As we begin
Part II of this deep viewing …
Don’t you
agree that the sfx people did a great job of re-using footage from ST:TMP,
without making it look recycled? Of course, this semi-cheat is aided by James
Horner’s lovely music.
If you know
to look for it, there’s an abrupt cut, just as Sulu says, “Any chance to go on
board the Enterprise.” You can see him take a breath to keep on
talking. That’s because the next thing
out of George Takei’s mouth was about how Sulu was fixing to get his own ship. That’s why Kirk talks about only having Sulu
for three weeks.
When Kirk
walks the line at the inspection in “Torp Bay 2” (as it’s labeled), he asks
Commander Scott about his health, and Scott admits to having had “a wee bout”
of shore leave. This is a reference to
Jimmy Doohan’s heart attack in 1980 or so.
When Kirk
learns Preston’s name, you can’t tell me that he didn’t already know the kid
was Scotty’s nephew. I like how, when
Preston tries to be all snappy and brisk, Kirk draws himself up and replies in
kind.
Marc Okrand
did a pretty good job of making up Vulcan words to match the lip movements of
Nimoy and Alley as they speak English.
Down in the
engine room, Kirk is just ready to string Preston along as the nervous kid
pipes up about how ship-shape the Enterprise is. This Director’s Edition does contain a few
more lines of Kirk winding up Preston, describing the way (supposedly) that Kirk
has been teased about the rundown Enterprise.
As Kirk and McCoy
step onto the bridge, we see how young these kids are, that are playing
vroom-vroom with Kirk’s starship. And
the whole novice-drives-the-ship, as Mr Saavik takes the conn, is cute. De Kelley and Shatner, provoked by an arch,
impish Nimoy, do a fine job on action and reaction.
One bit of
footage re-used from ST:TMP is this undercarriage view of
the Enterprise
clearing the drydock. The above
image is the original shot seen in theatrical releases of the first film.
This shot is
from the original VHS release of STII. They didn’t try to clean up these “beauty
spots,” as I call them. However, in the
“Collector” or “Director” versions of the movies, these camera artifacts (dirt
on the SFX lense, I assume) were cleaned up.
Meanwhile, on
Regula One, the Doctors Marcus are talking about memory banks and
computers. Cutting-edge terms in 1982,
but somewhat dated-sounding now.
After all,
nowadays we can simply download more RAM!
Soon a
brainwashed Chekov is announcing the imminent appropriation of
government-sponsored experimental product.
And he throws out the name of somebody they can blame … Admiral
Kirk. Marcus’s scientists then assume
that Kirk is acting on behalf of the Starfleet Council. Isn’t it typical of scientists? – they’re
perfectly willing to be financed by the government, but they act all hot and
bothered when the bill-paying government wants what it paid for.
I really
can’t figure out just WHY Khan a) gives Regula One a three-day warning; b)
drops Kirk’s name, knowing that now Kirk will be warned that something’s
afoot. As far as the story mechanics go,
that’s the way to get Kirk to explain the Genesis Project, via a demo “proposal”
that the audience gets to watch.
But first we
get to see a bit of torrid Kirstie Alley in an elevator scene with Kirk.
Besides
marveling at these two trim waistlines, let’s note that the NCIS
Gibbs elevator trick might have been stolen from this scene.
On Regula
One, the scientists are doing what they excel in … fussing
self-righteously. Note that Carol Marcus
says that “Starfleet has kept the peace for a hundred years.” That statement alone probably tells the
audience more about Starfleet than the entire original series!
Don’t you
sometimes get the idea that Starfleet only has about two ships? For the umpteenth time, Kirk tells Spock, the
Enterprise
is “the only
ship in the quadrant.” Maybe Kirk
doesn’t know about Reliant’s secret scouting mission, but … come on, the only ship
around?
It’s pretty
handy that “the needs of the many” – that Kirk take command – also lines up
with “the needs of the one” – Kirk’s desire
for command. You’d almost think it was
scripted that way!
On Reliant,
an uncredited helmsman tries to divert Khan from his planned revenge on
Kirk. Khan’s next speech, beginning “He
tasks me, he tasks me …” is another paraphrase from Moby-Dick or, the White Whale,
this time from chapter 36:
Aye, aye! and I’ll chase him round Good Hope, and round the Horn, and
round the Norway Maelstrom, and round perdition’s flames before I give him up.
About 45
minutes into this film, we have the first example of extended CGI in a
mainstream movie, provided by Lucasfilm Graphics Group, later known as Pixar.
This one-minute-long achievement was rapidly overshadowed by the release, later
this same year of 1982, of Tron.
Another
with-it, happening-now type attribute of this sequence is the retina scan
ID. This is so Starfleet can avoid the
old amputate-the-finger-for-ID
trick. After all, who’s gonna pop
out an eyeball to bypass the retina scan?
(See
TV Tropes for a list.)
By the way,
the voice of the computer was provided by Marcy Vosburgh,
a writer and producer of many TV episodes.
She recently died, in June 2016.
Oh look,
honey! In the 23rd century,
they’ll still have tape recordings!
You tell
me. The top image is from Marcus bawling
out Chekov. The bottom image is from the
Genesis proposal. It was supposedly filmed months previously. Is her hair any
shorter, supposedly months or years earlier than the beginning of this film? At
least it’s tighter to her head; the stylists tried to make her look *a little
different* from the live-action scenes.
The
background soundtrack for the Genesis sequence was provided by Craig Hundley/Huntley/Huxley
– yes, that child actor who appeared in Star Trek episodes and
elsewhere. He’s also something of a
musical prodigy, and made his way in music and film, working on such films as New
York, New York and E.T.
Oh, yeah – incidentally, Huxley INVENTED
THE BLASTER BEAM, the device that produces of the familiar zooming,
whanging sound first featured in ST:TMP. For some reason, he went unlisted in this
film’s credits.
As Dr Marcus
discusses planetary remodeling, note that nowhere does she discuss the
necessary power to produce instant terraforming. Presumably the “Genesis Device” simply starts
a chain reaction, the “Genesis Effect,” in the same way that critical mass induces
a nuclear chain reaction.
“Matter is
reorganized, with life-generating results,” Marcus says. This emphasizes my question, “Where does the
energy come from?” After all, any closed
system is subject to entropy. Any change
must result from the application of energy from outside (kind of like when my
dad paddled me).
(And here I
thought “Critical mass” referred to an anti-Catholic person!)
Perhaps I’m
viewing through the eyes of nostalgia, but to me the cheesiest part of this
entire sequence is the matted-in “controls” to the right and left of the
Genesis Tape. Presumably these are
circuit boards or something on either side of Kirk’s viewscreen. Feh!
“Consider the
cosmic problems of population and food supply,” warns Marcus. To which I respond (again), “How many could
be fed with the energy and resources used up by this thing?”
In his
protest against the concept, McCoy doesn’t mean to question our intelligence,
just our self-control. And his question
about using this thing where life already exists … sets up the big ending, when
Khan tries to drop-kick a big Torpedo of Creation onto Kirk’s butt. And note that this argument is one of the
scenes which includes dialogue extended from the original release.
Now about
halfway through the flick, we get our first star war. But first, Saavik interrupts the colloquy in
Kirk’s cabin. Kirk’s line, “What do you
make of her?” always makes me think of Johnny, in Airplane.
I keep hoping
that THIS TIME, Saavik is gonna respond, “I can make a hat, or a broach -- a
pterodactyl!”
When the Big
Three step onto the bridge, we get a slap in the face from James Horner’s great
“attack” music.
Khan shows
his 20th-Century intellect when he brags that Kirk can “eat
static.” Hasn’t he heard of noise
reduction?
Of course,
before the Klingons said, “Revenge is a dish that is best served cold,” it was
a phrase that popped
up in a French novel The Orphan, published around 1840 by
Joseph Marie Eugène Sue,
and appropriated for The Godfather in 1969.
I love the
inset after Saavik relays the order, “Energize defense fields!” To me this shot SCREAMS 1980s hi-tech. Compare with this photo of 1960s-1980s tube
amplifiers for sale:
But this
sequence has a lovely back-and-forth between the two bridge sets (filmed on the
same redressed set at different times, of course). And the insets of the various touchscreens
are much more acceptable, as Khan screams “FIRE!” in orgiastic ecstasy.
Meanwhile, in
engineering, there’s a lot of smoke and breathalyzing going on. Look at the viewscreen next to Scott. No wonder the Enterprise isn’t going
anywhere – the brakes are applied!
A few seconds
later, as Scott talks to the Man Upstairs, note that the blueprints flashing on
the display are for the TV Enterprise.
When Khan’s
photon whatsit hits, we have another instance of Hollywood’s predilection for
showing explosions on the bridge, where the heroes are. Of course it makes sense! We just saw Khan’s weapon heading for the
bottom-right edge of the bridge viewscreen, just where the explosion comes
from!
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