Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan – The Making of the Classic Film

In 2285, Admiral James T. Kirk oversees a simulator session of Captain Spock’s trainees. In the simulation, Lieutenant Saavik commands the starship USS Enterprise on a rescue mission to save the crew of the damaged ship Kobayashi Maru, but is attacked by Klingon cruisers and critically damaged. The simulation is a no-win scenario designed to test the character of Starfleet officers. Later, Dr. McCoy visits Kirk on his birthday; seeing Kirk in low spirits due to his age, the doctor advises Kirk to get a new command instead of growing old behind a desk.

Meanwhile, the starship Reliant is on a mission to search for a lifeless planet to test the Genesis Device, a technology designed to reorganize dead matter into habitable worlds. Reliant officers Commander Pavel Chekov and Captain Clark Terrell beam down to evaluate a planet they believe to be Ceti Alpha VI; once there, they are captured by the genetically engineered tyrant Khan Noonien Singh explaining that they are on Ceti Alpha V. Fifteen years prior, Kirk exiled Khan and his fellow supermen to Ceti Alpha V after they attempted to take over his ship. The neighboring planet exploded, devastating the surface of Ceti Alpha V. Khan implants Chekov and Terrell with indigenous eel larvae (which killed several of his followers, including his wife) that render them susceptible to mind control, and uses them to capture Reliant. Learning of the Genesis Device, Khan attacks space station Regula I where the device is being developed by Kirk’s former lover, Dr. Carol Marcus, and their son, David.

Kirk assumes command of Enterprise after the ship, deployed on a training cruise, receives a distress call from Regula I. En route, Enterprise is ambushed and crippled by Reliant. Khan offers to spare Kirk’s crew if they relinquish all material related to Genesis; Kirk instead stalls for time and remotely lowers Reliant’s shields, enabling a counter-attack. Khan is forced to retreat and effect repairs, while Enterprise limps to Regula I. Kirk, McCoy, and Saavik beam to the station and find Terrell and Chekov alive, along with the slaughtered members of Marcus’s team. They soon find Carol and David hiding Genesis deep inside the nearby planetoid. Khan, having used Terrell and Chekov as spies, orders them to kill Kirk; Terrell resists the eel’s influence and kills himself, while Chekov collapses as the eel leaves his body. Khan transports Genesis aboard the Reliant, intending to maroon Kirk on the lifeless planetoid, but is tricked by Kirk and Spock’s coded arrangements for a rendezvous. Kirk directs Enterprise into the nearby Mutara Nebula; conditions inside the nebula render shields useless and compromise targeting systems, making Enterprise and Reliant evenly matched. Spock notes that Khan’s tactics indicate inexperience in three-dimensional combat, which Kirk exploits to disable Reliant.

Mortally wounded, Khan activates Genesis, quoting Captain Ahab from the novel Moby Dick as he dies. Though Kirk’s crew detects the activation and attempts to move out of range, they will not be able to escape the nebula in time without the ship’s inoperable warp drive. Spock goes to restore warp power in the engine room, which is flooded with radiation. When McCoy tries to prevent Spock’s entry, Spock incapacitates him with a Vulcan nerve pinch and performs a mind meld, telling him to “remember”. Spock repairs the warp drive, and Enterprise jumps to warp, escaping the explosion, which forms a new planet. Before dying of radiation poisoning, Spock urges Kirk not to grieve, as his decision to sacrifice himself to save the Enterprise was a logical one. Kirk and the ships crew host a space burial for Spock, whose photon torpedo casket lands on the new Genesis planet.

Star Trek The Motion Picture – The Art and Visual Effects

In the 23rd century, a Starfleet monitoring station, Epsilon Nine, detects an alien entity, hidden in a massive cloud of energy, moving through space toward Earth. The cloud easily destroys three Klingon warships and Epsilon Nine on its course. On Earth, the starship Enterprise is undergoing a major refit; its former commanding officer, James T. Kirk, has been promoted to Admiral. Starfleet Command assigns Enterprise to intercept the cloud entity, as the ship is the only one within range, requiring its new systems to be tested in transit.

Citing his experience, Kirk uses his authority to take command of the ship, angering Captain Willard Decker, who has been overseeing the refit as its new commanding officer. Testing of Enterprise’s new systems goes poorly; two officers, including the ship’s Vulcan science officer Sonak, are killed by a malfunctioning transporter, and improperly calibrated engines nearly destroy the ship. Kirk’s unfamiliarity with the ship’s new systems increases the tension between him and Decker, who has been temporarily demoted to commander and first officer. Commander Spock arrives as a replacement science officer, explaining that while on his home world undergoing a ritual to purge himself of emotion, he felt a consciousness that he believes emanates from the cloud, making him unable to complete the ritual because his human half felt an emotional connection to it.

Enterprise intercepts the energy cloud and is attacked by an alien vessel within. A probe appears on the bridge, attacks Spock, and abducts the navigator, Ilia. She is replaced by a robotic replica, sent by the entity, which calls itself “V’Ger”, to study the “carbon units” on the ship. Decker is distraught over the loss of Ilia, with whom he had a romantic history, and becomes troubled as he attempts to extract information from the doppelgänger, which has Ilia’s memories and feelings buried inside. Spock takes an unauthorized spacewalk to the vessel’s interior and attempts a telepathic mind meld with it. In doing so, he learns that the entire vessel is V’Ger, a non-biological living machine.

At the center of the massive ship, V’Ger is revealed to be Voyager 6, a 20th-century Earth space probe believed lost in a black hole. The damaged probe was found by an alien race of living machines that interpreted its programming as instructions to learn all that can be learned and return that information to its creator. The machines upgraded the probe to fulfill its mission, and on its journey, the probe gathered so much knowledge that it achieved sentience. Spock discovers that V’Ger lacks the ability to give itself a purpose other than its original mission; having learned everything it could on its journey home, it finds its existence meaningless. Before transmitting all its information, V’Ger insists that the “Creator” come in person to finish the sequence. Everyone realizes humans are the Creator. Decker offers himself to V’Ger; he merges with the Ilia probe and V’Ger, creating a new life form that disappears into space. With Earth saved, Kirk directs Enterprise out to space for future missions.