Video: Star Trek II: TWoK

[Sonnenburg]

All four parts of Wrath of Khan review. Obviously needs no introduction.

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[Admiral Drason]

That was an awesome review. As I never read King Leer or Paradise Lost I had no idea TWoK drew from those two books so heavily.

[Darth Yan]

Saw Wrath Of Khan, thought it was decent, though I had to rent it out three times due to my father accidentally returning it even though I asked him not to. Honestly preferred Undiscovered Country.

[Ghost Rider]

Four parts! I did enjoy your introduction for all of it as well as the comparisons with Paradise Lost. Especially the naval points, given the insanity the Gene had about military points. Goddamn it, the Chekov reasoning is awesome. I will never look at that scene again in the same way. And thank you for your small bit about making sure who knows what where.

Honestly this is an awesome review and I enjoyed it because it gives me more to think of the movie.

[El Moose Monstero]

I'd be interested in hearing your rationale on the King Lear comparison - you've read it more recently than I, so I defer to your recollection, but I'm not sure I really see the connection - Paradise Lost and Moby Dick, I've got no problem with, but I think that TWoK lacks many of the features of King Lear to really see any connection, even if they were in the mind of Khan in seeing himself as a tragic victim, whereas Lear ultimately recognises the flaws in himself which lead him to lose everything. In this film, with the ending as it is, you could argue that Kirk learns that lesson, and does so by losing the most important thing to him, but I think that particular comparison is a little tenuous.

[Setzer]

Funny, intellectually stimulating, this was a very well rounded review, and without a doubt the best one you've done yet. Even though your shtick seems to be reviewing bad Trek, it just seems you have so much more to offer when you review good Trek. Films like this just underscore the waste that was the decline of the franchise.

[Bounty]

Your review is half as long as the movie itself. Impressive.

I loved the possible literary allusions. Many of the Paradise Lost and King Lear ones are things I never picked up on before.

[Ilya Muromets]

A great review, as always. What I do find hilarious, though, are the commenters on YouTube saying that the reviews are so "pretentious" just because they point out similarities to classic literature.

[Thanas]

This was your best review yet. Excellent.

[Vympel]

Pet peeve, it's Savvik, not Savvak. Otherwise, interesting review, though I think the literary allusions were taking up too much of the review at the expense of other things that make a movie, i.e. not a word about the musical score?

[Bounty]

Pet peeve, it's Savvik, not Savvak

Officially Saavik, actually. The cast just pronounced it weird.

[Serafina]

Amazing.

I liked all your reviews so far, but this one made me stay up one-and a half hours after coming home from partying just to view it - twice.

Keep up the good work
Fina

[Bounty]

You did skip over the scene right at the end of the Genesis cave a bit quick - Kirk's gambit with the code, Saavik's reaction to it (amazing how that one line became a legitimate theme in STVI), and Kirk's reasoning for going into the nebula. None of it is really missed, but that part felt a bit rushed.

Do you have more background on that lawsuit Nimoy had hanging over him? It's the first I've heard of it.

[Thanas]

You did skip over the scene right at the end of the Genesis cave a bit quick - Kirk's gambit with the code, Saavik's reaction to it (amazing how that one line became a legitimate theme in STVI),

Can you elaborate on that a bit?

[Bounty]

You did skip over the scene right at the end of the Genesis cave a bit quick - Kirk's gambit with the code, Saavik's reaction to it (amazing how that one line became a legitimate theme in STVI),

Can you elaborate on that a bit?

I'm referring to the exchange right after Saavik realizes Spock used code when he was giving his damage report, the code that let Kirk know the Enterprise still had a fight left in her and that rescue was on the way: "You lied" - "I exaggerated". It returned in ST VI as a recurring bit of banter between Spock and Valeris, right up until she used it to describe her betrayal: "a lie?" - "a choice". Remember that Valeris was originally written as Saavik.

[Stark]

Joe-a-Chim? Or Joaquim?

Great work.

[Bounty]

Joe-a-Chim? Or Joaquim?

Joachim. Yo-a-chim, throaty ch.

[Stark]

Yeah, no shit professor. Poor Chuck calls him Joe-a-Chim. I thought it was a joke at first.

[Zor]

This is definately a Highpoint for all Opinionated Trek Guides. For some reason i just loved the Asshole on the Road bit.

Zor

[Patrick Degan]

Watching this review myself right now and also concur that this is the best of the lot. Chuck really outdid himself on the effort for this one.

Two nitpicks: I would assign the King Lear role in this story to Admiral Kirk rather than Khan. Kirk most resembles Lear because, like the misbegotten monarch of Shakespeare's play, Kirk voluntarily gave up his power as a starship captain supposedly for the prestige of the admiralty but has found it to be a trap in which he is steadily fading away until he becomes nothing. Accepting promotion was a mistake, and several years behind a desk clearly rotted away the instincts he once had as a man of action —in much the same way that Lear is slowly slipping into the veil of senility as his remaining powers are stripped from him bit by bit by his scheming daughters Regan and Goneril. And Kirk will lose his most loyal friend in this life in much the same way that Lear's mistake ultimately cost him the life of his loyal and true daughter Cordelia.

The other nitpick is minor: Peter Preston is the name of the engineer cadet who is also Scotty's nephew —not Peterson.

[Patrick Degan]

As an addendum, there is another Lear/Kirk parallel, albeit an indirect one in the coda between Kirk and his son in which Kirk shifts from being Lear to being the Duke of Glouscester. If you recall from the play, Glouscester had his eyes burned out with heated copper coins by Goneril and Regan for the "crime" of remaining loyal to Lear, but afterward Glouscester takes on a new perspective of having been blinded "so that I may see events more clearly". With his eyeglasses broken, Kirk is symbolically blinded but afterward, like Glouscester, gains a new perspective on his life and also begins to see events more clearly than when he was wallowing in his own midlife self-pity.

[Singular Intellect]

I'll admit to being the oddball out here, and say I actually found this to be the most boring review I've watched yet (sorry Sonnenburg).

TWoK is a great film, and I agree with the review in principle. But the constant quotes from the referenced books was, well, over the top in my opinion. It felt more like a review of Moby Dick itself than reviewing a Trek movie.

[Stark]

Except a) Moby Dick is summed up in two sentences and b) the movie is CLEARLY massively drawing on Moby Dick to the point of direct quotes?

My only complaint would be like Bounty, that other elements aren't discussed more; hell even the pretty explosions aren't shown that much. But that just makes it a clever review instead of a cop-out 'omg this rools' thing.

[Gasphemer]

Nice review, you clearly had your heart in it.

[Kuja]

Final Score: 10/10

As soon as I heard in your TMP review that the movie scores would be relative to each other, I knew that this film could be no other. Truly an enthralling review and it's fascinating to see the passages taken from the books and laid against the dialogue they inspired.