I've never rated TWOK as highly as most fans do and I think that because it was released before I was born and I hadn't seen much TOS I never understood the dynamics between the crew or the Khan back story both of which give the film so much weight. In addition I found the action scenes and special effects to be cheesey and Khan wasn't too believeable. Please don't think I'm bashing the film as I do enjoy it but I'm wondering if the reason I don't rate is as highly is an age thing and whether other 'youngsters' feel the same?
The cheapness of the show was the point of there being a sequel to THE MOTION PICTURE, in the first place. Paramount wasn't going to make another STAR TREK unless it was cheaply produced. What we see is alot of talented people struggling to present themselves: special effects wise, production wise, story wise and all with a novice director who hadn't done much before this. Most of the time, you can not "do more with less," you really have to have the resources. Part of it is generational, but most of it is because Paramount deliberately chose to underfund the project.
I think WoK is good, but not the best Trek film. Perhaps initially seeing the films out-of-order and knowing Spock's death was just a set-up for the next movie (which I prefer, I love the fun and adventure of III) robbed some of it's gravitas. I'm 30, and saw WoK after TFF and prior to TOS.
It's still the daddy for me. it's not perfect my any means, but I think it's just so damn entertaining on so many levels. I think the effects ares dated, sure, but they still hold up reasonably well for a film that is 32 years old.
Plus, Harve Bennett told the studio execs that he could have made 3 movies from the bloated budget of TMP.
I'm glad he didn't. TMP stands as a glorious footnote as to when Trek not only stood toe to toe with the competition, but intended to blow them all away.
Basically made a movie like a TV show to reduce the budget? Then spend the savings on ILM and maybe actors.
Dude, the aftermath aside... They killed Spock. Spock, at that time, was maybe one of, if not the most famous & globally recognized of all sci-fi characters ever, and... they... killed... him, and not only that, they did it beautifully. Who has those kind of balls? They made the characters mean something again. It was that courage that breathed phenom status back into Star Trek & opened the door for it to last decades more Paydirt. That's what TWoK was, & they struck it like a jackhammer
I do not rank TWOK as high as others, though it is in the top 5 of Star Trek films, but it is my 3rd favorite of the original films, with TUC and TVH coming 1st and 2nd, respectively. For me, it is a creepy factor, as well as just had quickly Chekov and Terrell are taken in and manipulated. Yes, Ceti eels and all that, but also that they didn't notice a planet was missing. Sorry, that has bothered me for a while. However, Spock's death is an amazing scene, and the production values are incredible to look at. I admire Meyer's work and his ability to craft this film. It just is not my favorite film.
I saw it on VHS in the late '80s and it basically is what pulled me into Trek. It proved that Star Trek could be exciting and accessible. It only drags for me a little bit around some of the Carol Marcus stuff, but it adds resonance to David's relationship with Kirk and especially when David is murdered in ST III. Most of all, Montalban killed it, I mean he was great. It's also a dark and menacing movie, the most so of the first six, and that played very well. when I was a kid I mean I was on the edge of my seat during the final confrontation. I'd say ST II is probably my favorite whereas I think ST III is objectively the best, and also very rewarding if you can get into the Vulcan stuff.
Exactly. By the time the Enterprise blasts one of Reliants engines off as an 8 year old kid I was absolutely breathless, there wasn't as an exciting a film in the franchise til Into Darkness, it was that good. Khan may have been a moustache-twirler but Montalban pulled it off with such effortless style you simply don't care by the end. My grandma who took me to see it at fell asleep during the first showing, and I sat there, everyone left and I watched it again straight after. This and TMP absolutely cemented me as a Star Trek fan for the rest of my days. It's an absolute classic. Easily as good as Alien.
As someone who was in the theatre the day TWOK opened, and was part of the crowd that gave a huge cheer when the TV-show fanfare began (which portended that this time they were going to get it right), I cannot get my mind around what it would feel like to see the movie as a relic from before I was born. The whole group that saw the premiere with me all agreed that this was what a Trek movie should be - a little action-adventure here, a little philosophy there - and so what if it didn't have the budget of TMP? Any creative endeavor usually benefits from some kind of constraints, whether budgetary or otherwise. Such as: James Horner was near the beginning of his career and inexpensive, repurposed some themes from Battle Beyond the Stars, and it worked beautifully. I could nitpick - the ability to converse while in the act of transporting (from the cave to the ship) is just ridiculous, although it does move things along, and later movies did likewise. I understand people's complaints about the Reliant not knowing where Ceti Alpha's planets were supposed to be - but after all Khan had to be vengeful about something clearly understandable to people who didn't know "Space Seed." (If you really want to think it through, why didn't that episode end with Khan being given an emergency subspace beacon to signal the Federation in the event of crisis? Such a beacon was nothing new in SF - it appears, for example, in Heinlein's Have Space Suit - Will Travel in 1958 - and if they'd given him one, then no TWOK could have followed.)
I saw Star Trek II in the theater. It wasn't opening day, but it was not long from that. The theater was packed by all sorts, and not just the fans. People laughed in all the right parts, and when Kirk was ambushed and later screamed "Khan" in anger, the theater was totally quiet afterward. Spock's death resulted in some people crying. You could hear them. When the movie was over, the theater erupted in applause. My parents took me. Neither one was a Star Trek fan, but my mother remarked that it was a good movie and so much better than the boring first one, which she'd had to sit through for my birthday party. The next day in school, quite a few kids had seen it, and even among the non-fans, there was a general agreement that it was good. When I went to college a few years later, our dorm had a dozen or so movies on VHS, and TWOK was the only one that was constantly out. Its effect was everything they'd wanted for the first movie, even though this one was made and marketed more cheaply. It's funny how I hear that the SFX aren't good -- to me, they hold up very well for 30 years. Is it that they are models instead of CGI? The latter looks like a videogame on steroids to me -- just overcomplicated animation that is rarely convincing. The style of flimmaking is different, of course. For the past ten years or so, most films have had a greenish-gray cast to them, as though they were all filmed on an overcast day in the American midwest. So, the actual film may look dated in this respect. But, to me, the movie holds up very well.
I could not agree more with your SFX comments. I think they are still extremely good ad the reliant explosion is still one of the best I've seen to this day. People can prattle on all they want all day about the magic of CGI and yes it can do things not possible otherwise and be very effective if done correct, like in Lord of the Rings. But unless they improve even more I will NEVER think that the Battle in Nemesis looked better than the one in TWOK or that those half eaten donught ships with the donught hole in the center looked better than the shots of the Millennium Falcon running away from a Star Destroyer and TIE fighters after leaving Hoth in The Empire Strikes Back. I think most intelligent Star Wars fans would agree that one of the many many reasons the prequels didn't work is that pretty much every damn set, alien, ship and many other elements were CGI (I think even Hayden Christensen and Natalie Portman were CGI) and as a result it looked too damn clean and pretty and looked unrealistic. Compare the Hoth hangar, where they actually built a hangar set with full scale ships, or the Bespin Carbon Freezing chamber and compare it to courascent or that arena with all the flying bugs and i DEFY you to tell me "Oh those CGI sets looked WAY more realistic better than the ones that were actually constructed out of real materials." I feel the same way about ships. A Well built and filmed spaceship model still looks way better to me than any CGI one I've seen. The scenes between the Enterprise and Reliant where they were moving like giant ships (which they are) and firing at each other like battleships and actually causing damage is way better looking to me than crap like in Nemesis where the Enterprise and Scimitar are flying around like F-16's turning on a dime and firing dozens and dozens of times at each other with no real damage being inflicted and the battle only ending when they run out of ammo. I think most people who have been raised on CGI just insinctively believe if a film was done without and used models and sets musr be inferior looking. Just like every fan of the current best teams in sports are convinced players from past eras could NEVER compete with todays stars. Like Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell would just be curled up on the floor in the fetal position saying "Oh my god these guys are so good" if they played in today's NBA. BTW those two would kick such major ass in today's league playing against the stiffs that pass for "Centers" today when in the 60's they had to play 30 or so games against each other plus guys like Willis Reed and Wes Unseld. So yeah if you think the EFX in TWOK are "cheesy" looking by today's "Standards.......that is just pure unadultrated crap.
Khan's costume is being auctioned today! www.liveauctioneers.com/item/30471858_hero-screen-used-ricardo-montalban-signature-khan