Thoughts on the TOS Movies.

The six Star Trek movies featuring the original series cast were Star Trek during the 1980's - The only Star Trek for most of that time. The success of the films led directly to the return of the franchise on television, and also gave a chance for viewers to say a proper farewell to the crew that started it all.

In effect, the six movies form one last, multi-year season of the original Star Trek. The films even end up having much the same structure as a television series - right down to an arc that connects the episodes... And right down to a pilot that bears little resemblance to what the series would properly become.


FALSE STARTS AND EARLY STEPS: THE MOTION PICTURE



It's now reasonably well-known that Star Trek almost returned as a television series in the 1970's - the aborted Star Trek: Phase Two. Then Star Wars, and its enormous box office performance, made Paramount rethink its decision to relegate its most famous science fiction property to the small screen.

This probably saved Star Trek as an ongoing franchise. From what I know of Phase II, and from the couple of Phase II scripts that were repurposed into (very poor) TNG episodes, I strongly suspect it would have been a weak series, one that likely would have lasted a single season.

Star Trek: The Motion Picture has many of the failings of early TNG. The atmosphere is too sterile, and the human characters often feel only marginally less emotionless than Mr. Spock. It is also awkwardly paced, particularly in the version that was actually seen in theaters in 1979. Robert Wise's eventual "director's cut" lessens the problems with pacing and characterization - but it doesn't quite eliminate them, and it's a little too evident that the film was put into production before the script was fully ready.

Still, the movie does have a sense of grandeur, aided by some top class visual effects and a sublime Jerry Goldsmith score. There are fantastic sequences and set pieces, and I admit to having had a soft spot for it long before the director's cut was ever released. Most importantly from a studio standpoint, it made money - Which meant that big screen Star Trek was given a second chance to get it right...


TAKE TWO: THE WRATH OF KHAN AND THE TRILOGY



The Wrath of Khan was a much smaller film than The Motion Picture, and in fact remains the lowest-budget Star Trek film of them all. It's also the best of the lot, perfectly capturing the core appeal of the series: The cameraderie and chemistry among the regulars, and most particularly among Kirk, Spock, and Dr. McCoy. The film has some strong action set pieces and a remarkable villain in Ricardo Montalban's vengeance-crazed Khan - but at its heart, it's a character piece, with Kirk having to confront age and death, and having to learn to accept both of these.

The film was so successful, its own sequels simply carried on from it, forming a Star Trek motion picture trilogy. The Search for Spock picks up only a short time after Khan's endpoint. The Voyage Home carries on from Spock's endpoint. All three are very different films, but all were successful both financially and critically. All three movies revolve around the characters. The stories are built around their interactions, and those interactions feel right.


FALLING OFF THE MOUNTAIN: THE COLLAPSE OF STAR TREK V, THE RISE OF TNG, AND THE END OF AN ERA



What goes up must inevitably come down, and the Star Trek film franchise came crashing to Earth with Star Trek V: The Final Frontier. William Shatner took his turn in the director's chair, and also collaborated on the story... Making it hardly a surprise that the movie centers entirely on Kirk, actively at the expense of the other characters. The film is poorly paced and even worse-structured. The seemingly endless first hour is centered on what is revealed to be a subplot, with the actual story not even starting until more than halfway in - which leaves the rest feeling rushed and underdeveloped.

The movie was released into a summer already crowded with blockbusters; and set along side the likes of Lethal Weapon 2 and Tim Burton's Batman, this particularly Trek came up decidedly short. Even worse for Star Trek V, it released just as TNG started to properly find its footing, leading many to grumble that the Star Trek television series was getting to be better than the movies. In the space of one bad film, the big screen future of Star Trek had gone from entirely assured to very much in doubt.


A GRACEFUL EXIT: STAR TREK VI - THE EPILOGUE



Star Trek VI was the final movie for the full 1960's cast, and it did much to recover viewer goodwill. Nicholas Meyer returned as director and co-writer, and the film features multiple callbacks to the core trilogy - most particularly in Kirk's resentment of the Klingons over the death of his son, David, something which helps drive the plot. In plot and also in tone, the movie feels like an epilogue to that trilogy... and with not a single mention of Star Trek V to be found, viewers who are not dedicated to being completists should feel absolutely safe in skipping that unfortunate misfire.

It's a dignified final bow for the crew, only slightly tarnished by Shatner's insistence on having Kirk be the one to outwit the villain at the end after the script had carefully laid the groundwork for Sulu to do so. A minor, if very visible, blemish on an otherwise very fine movie, one that allows the original series crew to go out with a winner.


FINAL THOUGHTS

As the above summaries make clear, the trilogy forms the core of the TOS movies, and those three films and Star Trek VI are what most people mean when they talk about the movies with the original cast. Star Trek: The Motion Picture and Star Trek V are clearly the odd men out, not quite fitting with the other four pictures, and it's likely no coincidence that these two outliers are the least popular TOS movies.

All of the movies (even Star Trek V) are carried by the seemingly effortless chemistry of the cast. There's a magic to this particular cast, and a joy in watching their interactions. I like all the subsequent Trek casts to varying degrees, and some of the later Trek stars would actually be better actors than some of the original stars. But however long Trek has run in however many forms, the magic of that original cast is one that would never be recaptured.


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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

The Enterprise, on a routine mission about to go badly wrong...

THE PLOT

The USS Reliant, under the command of Capt. Terrell (Paul Winfield), is scouting planets to find a suitable test subject for the top-secret Genesis Project. They need a world that's absolutely devoid of life and appear to have found it in Ceti Alpha VI. Terrell beams down with Commander Chekov to investigate a minor sensor reading. But they discover that this world is actually Ceti Alpha V - the planet where the genetically engineered renegade Khan (Ricardo Montalban) and his followers were exiled fifteen years ago.

Meanwhile, Admiral James T. Kirk and his old crew are overseeing a training flight aboard the Enterprise. A class of trainees will crew the ship under the guidance of the old hands. A routine flight - until Kirk receives a garbled transmission from the scientists behind Genesis. He takes command and orders the ship to the research station.

What he discovers is Khan, in command of the Reliant, waiting for him. Khan's purpose is as single-minded as it is deadly: Revenge!

CHARACTERS

Admiral Kirk: Has settled into a sort of bureaucratic semi-retirement. Inactivity doesn't suit him, something both Spock and McCoy readily pick up on. Both of his friends tell him in their own ways that it was a mistake for him to accept promotion and that he should get back to command of a starship. Command is his "first, best destiny," Spock says bluntly. "Anything else is a waste of material."

This version of Kirk, old enough to reflect on regrets but still young enough to take charge, suits William Shatner's performance perfectly. Director Nicholas Meyer reportedly did large numbers of retakes to sap the energy from Shatner's performance, enhancing this quality. But he does let Shatner loose at key moments, such as when Kirk takes charge in a crisis or the infamous (but, in context, perfectly judged) cry of "Khaaan!!!" Between the material, the actor, and the director's handling of the actor, the result is Shatner's best bigscreen performance as Kirk (probably his best performance, period).

Capt. Spock: Leonard Nimoy is equally good as Spock, providing a constant, low-key support to Kirk. He pushes the admiral to accept command when the crisis arises. He observes Khan's intelligence but also his lack of experience, and it's his observations which allow Kirk to defeat his opponent. His most significant scene comes at the end, when he takes drastic action to save the ship.  His final scene with Kirk - Spock on one side of the glass, Kirk on the other, unable to touch during an emotional moment - is a great one.

Chekov: Actually gets something to do - rare enough in the television series, let alone the films. Promoted to a higher position on the Reliant, Chekov beams down to Ceti Alpha V with Capt. Terrell. When he sees the Botany Bay decal, he realizes who it is they've stumbled across and tries to get himself and his captain away. After Khan implants his brain worms, Walter Koenig lends a weak, hesitant quality to the influenced Chekov, showing us that something's not quite right without overselling it to make us wonder why the characters can't see the same.

Hot Alien Space Babe of the Week: A young (quite gorgeous) Kirstie Alley is Saavik, Spock's young Academy protege. She is clearly being groomed for command, and she seems suited for it. Her temperament is loose by Vulcan standards. She's composed, but not inaccessibly so. She obviously doesn't take well to failure, as she can't quite let go of the Kobayashi Maru test at the beginning of the film, pushing until Kirk reveals what his solution to the test had been.

Khan, a victim of his own self-destructive rage.

KHAN

It is appropriate that in a film that sees Kirk reflecting on his regrets, the villain is a figure from his past. Ricardo Montalban's Khan was already larger-than-life in his first appearance, the first season episode, Space Seed. There, he was tightly controlled. He was no sadist. He would kill or torture as a means to an end, but not as a goal in itself. Above all, he wore a veneer of civility, as eager to fence with Kirk at the dining table as on the battlefield.

Fifteen years of hell have stripped that civility away. This Khan has kept himself and his people alive through a strength of will driven by rage. He has made Kirk the focus of that rage, blaming him for everything: The horror that befell his people, the loss of his wife, the conditions he and the survivors have had to contend with, his own fall from global ruler to ragged castaway.  Every failing in his life now has one face and one name: Kirk.

It's a self-destructive rage, as his second in command (Judson Scott) sees all too clearly. If Khan could abandon his pointless vengeance, he would have control of a weapon that would make him a galactic force. But that anger has burned so brightly that he cannot let it go. He consciously takes on the role of Capt. Ahab from Moby Dick, quoting or paraphrasing Ahab multiple times, including as he springs his final trap:

"To the last, I grapple with thee... From hell's heart, I stab at thee. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee!"

ZAP THE REDSHIRT!

Redshirt count: Well... many, between the two battle scenes. But there are two worth noting. The first is Peter Preston (Ike Eisenmann), Scotty's eager nephew, serving in Engineering (of course). When Khan attacks Enterprise, the other trainees run for safety. Preston stays at his post, does his duty, and dies on Dr. McCoy's operating table with severe radiation burns as a result.  It's his role to provide the consequences of Khan's violent revenge with an innocent human face.

Preston's death also foreshadows the death of Spock. Once again, Khan has prepared an attack, one which Enterprise cannot escape. The only hope is to restore warp power, but anyone who does so will be exposed to a lethal dose of radiation. Spock seals himself in, gets the engines back on line, and saves the ship. This forces Kirk to deal with death in the most personal way possible. Not through Kirk's own death - he's always been prepared for that - but the death of his closest friend. A loss he can't cheat his way out of.

At least, not until the sequel!

Kirk finally faces death.

BACKGROUND

Though Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a significant financial success, reviews were lukewarm at best. Fans went into a lather convincing themselves that it was the Star Trek movie they really wanted to see... but as the dust settled, many began admitting that while the film had its virtues, it didn't really capture the appeal of the 1960's television series. The spectacle couldn't be denied, and the ideas were sound. But the warm tone and character relationships that had defined the television series had been almost entirely absent from the film, which instead opted for a cold, antiseptic feel ala 2001: A Space Odyssey.

The Wrath of Khan was greenlit because of the first film's financial success. Critics and, ultimately, fans may have been disappointed, but it was clear there was money to be made from the franchise. But the disappointment was noted, and the budget was severely cut. The first film racked up a budget of more than $40 million - astronomical, by late 1970's movie standards. The second was made for a much more modest $11 million.

It does get the advantage of re-using sets, models, and even some footage from The Motion Picture to make it look like a "bigger" film than it is. Despite this, and despite a genuinely exciting space battle at the climax, The Wrath of Khan is no spectacle. The Motion Picture tried to paint on an epic canvas. The Wrath of Khan goes for the other extreme, with a script that's entirely character-centric.

THOUGHTS

The plot may be driven by Khan and his hatred of Kirk, but the focus is squarely on Kirk himself. When we see him at the start, he's become almost as lifeless as his collection of antiques. He seems determined to not only act his age, but to act like someone twenty years older than he actually is! In an odd way, Khan does him a favor. By presenting a crisis, he brings Kirk back to life.

The conflict also demonstrates that age does not have to impair effectiveness. Kirk doesn't defeat Khan by rediscovering his youth; he beats him by making use of the principle advantage of age: Experience.  Khan embodies the strengths and weaknesses of youth.  He is physically stronger, passionately emotional, and quick-thinking.  But Kirk has decades of knowledge.  His familiarity with starship design allows him to escape Khan's first trap. Decades of practice with three-dimensional starship tactics allow him to defeat Khan during the space battle. The middle-aged Kirk has experience that Khan lacks, and he uses that to win out.

The other recurring theme is one of death. Kirk's first exchange with Saavik has him telling her that "how we deal with life as at least as important as how we deal with death." But as the film makes clear, Kirk hasn't really dealt with the concept of death. Sure, people under his command have died, including friends. But he has somehow managed to avoid being touched by this. He has always beaten the odds, generally at minimal cost, and his victories have kept him going:

"I've cheated death. I've tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing."

The Enterprise crew, in a contemplative moment.

OVERALL

There are two versions of The Wrath of Khan that are widely available: The theatrical cut and an extended director's edition that runs about three minutes longer. Unlike The Motion Picture, it makes very little difference which version you choose. Save for an expanded role for the ill-fated Preston, there's no significant difference between the two cuts, and thus no difference in the final score.

The Wrath of Khan is the Star Trek movie fans had been waiting for: A good story, fast-paced and exciting, with the warmth of the character relationships that made the 1960's series what it was.  Star Trek: The Motion Picture has its virtues as a science fiction movie, and in my opinion is severely underrated as such... but it's honestly not a particularly good Star Trek movie.  The Wrath of Khan is not only a great Star Trek movie, it's a great movie full-stop.

Overall Rating: 10/10.

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