Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a 1982 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures
. The film is the second feature based on the Star Trek
science fiction franchise. The plot features James T. Kirk
(William Shatner
) and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise
facing off against the genetically-engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh
(Ricardo Montalbán
), a character who first appeared in the 1967 Star Trek television series
episode "Space Seed". When Khan escapes from a 15-year exile to exact revenge on Kirk, the crew of the Enterprise must stop him from acquiring a powerful terraforming
device named Genesis. The film concludes with the death of Enterprise crewmember Spock
(Leonard Nimoy
), beginning a story arc
that continues with the 1984 film Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
and concludes with 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 12 days, without accepting a writing credit. Meyer's approach evoked the swashbuckling atmosphere of the original series, and the theme was reinforced by James Horner
's musical score. Leonard Nimoy only reprised his role as Spock because the character's death was intended to be irrevocable. Negative test audience reaction to Spock's death led to significant revisions of the ending over Meyer's objections. The production used various cost-cutting techniques to keep within budget, including utilizing miniatures from past projects and re-using effects footage and costumes from the previous movie. Among the film's technical achievements is that it is the first feature film to contain a 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 US$97 million worldwide and setting a world record for first-day box office gross. Critical reaction to the film was positive; reviewers highlighted Khan, the film's pacing and the character interactions as strong elements. Negative reaction focused on weak special effects and some of the acting. The Wrath of Khan is generally considered one of the best films of the Star Trek series and is credited with the creation of substantial renewed interest in the franchise.
Lieutenant Saavik
(Kirstie Alley
) 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 when it is attacked by Klingon cruisers and critically damaged. The "attack" is revealed to be a training exercise known as the "Kobayashi Maru
"; a no-win scenario 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 matter to create habitable worlds for colonization but can also destroy planets
. Reliant officers Commander Pavel Chekov
and Captain Clark Terrell beam down
to the surface of a possible candidate planet, Ceti Alpha VI, where they are captured by genetically engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh
. The Enterprise discovered Khan's ship adrift in space fifteen years previously; Kirk exiled Khan and his fellow supermen from 20th century Earth to Ceti Alpha V. Khan reveals that after they were marooned, Ceti Alpha VI exploded, destroying Ceti Alpha V's ecosystem and shifting its orbit. Khan blames Kirk for the death of his wife and plans to avenge her. 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. Learning of Genesis, Khan attacks Space Station Regula I where the device is being developed by Kirk's former lover, Dr. Carol Marcus, and their son, David.
The Enterprise embarks on a training voyage under the command of Spock. Kirk takes command of the Enterprise after the ship receives a distress call from Regula I. En route, the Enterprise is ambushed by the Reliant. The attack cripples the Enterprise and many of its trainees are killed. 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 uses Reliants security codes to remotely shut down their shields, allowing the Enterprise to counter-attack. Khan is forced to retreat and effect repairs, while the Enterprise limps to Regula I. Kirk, McCoy and Saavik beam to the station where they find Terrell and Chekov along with slaughtered members of the Genesis Project. The team finds the remaining scientists, including Carol and David, hidden deep inside the planetoid of Regula. Using Terrell and Chekov as spies, Khan steals the Genesis Device and orders them to kill Kirk; Terrell resists the eel's influence and kills himself while Chekov faints. Though Khan believes his foe stranded on Regula I, Kirk and Spock use a coded message to arrange a rendezvous. Kirk then directs the Enterprise into the nearby Mutara Nebula; static discharges from the nebula render both ships' defensive shields
useless and compromise targeting systems, making the Enterprise and Reliant evenly matched. Kirk exploits Khan's inexperience in space 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 the Enterprise attempts to move out of range using impulse engine
s, with the warp drive
damaged they will not be able to escape the nebula in time. Spock leaves the bridge and goes to the engine room to restore the warp drive. When McCoy tries to prevent Spock's exposure to high levels of radiation, he incapacitates the doctor and performs a mind meld, telling him to "Remember". Spock restores power to the warp drive and the Enterprise escapes the explosion. Kirk arrives in the engine room, where Spock dies of radiation poisoning
. The explosion of the Genesis Device causes a planet to coalesce out of the nebula. A space burial
is held in the Enterprises torpedo room and Spock's coffin is shot into orbit around the newly formed planet. The crew leaves the planet to pick up the Reliants marooned crew from Ceti Alpha V. In the final scene Spock's coffin is seen to have soft-landed on the planet. Spock narrates Star Treks "Where no man has gone before
" monologue as the view moves forward into a field of stars.
William Shatner
plays 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 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
portrays Khan Noonien Singh
, a genetically enhanced superhuman who used his strength and intellect to briefly rule much of Earth in the 1990s. 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 uses his anger at the death of his wife to justify his pursuit of Kirk. Contrary to speculation that Montalbán used a prosthetic chest, no artificial devices were added to Montalbán's muscular physique. Montalbán enjoyed making the film, so much so that he played the role for much less than was offered him, and counted 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 filming television show Fantasy Island
to take part.
The Vulcan Spock
is portrayed by Leonard Nimoy
. Nimoy had not intended to have a role in The Motion Pictures 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
plays Leonard McCoy
, the Enterprises chief medical officer 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 in bringing a lighter side to the onscreen drama. Other members of the Enterprise crew include chief engineer Montgomery Scott
(James Doohan
), navigator Hikaru Sulu
(George Takei
), and communications officer Uhura
(Nichelle Nichols
). 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. Takei had simply not wanted to reprise his role until Shatner persuaded him to return. Kelley felt that McCoy speaking his catchphrase "he's dead, Jim" during Spock's death scene would ruin the moment's seriousness, so Doohan delivers the line "he's dead already" to Kirk. Scott loses his young nephew following Khan's attacks on the Enterprise. The cadet, played by Ike Eisenmann
, had many of his lines cut from the original theatrical release, including a scene where it is explained he is Scott's relative. These scenes were reintroduced when ABC
aired The Wrath of Khan on television in 1985, and in the director's edition, making Scott's grief at the crewman's death more understandable.
Walter Koenig
plays Pavel Chekov
, the Reliants first officer and a former Enterprise crewmember. During filming, Kelley noted that Chekov never met Khan in "Space Seed" (Koenig had not yet 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
explains 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 led Koenig to jokingly dub the film Star Trek II: Chekov Screams Again, in reference to a similar screaming scene in The Motion Picture. Paul Winfield
plays Reliant captain Clark Terrell; Meyer had seen Winfield's work in films such as Sounder
and wanted 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.
Other characters include Kirstie Alley
as Saavik
, Spock's protege and a Starfleet commander-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. Bibi Besch
plays Carol Marcus, the lead scientist working on Project Genesis, and the mother of Kirk's son David (played by Merritt Butrick
). Meyer was looking for an actress 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. Meyer liked that Butrick's hair was blond like Besch's and curly like Shatner's, making him a plausible son of the two.
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 set right a corrupted time line after Klingons use the Guardian of Forever
to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy
. This was rejected by Paramount executives, who blamed the poor performance and large budget ($46 million) of the first movie on its plodding pace and the constant rewrites Roddenberry demanded. 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, which Bennett confessed he found "really boring". 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, partly due to him never having seen the television 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 to 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. 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, because of fan dissatisfaction to the event after the script was leaked. Spock had originally died in the first act, in a shocking demise that Bennett compared to Janet Leigh
's early death in Psycho. This draft had a twelve-page face-to-face confrontation between Kirk and Khan. Sowards' draft also 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 invited to offer his own script. Peeples's draft replaced Khan with two new villains named Sojin and Moray; the alien beings are so powerful they almost destroy Earth by mistake. This script was considered inadequate. Deadlines were looming for special effects production to begin (which required detailed storyboards based on a completed script), and by this point there was no finished script to use.
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Karen Moore, a Paramount executive, suggested to Bennett that Nicholas Meyer
, writer of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
and director of Time After Time
, could help resolve the screenplay issues. Meyer had also never seen an episode of Star Trek. He 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 made from all the best aspects of the previous ones. To offset fan expectation that Spock would die, Meyer had the character "killed" in the Kobayashi Maru simulator in the opening scene. The effects company required a completed script in just 12 days time so, Meyer wrote the screenplay uncredited and for no pay before the deadline, surprising the actors and producers. He later said:
Meyer described his script as "'Hornblower'
in outer space", utilizing nautical references and a swashbuckling atmosphere. (Hornblower was an inspiration to Roddenberry and Shatner when making the show, although Meyer was unaware of this.) 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 disagreed with the script's naval texture and Khan's Captain Ahab undertones, but was mostly ignored by the creative team.
es of the Enterprises bridge. The Klingon bridge from The Motion Picture was redressed as the transporter and torpedo rooms. The filmmakers stretched The Wrath of Khans 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
television 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 slightly off from the pure color. "They're not colors you see today, so in a subtle way their indicate another time." Meyer did not like the Starfleet uniforms
from either the television series or The Motion Picture and wanted them changed, but for budgetary reasons they could not be discarded 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 in Star Trek films 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 Khans production, the machines and needles needed to produce trapunto were rare, and Fletcher was only able to find 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.
Meyer had a "No Smoking" sign added to the Enterprises bridge, which he recalled "Everyone had a fit over [...] I said 'Why have they stopped smoking in the future? They've been smoking for four hundred years, you think it's going to stop in the next two?" The sign appeared in the first shot of the film, but was removed for all others appearing in the final cut of the film.
began on November 9, 1981, and ended on 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 television veteran, made The Wrath of Khan on a budget of $11 million—far less than The Motion Pictures $46 million. The budget was initially lower at $8.5 million, but it rose when the producers were impressed by the first two weeks of footage. 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 Enterprises 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 refurbished 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 the effects artists and cameramen; it took eight people to mount the model, and a forklift truck 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 could 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 Dykstraflex
, 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 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. 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.
Spock's death in the film was widely reported during production. Trekkie
s wrote letters to protest, one paid for trade press advertisements urging Paramount to change the plot, and Nimoy even received death threats. Test audiences reacted badly to Spock's death and the film's ending's dark tone, so it 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. Nimoy did not know about the scene until he saw the film, but before it opened the media reassured fans that "Spock will live" again. Due to time constraints, the casket scene was filmed in an 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 allow for integration of the planned special effects. Television monitors standing in for computer displays were specially calibrated so that their refresh rate
did not result in banding on film. Due to a loss of resolution and quality resulting from 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 lens on the printer, the result was a Panavision
composite.
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.
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 salt water. 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 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 Reliants engine nacelle was created by superimposing shots of the engine blowing apart and explosions over the model.
The scene in which Terrell kills Jedda, a Regula scientist, by vaporizing him with a phaser was filmed in two takes. Winfield and the related actors first 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 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's 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 (VCE), a small effects company headed by Peter Kuran; Kuran had previously worked at ILM and left after finishing Star Wars Episode V: 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 shot so that conversations would continue while characters were in mid-transport, although much of the matte work VCE created was discarded when the production decided not to have as much action during transports.
The Wrath of Khan was one of the first films to extensively use electronic images and computer graphics to speed production of shots. Computer graphics company Evans & 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 laboratory 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. The studio would later branch off from Lucasfilm to form Pixar
.
had composed the music for The Motion Picture, but was not an option for The Wrath of Khan given the reduced budget; Meyer's composer for Time After Time, Miklós Rózsa
, was likewise prohibitively expensive. Bennett and Meyer wanted the music for the film to go in a different direction, but had not decided on a composer by the time filming began. Meyer initially hoped to hire an associate named John Morgan, but Morgan lacked film experience, which would have troubled the studio.
Paramount's vice-president of music Joel Sill took a liking to a 28-year old composer named James Horner
, feeling that his demo tapes stood out from generic film music. Horner was introduced to Bennett, Meyer and Salin. Horner said 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 projects, 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 begin work in mid-January 1982.
In keeping with the nautical tone, Meyer wanted music evocative of seafaring and swashbuckling, and the director and composer worked together closely, becoming friends in the process. As a classical music fan, Meyer was able to describe the effects and sounds he wanted in the music. While Horner's style was described as "echoing both the bombastic and elegiac elements of John Williams' Star Wars and Jerry Goldsmith
's original Star Trek(The Motion Picture) scores," Horner was expressly told to not use any of Goldsmith's score. Instead Horner adapted the opening fanfare of Alexander Courage
's Star Trek television theme. "The fanfare draws you in immediately—you know you're going to get a good movie," Horner said.
In comparison to the flowing main theme, Khan's leitmotif
was designed as a percussive texture that could be overlaid with other music and emphasized the character's insanity. The seven-note brass theme was echoplex
ed to emphasize the character's ruminations about the past while on Ceti Alpha V, but does not play fully until Reliants attack on the Enterprise. Many elements drew from Horner's previous work (a rhythm that accompanies Khan's theme during the surprise attack borrows from an attack theme from Wolfen, in turn influenced by Goldsmith's score for Alien
. Musical moments from the original television series are also heard during investigation of the Regula space station and elsewhere.
To Horner, the "stuff underneath" the main story was what needed to be addressed by the score; in The Wrath of Khan, this was the relationship between Kirk and Spock. The main theme serves as Kirk's theme, with a mellower section following that is the theme for the Starship Enterprise. Horner also wrote a motif for Spock, to emphasize the character's depth: "By putting a theme over Spock, it warms him and he becomes three-dimensional rather than a collection of schticks." The difference in the short, French horn-based cues for the villain and longer melodies for the heroes helped to differentiate characters and ships during the battle sequences.
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 performed by a 91-piece orchestra. Recording sessions took place April 12–15 at the Warner Bros.
lot, The Burbank Studios. A pickup session was held on April 30 to record music for the Mutara nebula battle, while another session held on May 3 was used to cover the recently-changed epilogue. 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. Craig Huxley
performed his invented instrument—the Blaster Beam
—during recording, as well as composing and performing electronic music for the Genesis Project video. While most of the film was "locked in" by the time Horner had begun composing music, he had to change musical cue orchestration after the integration of special effects caused changes in scene durations.
's description of death in William Shakespeare
's Hamlet
, but the title was changed during editing without his knowledge.
The Wrath of Khan follows in a long tradition of films in which the adventurer or explorer must undergo a figurative or literal death in order to start anew. Spock is Kirk's doppelgänger and together they represent a bifurcated hero, with the two characters representing dueling halves of the human condition. Spock represents the supernatural ideal of a completely logical and infallible person, while Kirk represents the impassioned and human reality, prone to error and at odds with himself. Spock's sacrifice at the end of the film allows for Kirk's spiritual rebirth in the tradition of the death-rebirth cycle. 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 film. The principle of sacrificing the needs of the one for those of the many was translated to modern triage
via the Spock principle.
Meyer added elements to reinforce the aging of the characters. Kirk's unhappiness about his birthday is compounded by McCoy's gift of reading glasses. The script stated that Kirk was 49, but Shatner was unsure about being specific about Kirk's age. 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 did not know that Shatner had worked with Tracy on Judgment at Nuremberg
(1961), 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. He liberally paraphrases Ahab, with his final lines to Kirk nearly verbatim Ahab's tirade at the end of the novel: "to the last I grapple with thee; from Hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee." Kirk represents both the restless elements of Ishmael
as well as the titular white whale of Melville's novel; 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 Dicks themes of vengeance would later heavily influence Star Trek: First Contact
.
created Khan and Saavik figures in the 1990s, and in 2007 Art Asylum
crafted a full series of action figures to mark the film's 25th anniversary. In 2009 IDW Publishing
released a comic adaptation of the film, and Film Score Monthly
released an expanded score.
reports that 92% of selected critics have given the film a positive review based on a sample of 38. 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"; it is now considered one of the best films in the series.
The film's pacing was praised by reviewers in The New York Times
and The Washington Post
as being much swifter than its predecessor and closer to that of the television series. Janet Maslin
of The New York Times 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.
Roger Ebert
of the Chicago Sun-Times
and Derek Adams of Time Out complained about what were seen as tepid battle sequences, and perceived melodrama. While Ebert and TV Guide
felt that Spock's death was dramatic and well-handled, The Washington Posts 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, and Empire
singled out the "dodgy coiffures" and "Santa Claus
tunics" as elements of the film that had not aged well.
The Wrath of Khan won two Saturn Award
s in 1982, for best actor (Shatner) and best direction (Meyer). The film was also nominated in the "best dramatic presentation" category for the 1983 Hugo Award
s, but lost to Blade Runner
. The Wrath of Khan has had an impact on later movies: Meyer's rejected title for the film, The Undiscovered Country, was finally put to use when Meyer directed the sixth film
, 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.
and Beta
in 1983. The studio sold the VHS for $39.95, $40 below contemporary movie cassette prices. It needed to sell 60,000 tapes to make the film as profitable as other tapes, but sold 120,000. The successful experiment was credited with instigating more competitive VHS pricing, an increase in the adoption of increasingly cheaper VHS players, and an industrywide move away from rentals to sales as the bulk of videotape revenue.
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 DVD set included director commentary
, cast interviews, storyboard
s 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.
The film's original theatrical cut was released on Blu-ray Disc
in May 2009 to coincide with the new Star Trek feature, along with the other five films featuring the original crew in Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection. Of all six original films, Wrath of Khan was the only one to be remastered in 1080p
high-definition
from the original negative. Nicholas Meyer stated that the Wrath of Khan negative “was in terrible shape,” which is why it needed extensive restoration. All six films in the set have new 7.1 Dolby TrueHD
audio. The disc also features a new commentary track by director Nicholas Meyer and Star Trek: Enterprise
showrunner Manny Coto
.
Paramount Pictures
Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film production and distribution company, located at 5555 Melrose Avenue in Hollywood. Founded in 1912 and currently owned by media conglomerate Viacom, it is America's oldest existing film studio; it is also the last major film studio still...
. The film is the second feature based on the Star Trek
Star Trek
Star Trek is an American science fiction entertainment franchise created by Gene Roddenberry. The core of Star Trek is its six television series: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, and Enterprise...
science fiction franchise. The plot features James T. Kirk
James T. Kirk
James Tiberius "Jim" Kirk is a character in the Star Trek media franchise. Kirk was first played by William Shatner as the principal lead character in the original Star Trek series. Shatner voiced Kirk in the animated Star Trek series and appeared in the first seven Star Trek movies...
(William Shatner
William Shatner
William Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, and author. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T...
) and the crew of the starship USS Enterprise
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)
The USS Enterprise, NCC-1701, is a fictional starship in the Star Trek media franchise. The original Star Trek series depicts her crew's mission "to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before" under the command of Captain James...
facing off against the genetically-engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh
Khan Noonien Singh
Khan Noonien Singh, commonly shortened to Khan, is a villain in the fictional Star Trek universe. According to backstory given in the character's first appearance, the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Space Seed" , Khan is a genetically engineered superhuman tyrant who once controlled more...
(Ricardo Montalbán
Ricardo Montalbán
Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino, KSG was a Mexican radio, television, theatre and film actor. He had a career spanning six decades and many notable roles...
), a character who first appeared in the 1967 Star Trek television series
Star Trek: The Original Series
Star Trek is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry, produced by Desilu Productions . Star Trek was telecast on NBC from September 8, 1966, through June 3, 1969...
episode "Space Seed". When Khan escapes from a 15-year exile to exact revenge on Kirk, the crew of the Enterprise must stop him from acquiring a powerful terraforming
Terraforming
Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
device named Genesis. The film concludes with the death of Enterprise crewmember Spock
Spock
Spock is a fictional character in the Star Trek media franchise. First portrayed by Leonard Nimoy in the original Star Trek series, Spock also appears in the animated Star Trek series, two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, seven of the Star Trek feature films, and numerous Star Trek...
(Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Simon Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series , multiple films, television and video game sequels....
), beginning a story arc
Story arc
A story arc is an extended or continuing storyline in episodic storytelling media such as television, comic books, comic strips, boardgames, video games, and in some cases, films. On a television program, for example, the story would unfold over many episodes. In television, the use of the story...
that continues with the 1984 film Star Trek III: The Search For Spock
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock is a 1984 motion picture released by Paramount Pictures. The film is the third feature based on the Star Trek science fiction franchise and is the center of a three-film story arc that begins with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and concludes with Star Trek IV:...
and concludes with 1986's Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is a 1986 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the fourth feature film based on the Star Trek science fiction television series and completes the story arc begun in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and continued in Star Trek III: The...
.
After the lackluster critical and commercial response to Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture
Star Trek: The Motion Picture is a 1979 American science fiction film released by Paramount Pictures. It is the first film based on the Star Trek television series. The film is set in the twenty-third century, when a mysterious and immensely powerful alien cloud called V'Ger approaches the Earth,...
, series creator Gene Roddenberry
Gene Roddenberry
Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry was an American television screenwriter, producer and futurist, best known for creating the American science fiction series Star Trek. Born in El Paso, Texas, Roddenberry grew up in Los Angeles, California where his father worked as a police officer...
was forced out of the sequel's production. Executive producer Harve Bennett
Harve Bennett
Harve Bennett is an American television and film producer and screenwriter.-Early years:...
wrote the film's original outline, which Jack B. Sowards
Jack B. Sowards
Jack B. Sowards was an American screenwriter best known to genre fans for the story and screenplay of the second Star Trek feature film, 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan....
developed into a full script. Director Nicholas Meyer
Nicholas Meyer
Nicholas Meyer is an American screenwriter, producer, director and novelist, known best for his best-selling novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, and for directing the films Time After Time, two of the Star Trek feature film series, and the 1983 television movie The Day After.Meyer graduated from...
completed the final script in 12 days, without accepting a writing credit. Meyer's approach evoked the swashbuckling atmosphere of the original series, and the theme was reinforced by James Horner
James Horner
James Roy Horner is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements...
's musical score. Leonard Nimoy only reprised his role as Spock because the character's death was intended to be irrevocable. Negative test audience reaction to Spock's death led to significant revisions of the ending over Meyer's objections. The production used various cost-cutting techniques to keep within budget, including utilizing miniatures from past projects and re-using effects footage and costumes from the previous movie. Among the film's technical achievements is that it is the first feature film to contain a 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 US$97 million worldwide and setting a world record for first-day box office gross. Critical reaction to the film was positive; reviewers highlighted Khan, the film's pacing and the character interactions as strong elements. Negative reaction focused on weak special effects and some of the acting. The Wrath of Khan is generally considered one of the best films of the Star Trek series and is credited with the creation of substantial renewed interest in the franchise.
Plot
The film opens with the VulcanVulcan (Star Trek)
Vulcans, or sometimes Vulcanians, are an extraterrestrial humanoid species in the Star Trek universe who evolved on the planet Vulcan, and are noted for their attempt to live by reason and logic with no interference from emotion. They were the first extraterrestrial species in the Star Trek...
Lieutenant Saavik
Saavik
Lieutenant JG Saavik is a fictional character in the Star Trek universe. She first appeared in the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan played by Kirstie Alley. Robin Curtis took on the role after a salary dispute caused Alley to drop out of the sequel, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock...
(Kirstie Alley
Kirstie Alley
Kirstie Louise Alley is an American actress known for her role in the TV show Cheers, in which she played Rebecca Howe from 1987–1993, winning an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award as the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1991...
) in command of the starship
Starship
A starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
USS Enterprise
USS Enterprise (NCC-1701)
The USS Enterprise, NCC-1701, is a fictional starship in the Star Trek media franchise. The original Star Trek series depicts her crew's mission "to explore strange new worlds; to seek out new life and new civilizations; to boldly go where no man has gone before" under the command of Captain James...
. The vessel is on a rescue mission to save the crew of a damaged ship in the Neutral Zone along the border with Klingon
Klingon
Klingons are a fictional warrior race in the Star Trek universe.Klingons are recurring villains in the 1960s television show Star Trek: The Original Series, and have appeared in all five spin-off series and eight feature films...
space when it is attacked by Klingon cruisers and critically damaged. The "attack" is revealed to be a training exercise known as the "Kobayashi Maru
Kobayashi Maru
The Kobayashi Maru is a test in the fictional universe of Star Trek. It is a Starfleet training exercise designed to test the character of cadets in the command track at Starfleet Academy. The Kobayashi Maru test was first depicted in the opening scene of the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan...
"; a no-win scenario designed to test the character of Starfleet
Starfleet
In the fictional universe of Star Trek, Starfleet or the Federation Starfleet is the deep-space exploratory, peacekeeping and military service maintained by the United Federation of Planets . It is the principal means by which the Federation conducts its exploration, defense, diplomacy and research...
officers. Admiral James T. Kirk
James T. Kirk
James Tiberius "Jim" Kirk is a character in the Star Trek media franchise. Kirk was first played by William Shatner as the principal lead character in the original Star Trek series. Shatner voiced Kirk in the animated Star Trek series and appeared in the first seven Star Trek movies...
oversees the simulator session of Captain Spock
Spock
Spock is a fictional character in the Star Trek media franchise. First portrayed by Leonard Nimoy in the original Star Trek series, Spock also appears in the animated Star Trek series, two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, seven of the Star Trek feature films, and numerous Star Trek...
'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 matter to create habitable worlds for colonization but can also destroy planets
Planet killer
In science fiction, a planet killer, planet buster, or similar variations on that meaning, is a fictional object or device capable of either destroying an entire planet or otherwise rendering it uninhabitable - a variety of a doomsday device....
. Reliant officers Commander Pavel Chekov
Pavel Chekov
Pavel Andreievich Chekov is a Russian Starfleet officer in the Star Trek fictional universe. Walter Koenig portrayed Chekov in the original Star Trek series and first seven Star Trek films; Anton Yelchin portrayed the character in the 2009 film Star Trek.-Origin:Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry...
and Captain Clark Terrell beam down
Transporter (Star Trek)
A transporter is a fictional teleportation machine used in the Star Trek universe. Transporters convert a person or object into an energy pattern , then "beam" it to a target, where it is reconverted into matter...
to the surface of a possible candidate planet, Ceti Alpha VI, where they are captured by genetically engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh
Khan Noonien Singh
Khan Noonien Singh, commonly shortened to Khan, is a villain in the fictional Star Trek universe. According to backstory given in the character's first appearance, the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Space Seed" , Khan is a genetically engineered superhuman tyrant who once controlled more...
. The Enterprise discovered Khan's ship adrift in space fifteen years previously; Kirk exiled Khan and his fellow supermen from 20th century Earth to Ceti Alpha V. Khan reveals that after they were marooned, Ceti Alpha VI exploded, destroying Ceti Alpha V's ecosystem and shifting its orbit. Khan blames Kirk for the death of his wife and plans to avenge her. 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. Learning of Genesis, Khan attacks Space Station Regula I where the device is being developed by Kirk's former lover, Dr. Carol Marcus, and their son, David.
The Enterprise embarks on a training voyage under the command of Spock. Kirk takes command of the Enterprise after the ship receives a distress call from Regula I. En route, the Enterprise is ambushed by the Reliant. The attack cripples the Enterprise and many of its trainees are killed. 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 uses Reliants security codes to remotely shut down their shields, allowing the Enterprise to counter-attack. Khan is forced to retreat and effect repairs, while the Enterprise limps to Regula I. Kirk, McCoy and Saavik beam to the station where they find Terrell and Chekov along with slaughtered members of the Genesis Project. The team finds the remaining scientists, including Carol and David, hidden deep inside the planetoid of Regula. Using Terrell and Chekov as spies, Khan steals the Genesis Device and orders them to kill Kirk; Terrell resists the eel's influence and kills himself while Chekov faints. Though Khan believes his foe stranded on Regula I, Kirk and Spock use a coded message to arrange a rendezvous. Kirk then directs the Enterprise into the nearby Mutara Nebula; static discharges from the nebula render both ships' defensive shields
Shields (Star Trek)
In the Star Trek fictional universe, shields refer to a 23rd and 24th century technology that protects starships, space stations, and planets from damage by natural hazard or enemy attack...
useless and compromise targeting systems, making the Enterprise and Reliant evenly matched. Kirk exploits Khan's inexperience in space 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 the Enterprise attempts to move out of range using impulse engine
Impulse drive
In the fictional Star Trek universe, the impulse drive is the method of propulsion that starships and other spacecraft use when they are travelling below the speed of light. Typically powered by deuterium fusion reactors, impulse engines let ships travel interplanetary distances readily...
s, with the warp drive
Warp drive (Star Trek)
Warp drive is a faster-than-light propulsion system in the setting of many science fiction works, most notably Star Trek. A spacecraft equipped with a warp drive may travel at velocities greater than that of light by many orders of magnitude, while circumventing the relativistic problem of time...
damaged they will not be able to escape the nebula in time. Spock leaves the bridge and goes to the engine room to restore the warp drive. When McCoy tries to prevent Spock's exposure to high levels of radiation, he incapacitates the doctor and performs a mind meld, telling him to "Remember". Spock restores power to the warp drive and the Enterprise escapes the explosion. Kirk arrives in the engine room, where Spock dies of radiation poisoning
Radiation poisoning
Acute radiation syndrome also known as radiation poisoning, radiation sickness or radiation toxicity, is a constellation of health effects which occur within several months of exposure to high amounts of ionizing radiation...
. The explosion of the Genesis Device causes a planet to coalesce out of the nebula. A space burial
Space burial
Space burial is a burial procedure in which a small sample of the cremated ashes of the deceased are placed in a capsule the size of a tube of lipstick and are launched into space using a rocket...
is held in the Enterprises torpedo room and Spock's coffin is shot into orbit around the newly formed planet. The crew leaves the planet to pick up the Reliants marooned crew from Ceti Alpha V. In the final scene Spock's coffin is seen to have soft-landed on the planet. Spock narrates Star Treks "Where no man has gone before
Where no man has gone before
"Where no man has gone before" is a phrase originally made popular through its use in the title sequence of most episodes of the original Star Trek science fiction television series. It refers to the mission of the original starship Enterprise...
" monologue as the view moves forward into a field of stars.
Cast
William Shatner
William Alan Shatner is a Canadian actor, musician, recording artist, and author. He gained worldwide fame and became a cultural icon for his portrayal of James T...
plays James T. Kirk
James T. Kirk
James Tiberius "Jim" Kirk is a character in the Star Trek media franchise. Kirk was first played by William Shatner as the principal lead character in the original Star Trek series. Shatner voiced Kirk in the animated Star Trek series and appeared in the first seven Star Trek movies...
, 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 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
Ricardo Montalbán
Ricardo Gonzalo Pedro Montalbán y Merino, KSG was a Mexican radio, television, theatre and film actor. He had a career spanning six decades and many notable roles...
portrays Khan Noonien Singh
Khan Noonien Singh
Khan Noonien Singh, commonly shortened to Khan, is a villain in the fictional Star Trek universe. According to backstory given in the character's first appearance, the Star Trek: The Original Series episode "Space Seed" , Khan is a genetically engineered superhuman tyrant who once controlled more...
, a genetically enhanced superhuman who used his strength and intellect to briefly rule much of Earth in the 1990s. 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 uses his anger at the death of his wife to justify his pursuit of Kirk. Contrary to speculation that Montalbán used a prosthetic chest, no artificial devices were added to Montalbán's muscular physique. Montalbán enjoyed making the film, so much so that he played the role for much less than was offered him, and counted 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 filming television show Fantasy Island
Fantasy Island
Fantasy Island is the title of two separate but related American fantasy television series, both originally airing on the ABC television network.-Original series:...
to take part.
The Vulcan Spock
Spock
Spock is a fictional character in the Star Trek media franchise. First portrayed by Leonard Nimoy in the original Star Trek series, Spock also appears in the animated Star Trek series, two episodes of Star Trek: The Next Generation, seven of the Star Trek feature films, and numerous Star Trek...
is portrayed by Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Nimoy
Leonard Simon Nimoy is an American actor, film director, poet, musician and photographer. Nimoy's most famous role is that of Spock in the original Star Trek series , multiple films, television and video game sequels....
. Nimoy had not intended to have a role in The Motion Pictures 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
DeForest Kelley
Jackson DeForest Kelley was an American actor known for his iconic roles in Westerns and as Dr. Leonard "Bones" McCoy of the USS Enterprise in the television and film series Star Trek.-Early life:...
plays Leonard McCoy
Leonard McCoy
Leonard "Bones" McCoy is a character in the Star Trek media franchise. First portrayed by DeForest Kelley in the original Star Trek series, McCoy also appears in the animated Star Trek series, seven Star Trek movies, the pilot episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, and in numerous books,...
, the Enterprises chief medical officer 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 in bringing a lighter side to the onscreen drama. Other members of the Enterprise crew include chief engineer Montgomery Scott
Montgomery Scott
Montgomery "Scotty" Scott is a Scottish engineer in the Star Trek media franchise. First portrayed by James Doohan in the original Star Trek series, Scotty also appears in the animated Star Trek series, seven Star Trek movies, the Star Trek: The Next Generation episode "Relics", and in numerous...
(James Doohan
James Doohan
James Montgomery "Jimmy" Doohan was a Canadian character and voice actor best known for his role as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the television and film series Star Trek...
), navigator Hikaru Sulu
Hikaru Sulu
Hikaru Sulu is a character in the Star Trek media franchise. First portrayed by George Takei in the original Star Trek series, Sulu also appears in the animated Star Trek series, the first six Star Trek movies, one episode of Star Trek: Voyager, and in numerous books, comics, and video games...
(George Takei
George Takei
George Hosato Takei Altman is an American actor, author, social activist and former civil politician. He is best known for his role in the television series Star Trek and its film spinoffs, in which he played Hikaru Sulu, helmsman of the...
), and communications officer Uhura
Uhura
Nyota Uhura is a character in Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Animated Series, the first six Star Trek films, and the 2009 film Star Trek...
(Nichelle Nichols
Nichelle Nichols
Nichelle Nichols is an American actress, singer and voice artist. She sang with Duke Ellington and Lionel Hampton before turning to acting...
). 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. Takei had simply not wanted to reprise his role until Shatner persuaded him to return. Kelley felt that McCoy speaking his catchphrase "he's dead, Jim" during Spock's death scene would ruin the moment's seriousness, so Doohan delivers the line "he's dead already" to Kirk. Scott loses his young nephew following Khan's attacks on the Enterprise. The cadet, played by Ike Eisenmann
Ike Eisenmann
Ike Eisenmann is an American actor, voice actor, producer, and sound-effects specialist who has been active in the entertainment industry since he was a preteen.-Career:...
, had many of his lines cut from the original theatrical release, including a scene where it is explained he is Scott's relative. These scenes were reintroduced when ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
aired The Wrath of Khan on television in 1985, and in the director's edition, making Scott's grief at the crewman's death more understandable.
Walter Koenig
Walter Koenig
Walter Marvin Koenig is an American actor, writer, teacher and director, known for his roles as Pavel Chekov in Star Trek and Alfred Bester in Babylon 5. He wrote the script for the 2008 science fiction legal thriller InAlienable.-Early life:...
plays Pavel Chekov
Pavel Chekov
Pavel Andreievich Chekov is a Russian Starfleet officer in the Star Trek fictional universe. Walter Koenig portrayed Chekov in the original Star Trek series and first seven Star Trek films; Anton Yelchin portrayed the character in the 2009 film Star Trek.-Origin:Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry...
, the Reliants first officer and a former Enterprise crewmember. During filming, Kelley noted that Chekov never met Khan in "Space Seed" (Koenig had not yet 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
To Reign in Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh
To Reign In Hell: The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh, is the final book in a trilogy of novels written by Greg Cox chronicling the life of the fictional Star Trek character Khan Noonien Singh. This final book deals with the life of Khan after he was marooned on Ceti Alpha V by Captain James T...
explains 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
Arthur Conan Doyle
Sir Arthur Ignatius Conan Doyle DL was a Scottish physician and writer, most noted for his stories about the detective Sherlock Holmes, generally considered a milestone in the field of crime fiction, and for the adventures of Professor Challenger...
made similar oversights in his Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
stories. Chekov's screaming while being infested by the Ceti eel led Koenig to jokingly dub the film Star Trek II: Chekov Screams Again, in reference to a similar screaming scene in The Motion Picture. Paul Winfield
Paul Winfield
Paul Edward Winfield was an American television, film, and stage actor. He was known for his portrayal of a Louisiana sharecropper who struggles to support his family during the Great Depression in the landmark film Sounder which earned him an Academy Award nomination. Winfield also portrayed Dr....
plays Reliant captain Clark Terrell; Meyer had seen Winfield's work in films such as Sounder
Sounder (film)
Sounder is a 1972 film starring Cicely Tyson, Paul Winfield, Kevin Hooks, Carmen Mathews, Taj Mahal, Eric Hooks and Janet MacLachlan. It was adapted by Lonne Elder III and directed by Martin Ritt from the 1970 Newbery Medal-winning novel Sounder by William H...
and wanted 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.
Other characters include Kirstie Alley
Kirstie Alley
Kirstie Louise Alley is an American actress known for her role in the TV show Cheers, in which she played Rebecca Howe from 1987–1993, winning an Emmy Award and a Golden Globe Award as the Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series in 1991...
as Saavik
Saavik
Lieutenant JG Saavik is a fictional character in the Star Trek universe. She first appeared in the film Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan played by Kirstie Alley. Robin Curtis took on the role after a salary dispute caused Alley to drop out of the sequel, Star Trek III: The Search for Spock...
, Spock's protege and a Starfleet commander-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
Romulan
The Romulans are a fictional alien race in the Star Trek universe. First appearing in the original Star Trek series in the 1966 episode "Balance of Terror", they have since made appearances in all the main later Star Trek series: The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager...
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. Bibi Besch
Bibi Besch
Bibiana "Bibi" Besch was an Austrian/American actress.-Early life:Besch was born in Vienna, Austria, the daughter of theater actress Gusti Huber, who starred in German films during World War II and left Austria in the mid 1940s. Besch had a stepfather, Joseph Besch, a radio executive and former...
plays Carol Marcus, the lead scientist working on Project Genesis, and the mother of Kirk's son David (played by Merritt Butrick
Merritt Butrick
Merritt R. Butrick was an American actor, known for his roles on the 1982 teen sitcom Square Pegs, in two Star Trek feature films, and a variety of other acting roles in the 1980s.-Early life and career:...
). Meyer was looking for an actress 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. Meyer liked that Butrick's hair was blond like Besch's and curly like Shatner's, making him a plausible son of the two.
Development
Gene Roddenberry
Eugene Wesley "Gene" Roddenberry was an American television screenwriter, producer and futurist, best known for creating the American science fiction series Star Trek. Born in El Paso, Texas, Roddenberry grew up in Los Angeles, California where his father worked as a police officer...
wrote his own sequel. In his plot, the crew of the Enterprise travel back in time to set right a corrupted time line after Klingons use the Guardian of Forever
Guardian of Forever
The Guardian of Forever is a time portal portrayed in the fictional universe of Star Trek.-Fictional origins:In the Star Trek universe, analysis of the ruins on the Guardian's home world suggests it may be billions of years old but no one knows who built the Guardian...
to prevent the assassination of John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
. This was rejected by Paramount executives, who blamed the poor performance and large budget ($46 million) of the first movie on its plodding pace and the constant rewrites Roddenberry demanded. As a consequence, Roddenberry was removed from the production and, according to Shatner, "kicked upstairs" to the ceremonial position of executive consultant. Harve Bennett
Harve Bennett
Harve Bennett is an American television and film producer and screenwriter.-Early years:...
, 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
Jeffrey Katzenberg
Jeffrey Katzenberg is an American film producer and CEO of DreamWorks Animation. He is perhaps most famous for his period as chairman of The Walt Disney Company's film division, and for producing DreamWorks animated films such as Shrek, Antz, The Prince of Egypt, The Road to El Dorado, Chicken...
and Michael Eisner
Michael Eisner
Michael Dammann Eisner is an American businessman. He was the chief executive officer of The Walt Disney Company from 1984 until 2005.-Early life:...
and asked if he thought he could make a better movie than The Motion Picture, which Bennett confessed he found "really boring". When Bennett replied in the affirmative, Charles Bluhdorn
Charles Bluhdorn
Charles Blühdorn was a Vienna, Austria-born American industrialist.-Biography:Per a Who's Who in Ridgefield he was considered such a "hellion" that his father sent the 11-year-old to an English boarding school for disciplining...
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, partly due to him never having seen the television 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
Michael Minor
Michael Minor was an illustrator and art director on Star Trek: The Original Series, Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan....
as art director to shape the direction of the film.
Bennett wrote his first film treatment
Film treatment
A film treatment is a piece of prose, typically the step between scene cards and the first draft of a screenplay for a motion picture, television program, or radio play. It is generally longer and more detailed than an outline , and it may include details of directorial style that an outline omits...
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
Jack B. Sowards
Jack B. Sowards was an American screenwriter best known to genre fans for the story and screenplay of the second Star Trek feature film, 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan....
, 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. Minor suggested to Bennett that the device be turned into a terraforming
Terraforming
Terraforming of a planet, moon, or other body is the hypothetical process of deliberately modifying its atmosphere, temperature, surface topography or ecology to be similar to those of Earth, in order to make it habitable by terrestrial organisms.The term is sometimes used more generally as a...
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, because of fan dissatisfaction to the event after the script was leaked. Spock had originally died in the first act, in a shocking demise that Bennett compared to Janet Leigh
Janet Leigh
Janet Leigh , born Jeanette Helen Morrison, was an American actress. She was the wife of actor Tony Curtis from June 1951 to September 1962 and the mother of Kelly Curtis and Jamie Lee Curtis....
's early death in Psycho. This draft had a twelve-page face-to-face confrontation between Kirk and Khan. Sowards' draft also introduced a male character named Savik. As preproduction began, Samuel A. Peeples
Samuel A. Peeples
Samuel Anthony Peeples was an American writer. He published several novels in the Western genre, often under the pen name Brad Ward, before moving into series television after being given a script assignment by Frank Gruber...
, writer of the Star Trek episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before
Where No Man Has Gone Before
"Where No Man Has Gone Before" is the second pilot episode of the television series Star Trek: The Original Series. It was produced in 1965 after the first pilot, "The Cage", had been rejected by NBC. The episode was eventually broadcast third in sequence on September 22, 1966, and was re-aired on...
", was invited to offer his own script. Peeples's draft replaced Khan with two new villains named Sojin and Moray; the alien beings are so powerful they almost destroy Earth by mistake. This script was considered inadequate. Deadlines were looming for special effects production to begin (which required detailed storyboards based on a completed script), and by this point there was no finished script to use.
Nicholas Meyer
Nicholas Meyer is an American screenwriter, producer, director and novelist, known best for his best-selling novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, and for directing the films Time After Time, two of the Star Trek feature film series, and the 1983 television movie The Day After.Meyer graduated from...
, writer of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution: Being a Reprint from the Reminiscences of John H. Watson, M.D. is a 1974 novel by American writer Nicholas Meyer. It is written as a pastiche of a Sherlock Holmes adventure, and was made into a film of the same name in 1976....
and director of Time After Time
Time After Time (1979 film)
Time After Time is a 1979 American fantasy film written and directed by Nicholas Meyer. His screenplay is based largely on a novel by Karl Alexander and a story by Steve Hayes. It concerns British author H. G...
, could help resolve the screenplay issues. Meyer had also never seen an episode of Star Trek. He 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 made from all the best aspects of the previous ones. To offset fan expectation that Spock would die, Meyer had the character "killed" in the Kobayashi Maru simulator in the opening scene. The effects company required a completed script in just 12 days time so, Meyer wrote the screenplay uncredited and for no pay before the deadline, surprising the actors and producers. He later said:
Meyer described his script as "'Hornblower'
Horatio Hornblower
Horatio Hornblower is a fictional Royal Navy officer who is the protagonist of a series of novels by C. S. Forester. He was later the subject of films and television programs.The original Hornblower tales began with the 1937 novel The Happy Return Horatio Hornblower is a fictional Royal Navy...
in outer space", utilizing nautical references and a swashbuckling atmosphere. (Hornblower was an inspiration to Roddenberry and Shatner when making the show, although Meyer was unaware of this.) 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 disagreed with the script's naval texture and Khan's Captain Ahab undertones, but was mostly ignored by the creative team.
Design
Meyer attempted to change the look of Star Trek to match the nautical atmosphere he envisioned and stay within budget. The Enterprise, for example, was given a ship's bell, boatswain's call, and more blinking lights and signage. 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 redressRedress
In film, a redress is the redecoration of an existing movie set, so that it can double for another set. This saves the trouble and expenses of constructing a second, new set, though they face the difficulty of doing it so the average viewer does not notice the same set is reused...
es of the Enterprises bridge. The Klingon bridge from The Motion Picture was redressed as the transporter and torpedo rooms. The filmmakers stretched The Wrath of Khans 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
Star Trek: Phase II
Star Trek: Phase II was a planned television series based on the characters of Gene Roddenberry's Star Trek, which had run from 1966 to 1969. It was set to air in early 1978 on a proposed Paramount Television Service...
television 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.
Robert Fletcher
Robert Fletcher is a costume and set designer.Fletcher's first ambition was to become an archeologist. Before he graduated from Harvard University, however, he had become an aspiring actor...
was brought in to redesign existing costumes and create new ones. Fletcher decided on a scheme of "corrupt colors", using materials with colors slightly off from the pure color. "They're not colors you see today, so in a subtle way their indicate another time." Meyer did not like the Starfleet uniforms
Starfleet uniforms
In the fictional Star Trek universe enlisted personnel and officers in the United Earth Starfleet and, later, the United Federation of Planets' Starfleet wear a variety of uniforms.-Star Trek: The Original Series:...
from either the television series or The Motion Picture and wanted them changed, but for budgetary reasons they could not be discarded 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 in Star Trek films until 1996's Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: First Contact is the eighth feature film in the Star Trek science fiction franchise, released in November 1996, by Paramount Pictures. First Contact is the first film in the franchise to feature no cast members from the original Star Trek television series of the 1960s...
. 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
Trapunto quilting
Trapunto, from the Italian for "to embroider," is a method of quilting that is also called "stuffed technique." A puffy, decorative feature, trapunto utilizes at least two layers, the underside of which is slit and padded, producing a raised surface on the quilt.-Technique:Trapunto is often...
. 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 Khans production, the machines and needles needed to produce trapunto were rare, and Fletcher was only able to find 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.
Meyer had a "No Smoking" sign added to the Enterprises bridge, which he recalled "Everyone had a fit over [...] I said 'Why have they stopped smoking in the future? They've been smoking for four hundred years, you think it's going to stop in the next two?" The sign appeared in the first shot of the film, but was removed for all others appearing in the final cut of the film.
Filming
Principal photographyPrincipal photography
thumb|300px|Film production on location in [[Newark, New Jersey]].Principal photography is the phase of film production in which the movie is filmed, with actors on set and cameras rolling, as distinct from pre-production and post-production....
began on November 9, 1981, and ended on 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 television veteran, made The Wrath of Khan on a budget of $11 million—far less than The Motion Pictures $46 million. The budget was initially lower at $8.5 million, but it rose when the producers were impressed by the first two weeks of footage. Meyer utilized camera and set tricks to spare the construction of large and expensive sets. For a scene taking place at Starfleet Academy
Starfleet Academy
In the fictional universe of Star Trek, Starfleet Academy is where the future's recruits to Starfleet will be trained. It was created in the year 2161, when the United Federation of Planets was founded...
, a forced perspective
Forced perspective
Forced perspective is a technique that employs optical illusion to make an object appear farther away, closer, larger or smaller than it actually is. It is used primarily in photography, filmmaking and architecture...
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 Enterprises 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 refurbished 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 the effects artists and cameramen; it took eight people to mount the model, and a forklift truck 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 could 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 Dykstraflex
Dykstraflex
The Dykstraflex is a motion picture camera system named after its primary developer John Dykstra. Numerous people actually created the camera, with the critical electronics being created by Alvah J. Miller and Jerry Jeffress. The camera was developed specifically for complex special effects shots...
, 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
Cyclorama
For the classical album Cyclorama, see Jonathan Goldstein; For the rock album Cyclorama by Styx, see Cyclorama ; for the theatrical backdrop, see Cyclorama...
was painted and wrapped around the set, while massive industrial fans created a sandstorm. The filming was uncomfortable for 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. 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
Amazing Grace
"Amazing Grace" is a Christian hymn with words written by the English poet and clergyman John Newton , published in 1779. With a message that forgiveness and redemption are possible regardless of the sins people commit and that the soul can be delivered from despair through the mercy of God,...
" on the bagpipes was James Doohan
James Doohan
James Montgomery "Jimmy" Doohan was a Canadian character and voice actor best known for his role as Montgomery "Scotty" Scott in the television and film series Star Trek...
's idea.
Spock's death in the film was widely reported during production. Trekkie
Trekkie
A Trekkie or Trekker is a fan of the Star Trek franchise, or of specific television series or films within that franchise.-History:In 1967, science fiction editor Arthur W...
s wrote letters to protest, one paid for trade press advertisements urging Paramount to change the plot, and Nimoy even received death threats. Test audiences reacted badly to Spock's death and the film's ending's dark tone, so it 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. Nimoy did not know about the scene until he saw the film, but before it opened the media reassured fans that "Spock will live" again. Due to time constraints, the casket scene was filmed in an overgrown corner of San Francisco's Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park
Golden Gate Park, located in San Francisco, California, is a large urban park consisting of of public grounds. Configured as a rectangle, it is similar in shape but 20% larger than Central Park in New York, to which it is often compared. It is over three miles long east to west, and about half a...
, 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 allow for integration of the planned special effects. Television monitors standing in for computer displays were specially calibrated so that their refresh rate
Refresh rate
The refresh rate is the number of times in a second that a display hardware draws the data...
did not result in banding on film. Due to a loss of resolution and quality resulting from rephotographing an element in an optical printer, live action sequences for effects were shot in 65mm
70 mm film
70mm film is a wide high-resolution film gauge, with higher resolution than standard 35mm motion picture film format. As used in camera, the film is wide. For projection, the original 65mm film is printed on film. The additional 5mm are for magnetic strips holding four of the six tracks of sound...
or VistaVision
VistaVision
VistaVision is a higher resolution, widescreen variant of the 35mm motion picture film format which was created by engineers at Paramount Pictures in 1954....
formats to compensate. When the larger prints were reduced through an anamorphic lens on the printer, the result was a Panavision
Panavision
Panavision is an American motion picture equipment company specializing in cameras and lenses, based in Woodland Hills, California. Formed by Robert Gottschalk as a small partnership to create anamorphic projection lenses during the widescreen boom in the 1950s, Panavision expanded its product...
composite.
Effects
With a short timeframe to complete The Wrath of Khans 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 with 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 were combined with film footage five months later. Industrial Light & 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 bluescreenChroma key
Chroma key compositing is a technique for compositing two images together. A color range in the top layer is made transparent, revealing another image behind. The chroma keying technique is commonly used in video production and post-production...
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
Stop motion
Stop motion is an animation technique to make a physically manipulated object appear to move on its own. The object is moved in small increments between individually photographed frames, creating the illusion of movement when the series of frames is played as a continuous sequence...
. The script called for large-scale damage to the Reliant, so larger versions of the ship's model were created to be blown up.
Color gel
A color gel or color filter , also known as lighting gel or simply gel, is a transparent colored material that is used in theatre, event production, photography, videography and cinematography to color light and for color correction...
. 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 Reliants engine nacelle was created by superimposing shots of the engine blowing apart and explosions over the model.
The scene in which Terrell kills Jedda, a Regula scientist, by vaporizing him with a phaser was filmed in two takes. Winfield and the related actors first played out the scene; this footage became the background plate. A blue screen was wheeled onto the set and actor John Vargas
John Vargas
John Vargas is an American actor best known for his role in the films Primary Colors and Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan.-Early life:John Vargas was born in the Bronx, New York and moved to Puerto Rico when his father was killed in Vietnam. He was accepted into the Air Force Academy upon finishing...
, 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 models, overseen by special effects supervisor Ken Ralston
Ken Ralston
Visual effects pioneer Ken Ralston is Senior Visual Effect Supervisor and Creative Head at the Academy Award–winning visual effects studio Sony Pictures Imageworks. For more than three decades Ralston has taken audiences to unimaginable worlds with his intuitive vision and unparalleled mastery of...
, who had just finished creature design for Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi
Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi is a 1983 American epic space opera film directed by Richard Marquand and written by George Lucas and Lawrence Kasdan. It is the third film released in the Star Wars saga, and the sixth in terms of the series' internal chronology...
. 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's 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
Fangoria
Fangoria is an American magazine devoted to horror and exploitation films, which has a number of associated brands:* Fangoria Comics* Fangoria Films* Fangoria RadioFangoria may also refer to:* Fangoria , a Spanish electro pop band...
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 (VCE), a small effects company headed by Peter Kuran; Kuran had previously worked at ILM and left after finishing Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back
Star Wars Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back is a 1980 American epic space opera film directed by Irvin Kershner. The screenplay, based on a story by George Lucas, was written by Leigh Brackett and Lawrence Kasdan...
. 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 shot so that conversations would continue while characters were in mid-transport, although much of the matte work VCE created was discarded when the production decided not to have as much action during transports.
The Wrath of Khan was one of the first films to extensively use electronic images and computer graphics to speed production of shots. Computer graphics company Evans & Sutherland
Evans & Sutherland
Evans & Sutherland is a computer firm involved in the computer graphics field. Their products are used primarily by the military and large industrial firms for training and simulation, and in digital projection environments like planetariums.-History:...
produced the vector graphics
Vector graphics
Vector graphics is the use of geometrical primitives such as points, lines, curves, and shapes or polygon, which are all based on mathematical expressions, to represent images in computer 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 laboratory 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
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
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. The studio would later branch off from Lucasfilm to form Pixar
Pixar
Pixar Animation Studios, pronounced , is an American computer animation film studio based in Emeryville, California. The studio has earned 26 Academy Awards, seven Golden Globes, and three Grammy Awards, among many other awards and acknowledgments. Its films have made over $6.3 billion worldwide...
.
Music
Jerry GoldsmithJerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
had composed the music for The Motion Picture, but was not an option for The Wrath of Khan given the reduced budget; Meyer's composer for Time After Time, Miklós Rózsa
Miklós Rózsa
Miklós Rózsa was a Hungarian-born composer trained in Germany , and active in France , England , and the United States , with extensive sojourns in Italy from 1953...
, was likewise prohibitively expensive. Bennett and Meyer wanted the music for the film to go in a different direction, but had not decided on a composer by the time filming began. Meyer initially hoped to hire an associate named John Morgan, but Morgan lacked film experience, which would have troubled the studio.
Paramount's vice-president of music Joel Sill took a liking to a 28-year old composer named James Horner
James Horner
James Roy Horner is an American composer, orchestrator and conductor of orchestral and film music. He is noted for the integration of choral and electronic elements in many of his film scores, and for frequent use of Celtic musical elements...
, feeling that his demo tapes stood out from generic film music. Horner was introduced to Bennett, Meyer and Salin. Horner said that "[The producers] did not want the kind of score they had gotten before. They did not want a John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...
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
Wolfen (film)
Wolfen is the title of a 1981 horror film starring Albert Finney, Diane Venora, Gregory Hines and Edward James Olmos based on Whitley Strieber's 1978 novel The Wolfen...
, and had heard my music for several other projects, 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 begin work in mid-January 1982.
In keeping with the nautical tone, Meyer wanted music evocative of seafaring and swashbuckling, and the director and composer worked together closely, becoming friends in the process. As a classical music fan, Meyer was able to describe the effects and sounds he wanted in the music. While Horner's style was described as "echoing both the bombastic and elegiac elements of John Williams' Star Wars and Jerry Goldsmith
Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King Goldsmith was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring....
's original Star Trek(The Motion Picture) scores," Horner was expressly told to not use any of Goldsmith's score. Instead Horner adapted the opening fanfare of Alexander Courage
Alexander Courage
Alexander "Sandy" Mair Courage Jr. was an American orchestrator, arranger, and composer of music, primarily for television and film.-Biography:...
's Star Trek television theme. "The fanfare draws you in immediately—you know you're going to get a good movie," Horner said.
In comparison to the flowing main theme, Khan's leitmotif
Leitmotif
A leitmotif , sometimes written leit-motif, is a musical term , referring to a recurring theme, associated with a particular person, place, or idea. It is closely related to the musical idea of idée fixe...
was designed as a percussive texture that could be overlaid with other music and emphasized the character's insanity. The seven-note brass theme was echoplex
Echoplex
The Echoplex is a tape delay effect, first made in 1959. Designed by Mike Battle, the Echoplex set a standard for the effect in the 1960s and was used by some of the most notable guitar players of the era; original Echoplexes are highly sought after....
ed to emphasize the character's ruminations about the past while on Ceti Alpha V, but does not play fully until Reliants attack on the Enterprise. Many elements drew from Horner's previous work (a rhythm that accompanies Khan's theme during the surprise attack borrows from an attack theme from Wolfen, in turn influenced by Goldsmith's score for Alien
Alien (film)
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature which...
. Musical moments from the original television series are also heard during investigation of the Regula space station and elsewhere.
To Horner, the "stuff underneath" the main story was what needed to be addressed by the score; in The Wrath of Khan, this was the relationship between Kirk and Spock. The main theme serves as Kirk's theme, with a mellower section following that is the theme for the Starship Enterprise. Horner also wrote a motif for Spock, to emphasize the character's depth: "By putting a theme over Spock, it warms him and he becomes three-dimensional rather than a collection of schticks." The difference in the short, French horn-based cues for the villain and longer melodies for the heroes helped to differentiate characters and ships during the battle sequences.
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 performed by a 91-piece orchestra. Recording sessions took place April 12–15 at the Warner Bros.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
lot, The Burbank Studios. A pickup session was held on April 30 to record music for the Mutara nebula battle, while another session held on May 3 was used to cover the recently-changed epilogue. Horner used synthesizers for ancillary effects; at the time, science-fiction films such as E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial
E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial is a 1982 American science fiction film co-produced and directed by Steven Spielberg, written by Melissa Mathison and starring Henry Thomas, Dee Wallace, Robert MacNaughton, Drew Barrymore, and Peter Coyote...
and The Thing were eschewing the synthesizer in favor of more traditional orchestras. Craig Huxley
Craig Huxley
Craig Huxley is a Grammy nominee and Emmy Award-winning musician and producer who has been involved in a wide variety of entertainment-related projects since childhood. He began his career as a child actor, starring in hundreds of TV shows; perhaps his most notable roles were those of Captain...
performed his invented instrument—the Blaster Beam
Blaster Beam
The Blaster Beam is a concept electronic musical instrument consisting of a 12 to long metal beam strung with numerous tensed wires under which are mounted electric guitar pickups which can be moved to alter the sound produced. The instrument is played by striking or plucking the strings with...
—during recording, as well as composing and performing electronic music for the Genesis Project video. While most of the film was "locked in" by the time Horner had begun composing music, he had to change musical cue orchestration after the integration of special effects caused changes in scene durations.
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 HamletPrince Hamlet
Prince Hamlet is a fictional character, the protagonist in Shakespeare's tragedy Hamlet. He is the Prince of Denmark, nephew to the usurping Claudius and son of the previous King of Denmark, Old Hamlet. Throughout the play he struggles with whether, and how, to avenge the murder of his father, and...
's description of death in William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's Hamlet
Hamlet
The Tragical History of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, or more simply Hamlet, is a tragedy by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1599 and 1601...
, but the title was changed during editing without his knowledge.
Triage
Triage or ) is the process of determining the priority of patients' treatments based on the severity of their condition. This rations patient treatment efficiently when resources are insufficient for all to be treated immediately. The term comes from the French verb trier, meaning to separate,...
via the Spock principle.
Meyer added elements to reinforce the aging of the characters. Kirk's unhappiness about his birthday is compounded by McCoy's gift of reading glasses. The script stated that Kirk was 49, but Shatner was unsure about being specific about Kirk's age. 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
Spencer Tracy
Spencer Bonaventure Tracy was an American theatrical and film actor, who appeared in 75 films from 1930 to 1967. Tracy was one of the major stars of Hollywood's Golden Age, ranking among the top ten box office draws for almost every year from 1938 to 1951...
; the producer did not know that Shatner had worked with Tracy on Judgment at Nuremberg
Judgment at Nuremberg
Judgment at Nuremberg is a 1961 American drama film dealing with the Holocaust and the Post-World War II Nuremberg Trials. It was written by Abby Mann, directed by Stanley Kramer, and starred Spencer Tracy, Burt Lancaster, Richard Widmark, Maximilian Schell, Werner Klemperer, Marlene Dietrich, Judy...
(1961), and was very fond of the actor. Meyer made sure to emphasize Kirk's parallel to Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes
Sherlock Holmes is a fictional detective created by Scottish author and physician Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The fantastic London-based "consulting detective", Holmes is famous for his astute logical reasoning, his ability to take almost any disguise, and his use of forensic science skills to solve...
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
Herman Melville
Herman Melville was an American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet. He is best known for his novel Moby-Dick and the posthumous novella Billy Budd....
's Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick
Moby-Dick; or, The Whale, was written by American author Herman Melville and first published in 1851. It is considered by some to be a Great American Novel and a treasure of world literature. The story tells the adventures of wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaleship Pequod,...
. To make the parallels clear to viewers, Meyer added a visible copy of Moby-Dick to Khan's dwelling. He liberally paraphrases Ahab, with his final lines to Kirk nearly verbatim Ahab's tirade at the end of the novel: "to the last I grapple with thee; from Hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee." Kirk represents both the restless elements of Ishmael
Ishmael (Moby-Dick)
Ishmael is the narrator of the 1851 novel Moby-Dick by U.S. author Herman Melville. It is through his eyes and experience that the reader experiences the story of the ship Pequod, and the fight between Captain Ahab and the white whale...
as well as the titular white whale of Melville's novel; 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
University of Northern Colorado
-Organization:The University of Northern Colorado offers 100 undergraduate programs and more than 100 graduate programs. The university has a satellite campus in Denver, Colorado...
professor Jane Wall Hinds argues that the themes of The Wrath of Khan clash with the optimistic and transcendentalist
Transcendentalism
Transcendentalism is a philosophical movement that developed in the 1830s and 1840s in the New England region of the United States as a protest against the general state of culture and society, and in particular, the state of intellectualism at Harvard University and the doctrine of the Unitarian...
perspectives of the original series and The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation
Star Trek: The Next Generation is an American science fiction television series created by Gene Roddenberry as part of the Star Trek franchise. Roddenberry, Rick Berman, and Michael Piller served as executive producers at different times throughout the production...
. Moby Dicks themes of vengeance would later heavily influence Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: First Contact
Star Trek: First Contact is the eighth feature film in the Star Trek science fiction franchise, released in November 1996, by Paramount Pictures. First Contact is the first film in the franchise to feature no cast members from the original Star Trek television series of the 1960s...
.
Release
The Wrath of Khan opened on June 4, 1982 in 1,621 theaters in the United States. It made $14,347,221 in its opening weekend, at the time the largest opening weekend gross in history. It went on to earn $78,912,963 in the US, becoming the sixth highest-grossing film of 1982. It made $97,000,000 worldwide. Although the total gross of The Wrath of Khan was less than that of The Motion Picture, it was more profitable due to its lower production cost. The film's novelization, written by Vonda N. McIntyre, stayed on the New York Times paperback bestsellers list for more than three weeks. Unlike the previous film, Wrath of Khan was not promoted with a toy line, although Playmates ToysPlaymates Toys
Playmates Toys is a Costa Mesa, California toy manufacturer and a subsidiary of Hong Kong-based Playmates Holdings Ltd , which was founded in 1966.-Proprietary brands:*Amazing Dolls*Amazing Pets*Kinder-Garden Babies*R.E.V.s*Waterbabies*WOW Pals...
created Khan and Saavik figures in the 1990s, and in 2007 Art Asylum
Art Asylum
Art Asylum is a New York City based design studio and toy company.Originally started by Digger Mesch and Donna Soldano in 1996, Art Asylum was initially just a work-for-hire sculpting studio which designed various action figures, busts and statues for numerous toy companies such as ToyCom and...
crafted a full series of action figures to mark the film's 25th anniversary. In 2009 IDW Publishing
IDW Publishing
IDW Publishing, also known as Idea + Design Works, LLC and IDW, is an American publisher of comic books and comic strip collections. The company was founded in 1999 and has been awarded the title "Publisher of the Year Under 5% Market Share" for the years 2004, 2005 and 2006 by Diamond Comic...
released a comic adaptation of the film, and Film Score Monthly
Film Score Monthly
Film Score Monthly is an online magazine founded by editor-in-chief and executive producer Lukas Kendall in June 1990 as The Soundtrack Correspondence List...
released an expanded score.
Critical response
Critical response to The Wrath of Khan was positive. Review aggregator Rotten TomatoesRotten Tomatoes
Rotten Tomatoes is a website devoted to reviews, information, and news of films—widely known as a film review aggregator. Its name derives from the cliché of audiences throwing tomatoes and other vegetables at a poor stage performance...
reports that 92% of selected critics have given the film a positive review based on a sample of 38. 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
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
went further, calling The Wrath of Khan "the film that, by most accounts, saved Star Trek as we know it"; it is now considered one of the best films in the series.
The film's pacing was praised by reviewers in The New York Times
The New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
and The Washington Post
The Washington Post
The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...
as being much swifter than its predecessor and closer to that of the television series. Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin
Janet Maslin is an American journalist, best known as a film and literary critic for The New York Times. She served as the Times film critic from 1977–1999.- Biography :...
of The New York Times credited the film with a stronger story than The Motion Picture and stated the sequel was everything the first film should have been. Variety
Variety (magazine)
Variety is an American weekly entertainment-trade magazine founded in New York City, New York, in 1905 by Sime Silverman. With the rise of the importance of the motion-picture industry, Daily Variety, a daily edition based in Los Angeles, California, was founded by Silverman in 1933. In 1998, the...
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.
Roger Ebert
Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert is an American film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.Ebert is known for his film review column and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The...
of the Chicago Sun-Times
Chicago Sun-Times
The Chicago Sun-Times is an American daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois. It is the flagship paper of the Sun-Times Media Group.-History:The Chicago Sun-Times is the oldest continuously published daily newspaper in the city...
and Derek Adams of Time Out complained about what were seen as tepid battle sequences, and perceived melodrama. While Ebert and TV Guide
TV Guide
TV Guide is a weekly American magazine with listings of TV shows.In addition to TV listings, the publication features television-related news, celebrity interviews, gossip and film reviews and crossword puzzles...
felt that Spock's death was dramatic and well-handled, The Washington Posts 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, and Empire
Empire (magazine)
Empire is a British film magazine published monthly by Bauer Consumer Media. From the first issue in July 1989, the magazine was edited by Barry McIlheney and published by Emap. Bauer purchased Emap Consumer Media in early 2008...
singled out the "dodgy coiffures" and "Santa Claus
Santa Claus
Santa Claus is a folklore figure in various cultures who distributes gifts to children, normally on Christmas Eve. Each name is a variation of Saint Nicholas, but refers to Santa Claus...
tunics" as elements of the film that had not aged well.
The Wrath of Khan won two Saturn Award
Saturn Award
The Saturn Award is an award presented annually by the Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy & Horror Films to honor the top works in science fiction, fantasy, and horror in film, television, and home video. The Saturn Awards were devised by Dr. Donald A. Reed in 1972, who felt that films within...
s in 1982, for best actor (Shatner) and best direction (Meyer). The film was also nominated in the "best dramatic presentation" category for the 1983 Hugo Award
Hugo Award
The Hugo Awards are given annually for the best science fiction or fantasy works and achievements of the previous year. The award is named after Hugo Gernsback, the founder of the pioneering science fiction magazine Amazing Stories, and was officially named the Science Fiction Achievement Awards...
s, but lost to Blade Runner
Blade Runner
Blade Runner is a 1982 American science fiction film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K...
. The Wrath of Khan has had an impact on later movies: Meyer's rejected title for the film, The Undiscovered Country, was finally put to use when Meyer directed the sixth film
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country is the sixth feature film in the Star Trek science fiction franchise and is the last of the Star Trek films to include the entire main cast of the 1960s Star Trek television series. Released in 1991 by Paramount Pictures, it was directed by Nicholas Meyer and...
, which retained the nautical influences. Director Bryan Singer
Bryan Singer
Bryan Singer is an American film director and film producer. Singer won critical acclaim for his work on The Usual Suspects, and is especially well-known among fans of the science fiction and superhero genres for his work on the X-Men films and Superman Returns.-Early life:Singer was born in New...
cited the film as an influence on X2
X2 (film)
X2 is a 2003 superhero film based on the fictional characters the X-Men. Directed by Bryan Singer, it is the second film in the X-Men film series...
and his abandoned sequel to Superman Returns
Superman Returns
Superman Returns is a 2006 superhero film directed by Bryan Singer. It is the fifth and final installment in the original Superman film series and serves as a alternate sequel to Superman and Superman II by ignoring the events of Superman III and Superman IV: The Quest for Peace .The film stars...
. The film is also a favorite of director J. J. Abrams
J. J. Abrams
Jeffrey Jacob "J. J." Abrams is an American film and television producer, screenwriter, director, actor, and composer. He wrote and produced feature films before co-creating the television series Felicity...
, producer Damon Lindelof
Damon Lindelof
Damon Laurence Lindelof is an American television writer and executive, most recently noted as the co-creator and executive producer for the television series Lost. He has written for and produced Crossing Jordan, and wrote for Nash Bridges, Wasteland, and the MTV anthology series Undressed...
and writers Roberto Orci
Roberto Orci
Roberto Gaston Orci is a Mexican-American film producer, television producer, and screenwriter.-Biography:Orci was born in Mexico City to a Mexican father and a Cuban mother. His mother had left Cuba for Mexico after Fidel Castro came to power. He is the older brother of screenwriter-producer J....
and Alex Kurtzman
Alex Kurtzman
Alex Kurtzman is an American film and television screenwriter and producer.Kurtzman was born and raised in Los Angeles, California, where he met his high school friend and long time collaborator Roberto Orci...
, the creative team behind the franchise relaunch film Star Trek.
Home video
Paramount released The Wrath of Khan on VHSVHS
The Video Home System is a consumer-level analog recording videocassette standard developed by Victor Company of Japan ....
and Beta
Betamax
Betamax was a consumer-level analog videocassette magnetic tape recording format developed by Sony, released on May 10, 1975. The cassettes contain -wide videotape in a design similar to the earlier, professional wide, U-matic format...
in 1983. The studio sold the VHS for $39.95, $40 below contemporary movie cassette prices. It needed to sell 60,000 tapes to make the film as profitable as other tapes, but sold 120,000. The successful experiment was credited with instigating more competitive VHS pricing, an increase in the adoption of increasingly cheaper VHS players, and an industrywide move away from rentals to sales as the bulk of videotape revenue.
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
Universal City, California
Universal City is a community in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles County, California, that encompasses the 415 acre property of Universal Studios...
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
Dolby Laboratories
Dolby Laboratories, Inc. , often shortened to Dolby Labs, is an American company specializing in audio noise reduction and audio encoding/compression.-History:...
surround sound
Surround sound
Surround sound encompasses a range of techniques such as for enriching the sound reproduction quality of an audio source with audio channels reproduced via additional, discrete speakers. Surround sound is characterized by a listener location or sweet spot where the audio effects work best, and...
, the DVD set included director commentary
Audio commentary
On disc-based video formats, an audio commentary is an additional audio track consisting of a lecture or comments by one or more speakers, that plays in real time with video...
, cast interviews, storyboard
Storyboard
Storyboards are graphic organizers in the form of illustrations or images displayed in sequence for the purpose of pre-visualizing a motion picture, animation, motion graphic or interactive media sequence....
s 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.
The film's original theatrical cut was released on Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc
Blu-ray Disc is an optical disc storage medium designed to supersede the DVD format. The plastic disc is 120 mm in diameter and 1.2 mm thick, the same size as DVDs and CDs. Blu-ray Discs contain 25 GB per layer, with dual layer discs being the norm for feature-length video discs...
in May 2009 to coincide with the new Star Trek feature, along with the other five films featuring the original crew in Star Trek: Original Motion Picture Collection. Of all six original films, Wrath of Khan was the only one to be remastered in 1080p
1080p
1080p is the shorthand identification for a set of HDTV high-definition video modes that are characterized by 1080 horizontal lines of resolution and progressive scan, meaning the image is not interlaced as is the case with the 1080i display standard....
high-definition
High-definition video
High-definition video or HD video refers to any video system of higher resolution than standard-definition video, and most commonly involves display resolutions of 1,280×720 pixels or 1,920×1,080 pixels...
from the original negative. Nicholas Meyer stated that the Wrath of Khan negative “was in terrible shape,” which is why it needed extensive restoration. All six films in the set have new 7.1 Dolby TrueHD
Dolby TrueHD
Dolby TrueHD is an advanced lossless multi-channel audio codec developed by Dolby Laboratories which is intended primarily for high-definition home-entertainment equipment such as Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD. It is the successor to the AC-3 Dolby Digital surround sound codec which was used as the...
audio. The disc also features a new commentary track by director Nicholas Meyer and Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise
Star Trek: Enterprise is a science fiction television series. It follows the adventures of humanity's first warp 5 starship, the Enterprise, ten years before the United Federation of Planets shown in previous Star Trek series was formed.Enterprise premiered on September 26, 2001...
showrunner Manny Coto
Manny Coto
Manny Coto is an American writer, director and producer of films and television programs.Coto was the executive producer and showrunner of Star Trek: Enterprise in its final season, and executive producer of four seasons of 24...
.