ET Flashback: 'Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan'
The summer of 1982 delivered one of the most memorable movies in science fiction ever with Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Now, on the film's 30th anniversary, we're revealing incredible fly-on-the-wall footage from the set, taken from the ET vaults.
Watch the video to see Ricardo Montalban as Khan -- along with his Botany Bay crew on the bridge of the U.S.S. Reliant -- in a battle scene; moments with William Shatner as Kirk, Leonard Nimoy as Spock and Kirstie Alley as Saavik on the Enterprise set; one-on-one interviews with DeForest Kelley (McCoy), director Nicholas Meyer and executive producer Harve Bennett; and Nimoy's final moments on the set when he's wrapped from the film.
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As director of arguably the best entry in the original big-screen franchise, Meyer (who also later directed Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country) told ET that he was not especially familiar with the classic '60s series, and had only seen Space Seed, the episode that introduces Khan, along with only a handful of other episodes.
"I'm not terribly interested in science fiction myself, but I'm very interested in interpersonal relationships, and that's what this movie's about," said a candid Meyer, who declared that he was setting out to make a more "sophisticated" and "perhaps a little more daring" version of the classic TV show.
Bennett, meanwhile, admitted that his background in Star Trek was "zero" and had a lot to learn, but he had already learned the difference between "Trekkie" and "Trekker," and singled out Star Trek as a show that was "ahead of its time" and was "above the cut of television then, and it remains that way. That's why people are so crazy about it."
DeForest Kelley, aka "Bones" McCoy, explained that he was a bit surprised that the Enterprise crew had an opportunity to return after the less-than-stellar reception of Star Trek: The Motion Picture.
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"I thought after the other one that perhaps it would be a long time, if indeed we did one at all again," he told ET. "This one came as quite a surprise. But I feel real good about this one. This one is really into the Star Trek feeling like the old show had, naturally on a motion picture basis, but it seems like everybody is working well together and it's a very exciting script and we all feel very good about it."
Asked how the revival of Star Trek had changed his life, Kelley ruminated, "The show is such a phenomenal thing that I think I have experienced something that very few actors really have experienced… It's almost an indescribable feeling the way it seems to affect the people all over the world."