Original Sins (or, My Grypes with TWOK!!)

[BigJake]

As promised. I've spent enough time elsewhere extolling and defending the relative virtues of The Wrath of Khan (my favourite Trek film at a walk) that it might be worthwhile and instructive to go in the other direction for a bit and gripe at the classic.

This is obviously well-worn ground since the good old days lo, those many moons ago of the poor blighters in Interzone penning screeds like "I find it absolutely, unbearably repulsive in every way except for some of the acting." So, to give this my own angle, I'm going to go not just with any gripes -- nope, no complaining about how Khan could have possibly known Chekov for yours truly -- but specifically those flaws in the film's structure which would go on to become more-or-less habitual in Trek movies. Sins that Wrath more or less got away with but were passed down to its progeny to annoy nerds for many, many years to come.

So, my take on the "original sins" of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan:

1. "We're the only ship in the quadrant."
TWOK didn't invent it, but did confirm it as a successful part of the Trek film formula. Whatever is the most interesting thing happening in the galaxy at any given time, the Enterprise is not only the closest ship but the only ship available to deal with it. This would reach pitches of true ridiculousness in later films, in particular the Final Frontier which finally took it one step further and said "You're not the only ship around... but you're the only one under command of Jim Kirk." Which brings us to...

2. Get your $#!@ together, Starfleet!
I get why Khan is pissed at Jim Kirk specifically when he says "Admiral Kirk never bothered to check on our progress." But really... it's supposed to be a Starfleet with multiple ships competently captained, right? Absolutely nobody at all thought to check in on Ceti Alpha V, despite the extraordinary nature of the colony that had been planted there, led by a guy who had nearly hijacked a ship of the line? In fact it vanished so completely from notice that they apparently forgot how many planets were in the system? This was the genesis of the movie tradition wherein most of Starfleet was portrayed as a bunch of Stinky Weezleteats by comparison with Jim Kirk.

3. "Two-dimensional thinking."
Having Khan undone, in the end, by his lack of experience in space is a great idea. And back in 1982, the way they did this -- actually specifically and explicitly reminding us that we're in space and can navigate in three dimensions -- seemed like a natural progression from the effects we had seen on the show. In retrospect, though, this doesn't really make sense (how could you not be aware of needing to maneuver in three dimensions when you're in space?) and is an example of Meyers' tendency toward a certain... literal-mindedness. His use of nautical themes and metaphors was part of what made Wrath a great film, but he's so deep inside them that he has the Enterprise "surface" to launch its final volley at Khan.

Which was a cool shot, and hey, who's gonna deny Kirk a little swagger in a moment like that. But the problem was that Trek from this point forward -- in its televised form too -- seemed in its portrayal of space and space battles almost imprisoned within the horizons of this vision, curiously satisfied with a minimum amount of effort to move beyond primitive assumptions and metaphors. The next time we'd see a really, truly outside-the-box space battle in a Trek movie would be years later... in Nemesis.

4. Everywhere in the galaxy is next door to everywhere else.
People complained about this in STID (myself included) but Trek has always had a rubbery approach to astrography, and Wrath was one of the earliest offenders. It's not clear where Ceti Alpha V and Regula One are supposed to be, but they're clearly far out on the frontier... yet Enterprise arrives on the scene from Earth in what seems like only a few hours. It's not the biggest deal of itself, except that Wrath's getting away with this led to ever-more-radical compressions of time and space... especially come The Undiscovered Country, which features an accident at Chernobyl -- uhhh, Praxis -- that apparently sends shockwaves halfway around the galaxy in minutes. At least a token effort at understanding and portraying a sense of the true scale of space would have been nice...

5. The Villain Fixation.
Nitpicks aside, Wrath is of course deservedly remembered as the classic that brought Trek back from the brink of oblivion in one of its many rebirths. But perhaps its biggest "original sin" was that henceforth almost every Trek movie was measured against it, and especially against the unique and un-repeatable moment in time that produced Montalban's performance as an Ahab-complex-addled Khan. As Ryan Britt puts it:

A cursory bit of research from magazine articles I read at the time of nearly all the film releases reveal interviews from the various filmmakers and actors constantly claiming their villain as “the best villain since Khan.” We were told Sybok is the most complex villain since Khan. General Chang knows more Shakespeare than Khan. John Logan and Rick Berman told us Shinzon was going to be even better than Khan. Orci and Kurtzman claimed Nero was as good as Khan and hey; he’s driven by revenge too! The Whale Probe is like Khan…okay, not really, but you get the picture.

Since Shatner screamed that infamous scream, the drumbeat that Star Trek films needed an antagonist to rival Khan has been burned into the minds of Trekkers and the people behind the scenes alike. I’ve already made the case here as to why Trek movies don’t need villains; but suffice to say, the reason why Khan as a character is so great is because he’s unique. Having a character driven by revenge is one thing, but having a character driven by revenge based on events we actually witnessed on the TV show is something else entirely. After all, the movie’s title does reference a “wrath,” implying someone we’ve heard of is coming back. The Wrath of Shinzon would have been ridiculous for a lot of reasons, primarily because nobody knows who the hell Shinzon is.

Britt makes the good point that to really grow, Trek has to look forward and not back. Wrath was a classic of its day, but the need is to really move on and to explore themes that maybe don't even require villains, or revenge plots, or space battles. I think he's right.

Am I completely wrong about any of the above? Did I miss anything? Let me know.

 

[BillJ]

Am I completely wrong about any of the above? Did I miss anything? Let me know.

Nothing I disagree with.

Some more thoughts:

Starfleet doesn't know how to count to six. Khan changes motivations midstream then changes back (kill Kirk, strand Kirk, kill Kirk). Then there's the fact that Khan isn't exactly the sharpest knife in the drawer when sizing up an opponent. This is true of all three of his appearances.

But still, an incredibly fun movie to watch!

 

[FormerLurker]

^I'm getting tired of this "Starfleet doesn't know how to count to six" bit, to be honest. Ceti Alpha, a star out on the fringes of unexplored Federation space* was never described as a system with six planets. In 'Space Seed' they simply said they were going to leave Khan and his people on the fifth planet in the system, as it was Class M. The system could have forty planets and dwarf planets orbiting it, complete with a couple of gas giants. The implication of CA six exploding and successfully ruining CA five is that they were twins, each being the moon of the other. This is far more likely if there are multiple planets beyond them in the system. Also, if Starfleet has classified the Khan incident, the only records the Reliant has are to a binary planet that is now just one, which matches relatively closely to the one in their databanks. Probably followed in its orbit by a slowly expanding asteroid field that will continue to damage the planet for the rest of time.



*unlike, say, Alpha Ceti, which is close enough we know about it now.

 

[BigJake]

Well, not as simple as "count to six" but one would expect that if they know enough about the system to identify and land on a "Class M" planet, they probably should have charts at least detailed enough to reveal that something is very wrong and there's a major planet missing when Reliant comes back years later. One rather has to squint one's way past this detail.

 

[Christopher]

1. "We're the only ship in the quadrant."
TWOK didn't invent it, but did confirm it as a successful part of the Trek film formula. Whatever is the most interesting thing happening in the galaxy at any given time, the Enterprise is not only the closest ship but the only ship available to deal with it. This would reach pitches of true ridiculousness in later films, in particular the Final Frontier which finally took it one step further and said "You're not the only ship around... but you're the only one under command of Jim Kirk."

Although I vastly prefer ST:TMP to TWOK, I think TMP is a worse offender by far in this regard. It's not unreasonable for there to be only one starship in range when a crisis erupts deep in space; the fundamental idea behind the original series, which was somewhat lost in TNG and DS9, was that space was vast and empty and any ship was basically on its own, weeks away from any reinforcements. So I don't see how that's a problem in TWOK -- except in the sense that the Enterprise should probably have still been relatively close to Earth when it got the distress signal. But it made no sense whatsoever in TMP that there was only one Starfleet heavy cruiser in range to defend Earth from an alien attack. That's the capital of the Federation. There should be no shortage of defenses on hand. Sure, TMP did acknowledge that Earth had an orbital defense grid that V'Ger was able to shut down due to getting the codes from the Enterprise computer, but there should've been plenty of ships on hand to defend the system, not just a single cruiser that wasn't even out of drydock.

And really, this is the pattern that recurs quite implausibly in later movies, notably in Generations, where the barely functional Enterprise-B is somehow the only ship in range of a distress signal that's barely outside the Solar system, and in both ST'09 and STID (though at least '09 repeats TMP's lip service to a defense grid, whose codes Nero tortures Pike to obtain). The best subversion of the trope is in TVH, where all the ships near Earth are shut down by the probe's effects and the Bounty is the only ship that can help by virtue of not being near Earth at the time.

2. Get your $#!@ together, Starfleet!
I get why Khan is pissed at Jim Kirk specifically when he says "Admiral Kirk never bothered to check on our progress." But really... it's supposed to be a Starfleet with multiple ships competently captained, right? Absolutely nobody at all thought to check in on Ceti Alpha V, despite the extraordinary nature of the colony that had been planted there, led by a guy who had nearly hijacked a ship of the line? In fact it vanished so completely from notice that they apparently forgot how many planets were in the system?

No argument there. This never made sense.

3. "Two-dimensional thinking."
... But the problem was that Trek from this point forward -- in its televised form too -- seemed in its portrayal of space and space battles almost imprisoned within the horizons of this vision, curiously satisfied with a minimum amount of effort to move beyond primitive assumptions and metaphors. The next time we'd see a really, truly outside-the-box space battle in a Trek movie would be years later... in Nemesis.

Yep. Most TV and filmmakers don't really bother to consider how things would work in space, and just copy the dynamics of seagoing battles or aerial dogfights. There are a few exceptions, like Babylon 5 and early Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda (which had an actual JPL scientist as its technical consultant), but for the most part, they don't really think about how space works.

And Star Trek is frequently guilty of this -- for instance, in the many cases onscreen and in tie-in books and comics where a ship is surrounded by three other ships (a trope that probably began with "The Enterprise Incident"). Three points only define a plane, so that kind of "surrounding" only works in two dimensions. In space, a ship encircled by three other ships could just move perpendicularly to the plane they define and slip out easily. It would take a minimum of four ships to achieve an englobement. But nobody ever gets that right, because they're trapped by 2-D thinking.

4. Everywhere in the galaxy is next door to everywhere else.
People complained about this in STID (myself included) but Trek has always had a rubbery approach to astrography, and Wrath was one of the earliest offenders. It's not clear where Ceti Alpha V and Regula One are supposed to be, but they're clearly far out on the frontier... yet Enterprise arrives on the scene from Earth in what seems like only a few hours. It's not the biggest deal of itself, except that Wrath's getting away with this led to ever-more-radical compressions of time and space... especially come The Undiscovered Country, which features an accident at Chernobyl -- uhhh, Praxis -- that apparently sends shockwaves halfway around the galaxy in minutes. At least a token effort at understanding and portraying a sense of the true scale of space would have been nice...

Yes, definitely. One of the specific "don'ts" in the TNG writers' bible was "treating deep space as a local neighborhood." Writers were specifically cautioned against writing without a sense of the vast scale of outer space. Clearly that was forgotten later on.

You could also put the Praxis explosion under the "2-D thinking" category, since it introduced a really annoying cinematic trope that's since been copied by other movies like Stargate and the A New Hope Special Edition: giving an explosion in space a circular "shock wave" that expands along a flat plane. First off, shock waves don't propagate without a medium; there can be shock waves through the tenuous interstellar gas, but they'd be way too faint and diffuse to be felt by a starship. As a rule, the only hazards posed to a spaceship by a nearby explosion are radiation exposure and direct impact by shrapnel. And second, any faint shock wave or front of expanding gases would propagate spherically, not circularly. Space is not flat.

5. The Villain Fixation.

I agree on this one too. Star Trek at its best isn't about battling and destroying the evil villain, it's about finding a better way than violence. Often it's about discovering that the villain wasn't so bad after all (e.g. "The Devil in the Dark" and "Arena"), or about finding common cause with the antagonist as the only way to avert destruction (e.g. "The Day of the Dove"), or about changing the antagonist's mind through a compelling argument or the passing of a test (e.g. "Spectre of the Gun" or "The Empath"). When villains are defeated or destroyed at the end, it's often presented as a tragedy rather than a triumph (e.g. "Charlie X" or "Who Mourns for Adonais").

Indeed, that's one thing I really respect about ST'09 -- when Nero is destroyed, it's treated as a tragedy and a loss rather than something to be celebrated, and the music and editing invite us to sympathize with Nero in his final moments, even to the point of mirroring George Kirk's final moments from the beginning.

 

[martok2112]

Hard to disagree with a lot of what you wrote, BigJake.

I might offer up some counter points, or enhancing points to some of your observations.

So, my take on the "original sins" of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan:

I like that....TWOK's "original sins". . In setting such a milestone of storytelling, it cast a long shadow to be overcome and future writers wanted to make their own WoK...usually only to fail miserably. TWOK's virtues also became a large part of Trek's near downfall.

1. "We're the only ship in the quadrant."
TWOK didn't invent it, but did confirm it as a successful part of the Trek film formula. Whatever is the most interesting thing happening in the galaxy at any given time, the Enterprise is not only the closest ship but the only ship available to deal with it.

and when you add The Next Generation's take on "quadrants" (years later) into the mix, the ridiculousness of "the only ship in the quadrant" takes on a whole new meaning.

"Whaddaya mean we're the only ship in the quadrant?! Are you telling me that Starfleet has no other ships in the Alpha Quadrant?! Are our other ships engaging Klingons, Romulans, or other spacefaring powers we haven't encountered yet?! Or is Starfleet so inept that the Enterprise is the only ship we haven't lost?!"

2. Get your $#!@ together, Starfleet!
I get why Khan is pissed at Jim Kirk specifically when he says "Admiral Kirk never bothered to check on our progress." But really... it's supposed to be a Starfleet with multiple ships competently captained, right? Absolutely nobody at all thought to check in on Ceti Alpha V, despite the extraordinary nature of the colony that had been planted there, led by a guy who had nearly hijacked a ship of the line? In fact it vanished so completely from notice that they apparently forgot how many planets were in the system? This was the genesis of the movie tradition wherein most of Starfleet was portrayed as a bunch of Stinky Weezleteats by comparison with Jim Kirk.

About the only thing I can think of to counter any part of this is that I don't really think that Kirk's initial encounter with Khan was something that was published for record with Starfleet Admiralty. Somehow, I was given the impression that the events in Space Seed were kept rather hush hush by Kirk and co. It also occurs to me that Ceti Alpha system was probably obscure, and not really worthy of notice by Starfleet/The Federation back then...save for the fact that it had a hostile, but habitable planet (well before Ceti Alpha VI went all 'sploded)...nothing that The Feds would want to consider for colonization or establishing a starbase there. Save for that little detail, little was probably known, or even remembered about Ceti Alpha....which is probably why it came as a surprise to Chekov (forgoing the whole "Chekov was never there" argument that even I favor) when he saw the Botany Bay markings on the cargo restraints. "Oh, boy, did we goof bigtime!". Chekov was clearly the only member of the crew (and apparently, Starfleet) who suddenly seemed to remember that Ceti Alpha V was habitable, and just happened to house a particularly nasty neighbor.

Ugh....I'm pretty tired and need to get a bit more sleep before going out to entertain the masses again. You bring up some excellent points, Jake. I hope my observations are in the ballpark with yours.

 

[Cicero]

And really, this is the pattern that recurs quite implausibly in later movies, notably in Generations, where the barely functional Enterprise-B is somehow the only ship in range of a distress signal that's barely outside the Solar system, and in both ST'09 and STID (though at least '09 repeats TMP's lip service to a defense grid, whose codes Nero tortures Pike to obtain).

For all its other faults, I don't think this is a fair criticism of Into Darkness. At least six or seven other ships are shown at Earth spacedock, and the meeting in the conference room is expressly of "the senior command of all the vessels in the region."

The only oddity is that none of the other ships become involved in the battle between the Enterprise and Vengeance. Perhaps they were still "park[ed] ... in blockade formation" or were warned off by Admiral Marcus?

It's an annoying trope, though.

 

[Ssosmcin]

.

Indeed, that's one thing I really respect about ST'09 -- when Nero is destroyed, it's treated as a tragedy and a loss rather than something to be celebrated, and the music and editing invite us to sympathize with Nero in his final moments, even to the point of mirroring George Kirk's final moments from the beginning.

Something which would have carried more weight if Kirk didn't gleefully blow him to hell with "you got it...fire everything we've got" after Nero refused his offer of help. A little look of regret or a less vengeful tone would have been welcome and a nice contrast with Spock...

 

[WarpFactorZ]

My take on Kirk (or Starfleet) never having checked up on Khan was because essentially Khan and his people were being "worked on by top men" (see Raiders of the Lost Ark).

 

[BigJake]

Thanks for the comments and contributions, everybody! I'll respond more fully tomorrow.

 

[eyeresist]

Am I completely wrong about any of the above?

You are completely wrong! Here's why:

1. "We're the only ship in the quadrant."
TWOK didn't invent it, but did confirm it as a successful part of the Trek film formula.

I'm not sure that "confirming" it is much of an accusation. After various plots in TOS, not to mention TMP, used this device, TWOK simply used it yet again.

2. Get your $#!@ together, Starfleet!
I get why Khan is pissed at Jim Kirk specifically when he says "Admiral Kirk never bothered to check on our progress." But really... it's supposed to be a Starfleet with multiple ships competently captained, right? Absolutely nobody at all thought to check in on Ceti Alpha V

Why would Starfleet check in on this remote colony in particular? Enterprise seems to frequently meet colonies who've been out of touch with Earth for decades. And if Kahn is such a superman, why is he bitching that Starfleet wasn't providing oversight? That's like an Ayn Randian complaining someone should do something about the local roads.

3. "Two-dimensional thinking."
...this doesn't really make sense (how could you not be aware of needing to maneuver in three dimensions when you're in space?) and is an example of Meyers' tendency toward a certain... literal-mindedness.

I think it's obvious there's a difference between having an intellectual awareness of three dimensions, and actual experience in 3D space combat.

4. Everywhere in the galaxy is next door to everywhere else.
It's not clear where Ceti Alpha V and Regula One are supposed to be, but they're clearly far out on the frontier... yet Enterprise arrives on the scene from Earth in what seems like only a few hours. It's not the biggest deal of itself, except that Wrath's getting away with this led to ever-more-radical compressions of time and space... especially come The Undiscovered Country

It's "movie time". Unlike STID, it's never seemed false to me. I'd say TFF is a greater offender in this area than TUC.

5. The Villain Fixation.
...Wrath was a classic of its day, but the need is to really move on and to explore themes that maybe don't even require villains, or revenge plots, or space battles.

Actually, I think none of the other TOS movies feature an arch-villain or nemesis. It becomes more common from the TNG films on, but only Shinzon and Nero are out specifically to "get" our heroes.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Kruge and Chang were nemeses.

 

[eyeresist]

Kruge was a problem, but in the end he was just a petty brigand, with no great scheme or personal animosity. Chang's main concern was internal Klingon politics; both Gorkon and Kirk were simply tools in his scheme to prevent detente.

 

[Lance]

I like this thread. And I'm definitely adding the phrase 'Stinky Weezleteats' to my personal lexicon.

 

[Nerys Myk]

Kruge was a problem, but in the end he was just a petty brigand, with no great scheme or personal animosity. Chang's main concern was internal Klingon politics; both Gorkon and Kirk were simply tools in his scheme to prevent detente.

Kruge killed the Enterprise! I can never forgive him for that.

Chang quoted Shakespeare (or more properly Shex'pir) only the best villains do that.

 

[WarpFactorZ]

5. The Villain Fixation.
...Wrath was a classic of its day, but the need is to really move on and to explore themes that maybe don't even require villains, or revenge plots, or space battles.

Actually, I think none of the other TOS movies feature an arch-villain or nemesis. It becomes more common from the TNG films on, but only Shinzon and Nero are out specifically to "get" our heroes.

This is a good point. In TSFS, Kruge was out to get Genesis. Kirk merely got in the way (lucky chance it was him). In TFF, Sybok wanted a starship -- he didn't really care who was in command (nor did he really care it was Kirk). The only exception was TUC, where Chang et al. were relying on Kirk being part of the mix. At the very least, Chang wanted Kirk to be the adversary.

 

[Ithekro]

Star Trek '09 did manage to get around the "only ship in the quadrant" problem. There were eight or so ships that went off to Vulcan. That only one managed to survive and thus be the closest ship to Earth is not that much of an issue if the Home Fleet was what was blown up.

 

[shivkala]

Kruge was a problem, but in the end he was just a petty brigand, with no great scheme or personal animosity. Chang's main concern was internal Klingon politics; both Gorkon and Kirk were simply tools in his scheme to prevent detente.

Kruge (by proxy) killed Kirk's son. Those Klingon bastards killed his son!

As for the thread, the only point I can really see fault with is the one about Three-Dimensional battles. Most of this sin seems to be "TWOK did 3-D battles, but it was more akin to submarines surfacing than starships, and the biggest problem is that later Trek didn't even do that.

I can forgive most of TV Trek for this, because 3-D battles with miniatures seems difficult. However, the latter shows and movies, which utilized CGI should have done it. Perhaps that's why it took until Nemesis.

 

[Maurice]

I can forgive most of TV Trek for this, because 3-D battles with miniatures seems difficult. However, the latter shows and movies, which utilized CGI should have done it. Perhaps that's why it took until Nemesis.

It's not. The Ent-D was frequently filmed upside down in order to get those underbelly shots, and a motion control camera can tilt. The "glass tabletop" was more a decision than a technical consideration.

 

[Franklin]

-- The way the movie has become elevated so far beyond any other Trek movie. It's good, but comparatively, it doesn't stand out as great. It has its own cringe-worthy moments, but somehow, criticizing it has become the "third rail" of Trekdom. Hence this thread, which is half serious and half parody of the "My Gripes with STID!" tread in the other forum.

-- Khan was obsessed with getting Kirk. It drove him from the moment he took the captain's chair of the Reliant. It drives the movie. So, he had him on Regula, then instead of beaming him up when Terrell didn't kill him, he beamed up Genesis instead. Sorry? (He couldn't beam up both?) Did he really think he stranded Kirk there? Starfleet didn't know where Kirk and the Enterprise were?

-- Kirk's paralysis during the Genesis countdown. What was he doing on the bridge? Did he slip into an introspective mode? Did he stop thinking? Did he give up? He didn't once look over to Spock and notice he had left the bridge? Really?

-- You can call it science fiction if you want, but a nebula is nothing like it's portrayed in the movie. Pure fantasy.

-- Iffy science, or magic science. A person-sized apparatus can turn an entire lifeless planet into the Garden of Eden? That stretches credulity even more than red matter does.

Some of the above are picking nits, except maybe Khan letting Kirk off the hook. Still, TWOK is a fine story. However, it is as flawed in its own ways as any of the other Trek movies.