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Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
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The Spike
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 17, 2014 10:57 am    Post subject: Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) Reply with quote



"A no-win situation is a possibility every commander may face."

Admiral James T. Kirk is starting to feel his age. With his old ship Enterprise now being used as a Starfleet Academy training ship, his birthday is greeted by the news he's to travel aboard it on a two week cadet improvement course — something that isn't making the Admiral any happier about his middle age blues. But what starts out as routine becomes far more deadlier when an old foe turns up with the power of creation in his grasp.

Released three years after the lukewarm and soulless Star Trek: The Motion Picture, The Wrath of Khan reignited the fans' fire and proved that Star Trek had a place on the big screen.

Directed knowingly by Nicholas Meyer, Wrath Of Khan is a sequel to the TV Episode "Space Speed", which first aired back in Febuary 1967, in which tyrannical villain Khan Noonien Singh first made an appearance.

Meyer, perhaps knowing that his take on things could either make-or-break the fledgling movie franchise, got the two main components right.

First, the character dynamic was back. Interplay on the Enterprise, be it camp, comic or serious, is crucial to making Star Trek work, and Meyer, along with Jack B. Sowards, filled the screenplay with magical Trek exchanges.

Secondly was perhaps the most important thing, to bring piratical villainy back into the fold. Khan {a superb Ricardo Montalban reprising the role} is back from his exile, with a newly commandeered ship, a band of followers, and fueled by an uncontrollable need for vengeance against all on the Enterprise — especially Kirk.

Thus this shakes not only the franchise from its stupor, but also Kirk from his, forcing him one might say, to boldly go once more.

Having got Trek substance right, Meyer then added the other ingredients to make it an appealing blockbuster to those outside of fandom.

Funny and tender moments are many, and add heart to proceedings. And of course there's the explosions and light shows to bring entertainment value to those in need of such with their sci-fi intake.

Then there's also the finale — a truly bold move in itself. Something that actually now gains more emotional impact if one has viewed J.J. Abrams excellent 2009 prequel reboot, Star Trek.

Those after clever sci-fi shenanigans are catered for with the plot instrument that is The Genesis Device. Something our charismatic tyrant is all very keen to utilize, of course. While logical Trekkie musings are inserted with care and consideration, none more so than with the brave ending that is as astutely poignant as it is shocking.

The fashion items remain colorfully dubious. But this is a fan favorite for many reasons, and all of them have viable arguments for this being one of the best films of the 11 big screen Star Trek entries thus far. It's nearly two hours long and not a minute is wasted for the discerning observer. 8/10

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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Fri Oct 17, 2014 6:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Even though I poked fun at Wrath of Kahn in a very long and picture-fill post on the old board, I do enjoy the movie very much. Here's a few of the pictures I made for that post.






















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bulldogtrekker
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 12:32 pm    Post subject: Redesigning Starfleet's Uniforms for Star Trek II Reply with quote

Redesigning Starfleet's Uniforms for Star Trek II
By Nick Ottens, Forgotten Trek

Few of the people involved in the production of the second Star Trek motion picture were happy with the uniforms Robert Fletcher had made for the first film. I don't blame them, Fletcher told Star Trek: The Magazine 3, 5 (September 2002). I didn't like them much myself! The costumes seemed to sum up everything that was disappointing about the film: they lacked color and drama. They were bland.

Fletcher, who had been brought in on The Motion Picture to redesign the uniforms that William Ware Theiss had first designed for the original television series, was given the task to redesign them again. This time, though, there would be less budget. Fletcher and producer Robert Sallin decided to salvage what they could from the costumes that had been made for the previous movie by changing the tailoring and the colors. A series of dye tests showed that the old uniforms could take three different colors well: a blue grey, a gold and a dark red. The plan was to use these modified uniforms for the noncommissioned crew and cadets while enough money was found to design an entirely new wardrobe for main characters.


Producer Harve Bennett surrounded by the Star Trek II cast

When Nicholas Meyer joined the production as director, he had some very specific ideas about what he wanted to see in the new costumes.

I decided that this was going to be Hornblower in outer space, so I said, OK, if this is going to be the navy, let's them them look like the navy; they shouldn't be walking around in pyjamas, which seemed to me to be what the uniforms in the first movie and the TV show looked like.

Meyer had one other, very significant instruction for Robert Fletcher: he wanted the costumes to be reminiscent of the clothes worn in the Douglas Faribanks Jr. movie The Prisoners of Zenda.

Fletcher began work by producing a series of quick sketches. I've always been used to an almost automatic drawing method, he explained. I scribble a lot and out of the scribbles comes the idea. Then I link that visual I've found for myself with other things intellectually and produce a scheme.

Fletcher was careful not to reproduce any specific naval uniforms and used the dark red color that had been discovered during the dry tests. Meyer was keen on this approach, since it made the costumes dramatic and created a strong contrast with the background.

The first version of the uniform had a stiff black collar like the costumes in Prisoner of Zenda. Bob Sallin suggested changing this into a turtleneck and when he made the alternations Fletcher decided to use trapunto, which is a form of vertical quilting.


Crew uniform design sketch by Robert Fletcher (thepropstop)

The new uniforms looked far more like military uniforms than the ones from the last movie which Fletcher conceded in an interview with Cinefantastique magazine (July-August 1982) defied the Star Trek tradition. [Gene] Roddenberry always contended that the Federation is not a military organization. Yet they always behaved as if it were, he argued. They have ranks, they have military courtesy, and Kirk is definitely in command on his ship.

Meyer preferred the military look and asked Fletcher to design rank insignia to make them look even more like real uniforms. There was kind of a complicated arrangement of divisions and ranks expressed by the braid on the sleeves, he remembered, I made that up. I organized it and produced a little instruction booklet about it for the wardrobe department and anyone else who was interested.

On the early version of the uniform, the insignia were on a band around the upper arm. This was moved to the cuff. The last major change was to redesign the flap of the double breasted jacket so that it could actually open. This was something Meyer wanted, because he felt the lighter color on the inside of the flap would frame the actors faces better.


William Shatner as James Kirk (Paramount publicity photo)

However, the flaps presented Robert Fletcher with a problem. When the flag was open, one could clearly see the snaps that held it in place and, as he said, these looked distinctly unfuturistic.

In order to make it look less like plain old snaps, I found this sterling silver chain that looked strange. I ordered a reel of it and sewed it in with the snaps to give it a feeling that it was perhaps a magnetic closing.

Fletcher then designed several variations of the uniform, most of which were worn by Kirk and not by the other characters.

It' normal in any kind of military organization that you don't have just one uniform; you have uniforms for specific tasks and specific times of day formal, informal, combat, and so on. Kirk is the lead, so he goes through the most variations. When it seemed appropriate, he had a change.

Robert Fletcher's new Starfleet uniform remained in use until the original cast retired, becoming as much a part of the Star Trek universe as William Ware Theiss' original versions

LINK:
http://ottens.co.uk/forgottentrek/redesigning-starfleets-uniforms-for-star-trek-ii/


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Bud Brewster
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 3:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

___________________________

I've never cared for these uniforms, but I respect what Meyer wanted to do.
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Robert (Butch) Day
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 4:55 pm    Post subject: Re: Redesigning Starfleet's Uniforms for Star Trek II Reply with quote

bulldogtrekker wrote:
... trapunto, which is a form of vertical quilting.

Not quite. Trapunto uses a special needle that is hollow to fill a portion of a costume with stuffing. The shoulder rolls which were added to the Forbidden Planet uniforms for episodes of The Twilight Zone were trapunto. Those rolls were a dark red in color about midway between (red) and (darkred).
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Krel
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PostPosted: Sun Jan 04, 2015 9:29 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I thought that the uniforms were good dress uniforms, but a bit too much for standard duty wear. Back before the movie came out, I showed my dad the publicity photo of the uniforms. He took one look at them and said, looks Russian. Laughing

David.
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PostPosted: Wed Jan 07, 2015 11:10 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

_______________________________________

Your comment started me think about the different uniforms Star Trek has presented over the last 50 years. I collected some pictures to post, and I've made some random comments about the uniforms presented in the various series and movies.

Moving chronologically, I'll start with the TOS uniforms.

__

__

Not the fanciest of the uniforms we've seen, but they certainly were the sexiest. The guys wore tight, colorful outfits that showed off their young, buff bodies, and the ladies strutted around in go-go boots and miniskirts short enough to flash their panties without much effort.

By the time the movie came along ten years later, that sort of thing simply wasn't done. The uniforms were sensible, comfortable, colorless, sterile, and uni-sexual which means no sex at all. This was completely consistent with the flavor of the movie itself, and the whole thing bore about as much resemblance to TOS as Captain Morgan rum does to unsweetened ice tea.

__

__

Actually, they look so good in the pictures above they make my comments look too negative. Darn. I hate it when I prove myself wrong.

Anyway . . .

The next Star Trek movie put the fun back into the franchise, even though Kirk and company were, I'm sorry to say, a bit over the age limit for young studs and hot honeys. the kinds of characters that added lots of hormones to the TOS experience and made it a science fiction legend.

But the uniforms added insult to injury by changing drastically from the ones shown above to this.

__

__

Enter the 1980s and The Next Generation. Color had made a solid comeback, and the series got real close to a TOS feel on a few good days, but Captain Picard (and his entire crew) where more like the chaperons at a prom compared to young Kirk and his rowdy TOS gang, who spiked the punch and danced way too close while the grownups weren't watching.

__

__

The uniforms in DS9 were the same as TNG, and I'm not a fan of that Star Trek series, so I'll just jump to Voyager.

Even though the uniforms were mostly a variation on those in TNG, the feel of the show was much more like TOS. They didn't play strictly by the rules because they were 74 years away from all the Star Fleet referees. That allowed them to get pretty crazy from time to time and I loved it.

__

__

Enterprise is difficult to analyze. It worked hard to be distinctly different from the previous series, and the uniforms reflected this. They weren't sexy, they weren't sterile, and they weren't fancy.

But they certainly look more comfortable than any other Star Trek uniforms.

__


____

And occasionally they got very creative with the ladies' outfits. Shades of TOS, huh?

__

In 2009 J.J. Abrams came along and changed quite a lot about Star Trek, but with the uniforms he went right back to square one. And even though I have serious complaints with his version of Star Trek, it does a pretty good job of doing what none of the series and movies managed to do, spike the punch and dance way too close while the grown-ups weren't watching.



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Pow
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 1:31 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Always liked the uniforms for ST:TOS. Maybe because I grew up with that show.

I remember my buddy, who liked ST but was nowhere the fan I was, saying when he first saw Kirk's green tunic commenting whether Kirk was in his pjs.

I liked the green tunics, both of 'em even if wearing 'em was due to Shatner's expanding waistline as I have read.

The shirts from the Jeff Hunter/Bill Shatner pilots were not as good as what they came up with for the series. They were all one solid color.The addition of the black collar when the show went to series was far better.

Did like the gray jackets from Jeff's pilot, but we were to never see them again, among other items.

ST:TMP uniforms were pretty much universally despised by fans. I think the critique of them being dull because of the gray color was correct. However, they would have been fine if they had employed the original gold/blue/red/green colors from the original series.

The jackets & spacesuits were excellent.

Never really warmed up to the uniforms they introduced in The Wrath of Khan. Did not seem comfortable for a person to wear over an 8-hour workday. And they were all one color. Blah.

ST:TNG's initial uniforms that were all one-piece & very tight were awful. The later season uniforms were a big improvement.

Wish Picard had worn that gray jacket much more often

DSN & ST:V uniforms were okay.

Enterprise uniforms looked the most realistic as to what would be designed for a crew in space. Never cared for the Vulcan woman's outfits.

Like you, Bud, I am not a fan of the current ST films but I must say they did a fine job with returning back to the original series designs.

Thanks for posting the photos from all the TV shows/movies, Bud.
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 3:45 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

That's a Pow-erful critique of the uniforms, sir! Very Happy

I had fun collecting and arranging the pictures to illustrate the differences in the uniforms. I was surprised by the picture of the different colored uniforms in this one —



— and I don't remember these being in any of the Star Trek movies. But in the lower right corner of the photo it says Wrath of Khan. Strange.

I can't really say I like these colored versions any better than the all-red one. Those jackets remind me of that get-up that Captain Outrageous wears in those Hotel.com commercials and he's supposed to look silly!



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Pye-Rate
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 7:20 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
......

It is a photo hand colorized to what the artist thought they should look like if they used the TOS uniform colors. (I uploaded a clearer picture.) This is the original:

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PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 9:06 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Pow wrote:
The shirts from the Jeff Hunter/Bill Shatner pilots were not as good as what they came up with for the series. They were all one solid color.The addition of the black collar when the show went to series was far better.

Did like the gray jackets from Jeff's pilot, but we were to never see the again, among other items.

They had to change the fabric that the shirts were made of because they shrank so badly that they could only wear them once. It was so bad, that the shirts would shrink on the actors during filming, so they dare not take them off, because they couldn't put them back on!

Pow wrote:
Never really warmed up to the uniforms they introduced in The Wrath of Khan. Did not seem comfortable for a person to wear over an 8-hour workday.

Fernando says that it is better to look good than to feel good.

David.
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 08, 2015 10:19 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Krel wrote:
Fernando says that it is better to look good than to feel good.

David.

Gosh, if only Ricardo Montalban had said that instead of Fernando Lamas.


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PostPosted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 12:07 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Bud Brewster wrote:
Gosh, if only Ricardo Montalban had said that instead of Fernando Lamas . . .

Actually, it was Billy Crystal, as his Fernando character that said it. But if it is any consolation, Esther Williams told Billy Crystal, that Fernando Lamas really did believe, that it was better to look good, than to feel good. Laughing

David.
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 3:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

________________________________

Actually, Billy Crystal heard Fernando say something similar to John Carson and he converted it to the famous line.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernando_Lamas


Wikipedia wrote:
The character was outlandish and exaggerated but reportedly inspired by a remark Crystal heard Lamas utter on The Tonight Show; "It is better to look good than to feel good." This was one of the Fernando character's two catchphrases along with the better-remembered "You look marvelous!" (usually spelled "mahvelous" in this context)

But of course . . . it all started with an old Klingon proverb much earlier than any of this, right? Very Happy
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Pow
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PostPosted: Fri Jan 09, 2015 11:44 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

My sister read Esther Williams autobiography & told me this story from the book.

According to Williams, Lamas would drive to a party or social event without wearing his pants which were neatly hung up in the backseat on a hanger. The reason being he wanted to have them wrinkle free.

Jerry Lewis said that he puts on his pants in his dressing room at nightclubs just seconds before he walks out on stage. Same reason.
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