Star
Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a 1982 American science fiction action
adventure thriller 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 first officer 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 sets, 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 4th, 1982. It was a box office
success, earning $97 million worldwide and setting a world record for
first-day box office gross and critical reaction to the film was
positive. The Wrath of Khan is considered to be one of the best films
of the Star Trek series and is credited with the creation of
substantial renewed interest in the franchise.
The original cast would
return for the sequel:
William Shatner as James
T. Kirk
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, although a draft script had Khan defeating
Kirk in a swordfight. Meyer described Shatner as an actor who was
naturally protective of his character and himself, and who performed
better over multiple takes.
Leonard Nimoy as Captain Spock
Nimoy had not intended to
have a role in The Motion Picture's sequel, but was enticed back on
the promise that his character would be given a dramatic death scene.
Nimoy reasoned that since The Wrath of Khan would be the final Star
Trek film, having Spock "go out in a blaze of glory" seemed
like a good way to end the character. It wasn't to be. Nimoy would
reprise Spock in subsequent sequels and even in J.J. Abrams'
rebooting Star Trek reboot in 2009
DeForest Kelley as
Leonard McCoy
The Enterprise's chief
medical officer and a close friend of Kirk and Spock. Kelley was
dissatisfied with an earlier 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. 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.
James Doohan as
Montgomery Scott
Enterprise chief engineer
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.
Nichelle Nichols as Uhura
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.
George Takei as Hikaru Sulu
Takei had simply not wanted
to reprise his role as helmsman Hikaru Sulu until Shatner persuaded
him to return.
Walter Koenig as Pavel Chekov
The Reliant's 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.
Other characters included:
Ricardo Montalbán as
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. The film was
close to production approval when it occurred to the producers that
no one had asked Montalbán whether he was interested in
appearing in the film despite his character having been in the
scripts for more than a year. Montalbán was unsure whether he
could plausibly play Khan again after many years, especially given
his current role of Mr. Roarke on Fantasy Island. Contrary to
speculation that Montalbán used a prosthetic chest, no
artificial devices were added to emphasize Montalbán's
muscular physique, since even in his 60s and despite an increasingly
painful back injury, stemming from being thrown off a horse in the
1950s, Montalbán had a vigorous workout routine.
Montalbán enjoyed making the film, 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.
Bibi Besch as Carol Marcus Merritt Butrick as David
Marcus
Carol Marcus is 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.
Paul Winfield as 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.
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.
Kirstie Alley (right) would
go on to star in the TV series Cheers as Rebecca Howe (1987 to 1993)
replacing Shelley Long's character Diane Chambers. But the Cheers/Star
Trek connection doesn't just end with Saavik/Howe and Kirstie Alley.
Back when Cheers was still in production it shared a studio with the
set of Star Trek: The Next Generation on the Paramount lot. Both
shows being long running and produced by the same studio, they ended
up sharing crew, writers and producers, and eventually, cast members,
a habit that got passed on to Frasier. It turns out that a lot of
Cheers cast members are Trekkers.
Trivia fans take note...
Beth
Toussaint, who played the sister of Tasha Yar in the Next Generation
episode "Legacy," also played a "chubby chaser"
who wants to sleep with Norm in the Cheers episode "Rat Girl."
Kate Mulgrew (Captain
Janeway) played a congresswoman who almost married Sam in the
three-part Cheers episode, "Strange Bedfellows."
Brent Spiner (Data) was a
guest star on Cheers in the 1987 episode, "Never Love a Goalie,
Part Two."
Kelsey Grammer (Frasier
Crane) appears as Captain Morgan Bateson in the TNG episode Cause and
Effect. He can also be heard as Captain Bateson in Star Trek: First
Contact. It's uncredited, but listen for when the Federation goes
into battle against The Borg. Starfleet audio is carrying the battle,
and an admiral orders the Bozeman to attack, to which Grammer's voice
(in recycled footage from "Cause and Effect") says "Acknowledged."
Bebe Neuwirth, who played
Lilith Crane on Cheers, also guest starred as an alien nurse who gets
it on with Riker in the Next Generation episode "First Contact."
Woody Boyd's (Cheers)
middle name is Tiberius, which is also Captain Kirk's middle name.
Morn, the silent alien who
frequents Quark's bar on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, is a scrambling
of the name of Norm, who frequents Sam's bar in Cheers.
Patrick Stewart (Captain
Picard) played a gay man who loves Frasier Crane in the Frasier
episode "The Doctor is Out."
Christopher Lloyd, who
played the Klingon Commander Kruge in Star Trek III: The Search for
Spock, played an eccentric painter who wants to paint a nude portrait
of Diane in the two-part Cheers episode "I'll Be Seeing You."
On the sitcom Becker, Ted
Danson (post Cheers) co-starred with Terry Farrell from Star Trek:
Deep Space Nine. LeVar Burton (Geordi la Forge) also guest-starred in
an episode of the series as did Leonard Nimoy (Spock) playing one of
Becker's old teachers. Leonard Nimoy directed Three Men and a Baby,
which starred Ted Danson.
Rene Auberjonois, who
played Odo on Deep Space Nine, guest-starred as Frasier Crane's
mentor on an episode of Frasier.
Paul Wilson (Cheers)
guest-starred in a seventh-season episode of Voyager.
Saul Rubinek, who played
Kivas Fajo in the Next Generation episode "The Most Toys,"
had a recurring role on Frasier as Daphne's fiancée.
Dan Butler, who played
Bulldog on Frasier, guest-starred in the Voyager episode "Vis a vis."
Keene Curtis, who played
John Allen Hill, the obnoxious owner of the restaurant above Cheers,
guest-starred on the Voyager episode "Sacred Ground."
Daniel Davis, who played
Professor Moriarty in several episodes of the Next Generation,
guest-starred on both Cheers and Frasier.
Ted Danson (Sam Malone)
onced dated Whoopi Goldberg (Guinan on Star Trek: The Next
Generation). Danson was the host of the 30th Anniversary Star Trek
gala in 1996. At that same gala, Kate Mulgrew (Kathryn Janeway) acted
in a sketch with Peri Gilpin (Roz Doyle), David Hyde Pierce (Niles
Crane), Jane Leeves (Daphne Moon) and John Mahoney (Martin Crane)
serving as her bridge crew.
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AV
CLUB FEATURETTE DEPARTMENT
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Although Star Trek: The Motion Picture had been a box-office hit, it was by no means a unanimous success with Star Trek fans, who responded much more favorably to the "classic Trek" scenario of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Inspired by the "Space Seed" episode of the original TV series, the film reunites newly promoted Admiral Kirk with his nemesis from the earlier episode--the genetically superior Khan (Ricardo Montalban)--who is now seeking revenge upon Kirk for having been imprisoned on a desolated planet. Their battle ensues over control of the Genesis device, a top-secret Starfleet project enabling entire planets to be transformed into life-supporting worlds. Add
Star Trek II The Wrath of Kahn to your DVD collection.
After
the release of Star Trek 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 film than Star Trek 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 film. 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,
entitled 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 film-able 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 pre-production began, Samuel A. Peeples, writer of the Star
Trek episode "Where No Man Has Gone Before", was invited to
offer his own script. Peeples' 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; the aliens resembled too closely the villains on a
typical TOS episode. Deadlines loomed 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.
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. Meyer wrote the screenplay uncredited and for no pay before the
deadline, surprising the actors and producers, and rapidly produced
subsequent rewrites as necessary. One draft, for example, had a baby
in Khan's group, who is killed with the others in the Genesis
detonation. Meyer later said:
The chief contribution I
brought to 'Star Trek II' was a healthy disrespect... 'Star Trek' was
human allegory in a space format. That was both its strength and,
ultimately, its weakness. I tried through irreverence to make them
more human and a little less wooden. I didn't insist that Captain
Kirk go to the bathroom, but did 'Star Trek' have to be so sanctified?
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.
Meyer
(shown directing Leonard Nimoy at right) 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 redresses of the
Enterprise's bridge. The Klingon bridge from The Motion Picture was
redressed as the transporter and torpedo rooms. The filmmakers
stretched The Wrath of Khan's budget by reusing models and footage
from the first Star Trek film, including footage of the Enterprise in
spacedock. The original ship miniatures were used where possible, or
modified to stand in as new constructions. The orbital office complex
from The Motion Picture was inverted and retouched to become the
Regula I space station. Elements of the cancelled Star Trek: Phase II
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
they 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 First Contact. The
first versions of the uniforms had stiff black collars, but Sallin
suggested changing it to a turtleneck, using a form of vertical
quilting called trapunto. The method creates a bas-relief effect to
the material by stuffing the outlined areas with soft thread shot via
air pressure through a hollow needle. By the time of The Wrath of
Khan's production, the machines and needles needed to produce
trapunto were rare, and Fletcher was 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 Enterprise's bridge, which he
recalled "Everyone had a fit over. 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.
Principal photography began
on November 9th, 1981, and ended on January 29nd, 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 Picture's $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
Enterprise's elevators moved between decks, corridor pieces were
wheeled out of sight to change the hall configuration while the lift
doors were closed. Background equipment such as computer terminals
were rented when possible instead of purchased outright. Some
designed props, such as a redesigned phaser and communicator, were
vetoed by Paramount executives in favor of existing materials from
Star Trek 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 (above) 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. Trekkies
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.
With a short timeframe to
complete The Wrath of Khan's special effects sequences, effects
supervisor Jim Veilleux, Meyer, Jennings, Sallin, and Minor worked to
transform the written ideas for the script into concrete storyboards
and visuals. The detailed sequences were essential to keep the film's
effects from spiraling out of control and driving up costs, as had
occurred 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. Originally, the Reliant was supposed to be a
Constitution-class starship, identical to the Enterprise, but it was
felt audiences would have difficulty distinguishing between the two
ships. As the script called for the Reliant and Enterprise to inflict
significant damage on each other, ILM developed techniques to
illustrate the damage without physically harming the models. Rather
than move the models on a bluescreen during shooting, the VistaVision
camera was panned and tracked to give the illusion of movement.
Damage to the Enterprise was cosmetic, and simulated with pieces of
aluminum that were colored or peeled off. Phaser damage was created
using stop motion. The script called for large-scale damage to the
Reliant, so larger versions of the ship's model were created to be
blown up.
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.
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.
Jerry Goldsmith 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.
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 12th–15th at the
Warner Bros. lot, The Burbank Studios. A pickup session was held on
April 30th to record music for the Mutara nebula battle, while
another session held on May 3rd 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.
The Wrath of Khan features
several recurring themes, including death, resurrection, and growing
old. Upon writing his script, Meyer hit upon a link between Spock's
death and the age of the characters. "This was going to be a
story in which Spock died, so it was going to be a story about death,
and it was only a short hop, skip, and a jump to realize that it was
going to be about old age and friendship," Meyer said. "I
don't think that any of [the other preliminary] scripts were about
old age, friendship, and death." In keeping with the theme of
death and rebirth symbolized by Spock's sacrifice and the Genesis
Device, Meyer wanted to call the film The Undiscovered Country, in
reference to Prince Hamlet's description of death in William
Shakespeare's Hamlet, but the title was changed during editing
without his knowledge. Meyer disliked Wrath of Khan, but it was
chosen because the preferred Vengeance of Khan conflicted with
Lucasfilm's forthcoming Revenge of the Jedi (renamed Return of the
Jedi very late in production).
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. Khan liberally
paraphrases Ahab, with "I'll chase him round the moons of Nibia
and round the Antares maelstrom and round perdition's flames before I
give him up!". Khan also quotes Ahab's tirade at the end of the
novel verbatim with his final lines: "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 Dick's themes of
vengeance would later heavily influence Star Trek: First Contact.
The
Wrath of Khan opened on June 4th, 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
become 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 Toys 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.
Critical response was
positive and after the lukewarm reaction to the first film, fan
response to The Wrath of Khan was highly positive as well. 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 Star Trek 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 Post's Gary Arnold stated Spock's death "feels like
an unnecessary twist, and the filmmakers are obviously well-prepared
to fudge in case the public demands another sequel."
The Wrath of Khan won two
Saturn Awards 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 Awards, 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.
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.
After
the release of Star Trek 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 film than Star Trek 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
wrote his first film treatment in November 1980. In his version,
entitled 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 film-able 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".
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. Meyer wrote the screenplay uncredited and for no pay before the
deadline, surprising the actors and producers, and rapidly produced
subsequent rewrites as necessary. One draft, for example, had a baby
in Khan's group, who is killed with the others in the Genesis
detonation. Meyer later said:
Meyer
(shown directing Leonard Nimoy at right) 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 redresses of the
Enterprise's bridge. The Klingon bridge from The Motion Picture was
redressed as the transporter and torpedo rooms. The filmmakers
stretched The Wrath of Khan's budget by reusing models and footage
from the first Star Trek film, including footage of the Enterprise in
spacedock. The original ship miniatures were used where possible, or
modified to stand in as new constructions. The orbital office complex
from The Motion Picture was inverted and retouched to become the
Regula I space station. Elements of the cancelled Star Trek: Phase II
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
they 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 First Contact. The
first versions of the uniforms had stiff black collars, but Sallin
suggested changing it to a turtleneck, using a form of vertical
quilting called trapunto. The method creates a bas-relief effect to
the material by stuffing the outlined areas with soft thread shot via
air pressure through a hollow needle. By the time of The Wrath of
Khan's production, the machines and needles needed to produce
trapunto were rare, and Fletcher was 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.
Spock's
death in the film was widely reported during production. Trekkies
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.
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.
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. Khan liberally
paraphrases Ahab, with "I'll chase him round the moons of Nibia
and round the Antares maelstrom and round perdition's flames before I
give him up!". Khan also quotes Ahab's tirade at the end of the
novel verbatim with his final lines: "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 Dick's themes of
vengeance would later heavily influence Star Trek: First Contact.
The
Wrath of Khan opened on June 4th, 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
become 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 Toys 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.
