After a bumpy first outing on the silver screen, the Star Trek franchise got it right, but that doesn’t mean studios believed in the project. Michael Fisher joins Case and Sam to go over the rocky start to the most foundational Star Trek film.

Find Michael on Twitter, YouTube, or on his website!

Also, check out Starship Farragut, the series Case plugs in the episode!

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Transcription

(AI Generated. Subject to Error)

00:00
Case
It's fair. I mean, this is my point. Like the motion picture, when you watch, it feels like all of the pilots that they did, the three pilots that they did for the original series, where the reason those were so expensive was that they kept having to do special effects shots that they kept making. The very good point that they will reuse in every episode. The Enterprise flying by is going to get reused all the time. So, yeah, the pilot's gonna be very expensive because then you can do a bottle episode where you have a shot of the Enterprise, and then you're all like, on the bridge the entire episode.

00:29
Sam
Yeah.

00:30
Case
And that's kind of what they made when they made Wrath of Khan.

00:36
Michael Fisher
Welcome to certain point of views, another pass podcast. Be sure to subscribe, rate and review on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

00:47
Case
Hey, everyone, and welcome to another pass podcast. I'm case Aiken, and as always, I am joined by my co host, Sam Alicea.

00:54
Sam
Hello.

00:55
Case
And today we have a very special guest for a very special movie. Today we are joined by Michael Fisher, Mister mobile himself.

01:02
Michael Fisher
Hello, Case. Hello, Sam. Thank you for having me. I'm very excited to talk about Star Trek, which is not a rarity.

01:10
Sam
Welcome.

01:12
Michael Fisher
Thank you.

01:12
Case
Well, I mean, you said it. We're talking about Star Trek today. But we're not talking about one of the odd movies today. Today we are talking about one of the even ones. We're talking about one of the good ones, because this is a fifth episode. So today we are talking about a movie that succeeded in spite of difficulty and traversed many hurdles. A movie that has continued to live long and has prospered. Because today we are talking about, honestly, the movie. That is the reason why we have an ongoing Star Trek franchise. Today we are talking about Star Trek, the wrath of Khan, the movie all.

01:43
Sam
The other Star Trek movies want to be.

01:45
Michael Fisher
Yeah, I was just. I can hear that opening theme. Just as you say, the time. I must have seen this movie 200 times, and I never get tired of talking about it because, as you say, it is the reason we still have Star Trek today. So we owe it a great debt, don't we?

01:59
Case
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, like, it's not that this movie had necessarily a ton of challenges once it got underway. They had very creative people who were very good at their jobs doing it, but there was a lot of upfront adversity just in terms of getting it made, because its predecessor was Star the motion picture, which is one of the first movies I talked about on this show. And that is a movie where it's just like, wow, I wish you could have found an editor. That would have been great.

02:26
Michael Fisher
So with Star the motion picture, there's a book that I am in the process of reading called return to. To the filming of Star the motion picture. And it's an oral history of, well, just what it says on the tin. And I even I was not aware, after just years of memory alpha dumps and stuff, how fraught that process was and just what a bear that movie was to make. So, yeah, it is no small miracle that were gifted the sequel after all of that nightmare.

02:57
Case
Right? But before we get too deep into this one, this is the first time talking about Trek since Sam joined the show. And Michael, you're very public with your fandom for Star Trek, and Star Trek is just part of my brand, so why don't we just go around and talk about our association with it a little bit? Michael, you're our guest. Want to just talk about your background with the franchise and what drew you.

03:18
Michael Fisher
To it, for sure. Yeah. Well, I almost became a Star Trek fan by default, by dint of growing up in the early to mid nineties, the sort of golden age of broadcast Star Trek anyway. I mean, Star the Next Generation had become, by the time I was in second grade, popular enough with even mainstream audiences to, like, get Emmy nominations and be ranked up there next to NYPD blue for just outstanding drama and things like that. So kind of everyone was watching Star Trek when I grew up. And I fell into that. And then, as tends to happen, immediately became obsessed to what I'm certain my parents felt was a troubling degree. And I collected every prop, every action figure, I watched every episode. You know, I borrowed vhs tapes, I taped them myself. I just. I fell into that hole.

04:11
Michael Fisher
And that was 30 years ago, maybe 25 years ago, and my infatuation has never waned. So it's just become a part of my life. I mean, this was. It happened so early in my development that it's basically baked into my DNA. So that's where I'm at with Star Trek. Nice.

04:28
Case
I think we're gonna have some similar tales. Cause I think we're all about the same age. But, Sam, you and I actually have only talked in passing about it when you've been wearing Star Trek socks and so forth, because. But you and I are both Star Trek fans, so we just were like, yeah, but I actually don't know the genesis for your fandom, so.

04:45
Sam
My genesis actually is from my mom. My mom is a huge science fiction person. Like, my dad couldn't give two flying fucks about it, but he really liked Star Trek the next generation, and it was actually family viewing. Like, we actually sat down as a family and watched it every time it was on. When it ended, we would discuss the episode. We had long discussions as a family, and my dad actually, like, joined in those, but my mom always kind of, like, encouraged all of that stuff, so we watched all of them. In fact, my dad actually ended up watching Voyager and deep Space nine and enjoying those slightly more, which was very surprising to me and my mom because in terms of him and science fiction, like, he's just not always down for it.

05:33
Sam
Like, my mom's a huge Godzilla fan and a blob fan, and generally my mom used to drag him to those films. Like, he'd be like, oh, my God, again. So my mom's into all of that. Like anything, honestly, anything with a monster and a space mystery and, you know, a rubber forehead. My mom will even watch, like, you know, like this really bad made for, like, Sci-Fi movie. Like, made for tv, like, you know, the shark Cobra connection or whatever they are. Like, where Sci-Fi mood channel used to make, like, hybrid animals that would attack people with bad CGI. My mom would be like, this movie's amazing. And I'd be like, mom, why are you watching this? And she's like, laughing her ass off. She's like, no, but it's hilarious. Look, she's in the water. She's gonna die. This is great.

06:23
Sam
So a lot of my passion came from her and just kind of it being normal to just embrace exploration and it being really cool. And also just like, there are really wonderful, empathetic characters, you know, that's the amazing thing about Star Trek, is you can always find a character that you relate to, right? Because there's so many different types of people and so introspective. And generally, I'm not speaking about all stuff, but generally the characters are written with a certain amount of empathy, you know, from the writers. Not that every character is empathetic, but I feel like the writers give most of the characters a fair chance, right. There's always a sort of lesson to learn or a point of view. You didn't think of that.

07:11
Sam
They're kind of, like, letting you examine, try not to push too hard, depending on the series, let's be honest. But you know what I mean? And so I've always enjoyed Star Trek because there's something lovely about that. Like, you know, I do love Star wars. But if I had to choose which world to live in, it would be Star Trek, because I don't want to live in perpetual war. I would rather live in a space where I can actually travel, explore, learn new things, you know, something that's a little more altruistic, honestly. And that's the beauty of Star Trek. I mean, I still want a lightsaber, just like, putting that out there. But, you know, I don't want to be at ward all the time.

07:53
Case
Yeah, it doesn't get brought up very much, but definitely by the 24th century, they definitely can do lightsabers. They can do solid holograms.

08:00
Sam
Yeah, true.

08:01
Michael Fisher
Sure.

08:02
Case
They just never do it.

08:03
Michael Fisher
Right. Even in the 24th century, there are licensing departments and lawyers. Right?

08:08
Case
They're like, oh, those toxic fanboys will never hear the end of it if they become Starfleet regalia.

08:12
Michael Fisher
Right?

08:13
Case
Yeah, I think kind of in the same way I sort of, like, default rolled into it. In my case, it was my father who was a really big Star Trek fan. And so it was on syndication on Sunday mornings, and we'd watch it after church, and that was sort of like my intro for it when I was like four or five. And then as I got older, it just sort of stayed as part of it or like, part of, like, my core. Like, TNG reruns and deep space nine reruns would be on all the time at night before I would go to bed when I was in high school. So I, like, typically watch, like, Frasier back to back with TNg on UPN. And it was like, all right, this is good viewing, and now I'm going to go to bed right now because.

08:47
Michael Fisher
I was like, you and I had the same viewing schedule, apparently. I remember sitting on my bed and not, I was always a night owl. And, yeah, you're, I mean, Seinfeld, Frasier, next gen, DS nine. And then if you stayed up past that, it was, I mean, you just weren't, it was three in the morning. You might as well just stay up all night, right?

09:03
Case
And at the time, I was trying to be a good student because I wanted to go to a good college. So I was actually trying to have, like, not as much of a night owl schedule as contrasted by the rest of my life. And then after college, because, like, I stayed like a casual Trek fan in that phase. Like, I had friends who were, like, bigger Trek people and I would, like, come over and hang out, but I was never, like, a big collector of Star Trek stuff. But then after college, I linked up with a Star Trek fan film group. And so I worked with them for a long time. In fact, our last film is coming out this year. Fingers crossed after a five year production cycle on that one.

09:38
Michael Fisher
So, Kaser, you probably will plug this later, but what's the name of that?

09:44
Case
So the group is Starship Farragut.

09:46
Michael Fisher
Yeah, I've heard of you guys. I haven't watched any of them, I don't think, but I definitely been aware of it on, like, the fringes of stuff. I'm going to shortlist that now. That's awesome.

09:57
Case
Some of them are harder to watch now just because video technology has dramatically improved. Like, a lot of it was shot in standard deaf, and it's like, you can kind of see it still, but there's some really great ones. And I'll shoot you links, the better ones that we've done, please. But, yeah, I started off doing extra work in it and then was doing production work. So I was like the production manager on the most recent one. And all of those are that, like, really, like, amplified my fandom because it was, like, really infectious working with people who were just so passionate about Star Trek fandom that they talked about it all the time. You got to see all the different viewpoints about why all these different people really enjoyed it. And that prompted me to be like, you know what?

10:38
Case
I'm going to rewatch all of Star Trek. I, like, re watched all the series in order, like, really doubled down on it. I just reminded myself how much the series meant to me as a whole.

10:49
Michael Fisher
That's like 800 hours of tv you watched.

10:52
Case
Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, there were chunks of unemployment and whatnot.

10:56
Michael Fisher
Some time you made the most of the time. Good for you.

11:00
Case
Yeah. This was over the course of a couple of years. It wasn't like, in one go, but.

11:05
Michael Fisher
Not just one quarantine.

11:07
Case
Yeah, but like I said, I talked about the motion picture, which was one of the last things I actually watched in all of Star Trek prior to, like, the new materials that have been coming out early in this series. And I posited when I watched it that a lot of the excesses of it were coming from the perspective of trying to make a movie that you could then reuse assets for later ones. And, oh, my God, I was so happy when I was doing research on this one to find out that's exactly what they did. Like, Trek has a long history of taking every piece of material that they construct for it and reusing it again and again. Right from the beginning of this movie, you can see that? They're trying to save money and create an amazing economical production by virtue of.

11:52
Case
We've got the Klingon shot from the first movie. That's how we're going to set it up.

11:58
Michael Fisher
The reused space dock footage. Yeah, the Klingon cruisers, the sets, which I didn't know were still left standing after the motion picture.

12:05
Case
I mean, yeah, that surprised me that it was so fully left standing.

12:09
Michael Fisher
Normally they rip them right down and reuse that set for something else. Then when they have to build the Enterprise bridge again, they literally build it again. I couldn't believe that the set was actually still there.

12:19
Case
I guess it was because they spent so much money on it and it was successful. That's the thing. Financially, the motion picture did pretty well. It just critically, not so much. And it wasn't hugely profitable because it was also expensive. But it still turned a profit and had a huge box office and seemed to guarantee that a sequel would get made even if they were dubious about the property.

12:42
Michael Fisher
What was crazy, we shouldn't beat up on motion picture too much for the financials because, as has always been the case in Hollywood, you have a lot of creative accounting going on and a lot of the development of Star Trek phase two, the canceled tv series from the seventies. Like, a lot of that production allocation was kind of tacked onto the motion pictures balance sheet. Paramount was not interested in taking the rap for everything. Like, your points on our rundown are very accurate. There's a lot of meddling. There's a lot of creative differences. But this movie also carries a lot of financial burden that it was not necessarily responsible for. So we got to give it a little bit of a break there. But it was still going to be three times more expensive than the money they were allocating for Wrath of Khan.

13:29
Michael Fisher
So you're right.

13:30
Case
Yeah, it's fair. I mean, this is my point. Like the motion picture, when you watch, it feels like all of the pilots that they did, the three pilots that they did for the original series, where the reason those were so expensive was that they kept having to do special effects shots that they kept making the very good point that they will reuse in every episode. The enterprise flying by is going to get reused all the time. So, yeah, the pilot's gonna be very expensive because then you can do a bottle episode where you have a shot of the enterprise and then you're all, like, on the bridge the entire episode.

14:02
Sam
Yeah.

14:03
Case
And that's kind of what they made when they made wrath of Khan.

14:06
Michael Fisher
Yeah. The thing is, there's one particular motion picture thing that I cannot let us get past without mentioning, and I didn't know this until today. Robert Wise, the director, was so stressed on that production, apparently. This is according to the 50 year mission book by Edward Gross and Mark Altman. This is John Poville speaking. I remember that when were in production on the film, every day, Bob wise, the director, would have lunch in his office and have one glass of vodka, pretty much straight up, certainly not to excess, just one to steel himself for the rest of the day. The overall frame of it was 35 years. I've never experienced anything like this. Just unfucking believable. He could not believe how dysfunctional this production was. And I'm like, yep, I believe it. Yeah. Lot of chefs in the kitchen.

14:57
Case
Yeah. And as much as I hate to say it was probably a good idea to remove the number of chefs in play. When it comes time for Wrath of Khan, Roddenberry was pushed back from being a hands on producer to being an EP. He was a consultant. He does have things that he did for this, but he did not have final say on pretty much anything, which is probably a good idea. Roddenberry has. Has a history of being great on the ideas, but other people need to execute. As you can see, with. Unfortunately, after his passing, with TNG becoming substantially stronger, I don't.

15:33
Michael Fisher
It feels icky to have to acknowledge that. Right? It does, of course, but it's true. I mean, there's. There are people who are really good at executing a concept, and then there are people who are really good at having a concept, and often they're not the same person. That's just how it goes. Right?

15:47
Sam
That was all a very solemn nod from all of us. Yeah, yeah.

15:54
Case
Well, and it's particularly icky with TNG because Roddenberry passes away, and that's why he was no longer involved. But with the wrath of Khan, it was not that way. The producers stepped in and were like, no, other people need to work on this because not really producers. Pardon me, the money, like Paramount, the crazy quote that I found in terms of this. So they brought in Harv Bennett, who was not familiar with Star Trek but had a history working in tv. And one of the execs asked him. After Bennett admits that he thought that the motion picture was kind of boring. It's a perfectly good movie. It is 50% longer than it should be. Every shot is way too long. After he admitted that he thought it was kind of boring, one of the execs asked if he could make a better movie?

16:39
Case
And he said, absolutely. Can you make it for less than 45 fucking million dollars? And that became sort of like, this is the modus operandi for this production. We are going to save some money and get this thing together. And Bennett wasn't familiar with Star Trek, but he respected the franchise enough that he watched every single episode.

16:57
Michael Fisher
Yeah, yeah.

16:59
Case
And started the, got the ball rolling, brought in Nicholas Myers eventually, like, you know, got scripts going, like, started, like, working with the franchise, working with the lore, building it into something that was coherent and exciting and also was going to be fiscally viable.

17:15
Michael Fisher
Yeah. And that even that process, like, finding, developing the story, I mean, reading about this, it is an absolute nightmare to someone like me, who largely sits on his own little island and does his own creative work day in and day out without the dangers of, you know, committees because this thing had five scripts before it even had a, like a con. Sorry, I won't jump ahead, but I mean, the changes were so vast from script to script to script, that, like, at the end as you're gonna bring up, like, Nicomeier agreed to a ridiculous deal just to get the movie done.

17:51
Case
Yeah.

17:52
Michael Fisher
I mean, what a. I used to think I would like to work in movies as an actor, which, frankly, sounds a lot simpler than any of this production side stuff because the more you read about this, the more I am stunned that anything ever actually gets put on screen with all the power plays and deal making and things that have to go on for this stuff.

18:14
Case
Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's. There's so many. I mean, as you pointed out before, there were too many cooks in the previous production. That doesn't. And removing a few cooks doesn't mean that you only have one all of a sudden. Like, they had fewer cooks for this one. But, yeah, I mean, like, trying to put together a movie is one of the craziest things you could conceive of because there are so many moving parts.

18:37
Michael Fisher
Yes. And so many opinions and so many people whose toes you can't afford to step on, you know?

18:44
Case
Yeah. Like, we talked about Star Trek. Well, we've talked about several Star Trek. We talked about Star Trek insurrection not too long ago. And on that episode, one of the interesting things was that Patrick Stewart, great actor, awesome human being, was getting a lot of clout and star power at that point, and all of a sudden can't piss him off anymore. So you have to make sure that, like, the movie you're making sort of works with what he wants in addition to what the screenwriter wants. That the director wants that. The studio wants that the budget will allow for.

19:09
Michael Fisher
Yeah, yeah. Which I don't know, like, I know we're not talking about Picard on this one, but I have found that the more Patrick Stewart has gotten involved in the storytelling, the scripting part of the franchise, the less I have enjoyed the Picard character. You know, I get where he's coming from. You know, he wants more sex and shooting. I think that's a verbatim quote.

19:31
Case
Yeah.

19:32
Michael Fisher
And it's like, I get it, man. If I were you, I would also want the same thing. But the Picard I love was thoughtful and, you know, all the things that apparently Patrick Stewart was tired of doing. So it's always dangerous when you have, when you cross the streams a little bit, right?

19:47
Case
Yeah. And fortunately, between, I mean, Star Trek was not the monolith that it has since become like, you know, it was at this .3 seasons in one movie and the animated series at the, at this point, there was nothing so much canon and there was not so much fandom to sort of propel it forward. The biggest reason star, the motion picture got made was because Star wars was popular and so, like, space was in. But at this point, who was to say if it was space or if it was Star wars specifically? So that's when we get into sort of the interesting thing in terms of, like, the actors who were involved with this franchise, because at this point, Shatner did not have the same clout that Patrick Stewart would have later in the runs of all of the next gen movies.

20:33
Case
We're dealing with a point now where the actors are starting to get older. And shatner, for example, wanted to use makeup to sort of be presented as a young captain, still. And Myers, when he took over on the production, was like, I'm sorry, that's not what we think would be interesting anymore. Like, the fact of the matter is, it's 20 years since the show was going. We need to actually address that in a way that the motion picture did a little bit. Like everyone had kind of advanced in their careers, but it didn't really present that as a stumbling block for anyone. And so you see one of the big themes of the movie come about just naturally by virtue of the fact that they are dealing with older actors, that age and mortality have to be a part of that conversation.

21:21
Michael Fisher
Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's, I'm so grateful that happened because that is one of the ways I can still relate to this film. It is no mystery to me that at the age of ten. I loved this movie and so did a lot of my friends. Right. There's a lot to enjoy. There's a lot to appreciate from the swashbuckling, buckling sense and the combat sense and the. The adventure, the weird genesis stuff. But now that I'm way older and I don't feel the same about things and I have regrets in life and I'm having weird aches that are.

21:52
Michael Fisher
That for no reason, you know, I can really appreciate all of the themes about aging that are woven into the narrative and which resulted from Nick Meyer sitting there with five scripts and saying, well, you said no to all of these, so let's just pick the things in each of these that we like, and then I'll throw them together over twelve days.

22:11
Sam
Yeah.

22:12
Michael Fisher
Remarkable. For free. His agent called, said he was crazy for taking that.

22:16
Case
Right.

22:17
Sam
I mean, I think that it also is just like, kind of brilliant, right. Because it gives them a chance to really work with something. Especially since you're bringing something from the past back. Right. We're bringing back this character from this past episode to kind of remind them that kind of being on your way to becoming admiral, you made some mistakes. And it's beautiful because it adds this, like, layer to the film and it's not, you know, it's so reflective. It's great.

22:51
Case
I love it.

22:52
Michael Fisher
It really is. And, I mean, I don't know if were going to talk about that or not, but can we just touch on the ridiculous decision Kirk made that got him into the situation in the first place?

23:04
Case
To let the genetically engineered super soldier take over a planet with his whole.

23:09
Michael Fisher
Crew of other super soldiers.

23:12
Sam
I mean, that is what you do, right? Like, you just. You, like, decide that you are not equipped fully to deal with the problem. Like, this is actually, honestly, how many of us have done things like this in our twenties? We have decided we are not fully equipped to deal with a particular problem. And so we decide that the best thing is to kind of push it off to the side and delay it in some way. Right? So it was just like, I'm gonna leave you here and like, yeah, you've got this whole planet. Good luck.

23:45
Michael Fisher
Good luck with that.

23:46
Sam
Good luck with that. Gonna leave now. And I think we should also talk about Khan just also not being able to take his own personal responsibility because he was fine with that deal, and his wife was also fine with that deal because I rewatched that episode before we.

24:08
Case
Yeah, let's talk about space seed for a little bit. Yeah, because, so, like, I watched this movie long before I ever watched Space Seed. Sam, I think a lot of people are in that boat because this is. This is the famous Star Trek movie. Like, it's. It's. It's way easier to watch than just random episode in season one. But the choice to have it be a sequel to Space Seed is kind of brilliant. And that episode, it definitely begs for a sequel, like, because it is a terrible decision at the end.

24:38
Michael Fisher
Spock straight up says it at the end of that episode. He's like, it would be interesting, captain, to have another story about this, maybe in a longer form in movie theaters in 15 years and see about this ridiculous.

24:50
Case
Yeah, just about.

24:51
Sam
Well, he said it would be interesting to come back 100 years and see what seed that crop grew. Like, what. And, like, I was like, yeah, Spock, you should have just been like, we should have just locked them up, or, I don't know, something. Something.

25:09
Michael Fisher
Or at least put out a warning booth. Just. Yeah, but if.

25:13
Sam
Well.

25:14
Case
Or at least checked on them, and that's. The time between is even crazier. But. But, yeah.

25:18
Sam
Which below decks makes a joke about, actually, that, like, Star Trek has instituted a rule that you have to go and check up on, like, planets every two years to make sure so they don't come back to haunt you later.

25:33
Michael Fisher
That's a really good policy.

25:35
Case
Yeah, yeah. I mean, honestly, if this movie hadn't come out, Space Seed would almost require a next gen episode because it's perfectly set up there where it's just like, I wonder what it'll be like in 100 years. And then 100 years later, like, oh, hey.

25:48
Michael Fisher
Right. And to the movie's credit, like, it really makes Kirk pay for that mistake without something that I think some modern Star Trek might do, might have the temptation to do, which is, you know, put him on trial in a very visible thing, or have these. Have what I consider to be rather mawkish scenes, kind of telling, not showing Kirk, literally, he loses so much in this movie and in the next one as a direct result of this really bad decision he made 15 years ago. That's scary to think about legitimately.

26:22
Case
Yeah.

26:23
Sam
And it feels realistic in a way, because honestly, like, who? I mean, he's been roaming around the galaxy having affairs, let's be honest. Like, that was one of his things.

26:36
Case
Which also comes back to bite him in this movie.

26:39
Sam
Yes. Also. Yeah, there's a whole. There's other layers there, but, you know, like, it's. This movie's about a reckoning for our dear captain, really. Just everything coming home to roost. But I think that, yeah, he would have made mistakes because, like he said in the film, he's always cheating death. He's always just barely escaping. And when you are living in a world where you are just living to kind of survive and get by, you're gonna do things that are in that gray area. And that's where Star Trek is the most interesting, when their characters have to make choices in that gray area. And it's kind of questionable whether or not that was the right choice or the wrong choice or, you know, humane or not. And so I think that's one of the things that's just so great about this film because it's very.

27:38
Sam
It's just. It sets that precedence for, like, the next, you know, series of. Well, everything that came after, really.

27:46
Michael Fisher
Yeah, yeah.

27:47
Case
But particularly the. The French as a whole. I mean, it's hard to fit this movie in with the motion picture just in terms of aesthetics. Like the. The uniform switch. Mainly the uniform switch. But there's also some really similar beats. Like, it feels like this was a redux. And I found out, I didn't actually realize this. Apparently, it was initially marketed as just star the wrath of Khan with no two on it. And it's all in later releases where they added the two, which I don't know how I never knew that until today when I was reading up on it last minute, like, oh, that makes so much more sense because it kind of just feels like we're gonna do the proper continuation of the original series now.

28:27
Case
And not to say that the motion picture, again, I actually really like the motion picture, but it does feel like a different direction of doing that. That sequel series. I mean, it was originally a script for phase two. This is not a script for phase two. This is its own animal that they're doing. Lovingly looking at the original show and saying, what do we do? For the fans specifically, it is an.

28:49
Michael Fisher
Interesting showcase of the versatility of cinema and of this property in particular, because you're making great points with regard to the motion picture. Think about all that they had to reuse, both practically and for budget reasons. It's the same sets, but the same starship enterprise. It's the same model, it's the same aesthetic, it's the same universe. But in this movie, as opposed to motion picture, I mean, motion picture is a thoughtful, plodding, seventies, sort of 2001 ish thought piece. And this is a swashbuckling master and commander submarine movie slash pirate movie in space. And also Moby Dick, right? So it's like to have a franchise that can survive being both things is remarkable to have it that adaptable. But, you know, it's very fortunate that wrath of Khan and motion picture can exist in the same cinematic universe with the same cast.

29:44
Case
You know, it's not weird to say deep Space Nine has a very different vibe than Voyager because those are different shows telling different stories. Even if the technology the characters are using is the same, like, they're wildly different shows, different locales. This is literally the same ship with the same basic group of people having an entirely different kind of adventure. And neither one feels wrong for those people.

30:08
Michael Fisher
Yes. Yes.

30:09
Case
It's a truly impressive bit in that regard. And part of that is that we got all these actors back. Like, it is really cool that they got all of the principal actors from the series, and that was difficult to do. Not everyone wanted to come back. Not everyone was in a good position to come back. And then Ricardo Montauban had no real incentive and had a lot of scheduling issues because he was doing fantasy island at that time. And so it's impressive who we all got back for this. Like I said, Shatner wanted to come back, but he wanted to continue playing young, and he was told no and had to roll with it. So that's good. Jimmy Doohan actually just had a heart attack right before this happened. And they actually make a nod to that in the movie, saying that McCoy.

30:51
Case
McCoy saved him.

30:53
Michael Fisher
I had no idea that was a reference to that. That's an amazing Easter.

30:56
Case
I know. I didn't know it either until I was doing research for this. I was like, okay, well, I'm glad he's okay. I'm glad he made it back on this one.

31:02
Michael Fisher
I had a wee bout, sir. Right, weeb, out of what?

31:06
Case
Let's see. Deforest Kelly was so dissatisfied with earlier scripts that he almost didn't return. Fortunately, Meyer's final draft actually convinced him to stay, and Leonard Nimoy desperately didn't want to be attached to this movie anymore. This is the I am not Spock phase of his career, and was only convinced to come on or to come back for it on the principle that he would be killed almost immediately. And so early drafts were like, he dies right at the beginning.

31:32
Michael Fisher
Yeah, I did enjoy reading that because he was very pointedly not on board. At least one of these scripts had no role for Spock or killed him off right away. And then it wasn't. It was Bennett and someone else who was working on the scripts. And Bennett said, we're never going to get Leonardo. And he was like, get him on the phone. Gets him on the phone. He's like, tell him you're going to kill him. It was like a five minute conversation. And apparently Leonardimoy was like, all right, I'm in.

31:58
Case
It's weird how that works. Charlton Heston had the same situation with beneath the Planet of the Apes, where he was like, can you just kill me right at the beginning? And they're like, well, what if we make you disappear right at the beginning and then when you show up, you die almost immediately afterwards? And that's. That's why he like, that's why b list Charlton Heston Knockoff is the main character for the majority of that movie.

32:19
Michael Fisher
I did not know that either. Yeah, it's amazing how that happens, right?

32:22
Case
Weirdly, setting up Escape from the Planet of the Apes, which has Ricardo Montauban.

32:25
Sam
In it.

32:28
Case
As one of the few actors to be in multiple Planet of the Apes movies because he's in that. And then conquest of the Planet of the Apes.

32:35
Michael Fisher
Huh. I did not know.

32:36
Case
As the father figure slash circus trainer for Caesar. Yeah, the Planet of the ace movies are weird.

32:44
Michael Fisher
Sounds like it.

32:45
Sam
Yeah.

32:45
Case
I love them, but they are weird.

32:48
Michael Fisher
Probably not going to shortlist those, but thank you for the information.

32:53
Case
Escape is a seventies comedy where the apes have gone back in time and are living as celebrities in America.

32:59
Sam
Yeah.

33:00
Case
And then conquest is a slave uprising movie.

33:03
Michael Fisher
Not sure if Sirius, Jpeg.

33:08
Case
There we go. The circus ones are way better, but there is their charm. And again, there's Ricardo Montauban, who makes everything better. I recently watched the Kathie Lee Crosby failed Wonder Woman pilot from 1976, the one where she is a non powered martial artist spy. And in that one, Ricardo Montauban is the main villain. And he's the best part of that.

33:30
Michael Fisher
He's the best part of so many things. He's in, I feel like. Right.

33:33
Case
Yeah. Including this. Everyone's great in this, but he is so good. Like, this is one of the career makers for him in terms of. I shouldn't say establishing him, but in terms of cementing him in the memory of everyone. He has been in tons of roles over his life, but 50 years later, we're going to be talking about Khan.

33:53
Michael Fisher
Yes.

33:54
Sam
Not only does he have some of the best lines, but he has the best delivery of all of his lies. Oh, absolutely incredible. Like, honestly, like, there, I had to stop myself because I was rewatching today. I had to stop myself from just, like, rewinding a couple of times because he's just so intense. Right. So, you know, they. Unfortunately, because of his scheduling issues, he wasn't actually, like, they weren't able to put him in a room with Captain Kirk. Right, Connor?

34:24
Case
I wanted to get to that.

34:25
Michael Fisher
Yeah.

34:25
Sam
Yeah. So they're not gonna be together, but somehow through screens, like, just talking through each other, like, all of us in 2020 and us right now, but there was such intensity between these two actors. And that's partially just because he just carried up, like, you believed that he hated Kirk. Like, he was gonna find him and he hated him and he was gonna, like, he was just from his throne room on that other ship, he was gonna end him. And it was so good. I mean, there was, like, lines that were, like, shakespearean in nature, and then he would go, like, from, like, this, like, shakespearean delivery to something totally normal. Like, it would be like, you know, something poetic, and then he'd be like, warp speed, and you're like, how does he do? It didn't even feel different, but it was so good.

35:20
Sam
Like, and he also said that he was so, like, involved with his role on Fantasy island that he asked the. The producers to get him a copy of speed space so that he could watch it over and over so that he could channel back in to Khan and this dictator and who he was. So that's what he would do before he'd go to film. He would just watch the episode over and over, and then he would go and film.

35:50
Michael Fisher
That's one of the things I love reading about as well. Like, all of that process. You know, my background is in acting, like I say, and I. I cannot imagine the challenge of having to plug back in to a character I played, you know, 1213 years ago, whatever it was, and had probably not thought of since. Right? Yeah. Ricardo Mantelban, apparently, his first impulse was to see, well, you know, if I've spent all this time on this planet stewing in my rage, then everything has to be played to, like, an eleven. And Nick Meyer, when he was directing him on his first scene, he was kind of like, oh, my God, what have I done?

36:26
Michael Fisher
Because Ricardo Modelbaum was apparently just blowing the doors off and, like, monologuing so hard at the cameras that he was, you know, breaking things with his mind, and he pulled him out and he's like, that was great. That was great. You know how that thing where crazy people, they're really frightening because you don't know what they're gonna do next, but, you know, it's not always that big. And he has a couple great comparisons to other actors there. And apparently he was terrified that Mantlebahn was going to just ignore him and play it the way he wanted. But Mandelban was like, good, you are going to direct me. I need directing. And they had a wonderful relationship. And you can see it because his performance is stunning. All movie.

37:08
Sam
I love that because it's actually very similar to, like, one thing that happens in speed in space. Speed. He actually, like, one point when the woman, I can't remember his future wife, I can't remember names. I'm the worst at that.

37:22
Case
MacGyvers is the MacGyver character. Yeah.

37:25
Sam
So she comes in and he and she, like, kind of wants to stay with him because she's drawn to him. Because I honestly, like, I know that this was made years ago, but in my head, like, I was like, when she first saw him, I was like, oh, this chick is thirsty. I was like, where's the Internet slang on this? I was like, but it's true.

37:44
Case
I mean, one of his superpowers is just raw sex appeal. Like, that's. Yeah, it's got to be a pheromone thing combined with just the magnificence.

37:52
Sam
I mean, with that deep v on that chest. How could you ignore that Ralph saxophone all day? But, but, like, she, like, says something and he's just like, she, like, goes to Lee, or she's like, I'm not sure if he goes, Nick. No, no. You tell me if you want to stay. Now you ask me permission to stay. I was like, so, like, it's kind of like the same person with the director. No, you direct me now. I like you.

38:22
Michael Fisher
Right?

38:26
Case
I mean, it does such a good job of having this character who's been trapped with, like, a limited reading material and, like, on the verge of death for 15 years. They really get that kind of crazy that you would get to. And that's why Moby Dick works so well for him as this thing to just, like, read and reread and work it then as a metaphor for everything he does.

38:47
Sam
I mean, I just want to say again, though, he chose to get off the ship and she chose to get off with him. Kirk did not sentence them to death. He may not have known classic crazy, I know, but I just want to say that it's classic crazy because he cannot take responsibility for how he failed his people and the woman he took with him, who was a superior woman, according to him, in that episode. It was a very weird line stuck in my brain forever.

39:18
Case
This is probably a good time to just drop this note. So Madeline Rue, who played Marlowe MacGyvers in Spaceeed, apparently developed multiple sclerosis in the interim and was confined to a wheelchair at this point. And so they made the decision to write her out as having died, as opposed to bringing her back for this movie, which I feel torn about because from a motivational standpoint, it makes a lot of sense to, like, push him over the edge. And then it, you know, it's characterized then further every mistake. He can't own any mistake in this movie that, like, as it goes, he never.

39:54
Sam
Yeah.

39:54
Case
Is able to sort of accept the fact that he is fucked up consistently throughout this whole movie. Yeah, he's superior. That, that arrogance is the thing that drives him. So it works as like, okay, so this is the background detail that then pushes him forward. But on the other hand, it's like, well, that's kind of fucked up that, like, for one thing, you could have easily written a character as being incapacitated by this hostile world. And for another, I don't know, would like to promote handicapped actors or disabled actors.

40:22
Michael Fisher
It would have been great to see her again, too, because she played that part wonderfully, even though it was, to your point, Sam, was a problematically written part, given the benefit of retrospect. But maybe that's one of the things that could have been done more smoothly if this thing hadn't been cobbled together from five scripts over twelve days, you know, by a guy who didn't want to take a writing credit for it. Like, it's, it drives me nuts sometimes because you're right, the potential is there for more. But I think it does work. I would love to have seen her again, but it does lend further teeth to Khan's anger. I mean. Yeah. Including my beloved wife. You know, it's like, wow, he blames you for killing his wife. You can't get more in someone's shithouse than that, you know?

41:08
Sam
Yeah, yeah.

41:10
Case
Again, in terms of just writing it feels like, yeah, that makes perfect sense in terms of. Well, but it also does kind of feel like fridging a character that you didn't actually have to fridge.

41:20
Sam
Like, yeah, I could see that. We're gonna kill her off. So he has motivation.

41:26
Case
Yeah. But let's get into some of the filming stuff. We talked about how because of Montalban's schedule, he was never able to be on the same screen or on stage with Shatner, which apparently caused them to cut some stuff like a potential sword fight that they were supposed to have at one point. And even just, like, a face to face confrontation, they weren't able to do. And that part is well known. It's like, oh, everyone knows that. Oh, yeah. Khan and Kirk are never on screen together in wrath of Khan. And also, Chekhov wasn't supposed to be. Wasn't supposed to recognize him, and vice versa. Those are, like, the two trivia bits people always remember from. From wrath of Khan.

42:03
Michael Fisher
Yeah.

42:04
Case
But here was a crazy stat that I read that makes a lot of sense once you think about it, which is that 65% of the movie was shot on the bridge.

42:12
Michael Fisher
Jeez. More than half the movie takes place on that set.

42:15
Sam
Yeah, yeah.

42:16
Case
One set.

42:16
Michael Fisher
Yeah.

42:17
Case
So when I call this a bottle episode, I mean, it, like, it's pretty close to that.

42:22
Michael Fisher
Yeah. I mean, it's another testament to the power of restrictions. Right. I mean, that's a direct. That's a direct consequence of scheduling issues and a monstrously slashed budget. And despite the fact that we are spending so much time in that one room, if the story is concrete enough and the performances are there, it doesn't matter. Right.

42:42
Case
Yeah.

42:42
Michael Fisher
That's why fan films work.

42:44
Case
Right. And I've been on those sets where we have had those kind of conversations of like, well, how can you make it really dramatic? How can you make this set feel different even though it's literally the same set, just supposedly on a different ship? You can do all these kinds of, like, little tricks. You can change the gels on the lights to just give it a slightly different mood. You can, you know. You know, ultimately, the reliant is just the Enterprise.

43:06
Michael Fisher
Yeah.

43:07
Case
And that's. It was even originally supposed to be a constitution class starship, which would have.

43:12
Michael Fisher
Been very confusing for anyone who'd never seen Star Trek before. Right.

43:14
Case
Especially when you get into a dogfight.

43:16
Michael Fisher
Yeah, exactly. Now which one? It's like watching the expanse, which I adore, but in those space combat scenes, I'm like, this is so realistic. I have no idea what's going on. I'll just wait to see who dies.

43:27
Sam
For me, that's like watching Dark Knight. Cause everything's black and I don't know what car's in front of. What.

43:32
Michael Fisher
Yeah. Oh, man. Yeah. Light the scene.

43:37
Case
What do they do with explosions?

43:38
Sam
Kind of every now and then, I was like, dizzy. I'm sorry. I don't mean to. Batman hate. Go on.

43:46
Case
No, it's fine. I'm always here for Batman. I also host the Superman podcast. But actually. So getting back to some of the budget stuff. The fact that they were able to shoot this as economically as they could and have it look as good as it did actually prompted the studio to approve an additional 3 million on their budget, which normally, when we talk about movies in terms of how we could fix them. So for the regular episodes, we usually have to, like, justify if we. If the budget would be increased, like how you would do it. And this is how you prove that you can make a good movie and you can. And you can get reshoot money. You can get additional money to put a thing in there that everyone will agree will really sell it, will really make the money on it.

44:29
Michael Fisher
Yeah. Yeah. That was a fortunate turn of events for this movie, which needed some breaks in the production process, for sure.

44:36
Case
Now, there apparently was a script leak that occurred before they went into it, where the fact that Spock was going to die hit the Internet. Not the Internet. Pardon me. That's not the real word.

44:45
Sam
I was like, the Internet.

44:47
Case
Sorry.

44:48
Sam
When did this come out? Are we on a time loop? Are we.

44:52
Case
Pardon me. I have talked about so many script leaks of post 1995, where that's just how it goes. The script leaked, though, in fan corners. They would get hate mail because they found out that Spock was supposed to die right at the beginning, which is why they modified the Kobayashi Maru scene to be more of a fake out, to basically tease the audience and then shock us when it actually does happen. So there's an argument that Spock is not supposed to die at the beginning or at where he does at the end of the movie. There's an argument that he actually should die at the end of act one and that was the original intent. Now, is that necessarily the case? I buy it. I buy it. At least at some version of the production. They were going to do it that way.

45:29
Case
Apparently, Leonard Nimoy, who hated working on the motion picture a lot of. And felt, you know, completely people pigeonholed into a role by the original series, really liked working on this movie and wanted to actually expand his role. And ultimately, they shot additional stuff behind Nick Meyer's back to allow for the return of Spock in Star Trek three.

45:48
Michael Fisher
Yeah, after the test, audiences hated it. Cause they left Peter so depressed.

45:52
Case
Well, that's why they inserted the weird shot of the capsule starting to open that. They just shot it at a park in San Francisco.

45:57
Michael Fisher
Oh, with the. With the torpedo.

46:00
Case
Yeah. Yeah. They just. They were in a park and they had fog machines. And that's, again, how you make something economical, like, looks great, to be honest. Just make it work.

46:09
Sam
Fog machines, lighting, and camera angles.

46:13
Case
Exactly.

46:13
Sam
Ta da.

46:15
Michael Fisher
I love the. I love the color that. That knowledge that the Spock's death and the simulator scene was done to throw people off, because it really lends a lot of great color to Shatner's line there. When he comes into the simulator, after they blow the thing up and he looks at Spock on the ground, he's like, aren't you dead? It's such a great moment when you know why it's there. And I can just picture 1982 audiences in theater laughing, breathing a sigh of relief, you know, and then thinking.

46:42
Sam
That they were safe until the end. Bam.

46:45
Case
Yeah. Right.

46:46
Sam
Which I still think we all well up. Yeah. I teared up today, definitely. I was like, I knew this is gonna happen. I've seen this before. It's a really beautiful moment between friends. I know there's another movie and he's not dead, but it doesn't matter. Like, I was just so. It was sad. It was sad, people.

47:07
Michael Fisher
Yeah, it was a good.

47:09
Sam
It was a good moment. It was good acting.

47:13
Michael Fisher
It sneaks up on you.

47:14
Sam
Yeah, yeah. There's bastards.

47:16
Case
I mean, the script is so well paced, and it has such wonderful foreshadowing. I mean, we referenced the Moby Dick stuff and how that all ties into the sort of, like, Captain Ahab nature of Khan. We talked about the aging kind of components, but things like the reading glasses and how that sort of acts as a. Like. As a metaphor for Spock. Like, helps bring clarity to what Kirk is looking at, and then the glasses get broken at the same time that Spock dies. And so there we go. A Tale of two cities is a book that has similar kind of vibes and, like, foreshadows the death of Spock as well, because that's how the book ends. Spoiler for the tale of two sibies.

47:51
Sam
Oh, no.

47:53
Michael Fisher
Line through that on my reading list. Thanks a lot, Kate.

47:55
Case
Yeah, you probably should. Anyway, it's not.

47:57
Sam
It's spoiled it for everyone listening. Actually, it's not, guys. It's really not. Right.

48:03
Case
Great for when it came out. Sure, English is a different language now than it was then, but I think we can all just agree that, like, once. Once Meyer did the hammering out of the script, it ultimately was just a really strong work. And that, having so much tv experience going into this, they were able to shoot. Shoot a movie very efficiently that other studios would stumble over and be like, how could you not spend so much money on it? Most of the money ultimately went into the cast and to special effects.

48:33
Sam
Yeah.

48:33
Michael Fisher
And well spent in both cases because this is what, this was the first time they were working with ILM. Is that right? Because motion picture was not.

48:42
Case
This is the beginning of CGI in film, which was mind blowing.

48:46
Michael Fisher
Yeah.

48:48
Sam
Honestly, like, this movie still looks pretty good. Like, I mean, case and I have been watching a lot of movies and there's. There's a lot of stuff where, like, the effects are just like, you're like, oh, my gosh, like, this looks terrible. But, like, considering that this looks better than some of the movies we've watched that have taken place and effects have been done in 1992, it's really. It holds up really well. It still looks really polished. It still looks really good. I mean, like, you can. It's, like, slower moving than, like, what we're used to now. You know, like, now we get shots of, like, CGI spaceships, like, zooming across and it's more like they're kind of floating along. But it still looks really good for.

49:32
Michael Fisher
One of a shot. And I love how intentional that is, though. Like, that slow. This was, you know, Star wars was out. We knew what starfighter battles looked like. And, yeah, that's top gun in space. Sure, if you want to do that. But if you want to make master in Commander or Horatio Hornblower in space, these are big galleons. These are good things. They move at eight knots. You know, it's like if you fall overboard one of these things, you can swim and catch up to it. And that's what I love about the wrath of Khan battles, because the vessels have mass. Yeah, you are. You are really given an impression that, wow, these things are huge. And they are slugging each other like. Like big heavyweights rather than, you know, six year olds having them slapping each other around.

50:10
Case
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, like, part of that comes from, like, the better episodes of Trek have usually treated it as. As ships or submarine warfare in space rather than trying to do, like, fighter pilot kind of stuff, like Star wars.

50:23
Michael Fisher
Right.

50:24
Case
So we get all that in the nebula, which really cool stuff that they were doing with the filming. I kind of want to just call attention to some of the cool, creative stuff they did just because, like, it's just, like, fun trivia in general. So I mentioned the CGI thing. So this is for the Genesis transforming sequence that occurs in there. This was apparently coming from a technician who had worked for Boeing trying to do 3d mapping for air flights and figured out a way to properly render mountains for how they would do mapping. And then he went to go work for ILM and that basically launched CGI for filmmaking because up until that point, we're talking about, like, matte work and model work and so forth. So that's just like a cool bit of trivia.

51:11
Case
Like, this is one of the first ever CG movies in existence, which is just boom.

51:19
Michael Fisher
It's really cool.

51:20
Case
Just can't get over. The Genesis sequence had a massive explosive which actually, this movie holds the Guinness Book of world Records for slowest shot, or rather fastest shot than played at 24 frames. So they shot this explosion at 2500 frames per second to maximize the footage. So when played at 24, it's like this very slow. I mean, most slow mo in film is either 60 or 90 frames. In some cases you might get like 120. But in this case, we're talking 2500.

51:54
Michael Fisher
Talking about when the reliant explodes at the end for the Genesis device detonation.

51:59
Case
Yes. Yes. Okay. And then here's a cool one also, which was. All right. So when on film, it is notoriously difficult to show like a monitor because the screen refresh rate often causes, like, a flickering effect. And so in the motion picture, what they had done was they did a, they actually had rear projections for all of the screens but for this one, they actually were able to. This is a, they figured out a way to sync the monitor frame rate to be 24 frames and match the actual camera motion so that you could heavily use monitors, which honestly, at this is like the time where having screens on screen was becoming kind of required, especially for Sci-Fi so that's, it's just cool that they figured that out. Like, I just want to, like, give props that it's like, oh, yeah, that's.

52:49
Michael Fisher
Because that's hard. It was hard. Even in 1993 or whenever they were getting ready to do the pilot for DS nine, that's the first place I ever read that where they were like, yeah, we filled ops with all these awesome crts and then we had to figure out a way to sync all the frame rates. So put an expensive device on each CRT which, like, apparently not insignificantly blasted the production cost for whatever they're doing. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, it's remarkable that this is being done in 1981.

53:16
Case
Yeah. Like, frame rate. Flickr has been, you know, it's like tvs are so funny because they're built on our eyes being bad.

53:22
Michael Fisher
Yeah.

53:24
Case
So, like, they work because we're able. Because our eyes just like, fill in the gaps all the time. But, like, this is why, for example, with. With octopuses. I think that's right.

53:34
Sam
Yeah, it's octopus.

53:36
Michael Fisher
It's not octopi.

53:37
Sam
No, it's octopuses because I think. Because the ending should follow more of a greek. And octopi.

53:45
Case
Yeah, it's a greek root instead of.

53:46
Sam
A latin root, so it should be octopuses.

53:49
Case
So their eyes are more efficient than ours. And so when we tried to do tests with screens with them for the longest time, it. They didn't respond to it. And then once we got higher refresh rates on flat screens, all of a sudden they were able to respond to them as if they were moving images.

54:04
Michael Fisher
Wow.

54:05
Sam
Because they're smarter than us.

54:07
Michael Fisher
They are very smart creatures.

54:09
Case
Oh, yeah.

54:09
Michael Fisher
I just like that they're smart enough to have spite. That's all I need not to not eat you anymore.

54:15
Sam
I love that they, like, kind of, like, will climb out of their pens in aquariums and go visit other fish, or sometimes eat other fish, if not careful enough.

54:25
Michael Fisher
Well, depending on how the visit theirs. Yeah.

54:27
Sam
And then they go back, and they just, like, let themselves back in and cover their thing. No one's the wiser. Oh, yeah. Perfect crime.

54:36
Michael Fisher
No walk of shame for this one.

54:37
Case
All right, so this is becoming an octopus podcast, which I'm fine with, actually. Do you want to talk about how breakthroughs in cloaking technology are being based around using the pigments in their skin?

54:48
Michael Fisher
Yes, absolutely.

54:50
Case
Actually, which is also kind of still Star Trek.

54:51
Michael Fisher
Wonderful.

54:55
Case
If this was Star Trek five, this would be perfect.

54:58
Michael Fisher
Yeah.

54:59
Sam
All right, well, we'll have to do that.

55:00
Case
Six or six. Pardon me?

55:01
Sam
Just so we can also talk about Octopus.

55:04
Case
Okay. All right, but let's move on. There is one last special effect I want to call attention to, which is Ricardo Montauban's chest, or is it because I cannot find a source that. That indicates that it's not really his chest, but I also can't find anyone who, like, 100% believes it. And, Michael, before you joined, Sam and I were discussing, like, is it, like, a push up bra kind of effect going on with, like, with the outfit he's wearing? It's like a very strong v. I.

55:29
Sam
Mean, I would definitely use some fashion tape. You know, if they wanted to create more peck cleavage, they could use some fashion tape, which they do to, like, eat either stick, you know, clothes on. But there are ways to kind of push and lift using that. So they may have done that, but they did say that he had a very rigorous training regiment, even at his age, when he filmed this. So there's a possibility that it is his actual chest, but maybe just some makeup to, like, smooth it out and make it more luxurious.

56:07
Michael Fisher
The man was a bodybuilder, right? I mean, it would not be at all outside the realm of possibility for this chest to be real. The reason I believe it's real is because another podcast, Mission log, John Champion is one of the hosts, and he, on their episode about wrath of Khan, he's pretty well plugged into this stuff. He's done a lot of research in this. He's like, no, there's not any record of an appliance. There's not, you know, there isn't actually a seam line under the necklace, as a lot of people tend to say. You know, if he's convinced, I'm convinced. That's. That's what I will say.

56:41
Sam
Yeah, no, that's fair. I think. I think if there is anything, I think there's just, like a little makeup, maybe. Maybe some contouring, but I think it's him. I think in general, they just maybe refreshed it to make sure that it looks young and supple.

56:55
Michael Fisher
Yeah.

56:56
Case
I will say Ricardo Montauban probably lived in the wrong time, because if he was modern, if he was alive now, and a young man to show off his contouring regime, like, both how to apply the makeup and also just the bodybuilding parts, would be.

57:09
Michael Fisher
He would have so many Instagram followers. Yes.

57:13
Sam
He would be so popular on TikTok and YouTube. He would be like, Ricardo's workout, like, you know, and he would, like, do that. He could even do reaction videos because, let's be honest, he's got the best reactions reacting with Ricardo, I would love it. Like, he could watch anything and just be like this. I like. I mean, that alone would have been amazing, honestly. Yeah.

57:40
Case
Now, for you out there, if you want to look sexy for the ladies, this is what you need to do.

57:45
Sam
First, you start with push ups because it should be sort of real.

57:51
Michael Fisher
Do it because it is what you wish to do.

57:57
Sam
Exactly. Which is good advice for anyone, even if it's coming from a maniac.

58:04
Michael Fisher
Yes, yes. Write down the wisdom, consider the source, but then take what you will from it.

58:11
Sam
Exactly.

58:12
Case
It's a pretty good source. So I want to move on to just another fun trivia bit with this movie, which is the score, which is great. I love it. It's James Horner's first major work. Like his first major credit.

58:26
Michael Fisher
Yeah. And by the time he had done more Star Trek films in the future and become famous when they wanted him back for Star Trek VI. He was too expensive for them, which is another just messed up thing about Hollywood. I feel so bad hearing that. I'm like, good for you, James Horner. But also, you couldn't just go back to hang out with your old friends, do them a favor. It's a shame, but we got that wonderful score in six anyway. Sorry, that's a. That's a tangent. I didn't need to go on.

58:51
Case
But, I mean. But again, this is. It's incredible that a person would go on to do fucking Titanic.

58:57
Michael Fisher
Yeah. Yeah.

58:58
Case
To be such a fixture of Hollywood until he passed away, that they got him for super cheap because this was just his first thing, and they were like, I got a feeling about this guy. They liked his demos.

59:08
Michael Fisher
Yeah. What a. What a. What a coup, right?

59:11
Case
Yeah. I don't have a lot to say about that. They just did a really good job. And the motion picture set such a standard for the type of music doing theme. That would become theme we associate with Star Trek more than anything, frankly. The next gen theme originated with the motion picture, and you can see that this, like, big, brassy, orchestral kind of thing all of a sudden influenced the nature of all successive works in a way that, like, the tos theme just doesn't sound anything like it.

59:38
Michael Fisher
Right.

59:39
Sam
Yeah, yeah.

59:40
Michael Fisher
And I like that it gets like, did Horner do three as well? He did. Right. Because this is. I think the score in three is like a takeoff on this, and it's just as addictive and lovely, and I can just listen to this soundtrack without the movie. I mean, that's how much I love this, you know, after the fanfare and the credits. And, again, it reinforces the nautical edge of the film as well. You know, it's. Everything is so stylistically integrated in a way that you wouldn't necessarily expect.

01:00:11
Sam
Yeah.

01:00:12
Case
And I can confirm he did three.

01:00:13
Michael Fisher
Thank you. Thought so.

01:00:14
Sam
Yeah, it's lovely because it's subtle where it needs to be and swelling where it needs to be. And that's the mark of a great score. Right. Where it can take a step back when it needs to, but still add the. The beauty of emotion and then kind of give you all the excitement and adventure later on when you need it. Especially considering that the protagonist and the main villain were never in the same space. So the score was like the acting. Yes, they did a great job, but the score actually did some of that tension. Heavy building, that heavy lifting of tension. Definitely, 100%.

01:00:55
Michael Fisher
And I'm sorry, I meant to mention this when were talking about the exclusively Zoom facetime conflict in this movie. But Nick Meyer had a great method for dealing with Shatner in those scenes where Shatner felt like he should, again, like Montalban, just play into the back row, like the camera's eight inches from his nose and he's apparently just hamming it up. And Nick Meyer wanted a more subtle take at one point. It was the, you know, here it comes moment. Shatner would not give him a more subtle take and was just straight up giving up, just delivering the lines with a dead intonation because he was done, and that was his way of rebelling. And then Nick Meyer was like, perfect. That's the takeaway. Thank you. And that's the one we see in the picture. Yep. Unbelievable. What a great director move.

01:01:40
Michael Fisher
You know, it's like you can know so many things, but knowing how to not manipulate people, but manipulate people for positive ends. Underrated skill.

01:01:48
Case
Yeah, yeah. That was a Kubrickian move, if you will.

01:01:51
Michael Fisher
Yes.

01:01:53
Sam
Learning how to get what you need, even when someone's rebelling, which is not surprising at all from Shatner.

01:01:58
Michael Fisher
No.

01:02:01
Case
I feel like this is as good a time as any just to drop a couple trivia bits that we just should mention, because someone will call us out if we don't. So I kind of referenced before Chekhov in his interaction with Khan. It's the thing, everyone knows Chekhov was not in season one of Star Trek the space seed is an episode of season one. In theory, Chekhov would never have actually interacted with Khan. There's plenty of headcanon excuses, such as, Chekhov served on the ship somewhere else and just wasn't on the bridge and interacted with Khan at some point. It works fine into darkness. Actually kind of does that, too. Because they put Chekhov in engineering for the con movie for some reason.

01:02:43
Michael Fisher
Yes.

01:02:44
Case
Which has to be a reference.

01:02:46
Sam
It's just to support the head cannon. I swear to gosh. Like, honestly, that's why they did it.

01:02:52
Michael Fisher
Walter Kennig has a. Has a great little reference on there, that which I never knew until I was reading before this podcast. He saw that. What's it called? He saw that continuity error, essentially, in the script.

01:03:05
Case
Yeah. To be clear, everyone was aware of this error.

01:03:07
Michael Fisher
Yeah. But he was so. Well, here's the thing. I don't. I don't think at the point he read it, I don't think he knew. If a lot of people knew and someone brought her to his attention and he said, look, essentially, they've given me so much more in this movie to do than I expected. Because look at Sulu. He's got nothing to do. He said something like, I chose self preservation over continuity. Continuity, authenticity, or something like that. And I'm like, good for you. Good for you, Mister Chekhov. That's what I would have done, too.

01:03:36
Sam
Yeah, get that paycheck.

01:03:39
Michael Fisher
Damn right. Give me that close up.

01:03:41
Case
Yeah, I thought you were referencing. He had another quote where he said, like, oh, I just like to think that I, like, held him up at the bathroom at one point on the enterprise before. Before he went bad.

01:03:51
Michael Fisher
Yes, a convention favorite.

01:03:57
Case
The other random trivia bit, Judson Scott, who is the right hand man to Khan in this, actually is not credited in this movie. And that was because his agent fucked up and they were, like, holding out for how he was going to get credited, and they ended up just putting the movie out there. And so his name's not actually in the credits.

01:04:14
Michael Fisher
Unbelievable.

01:04:15
Case
And he's like, the second villain.

01:04:17
Sam
Yeah, he's the voice of reason.

01:04:19
Case
Yeah, he's like, he's the dragon, he's the lieutenant. But yeah, you're.

01:04:24
Sam
Because he's like, he like, he keeps being like, you won. We got off the page planet. Like, you're smart. Let's. Let's go live our lives. We have a ship. Let's go. And Khan's like, no, I must kill Kirk.

01:04:36
Michael Fisher
He tasks me. Yeah, he tasks me.

01:04:40
Sam
Very good reading and very creepy.

01:04:45
Michael Fisher
I have a question. It's weird that I don't know this, but is he supposed to be cotton's son? Because the movie sure leaves that open to interpretation if you want to.

01:04:55
Case
No, he's actually based on a character who was in space seed. The pronunciation makes it different enough. It's like Joachim in this. And it's like, I was looking at this one before.

01:05:09
Michael Fisher
Really?

01:05:09
Case
It is referencing a named member of his crew in space seed.

01:05:14
Michael Fisher
Oh, okay, interesting.

01:05:17
Case
There was, at one point, supposed to be a baby of, like, Khan's baby in this from his wife, but they decided to cut that because the baby was going to die on the ship. And they were like, that's too brutal right there.

01:05:31
Michael Fisher
Yeah, they didn't want to go with.

01:05:33
Sam
A fathers and sons parallel. I mean.

01:05:38
Michael Fisher
Could have fitted in there.

01:05:40
Sam
They could have, you know, one father, you know, crazy, insane man who is obsessed with killing the supposed killer of his wife, but doting father. Other one abandoned his child because he was too busy raising the ranks in star. In the Starfleet. You know, just have the lovely little. Is Khan actually that crazy? At least he was a good dad. Kirk it's probably too complicated. You're right.

01:06:12
Case
It's just too dark. But. But the movie ultimately hit the right balance when it. When it was finally released after test screenings that were a little too dark and they had to put a little bit more hope into it hit really big. While it didn't have the same box office that the motion picture had, it being a quarter of the price meant that it was a massively profitable production for Paramount. They made so much money off of this and said, okay, we're gonna keep doing these. And that's why we have a Star Trek franchise. Like film franchise.

01:06:43
Michael Fisher
Yeah. And if. I don't know, I keep, you know, I keep trying to process the. The sheer gulf of time and style that we traverse from the motion picture to this. And I seem to also recall this thing set a record for three day opening gross or something like that. Yeah.

01:07:02
Case
At the time, it had the highest weekend box office of all time. Now it was dethroned pretty quickly. I forget by whom. But it also was a crazy year when it came out. It came out the same day. Day as Poltergeist and then ET opened the following weekend as well as the thing and Blade Runner.

01:07:20
Michael Fisher
Wow. Wow.

01:07:23
Case
And then two weeks later was Tron.

01:07:26
Sam
Wow.

01:07:27
Michael Fisher
What a monster summer for movies. Jeez. I would not have wanted to be competing with any of that.

01:07:33
Case
No. 1982 has been called the greatest year for Sci-Fi by more than a few fans. And you can kind of see it when you look at that schedule space.

01:07:41
Sam
And Sci-Fi for the win.

01:07:44
Michael Fisher
Yeah.

01:07:44
Case
Yeah, it did. 97 million worldwide wasn't scarce. But its opening weekend in the United States was about to say 14,000. But that's not right. 14 million. It's like, wait, there's another comma in there. So, yeah, it was huge, but this is the dawn of summer blockbusters still. So it would go on. And obviously, people attached to this movie would work on bigger box office hits such as Titanic with James Horner. Yeah, but still, I mean, like, those movies also cost a lot more. This cost $11 million.

01:08:18
Michael Fisher
I do wonder, I mean, I don't know how much of those, how many of those costs they have to declare if they're able to use standing sets that they didn't have to build.

01:08:28
Case
You know, that's fair. Yeah, they had. They had all those assets already, which is the saving grace. That's how they were able to make it so cheap. Again. This is a bottle episode. I just keep saying that because it is so fucking true. But, like, compare this. That so famously, when friends ended in the final season, all the cast members were being paid 1 million an episode.

01:08:50
Sam
Yeah.

01:08:50
Case
With six principal actors. So that's $6 million right there.

01:08:54
Michael Fisher
Yep. Collective bargaining. It's a good thing to do.

01:08:58
Case
Yeah. You know, I think we can all agree with that.

01:09:01
Sam
Yeah, we do.

01:09:04
Case
But because of its success, this movie has influenced the franchise in a lot of ways that just keep on going, keep on having references. There's. I mean, obviously, there's into darkness, which is an attempt at doing kind of space seed again. It.

01:09:17
Sam
Yeah.

01:09:18
Michael Fisher
Somewhat attempt is. Right. Yeah.

01:09:20
Sam
Yeah. I mean, I think the movie is fun. I guess I'm gonna give it that. I had fun in theater watching it.

01:09:30
Case
That opening sequence is a lot of fun.

01:09:31
Sam
Yeah.

01:09:31
Case
I really like that opening sequence. Planet. And then they worship the enterprises of God.

01:09:35
Michael Fisher
Yeah, I dig that.

01:09:36
Case
That was good.

01:09:36
Sam
It was funny. But I would say that I think the biggest issue with it, and I believe that the director that was involved with this said it best, is that if you're going to pay homage and do something to. As if you're doing it again, you should add another layer. And that they. They didn't do that. There was no. There was no extra layer added. There was nothing different. There was no different point of view. And so it didn't feel. It just. It kind of felt like a caricature in his mind.

01:10:11
Michael Fisher
Yes.

01:10:12
Case
And an insensitive one. I can't stop hammering this one. They cast a british man to play an indian man.

01:10:17
Michael Fisher
Oh, God. Yeah. When they had an opportunity to undo the first miscast, which, by the way, Ricardo Montelbano wouldn't change a thing. But he's not. He's not indian.

01:10:25
Case
No, he's not indian. I mean, it was the sixties and he's brown, so there's. It's more forgivable. But, yeah.

01:10:33
Michael Fisher
Like, they made it worse.

01:10:35
Case
Yeah.

01:10:36
Michael Fisher
Yeah.

01:10:37
Case
Like, there's so much baggage just on that association right there.

01:10:40
Michael Fisher
Yeah.

01:10:41
Sam
I think, like, one of the biggest failings, too, was that they. And this is okay, I don't want to get too into this movie because that's like another pass. Another pass. Not a fifth episode. But I feel like one of the biggest things was that, like, they knew that we knew who Khan was. And so, like, he says, like, benedict Cumberbatch, who I have no problem with, he's got a lovely voice, and definitely it's made for being a villain, honestly. And. And he says, my name is Khan. And they, like, have a moment where it stops and it like, stares at him like. Like, it's a. He doesn't break the fourth wall, but it's like, it's supposed to break the fourth wall. Like, it's winking at the audience.

01:11:24
Sam
And I'm like, but what does that fucking mean to the people he's interacting with right now? Like, you are literally being like, huh, audience. And like, that kind of annoyed me because it was like, okay, if you're gonna do this, then, like, have them have something or make this be the actual, you know, it just felt like his name was supposed to carry weight, and at the time, there was no weight for it to carry, which it.

01:11:51
Case
Explicitly doesn't in space seed. Which makes it even worse, because he introduces himself as Khan to obscure the fact that he was a 20th century dictator.

01:12:00
Sam
Right, exactly. Like, that is like, they figure out who he is. They're like, this is actually your full name. And they give his full name and he's like, oh, you finally figured me out. Like, oh, they caught up, those silly humans. Like, there is something, like, so much more playful and, like, I don't know. So I think that was part. It was just too serious. It was too serious. There's something much more playful with the original cone.

01:12:28
Michael Fisher
And, yeah, it's hazardous to try to even pay homage to a film like wrath of Khan because it sort of succeeds and shines in all the places that. Into darkness didn't. And, like you say, we shouldn't talk about this all night because I did listen to a lot of the. The previous episode, which was very enjoyable.

01:12:46
Case
On the into Darkness episode.

01:12:51
Michael Fisher
But, like, the reason that it is such a minefield to try and do that is because this movie, you know, yeah, this movie could have been a pretty by the numbers resurrection of a popular villain and a fun action story. And it is. But on top of that, you have all of these wonderful themes layered on which we talked about, you know, getting old, friendship, mistakes, regrets. I feel old versus I feel young. Like, it's. It is just. It is so enjoyable. At least four or five different levels to me and then to people. You know, all kinds of different people can find all kinds of different things in it. And it's a smart movie and it's a movie that doesn't pander to you and it doesn't insult your intelligence, and it's just perfectly paced, to your point.

01:13:36
Michael Fisher
There's so much that this movie does. Right. I think it was. I remember being frightened when they went into darkness. Was said to be using con, and I was like, well, don't screw it up.

01:13:46
Sam
Yeah, I mean, I think, like, also to your point of, you know, kind of regrets and losses, and it's also about finding things over again. Right. Because at the end, as Kirk is sitting there with his loss and knowing that his friend is gone and also that altruistic, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Right. Because his friends sacrificed so that everyone could still be there. You know, his son comes to him and echoes his words back at him that he's just like, you know, that he may not have believed when he actually said them because they were words of comfort to someone else.

01:14:27
Michael Fisher
Yeah.

01:14:28
Sam
And then his son accepts him and says that he's proud to be his son. And so there's, like, this, like, lovely, like, full circle on that, too, right. Because there's, like, such an incredible loss, but there's things that are lost and there are things that are found and things that come full circle. So, yes, his mistakes came full circle and they kind of fucked him. But his mistakes also brought him to his son. His mistakes also brought him to this understanding and realization, again of what the altruistic mission of ultimately start fleet is. You know, so I. There's. There's so many layers to this particular film that's really lovely and beautiful, and it ages well. Yeah.

01:15:11
Case
Like, I think that's the biggest thing about it. It's a movie that the first time you watch it, if you're a younger person, you can enjoy it. You can appreciate a lot of what's going on, but as you actually feel age, as you experience time and your own mistakes come back to bite you, or even just the times that you've pushed yourself too far, like, all of us have complained about or back starting recently, I forget if it's on Mike or not. Like, we have all experienced those aspects, and it makes it feel much more real.

01:15:44
Sam
Yeah, yeah.

01:15:45
Michael Fisher
No, I mean, the people have literally asked me at periods of, like, creative burnout in my life or whatever, which, spoiler alert, right now I have absolutely answered, you know, how are you feeling, Michael? Old, worn out. You know, conversely, there are periods after, like, when I'm recently rejuvenated and young. I feel young, you know? I mean, it's very simple, but very dynamic and very complex emotions under the surface of these lines, delivered brilliantly by pretty much everyone who speaks them. Talk for 6 hours about how great this movie is.

01:16:26
Sam
We should do an ad, though. Like an ad break case.

01:16:29
Case
Oh, yeah, we didn't actually do an ad break.

01:16:31
Sam
We should do that.

01:16:32
Case
We should put that in the outline.

01:16:33
Sam
Yeah, that's okay, because there's so many great shows on certain pov, and we should have one talk about it now.

01:16:42
Case
Hi, I'm Matt, aka Stormgen, and I'm the host of CPOv autographs@certainpov.com. Dot.

01:16:48
Michael Fisher
It is a bi weekly interview series where I interview folks from all over.

01:16:51
Case
The arts, from writers, comedians, to magicians to musicians, even actors, historians, podcasters, pretty much anyone who's willing to chat with me for a little bit. If you like interesting conversations with even more interesting people, go to certainpov.com or.

01:17:07
Michael Fisher
Wherever you get your podcasts.

01:17:08
Case
And remember, music is life and life is good. All right, we're back from that last minute ad. I'm sorry about that, folks.

01:17:16
Sam
He just gets really excited. If it's dirt track, single tracked mind, what can we say?

01:17:23
Case
Yeah, because it's such a great franchise and this movie really established a lot of the things about the franchise that I love. Like the. For example, this is the first use of Romulan Ale, which I was like.

01:17:36
Michael Fisher
I loved it because that's just a.

01:17:37
Case
Running gag in all of Star Trek. Part about being a Star Trek fan is having shared jokes that continue across the property across the decades. And, like, that's a little bit right there. Romulan nails. Legal lines. Probably shown up in what, like, seven movies. Almost every tv show, DS nine has a whole thing about how when they, like, make an alliance with the Romulans, all of a sudden it's legal.

01:17:58
Michael Fisher
Oh, yeah. The embargo is lifted and now they can drink it freely. And then isn't it just way less cool? At that point, I'm like. I was like, oh, forget it. Turn the tv off.

01:18:05
Case
Right. Did you ever buy nemesis? It had to be illegal again.

01:18:10
Michael Fisher
Oh, naturally.

01:18:10
Case
That worf could have a hangover from it.

01:18:12
Michael Fisher
Yeah. And we're not a fan of Irving Berlin. I don't know. Why did you make it as a kid? Because I definitely did.

01:18:20
Case
Oh, cocktails for Romulan ale. I've seen a bunch of different recipes, so I've made drinks that I have called Romulan ale. I don't know if there's anyone that's particularly authentic.

01:18:30
Michael Fisher
Yeah, there is. You get to get a glass of sprite, you drop a blue skittle in it, you're set.

01:18:37
Sam
That sounds highly illegal.

01:18:39
Michael Fisher
Highly, either. Well, it takes the stuff a while to ferment.

01:18:43
Case
Well, in the future, all that sugar is actually kind of illegal.

01:18:46
Sam
Honestly, that sugar should be illegal.

01:18:49
Michael Fisher
Klingon aphrodisiac.

01:18:50
Case
Corn syrup. How evil.

01:18:54
Sam
That's the good stuff. It's for my health.

01:18:57
Michael Fisher
That's right.

01:18:58
Case
Medicinal, man. I love McCoy.

01:19:02
Sam
McCoy's the best. He's always the best. I love him. I love him. Snide attitude. I get him. He is amazing, actually. When I rewatched Rac, like he's got in that episode, he's so fucking cool. Because Khan's got, like, a knife to his throat, and he's like, giving him advice on how he could kill him faster. Like, not answering his questions. He's just like, if you cut me right under the left ear, there's the large artery. He can end me right away. And Khan's like, I like a brave man. And he's like, I wasn't really brave. I was just trying to end a. I was trying to put an end to an argument, is what he said. And I was like, I love this man.

01:19:43
Case
Yeah.

01:19:45
Michael Fisher
Doctor McCoy is a giant badass. And when you need a quick comedic cap to a deep elevator scene, the best way to do it is have the doors open on McCoy and who's been holding up the damn elevator.

01:19:55
Sam
Yeah. Then he asks, he's like, did she change her hair? And Kirk was like, I didn't notice.

01:20:00
Michael Fisher
I had noticed.

01:20:02
Sam
And everyone's like, we know you notice. And he also knows you notice because.

01:20:07
Michael Fisher
You would always notice wonderful stuff, that romulan ale.

01:20:13
Case
So also, just in terms of, like, things that this movie sort of established, this is the first Star Trek property to establish that this is the 23rd century. Up until this point, they had always used stardate to obfuscate the era that this is set in. And the decision to have it be 200 years in the future was only laid down here. And then since then, we have so much canon that is built around, like, the timeline of Trek.

01:20:36
Michael Fisher
Yeah.

01:20:36
Case
To the point that arguably, I would argue, the second best Star Trek movie. Definitely the best TNG movie. First contact is very much built around knowing what the timeline of Star Trek is. And that is, of course, another movie where we're gonna play the wrath of Khan game and have the sins of the past, like, come back to bite you and yada, yada. Because Star Trek movies like to do that. This movie also establishes the default uniform for anything Star Trek from the period between the Tos era and actually TNG. To the point where whenever we see Picard in his Academy days, when we see Wesley's father just before he died, which is only, like, a couple of years before TNG starts, he's wearing the red coat like uniform that gets established.

01:21:20
Michael Fisher
Here, aka the best jacket ever to have been created by the hands of humanity. I love these uniforms so hard.

01:21:27
Sam
They're so good. I love the jacket. And I let, like, every time he's walking through, like. And the lapel is, like, down, and you get a little bit of white, and then he's, like, doing. I'm like, you could actually still leave that lapel out because it is stylish, dashing, sir.

01:21:43
Michael Fisher
You know, I. My stepdad was a chef. I used to walk around the house. I used to steal a chef jacket from him all the time just so I could have that hanging low lapel out front. I'm like, oh, that's how that works. That's cool. I always wanted to paint it red, and I never got around to it. I read a fascinating trivia fact about that, if we have time.

01:21:59
Sam
Yeah.

01:22:00
Michael Fisher
So we all admire the jackets. The turtleneck underneath gets less celebration. But apparently, that quilting around the collar, which is called trapunto, is really difficult to do to the point where when they decided on that design, the only machine they could find to do it was antique that was 50 years old, and they had one needle for it.

01:22:23
Sam
Oh, my gosh.

01:22:24
Michael Fisher
So, at the end of the day, like, the costume crew would. Like, someone was entrusted with the needle so it wouldn't get stolen or even held for ransom because there was no way to replace it. Like, they. Amazing to me, I want to say.

01:22:37
Sam
That for that poor needle protector, like, guardian, the guardian of the needle.

01:22:42
Michael Fisher
Guardian of the needle.

01:22:43
Sam
That is so much pressure.

01:22:45
Michael Fisher
Seriously.

01:22:46
Sam
And I do not envy that job. It's like, well, what did you do? Well, I guarded a needle.

01:22:54
Michael Fisher
And you'll notice when they bring the uniform back later on. Well, after a lot of these shirts have presumably rotted away, you know, in next gen, they use a different undershirt with the lower collar.

01:23:04
Sam
Yeah.

01:23:04
Case
A lot of times, there's no collar even.

01:23:05
Michael Fisher
And sometimes there's no shirt. Yeah. Which doesn't look as good. You need nutrient.

01:23:10
Case
It doesn't.

01:23:11
Sam
Yeah. Not as clean with the lines.

01:23:13
Michael Fisher
No.

01:23:14
Case
Yeah, I read that same bit there because, like, initially, they're gonna have, like, a stiff collar that didn't. I think it was like, you couldn't really move your neck very well with it. And they decided to go with that. That quilted style turtleneck.

01:23:26
Michael Fisher
Yeah. Which also tells us something important about the climate control on Starfleet vessels. Air conditioner always set to 58.

01:23:34
Sam
Yeah. Honestly, that kind of makes sense with, like, the amount of like, machinery they're working with. Honestly, you should probably keep that all cool.

01:23:44
Michael Fisher
Blast that.

01:23:45
Case
Well, actually, it makes even more sense. So I forget the name of the book, but it was like the official, like, guide to Star Trek that they put out between season two and three of tos. Like, behind the scenes one. And they talk about all the production designs that went into the ship, such as, for example, it's all smooth on the outside, because the idea was that if you actually get out to space, you don't want to be wearing spacesuits to go make repairs. You want to have actually all the vital systems on the inside that you can access.

01:24:11
Case
And one of the things that they pointed out was the reason that we're going to have just humans on the ship is that the ship is going to be set to human tolerance levels and that there are other federation species that also have ships made up of their species because their tolerance levels are set for that. And, like, Spock fits because he's half human. But Vulcan is actually much hotter. So presumably a Vulcan ship would be substantially warmer, and likewise, andorian ship would be substantially colder.

01:24:37
Michael Fisher
So, yeah, a lot of. A lot of the, like, quote unquote extended universe kind of stuff. They have some wonderful extrapolations on that. The Mister Scott's guide to the Enterprise has several decks allocated to different living conditions for non human crew members. And, yeah, on DS nine, they complain. There's like, why is it so hot in here? Well, the Cardassians like it hotter, so we're trying to fix it. I love those little bits of, you know, window dressing, I guess.

01:25:05
Sam
Yeah. Cause it flashes those little tiny details, fleshes out the universe.

01:25:09
Michael Fisher
Yes.

01:25:11
Sam
Just makes it more real and more immersive. And we appreciate that as fans.

01:25:16
Michael Fisher
Absolutely.

01:25:17
Case
Whether it's an odd or an even movie, because just to wrap up all the talk about this production and this franchise, this also sets the odd even rule, which for people at home was that for a long time, it was thought that every other movie of Star Trek was good. You go the motion picture and then you skip it over to Star Trek, the search for Spock. And not as many people were big fans of it as they were of Wrath of Gone. Meanwhile, Star Trek four is infamously one of the most successful movies about whales ever.

01:25:47
Sam
Yeah, that was my favorite as a kid, partially because of the whale. I mean, honestly, I was. I was whale obsessed. So that, I mean, it was just a slam dunk in my house.

01:25:58
Case
For me, Star Trek five is only good as a drinking game. And then six is a wonderful capstone to the original franchise.

01:26:07
Michael Fisher
Then when we get into next generation, it's more like, well, one of them was good.

01:26:13
Case
So. So it works if you put Galaxy Quest in after insurrection.

01:26:19
Michael Fisher
Oh, that is the hack, isn't it? Yeah. Nice move. Okay. Okay.

01:26:23
Case
And it feels like it should fit there. It does, but, yeah, it's true. Yeah. Because insurrection and then nemesis are both a bit rough and generations is a bit rough. Yeah, well, yeah, zero nine, I like enough. Like, there's a lot of logistical problems with it. I know why people who don't like that series as a whole have issues with it. I think that most of those are the, like, the conveniences of getting them all on the ship together into darkness is rough. Beyond. I love.

01:26:54
Michael Fisher
I love beyond, too. I love beyond n zero nine, to be honest. I think.

01:26:58
Case
Yeah, yeah.

01:26:59
Michael Fisher
But, yeah, it was weird to have zero nine come out and me be at the movie theater, be like, oh, well, nemesis, really? I mean, if that didn't already break it, then this certainly broke it, because this is an odd. Supposed to be an odd film, but you got to restart the counter, right? It's. It just breaks down after nemesis, that's all.

01:27:16
Case
I mean, like I said, if you put in Galaxy Quest, keeps it the whole way because it goes insurrection, the Galaxy Quest, then the nemesis, then zero nine, and if you like zero nine, it's good. And then into darkness, and then you have beyond, which is a fucking great movie.

01:27:30
Michael Fisher
I love beyond. Yeah, it has a villain problem, but it's a fun movie.

01:27:35
Case
But that villain is Yitra Salba, but.

01:27:37
Michael Fisher
Not that you would ever know it.

01:27:39
Case
That's fair.

01:27:41
Michael Fisher
He's under so much rubber and that look, it also has a beastie boys problem, which I don't think we have time to talk about, but it's fine.

01:27:48
Case
But that's also a callback then, to the. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

01:27:53
Sam
It's.

01:27:54
Case
I would call it, like, either the fourth or fifth best Trek movie, but that's just because we've got Star Trek two, four, six, and first contact in there, so.

01:28:02
Michael Fisher
Yeah, yeah, thankfully, we have that many good ones. Yeah.

01:28:07
Case
So a lot of good ones. A lot of good content out there. But if you're not in the mode for Star Trek content, there's a lot of good YouTube content out there that you, Michael Fisher, put out. So give some plugs.

01:28:23
Michael Fisher
I have to warn you, nothing in my content has a segway that smooth. So I commend you, sir. I do. I do make YouTube content, and it is all about mobile technology, such as smartphones and wearables and laptops and tablets and quite literally all the stuff that I am obsessed with as a direct result of becoming obsessed with Star Trek. I grew up wanting tricorders and communicators and then when I got into about college age, suddenly we had communicators and now kind of pads and tricorders and I could not be happier that my day job is showing them to you on YouTube.

01:29:01
Michael Fisher
I do that as a personality called Mister Mobile and you can find me at themrmobile on most social feeds and at also phones captain the number two phones where I am a little more casual and talk about occasionally Star Trek and other things that pique my interest. Yeah, very useful when your college friends give you a nickname that sticks into the era of needing an Internet handle because then you can just appropriate it.

01:29:32
Sam
Copy paste.

01:29:36
Case
I have been a huge fan of your videos for a while now. I first got linked or tuned into you from Android Central's podcast and it's been just kind of, just fun. You do wonderful production quality on all your videos. Thank you. Weird thing, I noticed that some of the videos, I mean, this is a royalty free song you use, but it's actually theme song that the original certain point of view podcast used. And that continues to be theme song for Scruffy Nerf herders, our Star Wars D and D game podcast.

01:30:04
Michael Fisher
No kidding.

01:30:05
Case
Yeah, so the first time I like it because it just came on in the background, you were like. Like, it was like a segue from one video to the next or like from one part of the video to the next. All of a sudden, like, I hear this like synthetic horn drop and I'm like, oh my God.

01:30:20
Michael Fisher
I love that. Because, yeah, I do get. I get it from a number of libraries and we actually, we pay for most of it, but it's. Yeah, it's all royalty free stuff, so it does show up on occasion. That's awesome. Please link me to that podcast so I can fully get weirded out in the same way as you. Except mirror universe weirded out.

01:30:39
Case
But yeah, you do. You do great stuff. People should absolutely come find you. Like, check out your videos. You've given great advice. You help. When I had the. So I got the. The function tech slider phone or Fx tech.

01:30:55
Michael Fisher
Yeah.

01:30:57
Case
Didn't work that well with at and t bands, so I had to switch off from that. And I had good advice from you in terms of what Android phone it should get next. So I was really happy to.

01:31:09
Michael Fisher
What did you get?

01:31:11
Case
I ended up going with the note 20 because I wasn't quite ready for to make the jump into foldables. Like, the next foldable is what I'm looking at.

01:31:19
Michael Fisher
Stay tuned.

01:31:19
Case
I don't want to get into the weeds, but I'd love to be able.

01:31:22
Michael Fisher
To tell you more. I'm not allowed, but stay tuned.

01:31:25
Case
I mean, all the stylus rumors for the fold three is basically, I'm like, okay, yeah, that's probably where I'm going.

01:31:29
Michael Fisher
To go, because this is the year according to all the rumors, and I actually don't know this yet. They should be cheaper now. The focus this year was on making them a little bit more affordable. They will still be expensive as hell, but less expensive than they have been. And the trade in offers are competitive.

01:31:46
Case
Expensive as heck.

01:31:47
Michael Fisher
Wait. Well, yes. Right. Yeah, that's the next one down, right? Coming down from the ultimate summit of expensive af, which they are not any longer, thankfully.

01:31:56
Case
Right. But, yeah, so people should go find you, follow you, check out your stuff, because you got a great voice, you got great editing shops. Your production quality is fantastic.

01:32:10
Sam
And good advice.

01:32:12
Michael Fisher
Yeah, great advice. Thank you. Outside the world of tech, I don't know if that applies, but thank you.

01:32:19
Case
After they do that, Sam, where can they find you?

01:32:22
Sam
They can find me here on this podcast with case, and I guess I am checking the discord more often. But you can find case that, especially if you have any complaints about anything that I've said.

01:32:35
Case
Seriously, Casey, you can find me on Twitter ace Aiken. You can find the podcast another pass. You can find all of the shows that we do@certainpov.com. Comma, where you can also find a link to our discord server, where we're having tons of great conversations that Sam sometimes joins in on so you can actually interact with her in some form. She's not entirely a figment of my imagination.

01:32:59
Sam
I'm more like lurk. I'm more like lurk. And judge you guys for the comments you make.

01:33:04
Case
That's true. Unless it's an avatar comment, at which point you will chime in.

01:33:07
Sam
Yeah, I will. I will give a, like. Like a little, like, bb eight, you know, kind of giving up a flame or something of that sort. But, yeah, generally I hide. I hide behind case. It's safe there.

01:33:23
Case
But you should totally go to certainpov.com, where, again, you can find the link to our discord server where you can interact with us directly. You can come and have great conversations. You can also find more episodes of this show and so many other great shows, but we're about done here. Sam, what are we talking about next time?

01:33:39
Sam
Next time on another pass. We'll be talking about Highlander two, the quickest. But until then, if you enjoyed this, pass it on.

01:33:52
Michael Fisher
Thanks for listening to certain point of views. Another pass podcast. Don't miss an episode. Just subscribe and review the show on iTunes. Just go to certainpov.com.

01:34:21
Sam
I'm packing, so my room is not fit to be seen, and so I am in the balcony with the Muppets, and possibly I will disappear on you guys. Or just be. I have no body. I am just ahead.

01:34:35
Michael Fisher
I was gonna say, how far back do you have to go until you're no longer captured? Is that.

01:34:40
Sam
I don't know. Hold on.

01:34:42
Michael Fisher
Oh, yeah, there you go.

01:34:44
Sam
I've got, like, tinier head. I don't know.

01:34:46
Case
I think if you sat still, the further back you go, the more likely you would just forget that you're there.

01:34:51
Michael Fisher
Right. It's just like, oh, the background doesn't move.

01:34:54
Sam
I just feel like I'm like Homer.

01:34:55
Michael Fisher
Simpson going into the bushes. Yeah. Oh, sweet.

01:35:02
Sam
Okay. Wow. Before the wicked witch of the west and those gals from Salem, there was Cersei, the captivating and kind of catastrophic greek witch who did more than just turn men into pigs. I'm Rose. I'm Kelsey. And I'm Gloria. Join us this fall on circling Circe, the podcast where we talk about Madeline Miller's incredible book circe. We go through the novel chapter by chapter. We laugh. We cry from laughing. We swoon over daedalus and other greek hotties and talk way too much about food, life, and scented candles. I'm hydrated. I'm ready. I'm pumped. Talk about greek gods and titans. Let's do this. Lasagna is not supposed to be cool. It's supposed to be eaten hot. Stupid. Who just looked at a cow and was like, hey, sexy. Moo. Right over here. It's 1145. I need to go eat my liver. My Prometheus pate.

01:35:51
Sam
Granny's like, get out. We post every Wednesday, so mark your calendars, make like Scylla, grab a sailor, and dive in. Find circling Cersei on Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Do you want to do an outro? Yeah. Is that your outro? Yeah, that's. It.

01:36:18
Michael Fisher
Is remarkable to have it that adaptable. And my telegram notification is set to the enterprise communicator sound, which I will mute as I always do when I come on podcasts. Sorry, cpov. Certainpov.com.

AI meeting summary:

●      The meeting examined the production challenges and creative decisions of **"Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan."** Key points included **Ricardo Montalban's** portrayal as **Khan**, influenced by his commitment to character depth. Creative use of limitations due to budget constraints enhanced storytelling, emphasizing effective narratives over lavish sets. A script leak modified the Kobayashi Maru scene for audience impact post-Spock's death revelation, with additional scenes secretly shot to set up **Leonard Nimoy's** return in "Star Trek III," enhancing the dynamic between characters like Kirk and Spock.

●      Analysis of the film highlighted CGI's groundbreaking use, enduring visual effects, and design choices for space battles' mass and scale sense. The discussion extended to trivia on CGI's role in the Genesis transforming sequence and filming techniques like slow-motion shots. The meeting participants shared insights on the movie setting standards within the Star Trek franchise, from introducing Romulan Ale to establishing uniform designs and 23rd-century continuity. The odd-even rule for assessing quality in subsequent Star Trek films was noted, singling out "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" for its unique environmental themes involving whales.

●      Actor availability challenges were addressed, with negotiation tactics compelling hesitant actors back into their roles. Efficient filmmaking techniques were praised for delivering compelling narratives under duress, leading to a well-received sequel balancing action with character development. Personal experiences regarding mobile technology preferences were discussed, guided by advice from **Michael Fisher (MisterMobile)**. Witty banter and personal anecdotes peppered the conversation, touching on shared soundtrack selections between podcasts and anticipation for foldable phone releases' future.

Outline:

●      Chapter 1: Introduction to Star Trek Discussion (00:36 - 05:05)

●      00:36: Welcoming to the podcast and encouraging subscriptions.

●      01:14: Setting the topic as Star Trek.

●      03:14: Background discussion on personal involvement with the franchise.

●      Chapter 2: Behind the Scenes of "Star Trek: The Motion Picture" (07:16 - 22:16)

●      09:44: Mention of the production group "Starship Farragut."

●      14:21: Insight into director Robert Wise's approach during the film's production.

●      22:16: Challenges faced during the development of the movie script.

●      Chapter 3: Film Production Challenges and Creative Process (24:21 - 35:52)

●      24:21: Comparing the movie's watchability to TV episodes.

●      31:06: Discussion on the script's evolution and challenges faced.

●      35:52: Detailing the directing process and challenges encountered.

●      Chapter 4: Music Score and Trivia (58:07 - 1:03:29)

●      58:57: Appreciation for the movie's score.

●      1:00:05: Integration of music in the film.

●      1:02:43: Mention of trivia related to the movie.

●      Chapter 5: Transition to Future Episodes and Outro (1:16:08 - 1:36:34)

●      1:16:08: Discussion on the transition from the first movie to future episodes.

●      1:33:29: Inviting engagement with the podcast and previewing the next episode.

●      1:36:34: Closing remarks and podcast website mention.

Action items:

●      **Case Aiken**

●      Subscribe, rate and review on iTunes (00:40)

●      Plug the name of his Star Trek fan film group, "Starship Farragut" (09:29)

●      **Sam Alizea**

●      Talk about her background with Star Trek and what drew her to it (03:47)

●      Share personal stories related to watching Star Trek as a family and discuss specific episodes (05:08)

●      **Michael Fisher**

●      Talk about his background with the franchise and what drew him to it, mentioning growing up in the early to mid-nineties when Star Trek was popular (03:19)

●      Consider adding an ad break to the outline (1:16:28)

●      Provide more details on the YouTube content about mobile technology (1:28:12)

Notes:

●      📺 **Content Reuse**

●      **Reusing content in every episode**

●      **Creative differences in reusing content**

●      **Challenges and considerations in content reuse**

●      🔁 **Recurring Themes and Lessons**

●      Identifying recurring themes and lessons in each episode

●      Discussing the lessons learned from the episodes

●      🎬 **Production Challenges**

●      **Discussion on budget constraints and practicality**

●      **Creative solutions for production challenges**

●      📝 **Writing Process**

●      **Approach to writing and script development**

●      **Considerations for maintaining continuity**

●      Writing strategies for complex emotions and dynamics

●      🎙️ **Podcast Promotion and Engagement**

●      Promoting the podcast on iTunes

●      Mentioning the website and discord server for audience engagement

●      🗂️ **Future Topics**

●      Planning for upcoming podcast episodes

●      Teasing discussion on Greek gods and titans for the next episode