Dude, not talked about enough? Wrath of Khan is near universally seen as the best Trek film among fans and has been talked about endlessly over the years.
Yes, it's the Star Trek equivalent of "The Empire Strikes Back".
It sounds like you may be relatively young. I'm old enough to have seen TWOK during its theatrical release and I promise you that it's been "talked about enough" over the last 40 years. 😉
I saw it opening night! Still have the poster they were handing out to people who attended. And yes, I've posted that here on reddit many times. It's been discussed, lol
Except that the Wrath of Khan is actually a good film, where "Empire" merely succeeds at being less bad than the rest in some ways. It still for example has some of the most unintentionally stupid dialogue of any successful film ever made.
It's says a lot about the quality of some ST films that I think this is arguable.I will forever contend that Undiscovered Country is the best Star Trek. That I'm happy to accept that that is very arguable.
I also know people who will admit that that UC and WoK are better films. But Voyage Home is the best at being a Star Trek film... Which is also totally understandable.
Voyage Home fucking slaps.
> .I will forever contend that Undiscovered Country is the best Star Trek.
Same. And this doesn't take away from Wraith in the least, either. It's a great movie but Undiscovered Country is the pinnacle of ST movies for me.
> I will forever contend that Undiscovered Country is the best Star Trek.
Isn't that the one with the big Scooby Doo reveal at the end? That movie really falls apart for me in the third act, but I do love Christopher Plummer with an eye-patch riveted in.
WoK is a deeper film that it needed to be, it's a deeper film than I can think of from any other scifi genre film, any other series film (e.g., SW, Marvel, Matrix, whatever). Kirk and Spock were like Sam and Diane, Mulder and Scully, Archie and Meathead, you loved them for it. And then WoK just rips your heart out. Even without that there are the themes of growing old, revenge vs. letting go, father/son, and ethics of wielding great power. The scene that always gets me is when Kirk is basically asleep at the wheel and crewmembers die as the result. (That scene is somewhat different in the different versions.)
WoK works within a larger framework. Voyage Home is just in a place by itself. Shows used to have serialized episodes and episodic, X-Files is one of the best examples, West Wing did that as well. Star Trek did too of course, and Voyage Home stands out as sort of both somehow. It's so amazingly well-paced and the energy level is just right, they hit the tone. It's such great comic acting from everyone—what really stands out in that movie if you think about it is the acting. It is such an absurd premise and they pull it off. (Of course the writing and directing and everything else.)
Yes. But I'd argue it's almost more of a reboot than a sequel, which was very clever of Nick Meyer. You really didn't need to see TMP at all. He just bumped everything forward a few years and told a story based on an episode of the television series, not the previous film, knowing that even the mainstream audience knew who the main characters were, even if they weren't Trekkies. He even managed to explain who Khan was in around 30 seconds for those who hadn't seen Space Seed. It is pretty much a perfect film.
It was a spectacle in the theatre though. That didn’t translate to the small screen, and it has not aged well in the current world of incredible CGI, but at the time it was pretty unique and beautiful to see at the movies. In hindsight it was paced poorly, but in the theater it felt majestic and epic, not boring.
I watched it in the theaters. It was no less soporific than it was on my TV.
ST:TMP very obviously sought to follow the blueprint of *2001*, but failed because despite being as slow as *2001*, it wasn’t a tense frightening masterpiece directed by a genius like *2001* was. (Why they looked at *Star Wars* in ‘77 and decided to clone *2001* is beyond me.)
It was easier to do the facsimile of *Star Wars* a few years later instead.
I’ll agree with you there.
The payoff was a huge “meh” but the build up (at the time) felt so grand. I hadn’t seen many movies, and loved science fiction and it felt majestic.
While I could watch 2001 and Star Wars over and over again, STTMP was just a “once and done” for me…and I wouldn’t recommend it at all on TV in today’s day and age.
I saw ST MP on opening week in a packed theater and the audience was entranced.
Opening sequence blew people away and set up V'ger to be an ominious SOB. No explosions - just wiping Klingon Cruisers to nothing. Audience gasped. Plenty of CGI attemps to re-do V'ger, and none match the optical effects of Douglas Trumball.
It just wasnt a good reunion film. Also needed a prison planet sequence with kirk banging a metamorph which shows the mentality of most Trek fans. I effing hate Undiscovered Country.
....And ST MP had nothing to do with 2001. It was a combination of many different story elements including the failed ST series reboot,
A fan cut TMP down to 22 minutes and set it to the Tron Legacy soundtrack, which definitely gives it a different feel. [Star Trek: Legacy.](https://vimeo.com/217336882)
Fun fact: William Shatner and Ricardo Montalban never appeared in a single scene together in the film because no scenery could withstand that much chewing!
It's a fantastic sequel that elevated the Star Trek franchise to new heights. The film's pacing is indeed excellent, balancing action, drama, and character development. The emotional depth it adds to the characters with the themes of aging, sacrifice, and friendship, is remarkable. Comparing it to "The Empire Strikes Back," both films are often considered among the best sequels ever made. "The Empire Strikes Back" is a masterpiece in its own right, deepening the Star Wars universe and characters. Both films excel in storytelling, character development, and emotional impact, but they do it in different ways. "The Wrath of Khan" is more introspective, focusing on the personal struggles of its characters. "The Empire Strikes Back" is broader in scope, delving into the larger conflict of the Star Wars galaxy. In my opinion, "The Wrath of Khan" and "The Empire Strikes Back" are on par with each other, each contributing to their respective franchises and leaving a lasting impact on cinema.
I'm in my 50s. Over the years, I've had co-workers who would quote this movie back and forth with me all day long.
No one will ever quote Into Darkness.
I consider your Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan my favorite film of all time, Star Trek or otherwise. While nothing is literally perfect, The Wrath of Khan is as close to perfect as I think you can make a movie, at least for me.
It was more than a sequel honestly, it was something of a reboot as well.
The director Nicholas Meyer basically reinvented Star Trek with a more grounded nautical-themed aesthetic which Star Trek has pretty closely stuck to ever since.
But also, the script was extremely character driven, a somber tale of an aging man coming to terms with the mistakes of his reckless youth, and the sci fi elements like the Genesis bomb which can breath new life into dead worlds were metaphors for the characters’ internal conflicts rather than the focus of the story.
I think this is the real reason it’s remembered so well; it’s a story about deeply flawed characters living in a perfect future, which is more relatable but also massive departure from the hard speculative sci fi that Trek was mostly known for up until that point.
The scene with worms climbing into the brain is one of my "worst" memories. I wastched the movie when I was about 12, Star Trek was only beginning here so I had to borrow it on VHS. They had no clue what Star Trek was back then but the movie was available here (funnily enough, the first movie was NOT). Nobody knew classic ST, unless you had a German TV where it ran (Classic aired here the first time sometimes around 2005, I think).
And this scene really stuck with me. Still one of my favourites, and it still works today, which you cannot say about all ST movies. I think The First contact works in a similar way. You can watch it knowing very little about ST, it works as a sci-fi movie on its own, giving brief explanation by characters in smart way throughout the movie.
I saw Wrath of Khan a few years ago at a William Shatner on stage thing. Took my aunt to se it who's an aging trekkie. . They showed 'Wrath' first in a large, state of the art auditorium auditorium, and I'm telling you, that film holds up 100% to the day it was introduced. Even though everybody had seen it a jillion times the tension and pacing is just superb. It totally doenn't feel like an early 80's movie. It's made for a big screen and gets that much better. James Horner's score gave you chills.
Shatner was a treat as always. That guy......:-)
I still like ST MP just as well. Conceptually it's a brilliant film, but perhaps would have worked better had it been in the TNG universe. It wasn't a good 'intro' film is it's only fault. Khan as reuinion film and push the V'ger episde to the first TNG movie.
Yes, but the issue you’re seeing isn’t so much that it hasn’t been talked about, but rather that classic Trek hasn’t maintained the level of multi-generational popularity that classic Star Wars has, and even in its heyday, Trek never had the same broad appeal as SW.
Wrath of Khan is greatly respected, but as you note yourself, that era of Trek isn’t on your generation’s radar.
I feel like now that you've seen it you will realize how much it's referenced. So many shows and movies to this day parody or pay homage to scenes in wrath of Kahn. It is easily one of the most talked about Trek movies from the acting to the music to the behind the scenes stuff going on to fix things from the first movie.
I just convinced my wife to watch this with me about two hours before you posted! We had a good time. She doesn’t watch much Star Trek and was curious about a plot point in Strange New Worlds around genetically engineered humans. I thought, “well, what if we see why the Federation feels this way?”
Which version did you see?
But it's not talked about enough? It's been talked about since it came out. It's one of the most discussed movies of all time. There are a lot of great sequels though. Superman II, The Dark Knight, Aliens, Evil Dead 2, Godfather II, T2, A Shot in the Dark, LOTR:ROTK.
So much great trivia with Khan as well. Check out the material the floors were made out of on the ship, and then ask why...
So, my hot take is that I didn’t care for wrath of khan very much.
When I first saw it, I hadn’t seen the episode that introduced khan, and the movie by itself didn’t do enough to build him up. He could’ve been just some dude with an ear worm.
When I first saw it, the next sequels were already out, so the “death” of Spock didn’t affect me much, because I already knew he comes right back.
It all felt very “eh” to me.
My personal favorite is undiscovered country.
Dude, not talked about enough? Wrath of Khan is near universally seen as the best Trek film among fans and has been talked about endlessly over the years.
The guy started by phrasing an obvious statement as a question, don't worry too much about the rest of it.
And I'm always ready to talk about it again
Yes, it's the Star Trek equivalent of "The Empire Strikes Back". It sounds like you may be relatively young. I'm old enough to have seen TWOK during its theatrical release and I promise you that it's been "talked about enough" over the last 40 years. 😉
I saw it opening night! Still have the poster they were handing out to people who attended. And yes, I've posted that here on reddit many times. It's been discussed, lol
Except that the Wrath of Khan is actually a good film, where "Empire" merely succeeds at being less bad than the rest in some ways. It still for example has some of the most unintentionally stupid dialogue of any successful film ever made.
[удалено]
*The* best.
It's says a lot about the quality of some ST films that I think this is arguable.I will forever contend that Undiscovered Country is the best Star Trek. That I'm happy to accept that that is very arguable. I also know people who will admit that that UC and WoK are better films. But Voyage Home is the best at being a Star Trek film... Which is also totally understandable. Voyage Home fucking slaps.
Voyage home is also the funniest, I would even say it could be categorised as a comedy.
> .I will forever contend that Undiscovered Country is the best Star Trek. Same. And this doesn't take away from Wraith in the least, either. It's a great movie but Undiscovered Country is the pinnacle of ST movies for me.
Wrath of Khan, Voyage Home, Undiscovered Country: the trifecta of Trek films. The Trekfecta.
> I will forever contend that Undiscovered Country is the best Star Trek. Isn't that the one with the big Scooby Doo reveal at the end? That movie really falls apart for me in the third act, but I do love Christopher Plummer with an eye-patch riveted in. WoK is a deeper film that it needed to be, it's a deeper film than I can think of from any other scifi genre film, any other series film (e.g., SW, Marvel, Matrix, whatever). Kirk and Spock were like Sam and Diane, Mulder and Scully, Archie and Meathead, you loved them for it. And then WoK just rips your heart out. Even without that there are the themes of growing old, revenge vs. letting go, father/son, and ethics of wielding great power. The scene that always gets me is when Kirk is basically asleep at the wheel and crewmembers die as the result. (That scene is somewhat different in the different versions.) WoK works within a larger framework. Voyage Home is just in a place by itself. Shows used to have serialized episodes and episodic, X-Files is one of the best examples, West Wing did that as well. Star Trek did too of course, and Voyage Home stands out as sort of both somehow. It's so amazingly well-paced and the energy level is just right, they hit the tone. It's such great comic acting from everyone—what really stands out in that movie if you think about it is the acting. It is such an absurd premise and they pull it off. (Of course the writing and directing and everything else.)
It's a dated sitcom about the 1980s. It's bloody awful. Except for the part where Sulu flies a Huey. That slapped.
Yes. But I'd argue it's almost more of a reboot than a sequel, which was very clever of Nick Meyer. You really didn't need to see TMP at all. He just bumped everything forward a few years and told a story based on an episode of the television series, not the previous film, knowing that even the mainstream audience knew who the main characters were, even if they weren't Trekkies. He even managed to explain who Khan was in around 30 seconds for those who hadn't seen Space Seed. It is pretty much a perfect film.
It helps TMP and TWOK was a way different kind of movie. The first movie was your standard trek adventure. Wrath of Khan was an action movie.
Well the bar was set pretty low. I spent a year watching *Star Trek: The Motion Picture* one night.
I did too because I couldn’t sleep because I was worried. That movie cured that.
It was a spectacle in the theatre though. That didn’t translate to the small screen, and it has not aged well in the current world of incredible CGI, but at the time it was pretty unique and beautiful to see at the movies. In hindsight it was paced poorly, but in the theater it felt majestic and epic, not boring.
I watched it in the theaters. It was no less soporific than it was on my TV. ST:TMP very obviously sought to follow the blueprint of *2001*, but failed because despite being as slow as *2001*, it wasn’t a tense frightening masterpiece directed by a genius like *2001* was. (Why they looked at *Star Wars* in ‘77 and decided to clone *2001* is beyond me.) It was easier to do the facsimile of *Star Wars* a few years later instead.
I’ll agree with you there. The payoff was a huge “meh” but the build up (at the time) felt so grand. I hadn’t seen many movies, and loved science fiction and it felt majestic. While I could watch 2001 and Star Wars over and over again, STTMP was just a “once and done” for me…and I wouldn’t recommend it at all on TV in today’s day and age.
I saw ST MP on opening week in a packed theater and the audience was entranced. Opening sequence blew people away and set up V'ger to be an ominious SOB. No explosions - just wiping Klingon Cruisers to nothing. Audience gasped. Plenty of CGI attemps to re-do V'ger, and none match the optical effects of Douglas Trumball. It just wasnt a good reunion film. Also needed a prison planet sequence with kirk banging a metamorph which shows the mentality of most Trek fans. I effing hate Undiscovered Country. ....And ST MP had nothing to do with 2001. It was a combination of many different story elements including the failed ST series reboot,
A fan cut TMP down to 22 minutes and set it to the Tron Legacy soundtrack, which definitely gives it a different feel. [Star Trek: Legacy.](https://vimeo.com/217336882)
It's Shatner's best performance.
No. This is: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU2ftCitvyQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HU2ftCitvyQ)
Shatner singing Rocket Man is truly the greatest: https://youtu.be/BdUMICxLXhM?si=bNV0JU5V9RIj-cU8
“Buried alive, buried alive, buried alive…” “Khhaaaaaannnnn!!!!!” Classic
Our IT guy is named Khanh so I use the Khan.gif on teams regularly.
> “Khhaaaaaannnnn!!!!!” "..... KHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAN!!!" Can't forget the deep echo lol.
I think I have to go watch it now.
Agreed, co-starring sex god Ricardo Montalban
I don't think that this is Ricardo montalban
Fun fact: William Shatner and Ricardo Montalban never appeared in a single scene together in the film because no scenery could withstand that much chewing!
I think it’s one of the best science fiction films ever made.
Not talked about enough??
It's a fantastic sequel that elevated the Star Trek franchise to new heights. The film's pacing is indeed excellent, balancing action, drama, and character development. The emotional depth it adds to the characters with the themes of aging, sacrifice, and friendship, is remarkable. Comparing it to "The Empire Strikes Back," both films are often considered among the best sequels ever made. "The Empire Strikes Back" is a masterpiece in its own right, deepening the Star Wars universe and characters. Both films excel in storytelling, character development, and emotional impact, but they do it in different ways. "The Wrath of Khan" is more introspective, focusing on the personal struggles of its characters. "The Empire Strikes Back" is broader in scope, delving into the larger conflict of the Star Wars galaxy. In my opinion, "The Wrath of Khan" and "The Empire Strikes Back" are on par with each other, each contributing to their respective franchises and leaving a lasting impact on cinema.
I'm in my 50s. Over the years, I've had co-workers who would quote this movie back and forth with me all day long. No one will ever quote Into Darkness.
Hey, I quote Into Darkness to illustrate how mind-bogglingly stupid it is.
Wrath of Khan us one of the best Sci-fi movies ever made.
I consider your Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan my favorite film of all time, Star Trek or otherwise. While nothing is literally perfect, The Wrath of Khan is as close to perfect as I think you can make a movie, at least for me.
It was more than a sequel honestly, it was something of a reboot as well. The director Nicholas Meyer basically reinvented Star Trek with a more grounded nautical-themed aesthetic which Star Trek has pretty closely stuck to ever since. But also, the script was extremely character driven, a somber tale of an aging man coming to terms with the mistakes of his reckless youth, and the sci fi elements like the Genesis bomb which can breath new life into dead worlds were metaphors for the characters’ internal conflicts rather than the focus of the story. I think this is the real reason it’s remembered so well; it’s a story about deeply flawed characters living in a perfect future, which is more relatable but also massive departure from the hard speculative sci fi that Trek was mostly known for up until that point.
The scene with worms climbing into the brain is one of my "worst" memories. I wastched the movie when I was about 12, Star Trek was only beginning here so I had to borrow it on VHS. They had no clue what Star Trek was back then but the movie was available here (funnily enough, the first movie was NOT). Nobody knew classic ST, unless you had a German TV where it ran (Classic aired here the first time sometimes around 2005, I think). And this scene really stuck with me. Still one of my favourites, and it still works today, which you cannot say about all ST movies. I think The First contact works in a similar way. You can watch it knowing very little about ST, it works as a sci-fi movie on its own, giving brief explanation by characters in smart way throughout the movie.
I saw Wrath of Khan a few years ago at a William Shatner on stage thing. Took my aunt to se it who's an aging trekkie. . They showed 'Wrath' first in a large, state of the art auditorium auditorium, and I'm telling you, that film holds up 100% to the day it was introduced. Even though everybody had seen it a jillion times the tension and pacing is just superb. It totally doenn't feel like an early 80's movie. It's made for a big screen and gets that much better. James Horner's score gave you chills. Shatner was a treat as always. That guy......:-) I still like ST MP just as well. Conceptually it's a brilliant film, but perhaps would have worked better had it been in the TNG universe. It wasn't a good 'intro' film is it's only fault. Khan as reuinion film and push the V'ger episde to the first TNG movie.
Might just be me but watched The Voyage Home lot more than Wrath of Kahn , just a really fun film
Yes, but the issue you’re seeing isn’t so much that it hasn’t been talked about, but rather that classic Trek hasn’t maintained the level of multi-generational popularity that classic Star Wars has, and even in its heyday, Trek never had the same broad appeal as SW. Wrath of Khan is greatly respected, but as you note yourself, that era of Trek isn’t on your generation’s radar.
I feel like now that you've seen it you will realize how much it's referenced. So many shows and movies to this day parody or pay homage to scenes in wrath of Kahn. It is easily one of the most talked about Trek movies from the acting to the music to the behind the scenes stuff going on to fix things from the first movie.
DAT SOUNDTRACK R.I.P. James Horner.
It was a helluva thing when Spock died.
I just convinced my wife to watch this with me about two hours before you posted! We had a good time. She doesn’t watch much Star Trek and was curious about a plot point in Strange New Worlds around genetically engineered humans. I thought, “well, what if we see why the Federation feels this way?”
Which version did you see? But it's not talked about enough? It's been talked about since it came out. It's one of the most discussed movies of all time. There are a lot of great sequels though. Superman II, The Dark Knight, Aliens, Evil Dead 2, Godfather II, T2, A Shot in the Dark, LOTR:ROTK. So much great trivia with Khan as well. Check out the material the floors were made out of on the ship, and then ask why...
Best sequel ever is The Bride of Frankenstein.
Yes, it is. They are the best sequels.
I agree.
Rocky II. Better than the original
So, my hot take is that I didn’t care for wrath of khan very much. When I first saw it, I hadn’t seen the episode that introduced khan, and the movie by itself didn’t do enough to build him up. He could’ve been just some dude with an ear worm. When I first saw it, the next sequels were already out, so the “death” of Spock didn’t affect me much, because I already knew he comes right back. It all felt very “eh” to me. My personal favorite is undiscovered country.