Nicholas Meyer
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A House of Dynamite (2025)
Directed by Kathryn Bigelow
influenced by The Day After (1983), Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Themes
Nuclear missile horror stories used to be more frequent in the years after the Cold War first heated up, most famously 1964’s accidental diptych Fail Safe and Dr. Strangelove, followed by 1983’s accidental diptych WarGames and The Day After.
…feels like a twenty first century’s unofficial somber prequel to “The Day After” (1983)…
A House of Dynamite’s status as a cautionary tale also places it in the tradition of Cold War–era dramas like Fail Safe and The Day After…
…with cultural phenomena like “The Day After” and “99 Luftbaloons” constantly reminding us how close we were to extinction.
I remember as a curious 6-year-old kid being terrified by the TV movie The Day After, which looked at the repercussions of a nuclear conflict.
In November of 1983, the ABC television network aired a movie called The Day After that imagined what it would be like if nuclear bombs struck the United States.
McDowell played Wells as the inventor who used his machine to hunt Jack the Ripper through time called Time After Time.
The oft-televised The Lodger (1944) is moodier, while 1979's Time After Time is more fanciful and more fun.
Star Trek Into Darkness (2013)
Directed by J.J. Abrams
influenced by Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Plot
Fans of “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” will be delighted or annoyed by the overt references and parallels to that film, including one over-the-top nod that is so forcefully wedged into the story that it’s unintentionally funny.
Yet he also sets an exhilarating new course in this nimbly twisting feature, which pays homage to 1982's Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Every time the film reminds me of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, I thought it was nice for a moment, but just for that moment.
While the film may borrow heavily from previous even-numbered Star Trek films (the twisty plot of Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, the relentless action and pace of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, and the friendly humor of Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home), it also establishes its own identity.
As in the successful 2009 reboot, the blockbuster machinery overwhelms everything else, though this hardly matters because everything else is recycled: characters (the wicked Khan, played here by Benedict Cumberbatch), conflicts (the stale debate over logic versus emotion), and themes (weepy male romance as Spock watches Kirk expire inside a quarantine chamber, just as Kirk watched Spock die in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan).
Messy plotting seldom detracts from the proceedings, although it’s worth pointing out that the movie owes a major debt to the well-reviewed Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, released in 1982.
Star Trek Beyond (2016)
Directed by Justin Lin
influenced by Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Characters Plot
They hated how director J.J. Abrams reworked major themes and reintroduced bad guys from 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, the franchise’s crown jewel, making them less clever and resonant in the process.
Kirk, as he did in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, is starting to get a little bored.
The previous installment, 2013’s Star Trek Into Darkness, even made an ill-received rehash of Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, easily and arguably one of the most beloved of the Trek films.
The crew is starting to feel the weight of time and the sameness of routine, particularly Captain James T. Kirk (Chris Pine), who is so desperate for a change of pace that he is considering a promotion to admiral, which will raise his stock but keep him grounded for the rest of his career (this plot point and the fact that it is his birthday both recall 1982’s Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, which remains a perennial touchstone for the franchise).
Given that "Firefly" is often referred to as the anti-"Star Trek," it's worth noting that Whedon rationalizes a deep-space cloud formation by pointing to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and boasts that Mal and Inara are standing on the same rocky slope that served as the Genesis Planet in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock .
Joss Whedon, who created the show and wrote/directed the film, seems to want to bypass Star Trek: The Motion Picture and go directly to Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.
Man of Steel (2013)
Directed by Zack Snyder
influenced by Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Characters
Crowe, Costner and the diabolical Shannon (who seems to be channeling his own version of the Ricardo Montalban role in “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan”) are by far the best things about the movie, managing to seem like recognizable humanoid types in this arid landscape.
(The movie owes a secret debt to 1979's underrated "Time After Time," in which H.G. Wells tracks Jack the Ripper.)
Still, if the movies can give us H.G. Wells as a real time traveller (“Time After Time”) and Abraham Lincoln as a vampire slayer (“Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter”), why not a Poe who is a lover, a virile man of action, an amateur sleuth who sacrifices all for art and love?
“Project Almanac” isn’t “Time After Time” (1979) or “Back to the Future” (1985) or “12 Monkeys” (1996), but the new release does turn out to be a surprisingly jaunty trip for jaded Gen-Y kids.
Marshall is nothing if not forthright about his influences, having his movie-savvy characters drop references to Star Trek II: The Wrath Of Khan and The Matrix along with the occasional apt fairy tale—“The Three Little Pigs” doesn’t come up, but “Goldilocks” definitely does—while he name-checks Jaws and Zulu on his commentary.
Star Trek: Strange New Worlds (2022)
influenced by Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982), Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991)
Themes Characters
David's murder comes back around in the sixth film, "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country." The Klingon Empire is hoping for peace with the Federation, but most of the Enterprise crew is wary of allying with the people they've spent their careers fighting. Kirk is especially troubled at the prospect, since he holds Klingons (all Klingons) responsible for David's death.
…as we know from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" that Kirk was an absentee dad — he couldn't bridge the gap between his career exploring the universe and his family. Carol (Bibi Besch) tells Jim (William Shatner) in that film, "You had your world, and I had mine."
(The katra is what allowed Spock to hang out in McCoy’s body between Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan and Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
We met David as an adult in the 1982 film "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan," played by Merritt Butrick.
This line is a nod to Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country, in which Spock says, “An ancestor of mine maintained that if you eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth,” a line spoken by Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of the Four.
…the iconic Star Trek villain from The Original Series episode "Space Seed" and later Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan…
Avengers: Endgame (2019)
Directed by Joe Russo
influenced by Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country (1991), Time After Time (1979)
In lieu of a mid-credits or post-credits sequence (there are neither), the movie borrows a page from Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country’s playbook.
The possible answer to the dilemma of the missing Avengers is the film’s biggest joke, and I mean that literally since the dialogue will reference such fan favorites as “Back to the Future,” “Star Trek,” “X-Men,” “Terminator,” “Time After Time” “Somewhere in Time,” “About Time” (but not “Timecrimes” and “La Jetee,” the two coolest movies of that type ever made).
Kingsley, Coixet and screenwriter Nicholas Meyer ("Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan") wring a lot of nuance out of Kepesh's emotionally arrested inability to commit.
Think Bill Murray’s “Stripes” or Tom Hanks’ “Volunteers” meets the nerds vs. the super nerds of “Real Genius.”
Director James Gray’s style harks back to classic space movies, such as “Alien” and “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” that played around with the vastness of the stars, and made it seem like there was nowhere lonelier.
With Sam Mendes behind the camera, with the ridiculous collection of talent in front of it (including new additions Javier Barden, Ralph Fiennes , Albert Finney and Ben Whishaw from "The Hour"), and with a lot of talk about how this was going to be a more mature take on Bond (even more mature than the first two Daniel Craig films), I began to wonder if this was the film that had the ambition to be more than just a great James Bond movie, but to transcend its genre and series in the same way that "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" or "The Dark Knight" are just great films irrespective of their franchises.
Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019)
Directed by Michael Dougherty
influenced by Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
In theory, the mid-film reveal of an undersea kingdom where Godzilla goes to recharge his batteries in between battles should have a mythic, Lovecraftian grandeur, and it does, but it’s infiltrated by a gesture of absurd sentimentality engineered to give a human character a tragic send-off: The model is clearly Leonard Nimoy’s death in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan , except that this particular figure doesn’t have the gravitas of Mr. Spock.
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
Directed by Michael Bay
influenced by Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
In that case, Nimoy's lifting of his classic line from "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" -- about the needs of the many (moviegoers looking for mindless summer escapism) outweighing the needs of the few (film critics) couldn't be more on the nose.
Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (2003)
Directed by Peter Weir
influenced by Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982)
Visuals
The O'Brian novels started in the early 70s, after the "Star Trek" original series was off the air, but before "Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan" which owes much to the fog-based sea battle which opens the film.
A hodgepodge of everything from Alien to Event Horizon to an episode of “Fringe” to Back to the Future to an H.P. Lovecraft story to the classic 1983 television movie The Day After , to call this effort a mess would be massively understating things.