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The Wrath of Khan is arguably the greatest Star Trek movie, but it's far from perfect.
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00:00Not too many people would argue with me when I say that The Wrath of Khan is the best Star
00:05Trek movie ever, but it's imperfect in the way that most human endeavors are.
00:10This is unsurprising, given that when director Nicholas Meyer was offered the film, there
00:15was shades of the motion picture, but no workable script.
00:19In fact, three different scripts had been developed, The Omega System, The Genesis Project,
00:25and The New Star Trek. So Meyer and the producer identified all the bits they liked from the
00:30scripts, and Meyer wrote his first draft of a new script in just under two weeks, titled
00:35The Undiscovered Country. Well, actually, they retitled it to The Vengeance of Khan,
00:41but then they retitled it again to The Wrath of Khan before release, so they really couldn't
00:46make up their minds. Many, many revisions followed, but time was wasting and money was tight.
00:51The script and the resulting film were of astounding quality for such a time crunch project,
00:57but in that hurry, a fair amount of dumb things did slip through the cracks. So with all that
01:03history in mind, and with our love of this film firmly established, let's have a bit of fun while
01:08we look at the 10 dumbest things that happened in Star Trek Wrath of Khan.
01:13Number 10. Reliance Weak Password. The prefix code is a good idea for thwarting a hostile takeover
01:19of a starship, but a code of only five numbers is in the range of your upper-end bicycle
01:25combination lock, 90,000 possible combinations. Have you ever looked at that bank of switches
01:30Spock flips to input the code? There are only 10 switches, one per number from one to nine
01:36and zero, and each switch stays flipped after he uses it. Thus, each number can only be used
01:42once per code. This means no prefix numbers like 16303 or 01701, let alone 66666. This cuts
01:53down on the possible combinations by two thirds to just 27,216. Most Wi-Fi passwords are harder
02:01to crack. Also, after Khan has been prefix coded and handed his ass, it's surprising that Mr.
02:08Superior Intellect doesn't figure out that this is what happened and try to locate the
02:12Enterprise's own prefix code in order to turn the tables on his old friend, Kirk.
02:18But that would've meant showing Khan is actually intelligent, not just telling us.
02:23Number 9. Cadet Dead Meat to the Bridge With the Enterprise's bridge at the very tippy
02:28top of the ship's saucer, and with engineering in the cigar-shaped engineering secondary hall,
02:34there is no way that the bridge is en route to sickbay. So why then does the turbolift bring
02:39Scotty carrying the mortally wounded cadet Peter Preston to the bridge? Ever since the
02:44movie opened, fans have either been crying in outrage over this, or offering rationalizations
02:49and justifications for it. The damage caused the turbolifts to malfunction. Uh, Scotty was
02:55so grief-stricken that he blah blah blah. Logically, they could've had Kirk step out of the turbolift
03:01on his way to sickbay and find Scotty with Preston in a line of wounded trying to get
03:06into sickbay. But then the audience might have been anticipating such a sight en route to McCoy,
03:12whereas the doors opening to this horror was indeed a shock. So that's the reality. It's
03:18only there for a punch-in-the-gut dramatic effect, even though it makes zero sense. Shocking?
03:23Yeah, absolutely. Dumb? Definitely. Number eight, Kirk and Bones both blow it. The film's story forces
03:31Kirk to catch the idiot ball in order to show him as old and worn out, and in desperate need to get
03:36his mojo back. Which we can accept to a point, but it does go overboard in this regard, and does Bones
03:43dirty in the process. Upon discovering Tyrell and Chekhov on the regular one space station,
03:47Chekhov emotes. Chekhov? Oh, sir. It was Khan. We found him on Seti Alpha 5. He put creatures in our
03:55bodies to control our minds. McCoy? It's all right. You're safe now. Chekhov? They made us say lies,
04:02do things, but we beat him. We thought he controlled us, but he did not. The captain was strong.
04:08Wait a Vulcan minute, Lieutenant Commander Bad accent. And yeah, I'm also talking about me,
04:13because what fun would this be if we didn't do some light teasing? But anyway, Chekhov just
04:18explicitly told them. The titular space genius had put creatures in their bodies to control their
04:24minds, and what is the first reaction to this bombshell? Bones effectively says, it's all good.
04:29What? The instant Chekhov admits this, both Kirk and Bones ought to have suspected Khan was behind
04:34every word coming out of the Reliant Boys' mouths. Sure, Kirk is focused on the Genesis material,
04:40and finding Dr. Marcus, but he's beyond thick here. And Bones? What excuse does he have? What sort of
04:48doctor hears two potential patients say they had foreign creatures placed inside their bodies to
04:53control them, and doesn't immediately ask how and where, and examine the living crap out of them?
05:00Kirk's not the one caught with his britches down. McCoy is tripping over the metaphorical pants around his
05:06ankles. Number seven, the inferior, superior intellect. Khan, Admiral Kirk, never bothered to
05:14check on our progress. It is only the fact of my genetically engineered intellect that allowed us to
05:20survive. Much is made of Khan's intellect in the film, but he's dumb as a box of rocks throughout,
05:26let's be honest. Consider the following. Khan wants Genesis, yet tortures and kills the uncooperative
05:32Genesis team instead of sticking eels in them, or instead of taking any of the team with him when
05:38he has to leave regular one in order to blow Kirk to bits. I mean, yeah, I get he's mad, but come on,
05:44he's a super genius. Next, Mr. Superior Intellect can't spot the most in plain sight code ever.
05:51Spock says hours would seem like days, and then explains the ship's status using days. 12-year-olds in
05:58the audience could decode that on the fly, so why can't Khan or his crew of fellow superhuman,
06:05or Savik for that matter? Yes, Khan has activated his Ahab obsession power-up, and he's phaser-focused
06:12on harpooning his white whale, Kirk. And granted, his monumental ego and sense of innate superiority
06:18cloud his judgment to the point where he's easily duped and goaded into chasing Kirk into a nebula where
06:24he loses most of his advantage. But, like Kirk and Bones, he gets tossed the idiot ball and never once
06:31demonstrates any real smarts. This was not always the case. In one of the scripts from which the final
06:36film's screenplay was built, and before his beloved wife was fridged, there was a dialogue that indicated
06:42Khan was indeed an extra-special super genius. Khan, how are system controls working? MacGyver's,
06:49Very well. Command and remote functions are all tied through computer stations. How could you have
06:54designed it so quickly? Khan, this is a sister ship of the Enterprise. The Enterprise's manuals I absorbed
07:0114 years ago are still fresh in my mind. Not only would such a dialogue have demonstrated that Khan's
07:07an actual smarty pants, ergo a real threat, it would have made clear how 14 supermen could have run an
07:14entire spaceship, especially with 10 of them on the bridge. Number 6. Wily Chekhov. In old cartoons,
07:22characters would frequently run the same path of a steamroller about to flatten them, or stand by
07:27dumbly before getting clobbered by a car or flattened by a boulder. Chekhov effectively does this on SETI
07:33Alpha 5 upon seeing the belt buckle. Chekhov. Botany Bay. Botany Bay? Oh no, we've got to get out of here
07:41now. Damn! He knows what this means, but instead of doing the logical thing, putting his helmet on and
07:47calling for extraction, assuming he even needs a helmet to do this, he and Terrell put on their
07:52helmets, step outside, and at the sight of the 14 survivors, freeze like a bug-eyed wily coyote watching
07:58as a train bears down on him. By rights, Chekhov should have tried calling the ship before stepping
08:03outside. You don't stop to explain when you realize you're standing over a live grenade.
08:08You run, duck, or throw yourself on it. And even if for some plot convenient reason the comm didn't
08:14work inside the cargo containers, Chekhov should have been screaming for a beam out throughout their
08:19exit from the hatch and even as Khan's people move towards them. But from the lack of alarm exhibited by
08:24Beech and Kyle on the Reliant, it's obvious no communication of any sort was received.
08:30One can excuse Chekhov's behavior after he gets an eel in the ear, but not his costly ineptitude at this
08:35stage in the story. It's no wonder he never made captain. Number 5. Universal Armageddon. But no rush.
08:43As David Marcus frets, as the Genesis proposal demonstrates, and as Spock and Bone's argument makes
08:50clear, the Genesis device has the potential to be a dreadful weapon if used where life already
08:55exists. We're talking about Universal Armageddon, Bones exclaims. In short, Genesis is a Manhattan
09:03project, and Kirk clearly knows what it is before revealing it to his confidants. So why is it then
09:09that everyone's so damn blasé about Carol's cry for help? Consider this. Carol calls Kirk to ask if he
09:16gave the order and states that someone is going to take Genesis without proper authorization.
09:21Mid-conversation, her transmission is jammed at the source. This isn't garbled communications.
09:27It's deliberate. Kirk calls Starfleet Command to try and get to the bottom of things. And when he
09:33clearly doesn't get an answer to what's going on, instead of, you know, immediately calling to the
09:38bridge and ordering maximum warp to regular one, he meanders to Spock's quarters for a friendly chat
09:43and then finally goes up to the bridge to order Sulu to go to Warp 5. Warp 5. Yes, it's a minor
09:51continuity point, but in the previous film, the Enterprise zipped along to meet V'ger at Warp 7
09:56without even breaking a sweat. Warp 5 is like a police car driving below the speed limit while
10:02rushing to an active crime scene. Kirk ought to have been court-martialed for that. I mean, come on,
10:07take things seriously, Admiral. As scripted, this would have been a better scene,
10:11as Kirk would have gone to the bridge prior to him going to see Spock. This was, however, swapped
10:17around in editing for dramatic effect, but at the cost of making Kirk appear to be not taking this
10:22whole thing as seriously as he really should. Number 4. Exit the eel. The influence of the baby
10:29eels is pretty shaky. How is it that Tyrell and Chekhov can sit by as their shipmates, Reliance crew,
10:36are marooned on Khan's barren sand heap? Yet, later in the movie, Tyrell manages to resist when Khan
10:42instructs him to shoot Kirk, a man he says he'd never met. Is Kirk really just that awesome? Eh,
10:50rank does have its privileges, I guess. Or, is actively murdering someone just too much for even
10:56ill influence? Mmm, no, not really, as he vaporizes an innocent civilian just moments earlier.
11:03And, after Tyrell phasers himself out of the narrative rather than Kirk, why is it that the
11:08Elin Chekhov's noggin chooses that precise moment to get the heck out of there? You could maybe argue
11:15semantics about what happened to its friend, but it's a little convenient, isn't it? However, for the
11:22past 40 years, fans have joked that there's another reason the beast fled. It was starving to death as
11:27Chekhov is brainless. Number 3. Kirk's unfair tactical advantage.
11:32Show don't tell is a truism in film and video, and while it's not always necessary to cross every
11:38T or dot every I, sometimes a film really ought to just make a tiny bit of effort to make clear
11:44how something improbable happens to happen. Case in point, when the Enterprise first arrives at
11:50Regula 1. Spock, Regula, is a Class D. It consists of various unremarkable ores, essentially a great rock
11:58in space. Kirk, Reliant could be hiding behind that rock. Spock, a distinct possibility. Then, in a classic
12:07case of technology doing whatever the plot requires at any given moment, when Kirk returns to the ship
12:13from the Genesis cave, he orders tactical, and immediately a computer graphic shows him exactly where the Reliant is,
12:20orbiting opposite them, presumably having just left the Regula 1 station where we saw her seconds earlier.
12:26Now how come they couldn't do that before? And how can they track her through an entire planetoid now?
12:32And why does it only work one way? Why isn't Khan all,
12:36there she is, at the same instant Kirk spots where the Reliant is? And just how long has the Enterprise crew known where Reliant is?
12:45Is this how she's managed to stay out of sight? If you can't tell, I have a lot of questions.
12:50One can speculate or manufacture all sorts of rationalizations for this, like how the Enterprise was receiving telemetry from Regula 1 that Khan didn't know how to access.
13:00But then it gives Kirk an easy advantage instead of showing him using his smarts or his experience as a starship captain.
13:07Taking obstacles away from the protagonist diminishes his efforts. It could easily have been addressed by simply mentioning sensor damage
13:14earlier in the damage report or by having Regula 1 telemetry appear on the tactical display. But alas, they didn't.
13:22Number 2. Damn Peculiar
13:25Starfleet surely knows that the Reliant is assigned to Project Genesis. So when Kirk calls them concerning Carol's cry for help,
13:32the very first order of business should have been to call the Reliant and ask what's going on or if they know anything about it.
13:39Nothing in the film suggests that a call like this happened, or if it did, that Starfleet ever got back to Kirk about whether they could or couldn't get through.
13:48And furthermore, despite being told they are, as usual, the only ship in the Quadrant, they spot the Reliant assigned to Genesis not only in their Quadrant but closing fast.
13:59As soon as Kirk calms the bridge, he's ordering to try the emergency channels, so something is already odd.
14:06The moment Spock deduces there's something weird about Reliant's excuse about their
14:10chamber's coil is overloading their comm systems, that oughta been the last straw, but it wasn't.
14:17Now, from Carol's message earlier, Kirk knows that a someone is trying to take Genesis, b that Carol believes it's someone from Starfleet as she said, did you give that order?
14:28And c her transmission gets jammed at the source.
14:31So when the Reliant shows up acting damn peculiar, even too long out of pasture, Kirk should have been able to put two and two together and acted with due caution.
14:40Yeah, I know the point of Wrath of Khan is that Kirk is rusty, but given everything leading up to the moment of the ambush, his hesitation and inaction serves to not merely portray Kirk as out of practice, but as an incompetent fool, responsible for the loss of Genesis and the Enterprise damage and casualties.
15:00That's almost dumb enough to warrant being drummed out of the service.
15:05Number 1.
15:06The Genesis Defect
15:08Even taking the movie on its own terms, that the Genesis planet even exists at the end is beyond absurd.
15:14The narrative makes it abundantly clear that the Genesis device is intended to be employed on an existing solid body.
15:21Why else would the Reliant be scouring space for suitable sites?
15:24Carol,
15:25Stage 3 will involve the process on a planetary scale.
15:28It is our intention to induce the Genesis device into the preselected area of a lifeless space body, a moon or other dead form.
15:36Yet, as the story climaxes, the Genesis device goes off inside the Reliant, which is itself within the Matara Nebula.
15:42And somehow, the Genesis wave not only turns the entire nebula's gas and dust into some different kind of matter, complete with all sorts of plant DNA, but all of this conveniently falls together into a sphere in a matter of minutes.
15:56The icing on the cake, though, is that this preposterous planet just so happened to have formed within the Goldilocks zone of a star.
16:03A star? Wait.
16:04Where did that star come from?
16:06Was it the one regular orbits?
16:08Or did Genesis manufacture a star too?
16:11And how does that miracle planet just happen to have exactly the right angular momentum to go into orbit around that wherever it's from star?
16:20Ugh.
16:21And some fans complain that the red matter in Star Trek 2009 was dumb.
16:25But play by your own rules, movie.
16:27And those were the 10 dumbest things in Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan.
16:31Do you think we missed something?
16:33Well, check out the article on our website because there's four additional dumb things listed there.
16:38Oh, and before I get any pitchforks in the comments, this is genuinely my favorite Star Trek movie and I've watched it way more times than I can count.
16:46But there's just something fun about taking a look at the media that we love and just tearing it apart.
16:52If you liked this video, go ahead and give it a thumbs up.
16:55And if you didn't, make sure you let me know in the comment section below how much you dislike it.
17:00If you want to keep up to date with us, you can give us a follow on various social medias at TrekCulture or at TrekCultureYT.
17:07You can also give me a follow on various social medias at TrekkieBree.
17:11But most importantly, don't forget to live long and prosper.
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