Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) on Netflix
PG19821h 53mActionAdventureSci-Fi
James T. Kirk teaches at Starfleet Academy while the Enterprise trains cadets. Khan Noonien Singh, exiled by Kirk, seizes a starship to hunt Project Genesis, a device that remakes dead worlds.
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Trailer
Plot summary
The starship Reliant orbits a planet its crew believes to be Ceti Alpha VI, hunting a lifeless test site for Project Genesis, a terraforming technology developed by scientists under Carol Marcus. Commander Chekov and Captain Terrell beam down and are captured by Khan Noonien Singh, a genetically engineered tyrant whom Admiral James T. Kirk exiled on that world fifteen years earlier; Khan holds the two officers with parasitic eels that leave them open to his commands and uses them to take the Reliant. Meanwhile Kirk, who teaches at Starfleet Academy and feels his age, comes aboard the Enterprise for a cadet training cruise under Captain Spock. The distress call from the Genesis research station brings Kirk back into the captain's chair.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
SPOILER
Leonard Nimoy hadn't planned to return for the sequel, but agreed only after producers promised Spock a dramatic death scene, reasoning that if this really were the final Star Trek film, going out in "a blaze of glory" was a fitting end for the character.- Paramount changed the film's title to Vengeance of Khan without consulting director Nicholas Meyer, then switched it again to Wrath of Khan at Lucasfilm's request to avoid a naming clash with its own forthcoming Revenge of the Jedi, which was itself later renamed Return of the Jedi.
SPOILER
Test audiences reacted so badly to Spock's death and the film's dark ending that producer Harve Bennett had the closing shot of Spock's casket landing on the new Genesis planet, plus Leonard Nimoy's closing monologue, added afterward over director Nicholas Meyer's objections.- Ricardo Montalbán's biggest complaint about playing Khan was that he never shared a scene face-to-face with William Shatner's Kirk, so he had to read his dialogue to a script assistant who "sounded nothing like Bill" instead.
- Producer Harve Bennett said the film was close to getting the green light before anyone thought to check whether Ricardo Montalbán could even take a break from filming his TV series Fantasy Island to play Khan.
- The shot of a more mature Ceti eel leaving Chekov's ear was made by threading a microfilament through the floor of the set up to Walter Koenig's ear, and footage of a giant model of that ear was cut from the theatrical release because of the visceral reaction it drew from test audiences.
- Sixty-five percent of the film was shot on the same set, and the Klingon bridge from Star Trek: The Motion Picture was redressed to serve as both the Regula I transporter room and the Enterprise's torpedo bay.
