Five Things I Hated in "Star Trek II-The Wrath of Khan"

In this series I either gripe about the flaws in a movie I love, or point out the good things in movies generally considered bad. Problem is while I promised this one while back everything about this movie is pretty perfect. There really aren’t any pointless scenes or story elements that make no sense, all I can really to do is a bit of nitpicking. In fact this was so hard it’s the first time I actually watched the movie while writing this because it was hard to find any flaws.

Star Trek II:The Wrath of Khan is one of those movies that is just fantastic. It came out in 1982 and was a monster hit. It’s one of those perfect movies, doing absolutely everything right. But while everything in this movie works, that doesn’t mean there aren’t things to make fun of. And as always this is just opinion.



Here are five things I hated in Wrath of Khan.


#5.Ear Slug Scene

I talked about this one before, but there’s no way I could do this article and not mention it again. We know the scene by now, Khan has captured Chekov and Terrel and needs to information out of them. How does he do that? The ear slugs that work their way into the ear canal and manage to make the victims susceptible to suggestion. Bottom line, this scene scared the crap out of me as kid. As an adult it seems more fake but it’s till an intense scene though it also seems oddly out of place in a Star Trek movie. By the way, no the fact Chekhov wasn’t in the original episode will not make this list. It doesn’t take a great imagination to guess he may have been there just off screen. In fact DC Comics explained that Chekhov was in Engineering when Khan took over, and make Scotty proud the way he tired to take charge and regain control which led to his moving to the Bridge. This is why we have expanded media people!





#4.Kirstie Alley as Saavik

No offense to Kirstie Alley but I really did not like her portrayal of Saavik. And yeah I know Alley was a then unknown. She was probably doing her best. But I have always preferred Robin Curtis’s version. Curtis knew how to make Saavik mysterious and cool, while all Alley does is be a whiny brat. She challenges Kirk every step of the way. Yeah I know if he had listened to her Reliant would never have caused so much damage to the ship in that first battle. But Alley never did anything for me in this role. By the way, I thought of picking on the “Enterprise is the only ship in the quadrant” cliche but this movie isn’t the worst example of that very overused device (heck at least the ship is in good working order this time!!).







#3.Scotty’s Nephew…isn’t it?

I’ve talked before about deleted scenes which can hurt a movie, sometimes the creators are more worried about pacing even at the expense of great character scenes. And there’s one in TWOK. Early in the film we meet Preston, and it’s clear Scotty is fond of the lad. He should be, that’s his nephew! To bad the brief dialogue revealing that was cut. Without that, Scotty’s mourning of him later seems almost out of character. Why does he care so much about this one kid? Shouldn’t he be working on the engines? Oh…it’s his nephew! Now it makes sense. But nothing can make me understand what in the world made Scotty bring the kid’s dying body up to the Bridge instead of right to sick-bay (except to have a shock moment for the audience). As perfect as TWOK is, the extended version is a much have for any fan with other minor additions that flesh out the story even more (yes I’m sure the novel does this too). In fact when you know the deleted scenes you can clearly see the hole’s they leave.







#2.That Final Scene (in context with the other films)

The final bits of dialogue never really worked for me. It’s hard to explain, it was almost as if they were trying to hard to end the movie. It’s nicely acted and the music is great but it all seems unnecessary. Yes I get why Kirk says he feels young, to close his character arc, but something about how they’re just standing there staring at the planet and all, it just feels kind of corny. Though points for the screenwriter remembering that the crew of the Reliant still needs rescuing. Thank goodness that Star Trek III opens with Kirk clearly still grieving. Of course the reason the scene may seem odd is because it doesn’t work in context with the next film. What I have to remember is that at the time, Spock was truly dead and not coming back. So maybe the scene worked in context of the movie by itself but when you watch it with Star Trek III and IV it doesn’t. I thought Star Trek IV had the more satisfying end to Kirk’s story arc when he got his command back (if I didn’t know better I would think McCoy was foreshadowing that very thing with his comment at the start of TWOK). But if the biggest complaint I have in the movie comes from the last thirty seconds, that’s not bad at all.








#1.The Nebula Battle (The first few minutes anyway)

Ok now we get into the stuff that’s going to piss people off. When I was a kid the scenes on the Genesis planet were boring to me, but I respect them today for the fine character stuff. The one thing I still find kind of dull was the nebula battle. The first conflict between Kirk and Khan is a thing pf beauty, it’s perfectly paced and does everything right. I got the feeling they were trying to top that in the nebula battle that comes in the final act. Truth is I often fast forward at this point. I mean how many shots of the two ships zipping around this thing did we need? Yeah I get it they are raising the tension but we did this already! It’s four minutes before the Enterprise fires it’s phasers! Though the music here is pitch perfect, it still basically feels like they are doing the first battle all over again. Don’t get me wrong it’s a great scene, the dialogue and acting is wonderful. Though when we finally get to it the final fight is a little to fast after all that build up. Spock’s sacrifice may have saved the whole thing (and yes that is one of the best death scenes and funerals ever put to film. Oh and I know Linkara like to question what the heck Spock was doing exactly when he sacrificed his life, but for me that never bugged me so I will just overlook it). I still say for a climax it could have been stronger, Khan is killed kind of easily. I wish they had come up with something different. Have you ever noticed Kirk and Khan never meet face to face? I suppose you could argue that they did that in “Space Seed”. As awesome as Montalban was it’s to bad he couldn’t have done more than sit there for half the movie.  It shows how awesome he is that those scenes are still amazing, right down to those final line he delivers beautifully.






As you can see, there isn’t really much to hate here. Most of this is nitpicky stuff. The music is beautiful, the movie is fantastically directed, acted, and scored. While it’s not my favorite, my heart belongs to Star Trek IV, I do admire and respect it for the great movie it really is.


This was fun, maybe next week I’ll be back with Star Trek III. And since I have “hated” on things that I love, it’s only natural that Star Trek IV get the treatment in two weeks.

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