The Wrath of Khan alternative villain?

[Uxi]

Interesting idea. If it had been Kor or Kang, we could have been spared the TNG retcon of the Klingons as honorable when there wasn't a hint of that in TOS (or even in Star Trek III). Campbell's Koloth was anything but intimidating so he would have been a poor choice. They would have had to address the makeup thing, though, and it's not at all a given they would have went with the ENT solution or even Trouble with Tribbles ignoring the obvious. Still like John Ford's idea on it better.

Khan was a better choice.

 

[GhoulEddie74]

At least the ENT Klingons don't really lean into the "honor" thing except for Archer's lawyer in "Judgment." For all the mistakes ENT made over four seasons at least they did their best to have 22nd century Klingons be more like their TOS descendants, even down to explaining the lack of head ridges.

 

[Riley]

I'm shocked no one has suggested the most evil and destructive of all TOS villains:

REDJAC!!!!

A horror-themed TOS movie would have been quite an experience, maybe for Star Trek V.

 

[CoveTom]

At least the ENT Klingons don't really lean into the "honor" thing except for Archer's lawyer in "Judgment." For all the mistakes ENT made over four seasons at least they did their best to have 22nd century Klingons be more like their TOS descendants, even down to explaining the lack of head ridges.

I actually didn't like them explaining the change in Klingon appearance. We all know in real life it was simply evolution in budgets and makeup. I think the way DS9 dealt with it was the best. A brief joke and move on.

 

[King Bob!]

If not Khan, it would have to be Gary Mitchell. Movie could play out in a similar way.

 

[King Bob!]

I'm shocked no one has suggested the most evil and destructive of all TOS villains:

REDJAC!!!!

A horror-themed TOS movie would have been quite an experience, maybe for Star Trek V.

One of the things that you can guarantee is that Paramount would make the most generic movie possible once Trek became a cash cow.

 

[CoveTom]

One of the things that you can guarantee is that Paramount would make the most generic movie possible once Trek became a cash cow.

I don't know. I think that became true of the TNG films, definitely. However, one of the things like I like about the original six TOS movies is their variety. Much like the series, they told a variety of different types of stories. You had hard sci-fi and exploration with TMP. You have action/adventure space opera with TWOK and TUC. You had more intimate character drama with TSFS. You had a straight-up comedy with TVH. And you had an attempt at philosophy and religion with TFF.

Some worked better than others. But I feel like one thing that the TOS films did not do was to do the same thing over and over again.

 

[Pauln6]

Wrath of Shanna. After Kirk abandoned them, the thrallmasters built society around reality TV. After being forced to watch Real Housewives of Triskelion series 12, the survivors stole a ship, seeking revenge.

 

[Mr. Spook]

I always felt with a little rewriting of the backstory, The Wrath of Kang would have worked just as well.

Imagine Harve Bennett wondering instead what happened to Kang and Mara at the end of "Day of the Dove." Perhaps the Klingon empire banished them for failing to kill Kirk. Or maybe Kirk dropped them off at Ceti Alpha V with a transmitter to call for Klingon pickup - which never came. Now Kirk would really be the one to blame since he just dropped them off and never looked back.

Pick it up with them being discovered by Terrell and Chekov and it's the same movie.

 

[CoveTom]

Star Trek II: The Wrath of the Dove

 

[Riley]

I still think Redjac would have been a strong villain. Maybe Star Trek VI happens without the conspiracy aspect, replaced instead with a Klingon crew possessed by Redjac and seeking to destroy the Enterprise? There are a lot of possibilities and it wouldn't require a lot of explanation to get the audience up to speed on who and what Redjac is.

 

[Mr. Spook]

Star Trek II: The Wrath of the Dove

Wouldn't Kang be the Hawk though?

 

[CoveTom]

Wouldn't Kang be the Hawk though?

No, that was Sisko.

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[jimmy73]

Correct me if I'm wrong he was the only guest star to play the same antagonist character more than once during the shows run?
So that should work in his favour. Just imagine Shatner shouting "Muuuuuuuuuuud!!!!" down the communicator after he does a double cross on the Admiral in said hypothetical movie.

that would been a funny movie tho

 

[bdub76]

Cobra Kai it and make Kirk the villain.

 

[Yistaan]

If they kept the plot of Kirk fearing aging and then had the villain as Ronald Tracey, who has now actually found immortality (probably at the cost of draining the life force from innocent kids or something), it might be compelling. Or it might just end up being an early and even worse version of Insurrection which also played with the same concept.

Also Morgan Woodward would be circa 60 in this hypothetical movie and look even OLDER than he did in TOS (where he was already kind of geriatric looking for 40 something), which would kind of be a visual knock against the idea he found immortality, unless they recast the actor (at which point fans and maybe even Woodward would've objected)

 

[The Salt Umpire]

Star Trek Two: The Wrath of the Iotians, or Where's Our Cut, Kirk?

Movie Tagline: “I don’t want any more cracks about The Book!”

Imagines spaceship Packards and Deusenbergs, turrets shaped like Tommy Guns...

 

[Checker222]

Definitely the female Romulan commander was a highly compelling character. And her real-life lookalike daughter could have kept the legacy going in film.

The female Commander could very well have suffered massive repurcussions from Kirk's actions, giving her all sorts of motivations to pursue revenge. If she had a Bird of Prey, furthermore, you basically could have had a TWoK-tier space battle.

I would have preferred Kor, Khang, etc... to become recurring characters in a hypothetical fourth season of TOS. And for those saying Gary Mitchell should be the film villain, the logic is sound. But I think the best use of Mitchell would be as the final adversary of the TOS TV series. Bookending and all that. That's something that Star Trek Continues conceptually got right.


But I disagree somewhat with the execution of ST:C. Instead of being a villian, what if Gary Mitchell tried to be a hero? Tried to redeem himself and humanity, using his godlike powers. But in a case of "the uncertain business of doing good," Mitchell really screws it up.

Maybe Mitchell takes a cue from the Organians, and tries to "improve" planets as the Klingons and Federation were challenged to do. But he actually causes tremendous and spectacular damage. His application of incredible energies to problems is not the solution. So Kirk and co. have to stop him, maybe enlisting the help of other godlike figures from TOS.

Ultimately, it's more tragic than TWoK, because Mitchell is trying to make amends. But he thinks too much like a "big man," not co-operatively. So he fails. And Kirk reluctantly has to put him down, one more time. Maybe after Kirk shows him the error of his ways, he commits suicide before anyone can stop him.


This would be a good ending arc for TOS Season 4. The female Romulan commander would also have been a good recurring character, if not in a TOS movie. I think that a Mitchell story is better suited to television.

 

[Mr. Spook]

But I think the best use of Mitchell would be as the final adversary of the TOS TV series. Bookending and all that.

Put yourself in the mindset of a TV producer in the late 60's. Even if you felt your episodic series needed a finale, would you refer to an episode that was aired once three years earlier and never had a repeat? About a character never mentioned after that one time? In an episode they never wanted to air to begin with but only did because they didn't have anything else ready or that NBC was willing to broadcast at that point? Bookending wasn't a thing then. I just would have liked a better episode to finish with, but in those days, they just kept grinding. Sometimes a series ran out of steam and those final episodes showed it.

That's something that Star Trek Continues conceptually got right.

Gonna disagree here also, STC actually didn't get that right because the stated intended idea of the fan series was a "what if there was a 4th season in 1969?" They abandoned that early on with references to holodecks and such but blew it out of the water by putting Kirk in a TMP uniform.

I think they did fine with Khan, as I said above, I would have been just as happy with Kang. They had to keep it cheap, so having "kirk level" adversaries was probably the best choice. Kor would have been fine also. I find little appeal in revisiting one of the worlds they stopped at but I would have been mildly interested to see what happened to Tyree's people. Whether or not that makes for a good movie is another matter.

 

[Checker222]

These are valid criticisms.

STC putting Kirk in a TMP uniform also irked me, and was an odd-choice. You're right that it abandoned the premise of a purely-1969 Season 4 in various ways. It wrote much of Season 4 from a current-day perspective.

And yes, the actual producers would not have returned to Gary Mitchell. I was thinking more of how people today would write an idealized 4th season.


For a real fourth season, there are various options, some of which could involve returning to previous stories. Maybe a "Trial of James T. Kirk," where some Commodore court martials him for controversial actions from previous seasons. [Again, more of a modern thing, since audiences in the 1960s might not have seen those episodes.] A return of our favourite Romulan or Klingons for new plots would make more sense here.

There was a fan suggestion a while back for a Cold War-allegory finale for TOS that would have been thematically-appropriate. I can PM you the details later, if you're interested.


I think you're right that if we think in a 1969 mindset, we don't come up with Star Trek Continues or similar projects. And Klingon adversaries would have been fine in Star Trek II. It's really Star Trek V that people might want to think of alternate adversaries or plots for. Revisiting previous worlds probably doesn't work very well for a feature-film. It's what Lower Decks is for.