Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

This is the daddy, isn't it? In any conversation about which sci-fi movie is the best in all of sci-fi-dom, this always gets brought up. In fact, it also often wins. And at least for me, this is absolutely the pinnacle of sci-fi, assuming you consider (like I do) superhero movies to be their own genre. And by rights, those are really more fantasy anyways.  And I suppose I'd better get this out of the way here. Star Wars doesn't count. It is also fantasy that takes place in space. I'd love to elaborate, but I'd much rather talk about The Wrath of Khan.

A key message from the movie: your humanity is a flaw.

The Wrath of Khan is my favorite sci-fi ever, and I'll challenge anyone to convince me that there's any sci-fi out there that can beat it. I'll just be standing over here, behind the quintessential sci-fi villain.

Behind those magnificent pectorals.

But seriously folks, this movie rocks in every way. Great story, great characters, great music, great action, great conflict, great performances, Australia... or at least a reference to it. It really doesn't get any better than this. I want to talk about all of my favorite things, but I also want to be concise. Or at least give the appearance of trying to be concise. So I'll only go into a few things. Like, maybe three things.

First! Khan. I mean, of course we're going to talk about him first. This dude... ah, this dude. Where to begin? Ricardo Montalban completely sells this character. This was the first time I ever saw a villain who was obviously the villain who I still wanted to sit down and eat dinner with. Even though I knew he'd imprison me or kill me immediately afterward. He's just so civilized, so sophisticated, and so deadly. He's fascinating. And frankly, I love that it's pretty simple to see things his way. It doesn't require a polar shift of viewpoints to see why he feels wronged, and why he's trying to kill Kirk. He takes it a tad far, of course, and even his crew thinks that, but the fact that it's so easy to see things as he does, well, doesn't that make him relatable by definition? It makes him almost a sympathetic character, and he feels very human.

Look at him, he's wearing a jacket because he's cold! Because it's cold in space! How human is that?

And he's got every good quality that General Chang has in The Undiscovered Country, but with one little advantage. You can totally buy that this dude is a genius. Chang is a competent general, for sure, and he does pretty well with political maneuvering too. But Khan survives with his people on a desert planet for years before hijacking a starship and then nearly killing Kirk and his entire crew. And I mean nearly. That was a close thing. Khan's downfall, ultimately, is a combination of his ego and Kirk&co's greater depth of experience fighting in space.

Treating the immense void of space like it's NOT the ocean. Experience!

And a tribute to Montalban's performance. Khan is a very powerful character. The temptation would be to overact a character like that. He doesn't. He delivers the character to us in subdued tones that hint at the person behind the persona without ever forcing us to see who Khan really is. That is there for the taking, all of these subtle personality flaws woven into every move he makes, every line he says, without forcing us to see the tragic character he really is. Montalban's performance is so perfect, in fact, that he almost steals the show completely.

Pictured: Stealing the show. Or the Genesis torpedo. I can never remember which.

But thank heavens everyone else is acting up to par. Even Kirk. And if we're honest, yes, this line is hilarious when taken out of context. But in context, it's actually pretty powerful.

My brother once made a recording of every instance of the name Khan spoken in this movie all said back to back. When it gets to this one, it's even funnier than you're thinking.

Second! (That's right, we're only on item two. Deal.) Space. Battle. I mean, holy hanna, space battle. This is the best space battle ever. Like, in all of sci-fi TV and movie history, this one wins everything ever. It's tense? Oh yes. It's long? If we're honest, it lasts pretty much the whole dang movie. It's realistic? As realistic as any sci-fi involving faster than light travel can possibly be. It's packed with emotion? SPOCK DIES AT THE END!!!!

Doing something awesome, because of course.

This battle is everything I want out of a good space battle. Strategy, taunting, near misses, great triumphs. The stakes are high, the outcome uncertain, and the ending surprising. Stunning. Shocking beyond all reason. And unlike some movies, the character who looks like he's in the most danger of dying? He actually dies. There's a funeral. They shoot him out of a torpedo tube.

There were bagpipes, for pete's sake!

And have I mentioned the triumph? Yes, there was triumph.

This moment made me so happy the first time I saw it, I almost wet myself. Like a puppy. I was like nine, give me a break.

Third! The feelies. This is a very emotion driven movie. It starts with Kirk feeling old, worn out. Feeling like he's lost the ability to influence the course of human events, something that he's grown used to doing. This feeling, of course, reflects on the rest of the crew as well. They're not spring chickens anymore.

Pictured: five not-spring-chickens and one oddly cast spring chicken.

Then we see Spock and his friendship with Kirk. We see Bones and his friendship with Kirk. We see Khan and his hatred of Kirk. Really, Khan's hatred of pretty much everyone. Kirk rediscovering what it means to be a captain in Starfleet, rediscovering what it means to be a human. This movie is all about the people around Kirk and how they change the way he feels. It's really about all of the people around us and how they can affect changes in us through friendship, and through adversity. It's about humanity. It's about understanding who we are, and how we fit into the world around us.

It's about not becoming part of our "collections," which for me means not becoming an Apple computer. I set my bar pretty low, if we're honest.

And it's about how we deal with loss. Because I'm not sure if you know this, but Spock dies at the end. He actually dies. Sure they bring him back in the next movie, but that doesn't matter. Kirk loses his best friend, and you get to see him learn from Spock's example there at the end. He, and by extension we, see a new depth of emotion and friendship through Spock's logic, and Kirk is bettered as a person. They make a big show through the entire movie about the Kobayashi Maru test, and about how Kirk cheated to beat it. About how he doesn't believe in a no-win scenario. And then you find out that he's got a plan, and it seems like he really has tricked the reaper again, just like he always does. Kirk has never faced death, but then he has to. There's two moments that sum up what Spock's death really means. When David comes to Kirk and says "Saavik was right. You never have faced death." and Kirk replies with "I've cheated death, and laughed at how clever I was. But I've never faced it. Not like this." That moment compared with Kirk's line to Saavik after she fails the test, "How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life, don't you think lieutenant?" This is a crucial life lesson, and everyone is going to run up against it at some point in their life. In the end, this movie is about that very message. No magic elixirs to save his friend's life. No cheating death for Kirk this time. Just the peace that comes from really understanding how life relates to death. It's kinda an eternal truth. It's kinda deep. It's really fantastic. Emotionally, it's the deepest piece of sci-fi I've ever seen.

This shot has more depth than JJ Abram's entire career.

And that brings us to the bottom of the top. There's so much that I didn't talk about. The music for example. My favorite score by James Horner. I could listen to that again and again and again... and I do, actually. And the script, which nailed everything to everything ever. This is the best Star Trek movie, and by extension the best sci-fi movie, in history. I have no expectation that any sci-fi movie will ever beat this one out, it's literally that good. And there was never really any chance that JJ Abram's remake was going to come close. But where did it place? Well... You'll just have to wait and find out.