Lexmark3200
01-04-2006, 02:29 PM
Received this 10-disc set as a gift this past season, and (in my eyes at least) rightfully so, because it had been on my "Want List" a long time but was one of those sets I never got around to picking up because of varying factors like price (that never seemed to drop significantly below $200), availability....heck, let me tell the truth: this was a good idea for a gift from someone! I also owned this set on VHS (it's not really the same set, as the VHS collection spanned only to part VI if I am not mistaken; this set collects the entire history of this Paramount franchise, from the voyages of Kirk and crew to the Next Generation stories including Riker, Data and Picard, up to 1998's Insurrection). I had been scratching to replace my VHS box set of these beloved titles for some time and in retrospect, the VHS versions seemed like a massive waste of money when sitting next to the two-disc special Director's Editions of many of these films on DVD, what with their lavish extended cuts and added scenes, director commentary and extra "making of" featurettes included; it was also an awesome treat to finally have the original theatrical trailers and teasers on hand for these classic films. As you will come to see in my technical analysis of at least two of the titles in the set (I have to review them title by title as I go along because the set is just too damn long to get to in one evening or sitting, so please bear with me; last night, I sat down with The Motion Picture Director's Edition and The Wrath of Khan before falling off into a coma-like sleep), Paramount has yet disappointed me again in the realm of video and audio specifications/transfers/performance, as watching, in particular, Wrath of Khan, the "look" of the video was not far off the quality exhibited on VHS incarnations that came before the DVD, and that was disappointing. Audio quality was also on the side of scratchy, lethargic, distorted and even crackly at certain times of the newly prepared Dolby 5.1 mix. But I'll get to all that in the meat of the review.
First, the facts. I have always been a "closet Trekkie" -- no, I was not one of those people you'd see at conventions with tricorders strapped to my waist or Spock ears on my head; I had always been addicted to the original TV series with the original cast -- Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley, Doohan -- and to me, there WAS no other Star Trek crew. I still feel that way to this day. I own all 79 of the original show episodes on recorded VHS tapes (soon to be replaced on DVD as well, Jesus Christ, the expense of this hobby.....) but for some reason, I just never took to the hoopla that swept fans off their feet when The Next Generation debuted. What was this? A new Enterprise, NCC-1701-D?? A bald older captain named "Picard"? Some robot as science officer? Where the hell was Spock? Bones? Scotty? And....worse off.....what was a KLINGON doing on a Federation starship?
But The Next Generation turned out to be not that bad in hindsight -- yet I simply COULD NOT get involved with all the other spinoff shows, which I feel are a disgrace to Gene Roddenberry’s legacy, such as Deep Space Nine or worse yet, Enterprise -- shows which had a custom-made "feel" for modern-day young audiences with modern rock soundtracks and "trendy-looking" aliens....give me a break; this was NOT Star Trek to me. So I never got involved. But Roddenberry's original vision for this phenomenon which has become one of the most popular and energy-infused franchises in the history of cinema (and a massive cash cow for Paramount) and has also become a proverbial lifestyle to many hardcore fans has a very interesting history...and the culmination to motion picture status from original television series airing was a cultural event almost in itself (although, as we will explore, many feel was gravely unserved by the almost sleep-inducing Motion Picture in 1979). The late Gene Roddenberry sold a show called "Star Trek" to the networks which would explore the "treks" into worlds outside our own in outer space and introduce us to the men on the spaceships making up what was known as the "United Federation of Planets" or "The Federation"....along for the ride were planets that were "allies" of the Federation, forming an almost galaxy-wide army of sorts to combat the Federation's two most formidable enemies, the Klingon and Romulan Empires....aggressive alien species who are at constant war with the humans and others that make up the Federation. With these armies came awesome battleships for space fights between the Federation and Klingons, making much of the Star Trek legacy play like a military operation in outer space. And that was the draw as much as getting to know the characters -- Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Dr. McCoy (DeForrest Kelley), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and Mr. Scott (James Doohan) just to name the mains -- commanding and flying these ships was. Originally, someone else was hired on to play the "captain" of the USS Enterprise, the main ship used in the show and the highlight of each episode many times, but the "Captain Kirk" character seemed to be MADE for William Shatner, and we can never imagine anyone else in the role to be honest, can we? The voyages of the starship Enterprise were not like the "voyages" NASA space crews endured or ventured into; these battleships in the Star Trek world were fully-functioning military vessels with bridges, quarters, engine rooms, meeting facilities.....it was not anything like sitting aboard a space shuttle from NASA. Under "Captain Kirk"'s command was a "Vulcan" (an alien race allies with the Federation and whose population is sworn to a life of logic and reasoning) named Mr. Spock, as well as a slew of other characters fans would immediately identify with through the years and seasons of the show and all the way into the film franchise.
Roddenberry managed to sell NBC on the concept of Star Trek, and although with many pitfalls and corporate problems along the way, the producers managed to crank out (an odd number of) 79 episodes before the series ended. Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock -- and the Enterprise itself -- became household names. Characters were developed, planets were identified, alien races were seen, new Federation ships were designed and released for fans to see -- all while the Star Trek legacy continued to heat up. Yet, once the series ended (the original series, that is) there unbelievably was no more Star Trek on television until The Next Generation arrived -- a Star Trek "spinoff" idea by Roddenberry many years later which would introduce a new captain of the Enterprise plus a whole new crew and ship. The idea went over with "Trekkies" and was probably the most tasteful of all the spinoff ideas, but it still wasn’t Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley and Doohan. These ideas would later be incorporated into the film franchise collection as popularity with the new crew was growing and the folks involved in the original production were simply getting older (Shatner, Nimoy, etc.). The subject material found in many of the old original TV episodes was so intoxicating in fact, it became subject material for the second feature film in the franchise, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, often considered one of the best Science Fiction films ever made.
STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE - DIRECTOR'S EDITION
It was the late 1970s. Paramount Studio executives realized they had no feature film version of the popular Star Trek television show which rocked airwaves years before in the '60s. It was time. The biggest problem with the project for the first Star Trek motion picture was the choice of director...and the subsequent horrendous acting we were subject to from the leads, but we'll get to that in a moment. Robert Wise, while credited with many accolades under his belt, simply wasn't the right man for this job. He injected the first feature Trek film with loose, too-connected-to-the-original-episodes plot scripting, lethargic pacing and with a combination of these aforementioned qualities and some horrible screenwriting from his team, we got placid, stone-cold dead performances from Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley and the rest as their characters grew up a great deal since the TV show. At times -- especially when the "Ilia" character "becomes" the alien probe at the end -- we simply don’t know what's going on and are subjected to such a slow pace we don’t really care to be honest. It is these reasons that Star Trek: The Motion Picture is actually often considered one of the worst entries in the whole series -- if not THE worst; I know I never watch it if I don’t have to.
The plot Wise constructed for the original feature length film to launch the Star Trek franchise in theaters plays very much like what was explored in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; that is, a powerful alien is threatening Earth for some odd reason, plain and simple. In Wise's vision, this "alien" comes in the form of a radioactive-looking cloud that at first manages to wipe out three powerful Klingon battleships and then turns its sights on Earth. What is this cloud? What does it want? While those answers are oddly handled at the end of the picture, the first hour of the film deals with reintroducing our characters and the audience to the newly-refitted Enterprise which looks stunning on the big screen. William Shatner returns as "James T. Kirk," only this time, he has been bumped up from Captain to Admiral (a trend we will see go back and forth between the whole series for one reason or another); it seems in charge of this new Enterprise is Captain Will Decker (son of the other Captain Decker from the original TV series episode The Doomsday Machine...remember, about the asteroid-eating machine?) and when this emergency situation arises, that is, this alien cloud is coming towards Earth to eliminate it, Kirk personally assumes command of this new Enterprise and relieves Decker, causing a tension among the two for the remainder of the picture. Now, "Captain" Kirk is back in the chair again, commanding his loyal crew who are not really all "there" or "together" yet, not to mention the fact that Scotty (James Doohan) is having a lot of problems getting this new ship ready for launch on time. The warp drive system isn’t functioning properly (which causes a "wormhole effect" upon their first jump to warp speed), the transporters are not working right (which causes the death of two officers attempting to beam up to the ship) and on top of all of that, Doctor Leonard McCoy (DeForrest Kelley) has unwillingly been "drafted" by Kirk to rejoin the crew for this mission. The mission seems "cursed" from the beginning.
But where's Spock, you may ask? Well, Wise constructed a sequence on his home planet of Vulcan which dealt with Spock attempting to achieve the rite of "Kholinar," but he cannot seem to "find himself" on his home planet...it seems the only place Spock can find "what he is looking for" is aboard the Enterprise and on the mission of locating and identifying this alien cloud they are trying to stop. He joins the crew on route on a transfer vessel, completing the original TV cast on board the ship already: Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov and Sulu...also on board is "Lieutenant Ilia," an alien known as a Deltan which Decker had relations with on her home planet years before. Her character becomes significant later on in the film, if not that memorable, to me at least anyway.
Before we get to plot analysis (for any of you who may never have actually seen this first feature film in the set), lets talk about the acting performance problems. This is not the Kirk, Bones or Spock that we grew to love in the TV series....their performances are wooden, static, unresponsive and simply hollow. The entire situation changes DRAMATICALLY with the release of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in terms of acting performances, where the characters finally come into themselves for the remainder of the series. But here, it doesn’t even seem like we are dealing with the same characters -- Shatner's lines are spoken uncharacteristically stiff and unnaturally restrained, while Nimoy's Spock is not the Spock we remember from the show -- at all. McCoy (Kelley) starts off with a beard as he is "drafted" aboard the Enterprise, but ends up looking more like the Doctor McCoy we remember from the series as the film goes on. And what's with the costume design in this film? What is with those horrible uniforms the Federation crew were wearing with those "belt pack" things in the middle of their waists in front, and the "stretch pajama" look to the pants and tunic? Awful. Thank G-d when The Wrath of Khan came around and the Federation uniforms turned into those red and black tunic things.
As the Enterprise gets its fair share of difficulties before even picking up Spock from his transfer ship -- such as the tension between Decker and Kirk and the "wormhole" effect plaguing the ship from the warp engines being unbalanced -- Wise doesn't really pick up the pace here and the plot gets more convoluted as it goes along. With Spock onboard, he helps Scotty fix the engine problems so the ship can achieve safe warp speed, but the encounter with the alien cloud becomes their main concern after it attacks the ship with a lightning bolt scanner, ultimately attacking Ilia and abducting her. With Ilia gone and the ship fairly crippled, the crew is suddenly subjected to an alien invader onboard: an exact replica of Ilia, only sexier looking with a sheer, short robe on and heels....and some strange marble-like device in her neck. This Ilia is now speaking in a rather robotic voice and McCoy identifies it, with a scanner reading, as a machine but with duplication of human anatomy within as well. Wise loses us with the plot at this point, forcing us to accept the following scenario: it seems a "creature" or "alien" or "mysterious lifeforce" named "V-GER" has sent this alien "probe" which took over Ilia to the Enterprise to discover who its "creator" is...apparently, man. It has been destroying planets and other ships and space stations on route to Earth to find its "creator" because no one has been answering it (does this sound an AWFUL lot like Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home?)...but what the hell does it want? Like many unanswered alien "what do they want" questions that came before it in the original series episodes, this one gets no easier for us, the viewer, to understand. The crew end up, in this slow paced film's final sequence, arriving at V-GER's "inner sanctum" (is this within the cloud itself? A machine? A planet? What?) with the Ilia clone still leading the way. Kirk discovers that V-GER is actually the abbreviation for one of the VOYAGER space crafts launched by NASA 200 or so years before -- its mission was to seek out new life and find "its" "creator," but never got its answer until the crew of the Enterprise arrived......why it needed to destroy Klingon ships or Federation space stations while it was looking is unclear. To top off all this illogical nonsense, it seems the only way "V-GER" will get its answer is if a human joins with this machine -- and so Decker remains behind to become one with this "Ilia probe" as the Enterprise gets the hell out of there, witnessing what the crew calls the birth of a new life form. If this is all utterly, utterly confusing and just....well....ridiculous sounding, well, don’t worry. Most fans feel the exact same way and couldn’t wait for a sequel to arrive to clean this mess up.
Paramount has gone back and made many of the entries into the Trek franchise -- due to blatant fan demand -- Director's Editions, restoring scenes, special effects sequences, sound and elements....the result, in the first feature film of the series, is a film that runs well over two hours (already way too long considering the plot pace set for this and the horrendously dry acting from the leads) incorporating a two-minute (or so) space prologue before the opening credits (with surprisingly no Paramount opening logo to be found) and a brief pre-credits space sequence at the end. Inbetween are some restored scenes and special effects work, such as when the crew is getting off the ship to explore V-GER's hideout at the end, where we can blatantly see a newly-restored graphic of the Enterprise amidst the backdrop of the stars as the engines are running and the crew is getting off the hull onto the developing V-GER "landscape"; to describe this scene is hard, but you'll know it when you see it at the end. It looked cheesy and odd to me even though this was supposed to be an exciting "restored visual element" according to the packaging. Let's take a look at the technical aspects of this Director's Edition for 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
DISC 1:
VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS ANALYSIS:
WIDESCREEN VERSION ENHANCED FOR 16:9 TVs
Ahhhh....Paramount. Another studio much like Warner Brothers that absolutely refuses to put the actual scope ratio of their DVD transfers on the rear of the boxes; instead, what we get is "Widescreen Version...." and "The Black Bars On Top and Bottom are Normal...." Jesus H. Christ. At any rate, this approximately 2:35:1 transfer was supposedly reminted (although no reference to that is made on the packaging anywhere) with the restored elements for this Director's Edition; what I can say is that this is STILL light years away from being anything that resembles reference quality video -- specks, pops, grain, dirt and all kinds of anomalies litter the screen for this widescreen transfer and the overall look of the film is still extremely soft. I understand what were dealing with here, a film stock from 1979....but this hardly resembles "DVD" and looks much like the VHS incarnations I have witnessed before, perhaps without the washed-out effect tapes seem to get after awhile. Flesh tones get a bit too pink in certain spots, as if the color timing was specifically being toyed with here, but the most annoying thing is that ever-present thin layer of grain that's running behind the scenes....it's almost as if Paramount didn’t or couldn’t clean this up. This film still LOOKS old. I may be painting a very bad picture here for this transfer -- it may not really be as bad as I am saying. But I can distinctly remember the visuals not looking all that great for DVD -- the opening credits sequence looked OK, but once the Klingon ships came on the screen and we get some closeup shots of the interior of their ships, the look becomes murkier and more unstable -- in fact, if you look close, you can see where the blacks of outer space looked rather washed-out and "old" compared to the black letterboxing which appears at the edges of the image for this widescreen presentation. There are moments when the transfer gets strikingly clear for a film of this vintage -- but for the most part, you can still see those film elements -- pops, specks, some dirt -- clearly on this print. Didn't really impress me to be honest.
AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS ANALYSIS:
ENGLISH DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1, ENGLISH DOLBY SURROUND; ENGLISH SUBTITLES; GROUP COMMENTARY TRACK BY DIRECTOR ROBERT WISE, SPECIAL PHOTOGRAPHIC EFFECTS DIRECTOR DOUGLAS TRUMBULL, SPECIAL PHOTOGRAPHIC EFFECTS SUPERVISOR JOHN DYKSTRA, MUSIC COMPOSER JERRY GOLDSMITH AND ACTOR STEPHEN COLLINS
This was a hard one to call. The newly-prepared Dolby Digital surround mix for this film's DVD presentation did some things well and others poorly; Paramount claims a restored, new sound mix was developed for this presentation, and from the opening credits and classic Star Trek theme, it seemed like that may have rung true. The disc defaults to the Dolby 5.1 track with no jump to a menu to begin anything, playing the feature film with the newly-added space prelude before the opening credits. That sounded rather dull and lifeless, so I turned up my processor a couple of notches...once the opening credits and Jerry Goldsmith's score came crashing on, the soundscape opened up quite a bit for a film from 1979. The opening scene where the Klingon ships are being attacked by the alien cloud sounded rather cool if dated a bit; effects got a little "staticky" and "nasal" (not nearly as bad as what I encountered on the next disc in the series, but I'll get to that) but there was excellent usage of the surrounds on the mix, believe it or not. Almost constant use, in fact. Any attack sequence -- when the cloud was attacking the Enterprise or the cloud was attacking the Epsilon 9 space station for example -- brought aggressive, raw energy to the surround channels, creating a realistic sense of space for a film of this age. The effects did not sound as clean or discrete as 5.1 mixes from today's vintage, but I don’t think Star Trek: The Motion Picture ever sounded so good. The main downfall to this track was the dialogue stem: this was so horrendously low and old-sounding, it made it difficult to make out characters' voices at times. It didn’t mesh well with the effects tracks. Effects and score would come crashing through the speakers, only to have a dead-silent dialogue sequence up next...and the age of this film could clearly be heard in the somewhat nasal, congested quality of the speech. That didn’t seem to get any treatment from Paramount. There was also still that rather "dated" quality to the audio elements; you can tell this was a film from the 1970s, in other words, no matter how much engineers try to hide that under the skirt of Dolby Digital surround technology. Yes, surround usage was aggressive and accurately directional for a film of this vintage with near-constant performances....but the overall fidelity of the mix was dated. Still, I think the audio was better than the video here and I DOUBT this film will -- or can -- sound better than this. There were also healthy wallops of LFE every now and then, and that was very nice for such an old soundtrack. I sat up and took notice whenever my subwoofer kicked in during action or score sequences. A little more "ooooomph" or power to the track wouldn't have hurt, as it was on the overall lower side of overall raw output.
DISC 2:
The housing of this Director's Edition -- and the others in the set -- is what got a bit of negative praise from me. With rather large housing boxes and two discs in each box (the second discs holding the special features of these special editions) it seems like a great deal of wasted space and real estate was adorned on these editions. This first film is oddly housed in a yellow-colored box which looks very strange next to the other silver-colored spines of the other discs in the box set; why Paramount did this I have no idea. But it looks weird. That, combined with the rather extra-large but light (because they’re flimsy and empty) boxes the discs are in -- as well as the fact that I had a very hard time releasing the DVDs from their weirdly-constructed holding rings short of snapping them in half -- forced me to give the packaging presentation low marks.
The extras on Disc 2 were pretty awesome, and were broken down like this:
-NEW RETROSPECTIVE DOCUMENTARIES WITH CAST & CREW INTERVIEWS:
Phase II: The Lost Enterprise
A Bold New Enterprise
Redirecting the Future
-TEASER TRAILER
-THEATRICAL TRAILER
-NEW DIRECTOR'S EDITION TRAILER
-8 TELEVISION COMMERCIALS
-5 ADDITIONAL SCENES (from the 1979 theatrical version)
-11 DELETED SCENES (from the 1983 TV version)
-STORYBOARD ARCHIVE
-INTERACTIVE MENUS
-NEW STAR TREK SERIES ENTERPRISE PROMO SPOT
STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN - DIRECTOR'S EDITION
This was the film that made up for ALL of the first one's shortcomings --- THIS is what Trek -- and Science Fiction -- is all about. With the taste in Paramount's mouths for generating a franchise business out of the Trek name in theaters, a sequel to the 1979 Motion Picture was inevitable. Robert Wise, thankfully, did not return to the director's chair, but instead we got Nicholas Meyer (who went on to helm the exciting Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and to save the franchise from going down the tubes after Star Trek V) to inject a new direction for these films with all-new costumes, attitudes and electrifying space battles. What the team responsible for the sequel did was craft one of the most adorned Science Fiction masterpieces ever put to film -- an instant fan favorite that even though sits as a sequel to another film and not on its own, is often considered the greatest Trek testimony in the history of the legacy. Cleverly, Meyer and crew crafted a story around an old character from the original TV series -- the futuristic madman Ricardo Montalban played in Space Seed, Khan Noonien Singh. To the delight of fans, this became instantly recongnizable for Trekkies who had seen the original series countless times and who could recall the old episode with Khan and how he tried to take over the Enterprise in that TV episode and possibly murder Captain Kirk. For a brief overview, in the episode of Space Seed, Kirk and crew picks up a renegade spaceship lost from 200 years before the events in Star Trek; it seems a genetically-altered "superman" who ruled portions of Earth named "Khan" went into a long sleep with his loyal crew...but when he is "defrosted" along with his crew by Kirk and his men, it is discovered Khan is a madman who wants to rule once more. He takes over the ship and Kirk's men and a final hand to hand fight ensues between Kirk and Khan at the end of the episode where Khan, although much stronger than the average human, ends up being beat down by Kirk (as Kirk always does, right?)....Kirk sentences Khan to permanent exile on Ceti-Alpha 5, a lifeless planet in which they will need to do whatever they can to stay alive. But what Kirk didn’t count on was Khan returning for revenge.....and so the story of The Wrath of Khan was born!
With a new opening theme for the franchise and new costuming, better direction and more exciting visuals and pacing, Star Trek II started off with a bang, finding "Admiral" James T. Kirk (Shatner) analyzing and supervising the training of new Starfleet cadets under the command of the now-Captain Spock (Nimoy). Kirstie Alley plays Saavik, a training helms(wo)man that also happens to be a mentor of Spock's and a Vulcan (the Saavik character would return in films III and IV but with another actress) and who is undergoing the "Kobiashi Maru" test for command personnel. She fails the test in the very beginning of the film, as a horrendous attack by Klingon ships gets her in over her head, but she argues to Kirk that there was "no way to win." Kirk had faced this same test before he became a commander -- but he cheated by changing the programming of the test computer so there WAS a way to win; as he says later on in the film "I don’t believe in the no-win scenario." And so our plot develops, whereby Spock is fixed on the training of his cadets for their first mission aboard the Enterprise and Kirk goes home to celebrate his birthday with McCoy (Kelley) in a rather depressing fashion. As McCoy gives Kirk his gift -- a pair of eyeglasses instead of Retlax which he is allergic to but cures bad eyesight -- the two of them discuss the fact that Kirk's first passion has always been commanding a starship and being Admiral is really not for him.
Meanwhile, Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) is working aboard the USS Reliant for Captain Terrell (Paul Windfield) on a science mission to seek out a planet able to sustain the experiments for "Project Genesis," a "weapon" the Federation has developed to create life on lifeless planets. In charge of this project is Dr. Carol Marcus, an ex flame of Kirk's, with whom she had a son with -- David. David works at the lab with Marcus (Bibi Besch, The Beast Within) and both are suspicious of the Federation's intentions for Genesis. As they approach what they think is a planetoid called "Ceti-Alpha 6" Terrell and Chekov realize there may be a chance for this planetoid to receive the testing for Genesis. They get the go-ahead from Marcus, but upon beaming down, they are caught in a sand storm which makes them think they had the wrong coordinates. They make they way into some kind of a cargo carrier, where Chekov reads the name of the ship on a seat belt buckle: SS BOTTANY BAY. Immediately, he realizes who's ship this is and that him and Captain Terrell need to get the hell out of there....this gets a little confusing, even for fans, because in the original TV episode of Space Seed, Chekov supposedly never met or knew Khan -- but here in the film he realizes this is Khan's crashed ship from their exile. Before they can escape in time, Terrell and Chekov are captured by Khan (Montalban) and his people where they become literal hostages and slaves for Khan as he puts worm-like creatures in their ears to control their minds. It seems the planet Chekov and Terrell thought was Ceti-Alpha 6 actually exploded after Khan and his people were exiled by Kirk years ago, and Terrell and Chekov had confused the two planets....Khan and his people were waiting for this opportunity to once again escape and plot a revenge against Kirk and the Enterprise. Once Chekov and Terrell are under Khan's spell, Khan gets them to demand the Project Genesis materials from Carol Marcus and her team. When Chekov tells Marcus that this order has come from Admiral Kirk, Marcus contacts Kirk and asks why he is taking their materials away from them for military testing. Kirk is confused with Marcus' message as the transmission is jammed and lost by Khan's crew. Immediately, Kirk assumes command of the Enterprise, as Spock was officially Captain, and sets a course for the science lab Regula One where Marcus and her team are. Along the way, of course, in perhaps the most exciting part of the film, Kirk and the Enterprise are confronted by Khan, who has now stolen a Federation starship, Terrell's Reliant, and has prepared a sneak attack on Kirk and his ship. While Kirk and crew try to contact Reliant because, after all, its just one of their ships in the fleet, Khan prepares to attack the Enterprise by locking their phasers on them and firing -- before Kirk can react, the ship is badly damaged and there seems to be no power to get their shields up incase of another attack. Reliant launches a photon torpedo at Enterprise, damaging it even more, and then Khan finally contacts Kirk to discuss terms of their surrender. The reaction Kirk has to seeing Khan on the viewscreen is priceless; but as always, Kirk manages to make a no-win situation into a survival manual, as he promises to transfer himself and materials on Genesis over to Khan's ship if Khan spares his crew....knowing Kirk, fans were aware of the fact that Kirk wasn’t simply going to let this happen, and so he orders Saavik (Alley) to enter the command code for Reliant's console which can drop their shields and override their systems from the Enterprise itself. This succeeds, and the Enterprise fires phasers directly at Reliant, hitting and crippling it as well. An awesome battle sequence indeed, and probably the best example of special effects in the entire picture.
The remainder of the film slows down a bit, as Kirk and Khan play a game of cat and mouse, both of their ships damaged and limping around through space; the crew eventually make it to Regula One, where they find the dead bodies of some of the science crew there killed by Khan and his people as he was trying to wring information about Genesis from them. They also find Terrell and Chekov, who tell Kirk about the strange worms Khan put in them to control their minds. Below the surface of Regula, Kirk, Saavik, McCoy, Terrell and Chekov find Carol Marcus and David, to the surprise of Kirk. It is at this point that Terrell and Chekov turn on Kirk and his people, holding phasers to them, and asking Khan over their arm-strapped communicators if he had been listening to the whole thing. Khan orders Terrell to kill Kirk, but he cant, instead turning the phaser on himself. Chekov collapses as the worm creature Khan put in him crawls out of his ear, freeing him of its control. Enraged, Kirk picks up Terrell's communicator and lets Khan know he is still indeed alive and that if he wants to kill him, he is going to have to come down to the planet to do so. It is often said that another hand to hand combat scene was supposed to take place here between Khan and Kirk, much like in Space Seed, but the idea was scrapped, and instead Khan beams up the Genesis device, stealing it, and leaves him and his men marooned in the inner trappings of Regula.
Eventually, Spock gets the Enterprise back in working order after the damages from Khan's attack enough to beam the stranded crew members back aboard from Regula, and another space battle between Enterprise and Reliant ensues, as Khan follows Kirk and his ship into the Motara Nebula -- a highly gaseous cloud formation which will allow both ships to be useless in terms of navigation, scanning or weapon targeting. The two ships pretty much blow themselves to almost pieces, the Enterprise of course getting the upper hand at the end, leaving Khan by himself and his crew all dead on a crippled ship. But Khan has one last weapon up his sleeve -- he sets the Genesis device on a detonation overload so he blows up along with Kirk and his ship. The Enterprise still does not have warp powers because of the damage it sustained in the battles with Reliant, and they try and get away from the overloading Genesis device onboard Khan's ship as fast as possible -- but without warp speed, they will never make it in time. Spock goes down to the engine room and proceeds to consume himself with deadly radiation poisoning in order to fix the broken warp engines, which he does, allowing the Enterprise to escape with warp speed just before the Reliant blows up.....but Spock dies in front of Kirk right there in the engine room from radiation poisoning even though he saved the ship.....
Or did he?
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is just so much better in every which way than the first film that its unfair to even compare them; Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley, Doohan and the rest all come into their characters in this one, setting the pace for the remaining Trek films in the franchise -- the acting was inline with the series beginning here, the costuming was tremendously better, the action was Star Trek all the way -- and Science Fiction all the way in general with the downright awesome space battles between Reliant and Enterprise. This film, as I said earlier, almost stands on its own in terms of Sci Fi entertainment and reference and not part of this Trek franchise because of the style Meyer uses in crafting this piece; it is often considered a standard by which other Sci Fi projects should be judged. All these years later, 1982's The Wrath of Khan STILL holds fans' attention and it certainly always holds mine. It's great.
On this extended Director's Edition there have been added scenes that were never seen on VHS incarnations of the title, with some added dialogue sequences which were refreshing to watch.
DISC 1:
VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS ANALYSIS:
WIDESCREEN VERSION ENHANCED FOR 16:9 TVs
Watching this for the first time in widescreen format was nice, but I’m sad to report that The Wrath of Khan simply looks as bad as it ever has -- see, this was never a pretty-looking print in ANY form, whether you watched this on TV, cable or VHS; there's just a grittiness to this image that doesn’t look that great. This carries over to DVD. There's a grain running behind the image at all times that's noticeable and the overall "look" seems dated and...well...just not like DVD. The impression I got was that this approximately 2:35:1 transfer was simply dumped from a tape onto a recordable DVD and Paramount left that as that. The print looks dirty and not smooth as DVD should look, and this is coming from the source of this title, no doubt, as I said because each incarnation of Star Trek II never looked clean or reference-quality. I wish Paramount would have given this fan favorite more love in the remastering department; what we have here is watchable if nothing more.
AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS ANALYSIS:
ENGLISH DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1, ENGLISH DOLBY SURROUND, FRENCH STEREO; ENGLISH SUBTITLES; COMMENTARY TRACK BY DIRECTOR NICHOLAS MEYER, TEXT COMMENTARY BY MICHAEL OKUDA, CO-AUTHOR OF THE STAR TREK ENCYCLOPEDIA
Another disappointing audio delivery from Paramount on the second title in this set -- the Dolby Digital surround track on here is crackly, somewhat distorted in dialogue places, indiscreet and overwhelmingly disappointing for such a great flick. Dialogue sounds the worst -- where on the first film the low volume output of the speech was a problem, here we get dialogue that's brittle, nasal, distorted and actually breaks up in sudden, straining moments. The fidelity of the track, again, is on the un-dynamic side, with mono-like, indiscreet jumps from channel to channel and no real defining "separation" between speakers; it was very much like watching the VHS version in Dolby Pro Logic II -- resembling nothing like a "Dolby Digital" track. The attack sequences between the two ships sound crackly and staticky if they're up too high, especially when explosions rip pieces of the Reliant off, say.....this is accompanied by uncomfortable levels of harshness on this Dolby track as the explosions don’t sound natural or realistic, but rather like gobs of static of some kind. I remember the same effect on the VHS versions of this title. It seems as though there's no "digitalness" to this mix. The opening credits sequence and its accompanying score sounded quite rich in the soundstage, especially across the front, but in general, this was a front-heavy, somewhat sloppy-sounding affair which didn’t really utilize the rears much at all; surprising, considering the reputation this film has in the Sci Fi community. I need to give Paramount thumbs-down on the audio mix for The Wrath of Khan.
DISC 2:
Once again housed in the same over-large, quite light-feeling box with the two discs on hard-to-release spindles, Star Trek II was loaded with extra features on the second disc of the Director's Edition. These included:
-THE CAPTAIN'S LOG: New exclusive cast & crew interviews with director Nicholas Meyer, actors William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Ricardo Montalban and writer/executive producer Harve Bennett
-DESIGNING KHAN Featurette
-THE VISUAL EFFECTS OF STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN Featurette
-THEATRICAL TRAILER
-ORIGINAL INTERVIEWS with DeForrest Kelley, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and Ricardo Montalban
-THE STAR TREK UNIVERSE: A NOVEL APPROACH BY AUTHORS JULIA ECKLAR AND GREG COX
-STORYBOARD ARCHIVES
Please stay tuned, friends, as I review and watch The Search For Spock and The Voyage Home next in the series......
First, the facts. I have always been a "closet Trekkie" -- no, I was not one of those people you'd see at conventions with tricorders strapped to my waist or Spock ears on my head; I had always been addicted to the original TV series with the original cast -- Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley, Doohan -- and to me, there WAS no other Star Trek crew. I still feel that way to this day. I own all 79 of the original show episodes on recorded VHS tapes (soon to be replaced on DVD as well, Jesus Christ, the expense of this hobby.....) but for some reason, I just never took to the hoopla that swept fans off their feet when The Next Generation debuted. What was this? A new Enterprise, NCC-1701-D?? A bald older captain named "Picard"? Some robot as science officer? Where the hell was Spock? Bones? Scotty? And....worse off.....what was a KLINGON doing on a Federation starship?
But The Next Generation turned out to be not that bad in hindsight -- yet I simply COULD NOT get involved with all the other spinoff shows, which I feel are a disgrace to Gene Roddenberry’s legacy, such as Deep Space Nine or worse yet, Enterprise -- shows which had a custom-made "feel" for modern-day young audiences with modern rock soundtracks and "trendy-looking" aliens....give me a break; this was NOT Star Trek to me. So I never got involved. But Roddenberry's original vision for this phenomenon which has become one of the most popular and energy-infused franchises in the history of cinema (and a massive cash cow for Paramount) and has also become a proverbial lifestyle to many hardcore fans has a very interesting history...and the culmination to motion picture status from original television series airing was a cultural event almost in itself (although, as we will explore, many feel was gravely unserved by the almost sleep-inducing Motion Picture in 1979). The late Gene Roddenberry sold a show called "Star Trek" to the networks which would explore the "treks" into worlds outside our own in outer space and introduce us to the men on the spaceships making up what was known as the "United Federation of Planets" or "The Federation"....along for the ride were planets that were "allies" of the Federation, forming an almost galaxy-wide army of sorts to combat the Federation's two most formidable enemies, the Klingon and Romulan Empires....aggressive alien species who are at constant war with the humans and others that make up the Federation. With these armies came awesome battleships for space fights between the Federation and Klingons, making much of the Star Trek legacy play like a military operation in outer space. And that was the draw as much as getting to know the characters -- Captain Kirk (William Shatner), Mr. Spock (Leonard Nimoy), Dr. McCoy (DeForrest Kelley), Uhura (Nichelle Nichols) and Mr. Scott (James Doohan) just to name the mains -- commanding and flying these ships was. Originally, someone else was hired on to play the "captain" of the USS Enterprise, the main ship used in the show and the highlight of each episode many times, but the "Captain Kirk" character seemed to be MADE for William Shatner, and we can never imagine anyone else in the role to be honest, can we? The voyages of the starship Enterprise were not like the "voyages" NASA space crews endured or ventured into; these battleships in the Star Trek world were fully-functioning military vessels with bridges, quarters, engine rooms, meeting facilities.....it was not anything like sitting aboard a space shuttle from NASA. Under "Captain Kirk"'s command was a "Vulcan" (an alien race allies with the Federation and whose population is sworn to a life of logic and reasoning) named Mr. Spock, as well as a slew of other characters fans would immediately identify with through the years and seasons of the show and all the way into the film franchise.
Roddenberry managed to sell NBC on the concept of Star Trek, and although with many pitfalls and corporate problems along the way, the producers managed to crank out (an odd number of) 79 episodes before the series ended. Captain Kirk and Mr. Spock -- and the Enterprise itself -- became household names. Characters were developed, planets were identified, alien races were seen, new Federation ships were designed and released for fans to see -- all while the Star Trek legacy continued to heat up. Yet, once the series ended (the original series, that is) there unbelievably was no more Star Trek on television until The Next Generation arrived -- a Star Trek "spinoff" idea by Roddenberry many years later which would introduce a new captain of the Enterprise plus a whole new crew and ship. The idea went over with "Trekkies" and was probably the most tasteful of all the spinoff ideas, but it still wasn’t Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley and Doohan. These ideas would later be incorporated into the film franchise collection as popularity with the new crew was growing and the folks involved in the original production were simply getting older (Shatner, Nimoy, etc.). The subject material found in many of the old original TV episodes was so intoxicating in fact, it became subject material for the second feature film in the franchise, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, often considered one of the best Science Fiction films ever made.
STAR TREK: THE MOTION PICTURE - DIRECTOR'S EDITION
It was the late 1970s. Paramount Studio executives realized they had no feature film version of the popular Star Trek television show which rocked airwaves years before in the '60s. It was time. The biggest problem with the project for the first Star Trek motion picture was the choice of director...and the subsequent horrendous acting we were subject to from the leads, but we'll get to that in a moment. Robert Wise, while credited with many accolades under his belt, simply wasn't the right man for this job. He injected the first feature Trek film with loose, too-connected-to-the-original-episodes plot scripting, lethargic pacing and with a combination of these aforementioned qualities and some horrible screenwriting from his team, we got placid, stone-cold dead performances from Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley and the rest as their characters grew up a great deal since the TV show. At times -- especially when the "Ilia" character "becomes" the alien probe at the end -- we simply don’t know what's going on and are subjected to such a slow pace we don’t really care to be honest. It is these reasons that Star Trek: The Motion Picture is actually often considered one of the worst entries in the whole series -- if not THE worst; I know I never watch it if I don’t have to.
The plot Wise constructed for the original feature length film to launch the Star Trek franchise in theaters plays very much like what was explored in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home; that is, a powerful alien is threatening Earth for some odd reason, plain and simple. In Wise's vision, this "alien" comes in the form of a radioactive-looking cloud that at first manages to wipe out three powerful Klingon battleships and then turns its sights on Earth. What is this cloud? What does it want? While those answers are oddly handled at the end of the picture, the first hour of the film deals with reintroducing our characters and the audience to the newly-refitted Enterprise which looks stunning on the big screen. William Shatner returns as "James T. Kirk," only this time, he has been bumped up from Captain to Admiral (a trend we will see go back and forth between the whole series for one reason or another); it seems in charge of this new Enterprise is Captain Will Decker (son of the other Captain Decker from the original TV series episode The Doomsday Machine...remember, about the asteroid-eating machine?) and when this emergency situation arises, that is, this alien cloud is coming towards Earth to eliminate it, Kirk personally assumes command of this new Enterprise and relieves Decker, causing a tension among the two for the remainder of the picture. Now, "Captain" Kirk is back in the chair again, commanding his loyal crew who are not really all "there" or "together" yet, not to mention the fact that Scotty (James Doohan) is having a lot of problems getting this new ship ready for launch on time. The warp drive system isn’t functioning properly (which causes a "wormhole effect" upon their first jump to warp speed), the transporters are not working right (which causes the death of two officers attempting to beam up to the ship) and on top of all of that, Doctor Leonard McCoy (DeForrest Kelley) has unwillingly been "drafted" by Kirk to rejoin the crew for this mission. The mission seems "cursed" from the beginning.
But where's Spock, you may ask? Well, Wise constructed a sequence on his home planet of Vulcan which dealt with Spock attempting to achieve the rite of "Kholinar," but he cannot seem to "find himself" on his home planet...it seems the only place Spock can find "what he is looking for" is aboard the Enterprise and on the mission of locating and identifying this alien cloud they are trying to stop. He joins the crew on route on a transfer vessel, completing the original TV cast on board the ship already: Kirk, McCoy, Scotty, Uhura, Chekov and Sulu...also on board is "Lieutenant Ilia," an alien known as a Deltan which Decker had relations with on her home planet years before. Her character becomes significant later on in the film, if not that memorable, to me at least anyway.
Before we get to plot analysis (for any of you who may never have actually seen this first feature film in the set), lets talk about the acting performance problems. This is not the Kirk, Bones or Spock that we grew to love in the TV series....their performances are wooden, static, unresponsive and simply hollow. The entire situation changes DRAMATICALLY with the release of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan in terms of acting performances, where the characters finally come into themselves for the remainder of the series. But here, it doesn’t even seem like we are dealing with the same characters -- Shatner's lines are spoken uncharacteristically stiff and unnaturally restrained, while Nimoy's Spock is not the Spock we remember from the show -- at all. McCoy (Kelley) starts off with a beard as he is "drafted" aboard the Enterprise, but ends up looking more like the Doctor McCoy we remember from the series as the film goes on. And what's with the costume design in this film? What is with those horrible uniforms the Federation crew were wearing with those "belt pack" things in the middle of their waists in front, and the "stretch pajama" look to the pants and tunic? Awful. Thank G-d when The Wrath of Khan came around and the Federation uniforms turned into those red and black tunic things.
As the Enterprise gets its fair share of difficulties before even picking up Spock from his transfer ship -- such as the tension between Decker and Kirk and the "wormhole" effect plaguing the ship from the warp engines being unbalanced -- Wise doesn't really pick up the pace here and the plot gets more convoluted as it goes along. With Spock onboard, he helps Scotty fix the engine problems so the ship can achieve safe warp speed, but the encounter with the alien cloud becomes their main concern after it attacks the ship with a lightning bolt scanner, ultimately attacking Ilia and abducting her. With Ilia gone and the ship fairly crippled, the crew is suddenly subjected to an alien invader onboard: an exact replica of Ilia, only sexier looking with a sheer, short robe on and heels....and some strange marble-like device in her neck. This Ilia is now speaking in a rather robotic voice and McCoy identifies it, with a scanner reading, as a machine but with duplication of human anatomy within as well. Wise loses us with the plot at this point, forcing us to accept the following scenario: it seems a "creature" or "alien" or "mysterious lifeforce" named "V-GER" has sent this alien "probe" which took over Ilia to the Enterprise to discover who its "creator" is...apparently, man. It has been destroying planets and other ships and space stations on route to Earth to find its "creator" because no one has been answering it (does this sound an AWFUL lot like Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home?)...but what the hell does it want? Like many unanswered alien "what do they want" questions that came before it in the original series episodes, this one gets no easier for us, the viewer, to understand. The crew end up, in this slow paced film's final sequence, arriving at V-GER's "inner sanctum" (is this within the cloud itself? A machine? A planet? What?) with the Ilia clone still leading the way. Kirk discovers that V-GER is actually the abbreviation for one of the VOYAGER space crafts launched by NASA 200 or so years before -- its mission was to seek out new life and find "its" "creator," but never got its answer until the crew of the Enterprise arrived......why it needed to destroy Klingon ships or Federation space stations while it was looking is unclear. To top off all this illogical nonsense, it seems the only way "V-GER" will get its answer is if a human joins with this machine -- and so Decker remains behind to become one with this "Ilia probe" as the Enterprise gets the hell out of there, witnessing what the crew calls the birth of a new life form. If this is all utterly, utterly confusing and just....well....ridiculous sounding, well, don’t worry. Most fans feel the exact same way and couldn’t wait for a sequel to arrive to clean this mess up.
Paramount has gone back and made many of the entries into the Trek franchise -- due to blatant fan demand -- Director's Editions, restoring scenes, special effects sequences, sound and elements....the result, in the first feature film of the series, is a film that runs well over two hours (already way too long considering the plot pace set for this and the horrendously dry acting from the leads) incorporating a two-minute (or so) space prologue before the opening credits (with surprisingly no Paramount opening logo to be found) and a brief pre-credits space sequence at the end. Inbetween are some restored scenes and special effects work, such as when the crew is getting off the ship to explore V-GER's hideout at the end, where we can blatantly see a newly-restored graphic of the Enterprise amidst the backdrop of the stars as the engines are running and the crew is getting off the hull onto the developing V-GER "landscape"; to describe this scene is hard, but you'll know it when you see it at the end. It looked cheesy and odd to me even though this was supposed to be an exciting "restored visual element" according to the packaging. Let's take a look at the technical aspects of this Director's Edition for 1979's Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
DISC 1:
VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS ANALYSIS:
WIDESCREEN VERSION ENHANCED FOR 16:9 TVs
Ahhhh....Paramount. Another studio much like Warner Brothers that absolutely refuses to put the actual scope ratio of their DVD transfers on the rear of the boxes; instead, what we get is "Widescreen Version...." and "The Black Bars On Top and Bottom are Normal...." Jesus H. Christ. At any rate, this approximately 2:35:1 transfer was supposedly reminted (although no reference to that is made on the packaging anywhere) with the restored elements for this Director's Edition; what I can say is that this is STILL light years away from being anything that resembles reference quality video -- specks, pops, grain, dirt and all kinds of anomalies litter the screen for this widescreen transfer and the overall look of the film is still extremely soft. I understand what were dealing with here, a film stock from 1979....but this hardly resembles "DVD" and looks much like the VHS incarnations I have witnessed before, perhaps without the washed-out effect tapes seem to get after awhile. Flesh tones get a bit too pink in certain spots, as if the color timing was specifically being toyed with here, but the most annoying thing is that ever-present thin layer of grain that's running behind the scenes....it's almost as if Paramount didn’t or couldn’t clean this up. This film still LOOKS old. I may be painting a very bad picture here for this transfer -- it may not really be as bad as I am saying. But I can distinctly remember the visuals not looking all that great for DVD -- the opening credits sequence looked OK, but once the Klingon ships came on the screen and we get some closeup shots of the interior of their ships, the look becomes murkier and more unstable -- in fact, if you look close, you can see where the blacks of outer space looked rather washed-out and "old" compared to the black letterboxing which appears at the edges of the image for this widescreen presentation. There are moments when the transfer gets strikingly clear for a film of this vintage -- but for the most part, you can still see those film elements -- pops, specks, some dirt -- clearly on this print. Didn't really impress me to be honest.
AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS ANALYSIS:
ENGLISH DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1, ENGLISH DOLBY SURROUND; ENGLISH SUBTITLES; GROUP COMMENTARY TRACK BY DIRECTOR ROBERT WISE, SPECIAL PHOTOGRAPHIC EFFECTS DIRECTOR DOUGLAS TRUMBULL, SPECIAL PHOTOGRAPHIC EFFECTS SUPERVISOR JOHN DYKSTRA, MUSIC COMPOSER JERRY GOLDSMITH AND ACTOR STEPHEN COLLINS
This was a hard one to call. The newly-prepared Dolby Digital surround mix for this film's DVD presentation did some things well and others poorly; Paramount claims a restored, new sound mix was developed for this presentation, and from the opening credits and classic Star Trek theme, it seemed like that may have rung true. The disc defaults to the Dolby 5.1 track with no jump to a menu to begin anything, playing the feature film with the newly-added space prelude before the opening credits. That sounded rather dull and lifeless, so I turned up my processor a couple of notches...once the opening credits and Jerry Goldsmith's score came crashing on, the soundscape opened up quite a bit for a film from 1979. The opening scene where the Klingon ships are being attacked by the alien cloud sounded rather cool if dated a bit; effects got a little "staticky" and "nasal" (not nearly as bad as what I encountered on the next disc in the series, but I'll get to that) but there was excellent usage of the surrounds on the mix, believe it or not. Almost constant use, in fact. Any attack sequence -- when the cloud was attacking the Enterprise or the cloud was attacking the Epsilon 9 space station for example -- brought aggressive, raw energy to the surround channels, creating a realistic sense of space for a film of this age. The effects did not sound as clean or discrete as 5.1 mixes from today's vintage, but I don’t think Star Trek: The Motion Picture ever sounded so good. The main downfall to this track was the dialogue stem: this was so horrendously low and old-sounding, it made it difficult to make out characters' voices at times. It didn’t mesh well with the effects tracks. Effects and score would come crashing through the speakers, only to have a dead-silent dialogue sequence up next...and the age of this film could clearly be heard in the somewhat nasal, congested quality of the speech. That didn’t seem to get any treatment from Paramount. There was also still that rather "dated" quality to the audio elements; you can tell this was a film from the 1970s, in other words, no matter how much engineers try to hide that under the skirt of Dolby Digital surround technology. Yes, surround usage was aggressive and accurately directional for a film of this vintage with near-constant performances....but the overall fidelity of the mix was dated. Still, I think the audio was better than the video here and I DOUBT this film will -- or can -- sound better than this. There were also healthy wallops of LFE every now and then, and that was very nice for such an old soundtrack. I sat up and took notice whenever my subwoofer kicked in during action or score sequences. A little more "ooooomph" or power to the track wouldn't have hurt, as it was on the overall lower side of overall raw output.
DISC 2:
The housing of this Director's Edition -- and the others in the set -- is what got a bit of negative praise from me. With rather large housing boxes and two discs in each box (the second discs holding the special features of these special editions) it seems like a great deal of wasted space and real estate was adorned on these editions. This first film is oddly housed in a yellow-colored box which looks very strange next to the other silver-colored spines of the other discs in the box set; why Paramount did this I have no idea. But it looks weird. That, combined with the rather extra-large but light (because they’re flimsy and empty) boxes the discs are in -- as well as the fact that I had a very hard time releasing the DVDs from their weirdly-constructed holding rings short of snapping them in half -- forced me to give the packaging presentation low marks.
The extras on Disc 2 were pretty awesome, and were broken down like this:
-NEW RETROSPECTIVE DOCUMENTARIES WITH CAST & CREW INTERVIEWS:
Phase II: The Lost Enterprise
A Bold New Enterprise
Redirecting the Future
-TEASER TRAILER
-THEATRICAL TRAILER
-NEW DIRECTOR'S EDITION TRAILER
-8 TELEVISION COMMERCIALS
-5 ADDITIONAL SCENES (from the 1979 theatrical version)
-11 DELETED SCENES (from the 1983 TV version)
-STORYBOARD ARCHIVE
-INTERACTIVE MENUS
-NEW STAR TREK SERIES ENTERPRISE PROMO SPOT
STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN - DIRECTOR'S EDITION
This was the film that made up for ALL of the first one's shortcomings --- THIS is what Trek -- and Science Fiction -- is all about. With the taste in Paramount's mouths for generating a franchise business out of the Trek name in theaters, a sequel to the 1979 Motion Picture was inevitable. Robert Wise, thankfully, did not return to the director's chair, but instead we got Nicholas Meyer (who went on to helm the exciting Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country and to save the franchise from going down the tubes after Star Trek V) to inject a new direction for these films with all-new costumes, attitudes and electrifying space battles. What the team responsible for the sequel did was craft one of the most adorned Science Fiction masterpieces ever put to film -- an instant fan favorite that even though sits as a sequel to another film and not on its own, is often considered the greatest Trek testimony in the history of the legacy. Cleverly, Meyer and crew crafted a story around an old character from the original TV series -- the futuristic madman Ricardo Montalban played in Space Seed, Khan Noonien Singh. To the delight of fans, this became instantly recongnizable for Trekkies who had seen the original series countless times and who could recall the old episode with Khan and how he tried to take over the Enterprise in that TV episode and possibly murder Captain Kirk. For a brief overview, in the episode of Space Seed, Kirk and crew picks up a renegade spaceship lost from 200 years before the events in Star Trek; it seems a genetically-altered "superman" who ruled portions of Earth named "Khan" went into a long sleep with his loyal crew...but when he is "defrosted" along with his crew by Kirk and his men, it is discovered Khan is a madman who wants to rule once more. He takes over the ship and Kirk's men and a final hand to hand fight ensues between Kirk and Khan at the end of the episode where Khan, although much stronger than the average human, ends up being beat down by Kirk (as Kirk always does, right?)....Kirk sentences Khan to permanent exile on Ceti-Alpha 5, a lifeless planet in which they will need to do whatever they can to stay alive. But what Kirk didn’t count on was Khan returning for revenge.....and so the story of The Wrath of Khan was born!
With a new opening theme for the franchise and new costuming, better direction and more exciting visuals and pacing, Star Trek II started off with a bang, finding "Admiral" James T. Kirk (Shatner) analyzing and supervising the training of new Starfleet cadets under the command of the now-Captain Spock (Nimoy). Kirstie Alley plays Saavik, a training helms(wo)man that also happens to be a mentor of Spock's and a Vulcan (the Saavik character would return in films III and IV but with another actress) and who is undergoing the "Kobiashi Maru" test for command personnel. She fails the test in the very beginning of the film, as a horrendous attack by Klingon ships gets her in over her head, but she argues to Kirk that there was "no way to win." Kirk had faced this same test before he became a commander -- but he cheated by changing the programming of the test computer so there WAS a way to win; as he says later on in the film "I don’t believe in the no-win scenario." And so our plot develops, whereby Spock is fixed on the training of his cadets for their first mission aboard the Enterprise and Kirk goes home to celebrate his birthday with McCoy (Kelley) in a rather depressing fashion. As McCoy gives Kirk his gift -- a pair of eyeglasses instead of Retlax which he is allergic to but cures bad eyesight -- the two of them discuss the fact that Kirk's first passion has always been commanding a starship and being Admiral is really not for him.
Meanwhile, Pavel Chekov (Walter Koenig) is working aboard the USS Reliant for Captain Terrell (Paul Windfield) on a science mission to seek out a planet able to sustain the experiments for "Project Genesis," a "weapon" the Federation has developed to create life on lifeless planets. In charge of this project is Dr. Carol Marcus, an ex flame of Kirk's, with whom she had a son with -- David. David works at the lab with Marcus (Bibi Besch, The Beast Within) and both are suspicious of the Federation's intentions for Genesis. As they approach what they think is a planetoid called "Ceti-Alpha 6" Terrell and Chekov realize there may be a chance for this planetoid to receive the testing for Genesis. They get the go-ahead from Marcus, but upon beaming down, they are caught in a sand storm which makes them think they had the wrong coordinates. They make they way into some kind of a cargo carrier, where Chekov reads the name of the ship on a seat belt buckle: SS BOTTANY BAY. Immediately, he realizes who's ship this is and that him and Captain Terrell need to get the hell out of there....this gets a little confusing, even for fans, because in the original TV episode of Space Seed, Chekov supposedly never met or knew Khan -- but here in the film he realizes this is Khan's crashed ship from their exile. Before they can escape in time, Terrell and Chekov are captured by Khan (Montalban) and his people where they become literal hostages and slaves for Khan as he puts worm-like creatures in their ears to control their minds. It seems the planet Chekov and Terrell thought was Ceti-Alpha 6 actually exploded after Khan and his people were exiled by Kirk years ago, and Terrell and Chekov had confused the two planets....Khan and his people were waiting for this opportunity to once again escape and plot a revenge against Kirk and the Enterprise. Once Chekov and Terrell are under Khan's spell, Khan gets them to demand the Project Genesis materials from Carol Marcus and her team. When Chekov tells Marcus that this order has come from Admiral Kirk, Marcus contacts Kirk and asks why he is taking their materials away from them for military testing. Kirk is confused with Marcus' message as the transmission is jammed and lost by Khan's crew. Immediately, Kirk assumes command of the Enterprise, as Spock was officially Captain, and sets a course for the science lab Regula One where Marcus and her team are. Along the way, of course, in perhaps the most exciting part of the film, Kirk and the Enterprise are confronted by Khan, who has now stolen a Federation starship, Terrell's Reliant, and has prepared a sneak attack on Kirk and his ship. While Kirk and crew try to contact Reliant because, after all, its just one of their ships in the fleet, Khan prepares to attack the Enterprise by locking their phasers on them and firing -- before Kirk can react, the ship is badly damaged and there seems to be no power to get their shields up incase of another attack. Reliant launches a photon torpedo at Enterprise, damaging it even more, and then Khan finally contacts Kirk to discuss terms of their surrender. The reaction Kirk has to seeing Khan on the viewscreen is priceless; but as always, Kirk manages to make a no-win situation into a survival manual, as he promises to transfer himself and materials on Genesis over to Khan's ship if Khan spares his crew....knowing Kirk, fans were aware of the fact that Kirk wasn’t simply going to let this happen, and so he orders Saavik (Alley) to enter the command code for Reliant's console which can drop their shields and override their systems from the Enterprise itself. This succeeds, and the Enterprise fires phasers directly at Reliant, hitting and crippling it as well. An awesome battle sequence indeed, and probably the best example of special effects in the entire picture.
The remainder of the film slows down a bit, as Kirk and Khan play a game of cat and mouse, both of their ships damaged and limping around through space; the crew eventually make it to Regula One, where they find the dead bodies of some of the science crew there killed by Khan and his people as he was trying to wring information about Genesis from them. They also find Terrell and Chekov, who tell Kirk about the strange worms Khan put in them to control their minds. Below the surface of Regula, Kirk, Saavik, McCoy, Terrell and Chekov find Carol Marcus and David, to the surprise of Kirk. It is at this point that Terrell and Chekov turn on Kirk and his people, holding phasers to them, and asking Khan over their arm-strapped communicators if he had been listening to the whole thing. Khan orders Terrell to kill Kirk, but he cant, instead turning the phaser on himself. Chekov collapses as the worm creature Khan put in him crawls out of his ear, freeing him of its control. Enraged, Kirk picks up Terrell's communicator and lets Khan know he is still indeed alive and that if he wants to kill him, he is going to have to come down to the planet to do so. It is often said that another hand to hand combat scene was supposed to take place here between Khan and Kirk, much like in Space Seed, but the idea was scrapped, and instead Khan beams up the Genesis device, stealing it, and leaves him and his men marooned in the inner trappings of Regula.
Eventually, Spock gets the Enterprise back in working order after the damages from Khan's attack enough to beam the stranded crew members back aboard from Regula, and another space battle between Enterprise and Reliant ensues, as Khan follows Kirk and his ship into the Motara Nebula -- a highly gaseous cloud formation which will allow both ships to be useless in terms of navigation, scanning or weapon targeting. The two ships pretty much blow themselves to almost pieces, the Enterprise of course getting the upper hand at the end, leaving Khan by himself and his crew all dead on a crippled ship. But Khan has one last weapon up his sleeve -- he sets the Genesis device on a detonation overload so he blows up along with Kirk and his ship. The Enterprise still does not have warp powers because of the damage it sustained in the battles with Reliant, and they try and get away from the overloading Genesis device onboard Khan's ship as fast as possible -- but without warp speed, they will never make it in time. Spock goes down to the engine room and proceeds to consume himself with deadly radiation poisoning in order to fix the broken warp engines, which he does, allowing the Enterprise to escape with warp speed just before the Reliant blows up.....but Spock dies in front of Kirk right there in the engine room from radiation poisoning even though he saved the ship.....
Or did he?
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is just so much better in every which way than the first film that its unfair to even compare them; Shatner, Nimoy, Kelley, Doohan and the rest all come into their characters in this one, setting the pace for the remaining Trek films in the franchise -- the acting was inline with the series beginning here, the costuming was tremendously better, the action was Star Trek all the way -- and Science Fiction all the way in general with the downright awesome space battles between Reliant and Enterprise. This film, as I said earlier, almost stands on its own in terms of Sci Fi entertainment and reference and not part of this Trek franchise because of the style Meyer uses in crafting this piece; it is often considered a standard by which other Sci Fi projects should be judged. All these years later, 1982's The Wrath of Khan STILL holds fans' attention and it certainly always holds mine. It's great.
On this extended Director's Edition there have been added scenes that were never seen on VHS incarnations of the title, with some added dialogue sequences which were refreshing to watch.
DISC 1:
VIDEO SPECIFICATIONS ANALYSIS:
WIDESCREEN VERSION ENHANCED FOR 16:9 TVs
Watching this for the first time in widescreen format was nice, but I’m sad to report that The Wrath of Khan simply looks as bad as it ever has -- see, this was never a pretty-looking print in ANY form, whether you watched this on TV, cable or VHS; there's just a grittiness to this image that doesn’t look that great. This carries over to DVD. There's a grain running behind the image at all times that's noticeable and the overall "look" seems dated and...well...just not like DVD. The impression I got was that this approximately 2:35:1 transfer was simply dumped from a tape onto a recordable DVD and Paramount left that as that. The print looks dirty and not smooth as DVD should look, and this is coming from the source of this title, no doubt, as I said because each incarnation of Star Trek II never looked clean or reference-quality. I wish Paramount would have given this fan favorite more love in the remastering department; what we have here is watchable if nothing more.
AUDIO SPECIFICATIONS ANALYSIS:
ENGLISH DOLBY DIGITAL 5.1, ENGLISH DOLBY SURROUND, FRENCH STEREO; ENGLISH SUBTITLES; COMMENTARY TRACK BY DIRECTOR NICHOLAS MEYER, TEXT COMMENTARY BY MICHAEL OKUDA, CO-AUTHOR OF THE STAR TREK ENCYCLOPEDIA
Another disappointing audio delivery from Paramount on the second title in this set -- the Dolby Digital surround track on here is crackly, somewhat distorted in dialogue places, indiscreet and overwhelmingly disappointing for such a great flick. Dialogue sounds the worst -- where on the first film the low volume output of the speech was a problem, here we get dialogue that's brittle, nasal, distorted and actually breaks up in sudden, straining moments. The fidelity of the track, again, is on the un-dynamic side, with mono-like, indiscreet jumps from channel to channel and no real defining "separation" between speakers; it was very much like watching the VHS version in Dolby Pro Logic II -- resembling nothing like a "Dolby Digital" track. The attack sequences between the two ships sound crackly and staticky if they're up too high, especially when explosions rip pieces of the Reliant off, say.....this is accompanied by uncomfortable levels of harshness on this Dolby track as the explosions don’t sound natural or realistic, but rather like gobs of static of some kind. I remember the same effect on the VHS versions of this title. It seems as though there's no "digitalness" to this mix. The opening credits sequence and its accompanying score sounded quite rich in the soundstage, especially across the front, but in general, this was a front-heavy, somewhat sloppy-sounding affair which didn’t really utilize the rears much at all; surprising, considering the reputation this film has in the Sci Fi community. I need to give Paramount thumbs-down on the audio mix for The Wrath of Khan.
DISC 2:
Once again housed in the same over-large, quite light-feeling box with the two discs on hard-to-release spindles, Star Trek II was loaded with extra features on the second disc of the Director's Edition. These included:
-THE CAPTAIN'S LOG: New exclusive cast & crew interviews with director Nicholas Meyer, actors William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy, Ricardo Montalban and writer/executive producer Harve Bennett
-DESIGNING KHAN Featurette
-THE VISUAL EFFECTS OF STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN Featurette
-THEATRICAL TRAILER
-ORIGINAL INTERVIEWS with DeForrest Kelley, William Shatner, Leonard Nimoy and Ricardo Montalban
-THE STAR TREK UNIVERSE: A NOVEL APPROACH BY AUTHORS JULIA ECKLAR AND GREG COX
-STORYBOARD ARCHIVES
Please stay tuned, friends, as I review and watch The Search For Spock and The Voyage Home next in the series......