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The peculiar thing about Spock is that, being half human and half Vulcan and therefore possessing about half the usual quota of human emotions, he consistently, if dispassionately, behaves as if he possessed very heroic human emotions indeed. He makes a choice in “Star Trek II” that would be made only by a hero, a fool, or a Vulcan. And when he makes his decision, the movie rises to one of its best scenes, because the " Star Trek " stories have always been best when they centered around their characters. Although I liked the special effects in the first movie, they were probably not the point; fans of the TV series wanted to see their favorite characters again, and “Trek II” understood that desire and acted on it.

Time has passed since the last episode. Kirk has retired to an administrative post. Spock is commanding the Enterprise, with a lot of new faces in the crew. The ship is on a mission concerning the Genesis device, a new invention which, if I understand it correctly, is capable of seeding a barren planet with luxuriant life. A sister ship, the USS Reliant, is scouting for lifeless planets and finds one that seems to be dead, but its instruments pick up a small speck of life. Crew members investigate, and find the planet inhabited by an outlaw named Khan, who was exiled there years ago by Kirk, and has brooded of vengeance ever since.

Khan is played as a cauldron of resentment by Ricardo Montalban , and his performance is so strong that he helps illustrate a general principle involving not only Star Trek but “ Star Wars ” (1977) and all the epic serials, especially the “James Bond” movies: Each film is only as good as its villain. Since the heroes and the gimmicks tend to repeat from film to film, only a great villain can transform a good try into a triumph. In a curious way, Khan captures our sympathy, even though he is an evil man who introduces loathsome creatures into the ear canals of two Enterprise crew members. Montalban doesn't overact. He plays the character as a man of deeply wounded pride, whose bond of hatred with Admiral Kirk is stronger even than his traditional villain's desire to rule the universe.

There is a battle in outer space in this movie, a particularly inept one that owes more to "Captain Video" than to state-of-the-art special effects. I always love it when they give us spaceships capable of leaping across the universe, and then arm them with weapons so puny that a direct hit merely blows up a few control boards and knocks people off their feet. Somehow, though, I don't much care if the battles aren't that amazing, because the story doesn't depend on them. It's about a sacrifice made by Spock, and it draws on the sentiment and audience identification developed over the years by the TV series.

Perhaps because of that bond, and the sense that an episode may be over but the Enterprise will carry on, the movie doesn't feel that it needs an ending in a conventional sense. The film closes with the usual "Star Trek" end narration, all about the ship's mission and its quest, and we are obviously being set up for a sequel. You could almost argue that the last few minutes of “Trek II” are a trailer for “Trek III”, but, no, that wouldn't be in the spirit of the Enterprise, would it?

Roger Ebert

Roger Ebert was the film critic of the Chicago Sun-Times from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, he won the Pulitzer Prize for distinguished criticism.

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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan movie poster

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

113 minutes

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Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan cast, left to right: Deforest Kelley, George Takei, Nichelle Nichols, Walter Koenig, William Shatner, James Doohan, Leonard Nimoy Film and Television.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan review – Spock and Kirk shine in charming Enterprise revisit

The 1982 sequel to the original Star Trek film, featuring a film debut for Kirstie Alley, returns to cinemas with its crowdpleasing zap and raw emotion intact

T he 1982 sequel to the original Star Trek feature film is now re-released: a brisker, brasher work directed by Nicholas Meyer which moved away from the more lugubrious, Kubrickian ambitions of the first film and back to the crowdpleasing zap of the TV show, importantly starting with the irresistible theme tune. However, 60s TV Star Trek would surely never have given us anything like the rather extraordinary moment included in this movie: chief engineer Mr Scott is discreetly treated for a certain ailment by Dr McCoy, because of his recent “shore leave”. Too much information there about Mr Scott’s private life.

Wrath of Khan is the film that sensationally gave us the heroic and tragic sacrifice of Mr Spock, a wonderful performance of sonorous gravitas from Leonard Nimoy. That calamity traumatised its audiences and taught future generations of franchise-creators from Star Wars to Harry Potter that nothing grabs the fanbase like a big death. The Spock demise was further elevated in pop culture a decade later on the Seinfeld TV show when it was revealed that Jerry’s friend George Constanza was, in adult life, more moved by the memory of Spock’s fate than by the death of his own fiancee.

The situation aboard the USS Enterprise is that Spock is now captain, mentoring a commander-in-training, Saavik, played by Kirstie Alley in her debut film role. There has been another uniform redesign: tunics are now a deep cherry red, thus confounding the “red jersey” stigma, traditionally the colour of other ranks’ uniforms, those most likely to die when beamed down to other planets with more important cast-members.

Admiral James T Kirk (William Shatner) is yearning to get away from desk responsibility and see action once again. He is grimly aware of the passing years, made more piquant by a birthday present from his plain-speaking pal, Dr McCoy (DeForest Kelley): a pair of reading glasses. But Admiral Kirk’s inspection of the Enterprise coincides with a threat from his old nemesis Khan (an enjoyably hammy Ricardo Montalbán) who tries to steal a terrifyingly powerful new invention: the Genesis, which has the power to create biological lifeforms on desolate planets, but also to destroy lifeforms that are already there.

The unspeakable Khan gains an insidious access to the Enterprise by capturing Chekov (Walter Koenig) and getting a little reptile’s offspring to slither into his ear, thus putting him under a hypnotic influence: a truly creepy moment. And so the duel between Kirk and his old adversary begins, with the Admiral periodically shouting “Khaaaaan!” in pedantic moments of defiance. It’s still entertaining and charming in its innocent idealism.

Science fiction and fantasy films
William Shatner
Leonard Nimoy
US television

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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray

Nicholas Meyer's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a gripping naval adventure set in space, the sequel that satisfies hardened loyal fans as well as casual viewers and builds to an emotional climax that remains just as impactful as ever. The sci-fi classic boldly goes into 4K Ultra HD territory refitted with an attractive Dolby Vision video, an identical Dolby TrueHD track, and pretty much the same set of supplements. Paramount now gives The Wrath of Khan a new single title release repackaging the same two discs from the 4-Movie Collection and the recently released 6-Movie Collection . If you haven't picked up the previous set or are aiming to gather these films individually - Recommended

Read our single title Star Trek 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Reviews: Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director's Edition Star Trek: The Motion Picture Director's Edition Complete Adventure Star Trek III: The Search for Spock Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home Star Trek V: The Final Frontier Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country

It is the 23rd century. The Federation Starship U.S.S. EnterpriseTM is on routine training maneuvers and Admiral James T. Kirk (William Shatner) seems resigned to the fact that this inspection may well be the last space mission of his career. But Khan is back. Aided by his exiled band of genetic supermen, Khan (Ricardo Montalban) - brilliant renegade of 20th century Earth - has raided Space Station Regula One, stolen a top secret device called Project Genesis, wrested control of another Federation starship, and now schemes to set a most deadly trap for his old enemy Kirk... with the threat of a universal Armageddon!

Storyline: Our Reviewer's Take

Portions of this review were previously published as part of our coverage for Paramount's previous Star Trek Original 4-Movie Collection

"After audiences and critics felt underwhelmed by the first movie, director Nicholas Meyer ( Time After Time , Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country ) course-corrected the franchise with what is widely beloved as the best installment of the series, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan . The sequel not only delivers a grander sense of adventure and thrills to appease casual viewers, but Harve Bennett's story also enlists material from the original television show to satisfy the more hardened fans, which is one of my favorite aspects of Meyer's film. This is not only a sequel to Wise's underrated first entry, but it is also a direct, feature-length follow-up to the open-ended conclusion of the episode "Space Seed" where the genetically enhanced human Khan (a memorably wonderful Ricardo Montalbán) and his compatriots return from exile. It was an incredibly smart move on the part of Bennett, one that allowed Meyer the opportunity to essentially make a grand naval adventure flick in space."

"At the center of Khan's revenge against William Shatner's Starfleet Admiral James T. Kirk is the terraforming initiative called Project Genesis and a powerful device that could be weaponized. The plot doesn't carry the same weighty, pressing subject matter of its predecessor, but the sequel's ideas about mortality, rebirth and the cycle of life and death are no less heady and substantial. From Khan grieving the death of his wife to the literal birth of a new planet, the theme is prevalent throughout, impacting characters in various ways, even in Kirk grappling with the end of his tenure as Captain of the Enterprise and reconciling with his estranged son. With Meyer all the while aptly focusing on the camaraderie of Kirk, McCoy and Spock, the story skillfully builds to that emotionally memorable climax that has become a piece of cinematic history. And revisiting the film after countless viewings, the impact of that ending has not waned in the least." "Also, it's funny to think that after launching the first in the so-called "Genesis Arc" trilogy with The Wrath of Khan , Meyer would eventually become responsible for the two best installments of the entire franchise when he returned for The Undiscovered Country nearly ten years later."

For a more in-depth take on the film, check out Josh Zyber's review of the 2009 Blu-ray HERE .

Vital Disc Stats: The Ultra HD Blu-ray Paramount beams Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan back down for a single-title 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray + Blu-ray release. The 4K and Blu-ray discs found in this set are identical to the ones previously issued with the 4-Movie Collection and the new 6-Movie Collection . For this solo release, the discs are housed in a standard black 2-disc case with identical slipcover artwork replicating the classic poster. The discs load to static image main menus with basic navigation options.

Video Review

"The adventure continues on Ultra HD with another excellent HEVC H.265 encode that was also reportedly struck from a fresh remaster of the original elements.

Although the opening scenes during the simulation exercise at first don't appear very promising, the native 4K transfer is nonetheless a welcomed upgrade, showing a visible uptick in overall definition and clarity. The majority of the picture admittedly falls on the softer side, but it's important to keep in mind that it was intentionally shot in soft focus and is inherent to the elements. This creates a slightly smoother appearance in the faces of Enterprise's older crew members. But in the scenes with Khan and his gang of young pirates, detailing is significantly sharper, revealing lifelike textures in the faces and Montalbán's chest while the threading in his crew's tattered clothes is distinct and the individual hairs are discrete. Many of the visual effects and composition shots stand out a bit more, which is to be expected, but they hold up remarkably well. Overall, this is a notable step-up from previous home video editions.

Awash in a very fine layer of natural gain, the Dolby Vision HDR presentation also furnishes the forty-year-old film with a cleaner, livelier contrast balance and brighter whites throughout. It may not look it, at first, considering the filmmaker's deliberately dark, toned-down creative intentions, but the contrast is an improvement. And mixed with the richer, truer black levels and the strong shadow details, the 2.35:1 image comes with an attractive cinematic appeal and appreciable dimensionality, particularly in those scenes with Khan aboard the starship Reliant. Likewise, the cinematography of Gayne Rescher favors a more earthy, natural palette, bathing the visuals in richly-saturated browns, animated ginger-amber tones and deep rust-orange marigolds. Primaries are nonetheless accurately rendered and bolder than its HD SDR counterparts, such as the ruby-burgundy reds of the uniforms and vibrant, electrifying cobalt blues in the starship's computer consoles.

All in all, this is a satisfying upgrade, and the film has never looked better."

(Dolby Vision HDR Video Rating: 82/100)

Audio Review

"As with the first movie, this Dolby TrueHD 7.1 soundtrack is identical to the one on the Blu-ray, which is not a bad thing though an object-based track would have made a welcomed addition.

Faithful to the original stereo design, the front-heavy presentation displays good channel balance with plenty of good background activity, especially during the action sequences to generate a relatively wide, broad soundstage. However, the mid-range isn't particularly dynamic or extensive, feeling more uniform and somewhat limited in the upper ranges, yet it maintains clarity and definition decently well in James Horner's score and during the loudest segments. The same can be said of the dialogue, but the conversations remain intelligible nonetheless. The low-end adds a bit of weight to the visuals but doesn't make much of an impression overall. There's little activity in the surrounds, mostly reserved for some mild bleeding and a few random ambient effects. The receiver's Dolby Surround or DTS: Neural:X up-mixing functionality does well in expanding some of these atmospherics into the top heights with satisfying effectiveness. All in all, it's an enjoyable lossless mix that does great to complement the on-screen visuals."

For a more in-depth take on the audio quality, you can read Josh Zyber's review of the Blu-ray HERE . (Audio Rating: 78/100)

Special Features

Ultra HD Disc

Audio Commentary featuring Nicholas Meyer
Audio Commentary (Theatrical Cut Only) featuring Nicholas Meyer & Manny Coto

Remastered Blu-ray Disc

Text Commentary (Director’s Cut Only) featuring Michael and Denise Okuda
Library Computer Viewing Mode (Theatrical Cut)
The Genesis Effect: Engineering The Wrath of Khan (HD, 28 min)
Production (SD, HD)
Captain’s Log (27 min)
Designing Khan (24 min)
Interviews (11 min) with William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, and Ricardo Montalbán
Where No Man Has Gone Before: The Visual Effects of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (18 min)
James Horner: Composing Genesis (10 min)
The Star Trek Universe (HD, SD)
Collecting Star Trek’s Movie Relics (11 min)
A Novel Approach (29 min)
Starfleet Academy SCISEC Brief 002: Mystery Behind Ceti Alpha VI (3 min)
Farewell: A Tribute to Ricardo Montalbán (HD, 5 min)
Storyboards (HD)
Trailer (HD)

Final Thoughts

Arguably, in the eyes of casual mainstream audiences, director Nicholas Meyer course-corrects the franchise with the sequel Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan while simultaneously satisfying loyal fans of the original television series. Serving as both a sequel to the first movie and a follow-up to the episode "Space Seed," the film is a rousing naval adventure set in space with an emotional climax that remains just as impactful forty years later. The sci-fi classic boldly goes into 4K Ultra HD territory equipped with an attractive Dolby Vision HDR presentation, giving fans a notable upgrade over its Blu-ray counterpart, but it features the same Dolby TrueHD 7.1 soundtrack and pretty much the same set of supplements. Paramount has repackaged these discs previously found with their original 4-Movie Collection set for this single title release as well as the 6-Movie Collection . If you're not into the entire franchise or just want to pick them up individually with that classic poster artwork, this is still an excellent release of Wrath of Khan - Recommended

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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Reviews

Using the contrast between Ricardo Montalban’s fiery Khan and William Shatner’s pasty Captain Kirk as the psychological center, [director Nicholas Meyer] keeps the movie whipping from one incident to another.

Full Review | Sep 19, 2023

The Wrath of Khan does something that movies based on television shows have tried to do, but have often failed to accomplish: the film elevates the material from TV to film with appropriate gravitas.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 5, 2023

Entertaining and charming in its innocent idealism.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Sep 1, 2022

The emotive finale... smartly restates the film’s themes of ageing and mortality, and provides cinema history with the unforgettable, tear-jerking line: “I have been, and always shall be, your friend.”

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jun 17, 2022

The movie that may very well have saved the Trek franchise (40th anniversary)

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Jun 16, 2022

It’s Montalbahn’s physical threat and very real sense of menace that gives Wrath of Khan its propulsive narrative and addictive quality that keeps you coming back time and again.

Full Review | Original Score: 4.5/5 | Mar 21, 2022

The dull thud of Nicholas Mayer's direction, which mixes the custardy platitudes of the original television series with some of the less-thunderous special effects of the latter-day cinema, has everything in place, like a tidy housewife's kitchen.

Full Review | Nov 11, 2021

Fans of the Starship Enterprise will be ecstatic while others will find in this production a certain sluggish pace amid rather fine special effects.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Nov 11, 2021

In the end, it makes for a beautiful summary, an envoi from which one can circle back through the re-runs and consider Star Trek as a finished whole. Even if they never make another, the saga can stand complete.

Full Review | Nov 10, 2021

Star Trek II tells a sock-'em story, which is more than can be said for the first Star Trek movie. Nicholas Meyer, an energetic director, is a master of narrative, and Star Trek II crackles with his wit.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Nov 9, 2021

Bottom line is that they have returned to the things that made the series so successful for so long.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Sep 11, 2021

Both pensive and action-packed.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/4 | Sep 10, 2021

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is the movie that should have been made the first time around.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4 | May 18, 2021

Shatner and Montalban never share the same space, but their face-offs highlight the film, as they both wring every drop of drama out of their lines.

Full Review | Sep 9, 2020

Director Nicholas Meyer plays off the light and the dark of the story against each other with flair and command.

It's TV all the way: The actors race up and down plastic corridors in the same old story about the universe almost coming to an end.

There's a wonderfully playful quality among Shatner, Nimoy and Kelley as the ship's top officers.

Though Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan lacks the grandiose sweep and inflated budget of the first film, it is infinitely richer in characterizations, and its succinctly drawn storyline manages to be both riveting and warmly affecting.

Director Nicholas Meyer has made this Star Trek an intelligent and slam-bang thriller with a Saturday matinee serial air.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a clever, exciting movie that grabs you right from the start by involving you in the conflicts and aspirations of its characters.

Full Review | Original Score: 5/5 | Sep 9, 2020

Den of Geek

Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan retrospective review

Is this the best Star Trek film to date? At least for another week, it might just be...

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Star Trek Part Two: The Enterprise Saves JFK. Or at least that’s what it would’ve been called had the late Gene Rodenberry had his way. Thankfully, Paramount rejected the concept and producer Harve Bennett brought us a film that, for many Trek fans has yet to be bettered – Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan . After the long slow, crawl that was The Motion Picture , some might say, that from a critical sense, Star Trek was lucky to get a sequel. As bad as TMP was, it made money. And money talks, so the inevitable sequel was born.

Serving as a both a warning to the dangers of genetic engineering and follow up to The Original Series episode, Space Seed (and no, that episode wasn’t about GM crops) The Wrath Of Khan (or TWOK as I’ll call it) is a great action packed movie, with some real emotional kick behind it. Opening with an unfamiliar face in the centre seat, the Enterprise is on a mission near the Klingon neutral zone when an emergency signal has the ship trying to rescue a stranded vessel, The Kobayahsi Maru, when it’s suddenly outnumbered and out-gunned by three Klingon warships. The battle is soon over, and with the bridge crew laying either dead or injured, all seems lost.

Thankfully then this isn’t the Enterprise, but Starfleet training simulator. Chekov meanwhile, has transferred to a new Starship, and is looking for a suitable planet to launch the ‘Genesis Device’, a new tool allowing for the rapid colonisation of uninhabitable worlds. While on the planet, Chekov and his captain, find Khan, desperate for vengeance and in a scene that instilled a life-long fear of earwigs in me, soon has control of Chekov, Captain Terrell and their ship.

Kirk is celebrating his birthday, and is starting to feel his age, a somewhat misunderstood gift from Spock further darkening his mood: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. Message, Spock?” McCoy’s visit to the Captain allows DeForest Kelley a chance to shine, and underlines the strength of the Kirk/McCoy friendship. McCoy is his oldest friend and sometimes it takes those closest to you to tell you what you already knew.

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The Enterprise launches with little more than a ‘boat full of children’ as Kirk puts it, on a routine training cruise, when he receives a call from an old flame, Dr Carol Marcus, asking why he gave the order to take Genesis. The message is cut off, and in rushing to his friends’ aid, he’s thrown straight into a vicious battle with a waiting Khan.

For the first time I can recall in Star Trek , our favourite captain (Kirk /Picard/ Sisko / Janeway /Archer debate aside) is caught out, and Khan gets the upper hand, the Enterprise is badly damaged, limping to space station Regula I, only to find it deserted.

Kirk, Saavik and McCoy find Dr Marcus and her team safe and well inside Regula, where we learn just how powerful the Genesis device is, and that Kirk has a son. Khan’s at it again though, and has used Kirk to lead him to Genesis, and now finally has the chance to kill the great man, except Terrell and Chekov can’t do it, and Terrell takes his own life, and Khan steals Genesis.

One of the key themes in the film is Kirk’s refusal to believe in the no-win scenario, and when he explains his solution to the Kobayahsi Maru to Saavik, it reinforces Kirk as a hero, as a man who will not allow himself to be beaten. Returning to the Enterprise the crew have precious little time to repair their wounded vessel as the film nears its climactic battle, as Reliant and Enterprise face off in the Mutara Nebula.

The ships look fantastic in the eerie purples and blues of the nebula, creating a heightened sense of tension, aping the submarine combat of the likes of Das Boot , and further emphasising the nautical feel of the picture, all brilliantly punctuated by James Horner’s excellent score.

Kirk, ever the master tactician, has Khan on the ropes, and like Kirk, he too refuses to be beaten. Knowing the Enterprise is near crippled, Khan sets the Genesis device to detonate in a last effort to avenge himself against Kirk and his crew. For the first time in his illustrious career, the captain of the Enterprise finally finds himself in the no-win scenario. In the heat of the battle, no-one notices Spock leave the bridge, and once in Engineering, sacrifices himself. Restarting the ships engines he saves the ship and his friends (good job they didn’t hit a wormhole like in The Motion Picture, huh? That would’ve been embarrassing) and Kirk finally has to face death.

From the ashes of the death of one of his closest friends, Kirk is reborn, and sees that his life is far from over, and despite the death of one of the series most famous characters, the film ends on a high, with what Star Trek is all about: hope and optimism for the future.

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So what is it that makes TWOK such a stand out entry in the franchise? Well, for one, it’s the performances delivered by the three main leads. Within the first ten minutes of the film we have everything that makes Star Trek great, namely the three central characters being brought right to the fore. The scene with Kirk and McCoy on Kirk’s birthday is superb. Kirk is struggling to deal with the fact that his youth is behind him, and he is no longer in command of his beloved USS Enterprise, with the pride of Starfleet being reduced to little more than a training vessel. Kirk feels old, and that like his ship, his best years are behind him.

McCoy, as always, is the voice of Kirk’s passion and emotions, and tells the Captain what he already knew: get back the ship. The actors are given some great scenes to work with, and director Nicholas Meyer gets a subtle, thoughtful performance from Shatner and it works brilliantly.

Without a doubt, the quality of TWOK speaks for itself, despite Meyer having never seen an episode of the original series, he and producer Harve Bennet had a much better feel for the source material. Meyer always described Kirk as Hornblower in space, and he’s right. These starships are the naval ships of the 18th and 19th century, transposed through time and space to the 23rd century. This was a theme Meyer explored further in his second Trek feature film, The Undiscovered Country (which was this film’s original title).

The small details in this film really make all the difference: Kirk being piped aboard the Enterprise, the crew inspection, all the little details missing from TMP . TWOK fleshes out the Trek universe into a living, breathing world. The interaction between Kirk, Spock and McCoy is first rate, these are the characters we loved on TV, they’re right at the heart of the story, as they should be, and not at the expense of the still excellent special effects.

Add in a very strong storyline with a broad appeal, tackling very human motivations, such as Khan seeking revenge, the idea of growing old and dealing with death, rather than the typical Trek /sci-fi fare of time travel, aliens, robots etc. and you’ve got the perfect recipe for success.

If you’ve not seen it, I can recommend it whole heartedly, a cracking piece of action cinema, with a truly great performance from William Shatner, pitched against a classic bad guy in the late Ricardo Montalban. What more could you want from a movie, eh? My only regret is having never seen it on the big screen!

Adam Sloman

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (United States, 1982)

In the wake of the somnambulant Star Trek: The Motion Picture , the fledgling Star Trek movie series was in need of some zest, which is exactly what The Wrath of Khan provided. While retaining the thematic elements of the late-'60s TV series and utilizing the much-loved original USS Enterprise crew, Star Trek II added hefty doses of action, adventure, and suspense, injecting life into a concept that had been left moribund by its first big-screen feature. To date, this is the best Star Trek movie, and, arguably, the strongest any motion picture version of the franchise could hope to be.

Gone are the pastels and clinical whites of The Motion Picture , replaced by a more pleasing burgundy uniform. The ship also seems smaller and homier than three years ago, although there's a definite warlike aspect to its comforts (witness the detail shown as the Enterprise prepares for the film's climactic battle). The characters also seem more relaxed here, and the three-pronged friendship/rivalry between Admiral Kirk (William Shatner), Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and McCoy (DeForest Kelley) harkens back to the best moments of the series. Director Nicholas Meyer ( Time after Time ), in conjunction with writers Harve Bennett and Jack B. Sowards, has taken pains to resurrect the humanity of Star Trek .

The film is a sequel to a first season episode of the series ("Space Seed"). Here, the evil genius Khan (Ricardo Montalban, in a deliciously over-the-top performance) and his followers have escaped from the barren planet where then-Captain Kirk stranded them some fifteen years ago. Khan, once a brilliant, charismatic leader, has become an embittered maniac, dedicated only to revenge. He blames Kirk for the death of his wife and the waste of his own life, and intends to extract payment -- in blood. After hijacking a Federation starship, Khan steals Genesis, a potential doomsday weapon created by Kirk's son, David (Merritt Butrick), and ex-lover, Carol (Bibi Besch), and lures the Enterprise into a carefully-orchestrated trap.

The Star Trek regulars do what's expected of them. William Shatner, not generally regarded as a top-flight actor, fits comfortably into this role, mixing heroic arrogance with surprising vulnerability. Of the seven Star Trek features in which he has appeared, Shatner does his best work here. Leonard Nimoy, as usual, plays Spock with a touch of sardonic wit, and DeForest Kelley proves to be his perfect, illogical foil. Familiar faces James Doohan (Scotty), Walter Koenig (Chekov), George Takei (Sulu), and Nichelle Nichols (Uhura) are all on hand, although only Koenig has more than a few token scenes.

In addition to bringing back Montalban's scenery-chewing Khan (this is a fun performance to watch, principally because it's so campy), Star Trek II introduces three significant new characters. The first is Saavik (played by soon-to-be Cheers regular, Kirstie Alley), the sexy, half-Vulcan protege of Mr. Spock. Then there are a couple of figures out of Kirk's past -- a son and an ex-lover. However, while Alley steals scenes as Saavik, both Bibi Besch and Merritt Butrick are flat and unappealing, causing the entire "Kirk's family" subplot to flounder. Fortunately, it's afforded only token screen time.

The Wrath of Khan is a top-notch, fast-paced adventure that can be enjoyed equally by fans of the series and those who have never seen an episode. There are several tense, well-executed battle sequences that feature impressive special effects and a soaring score by James Horner. The ending, which I won't reveal (although everyone probably knows it by now) is tender and poignant -- proof that Star Trek can still touch the heart. The Wrath of Khan shows the potential inherent in the Star Trek concept as applied to the big screen. It's unfortunate that none of the other films in this long-running series have come close to the level achieved by this marvelous example of entertainment.

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Star Wars IV: A New Hope (1977)
Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977)
Aliens (1986)
Plan 9 from Outer Space (1959)
Moonfall (2022)
Skyline (2010)
Star Trek III: The Search for Spock (1984)
Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986)
Over the Hedge (2006)
Miss Congeniality 2 (2005)
Miss Congeniality (2000)
Star Trek V: The Final Frontier (1989)
Atlantis (2001)
Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)
Star Trek: The Motion Picture (Director's Cut) (2001)

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)

One of the strongest and most popular entries in the Star Trek film franchise, The Wrath of Khan has everything you could ask for in a good sci‑fi action-adventure film: sympathetic, well-drawn heroes, a terrific villain (Ricardo Montalban as Khan), exciting outer-space showdowns, sci‑fi wow factor (the Genesis effect), and a touch of reflective depth (the Enterprise crew finally faces up to age and mortality, and questions about the wisdom and consequences of playing God are hinted at).

Artistic/Entertainment Value

Moral/spiritual value, age appropriateness, mpaa rating, caveat spectator.

The plot picks up on a scenario from an episode of the TV series, which involved a group of bioengineered superhumans whom Kirk (William Shatner) marooned on an uninhabited planet. The legacy of Kirk’s life surfaces in other ways as well, as Kirk revisits an old flame (Bebe Besch) and makes a discovery both surprising and perhaps ultimately inevitable.

The familiar trio of Kirk, Spock (Leonard Nimoy), and Bones (DeForest Kelley) have an easy camaraderie that’s become seasoned with time. Remarkably, the climax retains its power, in spite of what fans know about how things turn out in subsequent films. Escapist entertainment doesn’t get much better than this.

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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan 4K UHD Review

September 6, 2021

Star Trek’s first film lavished praise on and swooned over what humanity built with Starfleet. It was a progressive, endearing “what if” that assumed civilization could one day build a centralized force for good. Star Trek II shreds those ideals.

Inevitably, Starfleet will make controversial decisions. People will separate from this galactic monolith for the usual pitfalls, whether politics or bureaucracy. Kirk (William Shatner) isn’t only dealing with the direct assault of a space-faring threat in this sequel, but an attempt to bury and suppress past mistakes.

Star Trek II’s stellar tug-of-war on values and purpose is effectively flawless

There’s additional nuance too, as Kahn (Ricardo Montalban) sees himself as a religious deity, whose purpose is to eradicate Kirk. Where most universes war over weapons that destroy life, Star Trek II considers a technology which can create entire ecosystems; Kahn is its human-esque manifestation.

Often Star Trek populates its adventures with obvious villains, as in the visually evil, if not cultural. The Genesis project, which can bring life to dead planets, isn’t a cruel entity. Like Starfleet, the purpose is sound; its potential use is not. Science fiction often explored similar concepts, such as weather machines that can allow plant life to grow in deserts to end starvation. Those ideas lead to corruption, sometimes equivalent to nuclear bombs, even if the core idea promises to do right.

Star Trek II then surrounds itself with a looming moral catastrophe, one of logic and the greater good, centered on Kirk and Spock’s (Leonard Nimoy) bond. It’s not as if Star Trek II delivers on the sci-fi elements, rather than it so intelligently embeds them among the key characters. Kirk’s steady command and willing heroism is always in consideration of his crew – by the book. Spock’s choices rely on the same, minus the needs of his own self.

It’s a perfect antithesis to Kahn, who cares little for others, and will use a life-creating machine to simultaneously end others. Spock reprimands Saavik (Kirstie Alley) as she can’t comprehend the human ego. That line defines much of Star Trek II’s action as Kahn believes he’s superior, and Kirk never thinks of a plan that puts himself amid a deadly radiation leak. Only Spock can, because Vulcans don’t suffer from ego or see themselves as important to the wider universe. Star Trek II’s stellar tug-of-war on values and purpose is effectively flawless because as the Starfleet test suggests, there is no solution.

A new 4K master raises suspicions. Worries surround the grain structure, which looks curiously artificial. Or, possibly filtered. It’s easy to see smearing as characters move, and minor glossiness on close-ups indicate a mild noise reduction. It’s faint, but apparent.

Those qualms aside, Star Trek II shows substantial gains from the Blu-ray. Fidelity boosts pick up texture on uniforms. Close-ups deliver fine detail. Encoding suffers a touch when trying to resolve haze or the sandstorm on an alien planet, but it’s otherwise capable in allowing definition through. The resolution boost can’t be denied.

Dolby Vision adds its own spark, black levels awesome, and stars piercing space’s void. It’s not an overly vibrant or unnatural, careful to preserve the film stock’s organic quality. A slight crush in spots barely matters, a small trade off for the exquisite dimensionality gained elsewhere. Color density gives Starfleet uniforms a brilliant, deep red. Primaries glow alongside the natural flesh tones.

While not the most intense in range, Star Trek II’s TrueHD 7.1 mix finds some bass worth celebrating. Explosions rumble a bit, as do ship engines. In that regard, the mix doesn’t sound like something from the 1980s. Only the dialog gives it away, since the score’s masterful treble doesn’t strain itself at all.

Extra rears drive heavy ambient winds around the soundstage. Ships pass by smoothly and naturally. Small touches like a crowd of trainees leaving a meeting and shuffling their feet into the stereos give the track small touches that bring it life.

Director Nicholas Meyer and Manny Cotto provide the commentary, on both the theatrical and director’s cuts. The Blu-ray and 4K offer the same tracks, while the Blu-ray carries the additional extras, beginning with a pop-up feature on the theatrical cut. A making-of lasts 28-minutes. A five-part menu includes interviews, effects featurettes, and a piece on James Horner’s score, among others. Bits on Star Trek II’s legacy, including one that details props, are excellent. Ricardo Montalban earns a deserving tribute that lasts nearly five minutes. Storyboards and a trailer finish things.

Full disclosure : This Blu-ray was provided to us for review. This has not affected the editorial process. For information on how we handle review material, please visit our about us page to learn more.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

A powerful and morally complex sequel, Star Trek II is the epitome of the franchise as it delves into religious and life-affirming challenges.

User Review

The following six screen shots serve as samples for our subscription-exclusive set of 57 full resolution uncompressed 4K screen shots grabbed directly from the UHD:

Matt Paprocki

Matt Paprocki has critiqued home media and video games for 20 years across outlets like Washington Post, Variety, Rolling Stone, Forbes, IGN, Playboy, Polygon, Ars, and others. His current passion project is the technically minded DoBlu.com . You can read Matt's body of work via his personal WordPress blog, and follow him on Twitter @Matt_Paprocki .

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[REVIEW] Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – The Director’s Cut on Blu-ray

Thirty-four years after the film originally hit theaters, a director’s cut of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan has been re-released and is available for the first time in high definition on Blu-ray.

Originally issued on DVD in 2002 and seen during the its original TV broadcast on ABC, the director’s cut of the film runs 116-minutes, as opposed to the 112-minutes of the original theatrical version.

STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN - The Director's Cut

After popping the Blu-ray disc into your player, you’ll be greeted with an all-new menu that features the Enterprise flying past purple and blue nebula along with clusters of stars, as you hear (yes, hear in space) the crash of solar storms. The ambient hum of the Enterprise combined with the visuals in this menu would make for a killer screen saver.

Hitting play will prompt you to choose between the original theatrical version and Nicholas Meyer’s director’s cut.

Following the PG rating screen and the old Paramount title card, you hear the familiar sound of James Horner’s “Main Theme” for what many argue to be the greatest Star Trek film of all-time.

As the music unfolds, I can’t help but smile as I’m immersed in the sights and sounds of nostalgia, familiarity and what I can only describe as a warm embrace from an old friend.

Here. We. Go.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan appears on the screen in electric blue, followed by the names of William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan, Walter Koenig, George Takie, Nichelle Nichols, Bibi Besch, Merritt Butrick, Paul Winfield and Kirstie Alley.

Wait for it…

…And starring Ricardo Montalban as KHAN(!)

One thing fans who purchased the original Blu-ray version, as part of the Star Trek: The Original Motion Picture Collection box set, will notice is the removal of the strange blue tint that version of the film had — making for a much more realistic and warmer tone throughout the entire film.

Unless you’re a hardcore fan, you won’t notice many world-changing differences as the director’s cut doesn’t vary too far from the original theatrical version. We’re not talking Bladerunner -level changes here. The story and pacing plays largely the same. Some scenes are slightly extended and flesh out some memorable character moments but let’s be honest even a few extra on-screen moments with these characters should be cherished.

In regards to extras, the only new material you’ll find is a nearly 30-minute documentary featurette titled The Genesis Effect: Engineering The Wrath of Khan . While it may be the only new feature, there’s tons of great information and interviews with director Nicholas Meyer, producer Robert Saalin, Mark Altman, Ralph Winter, Larry Nemecek, John & Bjo Trimble, Adam Nimoy, Susan Sackett and many more.

Other previously released extras include audio commentaries by director Nicholas Meyer for both the director’s edition and theatrical version, a commentary by Meyer and Manny Coto on the theatrical version, text commentary by Michael and Denise Okuda on the director’s edition, Library Computer (Theatrical Version), featurettes: Captain’s Log, Designing Khan, along with interviews with DeForest Kelley, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and Ricardo Montalban, plus Where No Man Has Gone Before: The Visual Effects of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , James Horner: Composing Genesis, Collecting Star Trek’s Movie Relics, A Novel Approach, Starfleet Academy: The Mystery Behind Ceti Alpha VI, A Tribute to Ricardo Montalban, storyboards and the theatrical trailer.

If you’re reading this and questioning whether you should buy it or not and asking if having another version of the film in your library is necessary — the answer is a resounding yes! The movie itself looks stunning, sounds fantastic in 7.1 Dolby TrueHD, includes both versions of a classic film, plus, it has some pretty kick ass packaging with art by Tyler Stout (originally for a Mondo poster release). The Wrath of Khan has never looked better.

Will this be the last version of The Wrath of Khan you’ll ever buy? Probably not. A film as popular as this and one that’s so highly regarded will almost surely see a 4K Ultra HD release someday — but for now, this is the best you’ll find and hey, it’s pretty damn great.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan – The Director’s Cut on Blu-ray hits stores on Tuesday, June 7 and now available to pre-order on Amazon .

Founded TrekNews.net in 2011. UX, visual designer, and published photographer based in the Boston area. Connoisseur of Star Trek, sci-fi, '80s horror, synthwave sounds, and tacos. You can follow Brian on Twitter @brianwilkins .

June 6, 2016 at 8:32 pm

Outstanding! Can’t wait for my copy to show up!

Andrew Long

June 7, 2016 at 1:06 pm

I have the older bluray which i am guessing is 5.1 Dolby digital. Is the new Dolby TrueHD version really a reason to upgrade? My theater is Dolby Atmos but wondering if this will sound any better for this movie release.

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Review: William Shatner Live With ‘Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan’ Is A Night You Will Remember

| May 25, 2018 | By: Larry Siegel 37 comments so far

Last week William Shatner wrapped up the first leg of five cities for his live tour of screenings and Q&As with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The tour picks up again next month, with stops around the country. TrekMovie was at the stop last week in Philadelphia to see what the experience was like.

Shatner’s stop in Philadelphia was held at the historic and elegant Academy of Music – with a huge screen set back on the stage between two huge pillars of sound. Below the screen were two empty chairs bookending a small table resting atop a homey rug.

Prior to the movie’s start, the screen ran a series of facts and trivia slides about Star Trek II and Shatner himself, with most on the easy side for fans, but some impossibly challenging like “How many times has The Twilight Zone episode “Nightmare at 20,000 Feet” been referenced in popular culture? (Answer 17 times, who could possibly know that?).

Do you know your Shatner trivia (Photo: Ray Lauff)

As for the film itself, what else can be said about the greatness of Wrath of Khan ? Yet the experience of seeing it again on the big screen with a crowd full of fans whooping it up upon the delivery of each now-classic line of dialog, brought chills. I was lost in the storytelling and effects that have held up remarkably well. But then, once in a while I remembered with a sudden thrill, “we’re going to see Shatner, in person, in just a few minutes!”

Before you knew it, Spock’s ghostly reading of the mission statement faded in the theater, the credits began to roll and applause filled the room. The screening faded quickly as the credits rolled with Shatner introduced and taking to the stage with his first of several standing ovations for the night. After some quick banter with the moderator, Shatner set the relaxed tone for the event by telling everyone to call him Bill.

The moderator asked a series of prepared general questions, as well as some submitted earlier by attendees. Bill gave long, entertaining, at times wandering answers – but always came back to the question and always with a point or a joke. For listening to a man in his 88th year, you can forgive a lot of memory lapses and meandering, but with William Shatner, there was no need. He is sharp, funny, insightful and a born entertainer and raconteur.

William Shatner at the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, PA.

There were no big new insights offered by Shatner, especially for longtime fans, but one particular tale from behind the scenes brought down the house. It was a story of pranking DeForest Kelly at craft services by having Leonard Nimoy distract him while waiting for his bagel to be toasted so Bill could pop it, steal it, and press the toaster down so that DeForest would turn back and watch the toaster pop up empty — reinforcing Dee’s earlier concern he confided in Bill that he was forgetting things. After the second time he looked at Bill, saw his mouth stuffed with his bagel, and shouted “SHATNER!”

While some of the stories may be familiar, there is a special quality to seeing Shatner live, as he has a charm and wit that you can’t get from reading a book or interview. And while he may be known for having an ego, Shatner knows how to use self-deprecating humor well. His funniest line of the night may have been the answer to the question “Do you wear boxers or briefs?” Answer (after a long pause): “Depends.”

And it isn’t all Star Trek stories and jokes, as Bill is also happy to share wisdom from his life and experiences. Perhaps giving a preview of his upcoming memoir/advice book Live Long And ..: What I Might Have Learned Along the Way , Bill offered the simple, yet profound tip “The secret is to say yes, to life.” Bill also showed how much of a pro he is by deftly handling an overeager fan in the front row who was bordering on heckling. Overall, it was a room filled with love.

What a wonderful experience! As Sulu says in Star Trek VI , “Nice to see you in action one more time, Captain Kirk.” Based on the long list of William Shatner’s projects in the works, I strongly doubt this was one last time. Seeing the William Shatner live tour with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is highly recommended.

Tour starts up again in June

Shatner will return to the road for his tour in late-June, with four stops starting in Denver on June 21st. There will be a stop in North Carolina in July and then a break until the tour begins again in September with stops in the Midwest.

For a list of stops and links to buy tickets, visit williamshatnertour.com . You can also keep up on news and get info on pre-sales and discounts at williamshatnerfanclub.com .

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Aw man, I was going to go to this but dropped the ball. And what a great venue that is. At 88, Mr. Shatner is a true inspiration, and his Kirk was a Giant role model for me growing up in a broken home years ago. Such a good influence.

Second star to the right, and straight on til’ morning…

He is the man!

Meh. Kirk as character is indeed a great role model. But Shatner himself has always come off as too egotistical (in my opinion).

Re: too egotistical

Perhaps, in the beginning, but his willingness to poke fun at himself seems to have leavened it somewhat. At least, I don’t recall him ever flagrantly campaigning for a Nobel prize.

And, whatever his motivations, his grabbing a firehose during TWOK sets raging fire takes a certain amount of guts few can muster. Not to mention his constantly getting on planes despite his phobia of flying.

And then there’s all the money he’s raised for charities.

People have done worse in picking role models.

Agree 100% with you on this one.

If you have thousands of people telling you how great you are all the time it’s hard not to be a little egotistical. Fame is not always a good thing.

Got my tickets for Thousand Oaks – can’t wait!

You’ll love it. He’s as entertaining as ever.

Crossing my fingers he’s taking this to the Bay Area at some point…

Would be nice to see him in action one last time. 2 movies being planned plus Discovery. He is 88 do it now!!

Just enjoy him and go see him at this event…let the past be the past and move on.

I hear you Borg. He is great at conventions and venues like this. Still gets stale after awhile. Since he is willing i dont think a Shatner appearance would hurt in a movie or an episode of Discovery. Everyone is going to nitpick anyway

Please come to Florida.

Have to admire Shatner for always having a project on the go.

I wish I could have seen him in Baltimore but my work schedule just wouldn’t allow it.

For anyone who is planning to attend a future event, please ask Shatner why he didn’t hock some of his Star Trek V salary to properly finish the movie when Paramount refused to give him the budget he needed. And, if he got what he wanted in terms of time and money, how would V been different? The often given answer about Paramount owning Star Trek might be true, but serious filmmakers have put up their own money, or waived their salaries.. think Coppola..think Cameron and Titanic. I can’t imagine with today’s CGI, that he could revisit V the way he wanted to..and do it soon before its too late.. :)

In Shatner’s book about the Star Trek movies he goes into depth about the budget problems that they had with Star Trek 5, especially for the conclusion. He wanted an attack of multiple rock creatures, but only had the budget for one. The one rock creature didn’t function properly, and likely any funds Shatner would have kicked in from his salary would not have fixed that.

Perhaps it’s best you were not able to attend the Baltimore event so you didn’t embarrass Shatner in person with this question?

He’s 88 years old. Let it go, man.

Shatner was not a career director (he only had 10 episodes of TJ Hooker under his belt when he was given STV). Star Trek is not a serious movie franchise either and has always had bad effects.

Honestly, I’m pretty thankful that he didn’t contribute anything. It would have just funded more awful. The real problem with the movie was the script. No amount of money (or fighting rock monsters) would have fixed that.

Leave the poor guy alone. He knows it sucks and he can’t change it now 30 odd years later (I believe he gives STV as his answer to favourite movie for the reason that he learnt a lot from it).

Re: a career director

Neither were Meyer nor Nimoy when each directed their first Trek flick.

Re: can’t change it now

I don’t know, if Wise completed his at the age of 87 and Meyer’s in the editing room, yet again, for the 4k UHD edition of his, then it is still not outside the realm of possibilities.

The question was meant not to put the man down. Its a matter of cinema history that directors have put their own money on projects they believed in.

If I wanted to put the man down, I would have asked him the question of where is the blooper shot of his toupee blown away by winds when filming a desert scene on V. Rumor has it he had those crew membered fired who did laugh. I wonder how much it cost toupee another one.

Yea, you really sound like a great Shatner fan, Joe

“Star Trek is not a serious movie franchise either and has always had bad effects.”

That’s not at all true. ILM did Wrath of Khan and Search for Spock while they were at their peak. The Genesis Demo for Wrath of Khan was state of the art at the time. There’s nothing wrong with the effects for The Motion Picture, either. That movie was let down by poor acting and terrible pacing, not special effects.

I meant in the TV show. When people think of Star Trek they think of ships on strings and papermâché rocks.

Re: ships on strings

If they are thinking of that then they definitely are NOT thinking of STAR TREK. About the only time I recall anything in the area of “strings” would be the use of wires in the shuttlecraft landing and takeoff sequences in the bay.

“When people think of Star Trek they think of ships on strings and papermâché rocks.”

No… That is what folks might think of when they think of the old Flash Gordon serials. Certainly not Star Trek.

“Star Trek is not a serious movie franchise either and has always had bad effects. ”

100% false. The effects in the features were quite good. (Save for TFF). And the TOS effects were pretty state of the art for their time. Even the spin off shows effects weren’t “bad”. Some could have been better but I don’t recall ever groaning at the SPFX work.

@JoeTrekFan — the one thing I can’t see Shatner doing is putting up his own money to fix TFF.

Shatner asked Paramount more than once for funds to fix STV. Both times they declined immediately Paramount are not interested in ever revisiting despite a fan edition with new VFX being shown to them (via Shatner) as what could be possible with a small budget. Only way it ever gets fixed is a dedicated group of fans do it in their spare time & make it an anonymous Public Domain release…

@Paul — given all the wealth fans have given Shatner, I can’t really see anything happening with it unless Shatner is willing to put some of his own money into it, even if he lets someone organize a crowd-funded budget to add to it. If he’s not passionate enough to see it finished the way he envisioned it, then why should anyone else be?

But here’s the real issue — did they actually shoot the fight sequences? If the shots of Shatner don’t exist to cut into the new CGI, then it’s really moot for me. As others have pointed out, a rock monster fight will not save that movie, and if anything the GQ parody will only work in reverse here given that it came before the proposed updated TFF, despite being inspired by the absence of it in TFF. Having a CGI Shatner will only add to the hilarity and sadness of it.

Perhaps one day well into the future when technology on a fan’s laptop will allow the perfect realistic recreation of the scenes per Shatner’s official authorized storyboards.

When I was a kid, I wanted to be Captain Kirk. Now that I am past 50, I just want to live like William Shatner.

I really hope William Shatner can be in the new Star Trek film, whether that’s the stupid JJ-nonsense or the Tarinto project. Seeing Kirk die in Generations, though powerful and poetic was something that still makes me sad and I’d much prefer thinking of him living on as an old man on a ranch, maybe with a pretty wife by his side. I wonder if they could work something with the Nexus… that said, the JJ-verse films are in an alternative timeline that may not have a Nexus, and that said, it’s unlikely they would feature something from an older Trek film as studios are so obsessed with simplifying things and appealing to the lowest common denominator and as evidenced by Discovery or Disregardery as I call it, producers are obsessed with change for changes sake and reinventing the wheel. We like to think of our heros as living forever, it’s silly to kill off a Kirk or even a Data – cheap effect to the detriment of a franchise. Spock’s guidance in the first two JJ films and the photo scene in Beyond were the ONLY stand-out moments for me. Having Shatner being Kirk, not a cameo playing another character, would be a nice bookend to Nimoy’s appearances, things coming full circle. I don’t think they care about the fans that much. I don’t think they would want to do fan service in the way the new Disney Star Wars films do. The Force Awakens and The Last Jedi are a great example of giving fans what they want, preserving visual continuity and still being sexy and cool. Star Trek has become junk. It means nothing and that eats me up, as I am a proud Trekkie but these are not times to be particularly proud of. I am a gay man, with a staunch muslim mother, in his 30s. I keep mentioning that in my posts to prove I have no conservative agenda and if anything lean towards the left. BUT you can’t say anything negative about ‘new Trek’ without being labelled sexist, homophobic or worse. I am all for diversity and all the recent social zeitgeist going on at the moment – but while the new creators of Trek are busy preaching and patting themselves on the back, can they also remember Star Trek is about adventure and exploration too. While Shatner’s still alive, regardless if he’s a huge egotist and a bit hammy, let him shine as Kirk again, I bet fans and the mainstram audience will lap it up. Bam bam flash flash lens flare explosion… another lens flare another shakey camera shot. Just stop smelling your own farts and give us our Trek back.

Alright gotta hand it to Bill that depends comment was perfect. In general though his personality doesn’t impress me very much. I’ve seen him twice on stage and both times his presence was overbearing, even when it was just him! It’s pretty clear to me how people find him difficult to work with. But I still would like the chance to meet the man and make my own call one way or another while he’s still willing to go on tour for this sorta thing. Maybe for the 40th anniversary of TWOK? He’ll be around at 92 I’m sure.

I saw the one man show with Shat a few years ago and it was great! Wish this was coming to my city

just give him a role in new Star Trek Movie!

Wish he’d consider a visit to Marquette Michigan. Could easily be held at one of the lecture

halls on campus = NMU or even at the Yooper Dome though having it there would be cost

prohibitive. Let’s see what’s out there…..✨ 🌎 ⚡️

240 episodes

Podcast… the final frontier! "Star Trek: The Next Generation" devotee and authority Matt Mira leads Next Gen skeptic Andrew Secunda into the deepest reaches of the series episode by episode. Listen as they discuss, debate, and enjoy all the legendary show's strengths, failings, and innovations. Email us! [email protected] Twitter/X/TikTok/Youtube: @StarTrekTNC Web: startrektnc.com Patreon: www.patreon.com/startrektnc

Star Trek The Next Conversation - a semi funny trashfire of a Star Trek podcast currently about TV's Deep Space Nine DS9 (or Matt Mira and Andrew Secunda

TV & Film
4.8 • 1.9K Ratings
APR 27, 2024

DS9 s2e24 “The Collaborator”

Is this episode a nuanced tale of political intrigue or b-b-b-boring? Or both? Andy sings the praises of Louise Fletcher’s villain who makes Nurse Ratched seem palatable, the boys debate Vedek Bareil’s pecs. [Episode discussion begins around 50:00ish] Premium bonus content, including Star Trek: Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery, Strange New Worlds, and Marvel movies (MCU) discussions, on our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/startrektnc

1 hr 52 min
APR 19, 2024

DS9 s2e23 “Crossover” - a semi funny Star Trek podcast currently about TV's Deep Space Nine

It's a trip back to Mirror Town, and one of our hosts loves it and one hates it! But will they be replaced by a reverse version of themselves by the end? Also: what does it take to kill a goo man? [Episode discussion begins 1:05ish]

2 hr 35 min
MAR 19, 2024

DS9 s2e22 “The Wire”

A tour de force from recurring character Garak in bizarrely play-like long scenes hooks Andy and Matt, as Mr. Fasc-tastic (Mr. Fascistastic? Mr. Fascistic?) Odo checks the cameras he's hidden all around DS9. [Episode discussion begins around 58:00, takes a Letterman detour, then actually begins at 1:06ish]

2 hr 12 min
MAR 4, 2024

DS9 s2e21 “The Maquis, Part II”

The second part of this Maquis de Sade-centric two-parter, one of the few Treks to follow the possible Best of Both Worlds/Godfather II template of 2 being better than 1. To Andy's shock, Odo show the Mr. Fantastic powers he always assumed he was hiding, and Dukat starts to live up to his (future) legend. [Episode discussion begins around 1:00ish]

1 hr 59 min
FEB 26, 2024

DS9 s2e20 “The Maquis, Part I”

Is Bernie Casey a badmiral or a badactor? Or neither? And Dax is dating a Ferengi offscreen - is it Quark, who we are led to believe is making a turn from creep to charmer? Meanwhile, Matt has HAD it with the Maquis. Even though this is their first episode. [Episode discussion start 1:08ish]

2 hr 17 min
FEB 2, 2024

DS9 s2e19 “Blood Oath”

Jadzia gets tangled in a Klingon plot with bat'leths and convos about honor galore and Andy loves it! Matt, predictably, feels otherwise. Also predictably: Trill Talk!™ [Episode discussion begins around 1:15ish]

2 hr 16 min

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These guys are always hilarious. They give you want you want and so much more. If you have the time, they will kill it. Be kind and be well

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I can’t believe I’m only finding this podcast now. I watched TNG when it was on network TV and I’ve been fondly revisiting the series. Your podcast brings me so much joy. I’m all the way back in season 2 and find myself laughing frequently on the ridiculous banter and the jokes. When I used to watch the show with my Dad, we would riff on the show and hearing you do this on every episode makes me remember him fondly. I see that you’ve gotten into Deep Space 9 now and I look forward to making it to that point. Keep up the good work!

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I just started listening starting with your oldest episode. It feels like going back in time. I’m still in TNG season 1. You two are great. I’m glad I have something to listen to each day on my way home from work. I’m glad eight years later you two are still at. Thanks again.

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Picture This

George takei 'lost freedom' some 80 years ago – now he's written that story for kids.

Samantha Balaban

My Lost Freedom, written by George Takei and illustrated by Michelle Lee

George Takei was just 4 years old when when President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066:

"I hereby authorize and direct the Secretary of War, and the Military Commanders... to prescribe military areas in such places and of such extent as he or the appropriate Military Commander may determine, from which any or all persons may be excluded..."

It was Feb. 19, 1942. Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor two months earlier; For looking like the enemy, Japanese and Japanese American people in the U.S. were now considered "enemy combatants" and the executive order authorized the government to forcibly remove approximately 125,000 people from their homes and relocate them to prison camps around the country.

Book Reviews

George takei recalls time in an american internment camp in 'they called us enemy'.

Star Trek actor George Takei has written about this time in his life before — once in an autobiography, then in a graphic memoir, and now in his new children's book, My Lost Freedom.

It's about the years he and his mom, dad, brother and baby sister spent in a string of prison camps: swampy Camp Rohwer in Arkansas, desolate Tule Lake in northern California. But first, they were taken from their home, driven to the Santa Anita racetrack and forced to live in horse stalls while the camps were being built.

"The horse stalls were pungent," Takei remembers, "overwhelming with the stench of horse manure. The air was full of flies, buzzing. My mother, I remember, kept mumbling 'So humiliating. So humiliating.'"

He says, "Michelle's drawing really captured the degradation our family was reduced to."

Michelle is Michelle Lee, the illustrator — and researcher — for the book. Lee relied heavily on Takei's text and his excellent memory, but it was the research that both agree really brought the art to life.

"I'm telling it from the perspective of a senior citizen," Takei, 87, laughs. "I really had to wring my brains to try to remember some of the details."

So Takei took Lee to the Japanese American National Museum in Los Angeles, where he is a member of the board. They had lunch in Little Tokyo, got to know each other, met with the educational director, and looked at the exhibits. Then Lee started digging into the archives.

Movie Interviews

From 'star trek' to lgbt spokesman, what it takes 'to be takei'.

"I looked for primary sources that showed what life was like because I feel like that humanizes it a lot more," Lee explains. She found some color photographs taken by Bill Manbo, who had smuggled his camera into the internment camp at Heart Mountain in Wyoming. "While I was painting the book, I tried as much to depict George and his family just going about their lives under these really difficult circumstances."

Takei says he was impressed with how Lee managed to capture his parents: his father, the reluctant leader and his mother, a fashion icon in her hats and furs. "This has been the first time that I've had to depict real people," Lee adds.

To get a feel for 1940s fashion, Lee says she looked at old Sears catalogues. "What are people wearing? All the men are wearing suits. What kind of colors were clothes back then."

But a lot of information has also been lost — Lee wasn't able to see, for example, where Takei and his family lived in Arkansas because the barracks at Camp Rohwer have been torn down — there's a museum there now. "I didn't actually come across too many photos of the interior of the barracks," says Lee. "The ones I did come across were very staged."

She did, however, find the original floor plans for the barracks at Jerome Camp, also in Arkansas. "I actually printed the floorplan out and then built up a little model just to see what the space was actually like," Lee says. "I think it just emphasized how small of a space this is that whole families were crammed into."

One illustration in the book shows the work that Takei's mother put in to make that barrack — no more than tar paper and boards stuck together — a home.

"She gathered rags and tore them up into strips and braided them into rugs so that we would be stepping on something warm," Takei remembers. She found army surplus fabrics and sewed curtains for the windows. She took plant branches that had fallen off the nearby trees and made decorative sculptures. She asked a friendly neighbor to build a table and chairs.

"You drew the home that my mother made out of that raw space, Takei tells Lee. "That was wonderful."

Michelle Lee painted the art for My Lost Freedom using watercolor, gouache and colored pencils. Most of the illustrations have a very warm palette, but ever-present are the barbed wire fences and the guard towers. "There's a lot of fencing and bars," Lee explains. "That was kind of the motif that I was using throughout the book... A lot of vertical and horizontal patterns to kind of emphasize just how overbearing it was."

Takei says one of his favorite drawings in the book is a scene of him and his brother, Henry, playing by a culvert.

Asian American And Pacific Islander Heritage Month 2022

George takei got reparations. he says they 'strengthen the integrity of america'.

"Camp Rohwer was a strange and magical place," Takei writes. "We'd never seen trees rising out of murky waters or such colorful butterflies. Our block was surrounded by a drainage ditch, home to tiny, wiggly black fishies. I scooped them up into a jar.

One morning they had funny bumps. Then they lost their tails and their legs popped out. They turned into frogs!"

"They're just two children among many children who were imprisoned at these camps," says Lee, "and to them, perhaps, aspects of being there were just fun." The illustration depicts both childlike wonder and — still, always — a sense of foreboding. Butterflies fly around a barbed wire fence. A bright sun shines on large, dark swamp trees. Kids play in the shadow of a guard tower.

"There's so much that you tell in that one picture," says Takei. "That's the art."

"So many of your memories are of how perceptive you are to things that are going on around you," adds Lee, "but also still approaching things from a child's perspective."

Even though the events in My Lost Freedom took place more than 80 years ago, illustrator Michelle Lee and author George Takei say the story is still very relevant today.

"These themes of displacement and uprooting of communities from one place to another — these are things that are constantly happening," says Lee. Because of war and because of political decisions ... those themes aren't uncommon. They're universal."

Takei agrees. "People need to know the lessons and learn that lesson and apply it to hard times today. And we hope that a lot of people get the book and read it to their children or read it to other children and act on it."

He's done his job, he says, now the readers have their job.

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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan movie review (1982)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. The peculiar thing about Spock is that, being half human and half Vulcan and therefore possessing about half the usual quota of human emotions, he consistently, if dispassionately, behaves as if he possessed very heroic human emotions indeed. He makes a choice in "Star Trek II" that would be made only by a ...
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan review
The 1982 sequel to the original Star Trek film, featuring a film debut for Kirstie Alley, returns to cinemas with its crowdpleasing zap and raw emotion intact Peter Bradshaw Thu 1 Sep 2022 04.00 ...
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
RichesMovieTrailers Saw it in 35mm. WORTH IT! Rated 4.5/5 Stars • Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 09/27/22 Full Review Janet Great to see Wrath of Khan on the big screen again. Also had 2 additional ...
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
For a more in-depth take on the film, check out Josh Zyber's review of the 2009 Blu-ray HERE. Paramount beams Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan back down for a single-title 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray + Blu-ray release. The 4K and Blu-ray discs found in this set are identical to the ones previously issued with the 4-Movie Collection and the new 6-Movie ...
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek II tells a sock-'em story, which is more than can be said for the first Star Trek movie. Nicholas Meyer, an energetic director, is a master of narrative, and Star Trek II crackles with ...
Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan retrospective review
Thankfully, Paramount rejected the concept and producer Harve Bennett brought us a film that, for many Trek fans has yet to be bettered - Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan. After the long slow ...
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: Directed by Nicholas Meyer. With William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, DeForest Kelley, James Doohan. With the assistance of the Enterprise crew, Admiral Kirk must stop an old nemesis, Khan Noonien Singh, from using the life-generating Genesis Device as the ultimate weapon.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Star Trek : The Wrath Of Khan The primary reason why the feature is still loved and buzzed for, is that it ages well and the scrutiny in here focuses more on the simplicity of the emotion that is revenge, and keeps it more humane going man-to-man and street methods; it is more grounded. It is short on technical aspects like visual effects ...
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Visually then "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" is good. Sure, it is showing signs of aging, as it is from 1982. But it still is suitable for the movie when you watch it today. All in all, an enjoyable sequel with a good storyline. My rating of director Nicholas Meyer's 1982 "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" movie lands on a six out of ten stars.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
In the wake of the somnambulant Star Trek: The Motion Picture, the fledgling Star Trek movie series was in need of some zest, which is exactly what The Wrath of Khan provided. While retaining the thematic elements of the late-'60s TV series and utilizing the much-loved original USS Enterprise crew, Star Trek II added hefty doses of action, adventure, and suspense, injecting life into a concept ...
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) A SDG Original source: National Catholic Register One of the strongest and most popular entries in the Star Trek film franchise, The Wrath of Khan has everything you could ask for in a good sci‑fi action-adventure film: sympathetic, well-drawn heroes, a terrific villain (Ricardo Montalban as Khan), exciting outer-space showdowns, sci‑fi wow factor ...
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan 4K Blu-ray Review
This Ultra HD Blu-ray release delivers an impressive native 4K image replete with gorgeous Dolby Vision enhancement, available on both cuts of the film. The disc presents a 3840x2160/24p BT.2020 image in the film's original aspect ratio of widescreen 2.4:1, and uses a Wide Colour Gamut (WCG), High Dynamic Range (HDR), and Dolby Vision, and is ...
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (4K UHD Review)
Review. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a continuation of one of The Original Series' best episodes, Space Seed, in which Enterprise finds a ship adrift in deep space full of humans in suspended animation. It turns out these are genetically-engineered supermen, who nearly destroyed Earth in the 1990s and later fled the planet to avoid persecution.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Blu-ray Review
For the 50th Anniversary of Star Trek, all of the original features are receiving a re-release, both in steelbook form and box set, however the most (and arguably only) significant upgrade - depending on your point of view - comes for (thankfully) the best entry: The Wrath of Khan.Hitting Blu-ray in its Director's Cut guise for the first time, the remastered video looks somewhat different from ...
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Movie Review
Parents need to know that Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is a more violent feature than the original Star Trek: The Motion Picture, with assorted character deaths and torture.One of the biggest stars of the series dies. While the TV Captain Kirk always seemed to have girlfriends on every planet, this is the first time it's acknowledged that one of them bore him a now-adult son, and their ...
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan 4K UHD Review
A making-of lasts 28-minutes. A five-part menu includes interviews, effects featurettes, and a piece on James Horner's score, among others. Bits on Star Trek II's legacy, including one that details props, are excellent. Ricardo Montalban earns a deserving tribute that lasts nearly five minutes. Storyboards and a trailer finish things.
"Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan"
In-depth critical reviews of Star Trek and some other sci-fi series. Includes all episodes of Star Trek: The Original Series, The Animated Series, The Next Generation, Deep Space Nine, Voyager, Enterprise, Discovery, Picard, Lower Decks, Prodigy, and Strange New Worlds. Also, Star Wars, the new Battlestar Galactica, and The Orville.
[REVIEW] Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Thirty-four years after the film originally hit theaters, a director's cut of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan has been re-released and is available for the first time in high definition on Blu ...
Review
Meticulously researched and organized, the recently released behind-the-scenes book, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan - The Making of the Classic Film, is a definitive piece of film-making history, detailing the production and legacy of arguably Star Trek's most famous production. The 192-page publication from Titan Books detailing the 40-year-old film is both broadly digestible, and ...
STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN (1982)
Come check out my latest 4K Movie Review of this 80s Science Fiction classic "Star Trek 2: The Wrath Of Khan" and find out if this release from Paramount is ...
Preview: 'Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is considered a sci-fi classic and it is often cited as the best film of the franchise, and the story of how the film came to is a fascinating one.Star Trek II: The ...
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan Director's Cut Blu-Ray Review
Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan arrives for the second time on Blu-ray, this time with a presentation of the Director's cut, featuring a few new scenes and extensions of existing scenes that adding roughly 4 extra minutes to the run time (116 vs. 112). For this release, Paramount has digitally remastered the film (from a 4K scan), producing stunning picture quality and delivering qualitatively ...
Review: William Shatner Live With 'Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan' Is
Seeing the William Shatner live tour with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is highly recommended. Tour starts up again in June Shatner will return to the road for his tour in late-June, with four ...
‎Star Trek The Next Conversation
DS9 s2e21 "The Maquis, Part II" ... Adam Pranica and Benjamin Harrison review Star Trek Newbie Star Trek Fugitive Frames Greatest Trek: New Star Trek Reviewed Uxbridge-Shimoda LLC More ways to shop: Find an Apple Store or other retailer near you. Or call 1-800-MY-APPLE.
George Takei 'Lost Freedom' some 80 years ago
Star Trek actor George Takei has written about this time in his life before — once in an autobiography, then in a graphic memoir, and now in his new children's book, My Lost Freedom.. It's about ...

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