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Resurrected from the "Space Seed" episode of the TV series, Ricardo Montalban's Khan is the hammiest, most passionately alive Trek villain, infused with Captain Ahab's self-destructive single-mindedness and quoting Moby Dick and Shakespeare in his furious pursuit of Kirk. Given permission to be melodramatic, William Shatner has never been stronger, or made Kirk seem more vulnerable. And even after seeing all the later movies, no self-respecting Trekker can sit through Spock's ultimate illogical sacrifice with a dry eye.
Unlike the major revisions made to The Motion Picture, this new Director's Edition of Wrath of Khan is only a very slightly extended version of the original, with some fairly minor additions--most notably scenes that establish Midshipman Peter Preston as Scotty's nephew, thereby explaining Scotty's grief at the young man's death. Some other scenes--such as Kirk and Spock discussing the Genesis Device--have also been expanded.
On the DVD: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is now presented in a lovely 2.35:1 anamorphic widescreen print with Dolby 5.1 sound. The first disc has an audio commentary from Nicholas Meyer, plus another fascinating all-you-ever-needed-to-know text commentary from Trek expert Michael Okuda (he did the same for The Motion Picture's DVD release). The second disc has a series of informative documentaries, the most substantial being a lengthy retrospective "Captain's Log", featuring contributions from Producer Harve Bennett, Meyer, Shatner, Nimoy and Montalban. Other featurettes focus on the production design ("Designing Khan"), "Visual Effects", and the writers of Star Trek novel spin-offs about Khan and the Kobayashi Maru ("The Star Trek Universe"). It's a shame that James Horner's major contribution goes unnoticed though. To round things off there are some promotional interviews from 1982, storyboards and the original trailer. --Mark Walker
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It's not quite there. The DVD is packaged in the same way and The Motion Picture and has the same kind of layout. Thought and attention has gone into the animated menus, with diferent animation being offered on each of the two disks.
The fist disk contains the feature and as before offers an audio commentary by Nick Meyer (Director) and text commentary again provided by Michael Okuda. As it is just Nick Meyer on the audio, there is something lacking from the commentary. On the Motion Picture we had input from four angles (Director, Actor, Special Effects...), but here we have a single point of view from someone who is not the most exciting of speakers.
On the second disk there are some great documentarys with new content shot just for this release in addition to the original interviews from 1982 when the film was first shown. Also here are the storyboard archives we have come to expect, but missing is one of the features that was so good about the Directors Edition of The Motion Picture. There are no comparisons between the original release and this edition. There are not even any deleted scenes.
And this is where the problem lies. The Motion Picture was always seen as a flawed masterpiece, and the Directors Edition gave Bob Wise the chance to go back and do what he didn't have time to complete before. With Wrath of Khan, it was already a fine movie. There have been no special effects touch ups, no added CGI just the insertion of a few additional lines of dialogue here and there. In all, the movie is about 8 mins longer than the original that was released on DVD last year.
Make no mistake, the film is still a fine movie, but you cant help but feel that it is a missed opportunity. There are a number of scenes that have been added that help explain a few things (such as Scottys emotional response to a particular engineer that is killed, we now discover it was a family member), yet there are scenes that are conspicuous by their abscence. The main one is the scene where Spock reveals that Saavik (Kirsty Alley) is Half Vulcan/Half Romulan explaining some of her emotional outbursts. The scene exists (and is even available on the internet) yet it was not included here.
The Wrath of Khan is a fine film, and the added features (5 hours in total) make it an essential purchase, but if you are expecting the kind of makeover that The Motion Picture received you will be disapointed. Think of this as an extended version and you will be quite happy with a slighly more rounded movie that is still the best trek film to date.
Firstly, this is the theatrical cut. This is a much better cut than the Director's Cut released for the DVD; it cuts out all the rubbish about Scotty's nephew, as well as other erroneous scenes that distract from the plot more than add to it.
Secondly, for those who could not tell the difference, I think you either need to get a better HDTV, better player or clean your glasses. Some of the shots look like they lack detail, but that is because they were shot with a soft lense. There is now considerably more detail in the uniforms, sets, etc. As for the ships, and the fly-bys of the models: stunning. I have always thought "Khan" had to best use of models (and, unlike the new Star Trek film, looked tangible), and now they really do look very good. Especially when the Enterprise is going to warp to get away from the Genesis shockwave.
Anyway, I could ramble on about how much I love this movie for pages. Be rest assured, this really looks much better.
The Director's Cut version shows a much better colour rendition, especially noticable in the red uniforms, the brightness is also better. The running time of the "DC" edition is 112 minutes - four minutes longer than this one disc version. The run time for this latest 1 disc version is shown on this site as 112 minutes long - but is 108 minutes, quite clearly shown on the box and borne out by playing the DVD. This cheaper 1 disc version does howver have a couple of interesting special features and of course the film is definately a must for Star Trek fans.
If you can find it however, buy the the 2 disc director's cut, this has even more special features and as I wrote earlier is a better transfer.
Very crisp image and sounds spot on - even after all of theses years! Read more
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