All posts by Paul

1982, 2285, The Wrath of Khan

“Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”

February 1, 2015 Paul

asdfadsfs — William Shatner, face No. 4.

Kirk, as he turns 50 with a desk job at Starfleet HQ, is feeling old and obsolete. But an inspection cruise on the Enterprise — with a training crew under Captain Spock’s command — is just the trick to break up the monotony. Meanwhile, Chekov is first officer of the U.S.S. Reliant, a ship working to find a planetoid with no life to test the experimental Genesis Device. Designed by one of Jimbo’s old flames, Carol Marcus (Bibi Besch) and Jimbo’s estranged son, David (Merritt Butrick) the device would create “life from lifelessness” on (ideally) a lifeless planetary body. Chekov and Captain Terrell (Paul Winfield) beam down to investigate some anomalous readings on Ceti Alpha VI, a candidate for the experiment, and run into our old buddy Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban) and what’s left of his crazy group of 20th-century genetic superpeople who love to play checkers, apparently. Turns out Chekov and Terrell really beamed down to Ceti Alpha V (d’oh!) where Kirk marooned Khan 15 years earlier (in “Space Seed“), and Ceti Alpha VI, unfortunately, had exploded a while back (double d’oh!), rendering Khan’s Ceti Alpha V a barren wasteland. Khan puts creatures into Chekov and Terrell’s ears to make them more susceptible to suggestion (I would have tried vodka with Chekov, but whatevs) and heads to Space Lab Regula 1, where the the Marcuses are building the Genesis Device. After failing to find Genesis at the station, Khan uses the Reliant to severely cripple the Enterprise, which was drawn there when Carol contacted Kirk for help. Kirk, Bones and sexy Vulcan Lieutenant Saavik (Kirstie Alley) beam to the space station and find Chekov and Terrell, and then beam to a nearby planetoid and find the Marcuses and the Genesis Device. But Chekov and Terrell are still under Khan’s control, and Khan captures the Genesis Device. After fooling Khan into thinking the Enterprise left the landing party behind, Kirk draws the Reliant into a nearby nebula and beats Khan in an epic battle. With nothing left to lose, Khan sets Genesis to detonate, knowing the Enterprise can’t escape its blast on impulse. In the final moments, Spock sacrifices himself — after mind-melding with an unconscious McCoy — and fixes the Enterprise’s warp drive, allowing the ship to escape. In a heartfelt scene near the end of the film, Kirk and Co. put Spock’s body in a torpedo tube and fire it toward the newly created Genesis Planet (created by the explosion) never to be seen again …

khan — “Kirk, my old friend … can you tell me why none of the other genetically engineered superpeople has aged, and why only one of them has any sort of opinion on my crazy-ass obsession? Oh … and it is very cold in space.”

Why it’s important

Well, where to begin?

“The Wrath of Khan” is not only the best of the Trek movies — it’s the most consequential. “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock” centers around Kirk’s renegade actions to return to the Genesis Planet to recover Spock’s body and bring it to Vulcan. His body, reborn by the Genesis effect, is reunited late in the film with his “katra,” which he left in McCoy during the aforementioned mind-meld. “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”, centers around Kirk and Co. returning to Earth to face the music — until they are forced to travel back in time to 20th-century Earth to recover two humpback whales to save the planet from an alien probe in the 23rd century. The success of that mission sends a demoted Kirk and Co. to the Enterprise-A, which replaced the original Enterprise that was destroyed in “The Search for Spock”. It’s on the new ship that the final two TOS movies take place. More on the dominoes when we review the next few films.

In a more real-world sense, “Wrath of Khan” proved that Trek movies could be critically acclaimed, whereas “The Motion Picture” proved that they could make money.

aasdfasdf — “No, Admiral. We don’t still have bugs in our bodies to make us more subservient. Why do you ask?”

What doesn’t hold up

“The Wrath of Khan” is a very good movie, but it does have its share of flaws. The biggest is the essential “redo” from “The Motion Picture”. Kirk retaking the Enterprise due to a threat where the untested ship/crew is the only one in range is a rather annoying trope that also appeared in “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier” and “Star Trek: Generations”. But it’s especially pronounced in this movie, because one could watch it and not really even know that the events of “The Motion Picture” happened. It’s quite odd, really. As noted in our previous review, “The Motion Picture” stands out as the quasi-estranged uncle of the film franchise.

There also are a lot of issues with the story’s logic. How did the Reliant not, you know, notice that the Ceti Alpha system consisted of one fewer planet than it had 15 years earlier? Wouldn’t Chekov have been on higher alert being in the system in the first place? “Keptin, ve should awoid Ceti Alpha V … ”

There’s also the issue of Khan’s followers — aside from the one dude (Judson Scott) who talks ALL the time — acting essentially as extras. Would a group of genetic supermen/superwomen have nothing to say to their leader, whose actions are borderline insane? The same thing sort of happened in “Space Seed,” but that made more sense because the other genetic superpeople weren’t awake for much of the episode (and Khan’s actions weren’t nearly as crazy). In this film, Khan is more of a cult leader than a leader of presumably equal genetically engineered humans. Interestingly, we see this again in “Star Trek: Enterprise” when another group of genetically engineered superhumans pops up. Maybe it has something to do with a built-in hierarchy when it comes to the way the superhumans were created?

Lastly, it appears that only Spock, Saavik and Scotty are full-time crewmembers on the Enterprise as this movie begins, as McCoy, Sulu and Uhura seem to be on board because of the inspection (they arrive with Kirk). So, what, exactly are they doing with their lives/careers? And why did they participate in the initial Kobayashi Maru test for Saavik at the beginning of the film — other than to try to trick us, the audience, into thinking it was real?

Final thoughts

OK, OK. I know I’m being pretty hard on what is a very good movie. The acting here is better than in any other Trek film and the plot (as intricate as it is —can you tell writing the summary was a bear?) works extraordinarily well.

What people remember most from “Wrath of Khan” is Spock’s death scene, which was just perfectly handled by Shatner and Nimoy. Montalban brought his A-game as well, and the scenes with Kirk and the Marcuses are really quite effective. Plus, the film has one of Trek’s most original sci-fi concepts in the Genesis Device, which is sort of a linchpin for the film.

Coming next week …

Klingon bastards … you play prominently into our next review. Klingon bastards …

1979, 2271, Klingon, The Motion Picture

“Star Trek — The Motion Picture”

January 25, 2015 Paul

asdfasdf — “Mr. Spock, can you check your sensors and kindly tell me why they got our uniforms from ‘The Love Boat’?”

More than two years and tons of Klingon forehead reconstruction surgery since the end of the Enterprise’s historic 5-year mission, Admiral Kirk takes command of the refitted Enterprise to prevent a dangerous energy cloud from reaching Earth. He displaces Captain Willard Decker (Stephen Collins) who stays on the ship as executive officer. Kirk brings Bones out of retirement and picks up Spock along the way (they were getting the band back together, it seems). Turns out Spock sensed an intelligence from the cloud while he was on Vulcan trying to be more Vulcan, and wants to join the Enterprise to learn more about it. The cloud thing sends a probe to the Enterprise that kills and then reappears as sexy navigator Ilia (Persis Khambatta, who spends the rest of the movie wearing nothing but heels and a doctor’s lab coat). Ilia Probe tells Kirk that something called V’Ger is searching for its creator. Eventually, the crew finds the object at the heart of the cloud: actually Voyager 6, an ancient Earth probe that has gained sentience with the help of a mechanical civilization in another part of the galaxy. When the only way to arrange the meeting is to have V’Ger merge with a human, Decker volunteers. Decker had long been in love with Ilia, a Deltan, who took a vow of celibacy. He merges with what’s left of Ilia, and with her V’Ger, and the cloud vanishes — just as it’s poised to attack Earth. With civilization saved as they know it, Kirk, Spock and McCoy return to the bridge of the Enterprise, to (presumably) set out on new adventures.

aasdf — “I’m looking forward to a long and successful career after this movie.”

Why it’s important

In the Star Trek universe, the significance of the events of “The Motion Picture” is pretty obvious. Earth, one of the founding worlds of the Federation and headquarters to Starfleet Command and Starfleet Academy, was very nearly left without any human life. The actions of Kirk and Co. saved the planet, while putting the pieces in motion for more adventures of the crew on the Enterprise. More on that in a bit.

In the real world, the success of “The Motion Picture” brought Star Trek back from the dead (with all apologies to The Animated Series). Anyone reading this review knows what this film begat as far as movies, spinoffs, etc. So, while it’s not a perfect movie — and while it’s an oddity in the franchise in a lot of ways, as we’ll discuss — it was a very big deal.

assasdf — “Spock, on my responsibility as captain of the Enterprise, I promise that Dr. McCoy will not be allowed to wear leisure suits the next time we make a movie.”

What doesn’t hold up

Most of “The Motion Picture” works OK as far as what we know of Trek history. It’s odd that the creators chose to put the events of the movie just 2 1/2 years after the end of the 5-year mission, when 10 years had passed in real life. The actors sure look a heckuva lot older, DeForest Kelley being the most egregious example. There’s also the matter of whether Kirk had another 5-year mission in the 13 years in the Star Trek timeline after this film and before “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”. It certainly seems like that’s what happened, based on dialog, but it’s never really stated. We do know that at some point between the two films, Kirk left Starfleet (“Star Trek: Generations”) but there are still a lot of years unaccounted for.

And, of course, the Klingons certainly look different than they did the last time we saw them way back in “Day of the Dove”. Actually, the Klingons here look different than they do going forward, as well.

But the biggest oddity about “The Motion Picture” to me has always been that it’s much more akin to “2001: A Space Odyssey” and to a lesser extent “Star Wars” than The Original Series, or anything in the franchise after it, for that matter. Part of that is the ’70s-tastic look of the Enterprise and uniforms, most of which is gone by the next movie in 1982. Part of it has to do with showcasing effects that weren’t possible for television in the 1960s. And there’s the (much) slower pace.

Little if anything else in Star Trek attempts the a more sweeping story or such a hard sci-fi edge. Maybe that’s why the events of this film, as significant as they are, never get mentioned again in Star Trek. The closest thing I can think of is the offhand remark by the Federation president on Earth in “Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered County” that Kirk and McCoy had “literally saved this planet.” Of course, he could have been referring to other events, such as those in “Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home”.

Final thoughts

“The Motion Picture” isn’t the worst of the Star Trek films, and it’s arguably better than the last two TNG films, to say nothing of the absolutely awful “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier”, elements of which were considered apocryphal by Gene Roddenberry. The scene in “The Motion Picture” where we first see the Enterprise is pretty wonderful and most of the acting is OK, though there are odd/forced moments from just about every member of the cast. Walter Koenig, in particular, wasn’t on his A-game in this movie.

But it’s also, arguably, the hardest film to sit through because of the unnecessary scenes with crew members staring agape at the view screen as the ship travels through the energy cloud. Plus, the ending is extremely rushed and suffers from the Extemporaneous Dialog Diagnosing a Complex Problem trope so common in TOS. How Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Decker put together everything that’s going on and come up with a solution — despite a lack of much evidence and an only somewhat helpful Ilia Probe — is a real stretch. Unfortunately, the creators harked back to The Original Series in one of the most annoying ways.

“The Motion Picture” almost feels like an estranged, but not altogether dismissed or decried, relative of the franchise as a whole (it’s the quasi-estranged uncle, whereas “Star Trek: V” is the red-headed stepchild). Four of the next five movies really are part of a continuing saga. But “The Motion Picture” — even more so than “The Final Frontier” — stands alone.

The early parts of “The Wrath of Khan” — where Kirk is feeling past his prime and out of place riding a desk on Earth — could fit right after the events of TOS. Why there’s no acknowledgement that Kirk essentially went through the same soul-searching in both movies is really weird. Why Bones didn’t say something like, “Jim, you went through this before the incident with V’Ger when you got the Enterprise back,” or something to that effect is odd. Kirk is in his late 30s in the first movie and turns 50 in the second, so perhaps the idea of him getting old in the second movie needed to be buoyed — and it certainly works as a thematic device in both films. Or, maybe, the creators didn’t figure they’d make audiences remember what happened in a movie from three years earlier?

Last point: This movie might be the first instance in which the creators pushed back the Trek timeline. As noted in other reviews, dialog in several TOS episodes indicates that TOS occurred about 200 years in the future (which would have put it in the late 22nd century). But Decker, near the end of the movie, notes that Voyager 6 left Earth about 300 years ago, in the late 20th century. The lack of fast-track space exploration in the decade between TOS and this movie probably made the creators push everything back. From now on, it’s pretty clear that TOS took place 300 years after it originally aired.

Coming next week …

Well, we certainly wouldn’t be reviewing any film revolving around a character whose name rhymes with Schman Schmoonien Schmingh. Nope, no chance of that …

Star Trek

Other episodes that you should watch

January 18, 2015 Paul

Last week, we wrapped our reviews of the episodes of The Original Series that we deemed worthy of the Trek Tapestry — and next week, we’ll get to the movies. This week, though, we’ll talk about the episodes that you probably ought to view as well, though they’re not as historically relevant as the 14 we’ve reviewed so far.

We’ll do this at the end of every series, as a way of giving a nod to significant episodes that didn’t make the cut that we still recommend. Think of these as supplemental reading.

The Enemy Within

A transporter accident splits Kirk into good and evil halves. It’s over-the-top, and one of the episodes that provides the most fodder for Shatner impersonations. But it’s a good early episode that shows what Trek was capable of doing with the right story.

asdfasdfas — “Why didn’t you include this episode in Trek Tapestry?!”

The Galileo Seven

Trek’s first shuttle-crash episode (which basically inspired about half of “Star Trek: Voyager”). It’s campy and repetitive, but it’s a good Spock show if you swallow that he can be first officer of the Federation flagship without having been in command of anything before.

The City on the Edge of Forever

Considered TOS’ greatest episode, which defies a sentence-long summary. I’ve always liked it, but thought it was slightly overrated. The events of the episode are never mentioned again and the time-travel reset kept it from our list. But Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley are on their A games and this is just classic science fiction (in a good way).

The Doomsday Machine

TOS’s best example of shipboard battle sequences, even surpassing the very good “Balance of Terror.” It didn’t make the Tapestry because of its one-off nature, but it’s worth a look. It’s also a good example of the TOS creators shoving contemporary messages into the plot. Kirk’s speech about “doomsday machines” is heavy-handed, even for this series.

The Trouble with Tribbles

The best comedy Trek’s ever done. Tribbles do appear in later episodes — and actually play a key part in “Star Trek Into Darkness”“Star Trek Into Darkness”. But we couldn’t quite justify giving it Tapestry status.

Spock’s Brain

Spock’s brain is stolen to help run a civilization. Really. It’s a terrible concept that’s ridiculously conceived (Spock’s body is actually run by remote control for much of the episode!) but it’s enjoyable in its absurdity. It’s also not dreadfully dull, like some third-season offerings. For completists, it’s to Star Trek what the “Star Wars Holiday Special” is to Star Wars.

The Tholian Web

Another one that almost made the Tapestry, but the Tholians are such bit players for the rest of Trek that their introduction is more on par with the Jarada or the Pakleds than the Klingons or the Romulans. This episode does pave the way for the “Star Trek: Enterprise” two-parter, “In a Mirror, Darkly.” But it didn’t quite make the cut. Still, it’s probably Trek’s best Spock-Bones episode (even if Bones goes overboard in some scenes).

Requiem for Methuselah

TOS’s strangest episode, which is a major statement. The good: On an isolated planet, Kirk and Co. find an immortal human who was apparently Alexander, Merlin, Brahms and a bunch of others in Earth history. The bad: Weird stuff about android love and a plague threatening to kill the Enterprise crew. The idea that one human could have been so important in history could have made for a Trek classic. But this all the other stuff in this episode? Not so much.

asdfk;asjdfk — “Next time, I’ll build an android that can come up with better-written episodes.”

The Way to Eden

Space hippies hijack the Enterprise in search of a mythical Eden, but all the plants there are … filled with acid (sad trombone). Like “Spock’s Brain,” this episode is so infamous that it deserves a viewing — and it’s another one that’s not dull or boring. It is absurdly heavy-handed and even kinda reactionary. If “Spock’s Brain” was the “Star Wars Holiday Special,” “The Way to Eden” is Mark Hamill’s appearance on “The Muppet Show.”

Turnabout Intruder

The final episode of TOS, and the only finale that won’t make it into the Tapestry, as it wasn’t filmed as a true sendoff. It’s final episode status makes it worth the view, but it’s also an absurd hour that ends a (mostly) absurd third season.

Others worth a look

Arena (visually iconic fight scene with a Gorn), A Taste of Armageddon (brash Kirk at his best, even if he pisses all over the Prime Directive), The Changeling (pretty clearly the inspiration for “Star Trek — The Motion Picture”), A Piece of the Action (Trek’s hammiest hour), The Ultimate Computer (the most starships seen in one episode of TOS), Return to Tomorrow (includes one of Kirk’s best speeches about space exploration), Assignment: Earth (a pilot for Gene’s proposed spinoff show), A Private Little War (after you’ve seen the Mugato and the Vietnam parallels, turn it off), Let That Be Your Last Battlefield (another visually iconic episode), All Our Yesterdays (the last truly great episode of the series).

Coming next week …

We get into the original six Trek flicks. And, no, we won’t be asking why God needs a starship.

1969, 2269, Klingon, Star Trek, Vulcan

“The Savage Curtain”

January 11, 2015 Paul

After encountering Abraham Lincoln (Lee Bergere) floating in space (for realz) the crew beams him aboard. He sort of seems like the genuine article and he vaguely tells Kirk that the answers about him are on a nearby planet the ship was exploring. Upon beaming down, Kirk, Spock and Lincoln are joined by Surak (Barry Atwater), the father of the Vulcan people. Then, some weird rock things who live on the planet tell our heroes that they have to fight recreations of four evil figures from history. The bad guys include Genghis Khan (Nathan Gung) who really likes to throw rocks; some weird witch woman, Zora (Carol Daniels) not to be confused with a witch-ay woman; Kahless the Unforgettable (Robert Herron) essentially, the Klingon messiah who apparently doubles as a voiceover actor; and Colonel Green (Phillip Pine) a notorious figure from 21st-century Earth. All the historical figures are recreations (I guess?) and the rock creatures want to examine the difference between good and evil. After a bunch of by-the-numbers fight scenes where Kirk and Co. win, but don’t kill the bad guys, they learn that it’s mercy or something.

asdfasf — “Live long … and don’t make fun of my really weird outfit.”

Why it’s important

As goofy as this episode is — it seems like something straight out of The Animated Series — it introduces two (possibly three) key figures in the history of Star Trek. Both Kahless and Surak appear in second-generation Trek (Kahless in TNG’s “Rightful Heir” and later references and Surak in the fourth-season Vulcan arc in “Star Trek: Enterprise”). Colonel Green, while certainly not a messiah figure, is an important guy in Earth’s history. He pops up in a recording in “Terra Prime” at the end of the fourth season of “Star Trek: Enterprise,” and it turns out he’s a sort of hero to the Earth-for-humans movement because he euthanized a bunch of people deformed by radiation during World War III. Yay!

Now, I’ll give the creators props for sticking with some continuity. It wouldn’t be unheard of for a character like Surak or Kahless to be introduced (particularly in the waning days of TOS) only to be forgotten. Garth of Izar, was introduced in TOS’s third season as the “model” for starship captains and an important historical figure. But we never hear of him after that episode.

(In another example, Kirk, Spock and McCoy meet the immortal human Flint — who had been Solomon, Alexander the Great, Merlin, da Vinci, Brahms and possibly others — in “Requiem for Methuselah,” arguably the weirdest episode of TOS. We won’t review it as it’s not part of any additional Star Trek lore. But it’s worth a watch because its premise surrounds a very, very interesting concept. Unfortunately, the creators decided to take it in a bizarre direction, in which the immortal Flint builds an android to be with him and tries to use Kirk to get her to learn to love, or something. Kirk and the android fall for each other, Flint and Kirk fight over her, the android dies and Spock later removes Kirk’s memories to help with his heartbreak! Oh, and all of this happens in the span of THREE HOURS as Kirk, Spock and McCoy work with Flint to get a drug from his planet to save a dying Enterprise crew. Even stranger, there appears to be no effort after this episode to contact Flint. Given Spock’s statements in other episodes about the opportunities for research, like the planet killer in “The Doomsday Machine” or the weird aliens in “Catspaw”, it’s odd that they just walk away from Flint. Of course, they did something similar in “Metamorphosis.”)

Of course, Surak, Green and Kahless are all very different the next time we see them — with a special emphasis on Kahless …

asdfadsf — “You’ll see that we’ve set up a buffet of bad guys, Captain Kirk. It’s like a Golden Corral… of evil!”

What doesn’t hold up

Surak sure looks different (and dresses differently) than he does in Enterprise as does Green. But that’s really not a big thing. The transformation of Kahless, however, is kinda nuts. Here, he dresses like the 23rd-century Klingons we see in TOS, he doesn’t have forehead ridges or long hair (undermining the genetic experiment explanation for Klingon foreheads from Enterprise) he can mimic voices in the stylings of Lt. Commander Data and (probably most importantly) he’s characterized as an evil dude who inspired all the “tyrannies” the Klingons would go on to commit. Oh, and he’s totally subservient to Colonel Green. Weird.

By the time we see Kahless in TNG — or, rather, a clone of Kahless who is made to act like the genuine article — he’s not an evil guy, he has forehead ridges and dresses in garb that’s not out of a 23rd century JC Penney on Kronos. And he has no (apparent) ability to be the Klingons’ very own Mel Blanc. This is actually a case example of how Klingons went from mostly evil, treacherous bastards in TOS and the movies (think Kruge in “Star Trek III: The Search for Spock”) to honorable warriors in TNG and DS9 (Worf, Martok, etc.). There were some tweeners over the years, like Kang, Gowron and Gorkon. But retconning a character previously equated with Genghis Khan into a mostly good dude? It’s pretty laughable.

I’ve heard the theory that the rock dudes in this episode generated Kahless from what Kirk thought Kahless would be like — which means Kirk heard the name and drew his own conclusions or read a very biased history on the Klingons (does D’Nesh D’Souza write about Klingon history?). But writing the Kahless inconsistencies off as a flaw in Kirk’s version of him is weak sauce, especially because the rock dudes generated Surak, someone Kirk had never heard of (which, by itself, is pretty ridiculous, as it makes Kirk look like a real idiot). Did they pull Surak from Spock’s mind but everyone else from Kirk’s?

Final thoughts

Well, we say it in our About Us page. Reviewing an episode doesn’t mean we endorse it. “The Savage Curtain” certainly isn’t the worst episode of TOS and it’s arguably not even in the bottom five of TOS’s infamous third season. As hokey and goofy as some of it is, it has some zip to it and some decent dialog. It’s not dreadfully dull AND preposterous like “The Lights of Zetar” or “And the Children Shall Lead.” It’s really just preposterous.

Why did the creators decided to put Lincoln in a chair IN SPACE to start the episode? Why did the creators allow a recreation of the father of Vulcan logic to get killed and Lincoln to be impaled by a spear? Oh, and in another ridiculous moment, Kirk tells Lincoln that the Enterprise can “convert” to minutes. WTF? Was Kirk making a really lame joke at the expense of one of his personal heroes and a key figure in Earth history? Kirk and Co. have used minutes since the very first episodes of the series. They use HOURS later in this episode!

This episode also features the really stupid cliche where the bridge crew watches some fight to the death along with the audience — complete with (groan) the same camera angles. This only happens a few times in TOS (“Arena” “The Gamesters of Triskelion” and here) but it’s one of my least favorite TOS devices. Naturally, it shows up in “Star Trek V: The Final Frontier,” the worst of the Trek films.

All that said, I did kinda like the moment where Lincoln says Kirk reminds him of Ulysses S. Grant — and equates Grant with drinking whiskey.

Star Trek

Awesome Trek spoof on ‘The Simpsons’

January 6, 2015 Paul

Sunday’s episode of “The Simpsons” had a great spoof on the classic TOS closing credits.

I think Homer as Kirk from “The Gamesters of Triskelion” is my favorite. Either that or Mr. Burns as Balok from “The Corbomite Maneuver.”

Enjoy!

Via. Daily Motion

What if a site focused on the really important Star Trek episodes, explained how they were important and how they tied together — while tossing in a healthy dose of snark?