Blu-ray Movie Reviews

Star Trek II: Khaaaaaaaaaaaan

Khaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!

Geoff: When you clicked on this article to read it, I’m positive you thought “I bet ‘Star Trek II’ is the winner.” It is because of course it is. It is, because deserves to be. This is a flat-out fantastic movie.

You learn about the characters, you like them, you care about them, you’re interested in what happens to them and what happens to the world. There’s legitimate drama and urgency. There are consequences.

Just as every ST movie wouldn’t work if they mimicked IV, it’s clear mimicking this movie doesn’t work either. It’s too bad that what Paramount took from the love and success of this movie was the battles and the villain. Sure, those are neat, but that’s more the icing on this delicious cake. If it weren't for all the character stuff, this movie wouldn’t be half as good or as interesting.

I hadn’t watched this movie in years, and watching it again on my big screen, it was better than I remember. So many clever moments. So much great writing. Such an awesome score (even if Horner did plagiarize himself severely a few years later for Aliens).

I don’t even need to oversell this one. It is as good as you remember. It’s a great introduction to the original crew and the movies as a whole. It’s the one I’ve seen the most and it always will be.

Perfection.

Rank: 1st

Carolina: It's not fair having this movie as your sequel because you get to notice even more failures in The Motion Picture. This a far superior movie in every way possible. Or better said, it's an actual movie, there's a plot! An interesting plot!

First off, it does a good job re-introducing old characters and new ones to the franchise, Ricardo Montalbán does a fantastic job as a villain. He's not a mustache twirler per se. You just understand his background and why he's so passionate about defeating Kirk.

Then we have Kirstie Alley, who you can see why her career took off after this movie. Everyone gets their little character moments and we see how they all work together. This movie really sucked me into its universe. It raises a few questions on morals and technology, the way a good sci-fi movie should do, but we don't get stuck on the philosophy because there's plenty of other things to get through. Namely, Khan!

The editing is just so nicely done. It’s understood where it needed to cut, or where should it hold on for a bit longer. The writing is superb and this director knows how to set up a scene and make the story speak for itself without trying crazy shots that sometimes ruin the moment (ahem, TMP.

What else can I say? It's emotional, thrilling, adventurous and makes you root so hard for your heroes, I could not recommend this enough.

Rank: 1st

PQ Not much of a transfer, unfortunately. Some shots detailed, many soft, often lots of grain. The dialog is rather muffled in parts. Oh well.