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Star Trek II - The Wrath of Khan (Director's Edition) Customer Reviews (1 - 3 of 47 Reviews)
The Best Star Trek film of all!!
The title says it all!!The very best of all of the Star Trek films.
De plane! De pla- - whoops, wrong pop-culture phenomenon...
Although TWOK isn't my all-time fave Trek flick (that honor goes to the NextGen gem "First Contact"), it's definitely up near the top. And after the 'Star Trek: The Motion Picture' near-debacle, this was just the kind of movie that was needed to keep the franchise going. Action, suspense, tragedy, James Horner's adventurous musical score... and beautifully over-the-top acting by both the hero and the heavy. It's almost like watching a really big episode of the original series, only with WAY superior optical & special FX, and a wider field of vision. Also included in this special "director's edition" are a few extra snippets of footage, the most notable of which involve the ill-fated trainee engineer who turns out to be a relative of Mr. Scott. There're a few other extra bits that might pass you by if you haven't watched TWOK quite as often as someone like... well, like ME, heh... has. While I found half of the new bits pretty good, I thought a few of 'em weren't quite as well-acted as they could be. Still, it was pretty cool to see most of those scenes I'd been hearing about for years, but had never actually seen until this DVD release.
Originally, my only motivation to see this movie was to check out the CGI simulation of the Genesis sequence. Every time I saw it in the TV promos for the flick, I was ... um... blown away by it. And even though it's a rather primitive sequence compared to the CGI stuff ya see in today's big Hollywood sci-fi blockbusters, I'm still blown away by it. Fortunately I found many other entertaining moments when I finally saw the whole movie. Like Chekov's little 'pet' exiting his right ear in a rather vile and bloody display of nastiness. Now THERE'S a moment that kept me up on school nights! Yeesh!
But not only is TWOK a sequel movie, it's also a continuation of the original series episode 'Space Seed'. Although it's not absolutely necessary to know the back story to this cinematic Trek-- it sets itself up rather well on its own-- catching Khan's first menacing of the Enterprise is a rather intriguing adventure of its own. So don't hesitate to check 'Space Seed' out as well.
Speaking of 'Space Seed', Number II also contains one of Star Trek's most famous continuity errors based on that landmark episode. In one scene, where Chekov and his captain are captured by the baddies, Khan claims to recognize him. Strange thing is, Khan's first appearance was in the original show's first season, and Chekov didn't appear until the second year! Thanks to this little glitch, for the last twenty years the Trekkie nation has had ample fodder for many a heated debate. Was Chekov working as an unseen midshipman on board the Enterprise during the first year? Does Khan have some kind of prescient mental powers? A weird rift in the space-time continuum, mayhaps? These are the burning questions that keep many a hardcore fanboy up at night in a cold sweat, as well as prove Shatner's point to "get a life!" in that immortal-- not to mention infamous-- SNL Trekkie convention sketch. BTW director Nicholas Meyer brings up this little "glitch" in the commentary track, and admits that he finds the fanboy debates rather entertaining. His own thoughts on the whole deal is basically, "Ahh, who the #ell cares?" Which is basically my opinion on the matter...
All right, lemme get back on track here. While I was royally... ticked... when I discovered that Paramount was comin' out with these two-disc Special Edition after they'd released stripped-down movie-only platters (well, sometimes they'd include a theatrical trailer), I must admit they actually improved on the old DVD's picture and sound quality, which was pretty awesome in itself. Not only is the soundtrack crisper, I can also hear the more discreet background bits that I never picked up on before on VHS and heard reasonably well on the initial DVD release, like the Starfleet Academy P.A. paging officers following the Kobayashi Maru "battle". And the DVD picture quality is so superior to VHS, you can actually see the shortcomings of the special effects technology of the time with greater clarity. The matte "shadows" surrounding the ships and the Regula space station are more apparent, which was something I never noticed before I entered the digital video realm. I guess better picture resolution isn't all it's cracked up to be...
Then there's the new DVD's biggest improvement: A big freakin' butt-load of special features, which I found hit-and-miss as a whole. Director Nick Meyer's feature-length commentary features his memories of how he got involved in the making of the movie, and the usual technical stuff. He also points out that the movie was partially inspired by the nautical Napoleonic-era adventures of the fictional Captain Horatio Hornblower. But my fave part was his assertion that William Shatner's acting gets better with every take, so he made sure he had Mr. Turbo-2000 do a whole buncha takes during his character's most dramatic moments. Kinda makes me wonder how many takes of that "KHA-A-A-A-A-N!!!" moment he hadda do before Meyer finally said, "... and print!"
Thrown onto the second platter are several interviews & featurettes. While I found most of the interviews a bit dull to sit through (even when I run `em at double-speed with subtitles on so I could get through `em faster), the behind-the-scenes and making-of mini-docs were reasonably watchable. The scariest extra of the bunch is the "Novel Approach" piece, where a couple of Star Trek novelists show off their disturbingly extensive running knowledge of the Star Trek universe's history and continuity, and how they use their knowledge to put together their series of novels that cover the back stories of Khan and the Kobayashi Maru scenario. Wow, who knew that knowing just about every little bit of Star Trek trivia there is could actually get ya gainful employment? It makes me wonder where I went wrong...
'Late
Amazing
Watching this movie made me a fan, although not a trekkie, of the Star trek series. Within this movie we find an internal struggle and outward struggle between Khan and Kirk. An intresting plot line that continued for two more movies afterwards. A great start to a trilogy of movies in a series of Star Trek movies!
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