With the recent release of Star Trek Into Darkness, I recommend that if you have never seen the original Wrath of Khan, now’s the time. And the timing couldn’t be better. Now on stunning Blu-ray for an amazingly low price of $10 or less, it should even calm down Khan’s wrath. Also available for $10 or less are the two sequels – Star Trek III: The Search for Spock and Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Watch this page for future info on the second and third part of the trilogy appropriately numbered III and IV.
After the original TV cast reunion in Star Trek The Motion Picture (1979), which was overlong and over-bloated with special effects which added nothing to the ultimately unsatisfactory film conclusion, Paramount decided to use left over special effects from STTMP to save costs and try one more time. The result was the best of all Star Trek films with the original group, STII:TWOK. It featured a vengeful bad guy played by Ricardo Montalban taking on our hero Capt. (now Admiral) Kirk played by William Shatner. As strange as it may seem, the main good guy and main bad guy have no scenes where they are actually together in the story line.
Khan is out for vengeance. He is really mad at having lived for 15 years in a perpetual dust storm on a hellhole of a planet known as Ceti Alpha 5 or 6. One of them is where he lives, and the other one blew up primarily from the crushing weight of a federally operated and horribly mismanaged health care system. When it blew, it caused lots of problems for its neighbor, where Khan had been banished by Kirk 15 years before. This is shown in the original Star Trek TV series show “Space Seed.”
The new Blu-ray transfer looks like the theater version except smaller, and lots of extras are included. Many are good, but some are not so good. Be sure to watch all the extras in the “Production” menu. Everything from the genesis of the film to the score are covered. Original 1982 interviews with the main cast members feature Leonard Nimoy in a nice suit with a pink shirt and pink tie. (Why Leonard, why?) A highlight of the extras is a 10-minute interview with composer James Horner. JH now has over 150 films to his credit. His best era ever started in 1982 with this film and continued with Glory (1989) and Sneakers (1992). He is best known for his Oscar winning score for Titanic (1997) and Avatar (2009).
STII:TWOK is a terrific action film, and was followed by two more films to form an excellent trilogy. Cough up the $10 for each disc. Enjoy.
Rated 4.0 out of 4.0 reasons not to miss this Blu-ray edition and to be sure and watch the extras recommended. If you don’t, Khan might get angry.
