William Shatner discusses Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
With this year marking the 35th anniversary of Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan, William Shatner has been talking about the movie which was a major turning point for the fledgling Star Trek movie franchise after the somewhat tepid reception 1979’s Star Trek: The Motion Picture received. Captain Kirk himself has admitted that initially he thought that the reintroduction of Khan was a mistake when the storyline was first pitched to him.
Speaking to IGN Shatner stated,
“I recall that they began to talk about the second movie, and the talk began to be about what segment of the 79 [TV episodes] that we shot would be useful. And I kept saying, ‘Why do we want to go to a segment? Why don’t we invent something absolutely new?”
The screen icon displayed humility and went on to admit that his concerns didn’t last long and he was happy to have been proven wrong and gave credit to the returning Ricardo Montalban who once again played the genetically superior superhuman, Khan.
“And the people in charge were much more aware than I was that the fans would be more sympathetic to… [it] would be a better vibration if it echoed a popular hour from the series, and make that, and then further the story as a film. And they were absolutely right that there was a ramification doing it that way, and the fact that the actor [Ricardo Montalban] was able to repeat his role was another singular advantage.”
Revered by many as the greatest of the Star Trek film series, Wrath of Khan is probably unique in the fact that it acts as a sequel to both the original movie as well as the original series television episode, “Space Seed”.
