Wrath of Khan vs. NuTrek
I rewatched Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan recently for the first time in a long time… possibly a decade or more. I’ve been feeling the urge to for a while. I might blame it on Robot Chicken’s Wrath of Khan Opera parody, or on sfdebris’ great video review of it a few months back.
Having watched Wrath of Khan again, I can’t help but compare it to the Star Trek film released last year, and find the newer film wanting.
I can’t deny that the 2009 Star Trek relaunch film was fun. It was visually impressive, certainly, and there was a great deal of action to show off the myriad special effects. It was a typical summer blockbuster: mindless entertainment with a lot of underlying sexism.
Unfortunately, there’s a little problem there. Star Trek isn’t supposed to be mindless entertainment, and it’s not supposed to be discriminatory. It’s supposed to be thought-provoking entertainment and very egalitarian for its time. It fails at that often, of course (a discussion of all the bad episodes of Trek could fill a hard drive), but that doesn’t mean it should stop trying to have intelligence altogether. Certainly, a Star Trek story made today shouldn’t choose to retain attitudes towards women that, while perhaps progressive for the 1960s, seem utterly backwards by modern standards.
To help explain why I feel this way, I’m going to compare and contrast the film Star Trek released in 2009 (sometimes referred to as “NuTrek”) with one of the most universally beloved of the Star Trek films, and probably the sole reason that Star Trek was able to become a franchise instead of fading into obscurity, 1982’s The Wrath of Khan.
-The Wrath of Khan features references and parallels, both subtle and blatant, to Moby Dick, Paradise Lost, King Lear and A Tale of Two Cities.
-NuTrek contains references to Alias and suspicious parallels to Star Wars.
-The Wrath of Khan centers on themes of aging, facing and cheating death, human fallibility and the dangers of egotism and vendetta.
-NuTrek centers on themes of kicking alien ass to resolve your daddy issues.
-In The Wrath of Khan, James Kirk takes a moment of quiet introspection to admit that the mistakes he’s made have brought them to this point.
-In NuTrek, James Kirk never seems to consider the possibility that he might make mistakes or that anyone but him might have been right, ever.
-In The Wrath of Khan, the Enterprise is crewed by mostly cadets with only a handful of commissioned officers because it’s on a training cruise, and wasn’t supposed to encounter anything dangerous.
-In NuTrek, the Enterprise is crewed by mostly cadets with only a handful of commissioned officers while on a real mission full of potential danger for no adequately explained reason.
-In The Wrath of Khan, Kirk employs a clever ruse and a bit of bluffing to get the enemy’s shields down at a crucial moment.
-In NuTrek, the enemy’s shields are conveniently down when Kirk needs them to be for his plan, and he never even considers the possibility that they might not have been.
-In The Wrath of Khan, Kirk and Spock use their decades of experience to tactically exploit the terrain and the flaws in their opponent’s thinking and level the playing field against an enemy with superior firepower.
-In NuTrek, Kirk and Spock decide to beam the two highest-ranking and least expendable people in the chain of command into the enemy ship to attack it from within by themselves, never once considering the possibility of bringing along four extra guys for backup (a transporter pad fits six), sending Spock (the only one who actually had to go) in with five guys to back him up (one of whom could have been Sulu, who had already established that he was a better fighter than Kirk), or just beaming in a bomb while the enemy’s shields were down.
-In The Wrath of Khan, Kirk has previously earned a command through years of training, hard work and dedication, and despite being higher up in the chain of command doesn’t want to take the Enterprise from Spock, only doing so when Spock insists that he does.
-In NuTrek, Kirk is given a high-level position that he’s not even remotely qualified for while still a cadet (one about to be court-martialed) because the captain was a fan of his daddy, then promptly steals command of the Enterprise from Spock (an actual commissioned officer with years of experience) by provoking him with racist remarks and taunts about his dead mother.
-In The Wrath of Khan, Kirk is at one point attacked by other good guys, but it’s a combination of misunderstanding and misplaced resentment.
-In NuTrek, Kirk gets his ass kicked by other Starfleet personnel three times, and each time he pretty much had it coming due to being an asshole.
-In The Wrath of Khan, the engine room of the Enterprise looks futuristic.
-In NuTrek, the engine room of the Enterprise looks like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory.
-In The Wrath of Khan, Kirk, Spock and McCoy form one of the classic, great Power Trios and bicker entertainingly: Spock providing the calm, pragmatic, logical analysis while deadpanning stealth insults, McCoy providing the emotional, passionate, gut-instinct response while being a crotchety old bastard and cracking wise, and Kirk finding the middle ground and playing referee.
-In NuTrek, McCoy doesn’t feature much, and discussions between Kirk and Spock about what to do have no element of collaboration or teamwork: Kirk is automatically right because he’s the all-American protagonist, and will be as much of a jerk as he needs to be to get his way.
-In The Wrath of Khan, veteran character actor Ricardo Montalban plays the villain Khan Noonian Singh-a genetically-enhanced former dictator… a fallen prince-as a complex and deeply flawed but clearly amoral human being, a highly-intelligent and well-educated man who quotes the classics and who’s more than a match for the hero mentally and physically, but makes mistakes because his of his driving need for revenge on the one who cast him down, with an air of quiet menace mixed with bouts of unstable rage… all while being incredibly buff for a guy in his sixties.
-In NuTrek, actor Eric Bana plays the villain Nemo, a maniac bent on destroying innocent people in a misguided play for revenge for a natural disaster, with no subtlety whatsoever, snarling standard villain dialogue and not making any particularly smart decisions, only succeeding due to superior technology… all while and looking just “weird” enough and dirty enough to make it clear that he’s a bad guy.
-The makers of The Wrath of Khan had at least a vague idea of what a nebula is and what one would look like.
-The makers of NuTrek have no idea what a black hole is or what one looks like, even though we have Wikipedia now.
-At the end of The Wrath of Khan, the Enterprise is unable to escape danger because of a situation previously established, but gets away due to a Heroic Sacrifice.
-At the end of NuTrek, the Enterprise is unable to escape danger for no sensible reason, but gets away by doing something that makes so sense and causes a big explosion.
-In 1982’s The Wrath of Khan, a female character named Saavik, who is Spock’s protégée who he is not in the least bit romantically involved with, has a large role in the story: going on away missions, second-guessing Kirk (sometimes being right when he was wrong), and providing counter-arguments regarding the best course of action. She is an active force in the plot and her scenes mostly involve her taking action or her learning and development as an officer-in-training. Another female character, Uhura, has a smaller role but is competent and participatory throughout. A third, Carol Marcus, is responsible for creating a device that becomes a key element in the plot. All three survive.
-In 2009’s Star Trek, a female character named Uhura, who is Spock’s student that he’s romantically involved in, has a fair amount of screen time but little importance to the story beyond serving as a love interest and providing emotional support for Spock. She does not assist in the decision-making process or participate in the action. The closest she comes to having an effect on the plot is confirming that Kirk is right about something he claims. Her scenes mostly involve being the subject of someone’s sexual desire. The only other female character of any note, Spock’s mother Amanda, is killed off to give Spock a reason to angst.
-In 1982, female Starfleet personnel dressed like respected officers in a quasi-military organization and were introduced to the audience with a shot of their face.
-In 2009, female Starfleet personnel dressed like table dancers in a nightclub and were introduced to the audience with a shot of their ass.
-In 1982, James Kirk treats his female fellow officers with respect and professionalism, while occasionally good-naturedly needling rookie officer Saavik about her inexperience.
-In 2009, James Kirk leers openly at the legs of his female fellow cadets as they walk by, while drawling one of the lewdest pronunciations of the word “ladies” by a protagonist in recent film history.
-In 1982, James Kirk respected the wishes of his ex-girlfriend that he not interfere in the raising of their son, and treated her with the utmost respect when they crossed paths again.
-In 2009, James Kirk keeps hitting on Uhura in a bar after she’s already rejected him multiple times, gropes her during the subsequent barfight, then sexually harasses her for the next three years, and only finally backs off when he finds out that she’s already seeing someone. According to deleted scenes, he also took advantage of the Orion girl he was sleeping with and tricked her into bringing the virus that he used to sabotage the Kobayashi Maru into the simulator.
-In 1982, Uhura was a consummate professional with no indications that she was ever involved in an inappropriate romance within her chain of command. It was later revealed in Star Trek III that she does not tolerate disrespect, and will totally pull a phaser on you.
-In 2009, Uhura was sleeping with her teacher, and she passively puts up with Kirk’s sexual harassment for years. She never once lays hand on a weapon.