Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn

Star Trek, in its various forms, has been a big part of pop culture for several decades. This movie, the second in a series of eight, so far, is seen by many that enjoy Star Trek as the best the series has to offer. This movie hits on several themes of the human condition that have an impact on us all: the anxiety of growing old, the regret over past deeds, the bonds of friendship, and facing one's own mortality. However, the main thrust of this movie is a story of revenge, and this movie freely borrows from what is probably the best revenge story of them all.

The setting is in the twenty-third century. The hero, an aging James T. Kirk (William Shatner), his crew, and his starship, the Enterprise, must face an enemy they first encountered a decade and a half ago: Kahn (Ricardo Montalban), a genetically engineered super-human from the twenty-first century and his small army. At their first meeting, fifteen years in the past, Kirk had defeated Kahn, and had marooned he and his followers on an untamed world.

Early in the movie, the captain and first officer of the starship Reliant are inspecting some cargo containers on a hostile, barren planet. It is apparent that someone has been using these containers as shelter against this world's constant storms. The first officer, Chekov, notices a bookshelf. On this bookshelf is Melville's Moby Dick -- a foreshadowing of the tale about to be told. The cargo containers belong to Kahn and his handful of followers, who promptly take the captain and first officer captive. In a memorable speech, Kahn relates the troubles he has had to face in the last fifteen years: a neighbor planet had exploded, laying everything on his world to waste, and many of his followers, including his beloved wife, were killed by a life form that dwelled on his planet. For Kahn, all of the blame for his circumstances lay at the feet of James T. Kirk. This sets the stage for a re-telling of Moby Dick, placing Kahn in the role of the physically and emotionally crippled Captain Ahab, and Kirk as the Great White Whale who injured him.

From this point, the plot of the movie progresses quickly. In short order, Kahn tortures and gains control of the captain and first officer, takes their starship, the Reliant, and steals a powerful device named "Project Genesis" with which to lure Kirk into a trap.

This "Genesis Device" is both a wondrous scientific achievement and a terrible weapon. It is designed to create life on any planet, but in doing so will destroy whatever life was currently dwelling on that planet. An object having such duality is a common theme running throughout Moby Dick, such as when Qweequeg's coffin, a container of death, becomes a buoy for Ishmael, a preserver of life.

It is at this point in the movie that a solid parallel to Moby Dick occurs. Jochaim, Kahn's right-hand man, pleads with Kahn not to go after Kirk. He tries to reason with Kahn, suggesting that with a starship and a powerful weapon, they could do what they want. To this, Kahn passionately replies:

In this scene, Jochaim is cast in the image of Starbuck, Ahab's first mate. Like Starbuck, Jochaim sees that his leader is being driven insane with vengeance, and also like Starbuck, realizes he his powerless to stop it. Kahn himself must realize the parallel, for his reply is taken from two lines of Melville's masterpiece:

This must be an interesting dilemma aboard the Reliant. Kahn's men are supposedly of great intelligence, and they have had fifteen years to read Moby Dick while stranded on that planet, so they know what becomes of Ahab's ship, the Pequod, and her crew. They must be able to understand the moral of the story. Now their leader is actively inviting comparison to himself and Ahab -- and nobody in his crew has a problem with this? Then again, Ahab's crew also had a sense of fatalism. When Captain Ahab himself said:

he not only seems to accept his madness, he justifies and embraces it.

Shortly after this scene, about an hour into the film, the first battle sequence takes place between the Enterprise and Reliant. Kirk, taken by surprise, barely escapes Kahn's trap. The Enterprise, however, is badly damaged and unable to escape the area.

This sets in motion the second half of the film, where various subplots are resolved while Kahn hunts for the Enterprise, as Ahab hunted the whale. Upon seeing his quarry, Kahn shouts "There she is! There she is!". This is reminiscent of Ahab spotting the Great White Whale before the climactic showdown and screaming "There she blows! -- there she blows!".

Kirk is attempting to drive his starship into a violent area of space called the "Mutara Nebula" in an effort to even the odds against Kahn. Over the protest of Jochaim, Kahn follows Kirk into the swirling, chaotic mass of the nebula. It is not too hard to imagine the Pequod being drawn to her fate into the vortex created by the thrashing Great White Whale at the end of Melville's book.

It is inside this nebula that the final, climactic battle takes place. This time, Kirk has the upper hand, and the Reliant is mortally wounded and adrift. Kahn, his ship all but destroyed, his crew killed, and dying himself, makes one final attempt to end Kirk's life. Believing the crippled Enterprise can't get away in time, he enables the Genesis Device. As he watches the damaged starship slowly try to put distance between itself and the impending explosion, he snarls "No, Kirk, you can't escape...", and then he recites an excerpt from Ahab's last speech before being dragged off by the whale:

Kahn then dies, never realizing that the Enterprise, and Kirk, will escape the detonation and survive.

Kahn, like Ahab, will lose his ship, his crew, and his miserable life in an effort to destroy that which he falsely blames for all the evil in his universe. Both men chose a path of vengeance, as if destroying either the Great White Whale or James T. Kirk would solve their problems. It is this futility, madness, and obsessive focus on a single goal that makes both stories about human behavior so compelling.

By Matthew King