khan | the m0vie blog

Non-Review Review: Star Trek II – The Wrath of Khan

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Darren

This August, to celebrate the upcoming release of Star Trek: Into Darkness on DVD and blu ray, we’re taking a look at the Star Trek movies featuring the original cast. Movie reviews are every Tuesday and Thursday.

In many respects, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan represents the franchise’s first true “reboot.”

There have been various points in the history of the franchise when the show has undergone a reinvention of some description, a radical shift from what it was into what it would be. The third season of Star Trek: The Next Generation represented such a dramatic update, a shift turn-around from the show’s first troubled two seasons. The third and fifth seasons of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine did something similar. Star Trek: Enterprise tried to affect some radical shift, but only managed to accomplish it in the third season. JJ Abrams’ recent summer blockbuster represented its own dramatic alteration to what Star Trek was or could be.

However, The Wrath of Khan represents the show’s first massive shift, the first point at which the franchise effectively evolved into something markedly different from what it had been before.

You Khan do it!

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Arthur Conan Doyle, gene roddenberry, Harve Bennett, james t. kirk, khan, kirk, Leonard McCoy, Motion Picture - Star Trek, Nicholas Meyer, Reliant, Robert Wise, spock, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek Original Series, star trek: deep space nine, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Starfleet, StarTrek, vulcan, Wrath of Khan | 11 Comments »

Star Trek: To Reign in Hell – The Exile of Khan Noonien Singh by Greg Cox

Posted on August 6, 2013 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the movies with tie-ins around (and related to) the films. We’ll be doing one of these every week day. This is one such article.

I feel like I’m in the minority because I didn’t much care for Greg Cox’s The Eugenics Wars: The Rise and Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Vol. 1 & 2. The books had an absolutely great premise, and Cox had a very clever way of explaining how the Star Trek universe could have had a major conflict between genetically-engineered supermen in the 1990s, despite the fact that their version of the 1990s looked a lot like ours. However, Cox became bogged down in shout-outs and continuity references and character cameos. Despite the seemingly epic scope of the story, it seemed like 20th century Earth was inhabited by twenty people who all knew one another.

In contrast, To Reign in Hell has a much less ambitious and exciting premise, but the novel also reigns in some of Cox’s excesses. While the author’s taste for continuity sometimes overwhelms the narrative, he is somewhat restrained in how heavily he cane lean on what came before. While Cox’s prose is still a little prosiac, and his narration a little ham-fisted, he at least has a bit more room here to develop Khan as a character. Without the crutch of feeling the need to reference every 20th century character ever to appear in Star Trek, Cox can focus on his leading man.

Well, mostly.

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Cox, Greg Cox, james t. kirk, khan, Khan Noonien Singh, kirk, Leonard McCoy, List of Star Trek planets (C–F), star trek, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Starfleet, Wrath of Khan | Leave a comment »

Star Trek – Space Seed (Review)

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the release of Star Trek: Into Darkness this month, we’ll be running through the first season of the classic Star Trek all this month. Check back daily to get ready to boldly go. It’s only logical.

Following the commercial success (and lack of critical success) of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Paramount made a conscious decision to side-line Gene Roddenberry. Given that his plans for the sequel involved Spock travelling through time to assassinate Kennedy, we can likely all agree that was probably a good thing. Harve Bennett was tasked with producing the sequel, and took to the task of researching what would become the second Star Trek film. Demonstrating considerable respect for the source material, Bennett locked himself away and screened all three seasons of the show, looking for inspiration.

Apparently he only needed to reach the tail end of the first season, because he had found the basis of his film by the closing credits of Space Seed.

You Khan do it…

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Benedict Cumberbatch, Earth, james t. kirk, khan, kirk, Lieutenant, Mister Spock, racism, science fiction, Sexuality in Star Trek, Space Seed, spock, star trek, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek Into Darkness, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, StarTrek, Uhura, William Shatner, Zachary Quinto | 13 Comments »

Star Trek: The Eugenics Wars – The Rise & Fall of Khan Noonien Singh, Volumes I & II, by Greg Cox (Review)

Posted on May 25, 2013 by Darren

We’ll be supplementing our coverage of the episodes with some additional materials – mainly novels and comics and films. This is one such entry.

In 1967, the 1990s must have seemed so very far away. At the height of the Cold War, the prospect that mankind would have made it into twenty-first century without one catastrophic global conflict must have seemed improbable at best. Indeed, the odds that anybody would still be talking about (let alone watching) a kitsch piece of sixties television science-fiction would have appeared remote. So Star Trek seemed perfectly justified sticking a reference to a major war towards the end of the twentieth century into an episode towards the end of the first season.

However, if there’s one thing that Star Trek fans cannot abide, it’s a possible continuity problem. So, when genetically engineered supermen didn’t almost conquer the world during the last decade of the twentieth century, it was only a matter of time before we got a two-volume set dedicated to resolving this particular problem.

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Filed under: The Original Series | Tagged: Bhopal, Eugenics Wars, Final Reflection, Gary Seven, Greg Cox, khan, Khan Noonien Singh, Klingon, Neutral Zone, Our Man Bashir, spock, star trek, Star Trek Original Series, star trek: enterprise, Star Trek: The Motion Picture | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Star Trek – Into Darkness

Posted on May 10, 2013 by Darren

Note: This is a spoiler-heavy review. If you want a spoiler-lite recommendation, click here. If not, continue at your own risk.

Towards the climax of Star Trek: Into Darkness, Kirk and the Enterprise flee an aggressor by entering warp. At that speed, several factors the speed of light itself, they surmise that they must be safe from their pursuer. Of course, they prove to be wrong – brutally so. Everything in Into Darkness moves fast, so fast that the Enterprise’s top speed seems more like a casual jog than a breakneck acceleration. The plot rockets along with incredible speed, from plot point to plot point, counting on the momentum to sustain the film and carry it across the line.

There is enough material here to produce a trilogy of films. Indeed, cynics might suggest that a lot of the movie’s iconography and plot points are indeed recycled from the central “trilogy” of the original Star Trek films, running from the homages to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan right down a climactic visual reference to Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Abrams and his team of writer continue their work from 2009’s breakout blockbuster Star Trek by putting the franchise’s most compelling images and cues into a high-speed blender.

Into Darkness just substantially increases the concentration.

Seeing red…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Benedict Cumberbatch, chris pine, Darkness, J Abrams, J. J. Abrams, james t. kirk, khan, kirk, Leonard Nimoy, spock, star trek, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, Star Trek III: The Search For Spock, Star Trek Into Darkness, star trek iv the voyage home, star trek: enterprise, Star Trek: The Motion Picture, star trek: the original series, StarTrek, Taste of Armageddon, twitter, United Federation of Planets, William Shatner | 5 Comments »

Watch! Star Trek: Into Darkness Teaser!

Posted on December 6, 2012 by Darren

Given we’re spending a month covering Star Trek: The Next Generation‘s twenty-fifth anniversary, it’s worth sharing this, the trailer for JJ Abrams’ Star Trek: Into Darkness. I’m actually quite looking forward to it, as Benedict Cumberbatch is making quite a name for himself, and he seems perfectly suited to this sort of role.

The trailer plays it a bit coy, refusing to reveal Cumberbatch’s identity. Based off a one-scene-longer Japanese version of the trailer, the internet is going wild with the speculation that he is Khan, the villain from the episode Space Seed and also Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. I can’t see the production team recycling such an obvious character, if only because he’s so iconic to fans as to be sacrosanct, but not easily recognisable to casual movie goers. (Okay, that shot of Kirk screaming “KHANNNNN!” is one of the great movie moments, but beyond that… do casual movie-goers recognise the character in the same way they would Darth Vader or the Joker?)

Personally, I’m hoping that Abrams and his creative team have done something similar to what Meyer did when he drafted Khan into Star Trek II. Meyer reviewed the original series to find a villain who offered the potential for an exciting story and found Khan. I would like to think that an examination of the show might find another. Given his dialogue about revenge against the Federation, I wouldn’t mind seeing Garth of Izar from Whom the Gods Destroy get reimagined, but that’s off the top of my head.

Still, enjoy the trailer and sound off below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: Abrams, Benedict Cumberbatch, Darkness, J Abrams, jj abrams, khan, Space Seed, star trek, Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Octopussy

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Darren

This post is part of James Bond January, being organised by the wonderful Paragraph Films. I will have reviews of all twenty-two official Bond films going on-line over the next month, and a treat or two every once in a while.

Despite having quite possibly the most awkwardly unfortunate name in the history of the English language, the most enduring image from Octopussy is Roger Moore, flailing wildly and trying to be taken seriously, while dressed as a clown. Oddly appropriate, eh?

Moore, Moore, Mo- Too Much!

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: american, Bond girl, film, general orlov, George Lazenby, Hedge fund, india, james bond, james bond january, khan, Maud Adams, Movie, non-review review, Octopussy, pierce brosnan, review, Roger Moore, sam mendes, sean connery, stephen berkoff, steven berkoff, United States | 11 Comments »

Star Trek Sequelitis – Who We Want to See

Posted on May 24, 2009 by Darren

Never afraid to jump on the bandwagon, we were so impressed by the movie that we’ve seen, we thought we’d write a list of the aliens and creatures that we want or don’t want to see in the proposed sequel. Part of me really hopes that JJ Abrams continues to breath originality back into the series, but there are also a lot of very cool aliens out there in the big Star trek universe. Here are a few of the many, many characters and species we can see being considered for an appearance.