"KHANNNNNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!" (James T. Kirk) -as if I would ever choose a different quote
I've only seen this movie three times. My first time was on TV with my brother in roughly 1990. The second time was during a Star Trek movie-athon in a friend's basement in roughly 1995. And last Friday 2013.
Strange that this of all movies is the one that broke through and saved Star Trek. So powerful is the connection and absurdity of Wrath of Khan that I share this anecdote. I was teaching Japanese at a camp back in 2008 and, as staff, we were looking for ways to encourage our campers to pick up their trash and recycle. We. as older staff all born in the 80's, thought it would be funny to make a play on the homonym of "Khan" and the Japanese pronunciation of the word "can". Everyday, if we had found trash, we would admonish our campers by saying "hey, what is this?" これは何ですか？and the answer was "かーーーーーーーーーーーーーーん！” "Khan!!!!". It was funny and for a time it worked. We saw less trash around camp as the campers remembered to pick up their garbage. However, after a certain number of meals with no trash, our campers got fed up and started leaving garbage around camp, just ensure that we would have to yell for Khan.
The Wrath of Khan is a seminal piece of nerddom and general social cannon. It is powerful example of how movies, even very silly ones, still echo throughout our culture.
As movies go though.......
Ratings:
Bester: See it
Got brain slugs in your ear?: See it
Retinal Scan technicians: See it (yeah...retinal scans were crazy out of reach technology in STIII)
Kristie Alley: See it
Love Star Trek?: See it again
On a scale of The Genesis device to Genesis with Peter Gabriel and Phil Collins, I give Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan 3.5 out of 5 stars.
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