Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
"At the end of the universe lies the beginning of vengeance."

Admiral James T. Kirk faces his greatest challenge yet. Suffering through doubts about his place in the galaxy, he is thrust into action once more against his most bitter foe – Khan Noonien Singh, who has escaped his exile on Ceti Alpha V and now seeks revenge on Kirk. With a powerful new device in the wrong hands and a no-win scenario in play, the cost of victory for the starship Enterprise may prove too high.

Summary

Act One
IN THE 23RD CENTURY…

"Captain's log, stardate 8130.3. Starship  on training mission to Gamma Hydra. Section 14, coordinates 22-87-4. Approaching Neutral Zone, all systems normal and functioning."

A female Vulcan sits in the command chair on the bridge of the Enterprise. While the senior staff work at their consoles, the officer, Saavik, makes a log entry, then orders Commander Sulu, manning the helm, to project a course to avoid entering the Neutral Zone.

Suddenly, Uhura receives a distress call from the Kobayashi Maru, which has struck a gravitic mine near Altair VI… inside the Neutral Zone. Despite warnings from both Sulu and Captain Spock, Saavik orders the ship to enter the Zone in order to beam the survivors aboard. Upon entering the Zone, the Enterprise is confronted with three Klingon battle cruisers, which open fire. The Enterprise is heavily damaged; many of the bridge officers are killed. Saavik has no alternative but to order the surviving crew to abandon ship.

Then the filtered voice of Admiral Kirk is heard. The bridge viewscreen slides aside, revealing a lighted room beyond. The Enterprise is a stage and the Kobayashi Maru was a test – one Saavik does not believe to have been a fair test of her command abilities. Kirk explains that the no-win scenario is a situation every commander may face and that how one faces death is equally important as how one faces life. Saavik seems ruffled at the advice, but Kirk offers that now she has something new to think about. As Kirk begins to leave, Dr. McCoy asks him if it would not be easier to just put an experienced crew back aboard the Enterprise. "Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young, doctor," Kirk replies while on his way out. Uhura wonders aloud what the admiral meant by that.

Outside the simulator room, Spock awaits Kirk's opinion of the cadets' performance. Kirk notes that the trainees wreaked havoc with the simulator room and Spock alike. Spock notes that this is a common occurrence with the Kobayashi Maru test and then recalls Kirk's own experience, noting that the admiral took the test three times and that his final solution was somewhat "unique." "It had the virtue of never having been tried," Kirk says. He then thanks Spock for his birthday present, an antique copy of A Tale of Two Cities. Just then, Spock is called to a space shuttle to take him to the Enterprise to prepare for Kirk's inspection. Kirk tells Spock he is going home and the Vulcan watches Kirk walk off with concern on his face.

Later at night, Kirk has retreated to his apartment, to be greeted by Leonard McCoy, who presents him with a bottle of finely-aged Romulan ale, vintage 2283. For a present, the doctor hands him something in a case – reading glasses. "Oh, Bones, this is… charming," Kirk says. McCoy notes that for most patients of Kirk's age, he usually prescribes Retinax V, which Kirk is allergic to. Noticing Kirk is acting stranger than usual, especially after giving him the glasses, McCoy questions whether Kirk really wants to carry on the duties of an admiral or to be "hopping galaxies" in a starship. Kirk confesses it to him, and the two share a drink sitting by the apartment's fireplace. McCoy admonishes Kirk to get his command back (in stark contrast to his previous assessment of Kirk's command fitness) before he gets too old.

"Starship log, stardate 8130.4. Log entry by first officer Pavel Chekov. Starship Reliant on orbital approach to Ceti Alpha VI in connection with Project Genesis. We are continuing our search for a lifeless planet that will satisfy the requirements of a test site for the Genesis experiments. So far, no success."

Meanwhile, Commander Chekov is aboard the , which orbits Ceti Alpha VI in connection with Project Genesis, searching for a lifeless planet to satisfy the requirements of a test site for the Genesis experiment. Although Ceti Alpha VI should be incapable of supporting life, Chekov detects a minor energy flux reading on one dynoscanner. They promptly report this to Carol Marcus at Regula I, a space station orbiting a planetoid. They believe it is something they can transplant, since it may only be a particle of preanimate matter. Marcus is unsure and tells them that there "can't be so much as a microbe or the show's off." Chekov and his commanding officer, Captain Clark Terrell, then beam down to the surface to investigate in environmental suits. "There's nothing here. The tricorder must be broken," Chekov tells Terrell as they fight their way through clouds of dust until they discover and enter what appears to be a crashed derelict vessel, which Terrell remarks looks like cargo carriers.

Chekov soon discovers that the derelict is the shelter for the crew of the , a ship he remembers all too well. Panicking, he rushes a confused Terrell toward the exit, only to find a group of cloaked figures waiting outside nearby. Taken captive, their leader reveals himself as none other than Khan Noonien Singh, and it further turns out that the planet they are investigating is in fact Ceti Alpha V, which was devastated by the explosion of the sixth planet six months after Khan and his followers were exiled to the planet by Kirk fifteen years earlier. In order to find out not only why the two are there, but also Kirk's whereabouts, Khan forces juvenile Ceti eels into their ears, rendering them subservient to his every command. Khan and his Augment followers commandeer the Reliant, and Khan's second-in-command, Joachim, while pledging his loyalty and that of his comrades, tries to convince Khan that by escaping the planet, he has now evened the score with Kirk. Khan is not content to merely be even with Kirk, however, and reveals his intention to take revenge on the admiral.

Under the command of now-Captain Spock, the Enterprise is being used to train Starfleet Academy cadets, and Kirk, McCoy, Uhura, and Sulu come aboard to assist in a short training cruise. But Khan lures Kirk to the research station Regula I by having Chekov inform Dr. Carol Marcus, the head of the Genesis project, that Kirk has ordered them to take possession of the Genesis Device. A furious Dr. Marcus attempts to contact Kirk (who turns out to have been formerly her lover) to confirm the order, but the signal is jammed at its source, with only bits and pieces of the message going through and Carol not getting Kirk's responses denying that he gave such orders. Kirk, after consulting with Starfleet Command, converses with Captain Spock in his quarters, who encourages Kirk to assume command. Kirk protests, insisting that it is okay for Spock to retain command during the mission (perhaps remembering what happened when he usurped the command of another captain of the Enterprise), but Spock assures Kirk that, by contrast, he has no ego to be bruised by Kirk taking over for him, and further asserts that it was a mistake for Kirk to accept promotion, as commanding a starship is Kirk's first, best destiny. Kirk agrees and assumes command, ordering Enterprise to set a course for Regula I. "So much for the little training cruise…", Sulu notes as the Enterprise enters warp speed.

While en route to the space lab, Kirk shows Spock and McCoy a briefing video on Project Genesis, the ultimate goal of which is revealed to be the creation of a torpedo-like Genesis Device, which could be fired at a lifeless planetary body and would transform it into a habitable world. McCoy is alarmed at the implications of this, since if a Genesis Device were used on an already inhabited world the terraforming process would obliterate all life on the planet in mere seconds. "As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy than to create," Spock mentions, although McCoy points out that the Genesis Device makes it possible to do both simultaneously, leading to a potential armageddon. Their discussion is interrupted by Saavik, who informs them that another starship is on an intercept course. A Federation starship named Reliant.

Near Regula I, Enterprise finds the Reliant waiting for them. Despite Reliant failing to answer his hails, Kirk is reluctant to raise shields – as, Saavik reminds him, regulations prescribe. The two ships edge closer, and Kirk orders yellow alert after finding the situation to be "damn peculiar" but still doesn't raise shields because the Reliant claims they can't use their communications system due to their chambers coil emissions. Spock quickly discerns that this isn't true, as Khan orders the shields on Reliant raised, then locks phasers. This is detected by Spock, and Kirk finally orders shields up but it is too late as Reliant opens fire, knowing exactly where the ship's most vulnerable points are, disabling the Enterprises main energizer and warp core, leaving only the battery to power the ship, and fatally injuring several cadets. Engines are down, shields inoperative, and there is only enough power for a few phaser shots, which isn't enough against Reliants shields. Reliant fires a photon torpedo from its aft launcher at the Enterprise which causes the crippled vessel's bridge to erupt in flames.

While Kirk is trying to hold the heavily damaged Enterprise and her injured crew together, Uhura announces that Reliant is signaling, wishing to discuss terms of their surrender. Kirk, taken aback for a moment along with the bridge crew, orders Uhura to put Reliants commander on screen. Kirk is shocked to see Khan in command of the Reliant. Khan arrogantly announces his plans to destroy the Enterprise, to which Kirk pleads with Khan to take him as prisoner and spare his crew. Khan agrees, but also demands all information and material on the Genesis device. Kirk pretends to comply, but actually transmits a signal using Reliants prefix code (1-6-3-0-9) that causes Reliant to lower her shields. Despite Khan's intelligence – he knew exactly where to hit the Enterprise for maximum damage – he is still relatively inexperienced with a starship. When he realizes what Kirk is doing he is unable to immediately find the controls to override the command lowering the shields. With the few shots auxiliary power can give him, Sulu is able to fire a few well-placed shots at the Reliant, damaging photon control and the warp drive (which also disables her phasers). An enraged Khan is reluctant to withdraw, but Joachim reminds him that Enterprise, with its disabled power systems, can't escape. Both ships limp away for repairs and the match ends in a stalemate.

Act Two

Kirk is furious at himself for being lulled into a false sense of security, spitting, "I did nothing! Except get caught with my britches down. I must be getting senile." He then surveys the wounded in sickbay and attends Midshipman 1st Class Peter Preston on his deathbed alongside a grieving Scott. With impulse power restored, the Enterprise arrives at Regula I. Kirk and McCoy form a landing party, and Saavik reminds Kirk of General Order 15 barring the admiral, as a flag officer, from beaming into a dangerous situation without armed escort. Kirk disputes the existence of such a regulation, but then relents and invites Saavik to join the landing party. Kirk leaves Spock in command of the Enterprise, but not before the latter admonishes the former to be careful. (To that, McCoy replies that they will all be careful.) 

Aboard the station, they find the personnel murdered and discover Chekov and Terrell semi-conscious and weakened inside a storage compartment. When the two officers come to, they claim they overcame the effects of the Ceti eels and reveal that the crew of the Reliant are marooned on Ceti Alpha V. Terrell calls Khan completely mad and that the genetically engineered superman blames Kirk for the death of his wife. Continuing their investigation, the Enterprise crew finds that the station's records of the Genesis Device have been erased. Exploring the station leads them to a transporter that has recently been activated. Checking the coordinates, Kirk realizes they beamed into the Regula planetoid. Kirk asks for a damage report from Enterprise. Spock reports that "by the book, hours would seem like days" and that main power will be not be available for two days. Kirk orders Spock to leave orbit if the Enterprise hears nothing from them within one hour. Uhura protests that they will not leave them behind, but Kirk retorts that if they hear nothing, there won't be anybody there to leave behind. 

They follow the transporter coordinates and materialize inside a cavern. The Genesis Device is there, but before Kirk can move, he is attacked by his son, David Marcus, who accuses Kirk of trying to steal Genesis. Carol, David's mother, tries to defuse the situation, but before she can elaborate, the team is threatened by Chekov and Terrell, who it turns out are still under Khan's control. David brashly tries to rush the two, but Saavik tackles him to the ground just as Terrell fires on him, misses, and vaporizes the third scientist, Jedda, instead. On the bridge of the Reliant, Khan gleefully orders Terrell to kill Kirk. However, Terrell resists Khan and the eel causes him extreme pain. To escape it, he turns his phaser on himself and fires, vaporizing. Chekov collapses and the Ceti eel slips out of his ear before being vaporized by Kirk. Khan, shocked to find Kirk alive and well, beams the Genesis Device up to the Reliant before vowing to leave the admiral and his party marooned inside Regula forever by destroying the Enterprise, whom Khan believes will be crippled for at least two days, prompting Kirk to scream at Khan in blind rage.

Later on, Kirk avoids Carol and David's questions about Khan by asking for food. Carol and David show Kirk, McCoy, and Saavik the Genesis cave, which was created by a smaller Genesis Device: deep within Regula there is a stable ecosystem that was created in just one day. Meanwhile, Khan moves the Reliant back towards the spacelab where he expects to find the Enterprise, completely helpless. However, Khan is astonished to find that the Enterprise is not there. In the cave, Saavik asks Kirk, who casually eats an apple, about his performance on the Kobayashi Maru scenario. McCoy tells her that Kirk is the only one to beat the no-win scenario, and Kirk admits he reprogrammed the simulation. David chuckles and says he cheated, and Kirk qualifies that he "changed the conditions of the test." Kirk then promptly contacts Enterprise, and Spock says they should prepare for transport. Kirk smiles at a dumbfounded Saavik and asserts that he does not like to lose. Saavik asks for clarification while beaming back aboard, and Kirk reminds her of Regulation 46A: Spock made his report using an improvised code to deceive Khan; instead of immediate repairs taking two days, they only took two hours and moved the Enterprise out of range of the Reliants sensors. "You lied," Saavik tells her mentor. "I exaggerated," Spock replies. Kirk explains, "Hours instead of days; now we've got minutes instead of hours."

Act Three
After assessing the situation, it is determined the Enterprise could not outrun or outgun the far less damaged Reliant. Kirk decides to take the fight to the nearby Mutara Nebula, whose ionized gases would disrupt both ships' sensors and shields, making the fight an even one. Spotting the Enterprise fleeing, Khan orders Reliant to pursue, but Joachim is reluctant, so Khan acquiesces.

Back on the Enterprise, Spock notes with his sensors that Reliant is reducing speed and seems to be backing off its pursuit. To ensure that Khan will follow him, Kirk has Uhura contact Reliant and proceeds to taunt his nemesis, saying "We tried it once your way, Khan. Are you game for a rematch? Khan… I'm laughing at the superior intellect." Mocked and enraged, Khan orders full impulse power above Joachim's protests and recklessly heads into full pursuit. "I'll say this for him – he's consistent," Kirk remarks about his nemesis as the Battle of the Mutara Nebula commences. Both ships are quite hampered by the conditions, but this is a good thing for Kirk, since both ships are reduced to an equal level of non-functioning systems, whereas in open space Enterprise would have been the more disabled vessel.

A game of cat-and-mouse follows. Computer-targeting does not function, so both crews must rely on manual firing commands by eyeballing the opposing ships on their static-filled viewscreen. Sulu, more experienced, narrowly misses the Reliant due to turbulence, while Khan fires a torpedo aft at the Enterprise, but both fail to land a hit.

As they maneuver half-blind around the nebula, suddenly the static on the Enterprise screen clears enough to reveal that the ships are about to collide. They veer apart and narrowly miss colliding, and at such point-blank range even manual firing is enough for each vessel to inflict key hits on the other. The Reliant manages to destroy the port torpedo tube of the Enterprise, which then returns fire and damages the Reliant bridge deck, causing an explosion that kills several of the bridge crew including Khan's most trusted lieutenant, Joachim, whom Khan vows to avenge. Main power on the Enterprise goes out again and the warp drive chamber in engineering floods with radiation, forcing Scott to take the mains off-line just before he and most of his crew pass out.

A shaken, but physically recovered Chekov enters the bridge offering his assistance, which Kirk accepts and orders him to man the weapons control station. Kirk, still struggling with a strategy to trap Khan, listens to Spock, who suggests that Khan's battle plan to that point suggests "two-dimensional thinking". Kirk, inspired by Spock's comment, orders the ship to descend vertically. Khan isn't prepared for Enterprise to drop "down" its Z-axis as he passes overhead and then rise "up" directly behind him. Reliants torpedo pod is destroyed by a torpedo fired by Chekov, and a phaser blast and torpedo hit blows off its port nacelle. Reliant is crippled and drifts away, trailing plasma. Most of Khan's crew is killed in the process, and Khan himself is left maimed and barely alive.

In a last-ditch effort to destroy Kirk, Khan activates the Genesis Device, which will reorganize all matter in the nebula – including the Enterprise. With the mains offline, the warp drive is inoperable and the Enterprise cannot escape the large explosion that the device will trigger. Unnoticed, Spock exits the bridge while Kirk orders a withdrawal at "best possible speed". 

Spock arrives in the engine room, only to be blocked by Dr. McCoy from entering the lethally irradiated dilithium reactor room. After first feigning compliance, an apologetic Spock nerve pinches McCoy and mind melds with the doctor, simply saying "Remember…" He then dons Scott's radiation suit gloves, enters the chamber, and endures the life threatening radiation while repairing the main reactor. McCoy and Scott yell at Spock to get out immediately, but he continues to work, ignoring their pleas. 

As Enterprise crawls away from Reliant, the bridge crew start to resign themselves to the seeming inevitable. Sulu says what everyone is thinking; We're not going to make it, are we? which David silently confirms to Kirk. On Reliants bridge, Khan quotes Moby Dick using his last breaths: "No… no, you can't get away. From hell's heart, I stab at thee. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee."

Spock finishes his work in engineering, bringing the warp engines back online just in time. Kirk, believing Scott to have worked a miracle, orders Sulu to engage immediately and Enterprise streaks away into warp just as the Genesis Device explodes, completely destroying the Reliant and killing Khan and his followers. The Mutara Nebula condenses around the explosion, creating the . Kirk contacts engineering to congratulate Scott, but he is surprised to hear McCoy's voice gravely reply that Kirk needs to come down. Kirk looks over and notices the empty chair at the science station. A look of horror washes over Kirk's face as he rushes down to engineering to find Spock on the other side of the reactor room's wall. McCoy and Scott restrain him from rushing in and flooding the engine room with radiation, with Scott saying that Spock is already dead. Devastated, Kirk calls out for Spock and follows as the Vulcan, blinded by the radiation, staggers to the side of the transparent wall, finally resting against it.

Spock attempts with difficulty to explain to Kirk his reasoning: "Don't grieve, admiral. It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh…" to which Kirk replies, "the needs of the few," and Spock nods. "Or the one…" Spock states that he himself never took the Kobayashi Maru simulation "until now," and asked Kirk, "What do you think of my solution?"

Kirk, stricken with grief, can't reply. "I have been and always shall be your friend. Live long and prosper." He holds out his hand, in the traditional Vulcan salute, and Kirk presses his hand up to the glass as well, watching helplessly as Spock slumps to the floor and dies. It takes all of his resolve to keep his composure as he sees his closest friend die in front of him. This time, there is no going back.

Spock's funeral is held later, on the torpedo deck. Kirk says a few words in Spock's honor, concluding with a befitting statement: "Of all the souls I have encountered in my travels, his was the most… Human." The crew watches (with Scott playing "Amazing Grace" on bagpipes) as Spock's body is launched in a torpedo casing into the atmosphere of the newborn Genesis Planet.

Afterward, Kirk is in his quarters and tries to read from the book Spock gave him on his birthday but discovers that one of the lenses of his reading glasses was broken during the final battle with Reliant. Exasperated, he tosses them on the table as David enters. Kirk tries to be dismissive, but David confronts him, telling Kirk that he (Kirk) never really faced death. When Kirk admits that he hasn't, David points out that Kirk earlier told Saavik that how people face death is as important as how they face life. Kirk says those were just words, but David thinks they were good words, from which good ideas come. He then tells Kirk he is proud to be Kirk's son. The two of them hug, awkwardly at first but then with genuine warmth.

"Captain's log, stardate 8141.6. Starship Enterprise departing for Ceti Alpha V to pick up the crew of the USS Reliant. All is well. And yet I can't help wondering about the friend I leave behind. There are always… possibilities, Spock said. And if Genesis is, indeed, life from death, I must return to this place again."

Later, on the bridge, Dr. McCoy, Carol Marcus, and Kirk stare at the Genesis Planet on the main viewscreen as the Enterprise departs for Ceti Alpha V to pick up the surviving crew of the Reliant. McCoy notes that as long as they remember Spock, he will not truly be gone.

Kirk softly quotes the last lines of A Tale of Two Cities; something Spock was trying to tell him on his birthday. Upon McCoy's inquiry as to how Kirk feels, he answers: "Young. I feel young."

A view of jungle flora is seen on the Genesis Planet, with a brief pause to show the torpedo casing containing Spock's body which has landed on the planet, as Spock's voice provides the final words:Space… the final frontier. These are the continuing voyages of the starship Enterprise. Her ongoing mission: to explore strange new worlds… to seek out new lifeforms, and new civilizations… to boldly go where no man has gone… before. Memorable quotes 
"Any suggestions, Admiral?"
"Prayer, Mister Saavik. The Klingons don't take prisoners."
 - Saavik and Kirk, after the Kobayashi Maru exercise

"Physician, heal thyself."
"Is that all you gotta say? What about my performance?"
"I'm not a drama critic."
 - Kirk and McCoy

"How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life, wouldn't you say?"
"As I indicated, Admiral, that thought did not occur to me."
"Well, now you have something new to think about. Carry on."
 - Kirk and Saavik

"It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.' Message, Spock?"
"None that I am conscious of. Except, of course, happy birthday. Surely…the best of times."
 - Kirk, reading from Spocks gift to him, A Tale of Two Cities"Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young, doctor."
 - Kirk, to McCoy

"Romulan ale. Why Bones, you know this is illegal."
"I only use it for medicinal purposes."
 - Kirk and McCoy

"Now, you open this one."
"I'm almost afraid to. What is it, Klingon aphrodisiacs?"
"No. More antiques for your collection."
"Why, Bones, this is… charming."
 - McCoy and Kirk, regarding the gift of reading glasses

"Jim, I'm your Doctor, and I'm your friend. Get back your command. Get it back before you turn into part of this collection. Before you really do grow old."
 - McCoy, referring to Kirk's collection of antiques

"He's never what I expect, sir."
"What surprises you, lieutenant?"
"He's so… Human."
"Nobody's perfect, Saavik."
 - Saavik and Spock, speaking in Vulcan, on James T. Kirk

"Every time we have dealings with Starfleet, I get nervous. We are dealing with something that… could be perverted into a dreadful weapon. Remember that overgrown Boy Scout you used to hang around with? That's exactly the kind of man…"
"Listen, kiddo, Jim Kirk was many things, but he was never a Boy Scout!"
 - David and Carol

(to Captain Terrell) "I don't know you." (to Commander Chekov) "But you… I never forget a face, Mister… Chekov, isn't it? I never thought to see your face again."
"Chekov, who is this man?"
"A criminal, Captain. A product of late 20th century genetic engineering."
 - Khan, Terrell and Chekov

"You lie! On Ceti Alpha V, there was life! A fair chance–"
"THIS IS CETI ALPHA V!!! Ceti Alpha VI exploded six months after we were left here. The shock shifted the orbit of this planet and everything was laid waste. Admiral Kirk never bothered to check on our progress! It was only the fact of my genetically engineered intellect that allowed us to survive. On Earth… two hundred years ago…I was a prince…with  over millions."
"Captain Kirk was your host. You repaid his hospitality by trying to steal his ship and murder him!"
 - Chekov and Khan

"This is completely improper, Commander Chekov! I have absolutely no intention of allowing Reliant or any other unauthorized personnel access to our work or materials!"
"I'm sorry that you feel that way, Doctor. Admiral Kirk's orders are confirmed. Please prepare to deliver Genesis to us upon our arrival. Reliant out."
 - Carol Marcus and Chekov

"Starfleet has kept the peace for over a hundred years. I cannot, and will not, subscribe to your interpretations of this event!"
 - Carol, to David

"Jim, you proceed from a false assumption. I am a Vulcan. I have no ego to bruise."
 - Spock, on handing over the Enterprise to Kirk

"If I may be so bold… it was a mistake for you to accept promotion. Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny. Anything else is a waste of material."
 - Spock, to Kirk

"Were I to invoke logic, logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few."
"Or the one."
 - Spock and Kirk

"You are my superior officer. You are also my friend. I have been and always shall be yours."
 - Spock, to Kirk

"He tasks me. He tasks me and I shall have him. I'll chase him round the moons of Nibia and round the Antares maelstrom and round perdition's flames before I give him up! Prepare to alter course."
 - Khan

"As a matter of cosmic history, it has always been easier to destroy than to create." - Spock

"Not any more; now we can do both at the same time! According to myth, the Earth was created in six days. Now, watch out. Here comes Genesis! We'll do it for you in six minutes!"
 - McCoy, in response to Spock's statement preceding

"Logic? My God, the man's talking about logic! We're talking about universal armageddon! You green-blooded, inhuman –"
 - McCoy, just before being interrupted with a report about being intercepted by the Reliant"Ah, Kirk… my 'old friend'. Do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold? It is very cold…in space."
 - Khan, before attacking the Enterprise"Admiral, the commander of the Reliant is signaling. He wishes to discuss terms of our surrender."
 - Uhura, to Kirk

"Sir, you did it!"
"I did nothing! Except get caught with my britches down. I must be getting senile. Mr. Saavik, you go right on quoting regulations! In the meantime, let's find out how badly we've been hurt."
 - Sulu and Kirk, after the Enterprise has retaliated against Khan's attack

"He wants to kill me, for passing sentence on him fifteen years ago. And he doesn't care who stands between him and his vengeance."
 - Kirk, on Khan's motive

"Go? Where are we going?"
"Where they went."
"Suppose they went nowhere?"
"Then this'll be your big chance to get away from it all."
 - McCoy and Kirk, before beaming into the Regula I cavern

"Where's Dr. Marcus?"
"I'm Dr. Marcus!"
 - Kirk and Davids first exchange, before Kirk realizes that he is his son

"Mother, he killed everybody we left behind!"
"Of course he didn't. David, you're just making this harder."
"I'm afraid it's even harder than you think, doctor. Please… don't move."
 - David, Carol, and Terrell

"All is well, sir. You have the coordinates to beam up Genesis."
"First things first, Captain. Kill Admiral Kirk."
 - Terrell and Khan

"Khan, you bloodsucker! You're gonna have to do your own dirty work now! Do you hear me? DO YOU?!"
"Kirk! Kirk, you're still alive, my old friend."
"Still – 'old friend'! You've managed to kill just about everyone else, but like a poor marksman, you keep missing the target!"
 - Kirk, taunting Khan

"I've done far worse than kill you. I've hurt you. And I wish to go on… hurting you. I shall leave you as you left me… as you left her. Marooned for all eternity in the center of a dead planet… buried alive. Buried alive."
"KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!! KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAN!!!"
 - Khan and Kirk

"You had your world… and I had mine. And I wanted him in mine… not chasing through the universe with his father."
 - Carol to Kirk, on David

"Actually, he's a lot like you. In many ways."
 - Carol, comparing David to Kirk

"Impulse power restored."
"Excellent. More than a match for poor Enterprise." - Joachim and Khan, discussing the repairs to the Reliant"Can I cook or can't I?"
 - Carol, on the vegetation in the Genesis cave

"I don't believe in a no-win scenario."
 - Kirk to Saavik, on why he "cheated" on the Kobayashi Maru test the third time he took it

"That young man – he's my son!"
"Fascinating."
 - Kirk and Spock, on David

"Admiral, what happens if Reliant fails to follow us into the nebula?"
"I think we can guarantee she'll follow us, Mr. Saavik. Remind me to explain to you the concept of the Human ego."
"Best speed, Scotty."
 - Saavik, Spock, and Kirk

"Khan… I'm laughing at the "superior intellect"."
 - Kirk, provoking Khan into following him into the nebula

"Full impulse power."
"No, sir! You have Genesis! You can have whatever you–!"
(grabs Joachim by the vest) "FULL POWER! Damn you!"
 - Khan and Joachim, arguing over following Kirk into the nebula

"He's intelligent, but not experienced. His pattern indicates two-dimensional thinking."
 - Spock, on the maneuvers that the Reliant has been executing with Khan in command

"Are you out of your Vulcan mind?!? No Human can tolerate the radiation that's in there!"
"As you are so fond of observing, Doctor, I am not Human."
"You're not going in there!"
"Perhaps you're right. What is Mr. Scott's condition?"
"Well, I don't think that he —"(Spock renders McCoy unconscious with a Vulcan neck pinch)"I'm sorry, Doctor; I have no time to discuss this logically. (Mind melds with McCoy) Remember." - Spock and McCoy

"We're not gonna make it, are we?"
 - Sulu, as the Genesis Device on the Reliant enters imminent detonation

"No… no, you can't get away. From hell's heart, I stab at thee. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee."
 - Khans last words before the explosion of the Reliant kills him

"Bless you, Scotty – GO, Sulu!"
 - Kirk, when the Enterprises warp drive has been restored, saving the crew's lives at the last minute

"Jim, I think you'd… better get down here."
 - McCoy, stricken, as Kirk realizes that Spock is missing

"No! You'll flood the whole compartment!"
"He'll die…"
"Sir! He's dead already."
"It's too late."
 - McCoy, Kirk, and Scott on Spock

"I have been… and always shall be… your friend. Live long… and prosper."
"No…!"
 - The dying interchange between Spock and Kirk

"We are assembled here today to pay final respects to our honored dead. And yet it should be noted that in the midst of our sorrow, this death takes place in the shadow of a new life, the sunrise of a new world, a world that our beloved comrade gave his life to protect and nourish. He did not feel this sacrifice a vain or empty one. And we will not debate his profound wisdom at these proceedings. Of my friend, I can only say this: of all the souls I have encountered in my travels… his was the most… Human."
"Honors, hup!"
 - Kirk and Sulu, as Kirk, eulogizing Spock, loses his composure

"You knew enough to tell Saavik that how we face death is as least as important as how we face life."
"Just words."
"But good words. That's where ideas begin. Maybe you should listen to them. I was wrong about you… and I'm sorry."
"Is that what you came here to say?"
"Mainly. And also that I'm – proud… very proud… to be your son."
 - David and Kirk

"He's really not dead… as long as we remember him."
 - McCoy on Spock, in wording that proves ironically prophetic

"It is a far far better thing I do than I have ever done before… a far – better resting place I go to than I have ever known."
"Is that a poem?"
"No. Something Spock was trying to tell me on my birthday."
 - Kirk and Carol Marcus, looking at the newborn Genesis planet following Spock's funeral

"You OK, Jim? How do you feel?"
"Young. I feel young!"
 - McCoy and Kirk, as they look at the Genesis planet

 Analysis 
The screenplay for Star Trek II was written by director Nicholas Meyer, compiled from a number of drafts which all contained one or several dominant themes. One element was clearly going to be central to the audience's emotional response. Meyer explained: "Once you decide that you're going to have the death of Spock, then how does that affect the other people? Why is it there? I got a lot of stick from a lot of people from the very beginning about the idea of killing Spock. Somebody said, 'You can't kill him.' And I said, 'Sure you can; the only question is whether you do it well.' If his death proceeds organically from the theme and the story of the movie, then nobody's even going to notice it until it's on you, and no one will question it."

In other words, Meyer was determined that his film would be about something and would do more than tell an adventure story. "We were giving birth to planets, and Kirk was meeting his son, and Spock was dying. You sort of looked at that and said, 'Well, what unifying ideas are running through here?' And then you thought, 'Ah! This is going to be a movie about…" Age 

"This was going to be a story in which Spock died, so it was going to be a story about death, and it was only a short hop, skip, and a jump to realize that it was going to be about old age and friendship. I don't think that any of those other scripts were about old age, friendship, and death."

"Jim, I'm your doctor. and I'm your friend. Get back your command. Get it back before you turn into part of this collection. Before you really do grow old."
 - McCoy

The decision that the film was going to be about old age and friendship prompted Meyer to include a scene in which McCoy visits Kirk in his apartment and tells him that he should get his command back. With every alteration, the themes were woven tighter and tighter into the script.

Ultimately, the film presented an aged Kirk in mid-life crisis. Uncertain of his place, of himself, Kirk must make the greatest sacrifice to find out where he truly belongs.

 Kobayashi Maru 
"Changed the conditions of the test… got a commendation for original thinking. I don't like to lose. […] I don't believe in a no-win scenario."
 - Kirk, to Saavik

In one of the early drafts for the film, the Kobayashi Maru test was suggested as a no-win scenario – one Nicholas Meyer decided Kirk had solved by cheating. Initially, producer Harve Bennett was resistant to the idea that Kirk could do anything 'bad', yet Meyer won him over; in fact, he believed the story needed Kirk to have flaws. "There's a distinction to be made between heroes and gods," he explained, "which I think we sometimes get confused about. […] let me explain my theory of heroism. If a man jumps into a raging torrent to save a drowning child, he performs an heroic act. If the same man jumps into the same torrent to save the same child, but does so with a ball and chain attached to his leg, he's not less heroic; he's more heroic."

"If you look at the heroes of antiquity and myth, they all have flaws. It's something that they have to overcome; their flaws are something that they have to act in spite of. The challenge is not to defy your fate, but to endure it. That is heroic." James T. Kirk is very much like a classical hero who must confront his own weaknesses. He played God when he marooned Khan to a desert world; he chose not to be involved in his son David's life; he allowed the Enterprise to be damaged because he would not listen when Saavik told him to raise shields. When Spock dies, Kirk must endure, and Nicholas Meyer was absolutely conscious of this when he was writing the script.

"The flaw is always the same", he explained. "The hero always thinks he knows the answer, and ultimately he learns that he doesn't. […] There is always a point in Greek plays, known as 'peripeteia,' where the hero learns that everything he knew is wrong. And it's no accident that in at least two of my movies there comes a point where the hero says, 'I know nothing'. H.G. Wells says it in Time After Time; Kirk says it in Star Trek II. It's when you begin to realize that you know nothing that you're ready to learn something. When you've had the shit kicked out of you, you're ready to start over, and with a little humility. As I was writing it, I was certainly getting to that 'I know nothing' point."

"I've cheated death… tricked my way out of death… and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing (of death)."
 - Kirk

 Vengeance 

"Ah, Kirk… my 'old friend.' Do you know the Klingon proverb that tells us revenge is a dish that is best served cold? It is very cold in space."
 - Khan

Using the  first season series episode  as a building block, Meyer built Khan into the ultimate adversary for Kirk. As he worked on his character, he imagined how enraged a man would be after being exiled on a desert world and losing his wife. Inevitably, Khan became obsessed with Kirk, who he saw as his nemesis. "Kirk was the fiend who had imprisoned him; who had stopped him up in the bottle. I think when Khan makes his appearance in the story, Kirk is flabbergasted. He did not lie awake thinking about Khan; Khan lay awake thinking about Kirk."

"Khan!"
"You still remember, Admiral. I cannot help but be touched. I, of course, remember you."
 - Kirk and Khan

Meyer decided that while Khan had been waiting for a chance to avenge himself upon Kirk, he would have been reading. "I started thinking, 'What books does a superman take with him into exile?' At one point, Khan says, 'On Earth I was a prince', and certainly he's a fallen angel, so I picked all the books that were Lucifer-related – fallen angel – whether it was 'Moby Dick' or 'Paradise Lost' or 'King Lear', and began to build from there. I thought, 'He's probably been obsessively reading these books again and again until every word out of his mouth has been written by Shakespeare or Milton'. Actually, Melville was the one who finally took over; he just becomes completely Ahab."

"No… no, you can't get away. 'From Hell's heart, I stab at thee. For hate's sake, I spit my last breath… at thee."
 - Khan, quoting Moby Dick Death 

Inevitably, there was concern that the script might seem too downbeat, particularly because in Meyer's version there was nothing to suggest that Spock might be reborn on the Genesis Planet. He later recognized that that might have been a mistake, yet he never felt that Spock's death was depressing. "My feeling about killing Spock was that it would be moving, but that didn't mean you would be depressed by it. Romeo and Juliet die, but nobody comes out of that play depressed. We didn't want Spock's death to be meaningless. And I don't think that it is. Aristotle had the notion of catharsis – that the audience is purged through pity and terror. You don't come out of these things saying, 'I'm going to stick my head in the oven'. Kirk chooses to go on living; sadder but wiser, understanding a little more the way the world works, and that is not, per se, depressing. It may be sad, but it's not depressing."

 Background information 
 Notes 
This movie was the first Star Trek release to occur in the 1980s.The Wrath of Khan, the second Star Trek feature film installment, is traditionally regarded by fans as the best in the series, and considered by many non-fans as an excellent science-fiction picture. In 2014, it was ranked by  readers as #89 in a poll to determine the 301 greatest movies of all time. 
The film earned US$14,347,221 at the US box office in its opening weekend, a record at the time which was broken two years later by Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. This film, in turn, was out-grossed by the next film in the series The Search for Spock.The film earned GBP£1,499,226 at the British box office upon release, and debuted at no.2 just behind Rocky III.
When the film first appeared in theaters in June of 1982, the opening credits listed the movie simply as Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan since there was no "Star Trek I" due to the first movie being called "The Motion Picture."
This was also done for the official movie novelization but subsequent prints of the film retitled it Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Writer and producer Harve Bennett had never seen anything Star Trek related but binge watched the entire Original Series to prepare for this movie.
According to William Shatner's Star Trek Movie Memories, the original title of the film was The Undiscovered Country, the undiscovered country in this case being death. According to Shatner, as he told Chris Kreski in quoting Nicholas Meyer, Meyer was outraged when Paramount marketing exec Frank Mancuso renamed the film Star Trek: The Vengeance of Khan without consulting him. Meyer said that the title was ridiculous and that they would be forbidden to keep it with  making a movie called Revenge of the Jedi at the same time. Months later, Paramount changed the subtitle to The Wrath of Khan, and Meyer hated that even more but was made to live with it, although it became a moot point when Lucas changed the title of his movie to . Meyer's original title was eventually used for , which Meyer also directed.
As with The Motion Picture, the movie was pre-sold to the ABC TV network for first time airing in the USA under a similar arrangement. This entailed two airings of the film, the first to run no earlier than 1985.  Its ABC premiere was on 24 February 1985, and its second run was in 1988 (ABC ran the film a third and final time on 18 June 1989, in conjuncture with their third re-run of The Motion Picture that year ). Like the The Motion Picture, the television version of the movie featured deleted or alternate scenes, reintegrated for the television airing, that were originally cut from the theatrical version, and with some mild censoring, akin to the below-mentioned British television version. Unlike The Motion Picture (in the form of its "Special Longer Version") however, this ABC version has not seen any home media format releases in the home market, nor were several scenes and takes included in the later, 2002 "The Director's Edition" DVD release.
 Several cuts were made to the film for its theatrical release in the United Kingdom in order for it to receive a more favorable classification (A for advisory, rather than the more restricted AA rating which was for over-14s only). The  requested that the close-up sequences of the Ceti eels infecting Terrell and Chekov, and the later close-up of Chekov's eel leaving him, be removed as they were "almost X[-rated]". Seventeen seconds in total were removed.  The initial VHS release in the UK was of this cut version; an uncut version – marketed as the "Original Full Length Version" – was not released until 1988. As of 2018, it remains the only Star Trek film released on VHS in the UK to carry the BBFC's 15 certificate, although for its subsequent DVD releases it carries the more moderate 12 certificate which was introduced in the 1990s.  The edited version is still used for television broadcasts in the UK. The movie premiered on the ITV network on Wednesday 14th May 1986. 
 Many of the outer space scenes in the first half of the movie are reused from . These include the Klingon battle cruisers in the Kobayashi Maru sequence, the shots of the travel pod, the '''Enterprises departure from dry dock, and its first jump to warp speed.
 Khan's apparent recognition of Chekov and his remark "I never forget a face" are somewhat ironic, since Khan debuted in , the twenty second episode of the first season and Chekov did not make his first appearance until Star Trek's second season, in . It is possible, however, that Chekov was on the Enterprise at the time and Khan had seen him off-screen. 
In fact, as noted in the Special Edition DVD's text commentary, Walter Koenig often joked (at conventions and in interviews) that his character had made Khan wait overly long to use a bathroom on Khan's visit to the Enterprise and that was why Khan remembered his face so well.
In his DVD commentary track, director Meyer said that he was aware of the discontinuity but ignored it. Meyer acknowledged that he could have just as easily put Uhura on the Reliant and kept the consistency, but he preferred Chekov and referenced the fact that  frequently contradicted himself in his books about , saying that the continuity did not matter, as long as he had the audience engrossed in and enjoying the story.
Kirk says, "I know what he blames me for" after being told that Khan blames him for the death of his wife. Taken at face value, this is untrue; until that moment Kirk was unaware Marla McGivers had died, as he did not check in on the planet and Khan did not include this detail in his earlier exchange with Kirk. Given Kirk's demeanor, it is more likely that he is alluding to the fact that he marooned Khan in the first place (though with the ultimately vain hope that Khan and his people could colonize the planet where they had been marooned) and therefore had deduced that Khan was bent on revenge.
 McCoy's line "He's really not dead… as long as we remember him" was improvised by Nicholas Meyer during filming, after he read an article on the set, concerning the possibility of  being alive. Wallenburg was a Hungarian Jew who famously saved many Jews from the Holocaust (though accounts vary as to how many he actually saved). Referring to Wallenberg,  said in the article, "He's really not dead, as long as we remember him." (Meyer noted this in the Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan DVD audio commentary.) Since  would show not only McCoy having had Spock's complete brain patterns (katra) transferred to him during a mind meld in the engine room but also Spock himself having been regenerated by the Genesis Effect, that line took on both ironic and prophetic meanings.
No visitors were allowed on the set during the filming of Spock's death to keep it a secret as much as possible. Nicholas Meyer remembered, when they shot the scene, he looked around and saw members of the crew, including cinematographer Gayne Rescher, crying and did not understand their reason for bursting into tears. It was much later, he admitted, when he understood the significance of that scene. (Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan DVD audio commentary)
The events of the film were  by Vonda N. McIntyre and adapted into a photostory by Richard J. Anobile.
In the years since this movie, when he would be asked about Khan, Ricardo Montalban would compare how he played the character both times. In the original episode, he presented Khan as a powerful but well-disciplined leader for his people. But when it came time for the movie, he incorporated the fact that Khan's wife, Marla McGivers (from the episode), had died during their exile, and showed Khan being driven mainly by passion, having turned into an obsessively vengeful man whose chance at revenge against Kirk had arrived.
Montalban also said in promo interviews for the movie (which can be seen on the Star Trek II DVD set) that he realized early on in his career that a good villain does not see himself as villainous. He may do villainous things, but the character feels that he is doing them for righteous reasons. Likewise with heroes, Montalban said he always tried to find a flaw in the character because no one is completely good or completely evil. He then compared Khan to this, saying that while Khan had a rather distorted view of reality and, therefore, comes the villainous acts, he still feels that his acts of vengeance against Kirk is a noble cause because of the death of his wife whom he loved dearly.
In other various interviews at the time of the movie and afterward, some of which can be seen on the Star Trek II DVD features disc, Montalban has also spoken about how he almost turned the role down as he wanted a rather substantial part after coming from six years of Fantasy Island. Montalban changed his mind when he read the script and realized that the other characters were talking about Khan even when he was not on screen and so it made the part seem even more substantial. Montalban also recalled that, when he first started reading the script after having accepted the role and was trying to articulate Khan, that to his horror, he sounded like Mr. Roarke and was terrified that the audiences would laugh at him. Montalban contacted producer Harve Bennett and requested a tape of "Space Seed", and after several viewings of the episode, Montalban began to recall how he had played Khan and was much more comfortable afterward.
At a high level, the characters of Khan and Kirk can be seen, respectively, as Captain Ahab and the great white whale from Herman Melville's novel Moby Dick, which was found among Khan's possessions. Khan quoted several lines from the novel almost exactly – even down to his dying curse. The ambiguous allegorical nature of the novel was not reproduced in the film, however. The original series episodes  and  and the  film  were also inspired by Melville's novel.
As with , Paramount filed for and obtained design patents on some of the costumes, props (including the Ceti eel), and ships from this film.

The special effects scene in which the Ceti eel got into Chekov's ear was filmed with a large recreation of the ear on a plate. The model which was used was later put in storage and was shown by Penny Juday in the special feature "Inside Starfleet Archives" on the TNG Season 2 DVD.
The pre-launch background dialogue overheard on the bridge as Kirk and McCoy arrive is almost identical to the checklist overheard in main engineering before the Enterprise launches in .
Since Kirk's birthdate was established in Federation computer records in the  episode  to be March 22nd (actor William Shatner's actual birthday), this establishes that the beginning of this film is set on March 22nd, 2285.
This is the only TOS movie in which a Federation ship fires its phasers. All other films in the TOS series have the ships firing photon torpedoes. The next film in the series to have a Federation ship fire its phasers was , twelve years later.
Kirk and Khan do not meet in person in the entire film and all of their interaction is done using viewscreens and communicators. This was because Montalban was filming the original Fantasy Island film and scheduling conflicts meant that he and Shatner were never on set at the same time.
As noted later, this was somewhat disappointing to Montalban since Shatner and Montalban did not meet on set either but he'd wanted to.
This was the fourth of five Star Trek projects to be adapted into View-Master reels.
This film marks the first appearance in the Star Trek franchise of an isolation door in main engineering. It can be seen lowering during the "surprise attack" sequence following Khan's hijacking of the Reliant. That door later became the shuttlebay door on the Enterprise-D.
There is a "No Smoking" sign on the door of the simulator room during the Kobayashi Maru test. It only appears in the earliest part of the scene. According to Mike Okuda's DVD commentary, it was removed at the request of Gene Roddenberry, who did not envision smoking as part of the Human lifestyle of Star Trek's future. Nevertheless, St. John Talbot was seen lighting up in , and characters would later be shown smoking in  and .
During the scene at Kirk's home where he and McCoy share a drink, a Commodore PET personal computer is recognizable at the rear of the set. At the time of filming, William Shatner was the commercial spokesperson for the Commodore line of home computers, including the PET (Personal Electronic Transactor). Although it's likely the PET in the scene was intended to be a Trek-era computer, given this film establishes that Kirk collects antiques, it could also have been part of his collection.
The encounter between the Enterprise and the Reliant is glimpsed in  (although the Enterprise is mistakenly labelled NCC-1701-A).
The film's title, like so many others was altered by the teen soap drama Gossip Girl which starred Wallace Shawn as New York attorney Cyrus Rose in the second season episode "The Wrath of Con" albeit Shawn was not featured in it. Airdate Monday May 4th, 2009

Dating
The film alone does not clearly identify the year it is set on other than that it is somewhere in the early to mid 2280s. Based on some of the film's dialogue, the film was set fifteen years after . Khan: "…marooned here fifteen years ago by Captain James T. Kirk." According to a line in the script, it was more accurately fourteen years after the episode. Kirk: "He wants to kill me for passing sentence on him fourteen years ago."  "Space Seed" in turn aired in  and is considered to be set in 2267. This suggests The Wrath of Khan would be set in 2281 or 2282 though it cannot be fully confirmed given the six month gap could mean it's either early 2282 or very late 2281. Nick Meyer's commentary on the special edition DVD, explains that the intention was that the film depicted Kirk's 49th birthday. Kirk was born in 2233, so this would support the year 2282. 

Other accounts within and after the film suggest the events of the film took place later in the 2280s. The label on the bottle of Romulan ale that McCoy gives to Kirk as a birthday gift reads 2283. In , in the Nexus, Kirk imagines himself eleven and nine years into the past, to the years 2282, when he met Antonia, and 2284, to the day he told her he was returning to Starfleet. All those accounts suggest the events of this film occurred afterward, as Kirk was at the beginning of the film supervising command-track cadets at Starfleet Academy as an active Starfleet admiral. According to StarTrek.com, Star Trek Chronology, and Star Trek Encyclopedia, (3rd ed., p. 691) the events of The Wrath of Khan in fact occurred one year later in 2285. This date was finally canonized in  on a  for the Reliant which appeared in .

Script 
Despite its weaknesses,  had been a box-office success, so it came as no surprise that Paramount Pictures decided to develop a sequel. Gene Roddenberry's first proposed storyline saw the Enterprise crew going back in time to make sure the Klingons did not stop the John F. Kennedy assassination. This idea was rejected and Roddenberry was forced to step into the background as "executive consultant" (at the request of Paramount executives who blamed him for the relative failure of the first film due to the constant re-writes he demanded) and Star Trek was handed over to newly-commissioned Paramount Television executive producer Harve Bennett. It was Bennett's job to develop a script that could be filmed on a reasonable budget (US$11.2 million, nearly $24 million less than the budget of TMP) and put a new Star Trek feature in the theaters in the summer of 1982. One of his biggest problems was finding the right approach to the material. The Motion Picture had adopted a very serious and epic style, which many felt was inappropriate. Somehow, the sequel would have to capture the essential heart of the show and give the audiences what they had been waiting for.

Star Trek: War of the Generations 
Bennett watched all the original Star Trek episodes in preparation for his task. His trawl through the episodes provided him with what he had been looking for. He was determined that his movie would have something the first one lacked – a real villain. When he saw , Bennett was struck by Ricardo Montalban's performance as Khan, and decided that he would make the perfect villain for the film.

In November 1980, Bennett wrote a single-page outline called Star Trek: War of the Generations. In this story, Kirk is called to investigate a rebellion on a Federation world. En route he saves a woman he was once in love with and learns that their son – whom he never knew had been born – is one of the leaders of the rebellion. Upon arrival at the planet, Kirk is captured and sentenced to death by his own son before we learn that Khan is truly the mastermind behind the uprising. Kirk joins forces with his son to fight Khan, and the film ends with Kirk's son joining the crew of the Enterprise.

Bennett had already decided at the beginning that one of the film's major themes would be the aging of the characters. In the drafts that followed, Kirk was consistently confronted with a son he knew little about, Spock was often preoccupied with death, and, in the later versions, McCoy had to struggle with his feelings for a much younger woman, who had made it clear that she was interested in him.

Star Trek: The Omega System 
Bennett still had to turn his outline into a workable script that could be shot, so he hired Jack B. Sowards, who had written several admired movies of the week and was a self-confessed Star Trek fan. Sowards instantly had a major impact. Where Bennett's original treatment made no mention of Spock, since Leonard Nimoy had made it clear that he was not keen to make a second Star Trek film, Sowards thought he had a way of persuading Nimoy to return: he suggested that Bennett tell Nimoy that in this film Spock would die a little more than a third into the story. The opportunity to play his death scene was too good for Nimoy to pass up, and he agreed to come aboard. From this point on, all the scripts featured Spock's death, although its position in the film would inevitably be pushed toward the dramatic conclusion.

Sowards had only a few months to write a full script before a writers's strike was called in April 1981. First, he expanded Bennett's outline into a nineteen-page treatment in which Kirk's former lover was named Diana, who was rescued from a refugee ship from Omega Minori IV where a revolution was underway, and who never told Kirk he had a son but Kirk discovers this later on. The treatment also introduced Mr. Wicks, the Enterprises male Vulcan science officer and Spock's replacement. Then, by February 20, Sowards had written a first draft that significantly expanded his treatment and added several vital elements. This script, titled Star Trek: The Omega System, introduced the idea that the Federation was preparing to test a terrible weapon known as the Omega System.

The film opened with Captain Terrell and his first officer, Pavel Chekov, beaming down to Ceti Alpha V, which had been selected as a test site, to make certain that the planet was as dead as sensor readings suggested. Starfleet knew that Kirk had left Khan and his people stranded on this planet, but was amazed to discover that he and a handful of his followers, including Marla McGivers, had survived. A vengeful Khan took control of Terrell and Chekov, and used them to take control of Project Omega. Terrell claimed that Kirk had ordered the Omega System to be loaded onto the USS Reliant, which was a Constitution-class starship like the Enterprise, and made it clear that it was going to be used to fight the Klingons in the Neutral Zone. Project leader Janet Wallace (Sarah Marshall would have reprised her role from ) contacted Kirk, who ordered the Enterprise to set a course for Gamma Regula IV, the planet on which the project was headquartered. As Enterprise approached the planet, its engines were badly damaged, and Spock sacrificed his life to get them back online in time for Kirk to fight the Reliant off. Later, Khan and Kirk would fight a psychic battle in a variety of exotic locations, using quarterstaffs, whips, and swords. Khan, who had acquired impressive mental powers during his isolation, eventually won, but Kirk survived because he understood that the weapons were only illusory. The film ended with a pitched space battle in orbit around the planet, in which Kirk defeated his enemy with his superior tactics.

Star Trek: The Genesis Project 
At this point, art director Michael Minor made an invaluable contribution. Bennett was concerned that the Omega System was simply a weapon and that there was nothing uplifting about it, so Minor suggested turning it into a device for terraformation, the reconstruction of a lifeless planet to give it the capability of supporting known life forms, especially intelligent ones like Humans. Because it would work by reordering matter on a planet's surface, it could still be a terrible weapon in the wrong hands, but the Federation's goal was to create a paradise, not to kill millions of millions. Bennett was delighted at this, and, in recognition of its Biblical power, the Omega System became the Genesis Device.

By April 10, Sowards had written a second draft of the script that incorporated the change and was now titled Star Trek: The Genesis Project. In this version, Janet Wallace had become Carol Baxter and Spock's death had been pushed a little later in the story. During the final battle, Khan fired the Genesis Device at the Enterprise but hit a planet, which was reborn as the two vessels continued their titanic struggle. This draft also included the first version of the simulator sequence in which Dr. Savik (formerly Mr. Wicks, now Captain Spock's first officer aboard the Enterprise; taken from a separate six-page proposal) failed to rescue the Kobayashi Maru. When Dr. Savik questioned him about his failure, Kirk suggested that the test might be a "no-win scenario."

The New Star Trek 

By now, pre-production had begun in earnest, and line producer Robert Sallin and Mike Minor drew up storyboards for the effects sequences. But though this draft contained many, if not most, of the elements of the final script, Bennett and Sallin were not satisfied. To their minds, the script did not have the epic sweep needed for a major film, so they called upon Samuel A. Peeples, who had written , which had been the second pilot episode for The Original Series. Peeples submitted a story outline entitled Worlds That Never Were, which he transformed into the August 24th The New Star Trek script draft, entirely omitting the character of Khan and replaced him with two powerful aliens called Sojin and Moray, who had been exiled from another dimension and possessed almost godlike abilities. Also, Hikaru Sulu was the captain of the Reliant on which he served with Chekov. Finally, drawing from Theodore Sturgeon's July 18 outline, Dr. Savik was now a half-Romulan, half-Vulcan woman. (; The Making of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, pp. 47-51; )

While Peeples was working on the script, Bennett and Sallin found a director they liked in the form of Nicholas Meyer. A week or so before the last draft was due to be delivered, they met with him and promised they would be back in touch as soon as they had the new script in their hands. Meanwhile, time pressures were becoming critical, and employees of effects company Industrial Light & Magic told the producers that without having a script within a matter of weeks, they would not be able to deliver the effects in time for the planned release date.

By the time the Peeples script arrived, Bennett and Sallin knew they could not film it. As Sallin explained: "We were off in some weird directions and I was really very concerned. It did not feel like a motion picture to me. Some of these ideas were too derivative and were too small in their scope. There wasn't anything underlying it. It was more about people shooting fire and things like that, as opposed to a real story."

Star Trek II: The Undiscovered Country 
Three weeks after their last meeting, Meyer called Bennett and asked where the script was. Although reluctant to share the script, which Bennett found almost embarrassing to share, Meyer persuaded him to send him the draft. Not impressed with what he had received, he called Bennett and told him and Sallin to come up to his house with all the different drafts of the script. The three of them made a list of all the things from all the different drafts that they wanted to end up in the final film, and then Meyer set out to compile a screenplay that incorporated all those things. Meyer concentrated on crafting a strong narrative by getting all the scenes in the right order and putting the story into his own words. "I was only interested in cobbling together and cannibalizing various parts that seemed useful", he explained. "What I fell in love with is the story. I never looked at the scripts again, so there were no words that were appropriated. It all had to be in my own language and in a way that I could understand it." By September 10, the end product was the Meyer screenplay titled Star Trek: The New Frontier, revised on September 29 under the name Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country, and finalized on January 18, 1982 as Star Trek II: The Undiscovered Country. 

Meyer had some very clear opinions about what made drama, and he was determined that, despite the futuristic setting, his film would make sense to a 20th century audience. Asked to quantify the character of his approach, Meyer produced two examples. The first was that he brought a sense of humor to the project, which is not to say that he did not treat it with proper respect. "I think that putting humor into a serious movie makes the serious stuff more serious, and the humor becomes more of an explosive release." The other important decision he made was actually something he thought about when Bennett and Sallin had first asked him to direct the film. "I had the haziest notion of what Star Trek was, because I didn't really watch the show on television. I finally latched on to the idea (originated by no less than Gene Roddenberry himself) that Captain Kirk and friends were really an outer-space series of novels that I had loved as a kid, by C.S. Forrester, called 'Captain Horatio Hornblower'. So I said, 'OK, this is 'Hornblower' in outer space; I've got it'. When I wrote the script in 12 days it was very, very, very Navy, or, as my late wife used to say, 'Nautical but nice."

Casting 
Because Ricardo Montalban had originated his role in  on the original program, director Nicholas Meyer was not involved with casting him, though he certainly had no complaints. "Khan is enough to tell you that this is a great actor", he said. Most of Kirk's crew were in place, but Meyer was intimately involved with casting several new roles. He explained that what he was looking for was actors where he could see what the characters were feeling, even when they were not talking.

"For Carol Marcus I wanted a woman who was beautiful and looked like she could think; a woman who was attractive enough that you could see why Kirk would fall for her, and at the same time somebody who could keep up with him", Meyer said. "[…] I loved Bibi Besch; I became very close with her, and I used her again in 'The Day After'. She's no longer alive and I bitterly regret it; she was a lovely Human being, and a lovely actor."

"Merritt Butrick is also tragically no longer alive", Meyer lamented. "[As David Marcus] he not only had to be Kirk's son, he had to be Carol's son, so on a physical level I think what I liked was that his hair was the same color as hers but it was curly like Bill's, so I thought, 'Well, that's plausible."

"Paul Winfield was an actor I had wanted to work with since I saw 'Sounder," Meyer noted, "and I thought, 'Wow, what a lovely actor'. There was no real reason for him to be the captain of the Reliant, other than my great desire to direct him in scenes! I knew he could do it, without any question." In The Next Generation, Winfield acted out a different role, that of the Tamarian captain Dathon, in .

The biggest casting coup was giving a young Kirstie Alley the role of Saavik. "She said as a child she wanted to be Spock and that she was so in love with the role that she wore her ears to sleep. […] She didn't have to find the role; she didn't have to work her way into it", Meyer pointed out. "She'd been living it somewhere in her head for years. There just wasn't a contest. I don't recall seeing another actor for that part who was as persuasive." In addition to her instinctive understanding of the role, Alley brought another, slightly more definable quality to her role. Meyer explained: "The thing about her is that she's beautiful, but she also had a slightly other-worldly quality. […] She was also able to encompass that sort of flat unemotionality, but she's basically a comedian. What I didn't know was that that flatness, like Leonard's, frequently comes out of a kind of a deadpan. I realized that when I watched her doing it. Then, at the other end of it, there she was at Spock's funeral, weeping. I remember somebody came running up to me and said, 'Are you going to let her do that?' And I said, 'Yeah.' And they said, 'But Vulcans don't cry', and I said, 'Well, that's what makes this such an interesting Vulcan." In dialogue not retained in the final film, Saavik was described as being half-Romulan, which might have explained her tears.

Sets 
When production designer Joseph R. Jennings reported for work on the second Star Trek film, he found the sets for the USS Enterprise still standing. After director Robert Wise had finished filming the first feature, he had simply closed the stage doors and moved on. In the intervening months, the interiors of the giant starship had been sitting patiently, waiting to go back into action.

Most of the action in the film takes place on the bridge of the Enterprise. Although the set may appear quite different from the bridge on The Motion Picture, Jennings only made cosmetic changes to the design. The layout remained the same, but in order to make the second film warmer than its predecessor, the set was repainted in darker colors.

Director Nicholas Meyer very much disliked the design of the Enterprise bridge set, because in his view there were many things that did not make sense: "[…] to take a silly example, if they are in terrible circumstances and everything gets all shook up, why don't they have seatbelts? And the answer is, because if they had seatbelts, it wouldn't be very interesting. Most of the movie actually takes place on that damn bridge, which is a very tedious set to photograph, and it was also, in a reconfigured form, the bridge of the Reliant, so I spent a lot of time there."

"The biggest problem was just keeping alive what is happening in a 360-degree world. The bridge was, very rightly, built in pie sections, so you could yank out sections and put the camera in. But, occasionally, you might want to be in the middle and sweep the camera around at what is going on. The sections are curved at the top, so when they are all in, how do you get light in there? It's a sort of a nightmare scenario. Gayne Rescher (director of photography) invented a lot of very peculiar apparatus that dropped in from the top with light coming off, like a big chandelier on a chain."

The Wrath of Khan did not have the budget to allow for significant alterations to be made to the bridge set, but Meyer did ask Jennings to find ways of making it appear more detailed and specific. "The least I thought we could do was revamp the bridge and make it twinkle. I remember I had Joe Jennings build me a wall of blinking lights. It was on wheels, and we would shove this thing around behind people, to try anything to break up this expanse of gray panel."

Although several other sets were also still in place, the Enterprise still gave Jennings plenty of work to do. As he recalled: "A new script will call for different things; somebody walks down a corridor and goes into another room and, bang, you don't have that room, so you add it. And it grows […] until the stage sort of bulges out."

The most obvious new addition was the torpedo room. Few people would realize it, but this set was actually a redressed version of the Klingon bridge from the first film. The torpedo room set featured a long channel where the torpedoes were loaded. Meyer wanted to have as much movement as possible in the action sequences, so he had Jennings put grates down over the channel that had to be lifted when the Enterprise went into battle.

The Enterprise bridge set was also adapted to serve as the bridge of the USS Reliant. "We had one thing going for us", said Jennings. "There's a great deal of similarity between the bridge of a destroyer and the bridge of a cruiser in the American Navy. We gave it a change of color and orientation, and we got rid of the big screen in front. As I recall, we changed some of the seating arrangements and the elevators a little bit, and, of course, we added the ceiling piece to it, because the beam had to come down and pin Ricardo to the floor. The whole ceiling piece was something that had never been featured in the bridge of the Enterprise. That gave it a different look."

One of the non-starship sets Jennings worked on was an interior section of Starfleet Headquarters, where a brief scene shows Kirk walking out of the simulator and heading for an elevator. In reality, this set was much smaller than it appeared. Jennings explained: "Mike [Minor] had a bright idea; he went out to several hardware stores and came back with a birdbath, a planter, and a bunch of junk. He went off and fiddled with it for about two days, and he came up with a miniature. We put that in the foreground as what is called a 'cutting piece', and the real set was in the background. They tied together visually and created a perspective trick that made the set look much bigger."

The next time we saw Kirk, he was in his apartment. Jennings had fond memories of this set and said that the challenge was to make it clear that it was in San Francisco, but also show that it was a 23rd century building. The setting was established by using a backdrop showing the Golden Gate Bridge that had been made for The Towering Inferno. The next task, Jennings explained, was to make the room appear futuristic. "You set up your frame of reference, and then within that you've got to be honest, which will lend credibility to the physical aspects of your show. Like all architecture, it has to look as though it's possible to live in it; you look for materials, for instance, that are unfamiliar, or that are being used in an unfamiliar fashion, to make your design look different from what the public is seeing today."

Despite the need to make the apartment look futuristic, Meyer also impressed on the production crew that he doubted things would undergo a complete change in the future, so the apartment still had to look like a home. "A fireplace would be an anachronism but would still fit Kirk's image of having a cozy place to live", said Jennings, "so we had to make a fireplace that looked a little different; hence we used the curved wall and the mosaic treatment behind it." Meyer also wanted to suggest that Kirk had too much time on his hands in retirement and had a real attachment to the past, so Jennings and his team filled the set with antique collectibles.

However, Meyer was unhappy with the Genesis cave set, combining live footage with a matte painting. He thought that the scene looked false and too constructed, and would have used a real location instead, but neither time nor budget would allow it.

Costumes

Starfleet uniforms 
When Robert Sallin came on board as producer for Star Trek II, one of the first things he did was change the wardrobe of the Starfleet officers. Sallin wanted the uniforms redesigned, yet, entirely due to budgetary reasons, he did not want to discard the old jumpsuits from the first Star Trek movie. "[…] so I said, 'Let's do some dye tests.' To this day, I have the swatches of the different-colored uniforms that we tested to see if we could reuse some of the old material and rework it."

The series of dye tests showed that the old uniforms would take three different colors well: a blue-gray ("lead"), a gold (which proved to photograph almost "bronze"), and a dark red, or maroon ("blood"). The plan was to use the modified uniforms for the junior cadets and enlisted crew while enough money could be found to design an entirely new wardrobe for the senior officers.

Director Nicholas Meyer had some very specific ideas about how the uniforms should look. "I decided that this was going to be 'Hornblower' in outer space, so I said, 'Okay, if this is going to be the Navy, let's have them look like the Navy; they shouldn't be walking around in pajamas.' Which seemed to me to be what the uniforms in the first movie and the TV show looked like." Additionally, Meyer had one other, significant instruction for costume designer Robert Fletcher: he wanted the costumes to be reminiscent of the clothes worn in the film The Prisoner of Zenda.

Fletcher was careful not to reproduce any specific naval uniforms and used the dark red that had been discovered during the dye tests. Meyer was keen on this approach, since it made the costumes dramatic and created a strong contrast with the background. The first versions of the uniform had a stiff black collar like the costumes in The Prisoner of Zenda. Producer Robert Sallin suggested changing this into a turtleneck and after he made the alterations, Fletcher decided to use trapunto, which is a form of vertical quilting. By 1981-82, the machines and specialized needles used to produce trapunto had become exceedingly rare, and Fletcher was able to secure only one needle for the entire wardrobe department. Fletcher said: "That trapunto machine saved my life. The machines are very rare and are not made anymore. We had, perhaps, the only one in existence on the West Coast, a 50-year-old antique. We lived in constant fear that we were going to break its one and only needle, because, of course, you can't get THEM anymore either!" One day, Fletcher genuinely worried that the needle had been lost or stolen (and even entertained thoughts of it being held for ransom) when one of the department's workers had taken it home as a security measure.

Meyer had always wanted the uniforms to feel as real as possible, and thus asked for rank insignia. Fletcher explained: "There was kind of a complicated arrangement of divisions and ranks expressed by the braid on the sleeves. I made that up. I organized it and produced a little instruction booklet about it for the wardrobe department […]." On the early version of the uniforms, the insignia was on a band around the upper arm, which was later moved to the cuff. The last major change was to redesign the flap of the double-breasted jacket so that it would actually open. This was something Meyer wanted because he felt the lighter color on the inside of the flap would frame the actors's faces better.

The flaps, however, did present Fletcher with a problem: when they were open, one could clearly see the snaps that held it in place, and, as he says, these looked distinctly unfuturistic. "In order to make these look less like plain old snaps, I found this sterling silver chain that looked strange. I ordered a reel of it and sewed it in with the snaps to give it a feeling that it was perhaps a magnetic closing."

In toto, the design for the uniforms that resulted from all this proved to be extremely difficult for fans to duplicate accurately, and it ended up being called the "monster maroon" uniform design for that reason.

Khan and his people 
For Khan and his followers, Fletcher wanted to create a definite contrast with the highly organized Starfleet uniforms. As he explained, his idea was that they had been forced to cobble together their costumes out of whatever they could find. "My intention with Khan was to express the fact that they had been marooned on that planet with no technical infrastructure, so they had to cannibalize from the spaceship whatever they used or wore. Therefore, I tried to make it look as if they had dressed themselves out of pieces of upholstery and electrical equipment that composed the ship." After Khan and his followers hijacked the Reliant, many of them (including Khan himself in one scene) are seen wearing the stolen Starfleet uniforms of the Reliant crew as open jackets, with Khan himself wearing one of Terrell's, as the captain's rank insignia is prominently featured.

He added that when it came to Khan's costume, there was another major consideration. "We wanted to show Ricardo Mantalban's physique. He was rather proud of it, as he should have been. That was a theatrical gesture." Of course, when Khan first appears, he is dressed from head to foot in rags. Again, Fletcher said, the design of this costume was dictated by Khan's situation. "They had to protect themselves from the planet, which was very inhospitable. That was the origin for the kind of Bedouin look. If you have nothing else, and you have access to some fabric you may have ripped out of a bedroom or whatever, then you wrap yourself up to protect yourself from the sandstorm." (In Shane Johnson's Star Fleet Uniform Recognition Manual, Khan's primary outfit was described as being the remains of a life-support suit designed specifically for use with the DY series of sleeper ships, such as the Botany Bay itself had once been.)

Other 
For the remaining costumes, Fletcher's biggest concern was to create a sense of contrast with the major outfits. Carol Marcus and her team were given white smocks that suggested futuristic lab coats and, in the scene where Kirk and McCoy are dressed in civilian clothes, Fletcher tried his best to make sure the outfits looked practical and comfortable. Amusingly, Fletcher said the one costume that he got asked about most made only a fleeting appearance in the film. When Kirk visits Spock in his quarters, the Vulcan is wearing the same robes he wore in the previous movie. "People always ask me what the writing on front of Spock's black velvet, at-home costume symbolize. I have to explain the language that I invented to decorate those things, and I can't! All I can say is that it's very akin to Chinese; it's non-syllabic, and the various shapes contain an entire thought and you don't use them to make words." Whether these robes became Spock's burial robes was never made clear in the final film, but the various younger actors who appeared as the younger Spock in  wore robes that looked very similar to those Nimoy himself had worn.

He added that most of the costumes feature what he described as "corrupt" colors. "Technically, they are colors that are a little bit tinged with their complements. Probably, the closest thing in art history is art deco colors. I once did a production of Offenbach's Voyage to the Moon, and I based that on the fact that the moon probably looked like an art deco world. Maybe that struck in my mind, because I used those colors here." He added that because these colors are not quite true, there is something slightly odd about them, which gives the audience the feeling they are from a different world.

The casual wear worn by William Shatner as Kirk was sold off on the It's A Wrap! sale and auction on eBay.

Shooting 

At the opening of the film, Robert Sallin wanted to make the entry of Kirk as dramatic as possible. He explained: "[…] we're introducing Captain Kirk. I think we need a little drama here, so here's what I want to do. When those doors open, the room is filled with smoke, and I want him to emerge in silhouette. I want the strongest backlight you can give him, directly behind him, so that when he walks through there are fingers of light that surround him in the smoke. I want it to look like the Second Coming." The original version shot was not powerful enough for Sallin, so he made sure that it was reshot.

During Spock's funeral scene, director Nicholas Meyer wanted the camera to be directly in front of the torpedo that acted as a coffin and to move with it as it slid into the launcher. "I [Robert Sallin] got a call from the head of production at Paramount: 'Nick [Meyer] wants this, and we're going to have to rip out the floor, and we're going to have to rebuild the set so it's high enough off the ground to get the camera in. We've got to talk to Nick.' We all went down there, and everyone was gathered around looking at this through. I just turned to the key grip and said, 'Do you have a Western dolly?' That's basically a trolley that you use to pull the camera. He said, 'Yes', and I said, 'Have you that tubular track for it? And can you put on the little wheels?' He nodded, and I said, 'Can't we mount the camera on the dolly, put the track down inside the trough, then move the camera with an offset arm [which allows one to control it from above] and do the shot that way?' He said, 'Yeah, we can do that', and I said, 'What's that going to cost?' and he said, 'About $30', and I said, 'Well, I think that's what we're doing, then!"

Visual effects 
The visual effects for The Wrath of Khan were filmed quickly and efficiently – and, most importantly, they came in on budget. Unlike the first Star Trek feature, the effects were produced by Industrial Light & Magic, a company which would come to dominate the industry in the coming decades. Producer Robert Sallin recalled ILM's approach to the project: "They were incredible. The most professional, the most delightful, the most responsive; I couldn't say enough good things about the whole crew. It was an amazing experience."

As a sequel, Star Trek II was able to reuse most of the models that had already been built for The Motion Picture. Besides the Enterprise model, Sallin wanted to make use of the orbital office complex that Kirk beamed up to in the first film; it became the Regula I space station. Steve Gawley, head of the model shop at the time, recalled: "We took it [the orbital office model] apart and put it upside down and then reattached some of the outer pods in a different way." This also made sense from a storytelling-continuity standpoint, as it suggested that by the latter half of the 23rd century, space station designs might have become fairly standardized.

The remaining model shots required entirely new models. The ILM team built the Regula planetoid and several other simple pieces, but the main task was the construction of the Reliant, which was the first Starfleet vessel other than the Constitution-class ever seen. Paramount's art department provided the model builders with detailed drawings to work from, and, as modelmaker Bill George remembered, a general instruction that the Enterprise and Reliant should look as different from one another as possible. "The one thing that was a little bit different on the drawings was that they had come up with a totally new color scheme for the graphics, thinking that would make it look different. […] When I got them in, I said, 'This can't happen.' So I showed them to Kenneth Ralston [ILM supervisor to the film]. His take on it was, 'Let's put on the Federation graphics we've seen before, and see what they say.' Thankfully, the producers were happy with it."

The biggest challenge the ILM team faced was showing the heavy damage that the Enterprise and Reliant inflicted on each other in the script. The model shop used several different approaches to make sure that they did not actually have to damage the models. On the Enterprise, the damage was essentially cosmetic; pieces of aluminum were added on which were tainted so that, where need be, the damage could literally be peeled off. The damage to the Reliant was much more serious, so larger versions of different parts of the ship were built that could be destroyed.

The initial confrontation ended with the destruction of a dome (the impulse deflection crystal) toward the rear of the Reliants saucer. After that came the biggest single effects sequence of the film – the Battle of the Mutara Nebula. To create the nebula, the team used a cloud tank, which is basically a large container with colored liquid in it. The team spent weeks shooting the tank, searching for shots that could be used as background for the epic battle. When everything was finished, the team sat down to look through all their footage for shots they could use with the models.

Once the nebula had been filmed, the team focused on the starships that would be moving around inside it. Because the ships were often in the distance, the team was able to use small versions of the models which were much easier to handle than the full-size models and could perform bigger maneuvers. In one of the most impressive scenes of the battle, the Reliant fires its phasers at the Enterprises "neck" (interconnecting dorsal) section, cutting an enormous gash in the process – and rendering one of the Enterprises photon torpedo tubes useless. This shot was created using traditional stop animation techniques. Kenneth Ralston explained: "I had that section done as a wax piece and then painted it to look like the ship. Obviously, we worked out exactly how the camera was going to move. Then I just went into the wax version, and I would take little sculpting tools and rip stuff up and bend it around. We'd film that, then the camera would move whatever distance it would cover in one frame, and I'd sculpt some more damage. Then, on top of that, we did some animation of a laser hit sort of cutting into it, but it left a real cut – a big scar […]."

The damage brought onto the Reliant was even more severe and involved making several separate sections. "One of the engine pods blows up", remembered Ralston. "We couldn't blow up the whole pod for some reason, so I built a shape similar to it and it was more like glass blowing out of the warp nacelle. We shot that as a separate element and then printed that on top of the actual model for the Reliant, with other pieces blowing off of it. Then, when the whole nacelle blows off, that was just a bunch of explosions and a separate arm that we shot using motion control."

Perhaps the most important visual effect in the film in terms of historical significance is the Genesis Effect. This is the first use of particle effects in a motion picture. Particle effects are now widely used.

Production history 
 1980 – Paramount plans a TV-movie sequel; Gene Roddenberry submits a script but it is rejected and he is taken off the project, relegated to Executive Consultant; sequel upgraded to theatrical feature
 13 November 1980 – Harve Bennett submits 1-page outline titled Star Trek: War of the Generations
 18 December 1980 – Jack B. Sowards submits 19-page story treatment based on Bennett's outline
 20 February 1981 – Sowards submits 1st draft of script titled Star Trek: The Omega System
 10 April 1981 – Sowards submits revised 2nd draft of script, now titled Star Trek: The Genesis Project 
 1st storyboards for special effects by line producer Robert Sullin and production designer Mike Minor
 18 July 1981 – Outline, perhaps by Theodore Sturgeon, fleshes out Dr. Savik as a female officer who becomes romantically involved with David Marcus
  – Samuel A. Peeples submits alternative 155-page script titled The New Star Trek 
 10 September 1981 – Nicholas Meyer submits 1st draft of final script titled Star Trek: The New Frontier 
  – Meyer submits 2nd draft of script titled Star Trek: The Undiscovered Country 
 29 September 1981 – Meyer delivers 3rd draft of script 
 9 November 1981 – 12-week principal photography begins
 18 January 1982 – Meyer delivers 4th draft of script, now titled Star Trek II: The Undiscovered Country 
 29 January 1982 – Principal photography ends 
 March 1982 – After marketing tests, Paramount Pictures officially changes the title to Star Trek II: The Vengeance of Khan 
 early April 1982 – Paramount Pictures, once again, officially changes the title to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan to avoid confusing audiences (and as a gesture of good faith to George Lucas) with the then titled Star Wars: Revenge of the Jedi
 12-15 April 1982 – 1st session of recording James Horner's score at the Warner Bros. lot, Burbank Studios
 30 April 1982 – Pickup session to record the Mutara Battle score
 3 May 1982 – 3rd session to record revised epilogue
 4 June 1982 – Theatrical release
 16 July 1982 – British Theatrical release. The film is cut by 10 seconds at the behest of the BBFC.
 24 February 1985 – US Network Television Premiere on ABC Television Network.
 10 & 13 September 2017 – For the occasion of the film's 35th anniversary,  organizes a to 600 screens limited theatrical release of the . A newly produced, in-depth interview with William Shatner, conducted by Access Hollywood critic Scott Mantz, plays before the start of the film.

Awards and honors 
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan received the following awards and honors:

Video and DVD releases 
 US Betamax release:

Merchandise gallery

Apocrypha
 In order to explain Khan's recognition of Chekov, Greg Cox's non-canon novel To Reign In Hell established that Chekov was a security officer at the time of this episode and he led the security team that escorted Khan and his people down to Ceti Alpha V. He also led an assault against Khan and his followers to retake engineering, but were forced back.

Appendices

Credits 

Uncredited cast
 Bill Baker as trainee lieutenant j.g.
 Laura Banks as Khan's navigator
 Harve Bennett as Bridge simulator computer voice
 Pam Bennett as Khan's woman
 Steve Bond as Khan's henchman
 Fletcher Bryant as Khan's henchman
 Todd Bryant as an engineering cadet
 Brett Baxter Clark as Khan's henchman
 Tim Culbertson as Khan's henchman
 Brian Davis as trainee Enterprise crewmember
 Richard Forinash as an Enterprise lieutenant
 John Gibson as Khan's henchman
 James Horner as an Enterprise training officer
 Ree Kai as trainee Enterprise crewmember
 Dennis Landry as Khan's henchman
 Cristian Letelier as an engineering cadet
 Jeff McBride as Khan's henchman
 Roger Menache as Khan's henchman
 Chuck Powers as an Enterprise crewman
 Nanci Rogers as Khan's henchwoman
 Tony Roque as Enterprise engineer
 Kimberly Ryusaki as an Trainee Enterprise crewmember
 George Sasaki as engineering crewman
 Judson Scott as Joachim
 John Staible as Enterprise crewman
 Deney Terrio as Khan's henchman
 Sergio Valentino as trainee Enterprise crewmember
 Philip Weyland as an Enterprise crewman
 Daniel Wong as engineering cadet
 Unknown performers as
 Botax
 
 Stran
 Man cleaning floor
 Enterprise trainee blowing boatswain's whistle
 Enterprise trainee bridge officer (male)
 Enterprise engineering crewman
 Enterprise nurses
 Enterprise medical staff member 1
 Enterprise medical staff member 2
 Reliant bridge officer 1
 Reliant bridge officer 2
 Reliant navigator

Uncredited production staff
 Nicholas Meyer – Writer (screenplay)
 Samuel A. Peeples – Writer (story, additional writing material)
 Lightning Bear – Stunts
 Emil Richards – Percussionist
 Marvin Hoar – Video Operator
 Peter Lauritson – Pre-production
 Joel Marston – Dialogue Coach for William Shatner
 Ed Moskowitz – Video Operator
 Kathleen Nicholson Graham – Bagpipes performer "Amazing Grace"
 Jim Padgett – Video Operator
 Kevin Pike – Special Effects Artist
 Lee Dragu – Personal Assistant: Nicholas Meyer
 David Sosalla – Model sculptor: ILM
 Kirk Thatcher – Model sculptor: ILM
 The Producers Acknowledge the Invaluable Assistance of Bjo Trimble and Samuel A. Peeples in All Matters Relating to Star Trek

References 
19th century; 20th century; 2185; 2267; 2283; 2284; abandon; able seaman; aft thruster; age; airlock; allergy; "all hands"; Altair VI; ; "Amazing Grace"; amusement; analysis; Antares maelstrom; antique; apartment (James T. Kirk's San Francisco apartment); area; Armageddon; arrival; assumption; "at our disposal"; atmosphere; attack; attack course; attention; authority; auxiliary power; bagpipes; battery; battle; battle stations; bearing; biblical references; birthday; birthday present; bionetics; blood; "bloodsucker"; blue shift; boatswain's whistle; body; "Bones"; bookshelf; ; Boy Scouts; bridge; bridge (game); bridge simulator; briefing room; "by the book"; "by the way"; britches; cadet; cargo bay; cargo carrier casualty; "caught with my britches down"; cerebral cortex; Ceti Alpha; Ceti Alpha V; Ceti Alpha VI; Ceti eel; chambers coil; Class 3 neutronic fuel carrier (aka 3rd class neutronic fuel carrier); channel; chance; cheating; checkers; children; Christmas tree; ; civilization; class D; coil emission; collection; command ability; command console; commander; commendation; comm-pic; comm system; combination code; compartment; computer; computer console; comrade; concept; conclusion; console; coordinates; cosmos (aka universe); course heading; craylon gas; creature; crew; criminal; damage; damage report; danger; Dante; Dante's Inferno; ; data bank; data chart; day; death; defense field; departure; destiny; detonation; dinner; "dirty work"; distance; distress channel; domestication; doppler compensator; drama critic; duty officer; dynoscanner; ear; Earth; effect; efficiency rating; ego; ; elevator; emergency channel; emergency light; emergency situation; enemy; energizer; energy flux; engineer's mate; ; ; escape pod; estimating; eternity; eulogy; evasive action; event; Excellency; exile; experiment; face; fact; Federation Science Bureau; fermentation; fire extinguisher; fireplace; firing switch; "first things first"; flag officer; floor cleaner; fondness; food; food supply; frequency; friend; French language; funeral; galaxy; Gamma Hydra; Gamma Hydra sector; garden; gas cloud; General Order 12; General Order 15; Genesis cave; Genesis Device; Genesis effect; Genesis Experiment; ; Genesis Planet sun; Genesis Wave; genetic engineering; geoplastics; gift; "give me a hand"; "give the word"; God; goose; gravitic mine; gravitronics; green; ; hair; hairstyle; hate; heart; Hell; hello; ; Hijacking; Holy Bible; hospitality; ; hour; hull; Human; humor; hyperchannel; idea; impression; impulse power; information; ingenuity; "in over our heads"; inspection; intention; intercept course; intruder alert; "it never rains but it pours"; jamming range; JBK sensors synthostasis; joke; ; ; katra; Khan's wife; King Lear; kilometer; Klingons; Klingon aphrodisiacs; Klingon battle cruisers; Klingon Neutral Zone; Klingon proverb; Kobayashi Maru; Kobayashi Maru personnel; ; laboratory; lie; life; lifeform; life sign; life support system; listening; light; log buoy; logic; loitering; luxury; madness; main energizer; main power; main stage flux chamber; mains; maintenance crew; Mark IV bridge simulator; marksman; marooning; mass; matter; meaning; medical tricorder; memory; memory bank; message; meter; microbe; midshipman first class; military; million; "mince words"; mind; minute; mission; mistake; Moby Dick; model; molecular structure; month; moon; moons of Nibia; mooring; moral implication; motor; murder; Mutara Nebula; ; myth; NCC-500; NCC-585; NCC-3801; NCC-4000; nebula perimeter; "neck of the woods"; ; ; Nibia; ninny; No smoking sign; "no-win situation"; odds; offspring; "on leave"; "on schedule"; orbit; order; ore; override; parabolic course; Paradise Lost; Paradise Regained; "par for the course"; particle; passenger; passion; "pat on the back"; patient; pawn; peace; perdition; performance; period; permission; pet; phaser; phaser emitter; phaser lock; phaser power; photon torpedo; physician; photon control; photon torpedo; place; plan; planet (world); planetoid; poem; poetry; population; port; ; power (politics); pray; preanimate matter; prefix code; prefix number; prestage flux chamber; prince; prisoner; product; problem; progress; Project Genesis; Project Genesis Summary; promotion; proposal; proverb; ; quadrant; quarters; question; quoting; radiation; radiation poisoning; red shift; Regula; Regula I; ; rescue; rescue mission; respect; resting place; result; retinal scan; Retinax V; "Revenge is a dish best served cold"; rigor mortis; risk; rock; Romulans; Romulan ale; running light; sacrifice; sailing ship; ; sand; San Francisco; "sauce for the goose": scientific research laboratory; scientist; Scots language; Scott's sister; screen; search; ; Section 10; Section 14; Section 15; security scan; security procedure; self-expression; senile; senior officer; sensor; shield; ship's bell; ship's company; shore leave; signal; Signet; simulator room; slit; solution; "son of a bitch"; sorrow; soul; space; space body; spacedock; space shuttle; spacesuit; speaker; speed; standard orbit; "stand by"; starbase; starboard; Starfleet; Starfleet Command; Starfleet Corps of Engineers; General Orders and Regulations; Starfleet Headquarters; Starfleet Operations; starship; static; static discharge; steal; strength; student; subatomic level; suggestion; sunrise; Surak; surprise; surface scan; surrender; ; survivor; tactical display; tactical situation monitor; tale; ; tape; target; Tau Ceti IV; teacher; test of character; test site; thermonics; thermowave multiplexer; thing; thinking; thought; throat; Tiberian bat; tiger; toast; torpedo bay; torture; trainee; trainee crew; training mission; training voyage (training cruise); tranquilizer; transmission; transporter; transporter room; travel pod (unnamed); travel pod 05; treaty; tricorder; type 2 phaser; United Federation of Planets; velocity; victim; voice message; Vulcan; Vulcan language; Vulcan nerve pinch; Vulcan salute; ; warp drive; warp engine; warp speed; Wave Matrix ETM Storage; weapon; weapons console; weapons pod; "wee"; week; "what the hell"; wind; wisdom; word; wound; yellow alert;

Other references 
 Starfleet Training Command (STC), 2nd Level: Administrative Offices; ; ; battalion commander; Beam Technology; ; ; Commandante Cadets; ; Director of Educational Services; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; ; Inter-stellar Ethnology; ; ; ; Mark III bridge simulator; Mark X bridge simulator; ; ; Office of General Services; Receivingship; ; Sofak; Supervisor of Curriculum; ; ; Xon
 Cargo containers: Altair IV; Beirut Research; Bellus 4; Copenhagen Base; Kosygin Base; Talos III; Tycho Laboratories; ; Zyra
 Star chart references: Jupiter; K'ushui; Oomaru; Shaandra; Sol; Thelonii; Xanthii; Yaan

Meta references 
Intertitle

Script references 
; officers' mess; ; Starfleet General Staff; Starfleet Operations; technical manual; White Sands

Sources 
 , September 2002
 The Art of Star Trek, Judith, Garfield Reeves-Stevens, Pocket Books, 1995
 Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan The Director's Edition
 Anderson, Kay. "Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan, How the TV Series Became A Hit Movie, At Last," Cinefantastique Magazine, volume 12, issues 5-6 (double issue) spring 1982

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Star Trek films
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