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The Wrath of Khan has the feeling of a valedictory, which isn’t surprising considering that it was originally intended as the last Trek. (Apparently, test audiences responded negatively to the implications that Spock’s death was final and the ending, as the old saw goes, was reshot. At least they didn’t have him pop up out of the bathtub screaming…) The first 20 minutes of the film, with the Kobayashi Maru scenario, Kirk’s restlessness with his promotion upstairs, the discovery of Khan and the general air of time marching on, set up the themes that the next 90 minutes enhance, replay and bring to a head. Seeing Kirk, Spock, and Bones in one of their three-way debates (as more than one analytic paper has noted, they are the Id, Ego and Superego made flesh) is like watching the progenitor of a Judd Apatow bromance or a Shane Black buddy buddy action flick. Their arguments and insults go round and round but there is real love and affection (or something) underneath the surface.

In many (positive) ways, I was reminded of The Empire Strikes Back. The unexpected melancholy nature of the ending suggests that not all victories come easy; the colors on the Enterprise crew’s uniforms make a visceral connection to me to those of Cloud City; in an inverse of Empire’s familial revelation, a father discovers he has a son; the stage is also set for a third installment to wrap up loose ends and end (presumably) on a happier note.

I didn’t take note while I was watching, but afterwards, it occurred to me the most unusual, and perhaps riskiest move that screenwriter Jack B. Sowards, with an uncredited polish by director Nicholas Meyer, takes is not allowing the protagonist and antagonist to interact face-to-face. (This unresolved tension was perhaps parlayed into the extensive and silly fisticuffs between Kirk and Kruge in The Search for Spock and the resulting foot to face with which Kirk dispatches his foe to a fiery reckoning.) Khan acknowledges that he is happier keeping Kirk alive to toy with him and allow him to feel the same sense of loss of that which he holds dear. The irony is that Khan dies without knowing of the sacrifice that Spock makes and that he has indeed made good on his promise to upend Kirk’s life.

What most surprised me, quite pleasantly, was how Shatner underplayed most of his scenes. Endless jokes have been made about his acting style and his ego (memorably skewered in Ben Stiller’s MTV Movie Awards parody of Seven, where in the style of Alanis Morissette’s then-current video for “Ironic”, Shatner played all roles in the car-bound skit - the detectives, John Doe, and the head in the box) but in The Wrath of Khan his eyes and voice convey the appropriate weariness Kirk feels at entering the twilight of his years with no prospect of adventure waiting on the horizon. Shatner can’t quite sell the grief and sadness during Kirk’s final scene with Spock but at least it isn’t due to overacting, teeth gnashing, garment rending, et. al.

The Wrath of Khan understands the small pleasures of the Star Trek universe, such as how Spock can arch his eyebrow to great heights, and intone “Fascinating” for the umpteenth time and one can almost catch Nimoy’s winking grin in the slope of that eyebrow. Or how the bridge will bear the brunt of a massive explosion that will send sparks shooting, equipment malfunctioning, crewmembers soaring through the air and the camera shaking. Like all proper goodbyes, The Wrath of Khan lasts a little too long at the end, extending its farewells as if to hold off the passing of time. And like the nascent planet to which Spock’s funeral casket is surreptitiously delivered, this sequel contains the seeds for a genesis at its climax: to ensure that a profitable franchise will continue to “live long and prosper.”

Final note: For those of you dying to know (and you know who you are) the other films that opened in the time frame mentioned at the column’s beginning, they are: Hanky Panky, the murder mystery/comedy with Gene Wilder and Gilda Radner; Author! Author! with Al Pacino in romantic comedy/single dad mode; Megaforce , the would-be franchise starter that did not make an action hero of Barry Bostwick; Firefox, Clint Eastwood’s off-kilter action epic that has not seen positive re-evaluation with the passing of time; and, yes, my beloved Grease 2 (as covered in the column “My Origin Story.”)

Next time: I consider irony once more, with a personal favorite from my adolescence from which I can quote endlessly, but that may have completely fucked up my ability to tell if someone is being sincere or not. Buckle up for some “Wild Wild Life” and get ready to celebrate the sesquicentennial of Virgil, TX.

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