This week on Superior Sequels I’m doing something I haven’t done before. I’m pitting two SEQUELS against each other and not even bothering with the original movie.
This week it’s all about:
Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan (1982) vs Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986).
I think it’s pretty safe to say that Star Trek: The Motion Picture (1979) isn’t considered one of the better Star Trek movies. In fact it supports the fan theory that only the even-numbered Star Trek films are any good, and the odd-numbered films, not so much.
The fact that both of the movies battling it out for supremacy in this week's debate are even-numbered sequels adds weight to the idea that all the odd-numbered films are indeed cursed.
I’m well aware that The Wrath of Khan is widely regarded as the best of the original Star Trek movies, but I have to admit I prefer The Voyage Home. It’s one of those films that I can watch time and time again and never get tired of. I don’t know if it’s the story, the fact that it’s set in a more familiar setting, or whether it’s the lighter-hearted tone of the whole thing. Hell, it’s probably all of those things!
I do like The Wrath of Khan though, and I think it was a clever idea to bring back a character from an episode of the original series and make him the main antagonist. I don’t know if that’s ever been done before…
But this isn’t about what I think, it’s about what YOU think.
We’ve already established that both sequels are better than the crew of the Enterprise’s first big screen outing, but which one commands the bridge (god that was terrible! I apologise).
Is the revenge-fuelled return of Khan Noonien Singh from the Star Trek episode, “Space Seed” 15 years earlier the best film in the original saga, or does “The One With the Whales” win on comedy alone?
Set your phasers to stun and battle it out in the comments.