Nicholas Meyer Confirms Upcoming 4K UHD Release Plans for STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN

[Kor]

Poor Gary Mitchell. Kirk makes a big deal of Spocks death being the first time he's ever faced death - I guess fighting his former best friend to death on a barren world doesn't count and is never mentioned again

Just a random thought as I watch the blue ray for the 50th.

Kirk came face to face with mortality lots of times in TOS. That's just one of the ways in which TWOK falls apart under scrutiny.

However, I see the movies as kind of "broad strokes" depictions of the Trek mythos for general cinematic audiences who may not be familiar with the minutiae of the series. TWOK is quite enjoyable as a standalone movie that just happens to have some vague backstory that may have had something to do with a TV show from a couple decades before it.

Kor

 

[Tallguy]

Maybe he had just had the worst day in a really long time (or ever) and was speaking off the cuff to a son he'd just met. He's down on himself, not giving an historically accurate account.

 

[Green]

No, it's proof that TWOK falls apart under scrutiny. LOL.

 

[urbandefault]

"Not like this," said Kirk.

 

[wayoung]

What about Sam Kirk?

Nobody ever remembers or cares about Sam. They didn't even include him in the Kelvin verse, despite his being the older brother

 

[wayoung]

Kirk came face to face with mortality lots of times in TOS. That's just one of the ways in which TWOK falls apart under scrutiny.

However, I see the movies as kind of "broad strokes" depictions of the Trek mythos for general cinematic audiences who may not be familiar with the minutiae of the series. TWOK is quite enjoyable as a standalone movie that just happens to have some vague backstory that may have had something to do with a TV show from a couple decades before it.

Kor

I wouldn't say it falls apart, it's just not slavishly following continuity - which, if anything, makes it more TOS like, not less

 

[Tallguy]

Nobody ever remembers or cares about Sam. They didn't even include him in the Kelvin verse, despite his being the older brother

He's hanging out with Chuck Cunningham.

 

[inflatabledalek]

I think that despite going through what should be a lot of traumatic events during the show, it's episodic nature means virtually all of it slides of Kirk's back like water off a duck. Whatever he loses or sacrifices come the next episode there's no hint of him even being slightly affected by it. Hell, sometimes even in the same episode, when his brother dies the credits roll on a funny gag sequence on the bridge.

Obviously that's a limitation of the TV of the time, but if you watch the series in rapid succession like Harve Bennett (and possibly Meyer? I can't remember if he went to school in the same way) Kirk is going to feel like someone who never faced up to these things. And that's part of the point of the scene where he'd rather be anywhere than in his quarters talking to David about it, even when he has suffered a loss he's ignored it and walked on. Khan gives him what was intended (and they didn't expect Spock to be back, though at least that pain still drives a lot of the next film) to be a permanent long lasting blow. Because whilst the series could ignore the death of a girl of the week or even his own brother, Spock not being there isn't something any future adventures could have gone "That was last week, now we've reset to the status quo".

Seeing Star Trek II with an enthusiastic crown (the sort of people who cheer when Montalban reveals his chest. Guess what Shatner line got a round of applause) on the actual anniversary at the Prince Charles cinema was huge fun and well worth what turned out to be quite an expensive--mainly because of buying crap I don't need--couple of days in London.

interestingly the 70mm print was actually from the film's first UK release, complete with BBFC certificate at the start rating it "A". Which taught me something I didn't know, the original UK version of the film cut out the close ups of the worms going in and out of ears. As it was an old print (though generally in good nick) there were a few moments with brief visual and dialogue jumps and at first I thought that was what had happened, but when it did so again with the second ear sequence I realised editing had been done!

Apparently the VHS was uncut, but with a higher certificate (a 15 by then thanks to the change in how things are named). My mother is also convinced from her 34 year old memories that something else was edited as well, but if so I didn't spot it and she swears blind the Jabba the Hut scene was in Star Wars the first time she saw it so she may be a mental.

Pleasingly the Virgin Train I caught back was called the Enterprise. Sadly its only just this second occurred to me I should have called up someone and done Chekov's line when telling Kirk the name of the ship in IV... This would only have amused me, but it would have been enough.

 

[Ssosmcin]

Just got the 50th Anniversary huge assed Blu-Ray box set and put this in for a spin. It's the corrected version. Damn it, every film needed this done.
.

The Regula planetoid is blue where It should have been Brown. (I think.)
And during the Mutara Nebula battle, when Kirk is coming up the ladder he doesn't say "That young man is my son." And Spock replying "Fascinating." is also omitted.

While I agree with the omission, since the line readings were awful, having the scene without dialog makes it totally pointless. It's now just a few more seconds of two guys traveling through the ship. Why not just lose that shot altogether? Weird.

Actually, I still prefer the theatrical version. It's tighter, Carol and David are less manic in their responses to Genesis being taken from them and, honestly, all of Shatner's performances in these scenes are less than his usual standard. He would stumble over a line or read it unconvincingly. The only performance that is truly great i the additional scenes is Doohan's. Scotty's shattered grief in Sick Bay is heart breaking. They could lose everything else and not impact the story at all. Aside from the Scotty stuff, all of the cuts were good ones.

I'm glad the theatrical version of the new print was included. Fantastic presentation.

 

[Tallguy]

Just got the 50th Anniversary huge assed Blu-Ray box set and put this in for a spin. It's the corrected version. Damn it, every film needed this done.
.


While I agree with the omission, since the line readings were awful, having the scene without dialog makes it totally pointless. It's now just a few more seconds of two guys traveling through the ship. Why not just lose that shot altogether? Weird.

Actually, I still prefer the theatrical version. It's tighter, Carol and David are less manic in their responses to Genesis being taken from them and, honestly, all of Shatner's performances in these scenes are less than his usual standard. He would stumble over a line or read it unconvincingly. The only performance that is truly great i the additional scenes is Doohan's. Scotty's shattered grief in Sick Bay is heart breaking. They could lose everything else and not impact the story at all. Aside from the Scotty stuff, all of the cuts were good ones.

I'm glad the theatrical version of the new print was included. Fantastic presentation.

Pretty much all of this. Doohan is terrific in that scene. Probably the last serious performance the man ever did.

A lot of it is probably that the original is encoded on my DNA at this point. Different line readings make me itch.

The transfer is terrific. I just wish they had included deleted scenes. Like finding out Saavik is half Romulan or the rest of the shuttle scene with Sulu. Damn it.

 

[wayoung]

^ I get that. I grew up watching the ABC version and read the novelization a few times so when I first saw the theatrical cut I was like "Wth, why is so much missing?" Probably why I like the DC more as the Preston stuff is added back in.

I'm bugged more by the cut in the shuttle near the begging where Sulu's mouth is open to speak but we never hear the line. One of the reasons I said earlier that I'm noticing more awkward cuts than I ever did before because of the mistake in the blue ray. If it wasn't for the mistake I wouldn't be so observant and catch the awkwardness that had slipped by me for 30 years previously.

 

[Grant]

My 50th Box Set is in the mail and the slightly annoying thing is that if they.ever restore and re-release any of the other 5 movies -- the art won't match. It would be great if they released 1 or 6 DCs, that they used the same art and just added "director's cut" below the title. That way if they ever do release the DCs, the box set won't become partially obsolete. The new disc could be swapped out for the current disc and not stand out like a sore thumb.

 

[BillJ]

Pretty much all of this. Doohan is terrific in that scene. Probably the last serious performance the man ever did.

So we're not counting Homeboys in Outer Space?!?

 

[USS Belmont]

Just watched on my 4K TV and I must say this transfer is beyond awesome! The characters and ships just pop right off the screen! Have they considered converting this to 3-D?

 

[Grant]

That will never happen for many reasons.

 

[BillJ]

So I now own an Xbox One S. The games on it look pretty crisp, but Blu-ray is being problematic. I put in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Director's Edition Blu-ray, and it plays fine downscaling to 1080p, though the colors are muddy compared to my regular Xbox One and PS4. But, when I turn off 24hz, to upscale the movie it has an odd hiccup where it looks to put a single frame from a few seconds prior about every fifteen to thirty seconds.

 

[Doug Otte]

So I now own an Xbox One S. The games on it look pretty crisp, but Blu-ray is being problematic. I put in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Director's Edition Blu-ray, and it plays fine downscaling to 1080p, though the colors are muddy compared to my regular Xbox One and PS4. But, when I turn off 24hz, to upscale the movie it has an odd hiccup where it looks to put a single frame from a few seconds prior about every fifteen to thirty seconds.

What do you mean by "downscaling to 1080p"? Blu-rays are 1080p, so there's no downscaling. And what do you mean by "turn off 24hz, to upscale"?

 

[Lakenheath 72]

I just came home from watching this movie in the theater. My first impression is that this film if it was done today would be a very different beast. The villain would not have been as developed and would have been seen a lot less more. The villains nowadays are disposable unmemorable nuisances.

There is a serious flaw in the sequence where Spock saves the ship. He had four minutes to save the ship. He could not have saved the ship. The turbolifts were not working below Deck C, meaning that Spock had to climb a lot of ladders to get to the engineering hull. It would have been better if the writers had provided more minutes for Spock to do his sacrifice thing. (It is implied that he got to engineering in a minute. Yeah, right. Sorry, no.)

 

[BillJ]

What do you mean by "downscaling to 1080p"? Blu-rays are 1080p, so there's no downscaling. And what do you mean by "turn off 24hz, to upscale"?

The Xbox One S is supposed to send all signals to the TV at 2160p (it is a UHD player). There is an issue where it isn't sending the signal for Blu-rays to the TV at 2160p. I have a 4K TV. A work around was to turn off 24hz processing, but that isn't working either.

 

[Doug Otte]

The Xbox One S is supposed to send all signals to the TV at 2160p (it is a UHD player). There is an issue where it isn't sending the signal for Blu-rays to the TV at 2160p. I have a 4K TV. A work around was to turn off 24hz processing, but that isn't working either.

Got it. The Xbox would then be upscaling the blu-ray from 1080p to 2160p, not downscaling. How does it look if you set it to output blu-ray at 1080p, and then let the TV upscale it?