Star Trek II: Wrath of Khan Online Analysis

analysis
#42

Is it absolutely insane to suggest the Genesis Device as the IC?

Three moments jump out at me. First, right after the urgent call from Carol about the Genesis Project, when Jim decides they have to go investigate. He tells Spock to command the ship. Spock demurs:

SPOCK: It was a mistake for you to accept promotion. Commanding a starship is your first, best destiny. Anything else is a waste of material.

And Kirk realizes he’s right, and takes up his old post again–a significant step toward rejecting the idea that he’s old and used up.

Then there’s Jim and Carol, after he meets David:

KIRK: My son. My life that could’ve been and wasn’t. What am I feeling? Old. Worn out.
C. MARCUS: Let me show you something that’ll make you feel young as when the world was new.
(They go to see Genesis. Light literally dawns. Kirk’s face fills up with wonder.)

And then at the end, when Spock’s coffin lands on the Genesis planet (Seti Alpha 6? I couldn’t quite get clear about that) with a flash of light:

KIRK: Captain’s log, stardate 81-41.6. Starship Enterprise departing for Seti Alpha 5 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.
MCCOY: He’s really not dead as long as we remember him.
KIRK: It’s 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.
C. MARCUS: Is that a poem?
KIRK: No. Something Spock was trying to tell me on my birthday.
MCCOY: You okay, Jim? How do you feel?
KIRK: Young. I feel young.

The three moments in which Kirk makes big turns (ultimately a Resolve of Change, I’d say) all involve revelations about the Genesis Project.

If it’s not the Genesis Project, then I’d say it’s Spock, because of the first and third moments above. But I feel like the moment with Carol and the Genesis Project is also an important one in the same journey. And the Genesis Project is itself a metaphor for rebirth…

Thoughts?

#43

Not insane. I apologize for dropping the ball on this this week. Writing like crazy to get work done on some new projects. I will endeavor to watch it this weekend and pick it up next week.

#44

Hi. I’m new here. I was searching for a Dramatica analysis of this movie and found this topic.

I think if you limit the MC to Kirk, then he has to remain Steadfast. His change (“I feel young”) occurs at the very end of the movie and doesn’t affect his actions or way of thinking in the story proper.

Something else struck me while thinking about this movie: a lot of the tricks Kirk uses to defeat Khan could be seen as “cheating”: he uses a code to switch off Defiant’s shields after surrendering to Khan, he tricks Khan into thinking the Enterprise is more damaged than it actually is, and he uses tactics Khan is unaware of. Each time, he changes the game to increase his odds of winning until he is no longer able to do so and Spock has to step up. He runs out of “cheats” (Optionlock) and loses his best friend. To me, this suggests Steadfast/Failure, but I’m not sure that Kirk alone is MC.

#45

You bring up a good issue as I am still kind of unclear as to whether or not the MC Change/Steadfast is required to occur before the OS Throughline comes to a conclusion. My initial instinct would be yes as it feels like if it happens after it is moot, but since they are separate throughlines it makes me think they were designed to be independent such as MC’s problem solving style has very little or nothing at all to do with how he solves problems as an player in the OS Throughline.

#46

No. One does not have to happen before the other, though the usual way is to have the Main Character resolve their problem and as a result of that resolution solve the Overall Story Problem (for Change/Success stories).

#47

Well, I read the script today. I found it online, a version close to the final product. It reminded me that that final scenes with the “I feel young” and Spock’s casket on the Genesis planet were added by the studio to keep the door open for Spock to return. I think we can safely disregard that epilogue and focus on the rest of the movie.

EDIT: Actually, the “I fell young” line is in the script. It’s just the shot of the torpedo and a few lines that were added.

Anyway, in reading the script, I noticed some things. First, Kirk doesn’t want to take command of Enterprise. He initially wants Spock to retain command until Spock insists. We have a Kirk who thinks he’s too old to run around the galaxy and instead sits and reads with his antique spectacles. By the third act, he has become much more confident in himself. There’s no doubt when he first wanted to surrender to the Reliant, it was genuine. It’s only after seeing Khan that he changed his approach. Later, he is goading Khan to follow him into the nebula. There is a case, even without the final scenes, for Kirk as a Change character.

For IC, I am leaning towards Khan–an enemy from Kirk’s glory days who forces Kirk back into the starship captain role he had abandoned. If Kirk is a Steadfast MC, however, my vote is for David as IC.

#48

Would it be totally insane to suggest the MC is Admiral Kirk and the IC is Captain Kirk? You know, the one who faced Khan in “Space Seed”?

After reading the script again, I am leaning more towards Spock/McCoy as IC, but the thought above was intriguing, so I thought I’d share and maybe get some opinions on it.

Kirk’s problem seems to be that he’s an Admiral now, and as such, he’s not supposed to be running around the galaxy, but running around the galaxy is what he’s good at–his “first, best destiny.” The inequity is caused by phase two of Genesis being successfully completed. This causes Starfleet to start looking for a planet for phrase three, which is the only reason anyone finds Khan. If Genesis had failed, everything would be fine. Khan wouldn’t have been found and the Genesis project would have likely been shut down.

#49

Just to get this moving I will vote again for Captain Kirk as the MC and Spock/McCoy as the IC. Where Spock was the change character in the first Star Trek movie with Vger I will say Kirk is the change character in Wrath of Kahn.

#50

I agree, except I think McCoy is more of a “You know what your problem is?” kind of character. The IC is either Spock or Khan, but I’m happy going with Spock and seeing where that gets us.

A theme of the film seems to be “life from lifelessness,” which describes both the Genesis Device’s function and Kirk’s arc through the story. This theme is also referenced by the use of A Tale of Two Cities. Interestingly, in the screenplay, Kirk uses a line from Peter Pan (the one actually used on-screen at the end of Undiscovered Country), indicating that now he will never grow old.

For the purpose of analyzing progression, the act breaks seem to be
I-II) Enterprise leaves space dock,
II-III) the first encounter between Enterprise and Reliant, and
III-IV) Kirk returns to Enterprise and prepares to face Khan for the final time.

#51

I think Kirk is obviously a Do-er, as evidenced by his solution to the Kobayashi Maru test; rather than accept that he can’t win, he changes the test so he can.

What kind of thinker is he, though? I’m having trouble with this one. He doesn’t seem to have much of a plan. He’s just making it up as he goes for most of the movie. My guess would be Logical.

#52

Let’s not use logical in this analysis since that word is such a Star Trek trope. Let’s use linear and holistic. I think after Star Trek the movie Spock has learned to embrace his human side and that to be purely logical is flawed. So, I would say it’s perfectly possible that Spock in Wrath of Kahn is holistically logical. When Spock realizes that he must sacrifice himself for the good of the many did he come by it holistically or linearly?

#53

That being said, I agree that Kirk seems to be a linear thinker. If I tell the enterprise to go away after an hour Kahn will think we are defenseless. Either he comes down here and I get to fight him Mano Į genetically enhanced Mano or he leaves us to die. Is chess a linear thinking game? I think it must be. There are only so many moves possible each follows an if / then path.

#54

Yep. If I can get Reliant’s shields down, the few phaser shots we have available could do some damage, if I lure Khan into the nebula, his ship will be as defenseless as ours, etc.

Since we’ve decided on Kirk as a Change MC, Success/Good is a given, thought it’s a measured success, since Spock is lost.

As for goal, is it simply “Stop Khan”? “Stop Genesis from falling into the wrong hands”? We never truly learn what his plans are for Genesis. It’s implied that he’ll use it to threaten planets, but it’s never stated. Kirk doesn’t know that Khan is after Genesis, or even that Khan has escaped his exile, until after battling Reliant the first time. In fact, he’s ready to surrender to Khan until he discovers that Khan wants Genesis as well.

#55

I too believe that Kirk is a linear thinker exemplified again at the very end when Kirk is told that Khan has engaged the bomb’s timer. His impulsive thought is to transport aboard the Reliant to turn it off, obviously that isn’t the right move and thankfully his team advises otherwise.

Kirk is change and Spock is steadfast due to the idea that he feels young at the end thanks to Spock’s influence, he even remarks about a conversation they had that Kirk only just now understands. I think that is a strong case to what ails Kirk at his core, it’s very personal to him, that feeling.

The Genesis device didn’t appear to be that important to Khan it seemed that he only ever wanted to use it to lure Kirk or hurt him in some way and Kirk to me not so much wanted the device either until he realized Khan was going to use it to cause harm. Khan wants revenge and Kirk knows that Khan won’t stop until he gets it, therefore Kirk needs to find a way to stop him even going so far as to give himself up to save the others. So I think “Stopping him” is most appropriate.

#56

I don’t agree with your assessment of Genesis’ importance. When Kirk is ready to give himself up, Khan says he wants Genesis, too. He could have just gotten Kirk and warped away, but he didn’t. Once Kirk is in the cave, Khan is content to leave him down there, but takes Genesis anyway.

Kirk doesn’t really want Genesis, but he doesn’t want Khan to have it. Khan and his group are very intelligent and with all data on Genesis and a little time, who knows what they’re capable of?

My reasoning that the goal might have more to do with Genesis is that it’s part of the inciting incident and is a physical embodiment of Kirk’s emotional arc.

#57

If Khan wants the Genesis device then what is he wanting it for? Another reason it didn’t seem that important to Khan was the scene where the Reliant is being attacked by the Enterprise and Khan’s second in command is screaming at him “We should be warping away! We have the genesis device!” but Khan is not budging, he really wants Kirk.

Kirk isn’t even aware of the device or what it does til half way through the film and even then is not primarily concerned about it until Khan says he wants to use it to destroy planets which again only becomes a point of contention after Khan has been unsuccessful at exacting his revenge, more than halfway through the film.

The device could just be thematic in nature and only to the extent that it symbolizes Kirk’s yearning for life or rebirth, to feel young.

#58

Kirk knows what Genesis is and what it does from the beginning. He plays the video for Spock and McCoy to bring them up to speed. He even correctly guesses that they’re past phase two by now.

The scene where Joachim tells Khan “We have genesis” is near the end of the film when Kirk is trying to lure Khan into the nebula. Khan still wants Kirk. He was ready to let the Enterprise go until he learned that Kirk was back on board. Kirk was counting on that. Instead of getting the Enterprise to safety, he’s goading Khan into a fight. The Genesis device gives Kirk a reason to go after Khan when it would be much safer to run away and get main power back online, which they should have been able to do in four hours.

#59

I am not sure what jhull is waiting for but I suspect that solving the storyform may resolve this debate.
I have an idea that everyone in this story has issues with Preconceptions but that would put the overall story in Situation. I cannot justify that yet.

#60

As Dramatica theory puts it, what is causing the story’s problems? If the trouble is being caused by fighting Khan, then there shouldn’t be any trouble if Khan is not fought.

You know, I don’t think that’s the case. Khan would be trouble whether or not anyone is opposing him. Maybe there’s a case for Situation after all.

In other words, everyone is affected by “Khan is on the loose.” Beware his wrath!

#61

Situation defines something that is stuck that needs to be unstuck. They’re really not marooned on an island or stuck upside in a floating ship. They do have lots of really cool space battles and there is an awful lot of revenge floating around that would suggest something closer to Activity.

jhull is waiting for some time to watch the film again because there were a lot of different ideas and suggestions that I wasn’t really prepared for. To me the film seems very straight-forward, but there were enough different opinions that I thought it warranted me taking the time to watch it again (I probably watched it a zillion times when I was younger). But I don’t want to delay any longer so I’ll just state my argument and if the majority agrees I can pick up the moderating again…

Personally I think Kirk is the MC. I would have guessed Spock the IC but I forgot about his wife and son, I’m not sure how that played out again. I believe Kirk was a Change Main Character because I think he came to understand the truth of the “no-win” situation. I would guess he’s a Stop character because of the whole age thing. He’s a Do-er. Definitely Linear.

We can pick it up from the Story Driver unless there are dissenting opinions to the above at which rate I’ll have to find time to watch it again!