I saw this when I was 8, and I still love it. The only thing that was bad is the violence. If only PG-13 had been invented when this was made. In the part when the worm gets put in those guys' ears, my mom covered my eyes. Parents, cover your 7 - year old's eyes too. Otherwise, this was my first Star Trek movie, and I encouage you to see it.
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
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Is it age appropriate?
About our ratings -
Is it any good?
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Common Sense says
High-flying installment of the TV space saga.
Why We Rated This 
for Ages 10 and Up
The good stuff
What to watch out for
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Violence:
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Sex:
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Language:
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Consumerism:
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Drinking, drugs, & smoking:
What Parents Need to Know
This review of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan was written by Charles Cassady Jr.
Parents need to know that this is a more violent feature than the original, G-rated Star Trek: The Motion Picture, with assorted character deaths and torture. One of the biggest stars of the series is a casualty. While the TV Captain Kirk always seemed to have girlfriends on every planet, this is the first time it's acknowledged that one of them bore him a now-adult son, and their paternal relationship is not close or cordial.
Families Can Talk About
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- Families can talk about the parallels between Khan's obsession with avenging himself on Kirk and one of the books glimpsed in Khan's personal library, Moby Dick. What do you think of Spock's code of sacrifice for "the needs of the many"? This movie added to Trekkie lore a Starfleet Academy flight simulation test in which a practice captain faces a seeming no-win battle scenario. Why do you think this is important training? What would you do in this scenario?
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More on Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
What’s the Story?
STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN takes place 15 years after "Space Seed," an episode from the original Star Trek series. In it, The Enterprise discovered a vessel whose crew were placed in suspended animation, banished form Earth in 1996. When Captain James T. Kirk (William Shatner) realized their leader, Khan Noonien Singh (Ricardo Montalban), was still as dangerous some 200 years later, the Enterprise marooned him and his followers. Now 15 years later, Khan has managed to escape with his people and hijack a well-armed Federation starship of his own. Obsessed with wreaking vengeance on Kirk, he lures the Enterprise into a devastating battle while plotting to steal the Genesis project, a bomb-like device capable of creating or destroying new worlds.
Is It Any Good?
It was good to be a science-fiction movie fan in 1982. Out-of-this-world features released that year, which seemed to reach a pinnacle of entertaining scripts, mind-expanding concepts, and cutting-edge special effects, included E.T., Blade Runner, The Road Warrior, Tron, and Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. This last one even proved that sequels from adaptations of TV shows could be better than originals (talk about mind-blowing concepts), since the first Star Trek: The Motion Picture was a bit of a disappointment. Director Nicholas Meyer claimed to have very little prior knowledge of Trekdom when he came aboard. Instead, he said, he took inspiration from his favorite Napoleonic-era naval adventures, novels in the C.S. Forester Horatio Hornblower series. That's indeed how Star Trek II plays out, as a seagoing military epic transplanted to deep space, with questions of command and leadership, duty, and sacrifice for the welfare of the crew.
Yet there's still room in the script for observations about friendship, aging, military misuse of science, contentious father-son relationships, and the futility of revenge. Since the chance of any further Star Trek movies was iffy -- and Leonard Nimoy was hoping at the time to sign off playing Spock for good -- viewers get the feeling here everyone is really giving the material all the respect it's worth, just in case this turned out to be the final Star Trek as we knew it (it wasn't, of course). The result is a blend of passionate acting, great music, fine f/x, philosophy, ethics, and derring-do to create what some fans consider the best of the Star Trek features.
Movie Details
Studio: Paramount Home Video, Director: Nicholas Meyer
Run time: 116 minutes
Theatrical release: 6/4/1982, DVD release: 8/2/2002
MPAA Rating: PG for violence and language
Run time: 116 minutes
Theatrical release: 6/4/1982, DVD release: 8/2/2002
MPAA Rating: PG for violence and language
Our Members Say
See all 8 member reviews
Most Recent Reviews
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I rate this title on for age 7 and give it
- My concerns are:
- Excessive violence
Great Movie!
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I rate this title off for age 11 and give it
- My concerns are:
- Excessive violence
- Inappropriate language
- Drinking, smoking, or drug use
- My highlights are:
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I rate this title off for age 3 and give it
- My concerns are:
When I was a toddler, my mom took me to see this movie thinking it was just about silly monsters cracking jokes. But for a whole year I would sleep with my parents because I was scared that a monster would be in my room. Now I'm 11 and of course I know there's no such thing. Just don't take younger kids.
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I rate this title on for age 11 and give it
- My concerns are:
- Excessive violence
The Best!
This is the best STAR TREK film yet. Violence is the only issue, really, outside of some brief "d**n"s and "hells". People are shot with lasers, and many bodies are seen dead, with blood on them. Wounds range from a few cuts to one man who has half of his face bloodied up and darkened. There's a creepy scene where worm-type creatures crawl into mens' ears and take possession of their minds.
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I rate this title off for age 17 and give it
- My concerns are:
- Excessive violence
- Inappropriate sexual content
- Inappropriate language
- Excessive consumerism
- Drinking, smoking, or drug use
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I rate this title on for age 10 and give it
One of my personal favorites
Looking back, I liked the first movie, but I LOVED this one! It does have a lot more action and is probably a good idea to fastforward through the worm-going-in-the-ear thing for younger viewers (need to get a Q-tip now, just thinking about it), but for values, this is the best movie. It talks a lot about friendship, loyalty and sacrifice. There's also a lot that can be discussed about family interactions (Kirk has a son we knew nothing about), and how science can be twisted for military purposes. There are numerous references to the works of William Shakespeare. This is one of the movies that I will always stop to watch.
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I rate this title pause for age 0 and give it
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I rate this title pause for age 0 and give it
More graphic then most PG-13 movies
Parents need to know that the second and third Star Trek movies are a lot more violent then Star Trek: The Motion Picture. In one scene, alien worms are put in the ears of two characters as a type of mind-control. Later, one of them vaporizes himself, and another bleeds a lot from his ear. Several bodies are found with blood on their faces. In another scene, Scotty carries a wounded engineer to the bridge. His face is burned and bleeding, and he dies after they take him to sickbay. After a space-battle, the main villain is seen with a bloody burn on most of his face. And the language is way too excessive for a PG movie.
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