A few months ago the first Star Trek movie was given theatrical showing and I saw it and subsequently reviewed it as a Recent Release.  Now I am doing the same for its sequel, enjoying its 40th anniversary at theaters this week.  My rating has ranged from three to four stars for this tale over the years and I am settling on three-and-a-half stars at this juncture, marking it as a near classic, but not quite the great film that I have from time to time considered it to be.

Nicholas Meyer’s film follows the starship Enterprise on a training mission which turns deadly serious when the genetically engineered superman Khan (Ricardo Montalban) is inadvertently found on a desolate planet.  Khan wants revenge on Captain (now Admiral) Kirk (William Shatner) for leaving him and his people there fifteen years earlier (on the original TV series, in the episode “Space Seed”).  Khan also wants access to the Genesis Project, which he (probably) plans to use as a weapon against humanity.

Much changed between the first film (1979) and this second (1982), primarily the budget.  The first film was lavish in its own way, but so expensive that it didn’t make much of a profit.  By tightening the budget Paramount hoped to turn the “Star Trek” universe into a legitimate franchise, and it worked.  The “Khan” story linked the new film back to the TV series, which pleased the fan base, and the big screen treatment was grand enough (though not truly spectacular) to make most viewers happy.  Switching composers made me angry (Jerry Goldsmith’s score for the first film is one of his finest), yet James Horner’s new music is almost as good, jump-starting his career.  Even Kirstie Alley gets in on the action, playing a Vulcan for the first and only time — and she’s pretty good.

Best of all, of course, is the twist near the end, the one that had so many Trekkers bawling their eyes out.  How could they? we all wondered.  Even Gene Roddenberry was against it, and he may have leaked the news to the press ahead of time hoping to alter the plan.  But producer Harve Bennett had a long-range plan of how to proceed and this controversial movie was a brilliant, if heartbreaking, way to create genuine drama.  It worked.  It is less emotional now because I’ve witnessed it several times and know what happens in the next film.  But it still packs a wallop.

Of the six original Star Trek films from 1979 to 1991, this one is still the best.  It’s still better than any of the four that the “Next Generation” crew made as well.  This movie cemented the legacy of the original cast, introducing them to a new generation of fans while honoring the distant television past.  Forty years later it’s still a heck of a good movie, full of excitement, nostalgia, suspense and even tragedy.  Live long and prosper.  ☆ ☆ ☆ 1/2.  5 September 2022.