Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan

With special -- and returning! -- guest Owen Croak, Anna and Derek discuss the expectations we have of ourselves at different ages, Ricardo Montalbán proving that age is just a number when it comes to ripped pecs and so much more during their chat about Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982).

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Anna Keizer and Derek Dehanke are the co-hosts of ‘80s Movie Montage. The idea for the podcast came when they realized just how much they talk – a lot – when watching films from their favorite cinematic era. Their wedding theme was “a light nod to the ‘80s,” so there’s that, too. Both hail from the Midwest but have called Los Angeles home for several years now. Anna is a writer who received her B.A. in Film/Video from Columbia College Chicago and M.A. in Film Studies from Chapman University. Her dark comedy short She Had It Coming was an Official Selection of 25 film festivals with several awards won for it among them. Derek is an attorney who also likes movies. It is a point of pride that most of their podcast episodes are longer than the movies they cover.

Owen Croak is one of those screenwriters who thought he was too responsible to be a “real” writer. Then he had emergency surgery, got fired and decided he’d rather spend his time writing about time-travelers, aliens and superheroes. His work has placed in the 2022 Creative Screenwriting Unique Voices competition and in the Austin Film Festival Script competition. He's also had essays published in the Los Angeles Times and on StarTrek.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her, a room for all eternity, in the center of a dead planet, buried alive, buried alive.

UNKNOWN 0:29

John! John!

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Hello and welcome to 80s Movie Montage. This is Derek.

SPEAKER_03 0:38

And this is Anna.

SPEAKER_02 0:40

And that was really dramatic. I mean, Ricardo Montalban is dramatic in every scene that he's in, but that especially was a dramatic part of Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan.

SPEAKER_03 0:56

Well done.

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 0:58

Yeah. No, I mean, Montalban, he brings it, but then...

SPEAKER_02 1:05

Just slinging out Moby Dick quotes like it's nothing. But then

SPEAKER_03 1:09

Shatner's like, I'm going to go toe to toe with this guy. This guy's not going to upstage me. He

SPEAKER_02 1:14

has a Strong drama game as well. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:19

So, yeah. I mean, this is, I think, the first time that we have covered a film in a franchise where on the technicality that the first film wasn't an 80s film, we have to start with the second film.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

It's not the first one out there, but it's the first one we've covered.

SPEAKER_03 1:41

Cracked.

SPEAKER_02 1:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:43

And as far as franchises go, I think This is the first time we've done this though, right?

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Raiders, I guess. But Raiders was the first. Yeah. Yeah. First of its name. That's true. Rocky?

SPEAKER_03 1:54

Oh, that's true. You're right. Yep. Rocky precedes this.

SPEAKER_02 1:59

They're out there.

SPEAKER_03 2:00

They're out there. And so unfortunately-

SPEAKER_02 2:01

Some decent things started in the 70s that continued on.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Yeah. So we're well aware that this is not the first in the series of Star Trek films.

SPEAKER_02 2:09

And frankly, you're welcome for not covering Star Trek The Motion Picture Yeah,

SPEAKER_03 2:17

well, I'm sure we'll get into that. I mean, let's...

SPEAKER_02 2:20

Everyone should be happy that this is 80s movie montage and not 70s movie groove.

SPEAKER_03 2:26

Yeah, I guess groove could work.

SPEAKER_02 2:29

Maybe, yeah. We're not doing that, though. We're not

SPEAKER_03 2:31

doing that, yeah. I mean, I was about to say that I think for transparency's sake, you are the Trek fan, Star Trek fan.

SPEAKER_02 2:41

I am a fan of, like, a few of the movies after the first one I enjoyed the next generation but I haven't caught up with a lot of the later things

SPEAKER_03 2:53

okay

SPEAKER_02 2:54

yeah

SPEAKER_03 2:54

you were definitely and I am I am totally a rube when it comes to Star Trek I really I never watched the TV show I I

SPEAKER_02 3:04

never watched the original TV show it was just like too corny it didn't got it I wasn't I like yeah it's

SPEAKER_03 3:10

although we were rewatched because I'd already seen them but we were rewatching the Yes. And those I probably know better than these guys.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

That's fair. I mean, they were essentially reimagined to be way more like action packed.

SPEAKER_03 3:28

Very much so.

SPEAKER_02 3:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:29

And because we saw it just like a couple days after we had watched this movie, which this was a fun one to do. I mean, they're always fun. But this one was special because this is only the second time that we actually watched the movie with our guest, our special returning guest. Yeah. So that's always cool when we have the opportunity to do so. So let's jump in. There is a lot to cover with this movie.

SPEAKER_02 3:53

Welcome to hours one through three of this episode. Exactly,

SPEAKER_03 3:56

yeah. So I'm just gonna call it like Rathacon, I think.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Is that

SPEAKER_03 4:01

okay?

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Rathacon, yeah. Yeah, okay. I think that is a totally acceptable way to reference this movie.

SPEAKER_03 4:10

So 1982, and I mean, for the people who are Trekkies, It's probably like, duh. But as far as like writing credits go, of course, the first person you have to bring up is Gene Roddenberry.

SPEAKER_02 4:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:24

So he is he is the creator of the Star Trek world. Yeah. So he had

SPEAKER_02 4:32

less to do on this one.

SPEAKER_03 4:33

Yeah. My understanding is that because the first film did not do well, they really cut down his participation in this one.

SPEAKER_02 4:43

So, yeah. And I thought that was a big part of it. I think when we get into our discussion later on with Owen, he clarifies a little that it's not that it didn't do well in the box office per se, but the production was a nightmare and Roddenberry in large part was blamed for some of those difficulties.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_02 5:03

Yeah. And so for this one, he has the writing credit, but he was certainly not as directly involved on a day-to-day basis.

SPEAKER_03 5:11

He has a writing credit. There's actually five people credited for Well, credited slash uncredited credit.

SPEAKER_02 5:18

Normally, not a great indication of what turned out to be a pretty good

SPEAKER_03 5:24

movie. Most of the credits that I have for him are in TV. So some of the series that he worked on, Mr. District Attorney. I

SPEAKER_02 5:52

thought

SPEAKER_03 5:54

that was fun. Highway Patrol.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 5:56

West Point. Whiplash. Have Gun, Will Travel.

SPEAKER_02 6:00

All right. That sounds like a Western, I hope.

SPEAKER_03 6:03

Yeah. A couple of Westerns. There's a lot of Western influence.

SPEAKER_02 6:07

Well, Star Trek was meant to be like.

SPEAKER_03 6:10

A Western in space. Yeah. Yeah. And when you go through all the various people that were connected. Maybe with the franchise, but specifically with this film that I actually did pick up on that when I was doing my research. I was like, wow, there's like just a lot of Western influence. The Lieutenant. And then, so I know this is kind of juvenile, but I included these because I thought it was hilarious. It's uncredited credit because I am positive he was not involved with these projects. However, because they pulled from his original property.

SPEAKER_02 6:44

Oh. Oh, I think I'm doing some scrolling and I think I, oh my God.

SPEAKER_03 6:51

There is a sex track franchise.

SPEAKER_02 6:55

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_03 6:56

So like not just one movie.

SPEAKER_02 6:58

No, no, it goes pretty deep.

SPEAKER_03 7:01

So he has, I'm sure he is like, God damn it, if he was aware that he has uncredited credits for the entire franchise of sex track.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

I wonder why they like changed up the number, like the... like Star Trek II, The Wrath of Khan. But the way that they displayed it. Yeah, they like kind of flipped it. So I don't, if you were going to actually like give us some of the titles, I don't want to.

SPEAKER_03 7:25

No, no, I wasn't. I was just going to, I didn't want to, I didn't want to belabor and like spend too much time on something they really had nothing to do with.

SPEAKER_02 7:33

Allow me to elaborate on the question that I just asked then, which is why is Sex Trek II The Search for Sperm? It should be Star Trek III, but then Sex Trek III is The Wrath of Bob. So there you go. I don't know. Yeah, maybe that was some copyright issue. Who knows?

SPEAKER_03 7:48

And then there's another film called Triple X Track, The Final Orgasm, that he has an uncredited credit. Making

SPEAKER_02 7:57

fun of, I think it was Star Trek V, The Final Frontier,

SPEAKER_03 8:01

maybe. Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

Yeah. So there you go. There you go.

SPEAKER_03 8:04

Roddenberry. All right, so moving on. This is the one individual. Well, no, he actually isn't the only one that has an uncredited credit. Samuel A. Peoples. Mm-hmm. So he has a uncredited story by it. From what I can tell, like he came from the same background, so to speak, as Roddenberry. He worked in a ton of television. And this is like when I was saying that, like, oh, wow, so much Western influence. I mean, Owen, I'm sure could tell us exactly how involved he was with the screenplay for this film, like how much influence he did have. But if you look at his other credits, like so I have all TV credits for him. The Rough Riders, The Tall Man, Frontier Circus, Custer, Lancer. So like, again, so much Western influence.

SPEAKER_02 8:53

Bonanza.

SPEAKER_03 8:53

Yeah, I think some of them, I picked the ones that it seemed like he had the most attachment to. How many episodes does it say he was involved with with Bonanza?

SPEAKER_02 9:05

One.

SPEAKER_03 9:05

Okay. So yeah, that's, but it's valid. He still worked on that.

SPEAKER_02 9:09

And the screenplay for a TV movie called Spectre in the 70s that he wrote with Roddenberry that has nothing to do with James Bond, which I thought it did based on it being titled Spectre.

SPEAKER_03 9:20

So the next person we're moving to, it's funny because prior to talking to Owen, I was fully intending to say his first name was Harvey, but apparently it's just Harv because that's how Owen said his name. I believe Owen. Harv Bennett. So he has a story by credit, but he's kind of one of those like producers where he just, you know, and I don't mean this in a negative way, but he kind of sticks his fingers in the So, like, he is really a producer on the film, but he definitely had say and has had say in the way that the stories are fleshed

SPEAKER_02 9:56

out. So he did that so much, though, that he gets a writing credit? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:01

Wow. Okay. Also, The Powers of Matthew Starr. I've heard of that show before. And then he also was involved with the Star Trek franchise for quite a while because he also has writing credits for Star Trek 3, 4, and 5.

SPEAKER_02 10:28

All right.

UNKNOWN 10:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 10:30

All right. We're more than halfway through just our writing credits. So moving on to Jack B. Sowards. All right. So he has a story and screenplay by credit. Actually, you just brought up a show that he I have a credit for him as well Bonanza

SPEAKER_02 10:52

okay

SPEAKER_03 10:52

yeah he doesn't have um as like I didn't have as extensive of like filmography to pull from for him but like I did write except for Star Trek 2 it's all TV for him

SPEAKER_02 11:06

yeah I mean Streets of San Francisco is a big one that he was on

SPEAKER_03 11:09

is that that was a TV show

SPEAKER_02 11:11

yeah TV TV series yeah 43 episodes

SPEAKER_03 11:14

yeah so Although

SPEAKER_02 11:16

that was additional crew. Oh,

SPEAKER_03 11:18

it wasn't in writing capacity. Gotcha. Yeah. So that's what I mean. So we have Bonanza and then like Star Trek 2 is probably his other most notable writing credit. Okay. Okay. So moving on to now, this is so interesting to me because this is also the director of the film, Nicholas Meyer. He has an uncredited screenplay by credit.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

And I do remember. Owen bringing up kind of the, like, what was happening behind the scenes with, like, his involvement in the screenplay, but also the fact that, like, he just ended up not getting a credit for it. But in contrast to most of the people that I've brought up so far, almost all of his other credits are in the film world. Oh, interesting. In a way, I think that worked for the film because they brought on board someone who was like, I don't know this world, so I need to make sure that it's still an entertaining movie for people who aren't Trekkies.

SPEAKER_02 12:27

That feels very intentional because it seems like the production difficulties on the first one were in part because of people wanting to be almost faithful to a point of the original source material from the TV show going to the movie. And so I think it would make sense if they're like, we don't want to do that again.

SPEAKER_03 12:50

Yeah. So as far as his other writing credits, I'm about to get to his directing credits in just a second. But for writing credits, we have, like I said, almost all film, Invasion of the B-Girls, B-E. Oh, okay. The 7% Solution.

SPEAKER_02 13:08

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 13:09

Time After Time.

SPEAKER_02 13:10

I really like that movie. It's 1979, so we won't cover it. Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_03 13:14

I actually don't know that movie, really.

SPEAKER_02 13:16

I think it's basically H.G. Wells using the time machine to save someone from Jack the Ripper, who has also traveled in

SPEAKER_03 13:23

time. Oh, interesting.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

It's kind of a cool concept. I would

SPEAKER_03 13:26

watch that.

SPEAKER_02 13:26

I think Roddy McDowell? No. No, there's a... The reason the villain comes to mind is because he was also the villain in Star Trek Generations.

SPEAKER_03 13:37

Oh, okay. Well, he... Meyer was...

SPEAKER_02 13:39

Malcolm McDowell. Malcolm McDowell.

SPEAKER_03 13:41

All those McDowells. Yeah. Meyer was also a writer on Star Trek 4 so he was part of that company business as well as Star Trek 6 so he's kind of skipped around with some of the films that he's been involved with as far as the writing process goes he wrote on Summersbee The Human Stain Elegy and then

SPEAKER_02 14:02

I'm sorry the what? The Human Stain?

SPEAKER_03 14:04

Yeah The Human Stain and then more recently he did actually like it's not that he hasn't worked in television I just saw that most of his work was in film but he did work Okay. Yeah. So, all right. Back to Nicholas Meyer. Oh, right. Uh, this was really early in his career. This was only his second directing credit. So he's a pretty young guy.

SPEAKER_02 14:29

That's pretty impressive. Pretty fresh.

SPEAKER_03 14:31

Yeah. And as far as his directing credits, like there's like a little bit of crossover in terms of like, we've talked about this at length where a lot of people direct their own material. So there's some of those credits and some not. So, um, He did direct Time After Time. He was director of Volunteers, as well as The Deceivers. He did direct Company Business, as well as he did come back for Star Trek VI, The Undiscovered Country.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Yeah, and also he directed the TV movie Vendetta, not to be confused with V for Vendetta.

SPEAKER_03 15:06

V for Vendetta.

SPEAKER_02 15:06

Very different movies.

SPEAKER_03 15:07

Very different movies. Okay, moving on to cinematography. Okay. His name? Gane Rutcher? I

SPEAKER_02 15:17

think that works for me. Okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 15:23

Okay. I try real hard

SPEAKER_02 15:24

to say names correctly. I know you do. I know you do. Yeah. I am not trying to minimize the effort that you put in to get that name right. When I'm looking at it, I just have no clue.

SPEAKER_03 15:33

Okay. As far as his work is concerned, it's not that he hasn't had like an extensive filmography, but a lot of them, the way that I decided to like compartmentalize.

SPEAKER_02 15:48

Compartmentalize? There you go. All right. I'm like, are we doing carpet?

SPEAKER_03 15:53

Is that I looked at his credits. So of his 88 DP credits, 53 of them are TV movies. So I'm just not listing those out. But yeah, big chunk of his career, TV movies. But outside of that, so I thought this was funny. He did a TV series called The Doctors and the Nurses. Right. But then he did a film called The Doctor and the Playgirl.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Interesting.

SPEAKER_03 16:20

Yeah. All right. I see that sometimes. I'm like, oh, odd. I think there's actually another one that's coming up that's even funnier. He did a film called John and Mary. Norman. Is that you? Like, it's like Norman dot, dot, dot ellipses.

SPEAKER_02 16:38

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_03 16:38

Is that you? Then I love the title of this movie, Ali Ali Oxenfree.

SPEAKER_02 16:43

That is fun.

SPEAKER_03 16:44

So that is Rutcher. Okay. So this gentleman, yes, he has come up in the past. Editor? No, music.

SPEAKER_02 16:58

Oh, yeah. And

SPEAKER_03 16:59

he's going to come up again real fast. Real soon.

SPEAKER_02 17:02

That is a... a small clue I guess

SPEAKER_03 17:06

yeah as far as what's coming on what's on deck

SPEAKER_02 17:09

but to be clear it is not clue

SPEAKER_03 17:10

it is not clue we've done clue we have you should go listen to clue that was last season okay James Horner

SPEAKER_02 17:16

yeah

SPEAKER_03 17:18

uh and I would say that this is kind of his it's not that he hadn't done stuff before this movie came along but this is arguably like his first major

SPEAKER_02 17:28

movie credit I think he was about 28 or so when he got this opportunity and it was because they again due to some of like the production issues in the motion picture the first Star Trek movie they were looking for ways to save a few dollars and so they found a young James Horner who decided to just blow melt everyone's face off with the soundtrack for this movie

SPEAKER_03 17:52

I mean James Horner a much beloved composer who I'm about to go through how many credits did I list out for him almost 30 well 23 credits and while he had an amazing career he still left us too soon I think it was 2015 that he was in a one person plane crash and like I remember hearing that and being like kind of shocked by the way that he passed and so it's sad because it's like you know you think what else could he have contributed as as far as like iconic scores. But again, we're lucky that we had him for as long as we did because as far as his films go, holy cow. So all pretty, pretty big name movies. He did 48 Hours as well as its sequel, Another 48 Hours. He did come back for Star Trek III, The Search for Spock.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 18:57

So he was the composer behind that. Cocoon, The Journey of Natty Gans. Commando now we talked about him for Aliens

SPEAKER_02 19:10

oh yeah and there are like I'll let you tell the story

SPEAKER_03 19:16

so basically and it's funny because he got a best original score Oscar nomination for Aliens now Aliens comes four years after Rathacon so on that particular production though he was so rushed to get Cameron something that he pulled from his existing material so like in when you watch Wrath of Khan you can kind of hear some like I'm so woefully ignorant of like proper music terminology but like you can hear kind of bars of music that you're like huh that sounds kind of familiar and it's because he reused it I

SPEAKER_02 19:59

don't think there's anything wrong with that I think it's like people have have accused John Williams of that to a much more significant degree, but I think it's also fair to say that different composers have a different sound. You hear a movie and you're like, oh, this sounds like it's probably Hans Zimmer or this is probably John Williams. And there are a few exceptions where you're like, oh, I didn't realize so and so did this.

SPEAKER_03 20:25

I don't care. It doesn't bother me in the least. He got another, well, he got an Oscar now as far as like best original song for an american tale um he did american tale five old goes west batteries not included i'm kind of shocked we haven't done willow yet

SPEAKER_02 20:45

yeah um i am too

SPEAKER_03 20:46

yeah we gotta we gotta get to that one i mean all these films that i've mentioned are all on the docket as far as like us having the

SPEAKER_02 20:53

ability to do them finally a solid legends of the fall connection

SPEAKER_03 20:58

oh yeah you're getting ahead of me

SPEAKER_02 20:59

i'm sorry i just i couldn't wait

SPEAKER_03 21:01

he got another best original score Oscar nomination for Feel the Dreams. Oh. All right. Oh. Okay. Yeah. All right. Honey, I Shrunk the Kids. I think the last time we did talk about him or he came up in some regard, I mentioned how the score that he did. So for me, Glory very much invokes the same response that I have to Last of the Mohicans, where I'm just a big sobbing mess.

UNKNOWN 21:32

You love that movie.

SPEAKER_03 21:33

when that score really picks up

SPEAKER_02 21:35

what glory means to me is that my teacher in in like high school probably yeah had nothing planned and so I

SPEAKER_03 21:44

watched it in school as well

SPEAKER_02 21:46

yeah so we're just watching glory

SPEAKER_03 21:47

yeah but it was and I remember seeing it in school and then being so moved by it that I went home and watched it again it was just like crying in my bedroom I was a weird kid anyway um paid did Patriot Games as well as Clear and Present Danger, a film that I definitely have a soft guilty spot for, A Far Off Place. Oh, yeah. Love that movie. To your point, Legends of the Fall.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Which is not A Far Off Place. That Far Off Place was with...

SPEAKER_03 22:21

Reese Witherspoon and Ethan Embry.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

Son of a gun. I was going to say Kidman and Cruise, but that's...

SPEAKER_03 22:27

No, that's Far and Away. God

SPEAKER_02 22:28

damn it. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 22:29

Which I think is John Williams. So Legends of the Fall he gets I mean he had he did he just win well he had a double win for probably the most obvious film but ton of other Oscar nominations and he really really hit his stride in the 90s Oscar nomination for score for Braveheart Oscar nomination for score for Apollo 13 yep so you can tell that he he did worked a lot he worked a lot with Cameron and with Ron Howard for he got that double win for best score and best original song for Titanic so that's why I called it kind of the obvious one he gets another Oscar nom best score for A Beautiful Mind he gets another Oscar nom beautiful or original score for House of Sand and Fog he did do the original score and yes got another Oscar nomination for it for Avatar.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 23:36

And then some of his like kind of final credits before he passed The Amazing Spider-Man and The Magnificent Seven.

SPEAKER_02 23:43

I mean, I think that his score for Star Trek to the Wrath of Khan is the best in the series. I know that if I if I'm getting this right, I think the theme for the motion picture is what was then turned into the theme for the next generation series. And it's kind of become like the official Okay. Star Trek theme. But in two and three in particular, you hear that the score from this movie from death of Khan. And I wish they had not gone away from it, but I think it was like intended to like give you this like sense of like, like this movie is like a naval battle in space. And the, and the music was supposed to like emulate that.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

I don't

SPEAKER_02 24:29

know if they decided to move away from it, but anyways, that's all I've got to say. about that

SPEAKER_03 24:33

okay so film editing uh the gentleman's name william paul dornish only his second feature credit all right yeah and he really didn't have again like a a hugely robust filmography to pull from he only had seven total editing credits um one was the film brothers and another notable one was the tv series macgyver

SPEAKER_02 24:59

oh yeah four episodes of macgyver nice there

SPEAKER_03 25:02

you go

SPEAKER_02 25:02

so So it was probably those episodes where he did something with the pocket knife.

SPEAKER_03 25:10

So, oh, my goodness, we have a lot of people to get through in terms of the stars of this film. We we talk about at least I brought it up with Owen because I thought it was really interesting. Like there is kind of this like shorthand in the film because so many of these characters are really familiar characters because they were all. part of the TV show. They

SPEAKER_02 25:34

were.

SPEAKER_03 25:35

So starting with William Shatner. He is James Tiberius Kirk. So far, he's still going strong at 93.

SPEAKER_02 25:46

Still starring in Stars on Mars. Stars on Mars. Go

SPEAKER_03 25:50

watch it. It's fun. 253 acting credits as of this recording.

SPEAKER_02 25:55

I'm almost surprised it's not more. That is a lot, right?

SPEAKER_03 25:59

It is a lot. I mean, part of, I mean, He is so well known for the Star Trek world, and he certainly did great work post-Star Trek, but I wonder if maybe that did have somewhat of an impact on his career at certain periods of time, because it's like, well, everybody thinks you're Captain Kirk.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

It's impossible for me to look at him and not at least have that thought in the back of my mind. Oh, it's Captain

SPEAKER_03 26:26

Kirk. Who knows? But among his credits, so much TV work, so So, so, so much. And honestly, that's going to be a really repetitious refrain for me for basically everybody that I'm about to cover. They all did a ton of TV work. But among some of the more notable TV and film projects that he was part of, The Brothers Karamazov. You say it.

SPEAKER_02 26:56

Can you give me a year?

SPEAKER_03 26:58

The Brothers Karamazov.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Okay. I accept that. Yeah, The Brothers Karamazov.

SPEAKER_03 27:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 27:05

Yeah, where he played Alexei Karamazov.

SPEAKER_03 27:07

Okay. Judgment at Nuremberg.

SPEAKER_02 27:10

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 27:11

The TV series 77 Sunset Strip. Another TV show for the people. So this is all pre-Star Trek, the TV show. Okay. Incubus, then we get to Star Trek, the original series, is the way that they now title it on IMDb. It probably was just Star Trek back before everything else came along.

SPEAKER_02 27:34

So it was three seasons, basically, right? See, 79 episodes. I'm assuming he was in every one.

SPEAKER_03 27:39

Yeah, I think so. Yeah, it's crazy how much of a franchise this became off of a show that wasn't really on the air that long. But so did that. And then, yeah, so many other Star Trek properties that he obviously was involved with. I didn't realize that there was a Star Trek animated series. Oh, I didn't. TV show somewhere. Yeah. He was part of that. Another TV show called Barbary Coast. And then, yes, as far as like the Star Trek movies go, he was part of the first. After this one, the third, fourth, fifth, sixth, as well as Star Trek Generations.

SPEAKER_02 28:19

Yeah, I think that was the last one that he's in.

SPEAKER_03 28:21

He was in the film Airplane 2, the sequel.

SPEAKER_02 28:25

Commander Buck Murdoch.

SPEAKER_03 28:27

I suppose if you didn't know him as Captain Kirk, maybe you know him as T.J. Hooker.

SPEAKER_02 28:32

Please. Please, I just want to ask everyone to please do this. Go to YouTube, look at the intro, the opening sequence for TJ Hooker. You'll thank me. It's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 28:44

With him like rolling over the car.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

It's amazing. The stunts that he's doing, like jumping over, rolling over the hood of the car. Just please.

SPEAKER_03 28:51

And that in itself is kind of amazing that he did have this whole other like property that was quite successful that like he was able to do

SPEAKER_02 28:59

afterwards. Yeah, more episodes of TJ Hooker than Star Trek.

SPEAKER_03 29:02

Crazy. I love him in Miss Congeniality. Oh, yeah. He is so funny. Yeah. He's a very funny actor.

SPEAKER_02 29:12

Very much so.

SPEAKER_03 29:13

So he was in that. He came back for its sequel, Armed and Fabulous. Another comedy, he's in Dodgeball, True Underdog Story. And then for quite a while, he was on the TV show Boston Legal.

SPEAKER_02 29:25

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 29:26

And like I said, still going strong. Stars on Mars. All right. Moving on to Leonard Nimoy, who, of course, play Spock, no longer with us. Unfortunately, quite a few people from the original television show are no longer with us. But of course, he is just so identifiable as Spock. But he also did a ton of other stuff outside of that. I mean, among his credits, I love this, Zombies of the Stratosphere.

SPEAKER_02 29:59

Yeah, I mean, we've actually covered him once before.

SPEAKER_03 30:03

You're right. His voice work.

SPEAKER_02 30:07

Yes, yes, yes. So

SPEAKER_03 30:09

he did a film called Death Watch. So a couple of his TV series prior to Star Trek, The Virginian as well as Gunsmoke. So again, these like Western influences. It's really interesting. He did obviously do Star Trek, the original series, but he also was on the TV show of Mission Impossible. Interesting. Yeah. He too did voice work for Star Trek. for Star Trek, the animated series. He was in the 1978 version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Okay. As far as the Star Trek films go, again, he was part of the first. This is the second that we're covering. Third, fourth, fifth, sixth. So he didn't come back for Generations.

SPEAKER_02 30:52

I'm pretty sure Kirk was the only one that came back for that. Who came back for that?

SPEAKER_03 30:56

Scotty did too. Did he? Okay. I'll get to him in a second. But yes, now to your point... He did voice work for the Transformers, the movie.

SPEAKER_02 31:07

The Transformers, the movie.

SPEAKER_03 31:08

The Transformers, the movie. That was all the way back in season one. But we do encourage you to go back to that episode. Check that one out. Then I love the way that they bill him. So we just were talking about kind of the reboots of the Star Trek movies.

SPEAKER_02 31:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 31:28

So he is in both Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness.

UNKNOWN 31:32

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_03 31:33

The way that they title him is he is Spock Prime.

SPEAKER_02 31:38

It's not as much of a multiverse as it is this split timeline kind of thing for the reboot. And I guess it makes sense. They solve a lot of issues as far as just rebooting a franchise by playing fast and loose. And

SPEAKER_03 31:54

also, they're playing to the audience, which is fine. Give the fans what they want.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

Sometimes that's okay.

SPEAKER_03 32:00

Yes, sometimes that's okay. And then you... the show he was also on Fringe.

SPEAKER_02 32:04

I do like that show. It is... It's a bit of a slog to get through. There's a lot. There's a lot. Yeah, there's a lot.

SPEAKER_03 32:13

All right. Moving on to, damn it, Jim, Dr. McCoy, DeForest Kelly. Yep. And yes, another super familiar face. I would say arguably, you know, not at all to take away from his other acting work, but is known. He is known as Dr. McCoy. So,

SPEAKER_02 32:36

yeah, I mean, Shatner and Nimoy. I I am aware of other things, even though I identify them primarily from their Star Trek roles. But for a lot of their characters, that's really what I really, really connect with them on.

SPEAKER_03 32:52

And like I said, all of these actors, so many one-offs, TV appearances on other properties. And then pre his work on Star Trek, the original series, some of the other things that he did, a couple films. Kelly was part of a film called Ridey Girl. Duke of Chicago, Gunfight at the OK Corral. OK. He also was on Bonanza. Fucking Bonanza. Yeah. So again, this like Western influence. And then it seems like after he became part of the Star Trek world, that really was like where he kind of stayed. So like the most notable credits I have for him are the original series he also voiced on the animated series. And then he too was part of the original film as well as obviously the one we're covering today, three, four, five, and six.

SPEAKER_02 33:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 33:44

Okay. So moving on to James Doohan. So he is Scotty. And yeah, I mean, I'm not, I'm really not trying to sound like a broken record, but it does seem like, well, he ventured out a little bit more. So like pre-Star Wars, or I'm so sorry. I'm going to really upset a lot of people. All

SPEAKER_02 34:06

those people who are big fans of Gandalf are going to Aren't going to like you bringing up Star Wars instead of Hogwarts.

SPEAKER_03 34:13

So pre-Star Trek, my apologies, he was part of a couple of different TV shows, Encounter, the serial, the one that I just know off name recognition, Peyton Place.

SPEAKER_02 34:29

Oh,

SPEAKER_03 34:29

okay. Yeah. So he did all of those. Then pretty much same Zs. So he does the original series. He also voices on the animated series. And then as far as the films go, he was part of 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and he was part of Generations.

SPEAKER_02 34:47

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 34:47

But he did veer off a little bit. Like, after all of those, like, he was part of the film Loaded Weapon 1. He

SPEAKER_02 34:54

played Scotty in that.

SPEAKER_03 34:55

Oh, did he? Yeah. Well, there you go. And then I guarantee you, though, he did not play Scotty in The Bold and the Beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 35:03

No. It looks like he played a character by the name of Damon Warwick.

SPEAKER_03 35:07

There you go. That sounds very soap opera. So he was on that for quite a while. All right. So moving on to Walter Koenig. He is Chekhov. Of the people we've talked about so far, he has probably the most concise filmography. He was very young. And so like the first most notable credit I have for him is Star Trek, the original series. And then actually he, same as Shatner and Duman, he was part of the original film.

SPEAKER_02 35:42

I have an interesting tidbit about him, but I can wait until we get through his filmography.

SPEAKER_03 35:47

Oh, sure. I'll be done in just a jiffy. So first, second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, he also was part of Generations.

SPEAKER_02 35:53

Oh, man, I need to rewatch that.

SPEAKER_03 35:55

He was on a film called Moontrap.

SPEAKER_02 35:58

Okay. Sounds like something with like a trap on a moon.

SPEAKER_03 36:01

I thought this was fun because isn't this also like a space show, Babylon 5? It is.

SPEAKER_02 36:07

Yeah, very much. I don't think they exist in the same universe.

SPEAKER_03 36:12

But he was on that.

SPEAKER_02 36:12

But maybe they do. I don't know. So what

SPEAKER_03 36:15

was your trivia?

SPEAKER_02 36:16

So he was in the original series, but the episode that Wrath of Khan is based from is Space Seed, which aired on February in 1967. But the character of Pavel Chekhov didn't appear until September of 1967. So the beginning of the Wrath of Khan is Khan looks at Chekhov and says, I never forget a face. Well, you were not in the same episode.

SPEAKER_03 36:45

That's very funny.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

So there's a novelization of the wrath of Khan that talks about how Chekhov was actually working somehow in security during space seat. And because like he did something to delay Khan and that impressed Kirk enough to like, uh, give him a position on the bridge.

SPEAKER_03 37:00

Wow. They really did some retconning.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

And the director just said like, yeah, we, we got that wrong. It's fine.

SPEAKER_03 37:06

It's fine. Yeah. But you know, what though I get it because for fans of and not just Star Trek but like different franchises yeah they get a certain way when

SPEAKER_02 37:18

I never knew that I never knew that he that he technically wouldn't have actually like seen him until they retconned it but I think that was that was kind of fun that's interesting

SPEAKER_03 37:28

all right moving on to a gentleman who is very much with us and is much beloved George Takai

SPEAKER_02 37:35

yeah

SPEAKER_03 37:36

so in this film well in the entire franchise he is Sulu and so far because he is also very active 246 acting credits as of this recording and yeah he's he arguably has had the most diversity I

SPEAKER_02 37:57

think so

SPEAKER_03 37:58

in his filmography

SPEAKER_02 37:59

yeah he's done a ton

SPEAKER_03 38:01

ton of stuff

SPEAKER_02 38:02

a lot of voice stuff

SPEAKER_03 38:03

a lot of voice stuff and he's he's maneuvered pretty smoothly between film and television. Pre-Star Trek, he did a couple films, Walk, Don't Run, as far as the Green Berets. Yes, part of the original series. Yes, part of the animated series. He is in, as far as the film work, the original 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6. I thought that was interesting. I don't know if I knew this film existed. He was in Return from the River Kwai. I didn't know there was a sequel to that. He does the voice work for the 1998 Mulan.

SPEAKER_02 38:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 38:44

So

SPEAKER_02 38:44

he's in that. Otherwise known as Mulan.

SPEAKER_03 38:47

Yeah. And now here is where we are getting into what you were just saying with like the ton of voice work. He has a very identifiable voice. He does. Very distinct. So he's done voice work for Futurama, The Simpsons.

SPEAKER_02 39:00

Well, in Futurama, it's literally his head because they have like celebrities or presidents heads in jars that are like alive. So he's like George Oh,

SPEAKER_03 39:08

that's

SPEAKER_02 39:19

kind of

SPEAKER_03 39:20

dark. Supa Ninjas oh sounds fun so and he's also just very active on social media he is he he is a great advocate for many progressive movements um he makes his opinions known like yeah he's cool all right moving on to Nichelle Nichols um who I think is probably of the people who are no longer with us the one who passed the most recently

SPEAKER_02 40:06

yeah yeah

SPEAKER_03 40:08

um

SPEAKER_02 40:08

very Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 40:09

So she's Yajura. And I mean, obviously, she was so beloved and well known as this character. Her filmography isn't as robust as some of the other people that we've talked about so far. But pre-Star Trek, she was in a film, which I love the title, Doctor. You've got to be kidding. I feel like that is something that somebody on Star Trek would say. She was part of the original series, of course. Also part of the animated series with the film work. So I apologize. I know that this is like becomes a little repetitive, but this is just a very different kind of film that we've covered because it is sourced from a TV show where there's this huge

SPEAKER_02 40:55

ensemble

SPEAKER_03 41:03

cast. This one, three, four, five, and six. She, later in her career, was in the film Are We There Yet? Oh. She also did some soap opera work. She was on The Young and the Restless. Okay. For a while. And then she did come back for more Star Trek film work. She's in Star Trek First Frontier. Oh. All right. All right. So now we've gone

SPEAKER_02 41:30

through... The main crew. The main crew. Like the main players of the Starship Enterprise.

SPEAKER_03 41:36

Correct. But... We do have...

SPEAKER_02 41:39

But wait, there's more.

SPEAKER_03 41:41

But wait, there's more. Yeah, this might be the most robust cast I've... Holy shit, we haven't even gotten to Khan yet. Yeah, exactly. So, okay, moving on to Bebe Besch, who plays Carol. She is, what we learn, Captain Kirk's former lover, I guess you would say. I don't like that word. It sounds so strange to me and also the mother of his child

SPEAKER_02 42:12

yes yeah

SPEAKER_03 42:14

so she she's great I think she's fantastic she

SPEAKER_02 42:18

is great in this yeah

SPEAKER_03 42:20

very capable so she's no longer with us she passed I think within 10 years of this film no no no maybe 15 maybe 15 years of this film coming out so she was on a TV series called The Secret Storm her like big monster project. She was on a show called Love is a Many Splendored Thing.

SPEAKER_02 42:44

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 42:45

506 episodes.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

Holy shit. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 42:47

She was on it for a while.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 42:50

She was also on a TV series called Secrets of Midland Heights. Some familiar films that I think they're familiar films that she was part of. Who's That Girl? The Madonna. Oh, really? Yeah. Steel Magnolias.

SPEAKER_02 43:02

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 43:02

Betsy's Wedding with Molly Ringwald. She was on the TV show The All right.

SPEAKER_02 43:09

Well,

SPEAKER_03 43:13

they're not all going to be bangers. Did pass quite young and quite soon after. Well, he died. I think he died in the 80s. So unfortunately, we just didn't have a chance to see where his career was going to go. Of what we have, he was on the or he was in the film Zapped.

SPEAKER_02 43:58

Oh, yeah. That's a. Yeah, that's. Yeah. That's like the if telekinesis and Porky's made a movie. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 44:08

I don't know if that film is eligible to be covered. I

SPEAKER_02 44:12

have no interest in that.

SPEAKER_03 44:14

I was surprised to see that he was on the TV show Square Pegs. That was like kind of the first Sarah Jessica Parker. Oh, OK. Thing that she did. Yeah. He was in Star Trek three, The Search for Spock.

SPEAKER_02 44:29

He he certainly was. He was actually he had a lot more to do in that movie, I think, because they're like exploring the Genesis plot. planet created at the end of the wrath of Khan and you learn about the shortcuts he made to like get the Genesis project to its fruition so yeah Savik kind of like gives him a burn like oh you are like your dad you also cheat or you know like like yeah you know take it easy on him wow but yeah you know he's he's in three spoilers he is killed in three as well yeah

SPEAKER_03 45:07

he also Also was part of the film Fright Night Part 2.

SPEAKER_02 45:12

I often forget that there's Fright Night Part 2.

SPEAKER_03 45:14

First one's so good. I actually just bought the DVD.

SPEAKER_02 45:17

I might have to check out two. Maybe we will. One doesn't necessarily lend itself to a sequel, if I'm remembering

SPEAKER_03 45:24

right. Yeah, it wouldn't have to be a whole new cast of characters, but there'd have to be a brand new baddie.

SPEAKER_02 45:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:31

In any case, I love this actor so much, Paul Winfield.

SPEAKER_02 45:35

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 45:36

He's so good.

SPEAKER_02 45:37

Well, we see we're going to be talking about him again soonish. Well, no, we're not.

SPEAKER_03 45:45

But we didn't see him very recently. We'll get to that. We'll get to that. So he plays.

SPEAKER_02 45:52

So close. We were so close, though.

SPEAKER_03 45:54

Yeah. He plays Terrell. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:57

Doesn't go well for him.

SPEAKER_03 45:58

No, it doesn't. So he is what? Arguably, he's the captain of the other spaceship, right? I think he is. Isn't he the captain of the Reliant? Yes. Okay. So it's him and Chekov that get taken together.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

Is that? does that seem like it would be proper protocol? Like here, this one guy and the captain go on this abandoned planet.

SPEAKER_03 46:21

Yeah. I mean, not to be elitist here, but it's like, why are you putting your most important person on this like dangerous mission? Like

SPEAKER_02 46:28

there's gotta be a couple of red shirts. Yeah. You gotta

SPEAKER_03 46:30

send those guys first before you send them. Yeah, no, it is. It is a little bit of a movie thing where it's like that probably wouldn't be the way that that would go. But

SPEAKER_02 46:40

captain's got a whole ship to take care of. Exactly. Exactly. time for this

SPEAKER_03 46:44

yeah so he's fantastic i love this actor so much um so some of his credits uh mostly film i at least have down for him sounder huckleberry finn love this title so much a hero ain't nothing but a sandwich

SPEAKER_02 47:04

i love that

SPEAKER_03 47:06

great title

SPEAKER_02 47:06

yeah

SPEAKER_03 47:07

i want so much to cover this movie because he is awesome in it the terminator like that's another film like how have we hadn't done that yet

SPEAKER_02 47:15

he he is it is I don't know he's

SPEAKER_03 47:18

like he obviously doesn't have a huge part and unfortunately he meets his demise in that film as well yeah but he is so good like he is so captivating for the short amount of time that he is on screen

SPEAKER_02 47:31

yeah

SPEAKER_03 47:32

and in particular I love the rapport between him and Lance Hendrickson who also just isn't there very long but holy shit those guys are great so he's in that he's in Serpent and the Rainbow, a couple TV series. He was on the show The Charmings. He was on 227. Now here is where the hang-up was.

SPEAKER_02 47:54

Yeah, my apologies.

SPEAKER_03 47:55

No, it's okay. So just a few days prior, we had some friends over, both prior guests on the podcast, and the four of us watched Presumed Innocent.

SPEAKER_02 48:09

Or he is Judge Laren Little.

SPEAKER_03 48:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 48:11

And he is fantastic in that. He

SPEAKER_03 48:13

is. He's just always so good. He's so good at literally everything he does.

SPEAKER_02 48:17

So many performances in that movie are really good. And his was phenomenal.

SPEAKER_03 48:22

He just fucking chews up everything that he's given. And what's funny about the fact, like the reason in part why we watched Presume Innocent is because one of our friends made a very robust argument for the potential to cover that film on this podcast because technically it was in production in the Hades, but we have to go by the release date. So look

SPEAKER_02 48:49

forward to our next episode of Not Presumed Innocent.

SPEAKER_03 48:53

And it's 1990, so there you go. He's also in Cliffhanger, Mars Attacks, and he's done—I mean, he has a very distinctive voice. He's done some voice work, namely Kids' Ten Commandments series. Okay. So it's like a series of different

SPEAKER_02 49:09

movies. For ten kids?

SPEAKER_03 49:11

For— Oh. For kids, I presume to learn about, like, the Ten Commandments. Okay. Moving on to—you mentioned her, but I think she was recast in 3? Sure.

SPEAKER_02 49:23

was

SPEAKER_03 49:24

so Savick as played in this specific film by Kirstie Alley

SPEAKER_02 49:30

yeah I I think the recast was fine in three but I would have preferred Alley to have been able to return to that role yeah but I don't know why she didn't I not sure if it was just a scheduling thing or what but

SPEAKER_03 49:44

so I think in between when we last brought her up which was summer school

SPEAKER_02 49:50

yeah

SPEAKER_03 49:50

so we definitely encourage you guys to go back to that episode. I believe that was season two. She has since passed. Yeah. Very surprising. I was quite shocked to hear of her passing. But while she was with us, I mean, she has a really interesting career trajectory. I think it did come up briefly with Owen because she starts off pretty straight with like dramatic work, but then really found her wheelhouse with comedy. So some of her very early work, this has come up now a couple of times with different episodes, North and South.

SPEAKER_02 50:29

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 50:30

So she was in both. There's like a book one just called North and South and the book to love and war.

SPEAKER_02 50:36

Good Lord. It's

SPEAKER_03 50:41

so dramatic. And then she gets her own kind of franchise going with Look Who's Talking. Yeah. So she's in that, Look Who's Talking 2, T-O-O, as well as Look Who's Talking Now.

SPEAKER_02 51:06

At a certain point, isn't the kid like fucking 10 years old or

SPEAKER_03 51:10

something? They're just talking? the third film, I think it's the dog that

SPEAKER_02 51:24

talks. Oh, that makes sense. Although there doesn't have one like we're all talking now.

SPEAKER_03 51:28

Yeah, of course. Probably. I'm guessing most people know her from her role as Rebecca on Cheers.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

Yeah, very different dynamic as compared to the Sam and Diane. I

SPEAKER_03 51:40

prefer the Sam and Diane years.

SPEAKER_02 51:42

Everyone did. Yeah, everyone did. Right. Like, no, that's kind of man. It's like I turn on The Office and I see Will Ferrell, who I think is great. And I'm like, right oh oh we're in that season I gotta right maybe I'm gonna see what else is on

SPEAKER_03 51:57

yeah

SPEAKER_02 51:57

that's the same way I

SPEAKER_03 51:58

see I see what yeah yep I agree with that

SPEAKER_02 52:00

I'm not watching cheers anytime like recently really but back when it was still like on and syndicate you'd see it more more frequently I'd see that she's on I'm like oh she's good but I kind of like the older I think

SPEAKER_03 52:13

um cheers kind of first lost its charm when coach was no longer part of it which of course there was nothing that could be done the actor passed away but he brought such a delightful enchanting tone to that show and then when Shelley Long laughed I was like eh yeah so um okay so among her other credits though we have a couple films Deconstructing Harry I think I've said this probably every time this film's come up she first of all is phenomenal and drop dead gorgeous yes and for anybody who hasn't watched that movie it is so darkly funny please go watch it it's not an 80s movie we can't cover it here so all I can do is encourage you to watch it

SPEAKER_02 53:00

after you see the intro for TJ Hooker immediately move over to that

SPEAKER_03 53:05

and then some TV work Veronica's Closet which she was like the star of that particular one and then Scream Queens

SPEAKER_02 53:13

wasn't that basically like Victoria's Secret Veronica's Closet I think it was like a play on that

SPEAKER_03 53:18

yeah okay our last actor But certainly not least. Certainly not least, Ricardo Montalban, who plays the titular Khan.

SPEAKER_02 53:32

He is insanely good in this. He's

SPEAKER_03 53:35

so good. He's so fun. He just, I think, you know, he struck that note of, like, he gave it every fiber of his being, but also has, like, given us a little wink. You know, like, I know this is all just, like, kind of cheesy camp, but I'm going to go for it. Yeah. So. So he is absolutely fantastic. And yeah, it's really interesting. Again, coming back to this refrain that was first brought up during our chat, I was surprised by a couple of the Western properties that he was part of.

SPEAKER_02 54:08

I have heard it said that... People now are getting a little bit of, like, comic book fatigue. And, like, today's comic books are yesterday's westerns. Interesting. Everything was a western.

SPEAKER_03 54:23

Everything was a western in, like, the 50s and 60s. Yeah, for sure.

SPEAKER_02 54:27

And eventually, like, transitioned away from that. And I feel like we're now, like, many years from now, people look at all the damn comic book movies, superhero movies, and be like, how are there so many?

SPEAKER_03 54:37

Yeah. So, amongst some of, um, mostly TV I have for But certainly some notable films. So he was on the show, the Loretta Young show. All right. Dr. Kildare. Yes, I put this in just because I wanted the continuity. He was in one episode of Star Trek, the original series.

SPEAKER_02 55:00

Indeed.

SPEAKER_03 55:01

So that is where they pulled the storyline from. Yep. So he did have a guest appearance on that. He was also in or on The Virginian. Oh. So he did that. He, couple Planet of the Apes films. He was in Escape from the Planet of the Apes, as well as Conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

SPEAKER_02 55:23

Okay. I mean, I got to be honest, after just the Planet of the Apes, I watched a little bit of the second one, which I can't remember even what that was. That

SPEAKER_03 55:30

was a monstrous franchise as well. Yeah. And that got the reboot too. Twice. It got

SPEAKER_02 55:34

two reboots? Kind of, because there was like the Tim Burton one, which didn't really go anywhere, I don't think. And then they redid it? And then there was just like- The prequel-ish reboots.

SPEAKER_03 55:46

Oh,

SPEAKER_02 55:46

okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:47

Wow. He was on the show How the West Was Won. All right. And then, I mean, I would say that, like, a lot of people do know him as Khan, but maybe you know him from Fantasy Island.

SPEAKER_02 55:59

I'm aware of him, but I never watched the show, but I, like...

SPEAKER_03 56:02

Yeah,

SPEAKER_02 56:03

yeah. That intro.

SPEAKER_03 56:04

Right.

SPEAKER_02 56:05

The

SPEAKER_03 56:05

plane. And he did this, like, concurrent with... Like, he was in the middle of Fantasy Island when this film opportunity came up. Yeah. That it was like maybe a little bit of like a Michael J. Fox situation where he was just like incredibly busy because he was like having to like work like Michael J. Fox between Family Ties and Back to the Future. Like that's a whole story about him making both of them work.

SPEAKER_02 56:28

He never actually had at any point in this movie a face to face interaction with Shatner. No, it's

SPEAKER_03 56:34

always TV screens.

SPEAKER_02 56:35

Yeah, because he was having to separately like film some of that stuff.

SPEAKER_03 56:40

So he as far as film work, other film work. Cannonball Run 2.

SPEAKER_02 56:44

Oh, yeah. Cannonball Run movies. Those are just.

SPEAKER_03 56:48

He also has his own primetime, but soap opera project, The Colbys. Oh. So he was on that. He was in The Naked Gun. Yeah. From the Files of Police Squad. The TV show Heaven Help Us. And then, yeah, in his like, like later in his career, he was in the Spy Kids movies. Not the first one.

SPEAKER_02 57:14

Oh, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:15

But he was in Spy Kids 2, Island of the Lost Dreams, and Spy Kids 3, Game Over. I think he's like literally the grandpa of the two kids. And then, of course, beyond everything that I've mentioned, as with pretty much every other person that we've covered, lots of TV work. All right. Okay. We did it. We did it. It was a lot. Film synopsis. Oh, yeah. What do you got? With the assistance of the Enterprise crew... Admiral Kirk must stop an old nemesis from using the life-generating Genesis device as the ultimate weapon.

SPEAKER_02 57:52

Yeah, that's pretty solid, right? Yeah. Yeah. I got no concerns with that.

SPEAKER_03 57:58

So, on that note, let's get into it with our returning guest, Owen.

SPEAKER_02 58:04

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_03 58:05

All right. We are truly so excited to have this returning guest back on the show. not only is he a wonderful guest he's just a wonderful person we love this guy so much uh this is his third time on the show so he first guested on the podcast and we can officially call him now a friend of the pod it's true it's true he all the way back in season one was with us when we did big trouble in little china that's right so we encourage you to go back to that episode to hear his first time on the show then he returned for what i believe was the season finale finale of season two so that was a fun one because that was buckaroo bonsai no the adventures of buckaroo bonsai across the eighth dimension he drove right through that mountain so he guested on that show with us go back to that one hear his thoughts on that film and now he's back with us today owen croak he is a writer and a screenwriter he lives right here in la with us so we are very lucky to get to see him uh as a friend and He happens to be a science fiction, would you say aficionado? I think that's the correct term. You're asking me? Yeah. Sure. Yeah. He also is a Trekkie, which is perfect for this episode. Owen, welcome back.

SPEAKER_01 59:29

Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_03 59:31

We are so thrilled that you get to be on the show, but also we had the chance to experience the film in 4K, no less, with you. And so this is just like... Over the moon fun. And Owen, as I do, you know the drill now. My first question for you is just, do you have an initial memory of seeing this film? No wrong answers, but if you did, what was your first response to it?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:01

Yeah, so I think unlike previous films we talked about, this is definitely one that I sought out. I don't think it's ever been brought up on this show, but Star Trek's 2, 3, and 4 are a trilogy. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:19

You don't say. And

SPEAKER_01 1:00:22

I sort of saw them in reverse order as a kid, I think, where it was like... That's amazing. Right. So this was like the one that we didn't have and it was a little bit harder to find. It wasn't, at least then, on TV as much. And so I had to go to the video store one weekend specifically to get this and then watch it and then it's been like uh several dozen times since

SPEAKER_03 1:00:53

oh so was it that okay so you so you kind of went in reverse order so was it that you felt compelled like you needed to know how this like trilogy within a franchise like first kicked off like what so i guess then three and four were compelling in enough for you to want to go back and see too?

SPEAKER_01 1:01:15

Yeah, I mean, definitely. I'm a Star Trek nerd, obviously. We were a Star Trek household. I love

SPEAKER_00 1:01:25

that phrasing.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:27

So, yeah, it was... Because the other films, they pick up on bits and pieces of what happened here, down to even what we now call Easter eggs in the fourth one about this movie. So it was definitely trying to, as a compulsive little nerd, pick up on all of the data that was there, so understanding what I had seen before. I'm

SPEAKER_02 1:01:53

sorry. Data did not show up until The Next Generation, though. Oh,

SPEAKER_01 1:01:58

you guys. It's going to be one of those

SPEAKER_02 1:02:01

shows. It really is. So

SPEAKER_03 1:02:03

I'm sorry. So you were trying to pick up on all the data.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:06

Yeah, like, you know, all the little bits and pieces, you know, had to be completest about it. So went back to watch this one. And I think, you know... The conversation about it being the best of the Star Trek films, I don't think it even really, or I hadn't encountered it at that point in time. I think the fourth was definitely the most, or one of the more successful ones for a while, so that got talked about a lot. But definitely watching this and on repeated viewings, it sort of hit my type of nerd buttons in addition to being a good film and I think what made it hit for me is probably what makes Star Trek a little bit less popular than Star Wars or Harry Potter or anything else in that it is a movie that I think Weird latchkey nerds don't necessarily want to be special or have superpowers. I feel like we just want to be adults, and we like imagining that we're adults and doing adult things. And so the fact that this movie is... about guys in their 50s doing weird sci-fi problems. For some reason, even being like an eight or nine-year-old just hit without being able to fully understand what that was. And I think a big part of Star Trek, even going back to the 60s, was that... they were doing wagon train to the stars and space adventures, but all of these people were grownups and were maybe not necessarily great grownups. If you look at some of the subtext, um, whereas, you know, again, it's not shade on it, but Luke Skywalker is a teenager who becomes the most important person in the universe. And I think if that's your thing, it's great. But if it's not, you can never quite connect with it in the same way. So that was a long-winded, dirty

SPEAKER_03 1:04:36

explanation. pretty confidently say is the biggest franchise that we've covered. Cause even films like back to the future, that was like three movies.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:07

Yeah. Like, so for star Trek, I think like, Oh, and what you're, what you're talking about is like, I guess it could be described as like, even though it's like sci-fi, there is like a sense where they're trying to ground it in some form of like realism, because it's about using science to solve real problems, even though they've done it in a way that's like science fiction, it's not, It's not based on science magic or space magic or Jedi or laser swords, lightsabers. Yeah, there's definitely that.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:39

I mean, there's always a magic wand in these things, but also the fact that these guys have jobs. They have jobs and they have bosses and there is a structure and order to it, which I get maybe also for certain type of kids is interesting for them. Yeah, so it's not like better or worse, but it is different and distinctive in that way. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:01

Yeah. Very, very much so. And I think what, like, I, I like, I like both, but I didn't really, like, I like Star Wars more, even though I knew it was more of just like high fantasy in space, but Star Trek, like the original Star Trek series, I never really could get into that much because like the TV episodes were a little goofy from my perspective. I

SPEAKER_03 1:06:26

brought up franchise because like, unlike almost all the other films that we've covered so far this one has so much surrounding it outside of just the movie itself

SPEAKER_02 1:06:37

and yeah so the series the series eventually led to the motion picture which in some ways was like the culmination of like how weird can we make this and then people didn't really flock to go see that so they they set up two which is almost like a naval battle in space and it it like reset expectations a little bit on what what could be done And because it's not so singularly focused on a character like Luke Skywalker, you can really expand the world and create things that people still find interesting. And I think that's why this franchise is massive. There are so many different spinoffs and movies.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:17

Yeah, but that's what's really interesting. Owen, I know that you've already mentioned seeing this trilogy in reverse. Had you already seen just the original motion picture prior to seeing two? No.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:29

Okay. You know, again, a little digression about my Star Trek household. Sure.

UNKNOWN 1:07:37

So...

SPEAKER_01 1:07:38

this was like something that was told to me, like it was a tragedy in our family, but you know, my parents were broke and living in Brooklyn and both like Star Trek. And so like my mother's Christmas present in 79 was going to see Star Trek, the motion picture. And she would talk about that. And every time she would use the phrase, I could have cried. It was so bad. But Hey, we got to see, the Voyager

SPEAKER_02 1:08:08

probe.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:09

Yeah, and it's funny you said that. It's not... People did flock to see it, which I didn't even realize until I started digging into the history of this a little bit. That movie, even not adjusting for inflation, made more money than any of the other films until J.J. Abrams came along. That is shocking to me. The thing about it was it was such a debacle and cost so much that everyone was like, we barely got out of that alive. If you get these DVD sets, you could see on the motion picture They have Jeffrey Katzenberg, a man who had seen a lot of things in a long career. He talks about that movie like it was Vietnam. He could not deal with the level of stress on it. And he literally talks about Heaven's Gate was the big debacle movie at the time that was destroying Hollywood. And he talked about reading about that. And that movie cost$40 million and realizing ours is$45 million. And it was just, they just barely got out of it alive. And it is like, again, it's one of these things that I've Definitely, and especially with the 4K things, putting it on because I knew at least visually it's interesting to watch, but it is just so oppressively dreary and slow and obsessed with these ideas that are not really interesting. And getting back to this film, this film has a... character conflict which is very grounded and very real in that you know this man is getting older and he doesn't know how he feels about it and he doesn't know how he feels about the choices he's made and it's sort of very human which that film does not have any of it is all about sort of Gene Roddenberry philosophy, which, you know, mileage varies on that and it doesn't hit the way this one does. And I'm not even, again, this movie, it speaks to me on a deep level and I come back to it and even comparison, the other movies that we've done, there's no irony in me about my love of this film. I know it's not for everybody and I know it is not the pinnacle of human art, but just the way that it tackles the this issue and does not come out with an easy pat answer to it, just that life goes on until it doesn't, it really still gets to me. And I think just being that simple and being that small with it and recognizing that you could do science fiction or a franchise movie and have stakes that are a little bit smaller, a cast of characters that's smaller do it within some restrictions and still come out with something that looks great holds together and I think is really quite beautiful and hopeful is just amazingly impressive and I think that's really why this holds up at least for me in that it was just hitting a target that it set out for and just really doing just that and doing it so well that you can't dismiss it in that respect

SPEAKER_03 1:11:50

well I love that you are the person we are talking to about this movie. Like, I can't imagine anybody else having more kind of background and context for it. I mean, one question that I have for you is, so you've a couple times mentioned probably the most prominent theme, which is getting older and looking at life choices. I'm curious, so... Now look, full disclosure, I'm not a Trekkie. I know virtually nothing about the Star Trek franchise. I don't think you need to

SPEAKER_02 1:12:27

for this film,

SPEAKER_03 1:12:28

honestly. No, I just say that because, I apologize if some of the, correct me on anything that I get wrong, but the original television series was already over 10 years finished. cracked closer to probably 15 by the time this film came

SPEAKER_01 1:12:46

out? Yeah, when they're talking about, Ricardo Montalban says, you know, he's been exiled for 15 years. That was like real calendar time between when his show and when this movie premiered. So yeah, this is 82 and it went off the air in 69.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:02

Okay, that's what I thought. It still leaves the question of all those Chippendale dancers who were crewing the ship. And they were, by the way. They were, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:09

The reason why I bring up The theme of aging and then the time difference between the TV show and the film is, you know, did that have any impact on you that either you remember kind of seeing it as a younger person or today in terms of the time skip? And now all of a sudden you're seeing these characters that you have grown up with be older individuals. Like, yeah. Do you think that that emphasized that theme in terms of aging? Because you have seen all these actors as younger actors on the TV show. If that makes sense, the way I'm setting that up.

SPEAKER_01 1:13:49

Yeah, it does make sense. And I think the impact it has on me is that... I never apologize for my age just based on my takeaway from this movie. I am 40 years old. I have not conquered the world. But that is nothing that I can change. It's certainly nothing that's worth being ashamed of. And leaning into that and accepting that is really something that this movie sort of formed part of my philosophy in that respect, in that not that this movie is about a midlife crisis in the cheapest sense, but it is... This guy worrying about his age and thinking about what that means for him and also letting that limit him in certain ways in that, you know, Kirk is just sort of not facing what he wants to do and sort of going about his job and using his age as an excuse for it and sort of hiding from it and not wanting to admit it. And that's just no way to live was my takeaway from it. And, you know, the movie has that. And then there's sort of the metaverse. a textual like you were saying around the actors about it in which there was a constant conscious decision to lean into that because it was stupid not to acknowledge that the actors were older and not everyone felt great about that I mean one of the things that I think that they fought over and that they had to excise from the script was the script was very literal about it was Kirk's 49th birthday and Bill Shatner was 50 and did not want that documented for the public to see and made them sort of excise it

SPEAKER_03 1:15:46

it's incredible to me that he is 93 years old now

SPEAKER_01 1:15:50

yeah

SPEAKER_03 1:15:51

and is like okay so we watch stars on mars

SPEAKER_02 1:15:56

we got him to sit down and read that stuff for like a day probably i mean he looks great

SPEAKER_03 1:16:00

with and he looks incredible like i just it's like wild to me to be like this movie is over 40 years old and he's still very active and going strong. And he already was an older gentleman in the film.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:14

I just wanted to say I agree with what you said about it. It's not just about him feeling old and being a certain age. It's like the juxtaposition of his age and feeling like, well, I should be an admiral. I should be doing these things because of my age, even though it's not what Spock would say would be his greatest destiny. I suppose but yeah so it was it was like feeling like you have to do a certain thing or feel a certain way because of your age instead of just being your your actual self

SPEAKER_01 1:16:49

or you have to treat your age as something to mourn or apologize for yeah which he don't he doesn't it's like you know the character has earned what he's earned and you know the actor like you were saying it's it's crazy that he would have been embarrassed about his age 40 years ago looking at the man that he is now. And, you know, obviously everyone I think in this town has a Bill Shatner story of some kind because he's been around that long. But, you know, there is a... a real power and sort of acceptance of that, that I think is, you know, again, one of the great things about this movie as the craftsmanship of it is just like the, all the different people that contributed to making what it, making it what it was. And so you had a producer, Harv Bennett come in who was, you know, just incredible at not only figuring out the spine of this story for other people to finish, but also managing all of the personalities involved and like you know new enough to talk to Bill Shatner massage his ego in the ways that he needed to and also sort of bring him around that he could be this vulnerable in a way in a film and have that be good for him and good for his career and I think you know specifically using for him the example of Spencer Tracy and how he was someone who was able to age with the audience and do it well and not have that hold him back I think not even realizing at the time that at a much younger age William Shatner had been in Judgment at Nuremberg with Spencer Tracy and sort of really looked up to him so like those are just sort of little things that I think certainly for me is interesting about film and maybe for you too and that is it's all these little things that have to come together and that people have to manage to do it well. And I think this movie is a great example of that because it's not really one person's vision, but everybody is really contributing something interesting from the actors to the director, the different writing and the different drafts of it, the effects design, all of that.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:12

Well, one thing that you brought up, which I thought was really interesting, both earlier and just now, in terms of like the actors, I mean, from my perspective, again, with having very little frame of reference for like the TV show, for the other films, it feels like a huge ensemble cast. But what tying it back to like when we were talking about franchises, the fact that the majority of the characters, were already established through the television show and the first film. I find that really fascinating because it allows the audience to immediately kind of like get a sense of the dynamic between these people, even though it is a different stage in their lives. And some of them are doing different things at this point. But I mean, can you speak to that a little bit? If that did have any impact on you at all? Like I know I already mentioned, you know, now seeing the same characters older but do you think that there's like kind of I guess then a shorthand that's established in the film because you already know who these characters are even if it's been like 15 years later I

SPEAKER_01 1:20:24

think there's a shorthand that's established in the film and I also think

SPEAKER_03 1:20:30

that

SPEAKER_01 1:20:30

The fact that they are pre-existing and were defined gave the film a confidence that it needed. Because the director, Nicholas Meyer, was not a Star Trek person, had really not seen any of it. And he did the uncredited rewrite of the shooting draft to make it work and incorporate everything that he needed and the film needed. And he just knew nothing about it. So he was not beholden to it, but he also doesn't feel like he needs to lay a lot of pipe to cover that and explain it. And so I think like the first shot after the credits is like a closeup of Spock's ear, just because that's what Star Trek was to him, the guy with the ears. And he goes from there. And I do think that, There is, and sometimes we teach this in writing, we think we have to explain more than we do. And so I think because so much of this was pre-existing, they sort of drop into it and they don't feel a need to explain every little thing. I also think, you talk about the characters being established, I think so much of what was established about these characters was based on the performances of the ensemble and the choices that they made 15 years previously that that really carries a lot like even you know some of the the co-starring roles in this you didn't have to explain a lot to james doing about what he needed to do to be scotty it was sort of you could give him a half a dozen lines and a few scenes and he could take it and make an impact of it and do a little emotional scene that he needed to do without sort of explaining every little thing, which I think is one of the problems that franchises have these days. And there isn't an easy solution for it. And I think it's one of the things that has sometimes been a little bit of a struggle for Star Trek in particular, was that this was not something that was established really on the page. So much of it was what Leonard Nimoy decided to do, what William Shatner decided to do, that when they try to bring something into it, It's sometimes hard for people to ape the decisions that other people made that may not be right. And I think now they're getting a little bit better with some of the newer things and that they're not trying to be slavish to it and develop their own thing. But it is interesting and we don't sort of turn out you know, television and film art that way anymore.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:26

Well, from your, okay. The fact that you and Derek, I would say like Derek, would you consider yourself someone who's like fairly knowledgeable about the Star Trek franchise? I,

SPEAKER_02 1:23:36

I honestly wouldn't not. I, I don't presume to have the same depth of knowledge that Owen has because I like some of those. I enjoy the, like the, the original cast movies. Okay. And even though I don't really like the first one, I've seen it a couple of times just because I give myself another chance. Like, do I really not like this? No, I don't really like this much. I like the one. I think it was Generations where they mixed the casts of the next generation and Kirk's crew or Kirk. The Abrams like refresh or reboot of the series has been like interesting, but I probably have more knowledge on the movies than I do. And the TV show,

SPEAKER_03 1:24:18

the original TV show.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:19

No, I really don't. don't have a lot on the original TV show. I watched a lot, but not all of the next generation. But then once it went beyond that into the other franchises, it was more than I could handle all at once.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:35

Well, the reason I was asking is because I didn't know my next question, and I wanted it for both of you, but also, of course, pointed towards Owen. The fact that they did pull the storyline from one episode and the show. I'm just curious if that worked for you guys. Is it something that is just kind of a nod and a wink to the people who truly were invested in this franchise because they knew from one episode of a show 15 years ago who this character was and what the backdrop was between the conflict between Khan and Kirk and Or could it have been a different story? How did that play for you, Owen?

SPEAKER_01 1:25:21

So again, talking about watching things in reverse order, I don't think I saw the original episode until years after I saw this film. And so pretty much all that you need to know and all that this film really deals with is that little exposition that Khan Ricardo Montalban does when the character is first introduced. And, you know, I think, again, this is something where Harv Bennett got, you know, copies of all the shows when he was called in to do this and watched them and saw this episode and thought it was the one that had something you could pick up on. I think part of that was knowing that Ricardo Montalban was involved and still around and might be interested. And, you know, again, to get deep in a nerdery here, that the whole... ending of that episode and what kicks off this story, it's just mind boggling to me to think about it. Like in 80s movie montage podcast terms, it's like as crazy as Biff being the handyman for Marty McFly's father at the end of Back to the Future. It's like, why would you keep this guy around? What is wrong with you? And so the idea that they find this genetically engineered, not Nazi essentially war criminal and say, you know, this guy, obviously he killed some people. He was a bad guy. He tried to kill us all. I just can't bring myself to put him in jail. Let's just drop him off and his friends somewhere and see how that turns out. It's just so bizarre when you think about it. And so you can obviously say, yeah, that's something you might want to pick up on if you're going to be following up on this. It

SPEAKER_03 1:27:14

reminded me... I don't know if this is a totally off-base comparison. It reminded me of the Zod storyline, kind of, in Superman.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:22

Well, man, at least the Phantom Zone is probably more secure than City Alpha 5. I guess. City Alpha 6?

SPEAKER_03 1:27:31

I don't know. I guess. There was, for me, a really strong point of comparison between this ruthless, bad person that's kind of been banished, but then finally Yeah. Yeah. the objective for this film that they thought okay this the first film really didn't do well we're very limited well apparently it did i didn't realize well it did but like compared to like production costs yeah exactly um so so was that always going to be what they were banking on is like we're going to find a storyline from the original tv show that people are familiar with or that true fans would love or whatever the case may be and then that's going to be where we go with this franchise?

SPEAKER_01 1:28:35

This film really, my understanding is it came together the way like a crisis response does in that each problem is handled individually and then they see what that leaves them with. So essentially you had a movie that was needed to be followed up on because they realized there was more money to be had, but

SPEAKER_02 1:28:57

obviously

SPEAKER_01 1:28:58

the production team needs to go. So they, you know, They force Gene Roddenberry out. They kind of blame him partially for what happened. Yikes. They bring in a TV producer, Harv Bennett, and they hand it off to sort of the Paramount TV division to own these movies. And the only thing they really say to them is, can you make a movie for less than$45 million? And Harv Bennett said, I can make five movies for less than$45 million. And so that's what he did. And so he says, well, now I have to make a movie. He picks a story. then that leads them to, okay, we have to get these people in place. We have to get the writers in place. They have to get Leonard Nimoy back, who is not feeling great about how he's been treated by Star Trek and Paramount for the last 10 years or so. And so they negotiate with him. He has to be written out. And Hart Bennett says, I have a better idea. Why don't we kill you off and make a really great death scene out of it? And Leonard Nimoy says, great. And so now they have to do that. made a franchise and a concept out of it, which is, again, there's lots of different ways to tell a story, but I think it's an interesting sort of time capsule in that sense, in that they sort of approached it in such a piecemeal way.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:48

I love that you are pulling so much out of it, because on first glance, this is just a revenge story. This is a mistake that Kirk made years and years ago, coming back to haunt him. It's his past coming back to haunt him and trying to find a way to navigate that in a way to keep himself and the crew alive. But... But what they get out of that main story arc of Khan getting free from being exiled, getting a ship, and then the battle that goes back and forth across from Regula I to the Motara Nebula, all these other things unfold. And that's what I really also unironically love about this movie is that in the worlds of Star Wars and Star Trek, There's a familiarity or acknowledgement that Star Trek is going to try to be a little bit more grounded in terms of how they try to solve problems with science. It's not real science because how do they solve gravity? I don't know. But nevertheless, this one felt grounded in that Star Trek universe, but in a way where you actually see what these starships are capable of. Oh, yeah. Seeing that happen, because before you just see these kind of cool ships floating around, not really doing anything. They talk to a sentient cloud in space, maybe. And that's the episode. That's the show. So to see actual conflict, because you know there is a military component to the Federation. You know that these conflicts exist. So I liked that part of it as well, because this was by far the most action that you would see in Star Trek up to this date.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:41

Yeah, that's a funny thing. Because I think this story floats around the internet sometimes because Gene Roddenberry was a pilot in World War II and obviously had that military experience, but he was not, at least in the design and how he conceived of it, very connected to the reality of these mechanics and what that would mean. Whereas Nicholas Meyer, who was not a veteran, was not into Star Trek, really approached this as no these things are like giant destroyers or subs and it is not a comfortable existence and so a lot of you know what he focuses on here in the camera that is interesting to him is you know the mechanics of who's got to pull what to make this work like you know how tight and cramped are these quarters if you're climbing from one space to another and so it was an interesting take and different than what they had done before but I think getting back to something else that you were saying earlier, there is a version of this story where it's Kirk's past coming back to haunt him, and it's meditating on these horrible decisions that he made and the ramifications of that. I think it's interesting that this film is so light on its feet that it's not... a moral failure coming back to haunt him though. You could certainly make the case that it is. It's really Jesus Christ. What a stupid kid I was, or 35 year old. That's the case. Maybe I just did the, I did these things without thinking. And so like con is every bit as much of a screw up, at least in the way you could see Kirk conceiving it as this, you know, son that he walked away from. It just, you know, Going from one stupid expedient decision to the other and just seeing the effects of that. And, you know, I think it's a triumph of the film that it makes them all of a piece. So it does add that layer of relatability to it in that, you know, not all of us have, you know, left criminals off to, you know, go and try to conquer the universe. Some of us may have family that we didn't connect with properly or walked away from and I think particularly at this time it is interesting you had like that generation from the 60s that was becoming like the big chill generation and sort of like facing the consequences in middle age a little bit

SPEAKER_03 1:35:27

no I mean those are all really great points and for sure I very much want to talk about this son David doesn't

SPEAKER_02 1:35:35

end up well for him spoilers

SPEAKER_03 1:35:37

Well, we'll totally get to that. One thing that just occurred to me, in terms of kind of like this military aspect to the film, so once it becomes known that Khan is alive and well and has like commandeered a ship, why is there no backup for the Enterprise?

SPEAKER_01 1:36:01

Because there's never backup.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:03

Because there's just not, okay, so that's just. So

SPEAKER_02 1:36:05

they, I mean, they kind of addressed that when you talk about being the nearest ship to regular one when they lost contact and they didn't get over there, but I don't know if they go into it much more than that. I'm

SPEAKER_01 1:36:16

sorry. To give a non-glib and non-in-universe answer to this, just a second, there is part of that is budgetary restrictions in that Star Trek is sort of structured and works best when it is these small-stay and these people that are sort of on their own trying to deal with problems but also I think as a story both the Nicholas Meyer conception in this film and interestingly Gene Roddenberry's conception when he was developing the series is very much owing a debt to C.S. Forrester and the Horatio Hornblower novels which are taking like the real history of the Napoleonic Wars but not reaching telling the actual events, finding these side stories that are small enough in scale that you can believe maybe they just never made it into the history books without sort of acknowledging that it's just entirely fiction. And so that sort of lent itself to, and the reality of what the Navy was in those days, being a ship in the middle of the ocean on your own, having to deal with the enemy in sort of these interesting contained ways and a lot of the drama in the way Star Trek approaches it is just from that no, we've got to figure this out. There isn't backup for it. And how do you approach it in those circumstances? And that's one of the things that I think is an asset for Star Trek that they don't always realize and they try to be a little bit bigger. And sometimes they do it very effectively, but as sort of the roots of this type of fiction to me.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:06

Okay. That's a great answer. That's fair. I could totally buy into that. I mean, on a related note, not to say that, and it's not to like um undercut Khan's focus on revenge specifically towards Kirk but according to the like the origin story of him being banished was that a decision that Kirk made on his own or was that something kind of like the Superman universe where it was it was like a there was a trial or it was it was more than just Kirk making this decision to banish this guy or was it like no

SPEAKER_01 1:38:44

it was it was entirely Fairly honest, though, which makes it as crazy as I'm talking about is he not only does it, he purposely does not tell anyone else that he has done it.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:56

Oh,

SPEAKER_01 1:38:57

okay. Okay. World War II. And there was this thing during the Nuremberg trials where there were a lot of people in this country who were against the trials entirely. And a very prominent Republican, Bob Taft, who was a senator, was both against the trials and against the death penalty for some of the convictions. And there's a chapter in the John F. Kennedy book Profiles in Courage which talks about Bob Taft in maybe more glowing terms than he deserved, and this idea that he had tried to popularize that maybe instead of sentencing them to death, some of these people could be exiled in some way, which even like trying to imagine logistics of that in the 1940s seems crazy. But I wonder if that was just not sticking in people's minds, the point that someone writing a script in 1967 might say, okay, maybe this is a reasonable way to end it. But again, it's just sort of wacky if you try to apply any sort of real-world logic to it.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:22

I mean, the fact that already in this conversation we've talked about the Nuremberg trial and

SPEAKER_00 1:40:31

Napoleonic wars

SPEAKER_03 1:40:32

is pretty amazing. Okay, so that's totally fair. I'm glad that you explained that to me. I had no idea. Even more so, to me, justifies Khan's wrath.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:48

I think the writers, the writers were like, Hey, what if we ended like this? And then we have a sweet sequel movie come out. Although this, I think was like the first time they'd ever done that with a movie that was basically a sequel to a television episode. I

SPEAKER_03 1:41:01

don't

SPEAKER_02 1:41:01

know if that. Yeah,

SPEAKER_03 1:41:02

no, that's, that's, I think that is like so cool that they did that. And I didn't know how that came to be. I mean, in terms of then, um, I guess like the simplest way to ask is just like, what do you think of Khan? Is he like an awesome villain to you? Does he hold up his end?

SPEAKER_01 1:41:20

So dramatic. shine the chance to really show what they can do. Like, even as we talked about, no one was really looking to see Ricardo Montalvan's 60 year old chest, I think too much

SPEAKER_00 1:41:55

in 1982.

SPEAKER_01 1:41:57

It's amazing. And it is, you know, if you know his backstory at all, I really think that's because he had this terrible back injury when he was doing an MGM movie in the fifties and having, you know, a much less severe injury myself, not too long ago, knowing that you have to sort of work other muscle groups to compensate when something like that happens. I really think he was that built from being a dancer and then having to come back from an injury that he sort of lived with all his life. He

SPEAKER_02 1:42:30

could have had a complete bacchiotomy with that chest.

SPEAKER_01 1:42:32

I mean, you know, it's just crazy. And I think there were rumors for a long time that it was like some sort of plastic prosthetic But, again, you look at it, it's like, I don't think they did a prosthetic and put the moles on it. I think that's just him. Yeah, and I think, so that, the Ricardo Montalban of it and him, I think, in combination with the director knowing when to go over the top and when not to and when to stay just on the edge is good for it. I think on repeated viewings, I think what's interesting about Khan as a villain is, is that he is just such a screw-up in particular senses, and I think it comes back to it for character flaws, in that, you know, as happens in this, and they do sort of consciously echo Moby Dick and that vengeance of it, where, you know, they've got their little Starbuck character telling him, you can stop this any time and be much happier for it, but they also... It's not enough for him... to win he has to have everyone else know that he won and get vengeance and in the previous appearance it's not enough just to win everyone has to love him while he's winning and that ends up being his undoing I think in like 21st century America that not to get again too heavy with it there is something that really resonates about this in that you know this guy who revels in his own intellectual superiority he can't just take what he has it's not enough he has to persecute all the people who try to cancel him or whatever it is again I understand I'm reaching a little bit but it is there's a patheticness at the core of Khan that I think is interesting and I think when they tried to do it with Benedict Cumberbatch again, not anything about him or necessarily how they approached it, they didn't go that way. And I think the character suffered for it a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:52

I think so. I, that was, um, like into darkness maybe. I think it was, it was the second of the Abrams star tracks. And I don't think I knew going in that it was even going to be essentially like a con re-imagining. Cause I don't think it's, it's certainly not a remake, but yeah, there was this, like sociopathic um, component to Ricardo multiple bonds con that, that worked in this movie because he, he was essentially just like this, this instrument of vengeance. He was, he was smart enough to accomplish all of these things, but he was also crazy enough to not be able to let go of any of the things that would have allowed him to just go off free and like live with the rest of the Chippendale dancers in the galaxy, which

SPEAKER_01 1:45:40

he could have done. And this movie also, again, I think almost unconsciously makes him tie back in with the themes in that, you know, as they hit a couple of times, he has all this intelligence, but no real wisdom. And that's sort of his other flaw. And, you know, it's a little pad, but that's ultimately how Kirk succeeds in that he has had to learn things that Khan has not. And you see how that goes. And I think that, Again, it's an interesting message for a piece of whiz-bang sci-fi fiction to be doing.

SPEAKER_02 1:46:21

Yeah, I think that moment where Spock says he's intelligent but not experienced, and then famously his patterns indicate two-dimensional thinking. He says that with such disdain. I love it.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:33

It's hilarious to me when, is it Joaquim? Is that the right-hand man? I believe so, yes. Where he lays it all out. He's like, hey, we're friends. free we have a ship we have Genesis yeah like we can just go like we can just and and I mean the fact that that's like not convincing enough is wild to me but that's how you know that that to me is kind of like a storytelling a movie convention like the I don't know why this is the film that came up but like heat when Robert De Niro's character like he's gone he can go off with his friend and he can have a life and he can he can he can do it there's no there's nothing stopping him except for the fact that he needs to gun down this piece of trash person you know and by

SPEAKER_01 1:47:20

the way I entirely support him in that decision and heat that guy sure no

SPEAKER_03 1:47:24

he he's awful but you know he he is the exact same outcome he dies for it but to your point also like another weird thing that came to mind when you were talking about the fact that Khan can't just like do what he like like it has to be showy he has to like have other people acknowledge both his intelligence and his strength and the fact that he succeeds in his revenge. It's like when people do the good deed TikToks or whatever, can't that just be its own thing? Why do you have to record it? Why do you have to show it to everybody?

SPEAKER_02 1:48:00

Gotta do it for the clicks.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:02

Right, exactly. So it's like the same kind of, I don't know. I don't know if that's an apt comparison, but that's what you made me think of. I mean, I think that as far as the performance goes, it's so juicy. like it's so fun to watch him completely uh chew up the scenery and just i mean he he makes it really fun i mean everybody else plays it pretty pretty grounded and i don't mind the fact that he's dramatic and kind of over the top like i think that it it really actually kind of balances out the rest of the performances

SPEAKER_02 1:48:38

yeah

SPEAKER_03 1:48:39

so so i think it's a lot of fun i mean i'm curious I'm curious, sorry to kind of like pivot, but what it does also make me think of is like, so we've talked about all these other characters that, you know, fans of the film, or even like, you know, I know from Osmosis who a lot of these other characters are that were part of the TV show. And then you have someone like Khan who was like a one-off on the TV show, but it's still connected to the franchise. Owen, what do you think about, because it is a huge ensemble cast, so someone like Savick? who, to my knowledge, this is... She's new. She hasn't been presented in the franchise before. Correct. Did her storyline need to be part of this story?

SPEAKER_01 1:49:27

I don't know that it needed to be part of it in that sense. I know it works for me. Okay. I think it is a very solid character. And you could certainly see, you know... In another world where Leonard Nimoy really was done and they wanted to keep making movies, I think maybe the thought in the back of people's minds was this is sort of a natural way to slide a similar character in there. But I think you needed to have someone... for, again, not to being prejudicial because I'm one of them, the old guys to play off of a little bit. Because I think they do really well with being confronted with this very direct but a little naive character and having to justify themselves and think about themselves in response to her. I think it's also maybe a good entry for the audience too in that she has to ask some questions at critical times that make it explainable for us you know I think for someone who had not been in a film before she does a very good job at it and I think it's because she didn't come back for later movies and they tried recasting it and then they tried making another very similar character no Nobody ever quite caught what she did with it. And I think... that really says something about how she was doing. And she does walk the line a little bit with having to be a joke at certain points of time, but also being very serious. And I think being a comic actress, she sort of came to that naturally. So yeah, I think she does well. And I think it's just about enough of what you need for the character doing the most interactions. I think some of the other new people, like Merrick Buttrick as David, aren't given a lot, but also bring a different energy to it. It's just good to see how that plays off of these people who I think are trying to find another level in their performances. I think this is probably the best William Shatner has ever been on film, and there are a couple of different reasons for that. Don't forget,

SPEAKER_03 1:52:14

Congeniality. Being funny about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:52:22

No, I mean, in this movie, particularly at the end, just like his despair at, at finally being confronted with this no win scenario that he like boasts about not believing in early in the film. And then watching his, you know, best friend die, saving everyone. I thought his reaction, like his performance in that scene in particular really stands out across anything else I've seen from him. And

SPEAKER_01 1:52:50

being so contained. And a person who was known for going over the top. And I think being called the male Fay Wray at one point in his career because of the way he would scream at times. Being willing to be small and introspective with it is really kind of amazing. And you guys, again, we could talk about this when we watched it together. You guys laughed at that hug at the end, but I do feel like it's played just right in these two men, father and son, realizing that they should be doing something and yet not really knowing quite how to do it. I laughed at how

SPEAKER_02 1:53:36

awkward the

SPEAKER_01 1:53:36

hug was. It's entirely justified reaction.

SPEAKER_00 1:53:39

No,

SPEAKER_03 1:53:42

no, no. That's no, that's really fair. I mean, and, and again, I promise I have not forgotten about the David storyline. I mean, I'm curious just to kind of like, well, first of all, you make a really interesting point just about the trajectory of Kirstie Ellie's career because yeah, she started off as like kind of a dramatic actress and then really found her niche in comedy. So it's kind of interesting where that went.

SPEAKER_02 1:54:03

Her character in this movie, I read somewhere that Leonard Nimoy provided some additional commentary when this movie was played on i think sci-fi network and apparently she should have she would have had a more of like a deep backstory talking about how she was a romulan vulcan and that's why apparently like during portions of the movie she would show perhaps a little bit more emotion than you would have expected from just like a vulcan like but but spock has those qualities as well because he's half human

SPEAKER_01 1:54:35

right so there was that piece of it and there were like five major draft of this script before they went into production. And so there was that story that gets talked about a lot. There is another version of it where Spock and Savick were having an affair, which I think would have been more acceptable then than it would be if we were watching it now.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:59

That's kind of gross

SPEAKER_01 1:54:59

to me. Yeah. And so... I think this, they literally, when Nicholas Meyer came in, he sat down with everyone and said, okay, we've got these five drafts here. Let's all vote for what aspects of it we like and everything that we like the most we'll keep. And so I think there were definitely things that, like you were saying, she says, damn, at a certain point in time, and that may be tied to the backstory that they dropped that are just sort of residual of that, but also it kind of works. And I think she's very, Very uncertain and a little bit annoyed at times in her performance and a little bit pushy in ways that she needs to be that makes the character a little bit more interesting.

SPEAKER_03 1:55:44

This is just in general been... Again, I couldn't imagine a better guest to have on the show for this episode in particular. And one thing that I just want to make sure that we get to before we wrap this up, because it is kind of the biggest secondary story to the film, in my opinion, is Genesis. And I'm just so curious, Owen, because like already... I'm

SPEAKER_02 1:56:12

laughing because it just made no sense, but...

SPEAKER_03 1:56:14

Yeah, well, there's so much... Okay, so in terms of like storytelling, there's already so much around Khan as well as David and I mean David and Carol didn't necessarily in my opinion have to be connected to this Genesis storyline they could have been incorporated in some other manner but especially since they weren't already part of the franchise so you could have done whatever you wanted to do with those characters as well as just like everything else that we've talked about the front like the getting older the friendship with Spock Savick and like having new blood come in so there's already so much happening So then to add into it Genesis, I'm just curious, Owen, I really am not trying to ask a leading question, but does it work for you? Was it necessary? Could it have been its own film? What do you think about that element?

SPEAKER_01 1:57:01

I think you could conceive of it as being its own film. I think it is necessary in that... They needed a MacGuffin of some kind. And I think actually when they did this, they approached it in that way. Okay, we've got Khan. He's a villain. He needs something that he wants other than vengeance on Kirk to drive it and also up the threat. And so I think it was just like a big bomb in early drafts and they called it like the Omega device or something stupid. And then at some point somebody said, well, wait a minute, these are nice guys they wouldn't just be making you know the Death Star there must be something something about this that he's misusing and out of that it became all right the idea is actually that it's supposed to build worlds but if you use it in the wrong way you can also destroy them and so that makes Khan dangerous with it and obviously everyone has to make sure he doesn't get it so I think it definitely works in that sense in like how would this work for practically like we were talking about as we were watching it it's like okay you made a planet but does that mean it's the right distance from the sun and where is that happening and where is the sun coming from when you're underground like all that is just like best not to think about it yeah

SPEAKER_02 1:58:25

they gloss over the the formation because i think even the genesis planet has a has a sun has a star that that you know you see that planet in in uh the search for spock in the third movie and i guess With respect to David, he gets some interesting story in the third movie as far as his involvement in developing Genesis. It's kind of related. You see him... without ever having been like had Kirk as a parent in his life, you see how he made some similar, like off the cuff decisions because he didn't want to lose. Like he takes, like he, he makes some, some poor choices that come back to haunt him. But Genesis was super cool when I was a kid and I saw that it seemed, it seemed amazing. But then as I got older, I'm like, hold up, how is there a son in this goddamn cave? It doesn't make any sense. But I still

SPEAKER_03 1:59:24

like it. So it is a welcomed addition to this particular film for you, Owen?

SPEAKER_01 1:59:31

It's a welcome addition to me because I think it adds the level of threat and it's an interesting concept. I'll tell you why it should be a welcome addition to you, Anna, as a fan of film.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:43

Yeah. Oh, because of the... Yes, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:47

When the concept is introduced, they have a little bit of computer animation to show it and if you look at it a certain way that technically makes this the first Pixar movie because the computer-generated effects unit at Industrial Light and Magic put that together. And when they later sold that division off, it became Pixar. And the people involved were the people that end up founding Pixar under Steve Jobs before it eventually came back to Disney. And there's actually on Disney Plus right now, this, I think it's called Light and Magic documentary about ILM, where they actually talk about not only this effect but they've got I think it must be behind the scenes footage of George Lucas on the set of Return of the Jedi, where he's talking to Dennis Murren, the famous special effects designer, and saying, have you seen what they were doing upstairs for Star Trek? You need to get up there and take this person and this person and this person because that's the future. And so it's a funny little thing that that little minute or so of film just obviously triggered something with George Lucas but also I think they even talk about for the people making it they saw this little page in the script as an opportunity because they realized oh it doesn't have to look real so we could actually try this and put this on film and see what we could do with it and that really kicked off you know a revolution in filmmaking that you could have good or bad feelings about but I think it's an interesting little side note

SPEAKER_02 2:01:38

very much so I think I read that the retinal scan that Kirk had to go through also provided the inspirational for Face ID.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:44

Are you being serious?

SPEAKER_02 2:01:46

No.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:49

It's funny. like that being part of a film that to see that in a film from 1982 it completely went over my head honestly when we were watching it it

SPEAKER_02 2:02:28

was it was mesmerizing to watch as a kid when I first saw it I mean I remember that scene in particular was just it was like nothing that you had really seen in that same way

SPEAKER_03 2:02:39

which is why it is amazing and I'm sorry that I like didn't really experience the impact of it back when it first

SPEAKER_01 2:02:46

came out you didn't experience the impact of it and I don't think they experienced the impact of it as moviegoers at the time because it's funny to think this is the same summer that Tron came out where they were doing all of that by hand and somebody actually tried to do it in reality and it was an interesting little side note but it didn't shake up moviegoers in that sense.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:11

Well, Owen, this has been... Truly a delightful conversation. I mean, I, I've

SPEAKER_02 2:03:20

been waiting to cover this movie for three years. You have. Thank you. You have.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:23

Yes. And as soon as, uh, when we were talking about having you back on the show and as soon as you brought this up, I knew, I knew that this is the one that Derek would want to talk about too. So, um, not disappointed in the least. You. I

SPEAKER_01 2:03:38

was ready to apologize for it because I knew how hard you had been trying to keep this from happening and I just opened the door for it.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:45

no not at all I just you know it's hard because like yeah we would have had to have start with two and sometimes it's just a little intimidating to tackle such a huge movie that means so much to people because it's like gosh you want to make sure that that you do it justice so and you certainly did so just thank you so much for such an enjoyable conversation about this film loved every second of it with you and yeah I mean at the top of our convo when I was was introducing you talked about just all the awesome creative work that you do and what you enjoy and so I was wondering if you just wanted to share with our listeners either what you've been up to or maybe where they can find you or maybe some of the work that you've done because I know you have a connection to this film with something that people can read right now

SPEAKER_01 2:04:35

well yeah actually so if you want to go to my Twitter I did this was the 40th anniversary last year of this movie And so I did a little piece at StarTrek.com about this, touching on some of the things that we've talked about, but going into a little bit more depth about the themes. So if you'd like to head over and give that a read. That's all the plugging that I really need. I'll let the movie speak for itself.

SPEAKER_03 2:05:06

Well, I have read it. It's a phenomenal look at this film and your insights on it. So definitely encourage everybody to check it out and also yes please go to his Twitter you always have really insightful beyond just like this film or science fiction or film in general really interesting insights I love seeing what you have to say about almost anything and just thank you again Owen for being on the show it was again just the most amazing time it was truly our pleasure to have you back

SPEAKER_01 2:05:40

thanks for having

SPEAKER_03 2:05:41

me Could not have had a better guest. Just in general, but also for this episode.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:48

No, I can't. I honestly can't think of anyone better than someone who actually wrote an article

SPEAKER_03 2:05:53

for Star Trek dot com

SPEAKER_02 2:05:55

about this movie and its 40th anniversary. Yes. Right. So, no, that was phenomenal. And I just want to personally thank Owen for expressing his unironic love for this movie, because it's something that I think I also have felt ever since I was a kid and I first saw this movie. It's been one of my favorite movies. And it's not that is not to say it's one of the best movies ever made. It's just like really like had a place in my heart.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:22

Yeah. And that's completely valid. That's like in part why film is so special. It doesn't have to be a perfect film. In fact, perfect films sometimes are kind of boring. So

SPEAKER_02 2:06:32

I'm just saying like 90% of the time you tell someone one of your favorite movies is Star Trek to the wrath of Khan. And they're going to be like,

SPEAKER_03 2:06:40

well, I thought he spoke very eloquently. Yes. And endearingly about why this film means so much to him.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:47

He was able to articulate so much about what I love about this movie in such a better way than I would ever be able to. So I really appreciated that and loved having that opportunity to talk.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:00

So then are you telling me that you would watch

SPEAKER_02 2:07:02

this film again?

UNKNOWN 2:07:04

I'm going to watch it again right now.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:05

I've had it on in the background the whole time.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:09

I mean, I think that, um, I mean, I do of course know like the films of yours that you, although this was a surprise to me, I did not realize. You

SPEAKER_02 2:07:22

knew that I liked it, but I don't think you realized how much. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:26

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:27

So I feel confident that I will watch it again because you're going to want to watch it again. I

SPEAKER_02 2:07:32

mean, honestly, I'm probably going to put generations on at some point. Cause I've apparently have forgotten all of the old cast that, that are on there in some

SPEAKER_03 2:07:40

way. Okay. Yeah. Um, but yeah, I mean, I, again, I made it really clear upfront that like, I don't really know this world and I don't really know this franchise. I have nothing against it. I think it's just like, sometimes you, uh, catch on to a certain property at a certain part of your point in your life and then, you know, becomes beloved by you. I just never had that opportunity. So I can't appreciate the films for the storytelling and performances. I just

SPEAKER_02 2:08:14

unfortunately don't have the same kind of connection to it. seen before and it's a good movie but because I didn't it's not something that I grew up with it's right it's not quite the same

SPEAKER_03 2:08:40

yeah

SPEAKER_02 2:08:41

so I

SPEAKER_03 2:08:41

get it so in terms of like call to action I feel like there's like there's kind of a lot of different ways you can take this I mean there are things like how do you feel about the Kirstie Alley recast you know like there's like yeah like you can do that I think personally I would be really curious to know people's thoughts on the relationship between Kirk and his son and like I probably wasn't articulating it very well when we were talking with Owen but like I feel like for films that would have been made today there would have been a more robust kind of through line of that so I'm just curious like is that is what we were presented with satisfactory for people or do you wish you would have seen more of that and now you mentioned that that actor and that character is in three so I don't know if they elaborate on that relationship more I

SPEAKER_02 2:09:36

mean it's more it's really about the loss of like they never get a chance to really explore that relationship because David remains on that Genesis planet Kirk is gotcha somewhere else so they never get much of a chance Kirk is still on the Enterprise sure yeah

SPEAKER_03 2:09:52

so there's that there's then you can go real big and be like you know if you do consider yourself a Star Trek fan were you excited and happy about the reboots did you feel like it was Like there's so many different directions that you can go. But I mean, maybe I'm just what would be yours?

SPEAKER_02 2:10:15

I would just say I would ask for other examples in the Star Trek franchise that have been clearly influenced by this by this movie, because I think I think there's a little bit of it in the Abrams reboots. Sure. But I'm just curious to what extent you see similar influences in some of the other like series.

UNKNOWN 2:10:35

OK.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:35

Yeah. So we would love to hear from you. And if you want to get in touch, you can do so through Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter. It's the same handle for all three. It is at 80s Montage Pod and 80s is 80S. That's it. So we kind of alluded to

SPEAKER_02 2:10:53

Sneak

SPEAKER_03 2:10:55

Peek.

SPEAKER_02 2:10:57

The clue is Mr. Horner.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:58

The clue is Mr. Horner.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:00

Right.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:01

Yeah. Yeah. I know you know. Baseball. Baseball. If you build it, he will come.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:13

That's pretty good. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. It's Field of Dreams.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:16

Field of Dreams. Yeah. Like the perfect summer movie.

SPEAKER_02 2:11:20

It is the perfect movie anytime, but particularly good in the summer.

SPEAKER_03 2:11:25

Yeah. Yeah. Baseball season, I think it'll come out right after the All-Star break. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. So on that note, we thank you so much for sticking with us with all the different podcast options you have. We really appreciate that you spend the time to listen to ours and we will talk to you again in two weeks time.