Tessa 0:17 Welcome to Sam watches Star Trek monkey off my backlog second weekly podcast where one of us reacts to a TV show that the other has forced us to watch. I'm your host Tessa and with me is Sam. Ah. Oh, come on. Yeah do better than that. That's it was lackluster con I've ever heard. Ah, that's better. That's better. You really got to lean into the Shatner of it. Sam 0:47 I would not recommend that anyone lean into the Shatner. Tessa 0:56 This week as Sam has already alluded to, we are discussing what is widely considered to be the best Star Trek film star trek to the Wrath of Khan, released on June 4 1982. This was a summer movie. The film was directed by Nicholas Meyer and written by heart Bennett and Jack be so words This was the first Star Trek film episode thing. That Gene Roddenberry's input was generally ignored by the creative team he was present they just didn't take any of his advice right Sam 1:28 Can we can we talk about how the best quote unquote best Star Trek the trek the actual trek right because we're doing a thing right we're taking a journey was done without the show's creator. And the exigence for the trek itself is a Kirk grew up. Yeah, the best Star Trek is the result of Captain Kirk screwing something up, which is really on brand it is really on brand. Tessa 2:02 I will say though this is based on the episode Space Seed from the first season. We haven't discussed that because we didn't we were doing this podcast when we were watching. We watched it but we did watch it. So we're gonna probably talk about that a little bit. So this is based on Gene Roddenberry Star Trek. It just as a film doesn't have much of his input. Sam 2:21 I like that you think I'm gonna remember that episode? Why we're doing this, I don't, I'm not gonna remember it. You're gonna like listen to these when you're at and be like, oh, yeah, at 18 months from now, whichever, whichever comes first. It's like Eternal Sunshine up here. Two years from now, I could watch this movie again for the first time for the third time. Tessa 2:45 This is also the first film to use computer generated effects along side the practical effects that they'd been using for most of the original series and the first film and the music was done by a then 28 year old unknown composer James Horner. Sam 3:02 I just want to go back to the the effects thing you can see. So especially in Empire and Jedi, you can see it a little bit in Star Wars, but they were relying so much on practical models, and that that kind of work. But in the later two movies before they were cleaned up for the special edition, you can see artifacting around so you'd see like a like an X Wing or a star destroyer. And it would be like generally like a circle around it, but like you know, you're cutting it out of construction paper and you're not that good. And this the the space is slightly brighter, like they don't match the brightness. That's what I saw in this movie. Like I could see that they were copycatting what they had seen probably more so an empire than Star Wars. We're going to talk about Empire for sure. But they're still doing the practical effects. A lot of this is still in line with what they were doing in the show and in the first film, but especially the Genesis sequences, they were relying also on computer generated this looks much better than anything Star Trek is done. Nicholas Meyer hired a lot of really good special effects people which we're gonna talk about as well. But first things first short summary. Don't even need to summarize this film. I feel like anyone listening to this already know that. I do it. Yeah. Can I do it? Yeah, I'll read mine. We'll see how close they're well Raisa. All right. years ago, Kurt messed up and abandoned somebody to die. Yeah, he didn't technically know that. But he knew in his heart. He knew. So years later, they happen upon this, what they think is deserted planet that this project Genesis might work on. But it's actually Not the planet. They thought it's the planet next door that got blown out of its orbit. And everybody died except for Khan and his friends who Kirk marooned there years ago. And now they're angry. They take over a starship. So they do the pirate thing. And then he goes after Kirk, because he's so mad at him. He must have his revenge. And then Genesis thing who cares? Tessa 5:27 Yeah, this is actually really close to what I had written. Sam 5:29 So you have who cares? Tessa 5:31 No, I don't have who cares in there I have something a little snappy Earth. While I'm on a mission to find a planet devoid of life in order to test a terraforming prototype, the captain of the starship reliant in his first officer checkoff are captured by Superman a dictator, Khan Noonien Singh. Sam 5:48 Wait, did you just say Superman's in this movie? Tessa 5:54 Captured by Superman a dictator Khan Noonien Singh, Khan obsessed with revenge against Kirk for marooning him and his followers embarks on a plan to destroy the enterprise and steal the terraforming prototype in order to use it as a weapon. I don't care what you say it sounds like you said Superman and con. He says it what is it? Superman dictator, Khan Noonien Singh. Right. Superman and a dictator named calm. That's what I heard. I would watch that movie, you would watch that I would watch that movie. It's a wait. I already saw it. It's it's the first part of Justice League ah, it's up to Kirk and the Enterprise crew both old and new to battle con and save the galaxy, but at great cost of one of their own DOD. Whatever their spoilers, Spock dies. Sam 6:46 Um, I mean, the third movie is called The Search for Spock. Right? Not that they knew that at the time. Well, we'll talk about what they knew and what they didn't want me. Well, we went to the theater, right. Tessa 6:57 But before we get there, first reaction to this film, you already said that it was much better looking than the previous film? Yeah. Is this is one of the few films that you'd actually seen before. How would you feel about it this time? Still good. Do you have more emotional attachment to it now? Sam 7:16 No. Tessa 7:19 Are you gonna give me anything really? Sam 7:21 Tess's looking at me? She's not she's not happy? No, I don't have any more motion. I mean, it's when you have the backup of the movie, it clearly is honoring the tradition of Star Trek. Well, much more than the first movie. I mean, so that that's the most important thing. For me, it's probably really the only important thing. I mean, there is of course, the giant continuity error. Check off wasn't in the first season. And so we had to immediately headcanon this and be like, well, he was part of the lower decks think that what we're supposed to think is that he was lower decks or maybe like the night shift on the bridge crew or something like that. Yeah. Because he remembers the events of spacey even though that character does not appear in Space Seed, right, which I mean, like, in granted, we've talked about this before. We're not watching all of the episodes. We're watching movies now. But we're not watching all the episodes. I'm never going to have the same level of investment that you have, and I don't need to. So I'm never going to be you know, the person who knows the lore. I'm just not. But I caught that. Tessa 8:32 Yeah. And I love that Chekhov is familiar enough with what went down to one give us a quick summary, right? Because he tells his captain Terrell what happened, like, Yeah, you were his guest, and you tried to take over the ship. And then also, he immediately knew what the Botany Bay was because when they come into the place, and they're like, Oh, somebody's living here and then they turn around they see the Botany Bay on the side. And he's like, we have to get out of here right now. Sam 8:59 Yeah, so it you know, except for the fact that later on cons like I remember you know, I never forget bass, even the ones you've never seen before, but before that I could have been okay with checkoff knowing about it, because you really have to figure one of the hot canteen topics is ranking Kirk's all times screw ups. And so like, you know, Chekhov's doing, everybody's like, no, no, no, man, let me tell you about Khan. Let's talk about cod. Right. So like he would have obviously known that. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know how we account for remembering a face you've never seen before. But okay, it doesn't matter. Ricardo Montalban who plays con sells everything in this movie. Oh, yeah. Literally be reading out of the phone by including that outfit. Yeah. Including the outfit we have to talk that is that is that has got to be like and I've seen Jennifer Lopez at the Oscars. This has to be one of the most parallel This use of breast tape ever. He looks good. I mean, then the nipple doesn't even slip out till the end. Yeah, props, props. costume, folks. costumers Ricardo, Malta Bon played con in the original episode Space Seed. So this is obviously an older version. That's fine. Yeah, that's really neat. I have nothing to say. Yes, me. Okay. All right. So let's talk about his performance. How do you feel about this character? He gets another shot at the character. How do you feel about his second take on this character? It's an extended take as well, because obviously, we get to see less of him in the original because it's a shorter episode. Okay, first, I just want to point out that we have talked about the two stars of fantasy island now. We talked about Harvey when we were talking about James Bond. Now we've got the the other guy, the boss, the one who the plane is being pointed out to and so I never watched that show. So I mean, that's his most prominent role outside of Khan. So this is the only thing I've ever seen him in is my point to you. He's a great villain. Great embodiment of this. You know, I don't know. I mean, you're you're never going to stand up to Vader. Right? He's going to always be the ultimate space villain, no matter what the prequels tried to do. To con. I don't know, we could have an argument for number two villain. Tessa 11:38 And I think that his performance I think the thing that Nicholas Meyer does best, I think Nicholas Meyer made a great film. Like, even setting aside the performances. This is just a very well done film. He gives us room to breathe in this performance. I love the shot at the beginning when they're establishing Kahn. And check off and Terrell, the captain of the Reliant rip. Terrell doesn't last very long, kneeling before him, and he's just pulling off the gloves and you just see just the one glove because he keeps the other one on the whole time. Yeah, but Michael Jackson style Sam 12:14 this is this is so realer stuff here. Yeah, so he pulls off the glove. It's just it gives us these long shots of him that allow us to just sort of be in his headspace. So there's okay. First of all, if you are a captain, and your name is not Kirk, and Kirk is anywhere near or has anything to do with anything you're going to be experiencing, run the other way. We learned that from the first movie. We learned it from this movie. He is bad news for everybody else. But I have a question for you. So as I said, we had a good, you know, good discussion about whether or not con is the number two space villain of all time. I immediately thought of something I want to ask you. THE BORG I hear that the Borg are like the best feeling ever in Star Trek. Tessa 13:16 Are they? I can't comment on that until you see the Borg until we talk about yes, you can say yes or no is this is hard for me because I saw the Borg as a child. I saw tng as a child before I saw to s or the films. And the Borg are the stuff of childhood nightmares for me. So it's very hard for me to untangle that from like a honest evaluation. If we're talking about menacing, con, sure. If we're talking about Sam 13:50 inevitability, Borg Well, and plus Captain Kirk didn't temporarily go over to con side. I often wonder what Kirk's reaction would have been to the Borg. We can talk about that when we get there. I think it would have been different than the cards. So you remember Rick and Morty when when Rick has the affair with the hive mind, yeah, unity. I love unity. There you go. You go there. That's the whole thing. That's what they did. So when we talk about con, one of the things we also have to talk about is motivation. So he is obsessed with the idea of destroying Kirk with regaining his power, right? Because the whole history of con is that he and his buddies his Jazzercise, clothes wearing buddies. How do you know what Jazzercise I pay attention, okay? Tessa 14:42 They were genetically engineered to be Superman to be dictators to lead armies to be in control, right and they were banished because they were too powerful. And that's where the whole Botany Bay thing comes from. And he's these this not only is this chance to destroy Kirk and to a escape his captivity but also to gain a weapon in order to fulfill his what he sees is his destiny. Those are all the reasons that were given. However, the way that this character performs his monologue about his motivations. It almost sounds like he's more mad at Kirk for not checking on him. Yeah, for 17 years. It's true. Then he is even about being exiled. He's like, No, I get that. I totally, totally makes sense. I'm evil. Yeah, but he's, but he's mad that Kirk doesn't think about him the same way that he thinks about Kirk, what do you think about that? Sam 15:36 Oh, man, this guy is a Taylor Swift song waiting to happen. Okay, I've got two things for this. Yeah. Right. So the first thing is, you know, Captain Kirk and Ethan Hunt, are members of a very distinctive club. Right? I know exactly what you're gonna say. No, that's it. That was that was the thing. If you if you are somebody who has seen the most recent Mission Impossible movie that is the plot of the movie, it's basically the same movie. Yeah. And so the other thing, though, is I just want to point out here that back in the day, I, you know, we talked about the good old days, right? We talked about the 60s and the 80s. And but I'll tell you in the 60s in the 80s, it was like, Oh, look, there's an ideology that we should raise super men who are pure and ready to do just this stuff. And it's like, Wait, that's bad. Like, everybody's like, Oh, that's gonna be a bad guy. That's not gonna work. We have to, like, get rid of that. That won't work. I mean, it's 2022. And we don't think that anymore is this society. So I yearned for somebody like Khan being that and being like, No, we can't have that. Well, actually, there is a modern eugenics movement that believes that we can use genetics to make better people, they don't think they should be engineered by the government. They think it should be like an individual choice. But that is still a thing that exists in genetic science. Right? And I mean, like in popular culture until recently, he would be like, no, nothing good is gonna happen from that. But now we're like, but on the other hand, Tessa 17:13 so quickly, so quickly goes bad, so basically goes bad. The last thing I'll say about Khan, I'm sure we'll we'll circle back to him since this is movies all about him. If you mentioned his wonderful costume is wonderful chest bearing ad bearing costume. I mean, I love that this dude is so dramatic. Like he needs the perfect lighting. The perfect costume. Yeah, that he takes the time out of his busy revenge schedule to take a Starfleet insignia from a dead Starfleet officer on the Reliant and make a necklace out of it. Sam 17:53 Oh, yeah. I mean, yeah, the outfit. I mean, let's be honest here, like the objectification of Khan's body comes in at 11. Right? I mean, like, all I'm saying is, if this movie, if we were talking about, quote, unquote, female presenting nipples here, even though they don't show up till the very end of the movie, this movie would have not passed muster with the MPAA. Rated X just because it's like, Oh, come on, man. We're supposed to look at something else. Guys are up here. People's eyes are up here. I don't think he wants you to look at his eyes. I don't even watch when you dress like that. Oh, no, I can say that because it's gone. And that's how he really feels. Tessa 18:43 The other thing I have to mention before we get to the old crew, is that my is Myers take on Star Trek, because he came in with a very specific idea of what he wanted this film to be. He takes a turn in this film towards certain elements of trek that were there before but weren't really emphasized. emphasized by Gene Roddenberry. He specifically said that he wanted this film to be more of a naval adventure. He cites Horatio Hornblower as one of his inspirations and Moby Dick is of course quoted throughout this entire film. Sam 19:14 That's that's actually really that works out really well, because the first Star Trek movie was also a naval adventure, navel gazing. Tessa 19:22 Different naval. Yep. And what a difference a letter makes. Yeah, go What a difference. So I'm curious because you can especially see this in the Moby Dick references. It's those are all over this. In fact, Moby Dick is one of the three books that we can see in the Botany Bay converted shuttle thing that Kant has been hiding out in, and he makes many references to Moby Dick. Kirk is his white whale right? He spits that he as he spits at him from hell itself, you know, all this stuff. And I noticed it this time after actually like paying attention to the The imagery of this film, you even see the enterprise when it is rising below Khan, because it's very like, Oh, he's thinking two dimensionally instead of three dimensionally. It looks like a white whale. Yeah. So what do you think about all the naval, like making this more into an adventure, going to see sea battles, but in space? Sam 20:21 Okay, theme of today is I have two things. So the first one is no disrespect to Moby Dick. But Captain Kirk is way more fabulous than you. Oh, yeah. I don't know. I'm not I mean, like, or be it from me to objectify a whale. I want it to come across that way. But now, of course, Khan is like 20,000 leagues more fabulous than haircuts. So anyway, okay. So the second thing is, okay, so I think that the best way to talk about tone in Star Trek is to to draw a boundary. There are two boundaries. The the Star Trek range of acceptable storytelling is a line segment. It has two very clear endpoints that have been established. It should not be surprising to you that the first movie is one of those endpoints. If you get too close to that, or you go past it, you're not doing Star Trek. You're doing Kubrick. Nobody should do Kubrick. Most of the time, not even him. Sometimes him but never anybody else. On the other side, and we didn't have it yet at this point, but we we do now we have the benefit. You know what the other end point is right. Abrams? Right, right. That the all action no introspection. Yeah, the zit bang, Lens Flare. Star Trek. Yeah. Right. Uh huh. And so that's that's the other side. You cannot go farther than that. Because you're not doing Star Trek you're doing doing my movie now. You know, except he shouldn't allowed be allowed to do my movie apparently. This is a Star Trek podcast, not a Star Wars podcast. You know, the other thing is, I don't want to have too much emotional attachment to Star Trek, because nobody can ruin it. No one could hurt me. Right. So yeah. My point was, this bits. This is you asked me what I thought about this. It was very fun because it was right there in the middle. And as you point out, because largely probably because Roddenberry wasn't involved. And as we've talked about previously, the actors did not have a, a strong hand. I mean, they would from this point forward, apparently, but this was like under new management. And unlike the First Motion Picture, the director Read the prompt understood what Star Trek was wasn't trying to make something else, and did a really good job. Tessa 23:03 He so Gene Roddenberry did not like this take on Star Trek. He was very concerned about the military, the military aspect of it that Meyer was leaning into, because the whole naval adventure thing. Meyer specifically said he didn't know why people kept trying to take Star Trek so seriously. And because because for him, it was good. But it wasn't something that needed to be like Kubrick, it didn't need an extra layer. It didn't need an extra layer of film philosophy. According to him, it just needed good character work, which is what we get in this film. Sam 23:35 Yeah. And that would be problematic if the story wasn't good, right. But the point is, and this is what I think Paramount is really trying to say right now, in 2022. Is that there is room in the universe of Star Trek to tell all kinds of different stories. And so they're going to tell like, 27 of them at the same time, right? Yeah. And I think y'all are down for it. Right. So, but this is an exam and but I do get the complaint, though, right? If you have somebody making Star Trek movies, who says I don't need philosophy? Well, you're obviously not doing Star Trek, the motion picture. But you might be doing JJ Abrams. Right, right. And so like that could go horribly wrong. Because Star Trek is grounded in a philosophy. I just think that Nicholas Meyer in this film leans more towards literary than he does philosophical. Well, and that's worked. Well. I mean, it's film, but that it's like Star Wars. You there are boundaries around the Star Wars universe as well. They're different boundaries. But the fact is, there is room enough in that universe to tell many different kinds of stories by many different people. But you can't go too far off of mixing metaphors, the Prime Directive, Tessa 24:56 right? The so the other two books that we see in In the Botany Bay wreckage on CETI, alpha five is, like I said, Moby Dick. But it's also King Lear and the Holy Bible. The biblical references are obvious because of Genesis and the whole garden of Eden of creating a new world, etc, etc. The King Lear thing was interesting to me, because Nicholas Meyer says that this movie is about friendship, old age and death. Sam 25:24 I mean, a crazy old man is abandoned, and gets mad about it. And he's just described both movie and play at the same time. And he was a king. Sure, once. Right, right. I just think that that's really interesting. A lot of people have also tried to read this along the lines of Paradise Lost. You can I don't know if there's a direct reference here. But I don't like that one. Because I mean, you think about Lucifer, right? And the TV show, right? The whole point about Lucifer is, he's lovable? Mm hmm. There's a reason. You know, the story is so tragic, because he was God's favorite. Right? And that's why God was so hard on him. That doesn't map on to this at all right? Like that. Yeah, superficially, sure. But it doesn't work. It doesn't realize I don't know that King Lear works that well, either. But it certainly works better than Paradise Lost. I just think that's interesting that he chooses, instead of doing this whole thing, where it's like, we're gonna think about the universe and think about beings other than humans and utopia. He goes specifically for character work via literary right illusion in reference, well, this is this is this is perhaps what's better known as the Carl Sagan method, where we realize that we do not have to look into space to see the unknown, we just need to look farther inward. And so you know, what Star Trek has always been, is that that's what utopian fiction does. That's what science fiction does, at their best, is imagine a different world so that we can better understand our world. Carl Sagan was really big on the idea that in order to understand ourselves, we have to look inward, you don't just look at the situation today, and put it through the frame of science fiction understand it, you have to be willing to do introspection through the metaphor of space. It's contact if, if that's the easiest point of reference, yeah, the book and then the Jodie Foster movie. So before I move on, one last thing that I want to talk about in terms of Myers contribution to this series, this is something that I think he were very interested in. He of course, immediately wanted to throw out the uniforms and the costumes of the motion picture, which Tessa 27:52 would it surprise you to know that the costumes that they're wearing are actually the costumes from the first film, they didn't have a budget to start completely from scratch so the costumes look the way they do because Nicholas Meyer thought that the dark red dye that they used looked good against the background and that was like the best like they he tried a few different colors and the red dye was the one that the old costumes took Sam 28:16 I mean, this is what every high school and you know small college theater person is done they look at what you have that was abandoned from when whoever had money made poor choices and now you with a good aesthetic taste has like $5 to spend so you go through and go oh wait, that'll work if I just do this, this and this. I mean, that's what theater people do. Tessa 28:38 We're gonna do this, this and this and Adam mockneck Mogh turtlenecks worked for the Beatles. He also said that he liked the idea of having like the fate like the the darker faded colors, because he saw it is more of like what he called a corrupt color scheme versus the original bright colors of the original series. Sam 29:00 Alright, let's talk about the people. We're all here to talk about Spock. Well, we're going to talk about him. We see the three original that the three amigos at the beginning of this movie along with Sulu, a her and Scotty during what appears to be a training exercise with new Cadet sabich. Tessa 29:26 It turns out that this is actually a test a simulation of what they call the Kobayashi Maru, which is famous in Star Trek, this is the first time that we're going to see it hear about it. It's going to come up again and again, as we go through this series. What do you think about the Kobayashi Maru? Sam 29:43 Okay, I had two things for this until you asked me about Kobayashi Maru. It's Schrodinger his neutral zone. That is apparently from what I saw. My understanding of the Kobayashi Maru is unsolvable because you don't know what's there. Until you You go there, but if you choose not to go there, there are ramifications. And there are almost surely ramifications if you do it unless there aren't, but you don't know. Right, right. Right. I mean that that that is what that is my understanding of it based on this. Now let me backtrack to the two things I had a second ago. Head cannon. This is so after Diane and Sam, you know, kind of break up. And you know, so Diane's gone and Sam Malone is by himself. Somebody fresh out of Starfleet joins in to run Cheers. I don't know. The real question here is who do you pick? Captain Kirk or Sam Malone. I'll leave you with that for now. The other thing? You called those three the three amigos. Yes. Now I know you've never seen the Three Amigos or the actual those three people in the room at the same time. But you are familiar having seen only murders in the building. You are familiar with two of them playing off of each other that is seen community. Yes. So Steve Martin is Kirk, right? Yes. Okay. 100%. All right. Tell me about Martin Short and Chevy Chase. Which ones? Sure, it has to be McCoy. So it leaves Chevy Chase Chevy Chase's berhak I mean, none of them. I want you to just sit with that for a while to to sit with the choices you have made. Moving past that. I want to talk to you about sabich as a character, but sapphic is so annoyed that the Kobayashi Maru is unwinnable. She keeps asking spots. Tessa 31:47 She is like, no, she's clearly that student that has to pass. Everything has to like excel at everything. And so she is like careful, incense, that this is a parrot, apparently an unwinnable situation, right. And both Spock and Kirk tell her the whole point is that you're supposed to face death as a command. Like as someone who wants to be in command, you have to know that there's these unwinnable situations. It's a test to see how you react in the face of that. But then she finds out that Kirk actually is the only person to pass the Kobayashi Maru test. He took it three times and passed it on his third time. And then she finds out it's because he cheated, right? Which is apparently like, Starfleet thought that was funny, I guess. And that's why he like, passed it. But he's legendary, because he did this. And when she asked him, he says, it's because I don't believe in the no win situation. Which I mean, if you've been following Kirk, at all up to this point is not surprising. What do you think? Sam 32:47 Considering it's ironic? Yeah. And first of all, I just, I want you to know, that if I do stack camp or coding camp, this is what I look like when I'm an actual student. It's not fun. It's I'm not a good person to be around. Yeah. So I mean, the other thing about savage because I totally get the idea of, like, it's fine if you can't win. Okay, that's, that's okay. I'm gonna sit with that for a while I have. I had a calculus teacher in high school who gave us character building questions. At the end of a test. It's like, okay, you can do this. Now, I'm going to give you a problem with like three steps further down the road. Now, we haven't studied this, and there's no possible way you would know, but it builds character. I've been hazed academically in this particular way before and I'm, I'm okay with it because everybody else around me didn't get it either. Right. That's okay. What Kurt did is not okay. I was waiting for you to say that it's not okay. But he doesn't believe in the no win situation. It's fundamentally against the way he views the universe. We'll find good for him. The universe doesn't work that way. Con. Again, ironic, because he thinks this and we're like, oh, look, you've never had any car. Oh, wait, what just happened? Your best friend's dad. Oh, sad. Tessa 34:13 So, Kirk, at the beginning of this, just like in the last movie, they've all kind of been split apart again. Spock is in charge of the enterprise. He's captain. But he makes it very clear. He's only Captain because he's training this group of cadets like he's captain in the sense that like he doesn't want to go on a mission on the enterprise as its captain he wants to train these cadets to be Starfleet officers. Kirk, who is an admiral Still, despite him demoting himself in the last film. Yep. He's there to do that. I don't think the first movie happened. You think this is actually a retcon? It's Sam 34:51 retcon I don't think it's a retcon. The convenient thing about the Star Trek you From what I've seen is, you can pretty much ignore anything that's happened at any given time because it won't disrupt the continuity there. Very few things are exempt from that. Also, I just thought of something by the way. So like, I want to take the Jessica day approach to renaming this movie, Star Trek to Captain Kirk's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Tessa 35:26 Yeah, pretty much. So Captain Kirk, or Admiral Kirk shows up to the enterprise. And that's the whole point of him being there to watch this test and to like review the cadets and what's been going on with them and, and you know, see that they're okay, and we get to meet Scotties nephew who was like a young, fresh faced cadet. It's also Kirk's birthday. Sam 35:48 We're not told what birthday it is, but it is his birthday. Well, and feeling great about it. You need reading glasses birthday. So congratulations. He's over 40 Yeah, so and you know that Spock and McCoy like planned him like this is a group gift even though they come at different times and give it to him? I think so. I don't think so I don't think it's a group gift. That's just how in sync they are. Tessa 36:10 Because Spock gives him another literary reference. Another big deal on this side of the con divide a tale of two cities, which is supposed to foreshadow his death because Sydney dies at the end of tale of two cities. And then McCoy gets him the pair of reading glasses because he can't, he's allergic to the medication that would fix the problem. So we get to see Kirk peering over reading glasses at various points in the movie in what is obviously Nicolas Meyers attempt to inject humor into this franchise. It's wonderful. I think it works well. Although Sam 36:43 if it was a group gift, I can already imagine the conversation is because they're trying to figure out what to get him and bones is like, they finally settle in Dickens, like bones is the one who figures out Dickens. And he's like, I don't mean like Dickens wrote a laugh, though. I mean, which one would she get? And and Spock says, well, it's logical. What's the most basic white girl Dickens book? And Great Expectations wasn't available. Okay, A Tale of Two Cities is also it is about a no win situation. Sure. So I mean, it kind of makes sense that French? Sure, sure. But it is it does actually make sense or is it being English, it's being the body double of the man that the person you love loves. I just want to point out that being American clearly is not the high ground anyway. And we're just gonna skip all the way past. So just like in the first movie, the thread here for Kirk is he's dealing with getting older, he's dealing with being promoted out of the position that he feels the most himself in, right, he can no longer just go running around the galaxy sleeping with whoever he wants. Or at least he thinks that he can't I don't know. And of course, as I've said before, this is a meditation on old age and like being the best, but like not being in a position where you can show that off anymore. He's having a midlife crisis. Yeah. Do you think that this film tackles that better than the last film? Well, it tackles everything better than the last film, except for copying Kubrick. I guess the first movie did that best. Maybe that's, that's clearly the superlative for the first movie best Kubrick ripoff. But that's not, that's not the prize you want to win. Tessa 38:32 So then we also have Spock, who as I said, is a captain of the enterprise only as a training exercise. And in fact, when Kirk wants to take over the enterprise, because of the issue with the Genesis project, which only he knows about, and he has to explain it to Spock and McCoy. He is like, Are you sure it's okay? And Spock is like, I don't want to be captain. I'm only doing this to train these kids. Obviously, you should be the captain. Yeah. No ego. Spock has no ego. In fact, I think he even says that. He's like, you're assuming I have an ego. Right? Don't he's, he's the super ego. He's the super ego. I love love, love the relationship between Spock and savage. And then the development of the relationship between sabich and Kirk, because, as has been said on Twitter before, this is an elderly gay couple mentoring a young lesbian, like there's a lot of those vibes here. She often comes to Spock in the film to ask him about human emotions. She is Vulcan. It's not actually mentioned in the film. In the script, it indicates that she is a Vulcan, and Romulan heritage. And that's supposed to be why she cries at the end when Spock dies. And so like, I mean, we can also talk about the fact that he was her mentor and all that, but apparently Nicholas Meyer was questioned about that. And he says no, like that's, that's their relationship. She has to cry like when he dies. So what did you think about SABIC? And Spock's relationship and Spock is like a mentor to all these recruits we've never seen him in this role before. Sam 40:03 I was thinking before you moved over to this subject, I've just been kind of rolling it over in my mind. I'm stuck on the King Lear thing. And I don't know, I, I've been trying to think about appropriate Shakespeare references. And I haven't read them all, particularly the histories, so I'm not I could be missing something. But I gotta tell you, I think the best one, and it's not that great because it's just gone. There's there's nobody attached here. But I mean, he's Prospero. Are there anything else? I mean, I would you know, the, the maroon wizard, right? I mean, hey, this is the closest there's no Taliban or Miranda. Yeah. And so I'm happy with that, though. I think that's a much better than King Lear. But I'm trying to think about what is Kirk Kirk's not King Lear? And so there's not anything really great in terms of aging. I again, that's why I say the history's I don't know if Henry the sixth really gets us anything that might be mappable on to this. I don't know. The relationship between Spock and Savage has more of a potential but he doesn't do Shakespeare doesn't do this kind of relationship. This is this is I'm sorry, this is the Ben Kenobi Luke Skywalker thing is this. This is the closest thing to Star Wars DNA. I think that maybe you get in this movie. They don't play it up very well. They don't i He doesn't do a good job with it. There's, you know, this, this movie is very flat. It for as much motion as that does have. It's very thin. There's not a lot happening outside of the main conflict, conflict. They he builds a lot of things that could have happened but then doesn't do anything with them. Right. And I don't know if they get played out in later movies. I don't know if Nimoy draws any of those threads through. Do you think that SAVAK as a character and SAVAK was originally supposed to be male? They changed that in the script, of course, do you think SAVAK as a character is closer to who Spock was at the beginning of the series? No, no, no, because he's caught. She's constantly asking him about human behavior. And he's explaining it to her. And she says, Well, that's not logical. I'm just curious. Well, I see what you're getting at. I don't I don't, I don't see it in the movie. But that could be a lack of character development. Here, and that's fear. Like I said, there's a lot about this character that ended up on the cutting room floor, I think. But overall, what do you think about so we did watch the Director's Cut? Right? We did watch that. So I don't think we're missing anything. I'm not trying to say that he doesn't deserve credit for making a good film. I'm saying there are clearly things that did not happen that very well could have that would have made the film just as good or better. What do you think about sabich? Overall, this new character, she's fine. I mean, I would not be upset to see more of her. But there's nothing to make me excited about her either. Unless I'm a Kirstie Alley superfan which I am not. I do love that she learns fast after she sees Kirk make up the regulation to trick con. Yeah, she learns how to make up her own regulations to get what she wants out of Kirk, like regulation, whatever number says that a commanding officer can't leave the ship unless accompanied by somebody who's armed or whatever. I mean, while we're recasting minor roles from Star Trek and basing whole shows around them. I mean, if we're just throwing rolls out to people and making whole shows I did. I'd watched this one. I mean, I'd say this knowing full well. The what's coming later, I know full well. But yeah, I'd watch a show about a lady Captain Tessa 44:18 a lady. Yeah. Spock also dies. At the end of this film, we have to talk about Spock feel like we buried the lead bury the lead, except you mentioned at the beginning, but then we didn't talk about it. Right. So this is a very student writing. It's a very famous death scene, right in which Khan, which by the way, kirkin Khan never appear in the same room in this film. They're on opposite ships like that is a very essential part of their dynamic here, right. But con disables part of the enterprise they and then and then sets off the Genesis device and they can't get out in time because they can't get to the speed that they need. In order to get away from this thing that's going to obliterate them. So Spock, after Vulcan net pinching McCoy who's being real stubborn about letting him sacrifice himself, sacrificing the sun came up, sacrifices himself by going into this irradiated area and fixing things so they can get away. And then Kirk comes down to say goodbye. It's a very sad scene and it gets me every time. It's wonderful acting by the two of them. And I think one of the best lines is when he refers to the Kobayashi Maru, bringing it all the way back around and says what do you think of my solution? Captain? I know you have no emotional ties to the characters did this shred any kind of emotion from your heart? I Sam 45:42 think Spock would be proud of me for my non emotional reaction. I mean, I know what I know. He's not gonna stay dead. So why would I be upset by it? I do remember being like, oh, that's sad. The first time I saw the movie, and I knew that he wasn't going to be really dead either. But I mean, you know so yeah, I it doesn't really hit me on a repeat viewing but that's okay. Still good. Yeah, I and then we get the Tale of Two Cities reference. It's, Kirk says it's a far better thing. I go, I go to do now it's a far better place. I go to two now. That's supposed to bring us all the way back around on tale of two cities as well. I don't have a lot to say about McCoy. Besides the fact that he's a grumpy he's just his old grumpy self. For somebody that grumpy. He always makes the room better for being in it. And that is the energy I would like to one day bring into the world. My favorite is when Kirk and sattvic are arguing about the Kobe Aashi Maru on the elevator and then when he gets to his destination McCoy is standing there just like who's holding up the elevator. Yep. Again, the energy I want to manifest into this world that is just perfect, perfect energy. So the thing about Spock's death originally, there was no teaser at the end of it, although if you're paying attention to where they shoot the casket, they've told you how he's gonna come back. Yeah, I didn't get that anyway. It was there. I just didn't get it. But they didn't have the teaser or the funeral at the end of the of the of the film. And fans did not react well to the test footage of this film, of Spock's death and the darkness of the original ending. They even sent Leonard Nimoy death threats. Like I mean, this feels stupid, right at the end of empire you at least get you get the hopeful musical note from John Williams that last cue and and the last image like yeah, they've they're kind of broken and they lost people but hopeful. So they added the more uplifting tease of His return at the end of the film, which Nimoy didn't know about until the premiere. Tessa 47:50 I mean, the tea's being his voiceover at the end, and then the scene of the casket in the middle of the woods with the fogs around it that's like the last image of the film, which they filmed in like San Francisco, like in a random park because they were short on time, right? Anyway, I'm glad you brought up Empire because this film has real Empire vibes for me. So also, I think it's funny the the politics between studios about space movies, this film originally was supposed to be vengeance of Khan, but because Lucasfilm had their upcoming Star Wars title, Revenge Of The Jedi, Paramount as a gesture of good faith changed it to the Wrath of Khan which then was completely undermined because Lucas changed the third film to the return of the Jedi instead of Revenge Of The Jedi Don't Sam 48:38 you find it a little ironic that they changed I don't know this for sure I'm I'm speculating but it don't you find it a little ironic that they changed the title from revenge to return because the Jedi are a peaceful people when really the entire a the entire series would be better if they weren't right? Like you know FANUC and could have just you know, like not had the bone on the DL it would have been fine right? And be Spock is the actual version of this that you're looking for. Right? I think Wrath of Khan is a better title, it is a better time right? Also, speaking of Jedi, the steady eels which are used to mind control check off which I think Walter Koenig remember his complaint about the first movie how he didn't have enough to do I think this was in response to that him getting like a separate storyline. You got Hawkeye in this movie? You got Hawkeye, so he gets a steady eel put in his in his head. Those eels were designed by Ken Ralston who did the creature effects for Jedi. So there there's some of that. Star Wars Star Trek stuff coming on. Sula with her. We don't really see a lot of them, but they're doing good work in the background. Oh, yeah. Like I wish there was more of them, but they all look good. What did you think about Scott He and his nephew storyline his nephew dies in this film was stupid. Yeah, yeah. I mean like, okay, the door opens and Scotty carrying the maimed body. But this is like the worst kind of storytelling, right? Like I care about Scotty Scotty cares about his nephew. Why? Because he's his nephew. The nephew dies, Scotty said, I get that I care about Scotty so I'm sad. That's not how it works. You make me care about the character? Tessa 50:33 Well, he's just supposed to be like a fresh faced young recruit. They space fringed him a space for him. I like how McCoy implies that death is not a normal occurrence, because he's kind of shaken by and he says, I know sometimes doctors lose patience. But right. You know, in this utopia, where medicine, medical technology has advanced, it's not like a common thing, except for in these situations. Nearing the end here. The other thread that we get that score is important in this movie and will be important in the next movie is of course, the creators of the Genesis project, Dr. Carol Marcus and her son David, who is immediately revealed to be Kirk son, even though David doesn't know that at the beginning. What do you think about a Kirk's sleeping with a scientist, which doesn't seem to be his usual type? Besides Spock? Obviously, any port in the storm? A hot scientist, and B, what did you think about Kirk's son storyline, which also has a lot to do with age? Sam 51:31 I, this is another thing that I don't care about. Because they haven't given me a reason to care. You didn't like the end where he comes to comfort Kirk and He reveals that he knows that he's his son. I mean, it's fine. It's It's It's fine. And that's really all there is to it. Again, it's like this guy. He's nephew thing. It's like what I've been saying all along. This could have been something I cared about. But you're not going to get me there. Like I'm not going to fall for your games. Just because I like Kirk doesn't mean I'm going to be invested in this. You still got to do show your work. Gotcha. Gotcha. Although he does look like Kirk gross. I also enjoy the he calls. What does he say to Carol at the beginning? He's like, like, I'm afraid it'll fall into the wrong hands like that overgrown Boy Scout you used to hang out with. I've heard Kirk described as a lot of things. I'm not sure Boy Scout is actually accurate in final thoughts on this film. It was good. I think talking through it the way we did. I think it reveals how it could have been better in a lot of ways, but I think it's genuinely good. It obviously does not suffer for comparison to the first movie. You know, like, competence would have made this movie good compared to the first one. But it's a good story. You don't even I mean, I didn't even know it was a callback. The first time I saw it, it works. Even so. It's a testament to it being a good movie. It could have been much better, but that's okay. Yeah, yeah, Tessa 53:08 no good. Next up on Sam watch is Star Trek. Leonard Nimoy his directorial debut in Star Trek three The Search for Spock. Interestingly enough, going back to the whole thing about names of this second movie, originally, Nicholas Meyer wanted to call this movie star trek to the undiscovered country, which is a Shakespeare reference to Hamlet that got nixed in favor of the Wrath of Khan when it became a more concentric film makes sense. The franchise then is given to Nimoy for two episodes, and then Shatner for a film. And then it gets given back to Nicholas Meyer for Star Trek, episode six, which he then calls the undiscovered country. So that's just something to kind of look forward to. Alright, that's all for this week. You can find me on Twitter at suela. Tessa Swehla spelled SW e HLA. And you can find Sam at Sam underscore Morris nine. Until next time, live long and prosper. I think you'll get that down to four Transcribed by https://otter.ai