Star Trek Wrath of Khan backlash?

[Spocklight]

Hi Guys,

As far as I'm aware, 'The Wrath of Khan' is an acknowledge Trek classic and considered by most to be the finest film in the series but is there anyone who believes it to be overrated? A contingent of Hipster Trekkies who have launched a backlash against Khan and instead champion 'The Search for Spock' maybe? ha ha

I'd be interested to know.

 

[feek61]

I think it's a good movie but yes, overrated certainly (for me).

 

[F. King Daniel]

There was something of a backlash against Wrath of Khan at the time. The comments in Interstat, Best of Trek and other fan publications of the time mirror some of the stuff said about Into Darkness quite closely. THIS thread swaps out some names on some old Wrath of Khan comments, it's quite uncanny.

 

[Mudd]

Yeah, I remember all that fuss. Lots of Trek fans didn't consider TWOK to be "true Star Trek" at the time. All about the violence and space battles and revenge, right? Lots of continuity errors. And killing Spock was just complete disrespect to Gene Roddenberry, who was vocally against it.

 

[Relayer1]

Hi Guys,

As far as I'm aware, 'The Wrath of Khan' is an acknowledge Trek classic and considered by most to be the finest film in the series but is there anyone who believes it to be overrated? A contingent of Hipster Trekkies who have launched a backlash against Khan and instead champion 'The Search for Spock' maybe? ha ha

I'd be interested to know.

More chance of 'Hipster Trekkies' championing TMP.

Which is brilliant.

 

[2takesfrakes]

What I love about TWoK is that it didn't have a director who felt the need for a STAR TREK movie to be self-referential, like they've been, ever since TVH. Part of it is that he didn't know and didn't care about the show's past. But most of it was to do with just wanting to entertain. In another sense, though, this movie's overrated because whilst it's a solid movie, it's not a milestone in movie-making history, or anything ...

 

[alensatemybuick1]

WOK is great movie, but my fav. movie with the original cast is The Undiscovered Country (itself a title Meyer preferred for WOK). TUC was a great, heavy-handed allegory to the events of the day that was in the finest tradition of the original series.

 

[Smellmet]

I reckon I've seen TWOK close to 200 times, it's right up there with my most watched films in my life. It has faults, several of them, but it's just such an entertaining rollercoaster of action and emotion that papers over these cracks with such ease that I overlook them every time I watch it. I find Khan's sneak attack on the Enterprise thrilling after all these years among the other action scenes, and I think Shatner was at his best as Kirk in this film, no question and has a brilliant character arc here. Montalban is just sooo watchable in his role, and remains one of my favourite movie villains of all time. Also, the death scene moves me to tears on every viewing, without fail. Overrated? Not a chance.

 

[Relayer1]

I reckon I've seen TWOK close to 200 times, it's right up there with my most watched films in my life.

Wow.

It's one of my favourites, and I must have seen it three or four times !

I rarely watch anything more. Twice is often enough - first time out and again twenty or thirty years later.

Admittedly I saw Star Wars 13 times at the cinema when it came out, but I was a kid...and it was Star Wars. I've only watched it once in the last twenty years !

 

[Smellmet]

Wow.

It's one of my favourites, and I must have seen it three or four times !

I rarely watch anything more. Twice is often enough - first time out and again twenty or thirty years later.

Admittedly I saw Star Wars 13 times at the cinema when it came out, but I was a kid...and it was Star Wars. I've only watched it once in the last twenty years !

I can more or less quote word for word this film, along with Star Wars Episode IV A New Hope, Superman The Movie, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, i think they are all around the 200 viewing mark, they're just films I used to watch over and over again as a child, sometimes daily at one point. I watch TWOK at least once a year these days. I actually saw TWOK twice in the same day in the same theatre - my grandmother took me to watch it, fell asleep halfway through, so I just stayed there, left her asleep and watched the next showing. It's without doubt one of my top 5 favourite films of all time.

 

[The Old Mixer]

What I love about TWoK is that it didn't have a director who felt the need for a STAR TREK movie to be self-referential, like they've been, ever since TVH.

Not self-referential? It was a sequel to a TV episode.

 

[Paradise City]

TWOK was paced right during the key moments and had great music. Montalban's silky voice is magic. Whether it's faithful to TOS is something I do note but it's usually a tertiary issue. You can break with Trek tradition and do it right or you can break with Trek tradition and screw it up.

I don't like the JJ stuff because it gave me a nodal headache watching it, it was too congested, tidal wave FX don't find favour with me and I was unclear as to what was going on whilst watching it in the cinema. Nor did I think of much of lifting a hodge podge of the TOS films and splattering it across these films. I also think making Spock emotional renders him less interesting and merges him with the other characters. .

But I was never offended by DS9 which turns alot of "Gene's vision" on it's head as it were. It just plain didn't even enter my radar to be concerned by that. So I don't see things through the prism of "purity".

You can just take Trek material and go in a direction I find favour with or you can take Trek material and go to a place I don't find favour with.

Thus, TWOK, I liked, JJ's stuff, I didn't.

Whether it is faithful to TOS is not a major concern.

 

[Relayer1]

I actually saw TWOK twice in the same day in the same theatre - my grandmother took me to watch it, fell asleep halfway through, so I just stayed there, left her asleep and watched the next showing.

Oh well played !

 

[Smellmet]

Oh well played !

I was only 8. My mum went mental we we finally got home.

 

[Khan 2.0]

wasnt III thought of as better than II for a while in the mid 80s? I Dunno. Maybe not

 

[Smellmet]

wasnt III thought of as better than II for a while in the mid 80s? I Dunno. Maybe not

I don't seem to remember that. Though I enjoyed as much as TWOK at the time as a 10 year old. I still love TSFS though but it's clearly not as good a movie.

 

[KelisThePoet]

It's one of the better movies, but far from my favorite. I prefer Voyage Home, Undiscovered Country and Into Darkness on (my subjective assessment of) objective grounds. I freely admit that Final Frontier is of inferior quality to Wrath, but I'm still more likely to watch Final Frontier, because it's more fun.

The first time I saw Wrath of Khan, I actually didn't like it at all, because I felt like it didn't do justice to "Space Seed," one of my favorite episodes. I'm not talking about continuity or accuracy issues, at all. Thematically, I liked the way "Space Seed" ended, with mystery and potential for some new kind of human society, and I didn't like how Wrath short-circuits all that. Plus, Khan is so clever in "Space Seed." He arrives in a position of complete disadvantage and almost takes the Enterprise. Contrast that with Wrath, in which he falls into a position of complete advantage, entirely by luck, and Kirk systematically erodes that advantage. I'm laughing at the superior intellect right along with Kirk. But over the years, I've come to appreciate Wrath of Khan for its own strengths (it has them in spades), apart from my feelings about "Space Seed."

 

[Relayer1]

I was only 8. My mum went mental we we finally got home.

'No Mom, it's a really, really long film !'

 

[Solid Snack]

Looking at some contemporary reviews, it looks like some thought that it was kind of 'scaled back' from the Motion Picture, and that it looked "cheap" in comparison to some of the major effects-driven studio stuff at the time, being pretty much entirely studio-bound too (Then again, so was stuff like "Alien" and even Empire Strikes Back didn't use a lot of location footage either apart). Granted, the 'cheap' thing is pretty much leveled at most of the pre-09 films with the exception of TMP it seems, although-TWOK included-they did have some really decent effects here and there-the Genesis effect footage of course, the Mutara battle, a lot of III's brand new ships and FX shots (although the sets were kind of meh), TVH's life-like whales etc. Sometimes you have to cut corners on some effects anyway to get more money for the better shots (TV anime does this a lot, the character scenes are stilted but the action scenes are usually fantastic).

I think in time people were able to look beyond that, at the film's characterization, themes etc.

 

[Smellmet]

It made up for the lack of big sets with the tension and melodrama, but still managed some decent effects and battles. TSFS didn't quite pull the same feat off. I only really started to notice it looking cheap as I got older. It was as cool as hell when I was a child. It also had some quite horrific violence and gore for a trek movie which gave the film a nice 'edge' and maturity to it.