These four Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan moments still flummox, 40 years on.
The 40th anniversary year of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan is in its home stretch. But before the chronometer runs out on it completely, I wanted to revisit some mysteries about this movie.
No, one of them is not the oft-asked question of how Khan and Chekov recognize each other in Star Trek II when Walter Koenig wasn’t even in “Space Seed.” Obviously, the Enterprise crew filled Chekov in at some point; and Khan used his library computer access while in sickbay to skim all Starfleet personnel files, and pulled Chekov’s name out of his genetically enhanced memory 15 years later. No worries!
I’m talking about some other, smaller inconsistencies, incongruities, and imponderables that never fail to niggle at me when I watch Star Trek II. They can’t be answered by turning to sch “non-canonical” but highly respected sources as Vonda N. McIntyre’s gold-standard setting novelization. They can’t even be answered by checking out the deleted scenes (such as the ones in the film’s product reel, preserved thanks to Howard Weinstein and available via Peter Wolchak’s Collecting Trek site.
No, these are questions where the curious must boldly go out on their own limbs, relying on nothing but their own imaginations, intuitions, and love of Star Trek lore. These are the kind of “Star Trek mysteries” Leslie Thompson used to “solve” for Walter Irwin and G.B. Love’s Trek fanzine—petty, perplexing puzzles to which we’ll likely never get satisfactory onscreen answers, leaving us to fill our “head canons” with (to paraphrase Dr. Carol Marcus) whatever answers we see fit to deposit in them.
In Star Trek II, how do Kirk and Spock know when their code starts and stops?
The friend with whom I saw the recent Fathom Events 40th anniversary Star Trek II screening found the coded conversation Kirk and Spock have about “hours” and “days” confusing. “Now, how did Kirk know Spock was speaking in code?” he asked.
I was more than happy to remind him that Spock prefaced the exchange by saying, “Admiral, if we go ‘by the book,’ like Lieutenant Saavik, hours could seem like days.” Clearly, Spock’s words are the “key” to the conversation that follows—an audio clue Kirk will catch, but the eavesdropping Khan will not.
But clearing up my friend’s confusion led me to experience some of my own. If the “by the book” line—apart from being a great excuse to give us a magnificent reaction shot from Kirstie Alley—is the signal that the coded conversation is starting, what is the signal that it’s over? Kirk tells Spock to get the Enterprise to safety if Spock doesn’t hear from them in two hours. But I thought “hours” now seemed like “days?”
Only later did I remember Spock repeats the phrase “by the book” after giving Kirk the damage report. Hearing it for the second time, Kirk must know he should revert from coded talk to plain speech.
But would Kirk and Spock want Khan hearing the Enterprise would leave the landing party behind after two hours? And how does Kirk let Spock know the plan is actually to beam them back aboard, “right on schedule,” in two hours?
The ground rules for Kirk and Spock’s coded conversation aren’t as apparent to us in the audience as they could be. Then again, if they were evident to us, think how evident they’d be to a villain with a “superior intellect”—so maybe it’s for the best.
Why does Scotty bring the dying Peter Preston to the bridge?
It’s an undeniably dramatic moment in Star Trek II. It was also, in 1982, one of if not the most graphic depiction of violence’s consequences we’d seen in any Star Trek production. (You can see the scene in which it occurs starting at 9:03 in the clip embedded above.)
Moments after Admiral Kirk pulls off his unexpected, seat-of-his-pants victory against Khan by hijacking the Reliant’s prefix code, one of the bridge turbolifts open to reveal Scotty, cradling the bloody and soon-to-be-lifeless body of Midshipman Peter Preston. I can’t imagine the shot’s evocation of Michelangelo’s Pietà is anything but deliberate.
Scotty’s grief over Peter makes more sense in the Director’s Edition, which restores the revelation that he is Peter’s uncle. But nothing can explain why Scotty brings Peter to the bridge rather than rushing him to sickbay. (The original series-era crew sure could have used intraship, site-to-site beaming, right?)
Did Scotty make a mistake when he entered the turbolift in Engineering? Not likely. Did the turbolift AI decide the best possible route to Sickbay was by way of the bridge? Again, an unlikely conclusion. Did Scotty want to confront Kirk, in front of the bridge crew, with the dire results of Khan’ wrath? Not the Scotty I know—how about you?
I don’t think any in-universe explanation exists for Scotty and Peter’s bloody side-trip to the bridge. But I did see a Star Trek fan on Twitter—I apologize I don’t remember and can’t find who—suggest it was a byproduct of systems malfunctions on the badly damaged Enterprise. For my quatloos, that is a good an explanation as any.
Why does the eel in Chekov’s head leave after Terrell’s death?
Don’t get me wrong: I’m glad the Ceti eel inside Chekov’s cranium decided to vacate it! I’ve never wished death for the character, and especially not as the psychically-controlled puppet of a madman. And the Ceti eel’s exit from Chekov’s ear still ranks as one of the most viscerally disgusting moments in any Star Trek movie. (Such moments are, when you think about it, thankfully few and far between.)
But why does Chekov’s eel choose to vamoose as soon as Captain Terrell has turned his phaser on himself? The sequence of events makes no sense unless we posit some connection between the eels inside the two men. Maybe the one eel senses the destruction of the other, knows the jig is up, and tries to get while the getting is good?
When he turned his “pets” on Terrell and Chekov back on Ceti Alpha V, Khan said they rendered their victims “extremely susceptible to suggestion.” He said nothing about any effect the eels might have on each other.
Or should we give Chekov credit for freeing himself from his eel’s influence? Much as I’d like to think Pavel mustered up the strength of mind and will to force his eel out, the way Walter Koenig plays the scene simply doesn’t support that interpretation. He raises his right hand to his ear swiftly, as though surprised, and his face has an expression of sudden terror, not intense concentration.
It’s a convenient moment for Chekov’s eel to give up control over him, and it gives us an emotionally satisfying beat as Kirk burns the beastie to a crisp with his phaser (no matter what Gene Roddenberry thought of the scene). But it makes little logical sense.
Why doesn’t Kirk notice Spock has left the bridge?
Leonard Nimoy beautifully plays the moment Spock, realizing what must be done to restore the Enterprise’s warp engines, resolves to make the ultimate sacrifice to save his shipmates. (It comes about five minutes into the clip from Star Trek II embedded above.)
He turns his head, stares into the distance for a moment—calculating the odds of success, perhaps, or contemplating the fate he’s choosing, or perhaps both—and then leaves his science station for what he (and we) think will be the final time
It’s a powerful moment, especially with every rewatch. But it does strain credulity—also more with every rewatch. I suppose we can forgive David Marcus for not thinking much about Spock leaving his post at such a critical moment. I suspect my reaction might have been along the lines of, “Wait, Captain Spock—where are you going?” But maybe David is simply too preoccupied with the Genesis Device’s imminent explosion (especially since, as we will learn in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock, he took dangerous shortcuts with the Genesis formula).
But can we credibly believe that, during the four-minute buildup to the Genesis Device’s detonation, Kirk never once thought to look back or call out to Spock? This behavior just doesn’t track with their long relationship.
For the Great Bird’s sake, it doesn’t even track with Kirk’s behavior in the previous film! Remember the scene in Star Trek: The Motion Picture when Spock is about to transmit a high-speed, high-frequency friendship message to V’Ger as one of its glowing green energy bolts is headed toward the ship? Kirk turns around to look at and talk to Spock three times in the space of a few seconds! “Mister Spock, transmit now!”
Granted, that ST:TMP moment hinged directly on Spock’s actions. There is nothing Spock can do from his station to help the Enterprise get far enough away from the Reliant to escape destruction. But haven’t we seen Kirk reach out to Spock in so many desperate moments before to think he would do so again—if only to say good-bye?
The shot of Spock’s empty chair after McCoy calls Kirk on the bridge is a gut-wrencher, no question. But it may come at the expense of wrenching plausible behavior a bit too far out of shape.