His Was the Most Human: The Wrath of Khan
The Wrath of Khan has a reputation for being a famously good sequel. Most sequels get bigger budgets than their originals and then fail to live up to them. It was the opposite for Khan, which had way less money than the first Trek movie. Maybe money really is a curse, though, because this one’s a winner.
You can’t argue that The Wrath of Khan is a sequel, but what is it actually a sequel to? If it’s The Motion Picture, it does its best to be nothing like The Motion Picture. Part of this difference correlates to the budget — they just didn’t have to the money to do another scene like the Enterprise flying through V’Ger. But nobody in this movie refers to a single thing that happened in TMP. When Admiral Kirk announces that he’s taking back command of the Enterprise, nobody even groans “again?!”
We’re really watching the sequel to Space Seed, a season one episode of The Original Series, where the Enterprise stumbles onto a drifting 20th century spaceship. Inside the ship, in suspended animation, are Khan and his crew. Khan and the crew wake up. They’re superhuman bad guys. They try to take over the ship. Kirk fights Khan and Kirk wins, and he decides to maroon Khan and friends on a planet. The conclusion to this story is The Wrath of Khan.
That’s weird, right? I know I said The Motion Picture was weird, and it never gets weirder than that, but this one’s pretty weird too. Space Seed is a better-than-average TOS episode, but today it’s really just famous for being The One with Khan. And Khan is famous because of this movie. It wasn’t like anyone thought Space Seed needed a cinematic epilogue. So let’s be thankful that we got one.
The Wrath of Khan opens with Captain Saavik taking the Enterprise into the Neutral Zone to rescue the crew of the Kobayashi Maru. But it’s a trap. As soon as the Enterprise reaches the distress signal, they’re ambushed by three Klingon ships, and the Klingons aren’t interested in talking. Everyone dies. Saavik orders a ship evacuation, but it’s too late.
Psych! It’s a simulation. The Kobayashi Maru is a famous Star Trek Thing — something from the series that’s leaked into pop-culture (along with sayings like “phasers on stun!” or “live long and prosper”). As Saavik braces herself for death, the stage’s fourth wall opens up and Kirk walks in.
You can’t beat the Kobayashi Maru. That’s why it’s famous. Nothing Saavik could have done would have prevented her destruction. In this scenario, being in the captain’s chair is becoming Sisyphus as he tries again and again to roll his boulder up the mountain: the game is just unwinnable. Saavik doesn’t like this. She’s trying to show that she’s fit for command (she’s not really a captain, just a cadet), and here she is getting the ship blown up with Kirk and Spock watching. Kirk asks if she’s considered that the Kobyashi Maru really happens, that, through no fault of her own, she might end up in a situation to which there is no good solution. Saavik admits that she had not considered this. “It’s a test of character,” says Kirk, designed to reveal how the cadet in training acts when all is lost.
The Kobayashi Maru frames all of The Wrath of Khan. Kirk is stuck in a Sisyphean struggle against the passage of time (also known as a mid-life-crisis), and Khan improbably escapes from one unwinnable situation only to put himself in another one. We’ll get there.
But first, it’s Kirk’s birthday. Spock gets him a book: Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities. Kirk reads from the first page, the famous, “It was the best of times; it was the worst of times,” and it feels too real. Kirk doesn’t want to believe it could be the worst of times. Bones comes to visit and gives Kirk some vintage prescription eyeglasses. It’s official, Jim: you’re old. Bones also gives his opinion about something that was only suggested in the last movie — Kirk should never have become an Admiral. He’d have been happier on a starship.
Then we go to space. It’s Chekov! And he’s the first officer on the Reliant. Reliant’s looking for completely dead planets for something called Genesis. So Chekov and his captain beam down to one to make sure their readings are just anomalies. Once they’re down there, though, Chekov recognizes a ship’s name he’s seen before: The Botany Bay. That means Khan, and of course, Khan finds Chekov and the captain in his house. “I never forget a face,” says Khan, recognizing Chekov, who was not in Space Seed.
Khan’s an angry dude. Kirk put him on a stable enough planet, sure, but the planet next door blew up soon after, and things got really bad. He’s lived a hard life for almost 20 years. There was no escaping it. Here’s Khan’s first Kobayashi Maru — the Genetically Modified Super Human can only survive. There is nothing for him to conquer. No one for him to rule.
Khan finds out about Genesis and goes to steal it while Kirk is overseeing a training voyage on the Enterprise. Once Khan gets Genesis, there’s a great scene where one of Khan’s men steps up and reminds Khan that they don’t need to risk trying to kill Kirk. They have a ship. They have Genesis — which does exactly what it sounds like it does but will also erase any currently-living organism you use it on. They can do anything they want. Khan responds with a hundred times more emotion than anything in The Motion Picture. Shit, when Khan says “Let them eat static,” when the unsuspecting Enterprise tries to hail him, that has more emotion than anything in The Motion Picture too.
Emotion is part of what makes Wrath of Khan great. If you know anything about this movie, it’s Kirk’s famous “KHAAAAANNN!!!” scream. I also love Shatner hissing “Khan you bloodsucker,” into his communicator. Then there’s the lingering shot of pure bliss on Khan’s face when he thinks he’s won.
It’s not just anger and revenge, though. There’s also sadness. Kirk is clearly in a funk at the beginning of the movie. He feels time leaving him behind. His old ship’s about to get a new crew. Bones tells him he needs to do something so that he doesn’t become one of the relics in his apartment, and it is exactly what Kirk doesn’t want to hear. He doesn’t want to hear that he’s become a relic. He doesn’t want to think that his best years are behind him, and that there’s nothing for him anymore. But that’s what he’s feeling.
But The Wrath of Khan doesn’t fall into the trap of nostalgia, either. When Kirk finds Carol and his — surprise! — son David on the Genesis moon Kirk is stuck wondering what might have been. Carol is not a love interest for Kirk; she’s something from the past. The son he never met is just another cruel sign from the universe: this is the life Kirk could have had. Kirk has never been more uncomfortable. He’s doubting his past and his future.
There’s something oddly comforting in the way Kirk struggles in this movie. Kirk’s reputation in the world of Star Trek is the same as his reputation in the real world. He’s unambiguously great. Still, he feels not good enough, in the way you or I might. His reputation isn’t in question, but that’s not what matters. What matters is right now, and right now he’s just not feeling it. The Wrath of Khan manages to make Kirk relatable, whereas in The Motion Picture, no one’s relatable. Forgive me for this, but The Motion Picture was just too spacey. The Wrath of Khan is human.
Khan strands Kirk on the Genesis Moon. In Khan’s head, it’s a perfect reversal of fortunes. He has forced a Kobayashi Maru on Kirk the same way Kirk forced one on him. Now Saavik has to know: how did Kirk beat the Kobayashi Maru. He admits to reprogramming the test. “I don’t believe in the no-win scenario,” he reasons.
So in the end, when Spock dies to save the ship, is a no-win scenario happening, or does Spock’s death resolve one? Spock suggests the latter, saying he never took the Kobayashi Maru and asking Kirk, “What do you think of my solution?” Clearly it is a flawed solution — we lose Spock — but the movie suggests a possibility to move on. Nevermind that the next movie ignores all of that.
The Wrath of Khan’s ending is a mix of success and failure. “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few,” Spock says. Well, yeah, that’s true, but it sucks for the few. We see, in the end, a picture of life that isn’t of a no-win scenario, but isn’t of a perfect victory either. It’s sort of a some-lose scenario. There is loss, for sure, but there is hope. Asked again about what he’s feeling, Kirk has changed his mind: “I feel young.” Later, he quotes the less famous but better passage from A Tale of Two Cities: “It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.” There’s something so real about The Wrath of Khan, and Star Trek movies never get to that feeling any better than this one.
