I agree with your entire post with the exception of this bit.
If there’s any Trek movie that is on the level of excellence with II, it is IV. Easily the most accessible of all the movies, and a brilliant comedy to boot. And no, the villain is not the space probe, it is the ignorance of humanity. That is perhaps the most frightening villain of all.
For that matter, VI was a pretty great movie as well. Chang wasn’t the villain, it was the lust to keep old prejudices alive. That’s a pretty timeless and relevant theme.
Indeed not. Which brings home the realization that Khan was no more a superman than the next man - for all his proud boasting, one tiny little personal tragedy was all it took for him to be reduced to a snivelling wreck looking for someone else to blame.
My point was, that particular insignia (the Starfleet arrowhead in metal, with a cutout star and surrounded by a circle) wasn’t in use at the time of TOS, when Khan was marooned. By the time of ST:TWOK, it appeared as the belt buckle on Starfleet uniforms. But Khan was wearing it already, as a medallion, when he captured Terrell and Chekov.
My favorite explanation for why Khan recognized Chekov (who hadn’t been in “Space Seed”), as provided by the old Trek magazine: when Khan left the dinner party Kirk threw for him, he wandered the ship, lost in thought. Then he realized he had to use the bathroom really badly (an aftereffect of suspended animation). He ran to the nearest bathroom, but Chekov was already inside. “Wait your turn,” Chekov said, taking his own sweet time. Khan crossed his legs, gritted his teeth, and waited, and waited, and waited, increasingly desperate. Chekov, blithely whistling, still didn’t come out. Finally Khan used his superhuman strength to tear the door down, shouting, “YOU!!! I will never forget your face!”
Star Trek Enterprise had a passing reference to TWOK in one alternate-history episode, in which the last remnants of humanity take refuge on Ceti Alpha Whatever… not knowing that it’s gonna explode about a century later. :smack:
I didn’t say the giant dildo was the villian. I said it was an antagonist, and it is.
The movie is decent, but on re-watching I find it very light and insubstantial. Of the ten Star Trek movies, Wrath of Khan is the only one that, in and of itself, is a truly first-rate movie. IMHO, of course.
No, Chang WAS the villian. His prejudice and fear of the unknown were his motivations, but those can’t be villians or antagonists; they’re what drive the antagonists.
I know it’s anathema among Star Trek fans to say this, but I thought Star Trek VI was a pretty lousy movie. I think it’s remembered as being great only because, even being mediocre, it was still a lot better than Star Trek V.
Point well taken. But it really only made a short appearance in the film. Ignorance was the villain. Fish out of water was the plot.
From a technical standpoint, I suppose. But I can see thoughts and ideas being so strong that they become characters in and of themselves. After all, Chang wasn’t the only one behaving badly. At least that’s my interpretation of the story.
Once of the things I didn’t notice, and didn’t figger out til I watched the extras on the DVD was that Kirk and Khaaaaaaan were never in the same room together, they were both performing to empty air.
It just seemed very…surreal. I suspect things would have ended much differently if they’d went and got a room.
I concur. Among its other weaknesses is the weak “whodunnit” aspect of there being a traitor aboard the Enterprise, yet aside from six of the original crew, the only person on the Enterprise who’s had so much as three lines of dialogue is Valeris, making the list of suspects remarkably short. Also, the big conspiracy involves her and three or four high-ranked officials, working under the nose of a surprisingly clueless Federation President. A much better and less simplistic approach would have described thousands of people within the Federation government and military (plus a sizable percentage of the Federation population in general) who were calling for a decisive conquest of the weakened Klingons, acting not out bigotry or some other after-school-special motivation, but reasoning that this was the best time to permanently neutralize an opponent who has waged war with us numerous times and can be expected to do so again, given the chance. There doesn’t have to be any conspiracy - just a controversial political goal being aggressively pursued. Frankly, the Fed Prez is such a dork about it that killing him off isn’t really such a bad idea. Peace at all costs and with disregard to all risks is a pretty bad idea, as history demonstrates.
The only good part of the film (that is, the only part that made me go “yikes!”) was the forced mind-meld on Valeris, performed angrily by Spock, with the full support of Kirk, showing the basic hypocrisy at work in this film; they say how much they believe in peace and rights and all that gay stuff, but when it gets personal, one should have no hesitation in using brutality and torture to achieve one’s goals. ST6 is a political movie with no politics - just a handful of easily-labeled bad guys against whom violence is okey-dokey and repercussions are something no-one, let alone the next generation, has to worry about. It has as much to say about superpower politics as an episode of Nash Bridges said about law enforcement. I’ve advocated on several occasions my interest in seeing a “Captain Sulu of the Excelsior” TV series, picking up where this film leaves off and giving the subject a much better treatment, including dealing with the leftover plot holes. If Praxis is a metaphor for Chernobyl, why are the Klingons faring better than the Soviets?
Frankly, it annoys me that the quality of this movie is even considered in the same ballpark as Wrath of Khan. Did tolerance for complex subjects with no easy answers diminish sharply between 1982 and 1991?
That yanked me right out of the film, and all I could think of was, “How could that not be considered ‘mind rape’?” Totally out of character for Spock.
Still I like that better than the fricken Whales! Hell the main problem I have with the film is (aside from the “humour”) is that it has Star Trek I’s problem stamped on it.
PROBE OF UNBELIEVABLE POWER COMES TO EARTH SEEKING A MESSAGE THAT CAN ONLY COME FROM ITS PAST!!
How many probes of unbelieveable power are there in the Trek Universe?? I’m guessing less than Godlike beings of unbelievable power.
It was a bookmark he got from Chekov in Space Seed for his new collector’s edition of Klingon phrases
They’re encountered surprisingly frequently from the 23rd century onwards. Luckily, in our universe, the only probe called Nomad that NASA created was a four wheeled rover for experimental work on Earth
That’s one of the things that didn’t hit me until later, either. I really wish Kirk and Khan had some scenes together, a la the dinner receptiion in Space Seed, or the fight when Khan locked Kirk in the depressurization chamber. There really should have been some face-to-face interaction between Kirk and Khan. Perhaps Khan and some of his followers (believing the Enterprise to be damaged and unable to rescue Kirk) could have beamed to the Genesis chamber, had a fight with the Enterprise crew and physically made off with the Genesis device.
