PG, 113 min.
Director: Nicholas Meyer
Writers: Jack B. Sowards,
Harve Bennett, Gene Roddenberry (tv series)
Starring: William Shatner,
Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, Nichelle Nichols,
George Takei, Kirstie Ally, Ricardo Montalban, Bibi Besch, Merritt Butrick,
Paul Winfield, Ike Eisenmann, John Vargas
Every time I watch this
movie, I’m amazed by how much it still grips me. That sounds like such a fanboy
thing to say. Perhaps I am a fanboy. I don’t know. I certainly don’t invest as
much time in worshiping the “Star Trek” universe as what I would categorize a
fanboy doing, but then I have seen “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” enough
times to say “every time I watch this movie.”
Still, this movie works on
several levels. It’s an adventure movie in the way it explores different worlds
and has a cast of known characters chasing down a particular goal. It’s a
classic revenge story. Khan returns from a one-episode role from the television
series. He has every reason to believe he has been wronged. Perhaps his anger
should be placed more at fate in general than James T. Kirk specifically, but
he has a point when he says Kirk should have checked up on the colony of exiles
at some point in the 15-year period that has passed since he sent the crew of
the Botany Bay on their way.
It’s also a classic science
fiction movie with the plot element of the Genesis Project. The ability to
create life has been a moral debate throughout the entire course of human
history. Khan is a great character to bring into conflict with this
controversial debate. Khan himself is product of dubious morality involving
humans playing God. Genetically engineered to be a perfect human specimen, it
was the scientific tinkering that sent him into insanity. Now, he represents
the wrong hand in which to place such a potentially dangerous technology as the
Genesis bomb.
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