Classic movie: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

I have been a Trekkie from a very young age. My parents watched Star Trek during its original run and I was brought up on Star Trek: The Next Generation. Because of this, it made sense to cover what is considered the best Star Trek film to date: The Wrath of Khan.

The crew of the starship Reliant is on a mission to find a planet devoid of life in order to test the recently developed Genesis Device, a machine that could terraform an entire planet in a matter of hours. The captain and his first officer beam down onto a planet to verify that it is indeed lifeless and find a man and his crew who were marooned 16 years earlier by James T. Kirk. That man is Khan Noonien Singh, who commandeers the Reliant and steals the Genesis Device as a ruse to get his revenge on Kirk.

Admiral Kirk has reluctantly settled into a desk job with Starfleet and his ship, the Enterprise, has been turned into a training vessel. During a three-week training mission, Kirk receives a transmission from an ex-flame, Dr. Carol Marcus, creator of the Genesis Device. She claims that it was his orders that allowed the crew of the Reliant to come and take Genesis. Knowing this to be false, Kirk assumes command of the Enterprise, now under the command of Captain Spock, in order to recover Genesis.

The Enterprise plots a course for a rendezvous with space station Regula 1, home base of Dr. Marcus and the Genesis project, and is ambushed by Reliant. Believing that Reliant is still an ally, Kirk does not raise the ship’s shields, despite a regulation quote concerning lack of communication between ships from one of the trainees, Lt. Saavik. This results in the disabling of the Enterprise by Khan.

What follows is a battle of wits between Kirk and Khan with the sole purpose being survival. While Khan utilises a brash approach, Kirk takes advantage of the fact that Khan does not know Starfleet regulations. This is a movie so good that I own three copies of it.

Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

Directed by Nicholas Meyer, 1982

Starring William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Ricardo Montalbán and Kirstie Alley

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