Star Trek II
Thursday, May 27, 2004
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, let me explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to immense disaster...
Fennyman: So what do we do?
Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
Fennyman: How?
Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.
Shakespeare in Love: Screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard
The heart of the Star Trek film series featuring the original cast is now known simply as The Trilogy: the three movies that tell a continuous story, or rather a set of adventures with a continuing story running through them. It begins with '>Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which sets up the next two films brilliantly, while containing an exquisitely balanced and satisfying set of multiple themes and story lines, all of which contribute to the next two films and resonate throughout the series.
An innocent viewer might reasonably conclude that the death of Spock in Star Trek II and his rebirth in '>Star Trek III:The Search for Spock, then his renewal, reunion and reintegration with the crew in '>Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, were all planned from the beginning. The stories flow so perfectly, so dramatically. The Genesis Planet (where life is generated with astonishing rapidity) in Trek II is an obvious setup for the regeneration of Spock's body when his coffin is launched to its surface, and Spock momentarily whispering in McCoy's ear ("Remember") just before his suicidal self-sacrifice to save the Enterprise is tailor-made for some sort of soul transference.
So what brilliant mind thought this up? Who is responsible for this creative leap, this masterful design and intricate planning?
Well, nobody. Nobody at all. Except maybe Carl Jung, in thinking up the idea of synchronicity. Or Tom Stoppard, for explaining it all with the above quote.
The reality is that neither a painstakingly forged outline nor even a flash of genius was responsible for this perfect arc. What created this epic adventure was a combination of mixed emotions, miscommunication, suspicion, sudden inspiration, accident, improvisational skill and blind luck. And...the mystery.
For not only was there no trilogy planned as Star Trek II was being developed, there was no plan to match the two most crucial story lines that worked perfectly together to make the sequels possible, as well as to make this one of the best Star Trek and best science fiction adventure films of all time.
Those story lines were thrown together independent of each other. And each of them was the product more of happenstance and improvisation than of brilliant creative forethought and conceptual design. The creative brilliance was there, of course, but it got expressed in the process, and as a cumulative, interactive effort by the people involved. They not only pulled a good movie out of a hat, but one that generated more stories, and also became the salvation of a saga.
But when it all started, the only sequel anybody had in mind was Star Trek II itself---as the sequel to an episode of the TV show.
It certainly wasn't the sequel to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Though that picture had eventually made a bundle for Paramount---which of course is why a second film was contemplated---almost everybody involved in it was unhappy with it, and the studio thought it had cost way too much.
Gene Roddenberry as executive producer got most of the blame, though some feel it was the studio itself that had inflated the cost: first by including everything spent on the TV series that was dumped in favor of the feature, and then by promising exhibitors a release date that necessitated lots of extra bucks going to several effects houses simultaneously to get the effects done in time. Director Robert Wise was unhappy with the resulting film (which he finally got to finish for the DVD version) and the actors, particularly Leonard Nimoy, were unhappy with the process and the result. Nimoy was especially upset with the emphasis on spectacle and machinery, the confusing story and especially the editing out of interpersonal sequences he and William Shatner had devised to both save the story and return their relationship to its expected prominence. (Again, scenes that were properly restored in the DVD.)
All of this resulted in three initial moves: a new producer named by the studio, the search for a new director, and Leonard Nimoy's reluctance to sign on to play Spock (by some accounts, his refusal.)
It should be said at this point that over the years there have been various accounts of how this film was put together. The "Director's Cut" DVD provides the latest versions (in director Nicholas Meyer's commentary, and the interviews in the documentary made for the DVD release), which differ from, and sometimes contradict earlier accounts. I'll try to indicate what those differences are, since they add to the weird mythos of this film.
text continues after photos...
Henslowe: Mr. Fennyman, let me explain about the theatre business. The natural condition is one of insurmountable obstacles on the road to immense disaster...
Fennyman: So what do we do?
Henslowe: Nothing. Strangely enough, it all turns out well.
Fennyman: How?
Henslowe: I don't know. It's a mystery.
Shakespeare in Love: Screenplay by Marc Norman and Tom Stoppard
The heart of the Star Trek film series featuring the original cast is now known simply as The Trilogy: the three movies that tell a continuous story, or rather a set of adventures with a continuing story running through them. It begins with '>Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which sets up the next two films brilliantly, while containing an exquisitely balanced and satisfying set of multiple themes and story lines, all of which contribute to the next two films and resonate throughout the series.
An innocent viewer might reasonably conclude that the death of Spock in Star Trek II and his rebirth in '>Star Trek III:The Search for Spock, then his renewal, reunion and reintegration with the crew in '>Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home, were all planned from the beginning. The stories flow so perfectly, so dramatically. The Genesis Planet (where life is generated with astonishing rapidity) in Trek II is an obvious setup for the regeneration of Spock's body when his coffin is launched to its surface, and Spock momentarily whispering in McCoy's ear ("Remember") just before his suicidal self-sacrifice to save the Enterprise is tailor-made for some sort of soul transference.
So what brilliant mind thought this up? Who is responsible for this creative leap, this masterful design and intricate planning?
Well, nobody. Nobody at all. Except maybe Carl Jung, in thinking up the idea of synchronicity. Or Tom Stoppard, for explaining it all with the above quote.
The reality is that neither a painstakingly forged outline nor even a flash of genius was responsible for this perfect arc. What created this epic adventure was a combination of mixed emotions, miscommunication, suspicion, sudden inspiration, accident, improvisational skill and blind luck. And...the mystery.
For not only was there no trilogy planned as Star Trek II was being developed, there was no plan to match the two most crucial story lines that worked perfectly together to make the sequels possible, as well as to make this one of the best Star Trek and best science fiction adventure films of all time.
Those story lines were thrown together independent of each other. And each of them was the product more of happenstance and improvisation than of brilliant creative forethought and conceptual design. The creative brilliance was there, of course, but it got expressed in the process, and as a cumulative, interactive effort by the people involved. They not only pulled a good movie out of a hat, but one that generated more stories, and also became the salvation of a saga.
But when it all started, the only sequel anybody had in mind was Star Trek II itself---as the sequel to an episode of the TV show.
It certainly wasn't the sequel to Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Though that picture had eventually made a bundle for Paramount---which of course is why a second film was contemplated---almost everybody involved in it was unhappy with it, and the studio thought it had cost way too much.
Gene Roddenberry as executive producer got most of the blame, though some feel it was the studio itself that had inflated the cost: first by including everything spent on the TV series that was dumped in favor of the feature, and then by promising exhibitors a release date that necessitated lots of extra bucks going to several effects houses simultaneously to get the effects done in time. Director Robert Wise was unhappy with the resulting film (which he finally got to finish for the DVD version) and the actors, particularly Leonard Nimoy, were unhappy with the process and the result. Nimoy was especially upset with the emphasis on spectacle and machinery, the confusing story and especially the editing out of interpersonal sequences he and William Shatner had devised to both save the story and return their relationship to its expected prominence. (Again, scenes that were properly restored in the DVD.)
All of this resulted in three initial moves: a new producer named by the studio, the search for a new director, and Leonard Nimoy's reluctance to sign on to play Spock (by some accounts, his refusal.)
It should be said at this point that over the years there have been various accounts of how this film was put together. The "Director's Cut" DVD provides the latest versions (in director Nicholas Meyer's commentary, and the interviews in the documentary made for the DVD release), which differ from, and sometimes contradict earlier accounts. I'll try to indicate what those differences are, since they add to the weird mythos of this film.
text continues after photos...
Since there were legions of nine year olds who knew more about Star Trek than Harve Bennett did when he was hired to produce its new movie, he screened all the TV episodes, one after the other. The story that jumped out at him, he recalls, was "Space Seed," in which a genetically altered superman named Khan was found in suspended animation on a lost space ship from an earlier era (the very late twentieth century, still years ahead when the episode was made). He and his followers had escaped earth after they'd been deposed from ruling a quarter of the planet during the "genetic wars" they instigated. Khan, played by a young Ricardo Mantalban, is foiled in his attempt to take over the Enterprise, and Captain Kirk maroons him and his followers on a remote planet where their energies could be used to start a new life.
Bennett thought that revisiting the Khan character could make a terrific movie, and so that was the first thread. He drafted a story outline that had Captain Kirk confronting Khan, while rescuing a former love and her son, who turns out to also be his son. In the end, Kirk and son team up and warp off together.
Kirk's son and his former love would survive into the final screenplay, so that's the second thread.
The third thread was mothered by necessity. Leonard Nimoy was sounding very uninterested in appearing in the film, and the studio was worried that a Star Trek movie without Spock wouldn't sell. While the studio tried to figure out how much it was going to cost them to get him back, Bennett apparently decided to tempt him on a different level: he asked Nimoy if he'd like to play a death scene.
These days, Nimoy says he felt the Star Trek franchise was played out, and this would be the last movie. So why not go out with a death scene? But he may also have thought it was a better send-off for the character than simply walking away from it. Besides, death scenes are life to an actor.
Bennett told Nimoy that Spock's death would occur early in the movie, like the celebrated example of Janet Leigh in Psycho. Nimoy now says he thought that was a bad idea, but earlier accounts maintained that he was annoyed when various drafts of the screenplay kept pushing the death scene back towards the end.
In an alarmingly churlish interview for the DVD, William Shatner claims he came up with the basics of the actual death scene: Captain Kirk and Spock separated by a transparent wall (although he thought it might have been better if the wall wasn't quite transparent, and Spock would be seen just in outline. In other words, so Shatner would be the star of Nimoy's death scene. Sometimes it's very difficult to know where Shatner is kidding.)
The next thread came as a result of Harve Bennett's response to the first screenplay, by Jack Sowards, which featured a planet-destroying weapon. Bennett wanted a more positive phenomenon. Art director Michael Minor suggested the idea of terra-forming, which was a positive process of creating life, that would also have the consequence of destroying whatever already existed on the planet being terraformed. In the next draft of the script, this became the Genesis Project.
However, this script eliminated Khan. DeForest Kelley was unhappy with the scripts he saw, and he had to explain the Kirk-Spock-McCoy triangle to Bennett. He wasn't the only cast member unsatisfied. The story process was now officially in chaos, until writer-director Nicholas Meyer got a meeting with Bennett, read the scripts and when he met with the major cast members, agreed that they didn't have a movie yet. So he consulted with Bennett on which elements of each script and story so far they wanted to keep. They liked Khan's quest for revenge, Kirk discovering his son, the Genesis Project, and Spock's death.
And with that list Nick Meyer went off for a week or two and wrote a new script.
So now the story had Khan being accidentally discovered by a Starfleet crew, and extracting the information about the Genesis Project that would lead Kirk to him, and his vengeance. After Kirk discovers his son (a young scientist working on the Genesis Project) the Kirk-Khan duel takes its twists and turns. Khan is apparently defeated but manages to use the Genesis device as a weapon, and the Enterprise faces destruction, until Spock sacrifices himself to save the ship. But the Genesis device does create lush life on a barren planet, and (in a scene not in Meyer's script) Spock's burial in space becomes a soft landing on the new paradisiacal world.
Bennett thought that revisiting the Khan character could make a terrific movie, and so that was the first thread. He drafted a story outline that had Captain Kirk confronting Khan, while rescuing a former love and her son, who turns out to also be his son. In the end, Kirk and son team up and warp off together.
Kirk's son and his former love would survive into the final screenplay, so that's the second thread.
The third thread was mothered by necessity. Leonard Nimoy was sounding very uninterested in appearing in the film, and the studio was worried that a Star Trek movie without Spock wouldn't sell. While the studio tried to figure out how much it was going to cost them to get him back, Bennett apparently decided to tempt him on a different level: he asked Nimoy if he'd like to play a death scene.
These days, Nimoy says he felt the Star Trek franchise was played out, and this would be the last movie. So why not go out with a death scene? But he may also have thought it was a better send-off for the character than simply walking away from it. Besides, death scenes are life to an actor.
Bennett told Nimoy that Spock's death would occur early in the movie, like the celebrated example of Janet Leigh in Psycho. Nimoy now says he thought that was a bad idea, but earlier accounts maintained that he was annoyed when various drafts of the screenplay kept pushing the death scene back towards the end.
In an alarmingly churlish interview for the DVD, William Shatner claims he came up with the basics of the actual death scene: Captain Kirk and Spock separated by a transparent wall (although he thought it might have been better if the wall wasn't quite transparent, and Spock would be seen just in outline. In other words, so Shatner would be the star of Nimoy's death scene. Sometimes it's very difficult to know where Shatner is kidding.)
The next thread came as a result of Harve Bennett's response to the first screenplay, by Jack Sowards, which featured a planet-destroying weapon. Bennett wanted a more positive phenomenon. Art director Michael Minor suggested the idea of terra-forming, which was a positive process of creating life, that would also have the consequence of destroying whatever already existed on the planet being terraformed. In the next draft of the script, this became the Genesis Project.
However, this script eliminated Khan. DeForest Kelley was unhappy with the scripts he saw, and he had to explain the Kirk-Spock-McCoy triangle to Bennett. He wasn't the only cast member unsatisfied. The story process was now officially in chaos, until writer-director Nicholas Meyer got a meeting with Bennett, read the scripts and when he met with the major cast members, agreed that they didn't have a movie yet. So he consulted with Bennett on which elements of each script and story so far they wanted to keep. They liked Khan's quest for revenge, Kirk discovering his son, the Genesis Project, and Spock's death.
And with that list Nick Meyer went off for a week or two and wrote a new script.
So now the story had Khan being accidentally discovered by a Starfleet crew, and extracting the information about the Genesis Project that would lead Kirk to him, and his vengeance. After Kirk discovers his son (a young scientist working on the Genesis Project) the Kirk-Khan duel takes its twists and turns. Khan is apparently defeated but manages to use the Genesis device as a weapon, and the Enterprise faces destruction, until Spock sacrifices himself to save the ship. But the Genesis device does create lush life on a barren planet, and (in a scene not in Meyer's script) Spock's burial in space becomes a soft landing on the new paradisiacal world.
Meyer's major big screen success had been Time After Time, with Malcolm McDowell, Mary Steenburgen and David Warner, which brought a fictionalized H.G. Wells and Jack the Ripper to 1970s San Francisco in a time machine. He wasn't familiar with Star Trek either (his question, "is that the one that has the alien with the pointy ears?" became his opening shot: on Spock's pointy ear.) But he had strong opinions, some of which turned out to be emphasizing what was already there. He told Shatner that he saw Kirk as a kind of Horatio Hornblower (Shatner told him that's interesting, that's what Roddenberry said to begin with). In his commentary he makes much of all the naval accoutrements he added, but in fact the naval analogy was in Star Trek pretty much from the start.
Meyer wanted to ground Star Trek in recognizable reality. For the most part, this worked, but in other ways it's fortunate he was reigned in. In Allan Asherman's "The Making of Star Trek II" book published when the film came out in 1982, Meyer defends his desire to show a "No Smoking" sign on the bridge: "Everybody had a fit about that. 'How can you do that, it's the future.' They've been smoking for four hundred years. You think it's going to stop in the next two?" Not something to repeat on the DVD commentary a mere 20 years later.
Meyer's script added some inspired business---Kirk getting eyeglasses that he has to use in a crucial scene on the bridge---and a literary sense. Some of it he claims was inspired window-dressing: he thought Kirk should get a real book for his birthday and the first one he picked up was Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities." He soon discovered that, as he says, it is the one book which people know the first line and the last line. It would also be one of the elements of the serendipity that came together thematically even after he had left the project.
Meyer also used literature to sharpen the Khan character. He gave him a wound (the death of his wife) and its cause (Kirk marooning them) and turned him into an Ahab, not only in motivation and action, but in style. He wrote a Melville character, complete with pieces of Ahab's speeches from Moby Dick. (Here's an embarrassing confession for you from an English major: I didn't actually read Moby Dick all the way through until after I'd seen this movie, though I read it for an entirely unrelated reason. And so I was astonished to read Melville's Ahab copping some of Khan's best lines!)
Seeing the film again on DVD, it became clear that the element that most allows many of these pieces to fit together was Ricardo Mantalban's performance. As Meyer points out, you see everything in his face---every thought, as well as every emotion. His larger than life character is matched with a larger than life style.
This works with Shatner's Kirk pretty well, too. Shatner was still finding his movie-Kirk character in this film. He's good in the old action hero Kirk mode, not too bad in the human moments, but awkward in others, especially when he's trying to be the personable, humorous Kirk. He would get much better. But Shatner's style is larger than life to begin with. Khan is even larger, so Kirk looks subtle by comparison, which serves him well in the film's most crucial scenes.
Meyer did a terrific job directing Mantalban. He got him to seem threatening by underplaying, by being quiet and almost courtly. Even his most vengeful speeches are low-key in comparison to the fury he expresses; it says a lot for Khan's confidence. It is that blithe confidence, that maniacal serenity, that of course is his undoing.
Meyer wanted to ground Star Trek in recognizable reality. For the most part, this worked, but in other ways it's fortunate he was reigned in. In Allan Asherman's "The Making of Star Trek II" book published when the film came out in 1982, Meyer defends his desire to show a "No Smoking" sign on the bridge: "Everybody had a fit about that. 'How can you do that, it's the future.' They've been smoking for four hundred years. You think it's going to stop in the next two?" Not something to repeat on the DVD commentary a mere 20 years later.
Meyer's script added some inspired business---Kirk getting eyeglasses that he has to use in a crucial scene on the bridge---and a literary sense. Some of it he claims was inspired window-dressing: he thought Kirk should get a real book for his birthday and the first one he picked up was Dickens' "A Tale of Two Cities." He soon discovered that, as he says, it is the one book which people know the first line and the last line. It would also be one of the elements of the serendipity that came together thematically even after he had left the project.
Meyer also used literature to sharpen the Khan character. He gave him a wound (the death of his wife) and its cause (Kirk marooning them) and turned him into an Ahab, not only in motivation and action, but in style. He wrote a Melville character, complete with pieces of Ahab's speeches from Moby Dick. (Here's an embarrassing confession for you from an English major: I didn't actually read Moby Dick all the way through until after I'd seen this movie, though I read it for an entirely unrelated reason. And so I was astonished to read Melville's Ahab copping some of Khan's best lines!)
Seeing the film again on DVD, it became clear that the element that most allows many of these pieces to fit together was Ricardo Mantalban's performance. As Meyer points out, you see everything in his face---every thought, as well as every emotion. His larger than life character is matched with a larger than life style.
This works with Shatner's Kirk pretty well, too. Shatner was still finding his movie-Kirk character in this film. He's good in the old action hero Kirk mode, not too bad in the human moments, but awkward in others, especially when he's trying to be the personable, humorous Kirk. He would get much better. But Shatner's style is larger than life to begin with. Khan is even larger, so Kirk looks subtle by comparison, which serves him well in the film's most crucial scenes.
Meyer did a terrific job directing Mantalban. He got him to seem threatening by underplaying, by being quiet and almost courtly. Even his most vengeful speeches are low-key in comparison to the fury he expresses; it says a lot for Khan's confidence. It is that blithe confidence, that maniacal serenity, that of course is his undoing.
By the time Star Trek II was ready to shoot, rumors about Spock's death in the film were already raising alarms in fandom. Meyer's shooting script plays with the expectation a bit by having Spock "killed" early in the film in what turns out to be a simulated battle during a training mission. But the film does end with Spock's death, after he's saved the ship, and his funeral, so movingly shot that bagpipes playing "Amazing Grace" have become just about standard for funerals ever since (including the funeral of Gene Roddenberry.)
But, says Bennett now, the first test audiences were completely devastated by the ending. There wasn't a sound in the theatre, and people left depressed. The studio smelled disaster. Something had to be done.
But the Spock death thread had already been stretched in various directions, beginning well before the film started shooting. Asherman's book begins with Leonard Nimoy in China, shooting a TV miniseries, when he is shocked to see on the front page of the Wall Street Journal a story headlined, "Does Mr. Spock Die in the Next Episode of 'Star Trek' Saga?"
Oddly, a clipping of this very article is the only artifact of the period that's survived in my Star Trek files about this movie. It is a long article, expressing the alarm of various fans, including "a ghetto youth in Pittsburgh" who claims "the character of Spock has inspired him to steer clear of drugs and street gangs." But much of it is, of course, about money: how much Paramount might lose if Spock's death keeps people away.
Asherman discusses some of this with Nimoy, who is upset by fans pre-judging an event in a film they haven't yet seen. What neither of them mentions, but what the article makes clear, is that some of this dissatisfaction was being stirred up by none other than Gene Roddenberry.
But, says Bennett now, the first test audiences were completely devastated by the ending. There wasn't a sound in the theatre, and people left depressed. The studio smelled disaster. Something had to be done.
But the Spock death thread had already been stretched in various directions, beginning well before the film started shooting. Asherman's book begins with Leonard Nimoy in China, shooting a TV miniseries, when he is shocked to see on the front page of the Wall Street Journal a story headlined, "Does Mr. Spock Die in the Next Episode of 'Star Trek' Saga?"
Oddly, a clipping of this very article is the only artifact of the period that's survived in my Star Trek files about this movie. It is a long article, expressing the alarm of various fans, including "a ghetto youth in Pittsburgh" who claims "the character of Spock has inspired him to steer clear of drugs and street gangs." But much of it is, of course, about money: how much Paramount might lose if Spock's death keeps people away.
Asherman discusses some of this with Nimoy, who is upset by fans pre-judging an event in a film they haven't yet seen. What neither of them mentions, but what the article makes clear, is that some of this dissatisfaction was being stirred up by none other than Gene Roddenberry.
Remember him? He was the guy who started it all, relegated now to the title of Executive Consultant. But this film was distancing itself from him as much as possible. It's clear even today: in so many ways, Star Trek II acts as if Star Trek I The Motion Picture doesn't exist, and never happened. There's nothing in this movie that evinces any direct continuity with the events of the first. In fact the movie starts where The Motion Picture starts: once again, Kirk is a desk-bound admiral, wasting away. Once again, he's full of self-doubt and has aging issues. Again a crisis puts him in command. He even rides over to the Enterprise in a shuttle, to many of the same shots created for TMP.
Well, they could ignore his movie if they wanted, but they weren't going to kill off the character that meant the most to him. In lobbying to save Spock, Roddenberry used the fans (as he always had, and became very good at doing), and he went right at Nimoy. "If, years ago, Basil Rathbone had said he was sick of playing Sherlock Holmes, would they have killed off Sherlock Holmes?...I can understand someone tiring of a role, but in science fiction there are ways of handling things like this to make it appear Spock is dead, but still leaving some future options. What if, five years from now, another talented actor wants to try the role or if Mr. Nimoy himself changes his mind? It's a bit unfair for someone to kill off a character I created."
Stern words, and as it turned out, highly prophetic. For it didn't take Nimoy five years to change his mind. Spock hadn't even died yet before he realized several things: he was having a good time making this movie, he felt closer to the character than he realized, and that the movie was turning out so well the franchise might really have a future. So when it came time to shoot the scene he didn't want to do it. (He was also reportedly dismayed by the extreme fan reaction against Spock's death, and against him for agreeing to it. Nimoy it seems got death threats for killing Spock! Harve Bennett quotes him as saying, "I did not sign on to be accused of murder.")
It may seem all a bit exaggerated now, but at the time its importance might be indicated by the reaction of the crew while the death scene was being filmed: they were moved, they were appalled. That all the actors were in tears is one thing. But so was the crew. That's how real Spock was.
By this time, says Bennett now, he'd sensed Nimoy's discomfort with his decision. He says they discussed it just before shooting the final sequence. Was there something Nimoy could do, Bennett wondered, that left the door open? It was Nimoy who came up with the idea of mind-melding with the unconscious McCoy ( because he'd just neck-pinched him, so it was a one-two Vulcan combination) and saying only the single suggestive word, "Remember."
This was the film that the test audiences saw. It was the only film, Meyer insisted, that he was going to make. But a couple of scenes were added that reinforced the idea that Spock might very well be back. One was a lovely shot of Spock's sleek black coffin in the intense greenery of the Genesis Planet---a sudden Eden of accelerated growth that the Genesis Device had created. Then there was some additional dialogue as Kirk and crew looked out at the planet. Kirk quotes Spock as saying 'there are always possibilities' and that they must visit this planet again.
Then the bow on the package of this film is tied up tight when someone asks how Kirk feels. Asked that question at the beginning of the movie, his answer was "I feel old." Asked it now, he replies, "I feel young."
So here are the elements of this accidental masterpiece: at the beginning, Kirk quotes the first sentence of 'Tale of Two Cities': "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." A Genesis planet, the death of Spock. Life and death, the best and the worst. The movie ends with Spock's self-sacrifice "It is a far far better thing..." etc. (There's even some echo in the Kirk/Spock relationship to Dicken's Darnay and Sidney Carton in the novel, as Meyer points out.) Life has also been renewed for Kirk by the knowledge that he has a son. He has lost a brother, now he has gained a son. The Khan thread: Khan is the Ahab who is killed by trying to kill his nemesis. Spock is the hero who dies saving his ship.
There is also the no-win scenario -a training test that begins the film--- that as a cadet Kirk beat by re-programming the test to allow a solution, but that Spock never experienced. His solution was self-sacrifice. And in doing it, he forced Kirk to face death (the ultimate no win scenario) for the first time, through the death of his friend. The situation that Khan had faced with the death of his wife, but could not assimilate.
So through the creative contributions of many people, and serendipity to say the least, suddenly all the threads---Khan, Spock's death, Kirk's aging and sudden fatherhood, the Genesis planet---fit together like a master design.
There is an additional symmetry. Early on, Spock pronounces the logical ethic: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. He will repeat it during his death scene, as the reason for his actions.
But in Star Trek III, another set of ethics will mandate the opposite, and it will be the many who sacrifice for the needs of the one. And once the possibility of Spock's return from the dead was entertained, it didn't take long to realize that they had accidentally created the means to do it: the Genesis Planet.
They had made such a good movie that there had to be more.But they'd done more than encourage a sequel: they had made one necessary.
There is also the no-win scenario -a training test that begins the film--- that as a cadet Kirk beat by re-programming the test to allow a solution, but that Spock never experienced. His solution was self-sacrifice. And in doing it, he forced Kirk to face death (the ultimate no win scenario) for the first time, through the death of his friend. The situation that Khan had faced with the death of his wife, but could not assimilate.
So through the creative contributions of many people, and serendipity to say the least, suddenly all the threads---Khan, Spock's death, Kirk's aging and sudden fatherhood, the Genesis planet---fit together like a master design.
There is an additional symmetry. Early on, Spock pronounces the logical ethic: the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few, or the one. He will repeat it during his death scene, as the reason for his actions.
But in Star Trek III, another set of ethics will mandate the opposite, and it will be the many who sacrifice for the needs of the one. And once the possibility of Spock's return from the dead was entertained, it didn't take long to realize that they had accidentally created the means to do it: the Genesis Planet.
They had made such a good movie that there had to be more.But they'd done more than encourage a sequel: they had made one necessary.
The DVD version returns a few scenes not in the release version, especially those that explain the reactions to the death of a young cadet in the engine room (a sequence that Meyer admits he stole whole from a Horatio Hornblower movie.) The DVD returns scenes trimmed for time in the release version that shows the cadet was Scotty's nephew. If DVDs have done anything, it's to show how often studios subvert their films and the filmmakers with decisions that distort their own movie, ostensibly to save a few bucks.
Nicholas Meyer's commentary adds textures, references and ruminations. It is also enlightening about another irony, or tension. Meyer is in apparent conflict with Gene Roddenberry's concept of Star Trek, although some of his ideas are just different, and some involve questionable interpretations of Roddenberry's vision. But as Jung points out, we are energetic beings, and energy is produced by difference.
Michael Okuda's subtitled commentary is quite informative. The subtle warfare between Meyer and Roddenberry is evident here and there: Meyer goes out of his way to criticize the decorative screen in Spock's quarters (like the director of the recent Nemesis, he felt constrained by everything he couldn't control, like the Star Trek characters and the art team etc., and poured his creativity into the new characters and new costume designs for the bad guys). Okuda mentions that the screen depicts the Vulcan motto invented by Roddenberry: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination, something that Meyer doesn't mention.
Okuda's commentaries provide delightful insights into how he and the other behind the scenes creators build the physical world of Star Trek, both with originality and with understated relationships to other movies and TV. Their creative recycling is fun to hear about: in this film, they used a San Francisco skyline painting from The Towering Inferno, and as oxygen tanks, what had been the model for a space ship based on Werner von Braun's design, for the 1955 movie, "Conquest of Space."
Star Trek art and crafts people did this kind of thing in the series as well, partly to save on budget. Meyer mentions that the tight budget on this film required and inspired a lot of creativity, and only limited them a few times from showing what they wanted to show.
The DVD looks great. Meyer changed the Starfleet uniforms, and they'd always looked an odd shade of maroon on the movie screen, but on the DVD they are crisper, though still variable in color. In the Spock's funeral sequence they are brilliant red. Like the death scene, this scene is beautifully framed.
This movie was also the screen debut for Kirstie Alley, playing a Vulcan/Romulan command officer. She would be playing her signature role on "Cheers" when the sequel was shot, and they couldn't afford her any longer anyway. A lot of people like her in this role, and she does have some good moments; overall however I prefer Robin Curtis, who plays the character in Star Trek III. Bibi Besch was excellent as Dr. Carol Marcus, Kirk's ex-love and the scientist who develops the Genesis wave. With her mature beauty and aura of intelligence, this classically trained actor was believable as both.
Harve Bennett deserves credit as the reigning intelligence of this film, functioning as originator, negotiator, editor, placater, ringmaster, etc. (He is also taken to task in Nichele Nichol's book for being insensitive, devious and tone deaf when it comes to certain aspects of Star Trek.) The serendipity that resulted in a film that seems carefully planned could not have happened without the real intelligence, care and particular contributions of the people involved: producers, director, actors, art and crafts people, the effects work which was still being reinvented for every new picture, etc.
Star Trek's explorations were originally based on the "many worlds" theory, that suggested by sheer probability there were many worlds in the universe inhabited by intelligent beings. This movie particularly exemplifies my Many Hands Theory of Star Trek's successes: Talented people, inspired by a common vision (which they all see from different perspectives perhaps) and by working together. .. It's also the key to the mystery.
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Nicholas Meyer's commentary adds textures, references and ruminations. It is also enlightening about another irony, or tension. Meyer is in apparent conflict with Gene Roddenberry's concept of Star Trek, although some of his ideas are just different, and some involve questionable interpretations of Roddenberry's vision. But as Jung points out, we are energetic beings, and energy is produced by difference.
Michael Okuda's subtitled commentary is quite informative. The subtle warfare between Meyer and Roddenberry is evident here and there: Meyer goes out of his way to criticize the decorative screen in Spock's quarters (like the director of the recent Nemesis, he felt constrained by everything he couldn't control, like the Star Trek characters and the art team etc., and poured his creativity into the new characters and new costume designs for the bad guys). Okuda mentions that the screen depicts the Vulcan motto invented by Roddenberry: Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combination, something that Meyer doesn't mention.
Okuda's commentaries provide delightful insights into how he and the other behind the scenes creators build the physical world of Star Trek, both with originality and with understated relationships to other movies and TV. Their creative recycling is fun to hear about: in this film, they used a San Francisco skyline painting from The Towering Inferno, and as oxygen tanks, what had been the model for a space ship based on Werner von Braun's design, for the 1955 movie, "Conquest of Space."
Star Trek art and crafts people did this kind of thing in the series as well, partly to save on budget. Meyer mentions that the tight budget on this film required and inspired a lot of creativity, and only limited them a few times from showing what they wanted to show.
The DVD looks great. Meyer changed the Starfleet uniforms, and they'd always looked an odd shade of maroon on the movie screen, but on the DVD they are crisper, though still variable in color. In the Spock's funeral sequence they are brilliant red. Like the death scene, this scene is beautifully framed.
This movie was also the screen debut for Kirstie Alley, playing a Vulcan/Romulan command officer. She would be playing her signature role on "Cheers" when the sequel was shot, and they couldn't afford her any longer anyway. A lot of people like her in this role, and she does have some good moments; overall however I prefer Robin Curtis, who plays the character in Star Trek III. Bibi Besch was excellent as Dr. Carol Marcus, Kirk's ex-love and the scientist who develops the Genesis wave. With her mature beauty and aura of intelligence, this classically trained actor was believable as both.
Harve Bennett deserves credit as the reigning intelligence of this film, functioning as originator, negotiator, editor, placater, ringmaster, etc. (He is also taken to task in Nichele Nichol's book for being insensitive, devious and tone deaf when it comes to certain aspects of Star Trek.) The serendipity that resulted in a film that seems carefully planned could not have happened without the real intelligence, care and particular contributions of the people involved: producers, director, actors, art and crafts people, the effects work which was still being reinvented for every new picture, etc.
Star Trek's explorations were originally based on the "many worlds" theory, that suggested by sheer probability there were many worlds in the universe inhabited by intelligent beings. This movie particularly exemplifies my Many Hands Theory of Star Trek's successes: Talented people, inspired by a common vision (which they all see from different perspectives perhaps) and by working together. .. It's also the key to the mystery.
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