MovieChat Forums > Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) Discussion > Questions (movie's being shown on HDNET ...

Questions (movie's being shown on HDNET right now)

posted 8 years ago by degrimstead-1
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Can never resist watching this film when it's on TV, especially on ad-free channels like HDNET. They're doing a marathon of about 5 of the ST films, Wed afternoon and overnight - very cool. Wish the Starz and Encore channels would do this too.

Okay, I've come up with some questions maybe someone here can answer:

1) Didn't the "Genesis" program need to be launched on a dead planet, to re-populate it with life? I thought at the beginning of the film they were searching for such a planet to conduct the final test on. Yet, at the end Khan set it off right on board the RELIANT in the middle of a nebula. (Or did he launch it into space from a transporter pad? Hard to tell.) Genesis and RELIANT explode and voila - a new planet appears. So it was re-programmed to actually form a planet, with soil and everything?? Hmm.

2) How did they get Spock's body out of that radiation-filled engineering room and put it in that burial tube? If they had a way to clear out the radiation you'd think they would have tried doing that to begin with (tho of course they only had a few minutes before Genesis launched).

3) When/how did Kirk's new reading glasses from Bones (birthday gift) get broken? I don't remember him being in a fight while wearing them.

4) Ha ha - between the space burial scene and his scene with David in his quarters immediately after, the captain acquired quite a tanned face. Wonder if the movie was filmed around the time spray-tanning caught on (1981-82).

5) Last scene: Captain enters in log that they're headed to Seti Alpha 5 (or V) to pick up the crew of the RELIANT. So they were all beamed onto the planet by Khan before he took over the ship? Guess they cut out that scene. Yikes, not somewhere you want to stay long if you're not a super-human.

6) The burial tube was labeled "MARK VI." Can't remember the significance of that, does anyone know? I'm thinking it was named after somebody, like the Jeffries Tubes were.

Thanks for your help!

[–] frame3_13 8 years ago

1.) The Genesis Device used all the dust and gas from the nebula to form a planet.

2.) They probably purged all the radiation from the reactor room. In the midst of the Genesis countdown there just wasn't enough time for what was most likely a time consuming process. You would think that they would have some sort of contingency plan in place just in case for just such a scenario. It's a tiny bit of a plot hole, but one you don't think about until the movie's over.

3.) I think it's just a convenient metaphor for death and mortality. Kirk had them in the Genesis Cave, maybe they got cracked when he was fighting with David. He didn't appear to have a case for them and was just putting them in his pocket when not using them. Maybe he broke them while being tossed around during the battle in the nebula.

4.) Probably just a makeup/lighting thing.

5.) Captain Terrell said that Khan marooned the crew of the Reliant on Ceti Alpha 5. I think they just chose not to show how Khan and his people took over the ship because it's just creepier to imagine how that might have gone down rather than see it happen. But, yeah, presumably they were all forcibly beamed down.

6.) The burial tube is actually an empty photon torpedo. I don't think there's any significance to "MARK VI" other than it's a bit of futuristic gobbledygook that provides some verisimilitude.

[–] degrimstead-1 8 years ago

1) Okay, that makes sense. Forgot about the nebula materials.

2) So true! What's it been, over 30 years? My brain works slowly. ;o)

3) I guess that's true, with all he'd been thru they could easily have gotten damaged in his pocket.

4) I'm thinking Mr. Shatner was trying to make himself prettier, again. Of course they usually film things out of order so he may have been tan from a vacation for some scenes while it had worn off before others.

5) Yep

6) I'm just guessing all the Marks associated with the film have been taking credit ever since, ha ha.

Thanks for the response, frame.