Khan minus Khan

A Mother of a problem, pt. 3 will not be seen at this time. In its place, we bring you a problem with a mother.

This one. Careful; she can cook… or can’t she?

Spoiler alert: Do not read this if you have yet to watch , and intend to with a blank slate.

I’m the type of person who chooses to listen to music that fits the mood he has, not the mood he wants to have. Movies can be like that too. Whenever I reach a turning point in my life (which is as replete with turning points as history is said to be), I find the need to watch a movie about turning points. About life changes. About time’s persistent march and the struggle to move forward with it.

The movie I come to time and time again for this is Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan… but there’s a twist.

Ricardo Montalban delivers a spectacular performance as Khan. Khan serves a vital role; not only does he bring the action and excitement, but he is the instigator for literally single thing that happens in the movie, from all the death and destruction to Kirk meeting his son for the first time. Without Khan’s influence, the whole movie would be about Kirk moping about his high-rank, bureaucratic duties while the Enterprise does laps around the solar system.

That being said, when I watch Khan these days, I take Khan right out of the picture.

The Invisible Man will also not be seen tonight.

So why, after writing about how Khan is so important, do I skip him while watching the film? Well… Kirk didn’t know Khan was coming, so why should we?

That is what the movie is really all about: Admiral Kirk, King Shit of Turd Island if ever there was one, gets rusty, becomes slow and overconfident, and has his ass handed to him on a dilithium platter as a result. His journey to learn to live with the consequences of his past decisions and get back on top of his game will come at the cost of his best friend’s life.

And how did your day go?

When viewing Khan minus Khan, I strongly recommend using the director’s edition DVD, as the small trims this version restores all help underscore the relevant themes of death, rebirth, aging and understanding one’s self.

In space, no one can hear you brood

The Wrath of Khan is, at heart, a deconstruction of the invincible and indomitable Captain Kirk we knew from the television show. At the beginning of the film, we see him after he has spent years outside of his element. Kirk is now a leader of leaders; a teacher and a bureaucrat. He fills his exterior with small jokes and justifies his station as simply the natural progression of his career with Starfleet.

“Galloping around the cosmos is a game for the young.”
“We all have our assigned duties.”

The latest slap in the face Kirk gets comes in a pair of much-needed glasses on his birthday. Dr. McCoy, of course, has no tolerance for his friend’s mid-life crisis angst and tells Kirk to pull himself together and return to the work he loved and was validated by: Boldly going where no one has gone before.

Stop whining about the glasses already. Didn’t that bottle of 23rd-century Absinthe soften the blow at all?

Kirk goes on about his duties, continuing to make punchy jokes at the cadets he’s envious of and rationalizing his less-interesting position. The only time he shows the slighest sign of life is standing on the bridge again.

Reopening old wounds

Out of the blue, a skeleton crawls out of the Admiral’s closet when a decades-old ex (and that didn’t end well) calls, and she’s not happy. While this ultimately puts Kirk back in the center seat, just sitting in his old chair would not be enough to restore him to form.

Spock echoes the same sentiment of McCoy, that Kirk has left his true potential behind by simply following the road laid before him; Kirk had made a mistake in moving on from what he loved for the sake of moving on.

“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.”

As though to echo the first skeleton, another one comes front and center with a passion. The stolen starship Reliant appears, and Kirk’s rust is shown. It’s normally his style to buck regulations, but never when doing so would endanger his ship and his often-mentioned 430 men and women. He hesitates, blinks and fails to take any kind of decisive action in an ambiguous situation. The result is the crippling of his ship, the death and injury of dozens of his crew, all without so much as an order to fire back.

The crushing, one-sided defeat could only be topped by knowing who it was who had beaten him. A man whom he had not seen since leaving him on a planet 15 years ago… and probably has not thought of in just as long. Just one adventure and one adversary amongst countless others encountered on that 5-year mission so long ago. This will be one of only three interactions between Kirk and Khan. These will be the only three parts permitted in a Khan minus Khan viewing (You also shouldn’t have watched the exposition on the Reliant and Regula I).

Here, the Captain begins to awaken in the Admiral, brushing off Sulu and McCoy’s congratulations for turning death into a fighting chance to live:

“I did nothing! ..Except get caught with my britches down. I must be getting senile.”
“We’re alive only because I knew something about these ships that he didn’t.”

The next generation

The film still has one more shock in store for Kirk; he meets the son he never knew he had.

Again, I ask, how did your day go?

It should be noted that the general theme of growing old and moving on has been underscored in this movie by introducing us to new, younger characters. We now have met Scotty Jr. in Peter Preston, Kirk Jr. in David Marcus and Spock Jr. in Saavik.

To be fair, it didn’t end well for any of them.

The next scene is where it all begins to come together for this troubled, once-formidable man on an emotional roller coaster. Depressed and yearning, Kirk got bitched out by both his best friends, suffered the worst tactical defeat of his otherwise anointed career, had a past lover and a past attempted murderer reappear without warning and discovers he has been a father all this long while. Now Kirk has stands all he can stands, and can no longer hide from himself.

“My son… my life that could have been — and wasn’t. How do I feel? Old. Worn out.”

And this, folks, is how a life transition feels. Learning things you never knew about your opportunities. Chances you never knew you could have taken. Things you do regret, and things you’ll never know if you would regret them or not. The infinite possibilities in infinite combinations of your life slowly worked down to one, single deterministic reality… and being on the hook to choose how to enter into the next bottomless pool of potential.

Here, Kirk is at last confronted with what his possibilities really were, and perhaps this is the point where Spock and McCoy’s pleas for the Admiral to just be himself might have begun to break through. Indeed, we see him downright giddy when Spock delivers on his gambit, illustrating Kirk’s trademark disbelief in the no-win scenario.

I think I’m getting the hang of this better-than-you thing again.

We see Kirk’s reliance on Spock throughout the whole movie. From the aforementioned exaggeration gambit to tactical inspiration in the climatic battle to his trust and advice. In the end Spock stands by Kirk as the Admiral returns to the decisive and successful from he was known for as the Captain. We saw their mutual respect and friendship earlier when, despite the lousy baggage Kirk was dealing with trying to ignore, he still was concerned about stepping on Spock’s toes.

A false presumption

So, the bad guy is beaten, the heroes won. So the movie’s over, right? Wrong. This movie isn’t about man’s struggle against finely-toned man. It’s about man’s struggle with himself. But Kirk doesn’t suck at commanding anymore so the movie’s over, right? Still wrong. As the movie eluded to earlier, Kirk cannot finish overcoming himself without actually facing death. In the end, Spock further proves his value in the ultimate way: He is the only one who can save the ship from Khan’s last-ditch effort at revenge, even though it means his death.

“No. Not like this. I haven’t faced death. I’ve cheated death. I’ve tricked my way out of death and patted myself on the back for my ingenuity. I know nothing.”

After the funeral, Kirk once again retreats. He hides in his quarters, finishing the book Spock had given him. Eventually, Kirk’s new found son provides the last piece. “Moving on” in life didn’t mean accepting your promotions; it meant accepting your failures and continuing to face life in spite of them.

In the end, the overt theme of rebirth from the Genesis Device MacGuffin is realized through the characters. Spock dies, and Kirk is reborn — but not as the legend he once was and himself had believed in. While Kirk credited Spock as being the most Human, through all this Kirk himself has become more human; fallible, vulnerable and mortal. And he faces the prospect of finding his way through uncharted territory without a steady right hand to guide him. However, Kirk still says “All is well.” Because for the first time since he left his comfort zone in the center chair of the bridge, he’s ready to take command of his own life.

The shadow of new life Spock’s death takes place in is not this planet.

This is why I watch Khan minus Khan. I watch it when somebody leaves my life in one way or another. I watch it when the expected and the unexpected changes. I watch it when I’m uncertain of what my immediate future might be. I watch it to remind myself of its lessons: That there can be strength and vision through loss. That to be mystified by one mistake invites another. That moving on is not always moving forward. That when the absence of something causes you to wither away for want of its stimulus, perhaps you aren’t being true to yourself. All of these are too important to lose track of when change is afoot, so I watch.

And… I remember.