The Wrath of Khan

[Mr. Atoz]

This was a pretty solid adventure story, but didn't give me a lot to think about. What do you think?

[Niemz]

I like the fact that it was a followup to an original episode.

[Mr. Atoz]

True. But I find it hard to believe Kirk would have just "forgotten" about him. Surely he entered his decision into the log, and Starfleet was informed about there being 72 refugees from the Eugenics Wars on that planet.

[Niemz]

Kirk never forgot the female aliens...

[Thallassa]

I agree. It makes no sense for Kirk to just forget that Khan was there. Certainly Starfleet would have sent a starship to look in on them every so often.

And did anyone but me notice that Chekov wasn't in that episode, so Khan had no excuse for remembering him?

[Niemz]

True...

[Mr. Atoz]

People have come up with the lame excuse that maybe Chekov was there on the Enterprise in season one, but we just didn't see him. I say phooey to that. My theory is that Khan was just getting a little senile in his old age.

[Thallassa]

As you say, it was a very good action movie. There was that thrilling scene where Kirk offers to transmit the Genesis information, has the comm muted, and then arranges to take down the Reliant's defenses instead. And that same set-up was beautifully satirized in the movie "Galaxy Quest".

[Mr. Atoz]

Galaxy Quest! "I was giving you the 'kill' gesture..." -- "No, you were giving me the 'we're dead' gesture, and I was agreeing with you. Like I know where the hold button is?"

What do you think of the Kobayashi Maru scenario?

[Thallassa]

I didn't really understand what the point was of giving a cadet a scenario that she couldn't win. A "test of character"? It seems to me there were much easier ways of testing that.

[Mr. Atoz]

It sounded to me like an old-fashioned idea, something that had been done a long time and was considered "traditional", so it was hard to get rid of. That's why it was so cool when it was revealed how Kirk managed to win the scenario.

[Thallassa]

It was also a dramatic way to start the movie off. What did you think of Saavik? She was supposed to be Vulcan, but you could see her barely keeping her anger in check when Kirk reprimanded her there.

[Mr. Atoz]

On another forum, someone speculated that she was not a full-blooded Vulcan, but another hybrid. A Vulcan/Romulan hybrid. This in turn led some of us to wonder if she could possibly have been the daughter of Spock and the Romulan commander from "The Enterprise Incident".

[Thallassa]

How would that have happened? If I remember correctly, she was turned over to the nearest Starbase. And since the Federation and the Romulans weren't at war, she couldn't have been held against her will. She would have been sent back to Romulus, wouldn't she?

[Mr. Atoz]

Yes, but the speculation was that she most likely wouldn't have been given a ship to command again after that disaster, and eventually she would have defected to the Federation. Whereupon Spock would have hooked up with her again.