Your First, Best Destiny
"We learn by doing."
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Points
for Reflection
Nicholas Meyer's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
- How does composer James Horner’s “main title,” which opens Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), compare with Alexander Courage’s score in the series’ classic episodes and Jerry Goldsmith’s opening music for Robert Wise’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979)? Consider tempo, instrumentation, and tone. (For the moment, put aside Horner’s tendency to reuse some motifs and appropriate others from classic composers.) Is Horner signaling a more meditative, slow-paced story compared with those that have come before?
- Do the film’s digital effects on starships’ view screens and the like feel so dated as to be distracting, or striking enough to feel timeless?
- Meyer opens the action with a close-up of which central character? After you’re finished the film, consider why Meyer made this decision.
- With what moral quandary does the Kobayashi Maru scenario present Lieutenant Commander Saavik?
- What important details about the function of a Federation starship does Meyer insert into this opening, impossible situation?
- According to Kirk, the opening scenario has a lesson to teach lieutenant commander Saavik. What is it, and did Kirk himself learn this lesson in a similar situation long ago?
- Admiral Kirk, formerly “Captain” Kirk, steps into the story in dramatic fashion. What does the lighting in this moment (6:15) suggest about his character?
- How does Kirk react to this day of celebration, and what does Dr. McCoy (”Bones”) diagnose as the actual problem besetting his friend?
- This film’s screenplay incorporates a number of curses involving religious ideas (“hell,” “damn,” “G-d). Does the film ultimately dismiss such concepts or concretize them?
- Why does it matter so much that the planet found for the Genesis Project have no preexisting organic matter on its surface?
- Why is David so nervous about his research group’s communicating with and receiving assistance from Starfleet?
- What books line the shelf in the Botany Bay life buoy, and what role do their respective contents play in this story?
- How does the dramatic introduction of Khan Noonien Singh compare with that of Kirk earlier?
- Does the film explain Khan’s origins well enough on its own, or do you feel compelled to watch the classic Star Trek episode from 1967 that introduced Khan, “Space Seed,” in order to understand his character and motivation?
- What life exists on Ceti Alpha V?
- Do Kirk and Khan share a similar self-confidence?
- Do those moments that resemble a horror film derail your experience, or pull you more deeply into the high stakes plot?
- Why is Kirk so glad to have Sulu accompanying him for the inspection of the Enterprise?
- Why might Kirk’s inspection of Enterprise begin in the torpedo bay?
- Is midshipman Peter Preston’s braggadocio all bluster and no substance?
- How does the director visually set up the turbolift conversation between Saavik and Kirk, in which they discuss the Kobayashi Maru?
- David and his mother Carol disagree about Starfleet’s intentions. Carol observes that Starfleet has “kept the peace” for a century, but her son anticipates the worst from the military. Whose assumptions about Starfleet prove correct?
- What does the exchange between Kirk and Spock in the latter’s quarters reveal about their relationship?
- How does the Enterprise’s command crew respond, variously, to the existence of the Genesis project?
- Which of his own traits does Khan speak of often?
- What does a quick zoom, used in the Regula One cave scene, hide?
- Why did Jim and Carol not remain together?
- How did Kirk win the unwinnable exam when he was younger, and how did the administrators respond?
- What did Jim’s solution to the Kobayashi Maru prevent him from experiencing?
- During the final battle, Nicholas Meyer’s camera rack focuses repeatedly between which two characters on the Enterprise bridge?
- Do Spock’s valiant actions defy pragmatism, or embrace it?
- Does Khan’s repeated quoting of vengeful lines from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick (1851) effectively deepen the tale’s pathos and drama?
- Does death in this film signal an ending, simply, or point to something beyond itself?
- What music is playing during the film’s closing, mournful scene?
- How has Kirk changed by the end of the film?
- At the film’s close, Kirk quotes a couple lines from the copy of Charles Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities (1859) given him by Spock in the opening. What sort of hope do these lines offer?
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
theatrical poster
Dr. Paul Marchbanks
pmarchba@calpoly.edu
