Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

 Review

Common Sense Media says

High-flying installment of the TV space saga.
greenON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age.
yellowPAUSE: Know your child; some content
may not be right for some kids.
redOFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age.
not for kidsNOT FOR KIDS: Not appropriate for kids any age.

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Quality
 
Sometimes media can be age appropriate but a real waste of time. Our star rating assesses the media's overall quality.

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Parents say

Kids say

What parents need to know

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.

  • There's a continuing theme throughout about how to react with courage and resourcefulness in a seemingly hopeless situation. Kirk learns to accept his aging and the mortality of his friends, and there's a closing act of heroic self-sacrifice. Starfleet is, as always, racially integrated, and a female Vulcan character has more of a presence than women usually do on the ship.
  • Phaser and photon-torpedo battles, with deaths (including major characters in the series). Two men are tortured in gruesome detail with brain-burrowing insectlike parasites put into their ears. Scenes of corpses after a massacre.
  • We learn that Kirk has an illegitimate son by an old lover, and she describes the Starfleet hero as "no Boy Scout." Kirk eyes a pretty Vulcan, but that's as serious as it gets.
  • "Hell," and various forms of "damnit" from Dr. McCoy especially.
  • Star Trek itself is an enormous commodity.
  • Social drinking, with Dr. McCoy bringing Kirk some "old" (22nd century) wine for his birthday.

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.


What families can talk about

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?


This review was written by Charles Cassady Jr.
Kid, 12 years old
January 2, 2010
 
Great Movie!
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.

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Teen, 14 years old
April 12, 2009
 

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Parent of 15 year old
April 27, 2009
 
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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Teen, 14 years old
May 30, 2009
 
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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Teen, 17 years old
November 4, 2010
 
COMPLETE DOCUMENTATION OF STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN
Admiral Kirk returns to the Enterprise for a cadet training mission. Meanwhile, the Miranda class, USS Reliant (NCC-1864) searches for a suitable planet to test Project Genesis. They must make sure there is no life forms, because Genesis will destroy the planet and then reform it. They think the are orbiting Ceti Alpha VI, but don't know it has been destroyed. The shockwave, threw Ceti Alpha V out of orbit and transformed it into a "baraly class M" planet. Scanners report life signs and Checov and the Captain beam down. They are captured by Khan Noonien Singh and he inserts Ceti Eel into their ears which causes them to accept suggestions. Khan hijacks the Reliant and beams the crew to the planet. He then seeks his revenge on Kirk. Meanwhile the Enterprise is sent to investigate why an order has been given to turn over Genesis to Kirk. They encounter the Reliant, which doesn't respond to hails. Instead of raising the shields, like the book says, Kirk just goes to yellow alert. The Reliant raises it's shields and fires before the Enterprise can even begin raising it's. This causes massive damage to the Enterprise and takes out all but the battery. Khan than hails Kirk and tells him to turn over Genesis and himself to the Reliant. Instead, Kirk enters Reliant's prefix code and orders it to lower it's shields. This allows a some phasers to be fired. This destroys Reliant's warp drive and the photon control. Despite the damage, the Reliant escaped. Kirk continues to the science station to find everyone either dead, or gone. They also find Chekov and the captain of the reliant who was planted by Khan to get Genesis from Kirk. The crew finds the station's transporters still on. It appears that some of the station's personnel escaped to the inside of a nearby planet. Here, they discover the Genesis cave and a few science officers. This is when Chekov and the captain are told to kill the captain. Instead, the captain kill himself in order to save the Admiral, but Chekov collapses and the eel leaves his ear. The eel is destroyed by Kirk and Checkov recovers, but Khan finds the location of Genesis and beams it up. The Enterprise beams Kirk and the crew up and attempt to reach a nebula since they can't outrun or outgun the Reliant. The Enterprise enters the nebula with Reliant following, but Reliant couldn't get it's shields up or the screen working. Kirk stated the odds would be even if both ships didn't have shields or view of each other. After a grueling battle in the nebula, the Reliant is heavily damaged but the Enterprise's primary system goes offline. This means the Enterprise can't warp. Khan, instead of surrendering, activates Genesis and the Enterprise only has a few minutes to get away. Without warp, it will never escape in time. Captain Spock, leaves his post silently and goes down to engeneering to fix the ship. But, radiation is leaking and Mccoy won't allow Spock in. Spock nerve pinches Mccoy and downloads his memory to him. He then enters the room and is able to fix the core, and the Enterprise escapes just before Genesis begins. Spock "dies" from radiation poisoning and his casket is launched on the newly formed Genesis Planet and the movie ends here.

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Adult
December 26, 2008
 
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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Teen, 15 years old
April 9, 2008
 

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Adult
April 9, 2008
 
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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Kid, 10 years old
August 19, 2009
 

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Parent
April 21, 2010
 
For people aged 11 and up.
Do not take children under 11 years old to see Star Trek 2: The Warth of Khan. It is too scary for them. I love this movie!

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This review was written by Charles Cassady Jr.
Topics:adventures, space and aliens
Studio:Paramount Pictures
Director:Nicholas Meyer
Cast:Leonard Nimoy, Ricardo Montalban, William Shatner
Genre:Science Fiction
Run time:116 minutes
Theatrical release date:June 4, 1982
DVD release date:August 2, 2002
MPAA rating:PG
MPAA explanation:violence and language

This review was written by Charles Cassady Jr.
 

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About our rating system
ON: Content is age-appropriate for kids this age.
PAUSE: Know your child; some content may not be right for some kids.
OFF: Not age-appropriate for kids this age.
Learning ratings
BEST: Really engaging, great learning approach.
GOOD: Pretty engaging, good learning approach.
FAIR: Somewhat engaging, OK learning approach.
NOT FOR LEARNING: Not recommended for learning.

 

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