theme of vengeance, and The Wrath of Khan deliberately borrows heavily from Herman Melville's Moby Dick. To make the parallels clear to viewers, Meyer added a visible copy of Moby Dick to Khan's dwelling. Kirk represents both the restless elements of Ishmael as well as serving as the titular white whale; Khan's blind pursuit of Kirk mirrors Captain Ahab's obsession with Moby Dick. Both Khan and Ahab pursue their quarry against the better judgement of their crew, and end up killing themselves in an effort to take their foe with them. University of Northern Colorado professor Jane Wall Hinds argues that the themes of The Wrath of Khan clash with the optimistic and transcendentalist perspectives of the original series and The Next Generation. Moby Dick's themes of vengeance would later heavily influence Star Trek: First Contact.

Release and reception

Critical response

The Wrath of Khan grossed $78,912,963 in the United States, and made $97,000,000 worldwide. Although the total gross of Wrath of Khan was less than that of The Motion Picture, it was more profitable due to its lower production cost. The film earned $14,347,221 in its opening weekend at the US box office, at the time the largest opening weekend gross in history. The film's novelization, written by Vonda N. McIntyre, stayed on the New York Times paperback bestsellers list for more than three weeks.

Critical response to The Wrath of Khan was positive. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 92% of selected critics have given the film a positive review based on a sample of 38. The Wrath of Khan is the highest rated Star Trek film on the site. After the lukewarm reaction to the first film, fan response to The Wrath of Khan was highly positive. The film's success was credited with renewing interest in the franchise. Mark Bernardin of Entertainment Weekly went further, calling The Wrath of Khan "the film that, by most accounts, saved Star Trek as we know it." The film is now considered one of the best in the series.

A near-universal note of praise was for the film's pacing, which was much swifter than its predecessor and closer to the TV series. Janet Maslin of The New York Times also credited the film with a stronger story than The Motion Picture and stated the sequel was everything the first film should have been. Variety agreed that The Wrath of Khan was closer to the original spirit of Star Trek than its predecessor. Strong character interaction was cited as a strong feature of the film, as was Montalbán's portrayal of Khan.

Complaints about the film focused on what were seen as tepid battle sequences, and perceived melodrama. While Roger Ebert and TV Guide felt that Spock's death was dramatic and well-handled, The Washington Post's 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." Negative reviews of the film also focused on the acting.

The film has had an impact on other movies. Meyer's rejected title for the film, The Undiscovered Country, was later used for Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, which retained the nautical influences. Director Bryan Singer cited the film as an influence on X2 and his abandoned sequel to Superman Returns. 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.

Home video

Paramount released The Wrath of Khan on VHS in 1983. Unlike contemporary releases, Paramount sold the VHS for $39.95, more than $40 below other movie cassette prices. The release was credited with instigating more competitive VHS pricing, and an increase in the adoption of increasingly cheaper VHS players.

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 highly anticipated two-disc "Director's Edition" format. In addition to remastered picture quality and 5.1 Dolby surround sound, the second DVD contained extras including 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 of the movie were favorably received.

References

• Anderson, Kay (1982). "'Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan': How the TV series became a hit movie, at last". Cinefantastique. 12 (5–6): 50–74. {{cite journal}}: Cite has empty unknown parameter: |month= (help)
• Cartmell, Deborah; Whelehan, Imelda (1999). Adaptations: From Text to Screen, Screen to Text. Routledge. ISBN 0-4151-6738-8.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
• Jenkins, Henry (1992). Textual Poachers: Television Fans & Participatory Culture. Routledge. ISBN 0-4159-0572-9.
• Meyer, Nicholas. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, The Directors Edition: Audio commentary (DVD; Disc 1/2). Paramount Pictures. {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |date2= ignored (help)
• Nichols, Nichelle (1994). Beyond Uhura: Star Trek and Other Memories. United States of America: GP Putnam's Sons. ISBN 0-399-13993-1.
• Okuda, Michael. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, The Directors Edition: Text commentary (DVD; Disc 1/2). Paramount Pictures. {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |date2= ignored (help)
• Ralston, Ken (1982). "Special Effects for 'Star Trek II': Mama eel and the nebula". American Cinematographer. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Rioux, Terry Lee (2005). From Sawdust to Stardust: The Biography of DeForest Kelley. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-7434-5762-5.
• Shatner, William (1994). Star Trek Movie Memories. HarperCollins. ISBN 0-0610-9235-5. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |coauthors= ignored (|author= suggested) (help)
• Robinson, Ben (editor) (2002). "Special 'The Wrath of Khan' Issue". Star Trek: The Magazine. 3 (5). Fabbri Publishing. {{cite journal}}: |author= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Roth, Lane (1987). "Death and Rebirth in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan". Extrapolation. 1 (28): 159–66.
• Veilleux, Jim (1982). "Special Effects for 'Star Trek II': Warp Speed and Beyond". American Cinematographer. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |month= ignored (help)
• Star Trek cast and crew. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, The Directors Edition: Special Features (DVD; Disc 2/2). Paramount Pictures. {{cite AV media}}: Unknown parameter |date2= ignored (help)

External links

• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan at Memory Alpha
• Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan at StarTrek.com