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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. The
00:52script and the resulting film were of astounding quality for such a time crunch project, but in
00:58that hurry, a fair amount of dumb things did slip through the cracks. So with all that history in
01:03mind, and with our love of this film firmly established, let's have a bit of fun while we
01:08look 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 of a
01:20starship, but a code of only five numbers is in the range of your upper-end bicycle combination lock,
01:2690,000 possible combinations. Have you ever looked at that bank of switches Spock flips to input the
01:32code? There are only 10 switches, one per number from 1 to 9 and 0, and each switch stays flipped after
01:39he uses it. Thus, each number can only be used once per code. This means no prefix numbers like 1-6-3-0-3,
01:47or 0-1-7-0-1, let alone 6-6-6-6-6. This cuts down on the possible combinations by two-thirds to just
01:5627,216. Most Wi-Fi passwords are harder to crack. Also, after Khan has been prefix coded and handed his ass,
02:06it's surprising that Mr. Superior Intellect doesn't figure out that this is what happens and try to
02:12locate the Enterprise's own prefix code in order to turn the tables on his old friend Kirk. But that
02:18would have meant showing Khan is actually intelligent, not just telling us. Number 9. Cadet dead meat to the
02:25bridge. With the Enterprise's bridge at the very tippy top of the ship's saucer, and with engineering in
02:31the cigar-shaped engineering secondary hall, there is no way that the bridge is en route to sickbay.
02:37So why then does the turbolift bring Scotty carrying the mortally wounded Cadet Peter Preston
02:42to the bridge? Ever since the movie opened, fans have either been crying in outrage over this,
02:47or offering rationalizations and justifications for it. The damage caused the turbolifts to
02:53malfunction. Uh, Scotty was so grief-stricken that he blah blah blah. Logically, they could have had
03:00Kirk step out of the turbolift on his way to sickbay and find Scotty with Preston in a line of wounded
03:05trying to get into sickbay. But then the audience might have been anticipating such a sight en route
03:11to McCoy, whereas the doors opening to this horror was indeed a shock. So that's the reality. It's only
03:18there for a punch-in-the-gut dramatic effect, even though it makes zero sense. Shocking? Yeah, absolutely.
03:25Dumb? Definitely. Number eight, Kirk and Bones both blow it. The film's story forces Kirk to catch the
03:32idiot ball in order to show him as old and worn out, and in desperate need to get his mojo back.
03:37Which we can accept to a point, but it does go overboard in this regard, and does Bones dirty in
03:43the process. Upon discovering Torell and Chekov on the regular one space station, Chekov emotes Chekov.
03:49Oh, sir. It was Khan. We found him on Seti Alpha 5. He put creatures in our bodies to control our minds.
03:57McCoy. It's all right. You're safe now. Chekov. They made us say lies, do things, but we beat him.
04:04We thought he controlled us, but he did not. The captain was strong. Wait a Vulcan minute,
04:09Lieutenant Commander Bad accent. And yeah, I'm also talking about me, because what fun would this be
04:14if we didn't do some light teasing? But anyway, Chekov just explicitly told them the titular space
04:21genius had put creatures in their bodies to control their minds, and what is the first reaction to this
04:26bombshell? Bones effectively says, it's all good. What? The instant Chekov admits this, both Kirk and
04:32Bones ought to have suspected Khan was behind every word coming out of the Reliant Boys' mouths.
04:37Sure, Kirk is focused on the Genesis material and finding Dr. Marcus, but he's beyond thick here.
04:44And Bones? What excuse does he have? What sort of doctor hears two potential patients say they had
04:50foreign creatures placed inside their bodies to control them, and doesn't immediately ask how and
04:56where and examine the living crap out of them? Kirk's not the one caught with his britches down.
05:02McCoy is tripping over the metaphorical pants around his ankles.
05:06Number seven, the inferior superior intellect. Khan, Admiral Kirk, never bothered to check on our
05:15progress. It is only the fact of my genetically engineered intellect that allowed us to survive.
05:21Much is made of Khan's intellect in the film, but he's dumb as a box of rocks throughout, let's be
05:26honest. Consider the following. Khan wants Genesis, yet tortures and kills the uncooperative Genesis team
05:33instead of sticking eels in them, or instead of taking any of the team with him when he has to leave
05:38regular one in order to blow Kirk to bits. I mean, yeah, I get he's mad, but come on, he's a super genius.
05:45Next, 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.
05:57Twelve-year-olds in the audience could decode that on the fly, so why can't Khan or his crew of fellow
06:04superhuman, or Savik for that matter? Yes, Khan has activated his Ahab obsession power-up, and he's
06:11phaser-focused on harpooning his white whale Kirk. And granted, his monumental ego and sense of innate
06:17superiority cloud his judgment to the point where he's easily duped and goaded into chasing Kirk into a
06:23nebula where he loses most of his advantage. But, like Kirk and Bones, he gets tossed the idiot ball
06:30and never once demonstrates any real smarts. This was not always the case. In one of the scripts from
06:36which the final film screenplay was built, and before his beloved wife was fridged, there was a
06:41dialogue that indicated Khan was indeed an extra special super genius. Khan, how are system controls
06:48working? MacGyver's. Very well. Command and remote functions are all tied through computer stations.
06:53How could you have designed it so quickly? Khan, this is a sister ship of the Enterprise. The
06:59Enterprise's manuals I absorbed 14 years ago are still fresh in my mind. Not only would such a dialogue
07:06have demonstrated that Khan's an actual smarty pants, ergo a real threat, it would have made clear
07:12how 14 supermen could have run an entire spaceship, especially with 10 of them on the bridge.
07:17Number 6. Wiley Chekhov. In old cartoons, characters would frequently run the same path
07:24of a steamroller about to flatten them, or stand by dumbly before getting clobbered by a car or
07:29flattened by a boulder. Chekhov effectively does this on SETI Alpha 5 upon seeing the belt buckle.
07:36Chekhov. Botany Bay. Botany Bay? Oh no, we've got to get out of here now. Damn! He knows what this
07:43means, but instead of doing the logical thing, putting his helmet on and calling for extraction,
07:48assuming he even needs a helmet to do this, he and Terrell put on their helmets, step outside,
07:53and at the sight of the 14 survivors, freeze like a bug-eyed Wiley Coyote watching as a train bears
07:59down on him. By rights, Chekhov should have tried calling the ship before stepping outside.
08:04You don't stop to explain when you realize you're standing over a live grenade. You run,
08:09duck, or throw yourself on it. And even if for some plot convenient reason, the comm didn't work
08:15inside 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
08:24exhibited by Beach 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
08:35at this stage in the story. It's no wonder he never made captain.
08:40Number five, Universal Armageddon, but no rush. As David Marcus frets, as the Genesis proposal
08:46demonstrates, and as Spock and Bones' argument makes clear, the Genesis device has the potential
08:52to be a dreadful weapon if used where life already exists. We're talking about Universal Armageddon,
08:59Bones exclaims. In short, Genesis is a Manhattan project,
09:03and Kirk clearly knows what it is before revealing it to his confidants.
09:08So why is it then that everyone's so damn blasé about Carol's cry for help?
09:13Consider this. Carol calls Kirk to ask if he gave the order, and states that someone is going to take
09:19Genesis without proper authorization. Mid-conversation, her transmission is jammed at the source.
09:25This isn't garbled communications, it's deliberate. Kirk calls Starfleet Command to try and get to the
09:31bottom of things. And when he clearly doesn't get an answer to what's going on, instead of,
09:36you know, immediately calling to the bridge and ordering maximum warp to regular one,
09:41he meanders to Spock's quarters for a friendly chat, and then finally goes up to the bridge to
09:46order Sulu to go to warp five. Warp f***ing five. Yes, it's a minor continuity point, but in the
09:53previous film, the Enterprise zipped along to meet V'ger at warp seven without even breaking a sweat.
09:58Warp five is like a police car driving below the speed limit while rushing to an active crime
10:03scene. Kirk ought to have been court-martialed for that. I mean, come on, take things seriously,
10:08Admiral. As scripted, this would have been a better scene, as Kirk would have gone to the bridge prior
10:14to him going to see Spock. This was, however, swapped around in editing for dramatic effect,
10:19but at the cost of making Kirk appear to be not taking this whole thing as seriously as he really
10:24should. Number four. Exit the eel. The influence of the baby eels is pretty shaky. How is it that
10:32Tyrell and Chekhov can sit by as their shipmates, Reliance crew, are marooned on Khan's barren sand
10:38heap? Yet, later in the movie, Tyrell manages to resist when Khan instructs him to shoot Kirk,
10:44a man he says he'd never met. Is Kirk really just that awesome? Eh, rank does have its privileges,
10:52I guess. Or, is actively murdering someone just too much for even eel influence? Mm, no,
10:58not really, as he vaporizes an innocent civilian just moments earlier. And, after Tyrell phasers
11:04himself out of the narrative rather than Kirk, why is it that the eel and Chekhov's noggin chooses
11:10that precise moment to get the heck out of there? You could maybe argue semantics about what happened
11:17to its friend, but it's a little convenient, isn't it? However, for the past 40 years, fans have joked
11:24that there's another reason the beast fled. It was starving to death as Chekhov is brainless.
11:29Number three. Kirk's unfair tactical advantage. Show, don't tell is a truism in film and video,
11:36and while it's not always necessary to cross every T or dot every I, sometimes a film really ought to just
11:42make a tiny bit of effort to make clear how something improbable happens to happen. Case in point,
11:48when the Enterprise first arrives at Regula 1. Spock, Regula, is a Class D. It consists of various
11:55unremarkable ores. Essentially, a great rock in space. Kirk, Reliant could be hiding behind that rock.
12:03Spock, a distinct possibility. Then, in a classic case of technology doing whatever the plot requires
12:10at any given moment. When Kirk returns to the ship from the Genesis cave, he orders tactical,
12:15and immediately a computer graphic shows him exactly where the Reliant is, orbiting opposite them,
12:21presumably 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.
12:41And just how long has the Enterprise crew known where Reliant is? Is this how she's managed to stay
12:47out of sight? If you can't tell, I have a lot of questions. One can speculate or manufacture all sorts
12:53of rationalizations for this. Like, how the Enterprise was receiving telemetry from Regula 1 that Khan didn't
12:59know how to access. But then it gives Kirk an easy advantage instead of showing him using his smarts
13:05or his experience as a starship captain. Taking obstacles away from the protagonist diminishes his
13:10efforts. It could easily have been addressed by simply mentioning sensor damage earlier in the damage
13:16report, or by having Regula 1 telemetry appear on the tactical display. But alas, they didn't.
13:22Number 2. Damn Peculiar. Starfleet surely knows that the Reliant is assigned to Project Genesis.
13:29So when Kirk calls them concerning Carol's cry for help, the very first order of business should have
13:35been to call the Reliant and ask what's going on or if they know anything about it. Nothing in the film
13:40suggests that a call like this happened, or if it did, that Starfleet ever got back to Kirk about whether
13:46they could or couldn't get through. And furthermore, despite being told they are, as usual, the only
13:53ship in the quadrant, they spot the Reliant assigned to Genesis not only in their quadrant, but closing
13:59fast. As soon as Kirk comms the bridge, he's ordering to try the emergency channels, so something
14:05is already odd. The moment Spock deduces there's something weird about Reliant's excuse about their
14:11Chambers 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
14:24believes it's someone from Starfleet as she said, did you give that order? And C. Her transmission gets
14:30jammed at the source. So when the Reliant shows up acting damn peculiar, even too long out of pasture, Kirk
14:37should have been able to put two and two together and acted with due caution. Yeah, I know the point
14:42of Wrath of Khan is that Kirk is rusty, but given everything leading up to the moment of the ambush,
14:48his hesitation and inaction serves to not merely portray Kirk as out of practice, but as an incompetent
14:55fool, responsible for the loss of Genesis and the Enterprise damage and casualties. That's almost dumb
15:01enough to warrant being drummed out of the service. Number one, the Genesis defect. Even taking the
15:09movie on its own terms, that the Genesis planet even exists at the end is beyond absurd. The narrative
15:15makes 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? Carol, stage three will involve the
15:26process on a planetary scale. It is our intention to induce the Genesis device into the preselected
15:32area of a lifeless space body, a moon or other dead form. Yet, as the story climaxes, the Genesis
15:38device goes off inside the Reliant, which is itself within the Matara Nebula. And somehow,
15:43the Genesis wave not only turns the entire nebula's gas and dust into some different kind of matter,
15:49complete with all sorts of plant DNA, but all of this conveniently falls together into a sphere
15:54in a matter of minutes. The icing on the cake, though, is that this preposterous planet just so
16:00happened to have formed within the Goldilocks zone of a star. Star, wait, where did that star come from?
16:07Was it the one regular orbits? Or did Genesis manufacture a star too? And how does that miracle
16:13planet just happen to have exactly the right angular momentum to go into orbit around that wherever it's
16:19from star? Ugh, and some fans complain that the red matter in Star Trek 2009 was dumb. But play by your
16:26own rules, movie. And those were the 10 dumbest things in Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan. Do you
16:32think we missed something? Well, check out the article on our website, because there's four additional
16:36dumb things listed there. Oh, and before I get any pitchforks in the comments, this is genuinely my
16:42favorite Star Trek movie, and I've watched it way more times than I can count. But there's just
16:48something fun about taking a look at the media that we love and just tearing it apart. If you liked
16:53this video, go ahead and give it a thumbs up. And if you didn't, make sure you let me know in the
16:57comment section below how much you dislike it. If you want to keep up to date with us, you can give us
17:02a follow on various social medias at TrekCulture or at TrekCultureYT. You can also give me a follow on
17:08various social medias at TrekkyBree. But most importantly, don't forget to live long and prosper.
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