Reflections on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

In anticipation of the discussion on A Good Story Is Hard to Find that just posted, I've rewatched one of my favorite movies from childhood: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

As a child and teenager, I must have watched this movie a hundred times. More than even Star Wars, which is probably geek blasphemy, but hey, that's who I am. I'm okay with it. But I digress.

Is this movie really the greatest of the Star Trek movies? Am I blinded by nostalgia? After rewatching, I don't think so. Sure it is not a perfect film, but the flaws are fairly minimal. Here are some of the features that I think make this the best Star Trek movie:

• The Navy-ification of Star Trek--The crew of the Enterprise actually have sensible uniforms (no superhero tights in sight), with ranks and insignias and cadets and veterans and everything. Treating the starships like submarines (especially for the battles) makes a lot of sense. It also enables a strained relation between the scientists and the Star Fleet personnel that makes the story more interesting. The false idol of a perfectly integrated future society is not acknowledged, which is something to the film's credit. It seems more like the real world than a fantasy future.
• The acting--While much is made of the famous "KKHHAAAAANNNNNN!" moment, it is noteworthy because that is the only moment where William Shatner goes "over the top" in this movie. I think his delivery of that line is justified (though I'm not so sure about the echos); the rest of his performance is spot on. Without doubt, this is Shatner's finest performance in Star Trek. Ricardo Montalban also gives an excellent performance, being cold and calculating often and going over the top rarely but effectively. He is too often remembered for showing off his fabulous chest. Which brings up another point.
• The conflict--Kirk and Khan never meet in person, so their battle is a battle of wits as they fight with their ships and computers (I think this movie had the first instance of hacking, when Kirk orders Khan's ship to lower its shields at a key moment). We're lucky they don't meet because that means there is no climatic fist fight. While such a fight is boilerplate for the original Star Trek TV series, let's admit, it would have been awful. Especially when Kirk's shirt would inevitably get torn open. I doubt Shatner kept in as good shape as Montalban.
• The literary inferiority complex--Star Trek seems to have a certain inferiority complex. Since it's science fiction, there's a general assumption that it has little literary value. To make up for that, this movie references both A Tale of Two Cities and Moby Dick. Moby Dick represents the great conflict between Kirk and Khan, where Khan absorbs the persona of Captain Ahab and quotes him quite often. A Tale of Two Cities frames the story: Spock gives a copy of the book to Kirk for his birthday at the beginning of the movie; Kirk quotes the end of the book at the end of the film. Which ties into...
• The theme of old age and youth--Kirk deals with being over-promoted, having fathered a estranged son, having an old villain chasing him. He's having a mid-life crisis and has a to figure out if these are "the best of times" or "the worst of times." As in Dickens' classic, Kirk's time is a mixture of both. He actually has some character growth as he has to come to grips with death in a way he never has before. Which brings up one of the massive spoilers if you haven't seen this film.
• Spock's death--Spock's death was not just a cheap dramatic throw-in, but brought out how Kirk never really deals with death till then. Spock sacrifices himself for the sake of the ship and crew, referencing the "needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one" line from earlier in the film. The scene always brings out the tears, especially afterward with Scotty playing "Amazing Grace" on the bagpipes as Spock's coffin goes through a sort of "burial at sea" moment. Reading that last sentence, if you haven't seen the movie you'd think it was a super-cheesy moment, but in fact it is not. It makes a great finale to the movie

The negative points about this movie:

• Spock's death--Spock dying was a great, tear-filled moment. Unfortunately, it set up Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, where they bring him back to life, which robs the dramatic impact. Of course, such shenanigans are par for the course on Star Trek. How many times did Kirk and Spock die on the TV show, only to come back to life through some trick?
• The science--It's rubbish, though that also is standard fare for Star Trek. A whole nebula turning into one planet is the most glaring error though there are others. I guess if you accept transporters and warp drive, this isn't so hard to swallow. If you've seen J.J. Abrahams' Star Trek movie, the continuity of rubbish science is maintained.
• The hair--The hairstyles are so totally 80s. The less said, the better.

Things you think should be negative but are really okay:

• The special effects--the visuals are still decent looking, except for the Genesis cave matte paintings. The models of the Enterprise and the Reliant still look a lot better than most contemporary CGI. The displays on the bridge of the Enterprise look good enough, though there is the occasional Lite-Brite panel here and there.
• The music--there's no 80s synthesizers or blaring saxophone solos, just a classical dramatic score that supports the story telling. The creators definitely followed the Navy-type theme here.

The movie does hold up after 30 years, for which I am glad. Maybe my misspent youth wasn't so misspent. Now I can't wait to hear what they have to say on A Good Story is Hard to Find. Check it out! Also, they have a bunch of links to literary analysis of the movie if you are interested. I'm very curious to see how close or far off I am.