Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan

steven harris remembers with a deep ,and very unvulcan love, a film that features Spock's most emotional scene...

As we all know I like space films. I like films in which space is the backdrop to vast legions of warring factions murdering one another. I like films in which only Sam Rockwell is a genuine person, several times over. I like factual spacey stuff too and go all dreamy-eyed watching Professor Brian Cox bang on about physics in his dulcet tones of Tramadol beauty. I like the space films that start with the word Star. Gate, Wars, Dust (not strictly spacey) and, of course, Trek.

In particular I like Star Trek movies in which a captain of the USS Enterprise yells "Khaaaaaaaan!" with vengeful wrath even though, in the very first of these, it was Khan himself who was the more wrathful one.

So I mean Star Trek 2: The Wrath Of Khaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan. If you want me to mean Star Trek: Into Darkness then you have to read my review about Star Trek: Into Darkness. Duh! What are you, a tribble?

Remember Space Seed? You know, the episode from the original Star Trek series in the 1960s in which Ricardo Montalban was stolen from The High Chaparral, or Bonanza or whichever Western TV show he was starring in at the time, and, after trying to steal Jim Kirk's beloved Enterprise, ends up dumped on a pretty little planet with all of his cryogenically preserved kinfolk. The super clever, super powerful genetically enhanced kinfolk.

If you don't remember that then go away. Go on. I'm not wasting another syllable on you and your lack of knowledge about one-off episodes of the original Star Trek series from the 1960s.

Thank god they've gone.

KKKKKKHHHHAAAAAANNNNNNNNN!!!

So, Star Trek: Wrath of Naanbread picks up some 15 years after the events of Space Seed. And Khan is not happy. Oh no. The idyllic planet Kirk had left them on was swiftly turned into a sandstorm fuck-up by the death of a neighbouring planet. Damn those dying neighbouring planets and their orbital consequences for other planets in the same solar system. Have they no compassion?

Anyhoo, there's a subplot about the Genesis project which can bring life to barren landscapes and really is fairly incidental to this movie but does enable some clever not dead-ness to happen to a Vulcan character in Star Trek 3: The Search For Script.

One of Kirk's old flames is involved with that project plus the son he doesn't know exists. Complicated shit. Oh and there's a female lady woman Vulcan on the Enterprise who hasn't yet got a role in Cheers because her ears are currently too pointy. But she will eventually.

Long story short. Khan hates Kirk. Kirk hates Khan hating him. Cabbage is a good source of potassium. King Kenny was the nickname Liverpool fans bestowed in a certain Mr Dalglish who was a very clever kicky ball footy man type person once upon the time.

Only the Khan/Kirk stuff is strictly relevant, However, fighting happens but not in a fisty mano y mano kind of way. Kirk wouldn't last two seconds in a fist fight with Khan. Khan is basically a superman plus Shatner already needs to wear a girdle beneath his Star Fleet uniform to hide his engorged belly parts. And he's got a shit wig on and you can see the join. I'd quite like Doc McCoy to do some gags about short fat hairy legs but he doesn't even though he does say "dammit" a few times, as though contractually obliged by now.

Khan doesn't win. Of course he doesn't. This is only Star Trek Eye Eye. There are lots more sequels and stuff to follow and if Khan won instead of Kirk then Khan would have to be in all of the sequels and I think Montalban was hoping the exposure might allow him to regenerate Fantasy Island instead.

We all learn something by the end of the film. Largely that it's not nice having Spock die and I hope the scriptwriters had dog poo left on their doorstep for months. Oh and that Montalban has strangely alluring nipples. Mmm Khan nipples. Good night children. Sleep well. Hope you're not all killed because you tried to save the Kobyashi Maru but forgot to cheat.

steven harris is adverse to putting his name in capitals because names aren't that important. Also, lower case is sexy. steven writes all sorts of stuff including fiction, poetry, songs, opinion pieces and shopping lists. He does not write on lavatory doors any more. his blog has writing in it and can be located at www.theplanetharris.wordpress.com He lives in Devon with an imaginary cat called Kafka.

Follow him on Twitter as @theplanetharris

Images from IMDB